by John Moore
Love makes all men fools, goes the adage, and the adage is correct. Any man who has been in love can confirm this; any man who has not been in love yet should consider himself forewarned; every woman who intends to make a man love her should be prepared to lower her expectations regarding his intellectual prowess. Prince Kevin was no exception to the general trend.
He thought he was, mind you. Kevin knew all about love, and he was prepared for it. Sure, he still felt that empty ache whenever he and Becky were apart, but that was okay. He knew the cause. Yes, he had developed a tendency to find meaning in the lyrics of pop music, but he was able to recognize those thoughts as asinine. “And so what,” he told himself, “if I’ve just compared her smile to a sunrise? So what if every single goddess on the chapel ceiling reminds me of her. I’ve got it under control. I can stop acting like this anytime I want to.”
He was wrong, of course. He didn’t know it, but he was badly under the influence, and it was love that convinced him his plan was not every bit as idiotic as it appeared to be.
“What?” said Becky.
“You heard me. With a fast horse I can get to the Fortress of Doom in three days, ahead of Logan.”
“Logan will have mounted troops also.”
“Logan isn’t ready to leave yet. He may not be ready for days. I can leave immediately and ride faster. I’ll have at least two days, maybe more, to get into the castle, defeat the Evil Overlord, and return with the Ancient Artifact.
“Kevin, what are you talking about? The marriage is set. Daddy already promised me to Lord Logan.”
“No, he didn’t. Think about it. He promised you to the man who could recover the Ancient Artifact. Those were his words, and we’re going to hold him to them.”
“And you’re going to attack a fortress? All by yourself? Do you have any combat experience?”
“I did my time in the military. I know a few things.”
“You were a supply officer!”
“I went through basic training, the same as everyone else.”
“Oh, that’s just great. You’re going to get killed.” Kevin gave her a steady look. “Life without you would not be worth living.”
“This is not the time to lay sentimental nonsense on me, Kevin Timberline of Rassendas! You can’t just waltz into an Invincible Fortress and slay Lord Voltmeter. Thunk tried it, and look what happened to him! And he was a professional hero, an experienced Evil Overlord-slayer. It takes years of training to do something like that, plus twelve hours of hands-on experience before you can solo. What the hell do you know about slaying Evil Overlords? You don’t know a damn thing!”
“I don’t have to. I’ve got a book that tells me everything I need to know. Your father, uh, loaned it to me.”
“What book?”
“It’s on the table there. It was written by a guy named Robert Taylor.”
“Robert Taylor?” Becky stood up and her voice rose into a screech. “What does fly-fishing have to do with all this!”
“Not the fly-fishing book. He wrote another one. Look at it.”
Becky grabbed the book. “Handbook of Practical Heroics?” She flipped back the cover. It opened to a flyleaf. “Other books by Robert Taylor:
Handbook of Practical Fly-Fishing
Handbook of Practical Gardening
Handbook of Practical Antique Refinishing
Handbook of Practical Dragon Slaying (with Holly Lisle)
Handbook of Practical Burn and Wound Dressing”
She looked up. “Oh yes, this sounds very practical.”
“Check it out. It’s all there. What to wear, what to bring, when to go. Armor, weapons, plans of attack, swordplay techniques. Complete instructions for penetrating fortresses and dispatching Evil Overlords. Discount coupons for lodging and restaurants.”
“Kevin, this is insane.”
“No, look at this.” Kevin grabbed the book and started leafing through it, showing her the chapter headings. “Look, you know the heroic legends. You’ve heard the ballads. You’ve read the histories and maybe you’ve seen some heroic epics in the theatre, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so when the villain is holding the heroine at knifepoint on the edge of a waterfall, and the hero comes swooping down on a vine and snatches her away, did you ever wonder where the vine came from? Well, this tells you. And did you ever wonder how the hero always manages to get there in the nick of time, not too late or too early? It’s right here. And here’s a bit about knocking a guard unconscious with a single punch to the jaw. I might have to study that some more. And look at this!” Kevin was getting excited now. He held the book up for her to see. “It even shows how to jump through a plate-glass window without getting a single scratch!”
