Flying Burger (7 page)

There were altogether five Magical Orders in Fontasia: Ancient, Black, Brachian, Minoric and Pyros. Each Magical Order was guided by an individual commander, dressed in Roman war-general outfit. These commanders looked fierce and imposing. The overall commander of these Magical Orders was the Ancient Order. Many years ago, a conflict arose between the Ancient Order and the Black Order over a small issue. The Black Order wanted to take over command of all the Magical Orders. Kostara was the commander of the Black Order. He challenged the sea-nymph and a fierce battle arose which lasted for many days. Eventually, Kostara lost marginally!

When the last song subsided, the Master of Ceremony called on the Brachian Order of magic to demonstrate its fireworks. The first Fontasian seated on the right-side of the stage stepped forward and began chanting incantations. Suddenly, he stopped and pointed his finger at the sky, very much like one of the actor in the movie 'Grease'. A long horizontal white string of fireworks flashed across the sky, with more fireworks cascading from the original line. It looked marvellous, just like a waterfall of fireworks. "Oooo", "ah", "oh" and "wow" came from the crowd. Subsequently, many more strings of fireworks appeared shooting upwards at different angles, with following cascading fireworks.

The Master of Ceremony next called on the Minoric Order of magic to perform. Fireworks that burst into spherical myriads of green and yellow lights were seen repeatedly high up in the sky. The crowd cheered loudly.

The Pyros Order of magic was last to perform. Fireworks that fanned out when exploded kept appearing in different parts of the sky and at different intervals. Just when everyone thought that the show was coming to an end, the other two Magical Orders joined in the finale!

It was indeed a night to rejoice, when something unexpected happened!

Chapter 6

In a faraway Black Canyon, there was a Black Cave where an evil wizard lived. At this moment, he was busy practising an evil spell. Dressed in a dirty, torn and tattered wizard robe, he sat at his dirty work table. His wizard hat was bent at the top, the result of constant knocking against the top of the cave opening. On his table, there were knives, forceps, scissors and all kinds of funny cutting instruments. There were tiny pieces of animals which were unfortunate to be cut up and left lying all over the table. Tongues, tails, wings and teeth could be easily found. A big cauldron hung in the middle of the cave with a fire burning below it. This cave was dim. It was lit by several candles held by candle-stands jutting out from the cave wall.

Kostara was the notorious wizard from the Black Cave in the parallel universe. He fought a fierce battle with the sea nymph of Fontasia one thousand years ago. He lost that battle by just one spell and he disappeared ever since, never to be heard again. After the battle, the Ancient Order disappeared and to prevent further conflicts, the Overlord changed the system and had a supreme military commander took charge of all magical orders. Now, Kostara wanted to come back to our physical universe to exact his revenge on Fontasians.

“Fontasians, I will make you pay for this humiliating defeat! For making me lose face in front of all my junior wizards! Drat the 'Oonbeldi'! I am the leader of the Black Order of Magic, the most powerful Magical Order in the whole universe! I won’t have any other Magical Order more powerful than the Black Order. Never, never, never!” Kostara kept muttering to himself and poring over his big, dusty Book of Black Magic. A severed toad’s head was looking up at him on his right. He happened to look down and saw this pitiful head. With a mighty sweep of his hand, the head landed on the floor. A hungry black cat at one corner of the cave saw this delicious morsel and jumped on it, gulping down the head in an instant. After finishing its meal, this black cat began to lick its paws and rubbed its face in alternate fashion.

Kostara’s long, bony finger was slowly turning through the Book of Spells.

“I have to counter the 'Oonbeldi', mmm…let me see, ‘Blood Spell’, ‘Spell of Sorrow’, ’Hell Fire Spell’. There you are! Need the abdomen of black-widow, sting of Vespa wasp, head of tarantula, centipede jaws, tail of rattlesnake, fangs of King Cobra, and the most evil heart.”

“I have all but the most evil heart, how sickening! Which of you has the most evil heart, hah?! Come here!” Kostara shouted. Perhaps it was the loudness or tone of his voice that frightened all the living creatures around him, suddenly, all these living creatures fled for their lives. Not one living thing could be found near him, leaving a clear space all around him. The evil wizard sniggered. He hobbled out of his cave. He was going to get the heart he wanted, evil or no evil, with or without the owner’s consent!

He came towards the evil-looking tree where he kept a black crow in a wooden bird-cage. Lifting his head, he stared at the captive bird. The poor bird saw the evil gleam in his eyes and flew all over the cage, cawing in stark terror! It somehow knew the end was near. With an outstretched hand, Kostara shot a flame of fire at the wooden bird-cage.

