Smoking Lizard Media

Hi,

Welcome to Smoking Lizard 3.5 (I think, I forget how many revisions this makes)!

What is Smoking Lizard? It’s only the finest genre fiction/media site on the whole web! Okay-Okay, I can’t pull off that hyperbole with a straight face, yet.

We’re all about the fiction, especially if it can be told in 4-color panels. You will come here to read the latest works by G.N. Jacobs, a native of Los Angeles proficient in at least four genres (the splashy fun ones where shit is likely to BLOW UP!). We will also be posting related essays, videos and, further down the line, book reviews of whatever strikes our fancy.

So anyway thank you for your readership!

Stories, essays and other content to discover!

Coal Sack Crab - Read Main Body! - Forward to Part 49

Wonder Woman: Bondage Slut - Forward to Part 1

A Taste of Armageddon - Forward to Part 1

Blood & Ink Excepts – Go to Page

A Redshirt’s Life - Forward to Part 1

Torching Books – Forward to Part 1

Smashing Los Angeles – Forward to Part 1

Choosing Powers – Forward to Part 1

Die With Your Armor On - Forward to Part 1

Death of Science Fiction – Forward to Part 1

Growth Vs. Gain - Forward to Part 1

Cadillac Crusade – Forward to New Page

Crimes Against Elves -Read the Main Body, Forward to Part 30

Option Right - Forward to New Page

Back to Part 35 – Click Here!

Frangelf rides toward Grendathor, while Caroncall’s minion starts bribing jurors…

© 2011 G.N. Jacobs

He’d tried all the tricks he’d learned over the years getting over Celia and nothing worked. No amount of breathing, exercise, or transference would eliminate the image of Geldarath getting what was coming in the most Shakespearian or Biblical methodology available to him. He silently thanked Jerry Campbell for introducing him to the Bible and Titus Andronicus. The ideas gave him warmth.

The multiverse almost opened up the veil between life and death to get him to chill the frak out. Instead of getting a visit from Lady Argentia’s distant ancestor to remind him of the things that are good in the world, all it took was aimlessly reaching back into his bag and coming up with an origami crane. The peaks and valleys of his anger faded a little and then he went to work on the next bird. At the edge of his vision, a familiar brunette form took a moment to straighten her dress and blow a kiss to Frangelf. Then she was gone. The wizard felt better, but feeling so wasn’t going to keep Geldarath from getting the shit kicked out of him.

He strung the three horses together and galloped full out for the one place where Geldarath dumped all of his annoyances: Grendathor. Mumbling a magic spell that added speed and stamina to a horse still meant Frangelf would get there in seven days. He was going to be late. He could just cast the same sort of spell that dumped the girls, but he’d never had the good map that Geldarath had and no one wanted to materialize in a mountain.

***

Hamdar the Horrible checked his list twice and stepped into traffic. The horns told him he did something wrong, but he stopped caring after the first fist shaken out a car window. The man he sought sat at an outdoor pizza-by-the-slice eatery enjoying the spectacular thin crust with a soda. Hamdar had been around long enough to get the point of pizza but the brown fizzy drink still made him gag.

He checked his costume everything was fine with his suit, which had gotten more bearable once he’d been instructed as to the proper way to wear the underwear. The woman who did the teaching had moaned and giggled. Things were looking up.

“John Bullen?” Hamdar asked.

John Bullen looked up from his mushroom slice a little too quickly. The choking was quickly dealt with by way of a sharp hit to the back. The man’s breathing returned to normal.

“Thanks, Mister,” John Bullen said.

“There is an old saying about not startling a cat while eating,” Hamdar said. “Please accept my apologies.”

This should have been a touching moment, but Hamdar brought an intensity that no timely lifesaving act would erase. The bag dropped on the table next to the slice ended all awkwardness.

“Who I am is unimportant,” Hamdar said. “I got your name from the county juror database. You will get a summons sometime this year. If you get on a certain case, my investor wants a not guilty verdict.”

“Which case?”

“You’ll know. It’s a very special case. The bag is a down payment against six times as much for the proper verdict.”

Hamdar walked away before John could say anything.

PART 37 – DUE 9/5/11

Read the Main Body – Click Here!

Back to Part 35 – Click Here!

Back to Part 34 – Click Here!