“Oh, give me that.” The Princess snatched the book away.
“Becky, don’t you love me?”
“It’s because I love you that I’m not going to let you get killed on my behalf. Aside from love, think also about our responsibility. Do you understand what will happen to the relationship between Rassendas and Deserae when your father finds out that my father allowed you to go on a suicide mission?”
“Neither of them will know a thing until it is all over. I’ll pretend to be sick. All my meals will be sent up here. Winslow will stay behind to fend off visitors and keep the charade going. Winslow?”
His valet entered the room, bearing a scabbard with the Rassendas crest stamped in gold upon the leather. “Your sword, sire.”
“Thank you.” Kevin buckled it on. “You were listening to all this?”
“Yes, sire.”
“To maintain the illusion that I’m still here, you’ll have to eat both my meals and your own. We want to send back empty plates. So order light meals for us both.”
“Yes, sire.”
“Winslow,” Becky interrupted, “talk him out of this. He trusts your judgment. Do you really think Kevin can fight it out with an Evil Overlord?”
The valet cleared his throat. “His Highness has . . . done well in several tournaments.”
“Tournaments! That’s it, I’ve heard enough.” Becky shut the book with a snap and flounced toward the door—and the princess was a woman who did not flounce lightly. “This ends right now. I’m telling Daddy, and I’m going to tell him to stop you. I’m sorry, Kevin, but it’s for your own good.”
“Okay,” said Kevin contritely. “You’re right. It is a stupid idea. I’m sorry, Becky. I’m a fool to think I could ever be a hero.”
Becky stopped with her hand on the door. She turned back toward him, her face softening. “Oh, sweetie, you’re not a fool. It’s very brave of you to want to attempt this. I know you’re very heroic. It’s just that this isn’t the right time for you.” She sat back down next to him and took his hand. “You don’t have to prove yourself to me, Kevin. I just want you to be careful.”
“You’re right. I hope you and Logan will be very happy together. I can’t stick around for your wedding, though. It would just be too hard to bear.”
A tear welled up in the corner of Becky’s eye. “I understand, sweetie.”
“I’ll just have to go back home and marry Angela.” The tear evaporated like a snowflake in a baker’s oven. “Angela?”
“Lady Angela Graydove. Some girl Dad wants me to marry.”
“Your father wants you to marry Angie?”
“Oh, you know her?”
“We prepped together. Tall, skinny, flat-chested. Couldn’t play field hockey worth spit.”
“I haven’t met her myself, but Dad did say she was slim. A nice smile, long blond hair . . .”
“Oh, so her hair is blond now?”
“And a beautiful singing voice, Dad said.”
“Beautiful voice? High and squeaky is more like it.”
The Prince shrugged. “As I said, I haven’t met her. But Dad really liked her singing. He went on and on about it.”
“Squeak, squeak, squeak, all day long. Like a rusty iron hinge.”<
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“I don’t have any choice in the matter. He went through a lot of trouble to set this up, especially on short notice.” The Prince took the message from the desk and passed it to Becky. Since it was still encrypted, it meant nothing to her. He pointed to the royal signature.
“I can’t go against my father’s wishes,” he continued sorrowfully. “Dad thinks he’s doing me a big favor. I guess I’m just in the same position you are.”
“I’ve got it!” said Becky. “We’ll go together. I’ll be your comic sidekick.”
“Say what?”
“It’s here in the book. Here, let me find it again.” Becky started flipping through the pages. “Every hero needs a comic sidekick.”
“Becky, you can’t be a comic sidekick.”
“Why not?” Becky found the page she was seeking. “Look, there’s a whole chapter on comic sidekicks. Girls can do it.”
“Not you. It’s too dangerous. And besides, you’re not funny.”
“Of course I am.”
“No, you’re not. Try it. Say something funny.”
“Well . . . of course I can’t think of anything right now! Anyway, the comic sidekick doesn’t have to be funny. She can just feed straight lines to the hero. So I would say, ‘Well, Kevin, tell me about your brother.’ And then you say something witty.”
“I don’t have a brother.”
