by Jeff Strand
"No, I won't. You're on the wrong side of the room."
Randall hurriedly moved to a position in front of the king's bed.
"You cretin!" Roderick snarled.
"That really was pretty low," Jack admitted.
"C'mon, Roderick, let's go for it," said Randall, taunting him. "Think you've got what it takes? I'll have you know--I've beaten people in hand-to-hand dead squirrel combat before!"
Roderick slashed his own dagger through the air a few times, implying if Randall had been that air, he'd be all slashed up now. "You want to duel? Great, let's duel!"
"I'm ready whenever you are."
"I'm ready right now."
"Therefore, I'm ready right now as well."
"So let's go!"
"Okay, let's go!"
Randall and Roderick lunged at each other. Stainless steel struck stainless steel with a sound like thunder.
"Ow, crud!" said Randall, dropping the knife and massaging his throbbing hand.
"Do you surrender?" Roderick asked, giving him a grin that failed to disguise the amount of pain he was in himself.
"Never!" said Jack. "He'll fight to the death!"
"So be it! Since I am an honorable man, I will allow you to retrieve your weapon before I slay you."
"You're just saying that to give your hand time to de-numb."
The king rolled over. "A little higher...yeah, that's right..." he moaned in his sleep.
"What did he just say?" asked Jack.
"Sounds like he's having an interesting dream," said Roderick. "I never get to have cool dreams like that. I always dream that I'm solving mathematical equations. It bites."
"You guys want to call a truce so we can mess with his dream?" Jack asked. "Or...hey, better yet, somebody get a glass of warm water to put his hand in!"
"The time for frivolity has passed," said Roderick. "A few minutes ago, I would've short-sheeted his bed with a wink and a giggle, but we have entered darker times now."
Jack lowered his head next to the king's ear. "Rain... rivers...waterfalls...floods...oceans...leaky drain pipes..."
"You know," said Randall, "you're carrying immaturity to a previously uncharted level."
"C'mon, you can't tell me it hasn't been one of your lifelong fantasies to make royalty wet the bed."
"Is it absolutely necessary that your mouth be open so frequently?" asked Randall.
Suddenly Roderick lashed out with his dagger. Randall dodged. Roderick lashed out again. Randall dodged again. Roderick lashed out a third time. In keeping with the continuity of the situation, Randall dodged again. To fool him, Roderick didn't lash out a fourth time. To show that he wasn't fooled, Randall didn't dodge a fourth time.
Jack whispered into the king's ear again. "Your legs have turned into spaghetti, and now you're playing leapfrog...on the moon." King Irving writhed uncomfortably in his sleep.
Roderick lowered his dagger. "How about we call a time-out so I can kill Jack first?"
"Nah. Hey, is that thing about me getting to retrieve my weapon still in effect?" Randall asked.
"I guess so. But if I lose my own weapon after that, I get to pick it up one time for free, okay?"
Randall nodded, then picked up his dagger. "Let's go! To the corpus delicti!"
They rushed at each other, then began an incredibly exciting duel. It was so impressive that no mere words could truly describe it, and therefore no mere words will be wasted.
It ended with Randall up against the wall, and Roderick's knife up against Randall's throat. "You lose," said Roderick, rather unnecessarily in everyone's opinion, even his own.
"Don't kill me," Randall requested. "I'll do anything."
"Will you shave my back?"
"Changed my mind."
Suddenly Jack sprung into action. Mustering all his courage, he rushed forward, hurrying to the other side of the room where no blood would get on him.
"How does it feel to have only ten seconds left to live?" Roderick asked.
"Not as bad as having only five seconds, I guess."
"Stop!" said Bug, flying into the room. "You don't need to fight!"
"Yes we do," Roderick corrected.
"No, you don't!" Bug insisted. "The twelve guards right behind me said so!"
The pause was a little too lengthy to make the moment truly dramatic, but shortly after Bug's statement twelve guards burst into the room, swords drawn.
"What's all this racket?" demanded King Irving, sitting up. "Best dream of my life, and you guys have to interrupt it!"