The ladies suck it up and start walking out of the pit…

© 2011 G.N. Jacobs

“Victoria, earlier you said you wanted bigger weapons to ‘loudly put bad guys on a slab’ and I dismissed you?” Lady Argentia whispered. “I take it back.”

“Do you have some way to scream for help?” Victoria asked.

“Other than the usual way of opening my throat and making noise?” Lady Argentia whispered. “No.”

Victoria hefted her knives. “I have a feeling we’ll need to speak to Geldarath over this mess.”

“I agree, Victoria,” Lady Argentia said. “What do you know about this place? I guarantee you that whatever Frangelf told the author was nothing like what we have said amongst ourselves.”

“Relax, it’s a bad neighborhood,” Victoria said. “Confidence goes a long way.”

Lady Argentia raised an eyebrow knowing when she had just been told a whopper.

“Kung fu goes the rest of the way home,” Victoria admitted. “Our way out is up and to the left.”

And so they left the grand hall, where the great dwarf kings had fought to the last man with various Vorgon tribes and at least one Poison Dragon. Victoria took a moment to remember the account of the good people that had died here, even if they were dwarves giving their greed for gold and diamonds free reign.

***

Valdor woke up from a bad dream. Someone had tied up Victoria spread-eagle on a table and proceeded to mistreat the redhead. He had spent too much time learning how to be a lawyer that he’d missed the dream interpretation textbooks, but even he knew that something was off. The dream alternated between the fun ones where the woman secretly has a key or safe word to turn her captivity into a game and the truly horrific ones where he needed to rescue her from real bad guys and he failed each time.

“Garrandel! The ladies have found trouble!” Valdor called out. “Please ask your sister for her fountain of augury!”

He dressed in his leather traveling armor and strapped on Morningstar.

***

Frangelf only needed forty minutes to figure out the Who, What, When, Where and Why of the magic on the road. He was going to kill Geldarath as soon as the opportunity presented. He had a moment of shivering awareness that perhaps he’d been stupid agreeing to the whole concept of a grand war crimes trial in a world where the village chief handled disputes with a process more like arbitration and kings, princes, and other luminaries applied trial by combat as far down the criminal food criminal food chain as simple burglary.

At the moment, the fury he felt wearing a groove into the same four feet of loamy Penulton ground prevented him from the seeing the wisdom of agreeing to Valdor’s wild idea. He shuffled through all of the dark fantasies he’d once had about Caroncall when the death of Celia of Joran first came to Frangelf’s attention.

The wizard had spent ten years on Earth getting into serious adventures with the local wizards, even going so far as having his White Stone surgically implanted in his chest, and this had been enough that the fantasies had died as far as trashing Caroncall went. But, Geldarath, the pesky third wheel of Frangelf’s friendship with Caroncall, doing his worst upon Lady Argentia and Victoria brought that blackness back into full focus. Presently, Geldarath would be shot up with surgical paralytics and flayed alive.

PART 36 – DUE 9/1/11

Read the Main Body – Click Here!

Back to Part 34 – Click Here!

Forward to Part 36 – Click Here!

Back to Part 33 – Click Here!

Victoria and Lady Argentia land in the deep pit of Grendathor…

© 2011 G.N. Jacobs

Victoria landed on stone feeling the bruises form. She temporarily blacked out and her mind wandered back to the courtroom. This time it was a memory instead of a faerie-dust trip to the recent future.

***

“My Lord Campbell,” Victoria said as soon as the new judge took his costume and seat for the first time. “I am remiss in my duty as defense counsel, please have the bailiff read the full charges.”

My Lord Judge Jeremiah Campbell nodded to the bailiff.

“The Crown of the Golden City having formed this court on behalf of the people of the Golden City and having been given temporary global jurisdiction by the relevant convening authorities of the various allied human, elfin, dwarf and welbit kingdoms, republics, freeholds, tribes, federations and other political associations of the world of Penulton, does hereby charge the wizard, Caroncall Magicum Maximus, with the following…”

The bailiff took a breath.