“It was just an example.”
“If I don’t have a brother I don’t have anything witty to say about him, so I don’t need a comic sidekick. Thunk didn’t have a comic sidekick.”
“Thunk had plenty of comic sidekicks!”
“And what happened to them?”
“They didn’t all get killed.”
“I bet they did. The comic sidekick always gets it first. I bet that’s in the book, too. Let me see.”
Becky moved the book out of his reach. “I’ll just go with you to the nearest village. Then I’ll go drinking with the locals and learn vital information that will help you penetrate the Invincible Fortress. That’s what comic sidekicks do best. I’ve been to nightclubs, and let me tell you, there’s plenty of comedians that never do anything funny. They do prop comedy, slapstick, song parodies, improv—stupid stuff like that. Besides, I have large breasts. If worse comes to worst, I’ll let something fall in my cleavage. That’s always good for a cheap laugh.”
“No, no, and double no. Becky, I am not going to lead you into danger. It’s out of the question. You either stay here, or I go back to Rassendas.”
Becky folded her arms and pouted. Kevin waited silently. Eventually she said, “Oh, all right. I’ll help cover for you with Daddy. But I’m only doing this to save you from the awful fate of marrying Lady Angela.”
“And I appreciate that.” He watched her walk away. “Wait, where are you going?”
Becky stopped at the door. “To see the King. I told you.”
“Don’t I get a farewell kiss?”
The Princess looked around for Winslow. With impeccable timing, the valet had discreetly disappeared again. “Well, okay. But only for a minute. I’ve got things to do.”
It took more than a minute. But eventually Becky left, and Kevin closed the door carefully behind her and bolted it. Almost immediately the bedroom door opened, and Winslow reappeared.
“Am I packed, Winslow?”
“Almost, Your Highness. And sire?”
“Yes, Winslow.”
“It is my understanding that your father loathes Lady Angela Graydove.”
“Does he? I’ll have to remember that. I’m off now.
Do not let the Evil Overlord’s beautiful assistant lure you into a trap. Keep your libido in check until the mission is completed.
—HANDBOOK OF PRACTICAL HEROICS BY ROBERT TAYLOR
An under current of excitement ran through the Fortress of Doom. Valerie could feel it as she walked the corridors. The guards and minions moved quietly but briskly, talking in low voices. The mercenaries were checking extra bowstrings out of stores and honing their swords, putting the final edge to already sharpened steel. In the evenings she could find them darning socks or oiling their boots, preparing for the march on Deserae’s capital. No official announcement had come down from Lord Voltmeter yet, but everyone knew he was almost ready to put the Diabolical Plan into action.
It was a race against time. The King of Deserae obviously knew of the threat to his kingdom—that’s why he had sent Thunk the Barbarian to assassinate Voltmeter. And now that Thunk had failed, Calephon’s next step would be to lay siege to the Fortress of Doom. That could get bloody indeed. Rumor had it that Lord Logan would be leading the attack. No one was looking forward to that.
Unless . . . Valerie smiled at the thought, her bright red lips forming a sensual curve. Unless Lord Voltmeter completed his Diabolical Plan first. Then the Fortress of Doom would truly be an Invincible Fortress.
The beautiful brunette flipped her hair back over her shoulders. She walked quickly and naturally, despite the fact that she was wearing over-the-calf boots with towering spiked heels. It had taken months to learn how to walk in them, but that was part of the job of being the Evil Assistant to an Evil Overlord. Like her carmine lipstick, and the leather bustier that hugged her slim torso. It wasn’t an official uniform—not exactly—but people expected an Evil Assistant to dress like an Evil Assistant. Gingham didn’t work at all, and white lace was absolutely out the question. Black leather was the only way to go.
She slapped her palm thoughtfully with her riding crop and resolved to speak to Lord Voltmeter about it. He wanted to change the dress code, demanding that she wear something less extreme. She needed to explain to him why that was a mistake. It was difficult to maintain a high standard of evil. Even Stan, who’d taken a minor in Evil Studies at Angostura University, knew that it was easy to backslide into niceness. When you want to be taken seriously, she planned to tell His Lordship, you have to dress like a professional. If the Plan was this close to completion, it was no time to lose your momentum.
