The Lost Prince
Page 50
“So it’s a logistics problem?” Cal said.
“Maybe we can call UPS,” Colby quipped.
Cal locked eyes with the detective. “Colby, I swear, we’ll…”
“Settle down, Cal. What you’re doing for my boy … that’s more than I could ever dream of. For him to walk and see again … being undead is a small price to pay.”
“Yes, well, far be it from me to quit so easily,” Lelani said. “In anticipation for the time we are able to make you whole again, I’ve cleaned your heart’s arteries of plaque buildup, and used the powder to knit holes forming in your aorta and right ventricle. The organ should last another fifty years—far longer than your lungs if you continue to…”
Cal took Allyn outside into the hallway as Lelani and Colby argued the health risks of cigarette smoking.
“What’s going on at home?” Cal asked the reverend.
“Michelle is being Michelle—stubborn as a bull. But it’s my home, my family, and my church, and I will deal with it. I’m staying in this universe, Cal—and like all good things, my life here is worth fighting for. I can do tremendous good. Restore people’s faith.”
“But … Allyn, what about your clerical order? Pelitos? How can you preach Christianity knowing what you know?”
“What do I know, Cal?” Allyn said.
“But…”
“Cal, have you ever heard the story of the blind men and the elephant?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Three blind men were shown an elephant and allowed to touch it so they could ‘see’ what it was. They each grasped a different part and soon began to argue. The first man grasped the trunk and declared it was a snake; the second felt the animal’s leg and insisted it was like a tree, and the third man held the elephant’s tail and claimed it was like a slender rope. They were all wrong, and yet, all right. I have an enlightened view of the universe now, as is appropriate for all travelers. It does not exclude Yahweh or Jesus. And I truly believe the Christian path, when celebrated without prejudice and false airs, will lead people to a happy and moral life.”
Cal mulled over the sermon, suspecting it applied to his life as well. He gave the reverend his blessing and promised to let him know when they were planning to head back home so that Allyn could give him letters and photos for his siblings.
Cal walked down the hall and stood outside his bedroom door for a few moments. He breathed deeply and knocked. The light was still on, so he entered quietly, but Cat was awake and rolled over on the king-sized bed to face him. She wore leopard-skin spandex pants and a Bon Jovi T-shirt that Gina had lent her.
“You look lovely,” he told her sarcastically.
“You have to see this woman’s closet,” Cat said. “It’s as big as our living room and there’s not a single tasteful item in the entire thing. This whole house looks like a patrician villa in Pompeii before the eruption. I chose leopard skin out of desperation. If you prefer tiger or zebra…”
Cal stopped her with a wave of his hand. “That’s okay, thanks. Thought you’d be asleep.”
“Can’t sleep.”
Cal sat on the bed next to her. He rubbed her arm softly. “Lot on your mind, huh?”
She nodded.
“Is it what Dorn did to you, what you did to him, or what I did to you by not telling you about Chryslantha?”
Cat nodded.
He whistled. “All of the above. No wonder you can’t fall asleep.”
“I’ll make my peace with what I did to Dorn … eventually. After what he did to us—to me—it’s not as though he didn’t have it coming.”
“I see. And the other thing?” Cal asked.
“Do you still love her?”
It was the question Cal had dreaded ever since his memories returned. He could not lie to Cat, not even if he wanted to. “Yes,” he said.
Cat was being brave, holding her reaction at bay even as tears welled.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Cat. I just … Chrys and I didn’t decide to go our separate ways. There was never closure. She’s still in Aandor, hopefully unharmed, praying that I’m not dead and waiting for me to come get her. She still believes we have a future together. She’s such a good … a good…”
It was Cal’s turn to well up; emotions he didn’t allow himself to feel while he searched for the prince tore through his constraint. It wasn’t just what he’d put his wife through with the revelation. He experienced true bereavement—the loss of a loved one. It was as if Chrys had died—he could never go back to her. It was worse, actually—after all was resolved, after all the pain he and Chryslantha were slated to experience when he tells her of his marriage, Cal will have to bear the thought of her marrying another man—some choice of her father’s to bury the shame of his daughter’s carnal indulgence. Another man will make love to the woman he still cherished and who had been his best friend for his entire youth.
He took solace in his vow to Catherine; he very much loved her and Bree. Cat didn’t realize yet how much he would need her to help him through this tragedy. But before that could happen, he had to make amends.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up,” he told her. “There was never a good time. I hadn’t even worked out what the betrothal meant to me. Part of me thought if I died trying to save the prince, it would have been better for everyone. Then I wouldn’t have to break anyone’s heart. Not until I learned Dorn had you hostage did everything crystallize. I was so afraid, Cat—so angry. Not just for you but for myself as well—the thought of living my life without you in it.”
