by Nic Saint
“Exactly like that.” Ghosts had been a curse on Happy Bays of late, and he, for one, didn’t like the wispy breed one bit, and neither did the chief. Hard to police a town with a bunch of creepy ghouls scaring people witless.
“You know, I’m happy you’re here, Chief,” Virgil now repeated, a feeling of tenderness once again stealing over him and making a tear steal from his eye. “It was getting awfully lonely in this horrible place.”
If the chief shared his subordinate’s feelings, he didn’t give any indication, for he grumbled, “Just get me the hell out of here already, will you?”
His request was laced with a modicum of impatience and annoyance, as if he felt Virgil was partly to blame for this predicament he found himself in.
“Just use your gun, Chief,” said Virgil now. “That’s how I got out.”
“Right,” said the chief. “Of course. Didn’t think of that.”
Virgil stepped back while the chief took out his six-shooter and made short shrift of the door lock by blowing it to smithereens. And then the big man put his shoulder against the door and he was a free man once again.
“So,” he said when the men were reunited. “How do we get out of here?”
“Beats me, Chief,” said Virgil with refreshing candor. “I just figured I’d walk around for a bit until I got lucky and saw light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Good idea,” said the chief, dispensing a rare compliment. He was staring at the old wooden torches that provided what little light there was, clouds of soot billowing to the ceiling and painting it as black as the night sky.
So the two men walked along the corridor, the chief with lumbering step, Virgil with a lighter one as he was the thin man of the duo, and when finally they reached the end of the corridor and found another locked door, this one even more sturdy than the last, they both looked at one another, then took out their guns and started blasting away, in the method they’d both perfected.
This time, however, the effect was less pronounced, as the door refused to budge. And even when both the chief and Virgil put their backs into it and their shoulders against it, grunting and groaning as they pushed and shoved, the door proved remarkably immune to their combined efforts.
“Stuck,” said the chief morosely, summing up the situation succinctly.
“Looks like,” echoed Virgil, scratching his now cap-free scalp.
Then, suddenly, to their complete and utter surprise, the door swung open in their direction, apparently being one of those doors that swings this way and not that, and a small, thin face appeared in the crack of the door. It belonged to a man of furry aspect, hair covering the lower slopes of his elongated, wizened features, his ears even larger than Virgil’s, his nose even more bulbous than Chief Whitehouse’s, and skin so parched it looked as if it could crack any moment. All in all, the man looked ancient, and not in a good way, and he seemed peeved that someone was trying to wreck his door.
Chapter 22
“What’s all this racket, then?” the figure growled, visibly displeased.
“Grab him, Virgil,” the chief announced, and made a grab for the old man himself. Virgil, trying to settle on a part of the man’s anatomy that would grant him purchase, went for the old-timer’s ears, which seemed a safe bet, while the chief took a firm grip on the senior citizen’s nose. Together they gave the man a vigorous tug, and managed to wrestle him to the floor.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” cried the old man, who was so slight that Virgil had little trouble subduing him. If this was the guard of the prison, whoever was in charge should lodge a formal complaint with the human resources department, as he was obviously not fit for his task.
“Where are we?” asked the chief as he sat on the man’s head. “And how do we get out of here?”
Unintelligible sounds now came from beneath the chief’s buttocks, and Virgil suggested he might give the man some room to breathe, and to speak.
Reluctantly, for he seemed to feel there might still be some fight left in the pensioner, Chief Whitehouse shifted his ample bulk and took a seat on the man’s back, freeing up his head to do some explaining. Virgil, meanwhile, who’d taken control of the man’s legs, remained steadfast in his vigil.
“You idiots!” cried the man, showing that even in this odd place vituperation was a common response to being manhandled. “You’ll never get out of here! Nobody has ever escaped the fearful dungeons of Allard!”
The chief and Virgil stared at one another. Allard? their look seemed to indicate. Never heard of it.