“I killll…. you!” Kostara yelled. The bird-cage went up in total flames along with the crow. A night-owl with two big eyes, perched on the same tree on a higher level bore witness to this tragedy. Terrified by such a horrible crime, the night-owl shrieked “eeee…” and flew away. It flew in an erratic manner with a total loss of sense of direction. Sometimes it flew high and then suddenly changed altitude. Sometimes it headed east and then suddenly changed direction halfway through. It just didn’t know where to go!

When the bird-cage landed in Kostara’s hand, he mumbled to himself. “Well, I have a heart now, a burnt heart, heeheehee…Now, for the ‘Hell Fire’ spell!” This ‘Hell Fire’ spell was the most powerful black magic, feared by all practitioners of magic. It used the most poisonous substances to trap all the fire in a supernova explosion and gave the wizard an endless supply of high-temperature fire, to do whatever he pleased. At this moment, when he was about to return to the Black Cave, his sixth sense told him that he was been watched. Muttering under his breath, Kostara suddenly raised his left hand and shouted, “abracadabra, Thunder Bolt Lightning Spell!” With those words spoken, a streak of lightning shot upwards from his left hand to the sky. At the other end of Black Canyon, a group of junior wizards were looking into their crystal ball to see what their senior was doing. Suddenly, many electrical charges were seen within the crystal ball. A loud booming thunder was heard shortly after. Before these junior wizards knew what happened, “ka-boom”, their crystal ball cracked and broke into tiny pieces.

“That will teach you to spy on me, you fools!” Kostara scolded. The evil wizard hobbled back to his cave, with the last of the ingredient for the ‘Hell Fire’ spell in his hand. This magic spell required at least one week of intense practice before it could be mastered by ordinary calibre wizard. However, Kostara was an expert practitioner in magic and this rule of thumb did not apply to him. He mastered the ‘Hell Fire’ spell in one day! At this moment, he was thinking of improving on this evil 'Hell Fire' spell.

"Let me think. Maybe I should add some more ingredients to increase the evil power. Ha! cat's eyes!" Kostara mumbled. Looking at one corner of his dim cave, he saw the black cat crouched neatly and gazing up at him with shining green eyes.

"Hello, kitty, hello, hello, come here..." Kostara stretched out his hand and tempted the feline. He got up from his table and started to walk towards the cat. When this cat saw Kostara coming at it, it sprang to its feet and dashed out of the cave in split second.

"Drats! Now I have to think of something else," Kostara cursed.

On planet Fontasia, just when the last fireworks subsided, the bright moon began to take on a reddish hue gradually The general festive mood had changed to one of fear and apprehension. “Oh! look at that…”, “blood moon”, “bad omen” came from the crowd. When the moon turned completely red, a huge, blazing ball of reddish yellow fire formed next to it. Slowly, the image of Kostara was seen within this ball of fire in the sky. It was a colossus image equal to the size of ten Mount Everests put together. Kostara with his dark, bushy eyebrows and pointed nose and pointed chin, looked more evil now than it ever could besides the full red moon. Some Fontasians screamed while others trembled in fear.

“Fontasians, I have come back for my revenge. Where is the sea nymph? Prepare to meet your doom, all of you!” Kostara threatened.

“What audacity! Military supreme commander, extinguish this Evil!” The Overlord commanded.

“Your wish is my command. All Magical Orders, prepare for battle!” Zorak issued new military order.

All at once, three war generals enveloped in shimmering globes of yellow, orange and green lights flew up into the sky and headed for the Epsilon Phoenix statue. When they approached the phoenix statue, they slowed down and descended slowly above the torch columns and took up positions above the burning fire! Zorak descended on the last torch column enveloped in a sphere of red light above the torch fire.

“I will burn you alive with hell-fire!” Kostara flaunted his power. Having said that, the wizard extended his right hand and suddenly hundreds, maybe thousands of fire-balls formed in the nightsky, each measuring on average two metres in diameter. With a mighty sweep of his hand, Kostara directed these fire-balls towards planet Fontasia. Burning fire-balls came raining down on this planet.

“Fire-balls!” the Grand Advisor shouted.

Floating above a burning torch fire in a red magic globe, Zorak stretched out both of his hands and worked his magic. Sparks began to radiate back and forth between his two hands. Before long, Zorak conjured up a transparent pyramid between his hands. This pyramid floated higher up into the sky and remained motionless above the epicentre of the torch columns. This pyramid grew until it was many times larger than its original size. Zorak and his war-generals all lifted up their hands and began transferring their magic powers to the pyramid. Electrical charges were seen radiating from the war generals’ hands to the pyramid, which began to glow and spin high in the sky.

“Water shield!” Zorak gave a mighty shout.

