“It’s a good idea11,” Coe said, switching his blade to his left hand. “We should all go at half speed and try not to hurt them too bad.”
Time ticked slowly by—the way Epik only wanted it to when he was in the throes of a good book. But right now, the halfling inside him was calling to be let out. He wished they could have already been in the castle tower and saved the damsel. He wondered if she was even in distress.
Despite that, and funnily enough, he was quite content in the moment with Gerdy. She looked good in the dim light, he thought. Which wasn’t exactly true because there was hardly any light at all. No torches or lamps were lit on this side of the castle.
They had made it over the wall and into the pit, just as Epik had before, only now there weren't a hundred kids clambering at the palace’s backdoor. Without even a bit of consult, he had taken out the wand and poked it through the locked door’s mechanism. He’d twisted, and it eased opened with a click.
“Where’d you learn that?” Gerdy said, impressed.
“It’s not magic,” Epik said. They went inside.
“Does anyone happen to know the way?” Gerdy asked.
“Well,” Gabby said. “If it were an ordinary castle, I believe the tower would be just up that way. But they’ve made all these additions. Perhaps we should split up?”
“Split up?” Epik said. “That doesn’t sound like a good idea. Gerdy doesn’t even have a weapon. And I’ve only got the wand. And you…“ Epik pointed at Gabby. “You don’t even have the dagger. Coe does.”
“True,” Gabby said earnestly. “But I’ll be fine without the wand, I assure you.”
“But—“
“I told you,” Gabby put his hands on his chest. “Magic comes from inside.”
“Fine,” Epik said. “But I still think we shouldn’t split—”
They came to an inner chamber where three stairwells intersected conveniently. Except only one seemed to matter because at the bottom of it several of the Palace Guard stood with dumb expressions. And there were yet more of them along the stair.
Gerdy was first to act. She tackled two of the men before they’d had any chance to react, knocking them both back into a wall. Their bodies crumpled up against the wall, slowly sliding down it in two heaps. Next, three men came at her all at once. But in a sharp move, she sprung cat-like down to the ground and used her leg to sweep them into a gangly mass of legs and elbows. But it wasn’t their own elbows they had to worry about. Gerdy dove on them, elbow first, landing squarely on the topmost diaphragm.
No, Epik thought. Gerdy didn’t need a weapon. She was one.
It took this long for Gabby to do anything. He began to conjure fire from his fists, hurling the flames at the men.
Epik had the wand. He brought up to head height. He felt the familiar tingle of magic there in the back of his mind. He was ready to use it. But then he noticed something. None of the guards eyes were on him. None of them at all. Their entire focus was on Gerdy and the wizard.
Epik stepped around them and made his way up the stairwell, almost tripping on a few uneven steps, one at the middle and another at the very top. It opened to an out of the way corridor, dank and musty. It looked like a servant’s thoroughfare, but the hall stopped with only one door at its end. He stepped around a knight, there by the door, who also didn’t notice he was there at all but went running down the hall at the sounds of the commotion.
Nacer looked up from the table. He was getting rather used to this kingly business. He moved the pieces on the table like it was a game. Now he understood how easy it could be to care about troop movements. His troops, he thought. He found if he put the figurines into arrangements around the board, they seemed better equipped to protect the realm. His realm.
Moving the 6th regiment closer to King’s Way did seem a prudent move in his judgment. Calling the 4th back, also had been necessary, though time intensive. It was the lack of troops here at the castle that was on his mind now.
He’d had word there was a disturbance just outside. Now the door had opened. And a figure stood there. One he’d never seen without it being cloaked in shadow.
“I guess you expect a reward?” Nacer said. “You were such a help. I agree.”
Epik looked back at him skeptically.
“What are you talking about?” the halfling asked.
“It wasn’t you? The Shadow?”
“No,” Epik said, seeming to remember something. “That was my dad with the trolls.”
“Oh,” Nacer stroked his goatee, “and where is your father now?”
