Previously published at gohavok.com!

“Why do I always get myself dragged into these things?” Skeer picked another cricket out of his hair. “What were you, cable-knit cardigan or itchy turtleneck?”

The cricket didn’t answer, of course. It jumped out of his hand to join the scores of others crawling about in the dandelions.

Skeer looked over his shoulder at the townsfolk of Stonesthrow still gathered at the head of the peninsula. Pansies. Too scared to do this themselves, they were all very willing to let him go ask the wizard Abacus for help. Ah, well. I can’t blame them much. I try to avoid wizards these days, too.

Wizards were a capricious lot, short tempered and just plain bonkers. He sighed. If only matters weren’t so dire.

He turned back to face the wizard’s tower, which leaned precariously over the sea at the end of the peninsula. Crickets hopped wildly out of his way as he stalked across the neck of land, bouncing off his legs and climbing under his shirt. At the doorstep he could hear their scratchy gnawing as dozens of the insects chewed the rotted wood siding.

Skeer knocked on the door.

Footsteps shuffled hastily from the other side, then the door swung open. Abacus was about one hundred-eight years old and speckled as a tiger lily with a head as bald as a billiard. He stared at Skeer curiously. “That’s a terribly ugly scar on your face.”

“Do you think so?” Skeer smiled. “I hardly notice it, myself.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a good thing.”

And this one sounds like an airhead. Wonderful. Skeer cleared his throat. “Master wizard, are you aware of the situation we’re in?”

Abacus cocked his head. “Does this have anything to do with my big brother Bakaby throwing a tantrum at his birthday party?”

“It does, and Cavenort is on the verge of collapsing because of it. Our sweater trade with Grimergund was the only thing keeping the peace, and now that Bakaby has turned all the sweaters in the kingdom into crickets, Grimergund is on the warpath.”

“Oh.” Abacus wrung his hands. “Well, why come to me?”

Skeer pursed his lips.”Because Bakaby hasn’t gotten over his tantrum yet, and the other kingdoms’ wizards aren’t interested in helping. You’re the only hope we have.”

“I don’t know if I can help. I’m not gifted in that kind of magic.”

“We have an infestation and a war on our hands.” Skeer held his arms out pleadingly, “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

Abacus tugged his beard thoughtfully, then nodded. “Let’s get all the crickets in one place for starters. Follow me.”

He ushered Skeer into the dusty tower and up a staircase that creaked and groaned as they climbed to the topmost floor. There, the wizard mumbled to himself as he flitted around a room cluttered with antique books and mismatched furniture, grabbing bottles from the cupboards and bowls from the shelves, dumping pungent leaves and pulpy fluids into a kettle over the fireplace. He hoisted a megaphone─Skeer had thought it was the base of a birdbath─and propped it on the windowsill.

Abacus took a deep breath and shouted into the megaphone, “Get over here, you crusty lumps of insectified cardigans! Come!”

The wizard’s voice didn’t seem to carry past the lip of the megaphone, but he nodded and grinned as he returned to the fireplace.

Skeer shook his head. A complete scatterbrain. Did he even have any real magic? He glanced out the window, then over at Abacus. “Are you sure that’s going to work?”

“It ought to. It’s the only thing my magic is good for.” Abacus scraped the gloopy mass from the kettle onto crumpets and offered one to Skeer. “Want some? It’s my lemon basil marmalade.”

Skeer eyed it doubtfully, then accepted it.

“You see, Bakaby could always make things be something, but I can make things do something, which is entirely different and less useful, if you ask me.” Abacus pouted and bit into his crumpet.

“I don’t─”  The tower began to shake. The air vibrated with a steadily growing rumble. Then they came.

Hundreds. Thousands. Bazillions. Crickets uncountable hurtled over the hills, turning grassy slopes into wriggly, jumping masses. Skeer watched them wash into the town on their galloping way toward the leaning─and now trembling─tower.

The bottom fell out of Skeer’s stomach. “Now what?”

Abacus dashed back and forth across the room, pulling his wispy hair. “Great bumbling broomsticks, why did I do that? This is terrible!”

“We have to get out of here,” Skeer shouted over the scrabbling thunder of swarming crickets.

“But my tower! My marmalade!”

“It’s too late.” Skeer grabbed Abacus by the collar and dove through the window. They fell some twenty feet and plunged into a pile of crickets climbing the tower.

Drowning in crawly legs and antennae is not how I pictured today going. Skeer dragged Abacus through the current, covering his mouth and squinting as crickets scuttled over his face. Finally, they stumbled free where the peninsula met the mainland. Every building in town was chewed apart. People ran around screaming, shaking crickets from their hair and clothes.

“It’s the end of the world,” a housewife wailed.

“I told you the apocalypse was coming,” the cooper cried.

Abacus turned back toward his tower. It was already entombed in crockets from top to bottom. “The nasty buggers will eat it to the ground! We’d better act now. Grab every pitchfork in town, then stick them in the ground between the peninsula and the mainland. I’ll do the rest.”

Skeer gawked at the wizard.  “You’re going to separate the peninsula into an island? What about your tower?”

Abacus scowled. “It’s the only way to trap the buggers. As for the loss of my tower and marmalade, I’m going to make Bakaby turn his entire collection of teacups into sweaters. We’ll see how he likes that!”

Skeer sighed. Bonkers. He shook his head and went looking for pitchforks.