"Don't come any closer!" shouted Roderick. "I'll kill him! I mean it! I'm not lying! Don't mess with me! This is not a joke! I'm not kidding! If you come closer, I'll stab him! That's the truth! No bluffing here! Don't make me do it! I will! This is no deception! He'll die!"
"We're just here to save the king," explained one of the guards. "You can waste the squire--we don't care."
"Oh, really?" asked Roderick. He pulled the knife away from Randall's throat, then immediately spun around and pressed it against the king's throat. "Don't come any closer! I'll kill him! I mean it!"
"You're bluffing," said one of the guards.
"Want me to prove that I'm not?"
"No, not really."
"Then shut up! Okay, here are my demands! I want to assassinate King Irving of Rainey for his unspeakable atrocities without interference, and then I want to be provided with a horse to help me escape the kingdom! Understand?"
One of the guards stepped forward. "Okay, okay, just don't do anything crazy. We'll get you your horse, but it's going to take some time."
"I don't have time!" Roderick shouted. "If the horse isn't ready in ten minutes, the king dies!"
"Do what he says!" ordered King Irving.
Four of the guards filed out of the chamber. One of them returned a moment later. "A horse, right?"
Roderick nodded. The guard left again.
"You can't get away with this, you know," said Randall. "After you kill the king and get on your horse, they'll follow you to the ends of the Generic Fantasy Land. There's nowhere you'll be safe, not the Caverns of Despair, not the Pits of Searing Hellfire, not even the Slaughter Tombs of Agonized Shrieking and Bloodshed!"
"Says you."
One of the guards raised his hand. "I say it, too."
"Face it, Roderick," said Randall, "there's no way you can escape. You might as well give up right now."
Roderick was silent for a long moment, considering what to do. He moved the knife away from the king's throat. "Okay, suppose I let the king go and give myself up. What will happen to me?"
The guard with his hand still in the air spoke up. "Why, you'll be tortured and executed, of course."
Roderick pressed the knife against the king's throat again.
"No, no--he was just joking!" Randall insisted. "You were just joking, right?"
"Oh, uh, yeah," said the guard. "I was dead humorous."
All the other guards let loose with a series of hearty chuckles to prove to Roderick that the statement had been nothing more than a silly little gag.
"See?" asked Randall. "With all the stress in a guard's life, there's no way they could chuckle like that unless it had truly been a joke."
"Very well," said Roderick. "So, what happens to me if I surrender, then?"
The guard with his hand still in the air started to speak, but was knocked unconscious by one of his co-workers just in time. "Let's see," said Randall. "They'd have a huge feast in your honor, complete with the devouring of a dead animal that still looks like the animal it used to be while alive. Then you'd be given a gold bracelet worth millions of dvorkins, with your initials scratched into it."
"I don't have initials. My full name is Roderick."
"Then it would just use 'Rod.' Or 'Ick.' Anyway, after the feast ended, you'd be escorted by ten awesomely nubile women to the bathing room, where they would join you in a pool with water set to a temperature of your choosing, then pair off and slowly but thor
oughly bathe your appendages."
"Hmmmm...that sounds okay," said Roderick, "but how do I know you're not lying?"
Alan burst into the room. "Sorry to disturb you gentlemen, but I detected a minor vocal tremor that guarantees there's some lying going on in this very room!" He surveyed the current situation and realized his tactical error. "Of course, I'm probably wrong."
"Oh, yeah?" said Roderick. "Look me in the eye and tell me you were wrong about Randall lying."
Alan stifled a sob. "I can't. Sorry."
A guard burst into the room. "It was a horse, right?"
"Yes!" said King Irving.
The guard cursed and left the room.
"Forget this!" said Roderick. "The king dies now!"
"You keep saying that, and yet the king sure looks alive to me," Jack pointed out.
"Here goes!" announced Roderick.
Then Randall glanced up at the huge chandelier. He flung his dagger skyward, severing the rope that had formerly prevented the chandelier from falling onto the edge of the bed. The chandelier fell onto the edge of the bed. The force of its impact caused the other end of the mattress to flip upward, hurtling Roderick and King Irving through the air and onto the floor. The guards immediately subdued Roderick.