“What is this Allard? Are we still on Long Island?” the chief asked, well-versed in the art of interrogating a suspect, and getting straight to the point.
Virgil, meanwhile, was struggling to define his particular role. If Chief Whitehouse was the bad cop, shouldn’t he be the good cop, like the police manual stated? If that was the case, he should probably offer the man a cigarette round about now, or a cup of coffee. Unfortunately he had no coffee or cigarettes to offer, but then he figured, quite cleverly, he felt, that the man didn’t know this, so he said, “It’s all right, little buddy. Have a cigarette.”
The chief didn’t seem to appreciate this kindness to strangers, for he growled, “Shut up, Virgil!”
“You’re not on Long Island anymore!” cried the man. “You’re in Allard!”
This variation on a familiar theme began to irk the chief, so he said, “I know we’re in Allard. You told us already. But where is Allard is what I want to know. And how do we get out of it?”
It was obvious the chief was a tough interrogator and wouldn’t stop until he had wrangled a full confession from the big-eared, big-nosed old guy.
But instead of cowering in fear, the man barked a mirthless laugh. “Allard is not a place, you dimwit. It’s a realm. It’s occupying the exact same space as your own world, only better and brighter and a lot more civilized than the horrid realm you two dumbbells inhabit.”
At this the chief faltered a little, for his lips parted but no sound was produced, and Virgil, too, was momentarily too stunned for speech. So it was as they’d feared; somehow they’d ended up in the ghost world again.
“Are you a ghost?” the chief now asked tentatively, following the man’s assertion through to its logical conclusion.
“No, I’m not a ghost! There are no ghosts in Allard! Unlike you mere mortals we Allardians live forever!”
“So how old are you?” Virgil couldn’t help but ask, interested.
“I’ll be five hundred and two this Friday,” said the man with a touch of pride, then coughed, Chief Whitehouse’s bulk inconveniencing him a little.
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” said Virgil. “Congratulations and all that.”
“Shut up, Virgil,” repeated the chief, but a little less forceful than before. “So how do we get out of here?” he asked, driving his point home.
“I told you, you don’t!” shrieked the man. “Once you’re a prisoner of Allard you never go home. It’s a one-way street, you bunch of bozos!”
“Hey, have a little respect,” said Virgil. “This is the chief of police of Happy Bays you’re talking to, not some clown off the street.”
“Down here you’re no chief of police. You’re simply prisoners and no prisoner has ever earned my respect!” said the man, then screamed, “Now let me go before I throw you both in the deepest, darkest dungeon where you will die like rats in a cage!”
This seemed like a very unappealing prospect, and Virgil for one didn’t feel like dying like a rat in a cage. “Maybe we should let him go, Chief,” he suggested therefore.
“Never!” cried the chief, who was notorious for his bulldog tenacity. “You’re going to tell us how to get back to Happy Bays, you decrepit little worm, or else I’m going to put an end to all this immortality nonsense once and for all,” he warned, bouncing up and down on the man’s back for good measure.
“Hey, stop that!” the man cried. “I have a bad back.”
&n
bsp; “It’s going to get a lot worse!” the chief promised.
Virgil actually wondered where all the other guards were, or if this sad piece of human wreckage was the only representative of law and order.
“All right, all right! I’ll take you to see the guy up top, how about that?” he croaked, clearly ready to wave the white flag.
“That sounds wonderful,” said Virgil.
“Just get going already,” said the chief, hauling the prisoner up by the scruff of the neck and giving him a shove in the direction of the exit. And then they were proceeding through the door, a strange procession. The chief was practically carrying the emaciated scruffy-looking old guard, while Virgil picked up the rear. Outsiders, if they had watched the small parade, would have thought that the roles were reversed: that Chief Whitehouse was the warden, and the warden the obvious and unfortunate prisoner.
“Where are the other guards?” Virgil now asked. The question had been burning on his lips, but he was reluctant to interrupt the chief’s interrogation.
