The Kidnapped Prince (Tales from the Land of Ononokin Book 5)

by John P. Logsdon

  “That shouldn’t be much of a challenge, my lord,” she said without pause.

  “Good, and...” The king stopped and squinted at her, but she remained impassive. “Hmmm. Well, anyway, you may not have heard but it appears that Prince Jack Nubbins has disappeared.”

  Guard Kelsa’s eyes widened as she sat up.

  “He has?” she said as though she’d been slapped.

  “Yes,” the king said at length. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, well, it’s just that I feel, uh, bad for the princess, my lord.”

  “Oh, right, of course.” The king waved at her dismissively and then leaned back in his chair. “Well, I don’t. If it were up to me, I’d throw a party celebrating the disappearance of that little knob.” He gave Kelsa a knowing glance and added, “Maybe even a birch party, eh?”

  “Sorry, sire?” said Kelsa, looking confused.

  “I hear they’re all the rage these days,” he said, feeling that he was finally in-the-know about something that someone from the younger generation wasn’t aware of. “I’m surprised you don’t know about them,” he added condescendingly.

  “I’m not one for parties, sire.”

  “Right.” He waved again. “That’s not important anyway. What is important is pleasing one’s wife, and that’s my challenge.”

  Kelsa looked thoroughly surprised by his statement.

  “Sorry to hear that, my lord,” she said with one eye on the door. “I hear that there are pills now on the market called Elfagra that can help...”

  Corbain caught what she was thinking before she finished and so he held up his hand to silence her.

  “Thank you, Guard Kelsa, but I didn’t mean it that way.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “I’m just fine in that area, I’ll have you know.”

  “Excellent, sire.”

  “Well, I don’t know about excellent,” he admitted, “but I’d say fair to nearly gifted.”

  “Right.”

  He chewed his lip as he realized that the situation was quickly taking a wrong turn. All he needed was for one of the kingdom’s guards to start spreading rumors that their king was having trouble in the sack. He’d be a laughingstock.

  “Let’s forget we just discussed that, Guard Kelsa, yes?”

  “Gladly, sire.”

  “Anyway, my issue is that I have to play along with the charade of allowing the princess to hire a wizard so that she may seek out Nubbins.”

  Kelsa nodded. “I see.”

  “But I’ve had about enough of all of this,” he continued, “and I have no desire to allow my kingdom to become attached to the Nubbins’s hemp farm.”

  “Sounds wise, my lord.”

  This was the kind of interaction that he missed. Talking directly with the guards. They knew what was important. Safety, security, and the preservation of the kingdom was their task. He was more their style and they were more his. He loved his Helena, of course, but where she was the diplomat, he was the warrior.

  “At least someone besides me in this castle has some sense,” he said as he picked up a small pewter figurine of himself and began spinning it about. “Now, I want you to go along with Princess Jill on this quest of hers. If she finds him, I want you to do whatever you have to do in order to break up their engagement.”

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “I don’t want you to kill him, of course.” He spun the figurine a few more times. “That could start a war if anyone ever found out about it.” He paused and thought about that. A war with a bunch of stoners probably wouldn’t be much of a challenge. “Worse, I would never hear the end of the nagging from Helena.” He set the statue back in its place. “But if you have to plant evidence of him doing my daughter wrong, so be it.”

  “I could sleep with him,” she suggested a little too enthusiastically.

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “Just a thought.” She shrugged. “I could sleep with Prince Nubbins. That would put the engagement off.”

  “I’m sure it would, but...” He gave her a concerned look. Was this the kind of soldier that his generals were training cadets to be these days? If so, he’d have to get back into running a few cadet training sessions himself. He looked at Kelsa and doubled his interest in reengaging with the military. But what about her current idea? If he gave her the reins to go through with having an affair with the prince, and Helena found out, it’d be worse than if he’d authorized the boy’s assassination! “I’m not telling you to sleep with this guy. For goodness sakes, Helena would make my life a living hell if that ever broke in the news." He frowned even more. "And if MISS caught wind of it, they’d hang me up by my nethers.”