"He's saved the king!" Alan exclaimed.
"He's a hero!" said one of the guards.
"Hey, I deserve a little credit, too," said Roderick. "It's not like I killed the king when I had a chance."
King Irving got to his feet. "Get him out of here!" he ordered. The guards dragged Roderick out, kicking and screaming. Roderick was kicking and screaming as well.
"That was quick thinking," King Irving told Randall. "I guess I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"Me too," said Jack. "After all, I pointed out the chandelier in the first place."
"To show my great appreciation for what you've done, I won't send you to the guillotine to die a horrible death as planned. How's that sound?"
"Works for me," said Randall.
"I love everyone," said Bug.
Chapter 17
The Seventeenth Chapter
RANDALL AND Jack walked over the main drawbridge, as Bug flew behind them. It was still nighttime, but the air was magically lit.
"It was nice of the king to give us these first-place ribbons," said Randall. "I mean, he didn't have to do that."
"Big whoop-de-loop-de-doo. Heck, Roderick would have gotten this great feast, and all he had to do was not kill anybody."
"I was lying about the feast, Jack."
"Really? Well, now I don't feel so bad about the ribbon."
"What are we going to do next?" asked Bug.
"I need to get the reagents for the resurrection spell," said Randall. "I might have a lead on the Necklace of Power, but I'd have to go back to the forest for that anyway, so I'm going to hold off. In the meantime, I need breath from a sleeping maiden, the toenail of Jenstina the Ogre, and the legendary berserker Shreddriff himself."
"I guess we should start with the easiest one," said Jack. "I wonder where Shreddriff lives?"
"Look, guy and it, I welcome your help. But the quest may be dangerous, so I don't want you to feel like you have to come with me."
"Okay, bye," said Jack, walking off, never to be seen again, until he turned around and came back. "Changed my mind."
"I'm with you," said Bug. "You're my best friend."
"Then we're off," Randall announced. They walked around the kingdom walls, until they came to the broken drawbridge.
"Looks like some moron tried to walk across that thing," Jack noted.
"I wonder what that is?" Bug flew over to the gap in the bridge, where a piece of paper was floating. It picked it up with its back legs, then flew over to Randall and dropped it in his hand.
Randall unfolded the paper. "Dearest Pooky Moocher LoveyFrumps--oh, yeah, it's the note that I took from this lady named Scar. You'd probably like her, Bug. I forgot I'd put it in my shoe several chapters, er, a couple days ago."
"Well, let's hear it," said Jack.
"Dearest P.M.L.F., I love you so much it hurts. Ow ow ow! That's the sound of my love for you. Do you love me just as much? (circle one) Yes, No. I think you're swell. Best regards, Grysh." Randall looked up from the note. "What the...?"
"Heck?" prompted Jack, helpfully.
"Yeah, what the heck is going on here? Why would Scar have a love letter from Grysh? Unless...she stole it from Romeoo! Which means she knows where he is! Which means we might be able to find him! Which means I'll be spared another seduction attempt!" He put the letter in his pocket. "That's definitely something to check out later."
"Hey!" a guard's voice screamed. "Where's my pony?"
"Run!" Randall shouted.
TWO HOURS later, their journey took them to a small town. A sign read "Welcome to Manget Town. Population: 37 nice people, 4 jerks, 2 major jerks, 6 people ugly enough to melt mirrors, and one guy who sits around all day counting his arms to be sure they're both there."
"How nice," said Bug. "They welcomed us."
They proceeded down the main/only street, which contained a few small houses. But the primary attraction, taking up more space than all of the houses combined, was Madame Taylor's Hall of Supreme Exotic Dancers. A sign out front read "All private! All nekkid! All right!"
"I don't think the maidens run fast and free in these parts," said Jack.
"Nor do I," agreed Randall. "I guess we should ask around, though." He gestured to a pug-nosed, middle-aged man seated on a rocking chair up on his front porch. "Let me do the talking so we don't accidentally start Armageddon."