She sat up and wrapped her arms around his neck. Cal didn’t know where such a small woman got all her strength, but he thanked gods in both universes that she was on his side.
“You should have trusted me,” Cat said.
“Yes … yes—I’m not making excuses. Please, forgive me. You’re my wife. I’m taking you, Bree, and the new baby back with me, and we’ll deal with the consequences when we get there.”
“When?” she asked.
“A year, maybe two. What we’re considering … it’s ambitious.”
“Guess I should change my masters program then,” she said. “Medieval anthropology or animal husbandry.”
They laughed.
“We’re a little more sophisticated than medieval,” Cal said.
“Really? That why you hack each other up with swords and axes and call each other ‘my lord,’ and curtsy?”
“Well…”
“I just feel bad about my mother,” Cat said. “She’s going to have a much harder time with that kind of life.”
“You’re mother?”
“Yeah.”
“We are not bringing Vivian,” Cal said.
“The hell we’re not,” Cat said.
“There’s no room for her. It’s a small castle.”
“I’m not going up against your mother without mine at my back.” Cat cast him a determined grin.
Cal swallowed his response. He was too tired to fight, and had over a year to talk Cat out of the insufferable notion. He smiled back and kissed her. She pulled him down on top of her.
“Wait, the lights,” he whispered.
Cat smiled devilishly, clapped her hands twice in quick succession, and like magic, the room went dark.
EPILOGUE 1
Daniel sat under a blanket in a lounge chair on Tilcook’s back patio. The pool was covered for the season and the sky dark with a bright smattering of the stars. Daniel’s breath painted the air white before him despite the fire burning in the stone fire pit next to him. The wood cracked and spit as the fire consumed it, the smell of mesquite soothing to the boy’s senses. Seth Raincrest also sat beside the fire pit with his staff beside him. Daniel guessed that it was for his protection. Callum didn’t want him outside alone until they could account for all the golems and the few remaining bad guys. Daniel felt a bit like a prisoner. Tilcook had a lot of security on the grounds—dogs and roving groups of family soldiers—he thoug
ht having a shadow on top of that was overkill.
Seth was fiddling with the big stick. A lit cigarette hung from his lips as he stroked the wood with ultrafine grade sandpaper.
“How much more you got to do?” Daniel asked.
“Not much. Going to stain it with some water seal. Lelani says it’s not necessary. The magic protects the wood, makes it hard as steel. Only another wizard can shatter it in a duel at this point. Still, I think I’m going to go for a wheat or golden maple color—kind of like a Louisville Slugger.”
Daniel had an off-color joke about the guy being overly obsessed with his staff, but it was not princely, and he decided against it.
These people—these utter strangers—looked up to him. They admired him, despite the fact that he killed his stepfather and ran away from home. They considered him strong and possessing leadership qualities—they executed the decisions he made in Manhattan. Daniel had said in the rec room that he missed his friends Adrian and Katie and wished he could see them again. They all set about trying to figure out a way to get them up to North Jersey for a weekend without tipping off the cops. And Malcolm hired some heavy-hitting New York lawyers to get the Baltimore prosecutor’s office to drop the murder charges against him, based on circumstantial evidence of self defense. A New York City cop, a billionaire industrialist, a mafia capo, a Baptist reverend—all working toward his benefit and taking his suggestions seriously, like they were required to listen to him. It was surreal.
“They think I’m your half-brother,” Seth said, out of the blue. Daniel didn’t expect that.
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s how they justify my having been sent on this mission. I’m the reason you got lost in the first place, though—put into foster care. I was a bit of a fuckup.”
“I thought it was because the guy taking care of me had those interdimensional bends like Dorn and drove our car into a truck.”
“Galen and Linnea should never have been alone that night. The group was supposed to stick together. The plan was to buy up an entire block of houses somewhere and live tight-knit. My faux parents might still be alive if we did that. Lita, the woman pretending to be my mom, had the migraines, too, and set our house on fire in an act of madness.”
“Yeah, I’m not too crazy about getting migraines that cause me to become a homicidal maniac. Does anyone know why that happens?”
“Nope. Lelani says it’s just random.”
“Hey, is—she really a centaur?”
“Yep.”
“If I ask her to show me, would she do it?”
“Probably. She needs you to save her race. She’d probably jump your bones if you asked her. Might want to spritz on some Calvin Klein Obsession first.”
“Ewwwww! That’s like screwing a horse!”
The two of them sniggered.
“Could be worse…,” said Seth. “She could be a mermaid.”
