The Mavrix Anthology: Volume 1

The Mavrix Anthology: Volume 1

Published by Eric Miller at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Eric Miller

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Special thanks to Bryan for editing this thing again and again and Jayal for the awesome cover page and Keltie, for asking me to write her a story about Princes, Princesses and Frogs. It was far different from what I was doing before but the end result was fantastic and of course, a thanks to everyone else who asked me to write them a story as well.

Written by: Eric Miller

Forward: This anthology is a collection of short stories which all revolve around one central character, Mavrix. As such there are a number of items which have been included with each story to help out the reader and show how it all fits together.

Firstly, each story has a Day/Month/Year with it. The dates begin at 00/00/00 when Mavrix comes into existence. The dates should be helpful since the stories are not presented in chronological order. In this anthology, three stories have two dates attached to them. The first date indicates when Mavrix is at the moment and the second is the date he is reflecting upon. Many of the stories follow the same story line. To help you keep track, subheadings are included beneath the date of each story. Sometimes these mini-story lines take place all in one location and sometimes they follow Mavrix all over the map and all across time. All have certain characters associated with these timelines and every now and again two distinct story lines will intersect. When this happens, the story will have two. Finally, there is an additional Table of Contents beneath the first one. This second Table of Contents shows the stories written in chronological order for Mavrix. In further anthologies, this chronological order will also include stories from the previous anthologies.

Enjoy!

Anthology 1 - Table of Contents

Title - (Subheading) - Date

Princess, Princes and Frogs - (The Ugly Prince) - 04/03/07

More Adventures with Mavrix - (Leviathan) - 02/06/07

Mavrix and Kipper - (Leviathan) - 16/06/07

Mavrix vs. Berix - (Origins) - 00/00/00

Princess Rose - (Rose) - 03/03/04

Princess Rose - The Aftermath - (Rose) - 06/03/04

How Much Time Does Mavrix Have Left - (Vampire Chronicles) - 06/03/03

Mavrix vs Rade - (Vampire Chronicles) - 07/03/03

The Juggler, The Thief and the Night - (Levithan and Werewolves) - 10/06/07 and 24/06/02