Suddenly, a deep rumbling sound was heard. All the ocean waters from the northern hemisphere of Fontasia was swept up continuously via the north pole into the sky to form a seamless water shield about one metre in thickness. This water shield covered the Fontasian hemisphere facing the oncoming fire-balls and remained in the stratosphere layer of the atmosphere. All the fire-balls were extinguished after passing through this water shield. The cores of these fire-balls dropped to the ground, while others landed on the pterodactyl nests in the mountain valley crushing the eggs! The parent reptiles were grief-stricken and all of them were seen flying above their nests making shrill cries. These flying reptiles flapped their wings powerfully and flew in circles above their nests.

After several hours, the Grand Advisor raised his concern to the Overlord that the volume of ocean water had been reduced by thirty percent. All the waters of the northern hemisphere made up forty percent of the ocean volume with the other sixty percent coming from the southern hemisphere. Fontasians needed ocean water to irrigate their crops. The Grand Advisor suggested that all adult Fontasians be mobilised to fight the Evil One. Approval was given by the Overlord. The Sorceress of Azura was given the task of leading this army!

“Where did the Evil One get his power from?” the Grand Advisor asked the Sorceress.

“His power comes from the supernova explosions in the parallel universe. This is the most powerful black magic feared by all Magical Orders,” the Sorceress explained.

The battle was heating up now as the Evil One extended his left hand too and more fire-balls came raining down on Fontasia. The water shield was slowly drying up and many fire-balls were able to pass through it unaffected. Many areas on the ground caught fire and the condition was getting worse. In the nearby mountain valley, more pterodactyl nests caught fire and the eggs inside it were burnt! In other parts of the jungle, many creatures were burnt alive by the fire-balls. Only some which managed to find shelter in caves, deep water ponds and other aquatic habitats escaped this catastrophe. A pair of chipmunks were among the lucky few which escaped as they happened to be near a deep river when the fire-balls came crashing down.

The sorceress ordered the four robots to join the battle, after which she formed a purple shimmering globe around herself and flew up high into the night-sky. She had fair skin and purple eyes. With her black hair plaited neatly behind her head, the sorceress wore a diamond headband with a purple precious stone dangling from her forehead and a diamond necklace. This necklace had many diamonds weaved together at the front forming a V-shape. She wore white lace costume on her upper body and a matching long pant-skirt which flapped freely due to the strong air currents of the battle scene. She closed her eyes, lifted up both hands and began to send out telepathic waves to all adult Fontasians to march into war!

Soon after, many Fontasians heeded the battle call and arrived on the battle scene. They came in many ways using their individual magic. Broomsticks, carpets, pails, tables, chairs, beds, tree trunks and even bath-tubs! Many Fontasians were bathing when the mobilisation order came and they dressed hurriedly and used their bath-tubs to fly all the way to the battle scene. These bath-tubs still had water in them! Those Fontasians who were about to cook their food had to give up the idea and instead stepped on two frying pans and flew to the battle scene. This ten-million strong army assembled close to the water shield looked formidable but yet comical at the same time. The four robots were among them and SAR22 immediately created two clones to increase its power.

“Resistance is futile,” Kostara taunted.

“Futile is absent from my vocabulary,” the Sorceress shot back.

The Grand Advisor alerted the Overlord that all the ocean water from the northern hemisphere had been depleted! Zorak decided to enlist the help of Earthlings. He extended his right arm and opened his palm, a small red ball of light appeared in thin air. He used this magic ball of light to communicate with BURGER123.

“Commander of star-ship, please render help. We are under attack by an evil wizard,” Zorak pleaded.

“We will help you to fight this battle,” Captain Baldwin assured him.

“Thank you Commander.”

The water shield was evaporating rapidly and before anyone knew it, it disappeared. More and more fire-balls came crashing down. The Fontasian army used their individual magic to combat these fire-balls. Hence, magical badminton rackets, tennis rackets, squash rackets and even golf clubs could be seen. This battle resembled a fierce ball-game competition, with the Fontasians on one side and the evil Kostara on the other. On the other hand, the robots aimed their laser beams at those fire-balls with deadly accuracy. One of the Fontasians who sat on a broomstick had his broomstick on fire. Fortunately, another comrade in a bath-tub scooped some water and helped him extinguish the fire. Another soldier did not notice a fire-ball coming from a sharp angle, fortunately for him, his comrade saved him with a large magic squash racket. Further away, another soldier barely managed to evade a fire-ball which had come behind another fire-ball in quick succession. Zorak and his war-generals had finished their first task and they too joined in the battle. Zorak created his own gigantic fishing net and his generals each took one corner, spreading the magic net wide open. They used this net to catch many fire-balls and then closed it to fling it into outer space.

In the nearby mountain valley, those pterodactyls after flying around their nests for sometime decided to join in the battle too. These flying reptiles spit green slime at approaching fire-balls which put out the fire in double quick time.