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Edladdin

Chapter 1

     Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
     Where the whoravan camels roam.
     Where it's flat and immense
     And the heat is intense.
     It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.

     When the wind's from the east
     And the sun's from the west
     And the sand in the glass is right.
     Come on down,
     Stop on by,
     Hop a carpet and fly
     To another Whorabian night.

     Whorabian nights,
     Like Whorabian days,
     More often than not
     Are hotter than hot
     In a lot of good ways.

     Whorabian nights,
     'Neath Whorabian moons,
     A fool off his guard
     Could fall and fall hard
     Out there on the dunes.
*****

     Meet a fool off his guard.

     His name, you ask? He’s a quite well-known boy in Whograbah, for he’s its one-man tornado. Many would say he’s a bit young to be out on his own, but when you’ve got no parents to call your own, or parents to recall at all, you have to move fast and move on your own.

     He’s a boy that’s seen, heard, and in some cases, been all. He’s the town nuisance, a guard’s most wanted and a girl’s pester. He’s a boy with his head in the clouds and his toes in the sand. He’s a born troublemaker with the soul of a clown, the smile of a trickster, and a heart made of the rarest jewel.

     He was born under the family Fizowski, and was to change Whograbah’s history forever.

     You still don’t know his name?
*****

     It all started on a chill night in the desert. A tall elderly green who trudged in the sand, a shorter homeless who to his left and a blue parrot on his right shoulder.

     The green who wore a tall black headdress, along with a dark cloak and a long cape to compliment it. He carried a staff with him, though he didn’t seem to really need it. A bushy black moustache covered his upper lip, a wrinkly scowl resting beneath it. The poor homeless man following him had random bits of fabric sewn together, his hair reeking of the streets. The blue parrot was…a blue parrot.

     The wind in the desert howled wildly as the two continued their meander. The homeless man glanced up at the elder. “This is useless! Where are you taking me?”

     “Speak when you’re spoken to,” was the elder’s reply.

     The homeless man became quiet. They continued to walk through the shift hills, sand hitting their faces, earaches becoming apparent. The homeless man sneezed a few times from the sand. The elder’s determined expression did not falter.

     At last they reached their destination. To the naked eye it was only a large dune. However, the elder brought the homeless man here, to this particular dune, for a reason.

     “Give me your hand.”

     “Excuse me?” the homeless man demanded.

     The elder grabbed the homeless man’s wrist and held it up. The homeless man’s eyes grew wide as he saw the elder pull out a sharp blade.

     SHING!

     A holler came from the homeless man as the warm blood ran down his arm from his wrist. He yanked his arm from the elder’s grip and held the slit as if to stop it from bleeding.

     “Hold it out,” was the elder’s next direction, “and let it bleed”.

     The homeless man was not willing to ignore this stranger anymore, and did as he was told. His arm trembled as he held it above the sand. The wind stung the slash as it continued to bleed. A drop of blood fell from the wound, and not a second sooner, hit the sand.

     The elder stared at the red spot expectedly. The homeless man watched the elderly man in fear as he met his eyes once more, an angry fire in his eyes.

     “Why isn’t anything happening?” the elder growled.

     The homeless man stumbled back a few steps. “I-I-I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going--”

     This made the elder angrier. “Didn’t you say your family name was Fizowski?”

     All the homeless man could do was stutter. “I-I only did that so you’d give me money!”

     The elder raised the blade once more, threateningly higher than the first time. The homeless man’s face paled as his fate became sealed.

     “You BOOB!”
*****

     “Seriously, Jafrood,” the blue parrot blathered as his master took the same path back to Whograbah, “when are you gonna give this up? I mean, really, it was fun when we started this two years ago, but now, we’ve killed off more than fifty liars and we still haven’t found anything. Don’t you ever wonder if the lamp is, gee, I don’t know, a lege--”

     “Be quiet, Morton!” the elder named Jafrood barked, stomping across the desert.

     “I’m just being reasonable here, Jay,” Morton continued. “A magical lamp with a spirit who’s forced to grant you three wishes with a single rub. Does that sound like anything that could be found in a stinkin’ hot desert? If you ask me--”

     Jafrood closed the parrot’s beak with his fist. “No one is, Morton.” He released his beak and continued his way.

     Morton rubbed his beak as he continued to talk. “Yeah, real nice, Jay. Anyway, how do you know the Fizowski family didn’t die off already?”

     “They couldn’t have died off.”

     “How do you know?”

     Jafrood stopped in his tracks and grabbed the parrot and pressed his beak against his nose. “I just know! Is that good enough for you?!”

     Morton replied with a scratchy voice and bugged eyes. “Roger…”

     Jafrood threw the parrot to the ground and continued his trek.

     “Get up, Morton,” he grumbled. “We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

     Morton leapt into the air and rested on Jafrood’s shoulder once more. “Jafrood, get real. So we saw the Cave of Wonders one time, do you really think we’re gonna see it again?”

     Jafrood slowly turned to Morton. “I guarantee you, Morton…”

     “Here we go…” Morton moaned, as he’s heard this speech before.

     Jafrood swatted him off his shoulder. “I guarantee you, he’s out there. The Cave of Wonders lies not, and if it says the last Fizowski is a diamond in the rough, may the blood of a thousand whos spill on our hands.”
*****

     Bright eyes laughed behind dark brown bangs as Edgar Fizowski’s smile challenged the rising sun.

     “Showtime.”