“There are no other guards,” the man grudgingly admitted. “I’m all that’s left.”
“Strange prison system you’ve got here on Allard,” the chief commented.
“So what happened to the others?” Virgil continued his line of questioning.
“They’re all home, slowly succumbing to death and decay.”
“Death and decay, huh?” the chief grumbled. “I thought you guys lived forever?”
“We do, but the Allardian realm is slowly dying. Ever since we lost the Ring of Hodd.”
“Hey, that guy in tights mentioned something about a ring,” Virgil said.
“Yeah, he was babbling about that ring when he got to me as well.”
“The Ring of Hodd controls this realm. It provides it with its power. Without the ring, Allard has been slowly deteriorating year after year. Pretty soon there will be nothing left but a vast wasteland, and we’ll all succumb.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun,” Virgil said, and he actually felt sorry for the old geezer. Granted, he’d locked him up in his dungeon, but still, it was obvious there were deeper truths to plumb here.
They were mounting the stairs now and finally emerged from the rather depressing Allard dungeons. The guard now took them through a long corridor, several rooms leading off the main thoroughfare and showing a prison in obvious disarray. What looked like a dressing room was littered with the kind of clothes their guide was wearing himself: an exquisitely cut waistcoat in blue felt with gold epaulets, now tattered and torn, the gold having lost its luster as had the man himself.
Another room showed a cantina where guards would have played pinochle and had a feast while their prisoners rotted in the dungeons beneath their feet. Now, only scattered cups and plates and a deserted deck of cards hinted at this distant and no doubt glorious past.
The entire place was deserted, the floors soiled and littered with garbage, and it was obvious not a soul had walked these halls in a very long time.
“What’s that?” Virgil now asked, pointing at the crest that was sewn onto the man’s waistcoat pocket. It depicted a proud eagle, looking rather stern.
The man’s chest expanded somewhat when he said, a gleam of pride in his milky eyes, “That’s the Allard crest, a symbol of honor for our people.”
“Perhaps we should think about instigating something like that for Happy Bays,” Virgil suggested to the chief, who merely gave him a withering glance.
Finally, they walked through the main doors and out into the open, and both men drew in big gulps of air, filling their lungs with much-missed oxygen. And as Virgil’s eyes grew accustomed to the relative obscurity of the outdoors, dark clouds preventing the sun from giving of her best, he saw Allard for the first time and it filled him with a sense of awe.
In the distance a castle rose up on a hill, its spires reaching to the sky, a single light burning in one of the tower windows. At the foot of the castle a small town had arisen, a town square at its heart, a series of shops and other buildings of commerce erected around it. There were no lights, and the entire town looked deserted, looking quite depressing in the gloom.
“This used to be the bustling heart of Allard,” said the man with a note of sadness and lament in his voice. “Thousands of happy souls lived out their lives, this realm easily the best realm to live in for any man, woman or child.”
Then Virgil noticed that the town shared a striking similarity to his own small town. Even the building they’d just walked out of was in the same position as the Happy Bays police station, many of the shops he could but vaguely make out carrying an odd resemblance to Happy Bays stores of the same nature. Almost… as if he’d just stepped into a parallel world!
“So where is the man in charge of all this?” the chief asked, and the old man pointed at the distant castle.
Now that was unlike anything Happy Bays had, of course. No castles there, though the location of the castle was where in Happy Bays Town Hall was located, so perhaps there was some resemblance after all.
And as they walked along the deserted streets, Virgil noticed that Allard even had what looked like Bell’s Bakery, only this one was called Tabitha’s Tasty Tarts. He pointed it out. “I see you guys like pastry down here as well.”
The little man nodded, a glint of joy appearing in his eye. “Tabitha used to make the best muffins for miles around. A real natural, that princess of ours.”
“Princess?”
“Princess Tabitha, King Zelig and Queen Bathilda’s daughter. She used to be quite the little baking prodigy.”