“He… he um… He died,” Epik said. A pang of anguish filled his stomach.
“Too bad,” Nacer said.
The halfling’s eyes moved from Nacer to the bed and back again.
“Oh, her,” Nacer said. “Nothing to worry about. She’s just taken a sleeping tonic. I’ve heard it’s all the rage, helps on one’s wedding night. Not that we’re exactly married… yet. But we will be.”
The halfling nodded, unsure. He looked to be struggling to get words out.
“I’ve… I’ve come to rescue her,” he said somewhat matter-of-factly.
Nacer hissed out a giggle. Again, he was getting used to this kingly business, laughing without his mouth open, maniacally.
“You have, have you?” He placatingly waved his hands to the bed. “Well, by all means.” Epik looked at him strangely then ran to the bed and began untying the ropes, belts, and other manner of bonds attached to the girl. “You didn’t happen to see a knight out there? It’s just... He’s usually out there.”
But at that moment, Sir Silent Bob came around the door. He was holding his helmet and looking at it awkwardly. The top of which was dented in at the cranium.
“What did you go and have a smoke or something?” Nacer questioned.
Sir Bob sighed, silently. Shrugging sheepishly, he pointed down to the helmet like it was an answer.
“We have a guest,” the new king chided. Bob took no action, except to stare at the halfling. “He’s come to save the girl. Probably on that Epiman’s orders.”
“No,” Epik said, having trouble with a rather cumbersome knot. “On my own accord.”
“Oh.”
Epik tried to hoist Myra’s limp body from the bed but was unable.
Nacer was grinning both inwardly and outwardly. Pretty soon he would have what he wanted. “And to think,” Nacer chided. “A whole lineage blinked out in one day. There aren’t any idiot brothers for me to contend with are there? I’m not big on revenge plots. So, if you have them, I’d like to know.”
“I have a mother,” Epik offered.
“Noted,” Nacer said. “Now, Sir Bob, if you’d please… kill him and let’s get this over with.”
The words hung there like a knife flung through the air. They were received exactly as Nacer wanted. Epik let go of Myra’s limp wrists and backed as far as he could to the other wall.
Sir Robert, good Sir Bob, faithful and silent, unsheathed his sword. He strode forward, grinning slightly. He held his sword in one hand, and with the other, he held his helmet. He let it drop to the floor with a clang, giving the knight the opportunity to take the sword in both hands. Tightening his grip, Sir Robert laced his top pinky through the bottom pointer finger. The halfling watched it all in slow motion, not doing anything to save himself.
“Your helmet,” Epik said hesitantly. “Can I ask, what happened there?” The halfling was feeling around in his cloak for something. But there was no time. He was without a real weapon. And he was alone.
The knight looked back as if asking for permission to speak.
“Go ahead. I’d like to know as well.”
Sir not so silent Bob cleared his throat.
Epik felt frantically through the pockets of his cloak. Why were there so many? He had thought it a good idea at the time, asking the tailor to sew in pockets for all manner of food stuff. There was a pocket for cheese and bread, one for pipeweed, and one exceptionally lar
ge pocket for ground coffee. But how were you supposed to remember if things were in the second pocket down, third over, or the third down, second over?
“Just a silly girl down in the hall,” Sir Robert said. “She clocked me good with a few blows, but I did her one better.”
“Did you hurt her?” There was a tone in Epik’s voice he didn’t recognize. Distressed was the right word—and it came to mind.
“I did!” the knight said with an even wider smile. “Badly.”
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go at all. And where then was the wizard if Gerdy had made it to Sir Robert? Did they share the same fate?
There was only air between Epik and the sword now, and even it diminished by a yard with each of Sir Robert’s steps. The knight lunged forward. He brought the sword to its highest height before slicing it down toward Epik’s noggin. His round, rubber-like head. Time slowed like the illusion it always is, and the sword came careening down inch by inch. Epik watched its slender edge tip downward… but slightly angled to the left. As it fell, the knight’s left wrist was betraying him, twisting the sword as his muscles and gravity combined with full force. Epik noticed this technicality just in time—he tilted his head to the right, and instead of the blade catching him squarely, the flat middle of the sword hit him with only a glancing blow. It careened backward. This time, Robert’s wrist truly betrayed him. Still turning, the edge arched back at him and found its way perpendicular to the knight’s forehead. Then it buried itself inside.