  “Sorry, sire, but Miss?”

  “M.I.S.S.,” he clarified, accentuating each letter. “You know, the Men Indeed Shall Suffer organization that started last year during the women’s liberation push?”

  “Ah, yes. My mother was a charter member, actually.” She glanced up quickly. “Sorry, sire. I disapproved of it completely, of course. Anyway, I’d just never heard it called by its acronym, my lord.”

  “Right.” He grimaced. “Look, just do what you have to in order to destroy their engagement. Anything that won’t lead back to me, anyway.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  BRAINSTORMING

  Heliok sat in a conference room with three of his underlings, Lornkoo, Mooli, and Aniok.

  To a Fate, they were all different. Aniok was the looker in the bunch. His aura was a deep shade of crimson and it flowed in a nice waving pattern. Mooli’s was light gray and it rippled. Lornkoo’s was yellow and—for lack of a better way for Heliok to interpret it—it shuddered. To a non-Fate they were all just a bunch of green humanoids with red eyes and razor-sharp teeth.

  “I’m not worried about quests two and three just yet,” Heliok was explaining as he stood at the head of the table. “What I need is something solid as a first-quest for this Gungren fellow. Lornkoo, what have you found?”

  “There is a donkey missing in Dahl,” Lornkoo said in his quivering way. “It’s been gone for three weeks and his owners have been mildly worried. I found it in the forest about a mile away from their farm. It seems happy enough.”

  Heliok thought back on his discussion with Gungren. The little fellow was adamant about working with larger animals. A donkey was certainly bigger than a bunny, but was finding an animal, who didn’t appear to be really lost, exciting enough to get potential viewers? Probably not. Then again, based on the papers that Misty had left with him, they regularly tuned in to a show called How Junk Works. If that was successful, anything could be. To be fair, though, he was a Fate, which meant he knew how everything worked.

  “Too simple,” Heliok said finally. “Mooli?”

  “There is a dragon terrorizing the people of Tebudehn.” Mooli’s voice betrayed her aura. It was sweet and high and laced with anticipation. “It’s already laid waste to a few of their buildings and has sent a number of Halflings to the Afterlife.”

  “Definitely not boring,” considered Heliok. It would be a ratings-grabber, for sure. Of course the show would only last about five minutes since a full grown dragon would decimate the new wizard before he could even pull forth a wand, much less launch a defensive spell. “Alas, no. This Gungren fellow is just an apprentice. That sounds like a great third quest for him, but it’s a bit much for his first. Aniok?”

  “Well,” said Aniok, keeping his eyes on the paper in front of him, “it’s not much, but it seems that there’s a prince who has gone missing around the Kesper’s Range. His parents own a hemp farm.”

  “Anything else?” Heliok said, hoping there was more to the story.

  “Just that it turns out that he was kidnapped and taken into the Underworld.”

  “Interesting.” And it was, possibly. It all depended on why the prince was kidnapped. “Is there a war going on?”

  “More like a power struggle,” answered Aniok.

  “I see
. And this prince’s parents are looking for him, then?”

  “Actually, no.” He was sitting up now. “They’re kind of laid back about these things. Kind of chilled out about everything, really. Again, they’re hemp farmers. They think he’s just gone to sow some wild oats.”

  “He sews?”

  “Different spelling," explained Aniok. "Means he’s, uh, hooking up with chicks before he gets married.”

  “Ah, right,” said Heliok. “He’s not, though, correct?”

  “No, again, there’s a power struggle and he’s the pawn.”

  This was starting to look like a quest that fit nicely between the lost donkey and the deadly dragon. Heliok paused for a moment, thinking that The Lost Donkey And The Deadly Dragon made for an interesting book title. He shook his head and refocused.

  “Do you have more information?”

  “Some mob types in the Underworld kidnapped him and are holding him from another mob boss in the Underworld who tried to kidnap him first.”