The slap of the riding crop made a crisp counterpoint to the click-click of her heels on the stone floor. The ring of keys on her studded leather belt jangled slightly. She slowed and approached the central chamber with caution. More than a few times she had found herself gasping as she approached the door, as though she had been running up a long staircase, unable to catch her breath. She thought at first it was a poison gas, and had looked in vain for signs of smoke or vapor. Nor did she ever smell anything out of the ordinary. Now she was sure it was something magical and not just the power Lord Voltmeter used to control his subjects. That was completely different, just a simple protection spell. This new thing, this feeling that her lungs were empty and couldn’t be filled, had something to do with the Diabolical Plan. And with the alchemist whom Lord Voltmeter had kidnapped.
That had been a good gig. The old man had been wary, and he was too valuable simply to bop on the head and wrap in a sack. Evil Assistant Valerie had lured the elderly scholar into Voltmeter’s clutches. It was part of her job and a good example, she planned to tell him, of why she needed to dress for her role.
She turned a corner, onto the broad hallway that led to the central chamber. There were no windows here. She paused to test her breathing and to let her eyes adjust to the flickering lamplight. The walls were bare of decoration. The floor was scratched and scored from the heavy machinery that had been dragged across it. The toe of her boot found a chip of stone and kicked it off into a corner. Once across the hall, standing in front of the entrance to the central chamber, she tested her breathing again. It was normal. Slipping the riding crop under her arm, she pushed with both hands on the massive oak door that guarded the Diabolical Device. It opened only a crack before she heard Voltmeter’s laughter.
There was a thin line, Valerie had been told, between genius and madness. Lord Voltmeter, she had always known, was about sixteen leagues on the wrong side of that line. You could tell by his laughter, a baritone hooting that so
unded like an owl with whooping cough. It gave even her the shivers, and she was in the evil business herself. Oh sure, all Evil Overlords cultivated mad laughs. You couldn’t be an Evil Overlord without a mad laugh. But in truth, for most of the others it was just an affectation. Voltmeter had a laugh that was truly insane.
And mingled with his laughter were the moans of the kidnapped man.
Valerie decided to put off her complaint until another time.
The Shadows were lengthening when Kevin Timberline, Prince of Rassendas, stopped his horses. He was at the top of a mountainous pass, and walls of tangled wood rose on either side of him, the heavy timber interlaced with fallen limbs and sealed with thick, thorny brush. Behind him a narrow track, sparsely dotted with wildflowers, skirted around the side of the mountain, followed a long ridge of rock, then disappeared among deep green pines. In front, the pass opened up into a shallow valley, carpeted with thick, lush grass. A broad stream cascaded down from the mountains, fed a water mill at the far end of the valley, and ran through the center of the pastures, to exit somewhere beneath Kevin’s feet. Sheep, goats, and cattle grazed on the lower slopes. The upper slopes were forested. Opposite the pass a cluster of shops sheltered at the base of a broad cliff, and above them, the sheer walls of the Fortress of Doom cast an umbra over the thatched roofs and cobbled streets.
Kevin was relieved. He had set out from the castle days earlier with two fresh mounts and a packhorse, switching horses to keep up a steady pace. It had been a long hard ride. One of the horses had thrown a shoe, and several times he had taken a wrong turn in the unfamiliar country and had to backtrack. With each delay his nervousness grew, for he was nagged by the fear that some other hero would get to the Invincible Fortress before him, dispatch the Evil Overlord, and carry Becky away. So when the Fortress finally came into view, when he was able to see for himself the armed guards that paced its ramparts, to note the fearful looks that the local farmers gave its rough black stone, to actually feel the evil presence that emanated from the dark towers and filled the valley with a sinister atmosphere, his mood improved greatly. There was little doubt that dark horror still lay within the Fortress of Doom. The cows especially were a giveaway. Any other valley this charming would have contented cows. These were the most disgruntled cows Kevin had ever seen, constantly looking over their shoulders at the Fortress and mooing under their breath.