They crossed over to the house. Randall stepped up onto the first of two stairs.
"That stair ain't for walking on," said the man.
"Oh, sorry." Randall stepped down.
"That ground ain't, either."
"Look," said Randall, "we are two men and one bug questing for a virtuous woman to worship. Who in this town might serve our purpose?"
"Oh, that's easy. Try Yvonne over at the dance hall."
"No, no, obviously your standards of virtue are demented. What we're looking for is--"
"Her name is Yvonne the Pure," said the man. "She's just the hostess. She's less than brilliant, if you're into that kind of thing."
"Is she working now?" Randall asked.
"For another half hour. Then she'll go to bed, so she can fall asleep and breathe deeply."
"Convenient. Thanks for your help."
"I love you," Bug told the man.
"Yeah, well, that and two thousand dvorkins will get me a rushed nose job."
They began walking towards the brothel. "Bug, I think you'd better wait outside," said Randall. "I have a feeling this place may take your 'I love everyone' philosophy in a whole new direction."
"Okay, I'll go bring happiness to somebody who's feeling a touch of sorrow," said Bug, flying away.
"That is one upbeat insect," said Jack.
They approached the front door. "Have you ever been in a place like this?" Randall asked.
"No. What about you?"
"Never. But, I mean, it's not like we're going in to watch the dancing. We have a very serious mission here. It's a matter of life or death. It's not our fault there's going to be nakedness, is it?"
"It certainly isn't," Jack agreed.
"We'll just have a nice conversation with Yvonne the Pure, and...uh...I guess see if she'll let us come into her room while she's asleep and fill a small jar with her breath."
"Do we have a jar?"
"No. Guess I should've saved the one Bug was in. But they'll have jars in an exotic dance hall, won't they?"
"I don't know. What would they store in them?"
"Let's not think about it."
Randall opened the door, and they both stepped into the hall. The walls of the waiting room were covered with clown faces, and brightly-colored balloons and ribbons dangled from the ceiling. There were several striped couches upon which sat potent
ial audience members, all wearing party hats.
"Welcome!" said a young woman in an extremely enthusiastic voice, walking toward them with a hat in each hand. She was in her late twenties, with curly black hair and a sequined white dress.
"Uh, thanks," said Randall. "Is it always like this?"
"Of course it is! Because this is the happiest place in town!" She placed a hat on each of their heads. "Would you gentlemen care to see a dance menu?"
"Actually, no," said Randall. "To be completely honest, I find this place degrading to women. It sends the message to society that the female of the species is nothing more than a slab of meat."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," said the woman.
A voice called out: "Number fifty-seven, your dancer is ready. Number fifty-seven, your dancer is ready." A party of four got up and walked through a curtained doorway together.
"If you're not going to place an order, I want the hats back," said the woman. Jack clung to his protectively.
"We're looking for somebody," said Randall. "Are you Yvonne?"
The woman shook her head.
"Do you know where we could find her?"
"Her? Oh, you said Yvonne. I thought you said Ferdinand. Yes, that's me."
"Ferdinand?"
"No, Yvonne."
"Is there somewhere we could talk? This is very important."
"Yeah, okay, but your friend will have to cover for me." She pointed to a dresser against the wall. "The hats, menus, fireworks, and kazoos are in there. Seat the customers, and offer them a glass of wine. It tastes like whoever stomped on the grapes had Athlete's Foot, but it's complimentary. If a customer has any questions, give them one of the Madame Taylor's Q A pamphlets from the dresser, or just make something up. Oh, yeah, one more thing." She removed the If I don't greet you with a smile, your visit is free button from her dress and pinned it on Jack. "You're all set."
A loud buzzer sounded. "Special announcement! Jerome the Meek, over in cubicle eight, has just set a new Madame Taylor's Hall of Supreme Exotic Dancers drool record! Let's all give him a big hand!"
Yvonne led Randall past the applauding guests, through a polka-dot curtained doorway, and down a hallway filled with the sounds of tap-dancing feet and squeak toys. She opened the last door on the end, and led Randall inside a bedroom decorated entirely in white, with ruffles everywhere.