Bartleby's Roach

The suns rose at 6:00 exactly, just as Bartleby had commanded them to. I woke as their piercing rays infiltrated the grimy window and struck me on my perch on top of the shelf. Blinking first one eye, then the other, I watched as the old sorcerer yawned and rose from his bed in the corner of the messy room. He began his morning routine, but I lost interest, letting my attention drift to a particularly large fly that had taken residence in the rafters a couple of days prior. Eventually, its erratic, winding flight would take it close to me, and I could finally dispose of it. Soon Bartleby wandered over to his giant cauldron and added a few carefully measured drops of some shimmering liquid before giving it a laborious stir with a hefty spoon. Whatever this concoction was, it was something he had fussed over every morning for quite some time now. His last brew had solidified into a beautiful star, which he artfully placed into the sky to finish a new constellation, so I looked forward to seeing what this mixture could be.

Bartleby continued with his morning routine, humming to himself as he crossed off chores from his extensive mental checklist. His activity caused even the deepest-sleeping specimens to unhappily wake and gradually begin their own daily routines. Most of the wizard’s pets, like me, were content to sit on their perches, or recline in their jars, or hang from their hooks, happy to watch him work. Some, however, enjoyed moving around pointlessly, skittering, crawling, floating, and sliding around the dusty tower. Annoyed, I rubbed my eye as a long, sinuous tentacle draped over it. The Ascended One floated overhead, a hulking mass of barbed flesh dripping with filthy tentacles that he rudely let wander over anything he passed over. His single eye lingered unsettlingly on Javen, the crow nesting on top of a mountain of dusty spellcasting manuscripts. “You leave him alone!” shouted Bartleby angrily. “If you try to consume his soul again, I’ll send you back to the Cosmic Suffering Pit.” The wizard had a soft spot for the bird, on account of his penchant for prophecy. In my opinion, his habit of stealing shiny objects made him more of a nuisance than he was worth, but Bartleby was like that with his pets. He seemed to like collecting the universe’s oddities, no matter how they might inconvenience him.

Another one of the most restless creatures in the room, and its newest addition was a cockroach, which skittered unhelpfully around the all-seeing orb while the sorcerer tried to use it. At first glance, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the roach, but until recently, he had been the prince of the Holy Uxinodan Empire. In their great war to conquer humanity, he had distinguished himself as a courageous and selfless commander, leading his warriors into impossible odds and always emerging victorious. His fame grew so great that he caught Bartleby’s attention. The wizard loved to observe the endless affairs of men, but he disliked the empire, as they believed magic was the enemy of the Divine, and it was their duty to purge it from the land. Even so, he found the prince quite entertaining, so instead of smiting him, he turned him into a cockroach and let him live in the tower. He had acquired many of his pets, including me, in similar stories, but I can’t quite remember what I had done to earn his notice. It was so many eons ago that I can hardly even imagine what being a human must have felt like (nor do I want to).

Brushing the cockroach off his orb, Bartleby moved to his other desk, passing the window and pausing to survey the current state of the battle raging below the tower. The Holy Uxinodan Empire was losing its “eternal war” (really, it had only started a few centuries ago) to the Agradari Alliance, probably because of the tragic disappearance of its prince. The Alliance’s warriors are legendary because-there’s that fly again. It has this nasty habit of buzzing near my shelf, then aimlessly returning to the rafters. When it finally gets in range, it will be the hairiest, juiciest fly I’ve enjoyed in quite some time. Oh well.

The old sorcerer is trying to create a mini maelstrom now, but his long gray beard keeps getting in the way when he looks down to examine his work. Last week, his nephew Balthazar sent him a ship in a bottle, complete with tiny, irate sailors who were swearing indignantly at being transported via messenger owl. Bartleby had scoffed at the project’s simplicity and had immediately set about making a better one to show his nephew how much talent it took to be the Elder Wizard of the Universe. His bottle housed all seven seas, a fleet of galleons, and soon a miniature maelstrom, doubtless to the chagrin of his sailors. He had also transplanted Ko'akathar the micro kraken from his jar beside me, into the bottle. I have found Ko’akathar to be an extremely agreeable shelf mate, so this addition rankled me. He doesn’t say particularly much, but neither do I, so we get along very well.