“Count One, engaging in aggressive war without proper provocation, a crime against The Peace. Count Two, the murders of nearly 500,000 peaceful sentient beings of the human race resulting from a combination of deliberate orders or improper control of subordinates to be adjudicated as a class action charge, a crime against The Peace and Humanity. Count Three, the torture, allegedly for pleasure, of countless prisoners of war from all sentient species, a crime against The Peace, Humanity and also constituting simple assault and battery and attempted murder under the common civil law of the Golden City which have been waived in favor of this court’s adjudication. Count Four, the murder of six thousand dwarves, executed after the Battle of Grendor Ridge, a crime against Dwarves. Count Five, the murder of ten thousand elves resulting from several occasions during the war, a crime against Elves…”

***

Victoria came to remembering that there were at least ten other counts in the indictment. She quickly patted herself down to see what had made the trip with her. She found the bear, her knives and the package of venison jerky she’d slipped into her coat pocket as a ready snack.

“Bear, where are we?” Victoria asked.

“Don’t know, Lady Victoria.”

And then she saw a familiar shape just at the edge of the murk. Lady Argentia stretched her limbs and made the survival inventory herself. She too was pleased to have her knives and some water. They hugged stiffly.

“Where are we?” Lady Argentia asked.

Victoria started pacing trying to make sense of the gloom. The stone was wet and smelled like a moldy bathroom that the boyfriend associated with the bear never knew how to clean up. Blue phosphorescence just barely lit up the room revealing a stone altar. Déjà vu struck Victoria like a ton of bricks.

“We’ve been zapped to Grendathor,” Victoria said. “Frangelf captured this room really well.”

Lady Argentia shivered. She’d heard too many ugly stories about this place none of which had made it into The City of Gold. Victoria shrugged she’d been in a few rough spots before and her lack of knowledge of the pit led to a belief that it would be all right. Still, both women gripped their knives tightly.

PART 35 – DUE 9/1/11

Read the Main Body – Click Here!

Back to Part 33 – Click Here!

Forward to Part 35 – Click Here!

Back to Part 32 – Click Here!

Frangelf frantically tries to catch up to the ladies before the spell does…

© 2011 G.N. Jacobs

Frangelf broke cover with his horse as soon as he saw the purple cloud stalking his two favorite women. They ran. He ran to catch up a vision of horsemanship where his white Arabian and he moved as one. Of course, he’d forgotten to button down the trail bag with origami cranes and so he left a trail of multi-colored cranes as he flew along the rocky terrain.

“Keep going, Melchior,” Frangelf urged practically like a war prayer. “Keep going!”

The horse cocked his head as if to say I was going to do that anyway. Then the animal dug in deeper and went faster, which Frangelf hadn’t thought was possible from this mount. But, the purple cloud stayed just out of reach.

He could just barely see the women through the cloud. Worry crept up into his throat like a taco doused with too much hot sauce. He really needed to catch up to the girls. He’d already made too many cranes for Argentia to start over with any other women in the multiverse.

But, horses don’t usually stand a chance against great and terrible magics. The cloud swept the horses off their feet causing them to flip over their heads. Frangelf remembered a stray thought about Hollywood movies banning this stunt as inhumane to horses. Anger washed over him guessing what would happen next.

It was all over too quickly. The cloud dissipated much like the sun coming out after a storm. Shadow Streak and Bellatrix lay splayed out on the ground with compound fractures of forelegs. Frangelf slid off his horse angry that the girls were nowhere near the area, but seeing horses in this condition didn’t help his foul mood, either.

Melchior couldn’t abide these results as well nudging his master to do something. In a low-magic environment like Earth, Frangelf would’ve put a bullet between these horses’ eyes and cried after, but here the magic was self-regenerating and a healing spell would do the trick.

“Melchior, stop nudging me!” Frangelf groused. “I’m doing it.”

The wizard clapped his hands together so intent on focusing his chi that a marching band could go by at full volume and he wouldn’t notice. The horses healed just as the magic said it would in the advertising. And then he had a flashback to the one time the spell didn’t work. A brunette had been raped and strangled and left to die slowly and Frangelf had cast the spell three times like a paramedic using a defibrillator not understanding that Caroncall had cast a counter-spell anticipating this particular spell. Frangelf had unwittingly given Celia of Joran the coup de grace.

Frangelf snapped back to the present receiving the affection from three horses grateful to still be walking. Now the only thing to figure out was where Lady Argentia and Victoria had gotten to…

PART 34 – DUE 8/30/11

Read the Main Body – Click Here!

Back to Part 32 – Click Here!

Forward to Part 34 – Click Here!