“So why did she stop?” asked Virgil, noticing that the store was boarded up.
The man heaved a tremulous sigh. “Ever since she gave away her ring, she lost Allard’s power, and finally had to close up shop, like all of us have.”
“So where is she now?” asked Virgil, who was starting to take a real interest in this royal baker.
“Up in the castle, like the other members of the ruling House of Hodd. Praying for the return of Severin Lobb. With the ring.”
“That’s the guy who sentenced us to prison,” the chief grumbled, making it plain that he wasn’t awaiting the return of the blackguard at all.
“So this Tabitha,” Virgil continued, returning to his new favorite topic, “is a baker and a princess?” It just seemed too good to be true, he wanted to say.
“Sounds fishy to me,” the chief grumbled, showing his basic misanthropy.
“In Allard even the elites mingle freely with commoners. There are no classes or distinctions here. We’re all devoted to Allard and our community.”
“I like that,” said Virgil. “I like that a lot. So no bosses down here, huh?” he asked, darting a wistful eye at Chief Whitehouse. No matter how much he admired the man, his overbearing attitude sometimes bothered him.
“No,” the warden confirmed. “In Allard we’re all alike. There’s no rich or poor, no young or old, no better or worse. We live life as one big happy family. Or least we used to until Mortdecai came along and slowly started suffocating our realm and using our energy to build his own dark realm.”
“If you’re all so alike then why do you need a ruling family?” the chief asked, always one to strike the critical note.
“It’s just part of the division of labor,” explained the little man. “Someone has to make sure society runs along the right lines. Which doesn’t mean they’re better or worse than the rest of us. It simply means they’re better at taking the lead and making sure society as a whole functions properly.”
“Do you have a police department down here?” asked Virgil, curious to meet some Allardian counterpart of himself and Chief Whitehouse.
“No police,” said the man to his surprise. “Allard works so well that there is no need for coercion. We all do our part and everyone chips in voluntarily.”
“No criminals?” asked the chief skeptically. “How is that even possible?”
“It is possible beca
use ours is a highly evolved society,” said the warden. “Unlike yours, I might add.”
This momentarily silenced both the chief and Virgil, as the latter thought dreamily of a society without criminals, where everybody did his part for the wellbeing of the whole. “That sounds really—”
“Like a bunch of communist nonsense,” the chief grumbled.
“—utopian,” Virgil said, then glared at the chief. How could he call a society where a man could freely mingle with a baking princess communist? It sounded like paradise to him.
“So why do you need a prison in a society without crime?” the chief asked.
The old man gave him a toothless smile. “For people like you two. Invaders and usurpers. Visitors from another realm with bad intentions.”
As they were talking, they’d reached the iron gates of the castle, and the warden said, “From now on you’re on your own. No way am I going up there to announce to the king that two prisoners demand to be released.”
“Why? Is the king that nasty?” asked Virgil, alarmed.
The old man shook his grizzly head, then wiped away a tear that had stolen from his eye. “On the contrary, King Zelig is a sweetheart. It’s just that it breaks my heart to see him and his wife… and the princess… all alone up there… still full of hope that the Ring of Hodd will one day return…”
Shaking his head and sniffling, the man took off, back to his dungeon.
The chief and Virgil stared at the steps leading up to the castle, then the chief sighed. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said, and started the ascent.
For the first time in his life, Virgil thought, he was about to meet a king and queen, and if the circumstances had been different, he would have been stoked. Now, though, he merely feared that they were on a fool’s errand. If the old guard was right, and this realm was breaking down, there might be no one up there but a bunch of skeletons, just like down in the Allard dungeon.
Chapter 23
The fight was brutal, and Felicity thought perhaps they should find a way to break it up. Though she’d never liked Severin Lobb, not after his forceful methods of trying to coerce this mysterious Ring of Hodd from them, she had to admit she liked this other guy even less. Mortdecai looked like a creature from hell, with his black eyes and this cruel grin etched on his bearded face.