CAW! The screeching call of the Eagle King sounded at the window. Today was feeding day for the Time Octopus, so Bartleby rose from his desk and opened the window, using his staff to levitate a fish from the monstrous bird’s talons over to the bathtub. The Time Octopus was a picky eater, preferring Atlantis Herring, a delicacy only the Eagle King could fish out of the depths of the ocean. The invertebrate paused his usual pastime of upholding the threads of time, happily munching the fish down with its beak. The Eagle King cawed again, this time with a decidedly impatient note. “Just wait,” Bartleby murmured as he grabbed a vial of dark, smoky liquid. “You’re early today.”

Unstopping the container, he gingerly poured a single drop onto the floor. Immediately, a churning whirlpool of smoke and lightning materialized on the dusty floorboards, heralding the arrival of The Inevitable One. His powerful tentacles swung wildly around the room as he fixed the malevolent gaze of a hundred eyes on the wizard. Unfazed, Bartleby grabbed the Worldrender from its home in a pile of magic swords and swung, severing one of the cosmic entity’s tentacles. It tried desperately to keep its place as the portal closed, but in moments it had disappeared back into the Suffering Pit, just as it did every second Wednesday of the month. With one final satisfied screech, the Eagle King wolfed down the tentacle eagerly and flew away in a cloud of massive brown feathers.

Bartleby moves back to his orb, but grunts in pain as he bumps his head on a glowing, ethereal chandelier. The light fixture contains all nine dimensions in each of its nine arms. It’s been around long before my time, but I think it was a remnant of the last Elder Wizard, who must have been much shorter, judging by how low it hangs. With a reverently careful movement, the sorcerer stops it from swinging with his hand, then seats himself in front of the all-seeing orb. He has to brush the princely cockroach off again, frustrated at its fixation on the thing. Most of Bartleby’s former human pets adjust to their new forms a little faster as their minds are lost to their animal instincts, but this ungrateful bug doesn’t seem to understand the honor he has been bestowed, choosing to constantly bother his master.

The wizard goes about working with his orb. Originally, it was only useful for scrying out the world, but he brilliantly modified it to allow him to sculpt its land, somehow linking the ghostly shapes on the orb’s surface to the world itself. I think shaping the planet is his favorite pastime, and he resumes humming as he contentedly pinches up mountains and tears out canyons with a finger. I lose interest, finding my attention drifting longingly back to the fly buzzing in the rafters. It’s descending again, swooping down to the shelf hanging above Bartleby’s orb and-hold on. What is that exasperating cockroach doing now? He’s sitting on the bonsai that grows planets, determinedly trying to sever one with his mandibles. The tree hasn’t been harvested in quite some time, so several of its exotic fruits are ripe and plump, hanging from its branches precariously. Right now, the roach is perched on a bright red planet fruit, swirling with fire barely contained inside its transparent, thin skin.

The bug is successful. Appalled, I watch as the fruit drops directly onto Bartleby’s orb, splashing open and spilling fire and lava all over the landmass he was artfully sculpting. “You filthy brute!” he shouts furiously at the cockroach as the world outside the window glows red with the heat of an entire planet. Lava rains from the sky and slides off the magical barrier around the tower, engulfing both armies below in a fiery death. The wizard lunges angrily at the bug, but he accidentally knocks his fist on one of the chandelier’s arms, swinging it wildly back and forth. Apparently, this upsets Javen the crow, who flies over to Bartleby’s desk and cries “SQWAWK! The end of the world is at hand. Fire and lava and death await everyone.” “You’re a little late on that one,” grunts the wizard frustratedly.