Truth According to Berix - (Leviathan and Origins) - 07/01/05 and 17/00/00

Mavrix and the Unicorn - (Doubt) - 23/01/05

Barrate’s Pirates - (Izzy) - 26/01/05

Huh, They Did Come in Handy - (Izzy) - 17/02/05

Berix’s Princess - (Berix) - 11/01/02

Erin’s World - (Erin) - 24/02/01

Mavrix vs An Old Dancing Partner - (Vampire Chronicles) - 12/07/07

Lana-lin - (Random) - 03/07/07

Shoulders - (Izzy) - 30/02/05

Rose’s Cruise - (Rose/Izzy) - 03/06/05

Rose’s Cruise Flip-side - (Rose/Izzy) - 03/06/05

Circus Mavrix - (Leviathan and Origins) - 12/06/07 and 01/00/00

Wings - (Doubt) - 23/01/05

After the Happily Ever After - (The Ugly Prince) - 03/04/07

Cleaning the Pipes - (Erin) - 24/05/04

Mavrix in Chronological Order

Title - (Subheading) - Date

Mavrix vs Berix - (Origins) - 00/00/00

Circus Mavrix - (Origins) - 01/00/00

Truth According to Berix - (Origins) - 17/00/00

Erin’s World - (Erin) - 24/02/01

Berix’s Princess - (Berix) - 11/01/02

The Juggler, The Thief and the Night - (Werewolves) - 24/06/02

How Much Time Does Mavrix Have Left - (Vampire Chronicles) - 06/03/03

Mavrix vs Rade - (Vampire Chronicles) - 07/03/03

Princess Rose - (Rose) - 03/03/04

Princess Rose The Aftermath - (Rose) - 06/03/04

Cleaning the Pipes - (Erin) - 24/05/04

Mavrix and the Unicorn - (Doubt) - 23/01/05

Wings - (Doubt) - 23/01/05

Barrate’s Pirates - (Izzy) - 26/01/05

Shoulders - (Izzy) - 30/02/05

Rose’s Cruise - (Rose/Izzy) - 03/06/05

Rose’s Cruise Flip-side - (Rose/Izzy) - 03/06/05

Princess, Princes and Frogs - (The Ugly Prince) - 04/03/07

After the Happily Ever After - (The Ugly Prince) - 03/04/07

More Adventures with Mavrix - (Leviathan) - 02/06/07

Mavrix and Kipper - (Leviathan) - 16/06/07

Lana-lin - (Random) - 03/07/07

Mavrix vs An Old Dancing Partner - (Vampire Chronicles) - 12/07/07

Princess, Princes and Frogs

04/03/07

(The Ugly Prince)

There was a time……, there WAS a time. Actually, there have been many times, good times, bad times, horrible times and of course, exceedingly faaaaaantastic times. This story took place during one of those happy times. There was a nice little Kingdom with a nice little King and a nice little Queen. Everything about this Kingdom was nice. The royalty was nice, the workers were nice, the soldiers were nice and the slaves were nice, (though of course, they didn’t have much choice in the matter.) There was however, one person who was not nice, and this one person was the Princess.

Now, don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t bad. In fact, she had a very bubbly personality, but she wasn’t nice, leastwise, she wasn’t nice to look upon. That was because the word nice is far too weak of a word. No, this princess was so beautiful, so exceedingly fair, so utterly gorgeous that words cannot even begin to give you the general idea of how truly lovely this girl was, so I’ll just stop trying right now.

Anyway, the Princess was obviously the pride of the little Kingdom and she was fast approaching that age when it’s time to get married and it came into the head of the Queen, that any potential suitor for her daughter must be at least, at least, as fair to look upon as was the Princess. This caused some understandable problems for, as before stated, this Princess had no parallels. Soon, the call went out far and wide across the land and before long, Princes from all over came to try to measure up to the Princess’s beauty. Alas, as was predictable, the Queen turned them all away, which was really too bad, because a lot of those guys were none too shabby. Some were the spitting image of manliness, while others had great and noble personalities, buuuuuuut, of course, even Prince Charming, Prince Perfect even, still looked like mud, and not even attractive mud, when compared to the Princess.

This had been going on for some months now, and the Princess was growing tired of it, and more than a little disgruntled. After all, by now, dozens, maybe hundreds of Princes had come in and the Princess had hit it off with more than a few, but the Queen was adamant. The King too, was growing tired of this, buuuuuut, the Queen was determined to have her way.

* * *

In the meantime, there was one Prince who was plotting revenge. He had taken his own rejection rather hard, though, he really should have seen it coming. I mean, anyone with the slightest shred of honesty in them could see that his appearance was none too pleasing to the eye, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, you might even go so far as to call him down-right ugly, though, not to his face of course, because he wielded quite a bit of power where he came from and he had a nasty temper. In any event, when he had presented himself to the King and Queen of the nice little Kingdom where our story takes place, the King and Queen regarded him for a few seconds and then, simultaneously, burst out in laughter. Great gales of laughter spewed forth while tears coursed out of their eyes and ran down their cheeks.

The Ugly Prince took the hint and left that nice little Kingdom in a rage. As soon as he returned to his own lands, he urged his father to go to war, but having failed at that, he decided to get even in a more subtle way.

Now, in this particular Kingdom, there was a certain fellow who looked pretty young, but his youthful looks belied as to what his true age really was, which no one knew for certain. It was more or less common knowledge however, that this fellow had traveled far and wide and while he was decent company to have with you at the tavern, he had no real friends and the people were wary of him. Rumors shrouded this man like a cloak, of past actions, schemes and plots that he had done and all the while, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, not unless you caught him during one of those rare moments when his focus slipped and his mask was gone. Then, who knows what you would see. A manic gleam in the eye perhaps, or a look on his face that spoke of extreme melancholy or a deep sadness of pain and regret, or perhaps anger, or raw hatred directed, hopefully, not at you. Whatever it was, the look would be gone as soon as he realized that he was being scrutinized, to be replaced by a goofy grin and a wink in your direction.