“Damn!” Nacer said. “And I was beginning to really like him, too.” The new king strode over to the fireplace with purpose.
In that instant, two things happened. The cavalry arrived (and it looked a whole lot like an old gray-bearded wizard in a robe) and Myra yawned, awake.
“I’ve really got to find a better staff,” Nacer said. He took up arms, finding the poker he had used to stab King Simmons.
“Come in, come in,” he said nonchalantly to the wizard.
Gabby took in the scene. There was Myra still on the bed wrestling with consciousness, a dead knight on the floor, and Epik huddled against the wall, pawing at his cloak.
Finally, the halfling found the wand and brandished it.
“Not yet,” Gabby scolded. “Remember the a catch.”
Gabby had said there was a catch to the spell, but he’d never said what it was.
Epik nodded, holding the wand with trembling hands.
“And so we meet again,” Nacer said. “You know, in the courtroom I actually felt bad for you. I thought I may be doing the wrong thing. Not now, of course. You’ve proven to be a bigger thorn than even that Epiman fellow in hiding. He’ll get his too… But you first.”
Gabby began to mutter words under his breath, a spell of some sort. But nothing was happening. Epik wondered if he needed the wand. But that was stupid; he’d seen Gabby do magic without it.
“Go ahead,” Nacer said. “Do your worst.”
Gabby’s mutter grew louder; his eyes grew wider. Still, nothing happened.
“Oh, perhaps it’s this.” Nacer took a small stone from his pocket and brought it up to show them.
“A moonstone,” Gabby gasped. He looked affronted. And before Epik even knew it, the poker was in Gabby’s ribs. He seemed to nod to Epik before falling to the floor.
“The catch,” he said slowly and without breath. And those were the last words Gabby ever spoke.
Epik watched as the wizard’s form turned quite literally into flame, engulfing his robe, the whole room looked afire. The flame sparked high, all the way to the ornate ceiling, and then it simmered until all that was left was a smoldering bit of the robe and strangely, the wizard’s beard and his eyebrows cindered out before the rest of him. It looked odd, just a beard and eyebrows lying on the floor next to a mound of ashes.
“Do you know?” Nacer asked. “Is it supposed to look like that? I’ve never actually seen a wizard die before.” He turned to Epik. The bloody poker pointed at his head.
“Neither have I,” Epik said tentatively.
But the revolving door to the chamber remained open. And this time, the struggling form of Gerdy stumbled to the door. She held her side. It was bleeding. Myra’s eyes were fully awake now. She let out another yawn.
“Gerdy!” she said loudly.
“I’m having an off day, that’s it, isn’t it,” Nacer said, flustered. He was closer to Epik now. And ready to jab the poker deep into the halfling—as he had the wizard.
But Epik still held the wand, and he pointed it at the new king’s face.
Nacer smiled.
“And what’s that going to do? I’ve still got my moonstone. It protects me from wizards, you know.”
“I’m not a wizard,” Epik said.
The smile on Nacer’s lips faltered. Still, he was filled with the confidence of a blood thirsty king. “No matter,” he said. “Out of curiosity though, what are you going to try to do? Kill me? Is that it? Turn me into a toad?”
“No,” Epik said. “Not kill you.” He drew the wand up level with his shoulder. “What are halflings good at?”
“Eating,” Gerdy said. And she laughed a little through the pain.
Nacer shrugged. “Being a nuisance.”
“No.” Epik shook his head. “Being invisible,” Epik said plainly.
And for the first time, perhaps ever, Epik embraced his inner halfling. He grasped hold of it, along with the emotion of losing both his father and now Gabby. He harnessed what had been there inside him all along, binding the emotion with the magic tingling in the back of his mind.