Still agitated, and maybe seeing an opportunity amid the chaos, Javen swoops down to the pile of magical blades, taking the hilt of the Worldrender in his talons. The weight of the sword is nearly too much for the bird, but he manages to lift it laboriously into the air as the polished steel glints with the reflected light of the inferno outside. Absorbed with his task, the greedy bird forgets about the swinging chandelier until it slams into him, knocking his prize loose. Bartleby frantically reaches out to steady the light fixture as it loosens from its chain and slips a notch from the ceiling, too distracted to notice as the Worldrender falls straight down. Its magically sharpened tip plunges directly into the top of the unfortunate Ascended One, who was floating unaware around the room.

Suddenly, a thousand screams erupt from the fleshy mass as one of the universe’s Elder Beings is slain. Their tortured wails echo throughout the tower before its body explodes into tiny barbs. The deadly projectiles rip through the air, embedding themselves into walls and priceless magical artifacts indiscriminately. I am fortunate to watch as they miss me, but the Time Octopus is not so lucky. As his soft skin is laced with barbs, he throws out his tentacles, writhing in agony. With the painful lapse in his concentration, time begins to rewind. Objects return to their former places, and living beings repeat their movements in reverse (the fly buzzes near me again, but I’m still not close enough to catch it). Yesterday, Bartleby moved a large grandfather clock from one side of the room to the other, and now he watches helplessly as it slides back to its original position, upsetting his pewter cauldron in its path.

All the bubbling liquid in the vessel roars out as it tips over, eddying and swirling into the dirty wooden floorboards. Immediately, the room begins to shake violently. Bartleby, who was busy casting a calming spell on the Time Octopus, is thrown to the ground unceremoniously. The shaking subsides as the view from the window slides downward. Impossibly, the entire tower had uprooted from the earth and was now floating steadily higher. While the structure rose into the sky, the sorcerer finally had a moment to catch his breath and take stock of the situation. The Ascended One was slain, which would no doubt lead to manifold cosmic ramifications, magical objects were strewn everywhere, and his myriads of pets were in various states of panic. I had remained steadfast in my position on the shelf throughout the fiasco, as I did not believe in the needless expenditure of energy if it could be avoided.

Before he could act to address the state of his tower, there was a small crash and the echo of glass breaking. I searched the room with my eyes, then located the culprit. The roach stood smugly on top of a wooden dresser laden with potions while Bartleby stared horrified at the floor. The shattered remnants of a small vial lay scattered while a churning dark vortex spun into existence in the ground. Bolts of lightning resounded from its smoky tendrils as a massive writhing form emerged. The Inevitable One crawled forth from the Cosmic Suffering Pit, able to completely exit the immense portal for the first time. It closed its hundred eyes in delight and gave a howl that resounded uncomfortably inside my mind.

The wizard had only a moment to grab his staff resolutely before the eldritch being lashed out with countless malignant tentacles. The pile of blades and enchanted weaponry sprang to life, flying into the air to defend him. Slicing, jabbing, thrusting, swinging, and cleaving, they attacked the entity’s appendages while Bartleby invoked crackling bolts of energy into existence, hurling them into its mass. Their reckless battle went on for minutes, throwing the room into further disarray, before an errant projectile bounced off the Inevitable One and cut through the chain holding the ethereal chandelier in place. It started to fall, but before it could crash into the whirling vortex on the ground, the bolt ricocheted off the ceiling and struck the Time Octopus in his bathtub, killing him instantly.

Time began to slow as the all-important chandelier slowly plummeted. I noticed absently that the sky outside the rising window had grown dark and twinkled with stars in the dim light of the burning planet below. Bartleby’s Ocean in a Bottle had been crushed, and now the smoky whirlpool was littered with tiny ships crewed by sailors trying desperately not to be sucked into its center. Arms of the chandelier swung end over end as it plummeted, each containing a dimension of existence.

T i m e i s m o v i n g s l o w e r n o w . T h e c h a n d e l i e r i s a b o u t t o h i t t h e p o r t a l ' s c e n t e r , b u t t h e f l y i s g e t t i n g c l o s e . I c a n a l m o s t r e a c h i t . G l o o m p ! I s h o o t o u t m y t o n g u e , p u l l i n g i t i n t o m y m o u t h . B e f o r e r e a l i t y e n d s , t h e r e i s t i m e f or o n e l a s t h a p p y r i b b i t .