  “Organized crime, eh?” Heliok said, feeling the yarn of drama pull at his senses. “What else do we know of this prince?”

  Aniok shrugged. “The prince is scheduled to be married to Princess Jill Henroot and she is looking to hire a wizard to help her find and retrieve Prince Jack.”

  “Wait,” said Heliok, nearly bouncing with the potentiality of this setup, “are you saying that this is a ‘princess saving the prince’ quest?”

  “Sort of,” Aniok replied. “She doesn’t know he’s been kidnapped. Well, not yet anyway. So it’s more of a ‘princess wants to find out where the heck the prince is’ kind of quest.”

  Heliok liked it. It had intrigue, mystery, a nice twist. This was the kind of show he’d watch, and that meant that mere Ononokinites would eat it up.

  “This sounds like exactly the kind of quest we need. Well done, Aniok. We’ll go with that one!”

  With that, he shooed everyone out of the room and snapped his fingers, bringing Misty Trealo up from the land below so that he could give her the good news.

  “Hello, Misty,” he started excitedly, but then frowned and tilted his head to the side. “Why are you naked?”

  “I was in the shower,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Would it kill you to warn someone before transporting them up here?”

  “Sorry.” He snapped his fingers and she was instantly dried and clothed. He’d put her in a toga. It wasn’t much, but it served to cover the right spots. “There. Now, we have found the perfect candidate and quest for your show.”

  She looked down at her toga and gave him a look that said “Seriously?” He didn’t see the problem.

  “Yeah, about that,” she said after shaking her head. “My boss doesn’t want to have to pay for these people to be on TV.”

  “Pay them?”

  “You have to pay people to be on any show, unless you get them to sign a waiver.”

  “So we’ll just have them sign whatever that is and be done with it.”

  “If we do that,” she pointed out, “they’ll know that they’re on a show and that will destroy the realness and the spontaneity.”

  “Damn, that’s true,” he said. A cunning idea struck him. “We’ll just tell them that it’s a new Fate requirement that we film for legal reasons.”

  “I like it,” she replied with a slow nod.

  “Well, I am a god.”

  “You mean a Fate.”

  “Oh, yes, that.”

  “Anyway,” Misty added, “it still doesn’t knock out the whole bit where they will eventually figure out that they’re on TV. When that day comes, they’re going to want to get paid.”

  “That’s true.” Heliok thought about this for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “When it gets to that point, won’t it be the case that the show will be huge?”

  She bit her lip. “Possibly.”

  “And if it is, you’ll certainly get large sponsors that will more than account for whatever payments would be deemed fair to our Gungren and the Princess Jill Henroot, yes?”

  “Either that or I’ll have been fired anyway,” Misty concurred, “at which point it will be Knud’s problem since I’ll be out of the company.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I like the way you think, Heliok,” Misty said with a sly grin. “You’re my kind of people.”

  “Oh?”

  She let the toga fall to the floor.

  “Oh!”

  “Now,” she said, smiling to herself, “send me back home so I can put on some of my own clothes.”

  “Oh.”

  TELLING WHIZZFIDDLE

  Whizzfiddle was seated at the kitchen table when Gungren walked through the back door.

  “What happened?” the elderly wizard said, recognizing that he sounded like a concerned parent. “Where did you go?”

  “I got brought up to talk to a Fate guy.”

  “A Fate?” Whizzfiddle more yelped than said.

  “Yep.” Gungren washed his hands. He was a fellow into cleanliness, after all. “Him not seem to like you much.”

  Whizzfiddle pursed his lips at that. “Let me guess. Heliok?”

  “Yep.”

  “The feeling is mutual. Did he offer you a quest?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried that I’d have to...”

  “Him giving me three of them.”

  Whizzfiddle’s head snapped up. “Three? That’s not right. I only got one.”

  “Him say I am a pig.”

  “A pig?”

  “Yeah. Trying something new.”

  “Oh, you mean guinea pig.”