He was a man rumored to be without any form of a conscience whatsoever, willing to do just about anything for a price and a smooth talker, able to turn just about anyone to his way of thinking. He was known, only as the strange and uncouth name of Mavrix, though even he freely admitted that that was not his real name. Still that was what he called himself and so that is what the people called him. It was he that the Ugly Prince approached and hired to fulfill his revenge on that nice little Kingdom that had scorned him.

* * *

Thus, it came to pass, that one night while the Princess was sleeping in her bedchamber high up in the castle, alone I might add, since her mother, the Queen, was still turning away suitors like there was an endless supply of them, when she was awoken by a kiss.

Who are you? asked the Princess, without fear. After all, a single cry would bring every guard in the castle.

A dream, answered the stranger as he took a bow with an extravagant flourish. Dream again tomorrow night and you’ll see me again. He turned, hopped up onto the rail of her balcony and with a parting wave, jumped over the side.

The Princess gasped and ran to the edge to try to spot her strange intruder, but there was nothing, just six stories of nothingness which led to the ground. With a puzzled sigh, she returned to her bed. Directly underneath the balcony, Mavrix clung to the wall like a spider, for it was Mavrix who was the ‘dream’ of course. He had entered the nice little Kingdom in secret, done his reconnaissance to figure out what was going on and then planned his attack. In the days that followed, Mavrix came again to the Princess’s bedchamber and soon, they were meeting in secret during the day too. During these meetings, he told her of the wide world outside her nice little Kingdom. He told her of himself, of where he came from and seemingly, he held nothing back. More than once, when Mavrix told her of something that he had done, or something that he had thought of doing, she would put a hand to her mouth, utter a cute little gasp of shock, and exclaim, that’s horrible!

To which Mavrix would always reply, with a coy grin and a wink, I know, I deny nothing. I am evil.

* * *

These meetings had been going on for some time now, when the Princess started to grow worried. She desperately wanted to marry Mavrix, but she knew her parents would never approve and she told him so.

Ahh, no worries there, for I have discovered a loophole in their policy. I have found a way for us to be together, if you truly want to.

Oh I do, I do!

Very well, said Mavrix gravely, the rule that your parents set up was that any potential suitor had to be at least as beautiful as you, right?

Yes…..

So all we have to do, to beat the system, is to uglify you up a little. Now, it just so happens that I have this potion that should do the trick. Mavrix reached into his cloak and gave her a vial. Just drink this when I confront your parents, and everything will work out.

The Princess took the bubbling green potion a little uncertainly, if you’re sure….

Mavrix gave her a guiless smile, absolutely.

* * *

Who do you think you are!? snarled the Queen. Coming into our Kingdom like a thief in the night, meeting with our daughter without our consent.

Yes, exclaimed the King, you’re actions have been most ignoble and deceitful.

Outwardly, Mavrix’s face remained impassive, but inwardly, he grinned at the King’s words, thinking, ‘you don’t know the half of it.’ It was also on the tip of Mavrix’s tongue to challenge the King and Queen about what right they had to question his moral grounds when they were giving away their daughter’s life on the sole criteria of physical appearance, but he kept his mouth shut. After all, there was no point and nothing to be gained from angering the Royalty even further. Mavrix simply let the angry flow wash over him as the King and Queen droned on about how evil he was, the incalculable harm he had done to their daughter, and how he would hang for this. Throughout the verbal onslot, Mavrix remained silent.

Finally, the verbal barrage ended and Mavrix was allowed to speak. There was a fine line he had to walk here. He had to stand up to the King and Queen, since he knew that was half the reason why the Princess was so taken with him. Of all the other suitors, he was the only one that had defied the rules and had not been a total idiot while doing so. However, he couldn’t do it in such a way, that it got him immediately tossed to the wolves. It seems to me, that you yourselves have done the damage. You set up a system whereby it is destined to fail for as anyone can see, your daughter has no equal in terms of beauty. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but as you can plainly see, it was far from a good idea. Your daughter is becoming more and more alienated from you and defiant. She, and if my powers of perception still function, and the King are tired of this as well.

