by Robert Bevan
“Jackoff!” said Cooper. “What the fuck, man? Let us out of here.”
Julian cleared his throat. “His name is Waxoff.”
“Whatever. I’m not good with names.”
Waxoff raised his candle arms and his hand-flames flared up like torches. “Silence!” When his flames died back down to normal, he continued in a calm tone. “Ze prisoners will present their soup buckets.”
“Fuck,” said Cooper. “That’s a soup bucket?”
Julian knew it was pointless, but felt he had to make a token effort at Diplomacy. “Why are we locked up? Why are you doing this?”
While Mr. Potter vomited soup into the buckets Tim and Dave held out to him, Waxoff shuffled to Julian’s cell and narrowed his eyes at the horse.
“What is zis dumb animal doing in here?”
Don’t volunteer any information. Keep them guessing. “How should I know?” said Julian. “I just woke up.”
Waxoff raised his eyebrows and smiled at Julian. “Ha ha! Ze joke is on your, monsieur! I was talking to ze horse!”
“Wow,” said Cooper. “I haven’t heard a joke that shitty since... um... Dave, when’s the last time you made a joke?”
“Soup bucket!” snapped Mr. Potter. The trolley had now rolled in front of Julian and Cooper’s cells.
“Fuck off,” said Cooper. “I’m not hungry.
Tim and Dave paused their slurping to laugh. Poor Cooper. But Julian had to admit, it was kind of funny.
Mr. Potter turned to face Julian. “And you?”
It occurred to Julian that he might make a show of solidarity with Cooper by joining him in a hunger strike, but neither Mr. Potter nor Waxoff seemed the slightest bit put off by Cooper’s refusal to eat. Anyway, he would need the energy.
He looked around his cell, now illuminated by Waxoff’s flames. He found his bucket under his horse, filled to the rim with horse piss.
“Shit,” said Julian. Back to the hunger strike. He straightened and folded his arms. “I’m not hungry either!”
Waxoff shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He continued past Julian and Cooper’s cells, and the trolley followed.
As the light from Waxoff’s candles moved further down the hall, another prisoner held his bucket out from the cell next to Cooper’s. His face was obscured by long, matted hair, but Julian figured him for a human from the look of his large filthy hands.
When the other prisoner had been served his paltry ration of soup, Waxoff led Mr. Potter’s trolley back to the dungeon entrance.
Julian waited a full minute, once again engulfed in darkness, before addressing the mysterious stranger.
“Excuse me,” Julian called out. “I know you’re there. I saw your hands. Who are you?”
“Why don’t you ask the dwarf?” said the stranger. His voice was deep, but rough, like it hadn’t been used in a while.
Julian turned his head the other way, staring into pitch-black darkness in the other direction. “Dave? Friend of yours?”
“I have no idea who he is,” said Dave. “I didn’t even see his hands.”
“I am the one you spoke of,” said the stranger. “My name is Garçon.”
“Shit!” said Dave. “If you’re here, then –”
“That is correct. The battle you spoke of is not in the future, but in the past. Nearly one month ago, by my calculation. A terrible catastrophe. My hubris brought many a good man to an early and grisly death.”
“But you managed to survive,” said Tim, his tone suggesting just a hint of accusation.
Julian tried to glare at him, but then remembered that neither one of them could see.
“‘Tis true, child,” said Garçon. I deserved not the mercy of the gods, and was certain I had instead suffered their wrath. For I was bitten by the one you call the Beast. Then I was thrown off the rooftop and impaled upon an iron spike. My departure for the deep Abyss seemed imminent. But in their mercy, the gods saw fit to spare me. I woke up in this cell, my wounds all healed, but I’m a hollow shell of the man I once was.”
“I know how you feel,” said Cooper. He sounded uncharacteristically sincere.
“Do you, friend?”
“Sure. I feel like I just shat my entire insides out.”
Tim clapped his hands once. “Well, if feelings time is over, how about we brainstorm a way to get out of these cells?”