They both said, “Ewwww!” and chortled harder.
When the laughing died down, Seth turned to him, all serious, and asked, “Do you want to go back?”
Daniel thought about it long and hard. There was no Xbox in Aandor—no baseball, comic books, movies, airplanes, NASCAR, or even electricity. They still had to repel twenty thousand enemy soldiers from the homeland first. At the same time, his parents—his real parents—were back there. He’d be running the kingdom eventually. And even if Mal’s lawyers could get them to drop the murder charges, it would hang over him wherever he went, the rest of his life. Clyde Knoffler was not worth going to prison for.
Daniel looked at the man that might or might not be his half brother. Seth seemed like a fun guy, in a seedy sort of way. This was a good crew to hang with. They loved their kids and each other—as good a lot to throw in with as any.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” he said. “It’ll be fun. Bring it on.”
EPILOGUE 2
Hesz entered Balzac’s small basement university office by crouching under the door frame. His head just cleared the ceiling, and only in places where naked pipes did not run along it. The professor looked up from his back-leaning swivel chair, where he graded the latest term papers at his desk. He wore a wool sweater vest and his reading glasses hung at the end of his nose.
Hesz closed the door behind him and locked it.
“Dorn is dead,” said the frost giant. “As are Kraten, Symian, and all the rest in our party.”
Balzac put down the paper he was marking and folded his hands across his belly.
“I told you things were heading in that direction, my friend,” Balzac said. “My information gave you several advantages, none of which you exploited to your fullest. Instead of waiting to conjure magical golems with forbidden spells, you could have used your vast wealth here to hire some local human thugs to go to the hotel and shoot them.” Balzac threw his hands in the air in defeat. “Even when not suffering debilitating migraines, Dorn always had an arrogant, entitled streak running through him. Kraten, too. The type of men who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. Comes from a childhood of having everything done for you. Always others to pick up your … In this case, Dorn would have been better off delegating the whole matter to you, my friend.”
“I’m bothered by your lack of concern for our cause … our well-being,” Hesz said.
“Concern?”
“Surely by now they know of your betrayal. Lady MacDonnell will likely reveal…”
“What of it? Are they going to go to the authorities, where an interview with me will reveal that they have as little place in this world as I do? None of us are of this universe. Will they murder me in cold blood? Am I not a citizen of the United States, a tenured professor of good standing? I took no part in any murder. I simply visited two hotels to talk to friends in town. Gossip is not illegal. My treason was in Aandor—Aandor has no reach here. We are out of their jurisdiction.”
Hesz sat on a small loveseat against the wall, worrying his hat in his massive hands. “That is all well and fine for you, Balzac. What of me? I have no place in this world. I am not so inconspicuous that I can blend in and disappear. My cause lies in that other reality, and I have no means by which to get home.”
“Fear not, my friend. We shall see home again.”
“We? Are you a sorcerer as well?”
“Not at all. They will bring us home with them.”
“You are mad, Balzac. They will never trust us.”
“It’s not so much a matter of trust, my gentle giant, as it is of need. We possess information that is invaluable to them. Troop strengths and positions, fleet sizes, targets, number of wizards, spies, the spells used to undermine their security.”
“They will place us in chains,” Hesz protested.
“Yes, and bring us back home in them. The key point being we will get home. Once home, chains can be broken, deals can be made. And they will have their hands filled contending with Lara. She will be none too pleased to hear of her nephew’s demise. They thought Dorn was mad … his beautiful aunt makes him look like a choir boy.
“As for playing the royal court … MacDonnell will believe his wife’s accounting of my attempt to kill her, but the generals and court flotsam in Aandor will not put as much faith in the opinions of a woman. Aandor is not an enlightened society by any realistic measure, and my story will carry as much weight despite its fabrication.
“No, my friend … having failed to indoctrinate the prince to my own personal beliefs, the key is to get home by any means necessary and wait out this generation. Daniel’s heir will be the true emperor after all, the blood of twelve kings. I will appeal to these high-minded egos, placate their whims, and find myself in a position of influence again. And then, we shall reshape the world, by iron, by fire, and by blood.”
BOOKS BY EDWARD LAZELLARI
Awakenings
The Lost Prince
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EDWARD LAZELLARI’s short story “The Date” was published by Playboy magazine. He has worked as a
writer, illustrator, and graphic artist, doing projects for Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics. Lazellari lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. Visit him on the Web at www.edwardlazellari.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LOST PRINCE
Copyright © 2013 by Edward Lazellari
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Chris McGrath
Edited by Paul Stevens
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2788-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4743-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781429947435
First Edition: August 2013