If looks could kill, then the look that the Queen shot at Mavrix may not have killed him, but it would have left him writhing on the ground in some serious pain. When the King gave a little grunt in agreement though, the look that he received from his wife was definitely a killing look. He withered under his wife’s eyes.

Now, continued Mavrix, you two find yourselves in a jam here. You can’t change the rules now because you’ve turned down who knows how many Princes but as we’ve established, your system is fundamentally flawed and it would seem that you’ve doomed your daughter to a life of solitude. Mavrix paused, not to worry though, the Princess and I have hit upon a solution. He nodded to the Princess and gave her an encouraging smile.

With a tentative smile in return, she pulled out the green, bubbling potion and raised it to her lips. Time seemed to stand still. The King and Queen both cried out in alarm and dove for their daughter, though they were far too late. Mavrix however watched as his dasterdly scheme was finally coming to fulfillment. According to the Ugly Prince the potion would cause her hair to become thin, or maybe fall out completely, her skin would turn pale and grey while warts and boils would break out over her body, rendering her grotesque to look upon. Thus, would the Ugly Prince have his revenge. That being done, Mavrix could mock the King and Queen, reaffirm is evilness to the Princess, denying nothing of course, and make good his escape. The guards would probably be set upon him, but Mavrix was not worried, security in this nice little Kingdom was lax, way looser then a considerable amount of other situations that he had found himself in.

Time got going again and something that Mavrix had not foreseen occurred. The lies of the Ugly Prince were revealed. Where the Princess had sat, now there sat a lovely, emerald green frog. It was the loveliest, most beautiful frog the world had ever seen. In fact, words cannot even begin to describe how absolutely gorgeous this amphibian was, so I’ll just stop trying right now.

That being said, she was still a frog. Mavrix was shocked. He looked in astonishment from the Princess Frog, to the appalled expressions on the King and Queen. Umm, well, he bantered, at least you don’t have to worry about finding another Prince that can measure up to her beauty standards. It was a lame comment and he knew it. Mavrix was just trying to kickstart his mind back into motion. Thoughts of revenge against the Ugly Prince were flying through his mind when he felt a little nudge against his foot. After all, it was one thing to leave her ugly, but at least she would have been still alive and human. It was something else to leave her here as a frog. It was the Princess, looking up with her big, round, amphibian, pleading eyes. With a sigh and knowing that he’d kick himself later on for this, he gave the frog a reassuring smile, an apologetic look to her parents and then took out the remainder of that green potion still on his person and took a swig.

Now there were two frogs. The Queen fainted, the King just rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Mavrix and the Princess however, had eyes only for each other. Without a backward glance, they hopped out of the castle, out into the moat and lived happily ever after.

More Adventures with Mavrix

02/06/07

(Leviathan)

Mavrix rolled into some town looking for adventure. He wasn’t even entirely sure where he was, but naturally, that made no difference. He had just finished a decidedly unpleasant affair with a Princess followed by an equally unpleasant bout of revenge against a very ugly Prince. Throughout all this, there had been all sorts of weird and confusing thoughts and feelings running through his mind. What he needed now was a good time to unwind.

He bumped from pub to pub, tavern to tavern looking for the most phony looking crew that he could find. He didn’t want to fall in with low lifes exactly, just guys who had high hopes that were blown all out of proportion. After six or seven pubs, Mavrix found what he was looking for: A trio of youthful guys poring over a map that they had probably gotten suckered into buying by some con-artist. Mavrix didn’t approach them yet. A good entrance would mean the world to these saps, and at the moment, Mavrix was just wearing a non-descript gray cloak that he wore on occasions like this, when he wanted to blend in with the crowd while he did