“It’s hopeless,” said Garçon. “I flexed against these bars with all of my considerable might, but to no avail. Make yourselves comfortable, friends, for all hope is lost.”
Julian shook his cell door. “Quiet, Garçon! We still have a chance. We have a man on the outside, don’t forget.”
Garçon grunted. “And this man on the outside, he is big and strong enough to face the Beast and all of its minions alone? Enough to lay siege to this whole accursed house single-handedly?”
“Well, he’s technically more of a bird than a man. But he’s already in the house.”
“You said he was outside.”
“I meant he’s outside of the dungeon.”
“No, I’m not,” said Ravenus. “I’m right here, sir.”
“Ravenus!” said Julian. “What are you... Have you been here the whole time?”
“No, sir. I’ve only just arrived.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I hitched a ride under the drink trolley.”
Julian had pinpointed his familiar’s voice as coming from atop the horse’s rear, and tried to face that direction as he spoke.
“Listen, buddy. I’ve got kind of a dangerous mission I have to send you on. Do you think you’re up for it?”
“Anything for you, sir!”
“I wouldn’t ask this of you if all of our lives weren’t on the line, but I need you to search the house and find a key to these cell doors.”
“I thought you might say that, sir. And so I’ve already taken the liberty.”
The bars of Tim’s cell clanged, as though he’d jumped on them like a spider monkey. “Are you fucking with us, bird?” he asked in a British accent.
Ravenus started to gag and retch.
“Ravenus? Are you alright?” Julian was mildly concerned, but didn’t sense any distress from his familiar.
Something splattered on the floor, like pudding dropped from a height.
“Dude, stop it. You’re starting to freak me out.”
Something else dropped on the floor, but this something clinked.
“You swallowed it?” asked Julian.
“Yes, sir. In case I was discovered.”
“Way to go, Ravenus!” said Dave. “When did he become a bad-ass?”
“What the fuck is going on?” asked Cooper, who couldn’t understand the Elven tongue. “All I saw was a bird squawk until he threw up. No one ever gets all excited when I do that.”
Julian poked the puddle of bird vomit on the floor until his finger touched something metallic. He picked up the key and wiped it on his serape.
“How did you find this so fast?”
“The lady showed me where it was,” said Ravenus.
“Bella?”
“No, sir, the other one.”
“French Tickler? She betrayed her own people to help you?”
“I don’t mean to boast, sir. But I have a very persuasive cloaca.”
There was no point in waiting around in the dark anymore. Julian held the key up in front of his face. “Light.”
The dungeon lit up immediately, bright light radiating from the black key.
Dave and Cooper shielded their eyes.
“Mercy of the gods!” cried Garçon, his face pressed against the bars of his cell. “You’ve done it!”
Julian unlocked his own cell, his friends’ cells, and finally Garçon’s cell.
The past month had not been kind to the old villain. Garçon’s torn shirt hung loose on his withered frame. His unshaven jaw was still strong, but his dark hooded eyes were dull with defeat.
The five of them stood, along with
a bird and a horse, in the corridor between the cells.
“So...” said Dave. “Now what?”
“Now we get the fuck out of here,” said Tim. “Garçon, do you know where we are in relation to the front entrance? Or maybe just a first floor window? I’d like to avoid as much living furniture as possible.”
Garçon scratched at his long stubble. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’re below the kitchen.”
“Where’s the library?” asked Julian.
Cooper squinted and rubbed his chin. “I think it’s two doors down from who gives a shit. Why the fuck do we need to go to the –” His eyes focused past Julian. “Dude, are you okay?”
Julian turned around. Garçon was sweating profusely. His hands were trembling.
“It’s j-j-just as I f-f-f-feared,” said Garçon. “I am afflicted with the same curse as that wretched beast.”
“How did that happen?” asked Cooper. “Did you also tell an old lady to fuck off?”
Everyone looked at Cooper.