  Whizzfiddle’s first reaction was to forbid Gungren from getting tangled up with Heliok. His second reaction was that he didn’t really have the power to enact his first reaction. Besides, he knew Gungren would just argue and complain until he’d broken Whizzfiddle down.

  He sighed.

  “I hope you realize that these quests are often dangerous?”

  “Better than hunting bunnies,” Gungren answered as he set about making a cheese sandwich.

  “That may be, but you don’t often see people destroyed by bunnies.” Whizzfiddle glanced out the window as a memory struck him. “Though there was that story of some knights on a quest being killed by a rabbit.”

  “That were just a movie,” Gungren countered. “That not really happen.”

  “Really?” Whizzfiddle had been a bit tipsy when he’d seen the show. He’d thought it was a documentary. “Anyway, as your master I must strongly advise against you taking these quests, Gungren. You’re still very new to all of this and, well... you’re just not ready yet.”

  “I know how you feel, master,” Gungren said gently as he placed the sandwich in front of Whizfiddle. “But you have to remember that I only got three months. After that, I’ll be throwing rocks again. To me that means I got no choice but to be ready now.”

  Whizzfiddle stared at the plate. He’d lost his appetite.

  “That’s a difficult point to argue, I’m afraid.”

  “Besides, you am going with me, right?” said Gungren hopefully.

  “I’d have little choice.”

  “No,” Gungren said with a serious look as he took the seat opposite of Whizzfiddle. “I not expect you to go if you not want to go.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Gungren.” Whizzfiddle pushed the plate away. “You’re my apprentice. If you go on a quest, I must go as well. It’s in the rules of the guild.” He leaned back and rubbed his chin. Like it or not, this little Giant had become near and dear to the old man’s heart. Gungren was the son that Whizzfiddle had never wanted. “Plus, I would never dream of sending you on your own.”

  “Thanks, master.”

  Going on a proper quest may do his old bones some good anyway. How, he didn’t know, but he was doing what he could to inspire himself.

  It wasn’t like he’d be the one doing the work. It’d be on Gungren’s shoulders. Yes, he would mentor the la
d and give pointers here and there, and probably even cast a spell or two, as the need arose, but he would do his best to stay in the shadows while Gungren did all the heavy lifting.

  The trick, though, was that he had to be on the lookout for challenges that Gungren wouldn’t see coming. Fates had a way of twisting circumstances around to fit their particular interests. Worse, they didn’t always reveal those nuances until it was too late.

  He hearkened back to his own quest with Heliok. Fact was the circumstances that unfolded during that little adventure were Whizzfiddle’s own fault. Heliok had actually been rather decent. But Whizzfiddle had heard many a story from other wizards living in Rangmoon where Fate Quests didn’t run as smoothly as they’d been laid out.

  Even the Guild Chair, Muppy, had once recounted the quest they’d sent her on. She was to find the Gemstone of Taniq. They’d told her it was in the land of Sed’s Point. That meant dragons. It was dangerous, to be sure, but wizards and dragons tended to get along better than, say, knights and dragons. Thus, Muppy assumed it would be a quick snatch-and-grab job. But it had turned out that the poor dragon had accidentally inhaled the gem and gotten it lodged in her nose. Muppy had to crawl inside the beast’s nasal passage to wiggle the rock free. As she had explained it, “There’s not much I can recall in my existence that is as disgusting as being covered in dragon snot.”

  Yes, Whizzfiddle would have to keep on his toes, indeed.

  “What is this quest?”

  Gungren shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”

  “That’s odd. Usually they have it all planned and ready.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Well, what are you getting if you complete the quest? Gold, diamonds, perpetual life? You’re young enough where that last one isn’t such a bad deal.”

  “Him going to fix my teeth, face, and body.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know you cared...” Whizzfiddle adjusted in his chair. “I mean, interesting.”

  “And I should get experience, too,” noted Gungren. “That way I can be a real wizard before my time is up.”