And Nacer vanished.
“Where’d he go?” Myra said through yet another yawn. She arched her arms through the air.
“Wow!” Gerdy exclaimed. “But, yeah, where did he go?”
“He’s here somewhere,” Epik said. “Just now, he can only affect people who want to see him—I think that’s probably no one.”
“And Gabby taught you that?”
Epik nodded, solemnly. “He did.”
He told Gerdy and Myra about everything. What happened in the woods. How Gabby had died. They made their way down to the bottom of the castle where they found the rest of the company had overtaken the Palace Guard.
“And we did it wrong handed,” Rotrick said, smiling. There was even a faint curl of a smile on Coe’s lips. It took all of Epik’s energy not to send the same spell back at Collus.
Shortly thereafter Mister Epiman came up the streets with K’nexes, Jed, Brendan, and the Watch from the Wall. And it was awkward for a few minutes there while they ironed out all of the heraldry bits. But once it was done, the bells of the castle were rung. And the people of the city flooded the gates to celebrate the passing of ten years in Dune All-En.
34
The Half Blood Prince
Winning, like most victories, felt bittersweet. Epik got caught up in the cheers and huzzahs, with the jubilation and the revelry. After about ten minutes or so, even that died away, and they were only left with slight smiles, nods, and a few clasps on the shoulders.
For the remaining men of the Palace Guard, things were a bit more awkward. They too smiled and nodded, pretending things had ended up the way they’d wanted all along.
Mister Epiman was now king, or he would be after the coronation. Myra would be a princess. Epik wanted to see the look on Frank Biggle’s face when he heard that Epik had saved a princess. He had, hadn’t he? That was one bit of solace he could take. But both his father and Gabby had died in the effort. And there was a slight queasy feeling in his gut over Mister Epiman being named king.
Epik knew these things came down to pieces of paper, to lines of blood, to lineages and what not. But Epik was now sure that Epiman had had some hand in everything—the removal of magic from the city, the trolls, the sickness. Even some part in killing his father. All of it. But Epik also knew, he couldn’t prove a thing. Not just now.
He buried that emotion—for now. Knowing that one day, he co
uld use his magic to do something about it. To right the wrongs.
The people of Dune All-En were content in knowing they had a new ruler and with far less bloodshed than the last time.
Epik found Gertrude amongst the many men and now women flooding the great hall. He had lost so many people in the past few hours: a father, and a mentor among them. But Epik was happy to now have a friend.
Perhaps more, he thought to himself. She’d been there. She’d seen most of it go down. Her smile wasn’t a cool summer breeze, but maybe he didn’t need all that. Maybe all he needed was her. Her squidgy brown eyes stared back at him, and crossing the room, she gave him the biggest of hugs, squatting down and wrapping her arms around his shoulders before clutching her side in pain.
“Still a bit tender,” she said. “But mom stitched me up. You were brilliant today, by the way. You know that, right?” Gerdy smiled.
Possibly like a crisp fall morning breeze, Epik thought.
“Have you seen the others?” he asked. “Where’d they run off to? Where’s Todder? And the dwarves?”
“They’re fine,” Gerdy said. “Said they’d rather go back to the Rotten Apple. Well, maybe not fine, Two-finger—”
“No,” Epik gapped. “He lost another finger?”
“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just… He lost a toe,” Gerdy said. “He was pretty distraught about it. Said he’s always liked the look of his feet.”
“That’s terrible,” Epik said.
“I know! I’m not a big foot person myself.”
“No, I meant about the toe,” Epik said. Gerdy smirked as Epik looked down at his feet abashed. The big hairy things were there for all to see.
“I’m only joking,” she said.
There was music playing, and Epik wondered if she could dance in her state, with her side stitched up. He really liked her, he thought. And he was positive she liked him.
“Would you like to—“
“Lil man!” a posh voice whisper yelled.
Hero in a Halfling Page 23