“What? So I saw the movie. Fuck you guys.”
Garçon’s skin began to sprout coarse black hairs. The two biggest toes on each bare foot, and the three smallest ones, melded together to form two large pointed toes. He wailed in agony as his knees locked straight, then began to bend backwards. The wails turned to squeals as his face elongated, sprouting tusks from the bottom of his mouth, his nostrils morphing into a pig snout.
“Cooper,” shouted Tim from conspicuously farther back than he had been. “Push him back into the cell.”
“Fuck that,” said Cooper. “He’s got shingles or some shit.”
Julian backed away from Garçon. “We should get out of here.”
“Let’s go!” Tim and Dave were at the end of the corridor, holding the thick wooden door open. Julian led his horse toward the stairs beyond the open door. Cooper followed behind them.
At the top of the stairs there was another thick wooden door, but when this one was opened, the other side was disguised as a plain section of wall, indistinguishable from any other section of wall in the kitchen.
“Secret door,” said Julian. “Cool.”
“Yeah, real cool,” said Tim. “Please get this horse out of here.”
Julian led the horse through the secret doorway into a kitchen big enough to accommodate a medium-volume restaurant. The soup smell in here was much more potent than it had been in the dungeon, where it’d had to compete with half-orc shit and horse-piss. It was coming from a black, three-legged cast iron cooking pot, big enough to boil Tim whole, in a large hearth. Julian’s stomach rumbled.
Once Cooper was inside, he slammed the door behind him and leaned all his weight against the disguised door.
“The intruders have escaped the dungeon!” announced a steel serving set. A pair of angry eyes had appeared on its domed cover, and it spoke through lips formed from cover and tray.
The cooking pot likewise revealed its true nature, taking what appeared to be a defensive position behind a wooden washtub as fast as its three short legs would carry it.
“We are not your enemies!” said Julian. “We only want to get –” A steel cleaver bit into the pantry door next to Julian’s head. The handle was dripping water. Julian looked in the direction it had flown from and saw the cooking pot pulling its handles out of the washtub. One handle held a bread knife, and the other a rolling pin.
“Hit the deck!” Cried Julian.
The horse started whinnying and screaming. This was a little too much excitement so soon after it had come into existence.
Cooper slid down the wall to a sitting position on the floor. A homicidal cauldron was enough to deal with without adding a Garçon monster into the mix.
Julian, Tim, and Dave ducked behind the cupboards that stood between them and the pot hurling handleful after handleful of cutlery. Knives got stuck in the cupboards above. Spoons bounced off onto he floor. Forks did a bit of the former and a lot of the latter.
The horse’s screaming stopped. Julian looked back just in time to see a dozen bloodied knives and two forks fall simultaneously to the floor from where the horse had been standing just a moment ago.
“Goddammit!” said Julian. “Is two hours really too much to ask?”
THUNK THUNK
The section of wall Cooper was leaning against challenged the power of the friction between his ass and the floor. He should have wiped.
CRASH SMASH
Dishes were exploding on the cupboards above them. Had Mr. Cooking Pot run out of knives?
“We have to make our move now,” said Tim, staring down at the broken porcelain shards accumulating on the floor. “I don’t have any shoes. I don’t want to have to John McClane my way out of here.”
There was a good twenty feet of open space between the end of the counter and the door out of the kitchen. Julian remembered how Bella had a weird habit of locking the door every time she left the living room. If the master of the house had her following some kind of weird containment protocol, there was a good chance the kitchen door would be locked.
“Guys!” shouted Cooper. “Dude seriously wants in the kitchen. I don’t know how much longer I can hold him back.”
Dave shrugged. “It looks like he’s out of knives. He can’t very well kill us with dishes, can he?”
Julian licked his lips. “Grab a fork. We might need you to pick that lock.”
“One step ahead of you.” Tim produced a fork from his pocket.
“All right,” said Julian. He looked at Dave. “We need to cover Tim.”
“With what?”
“With whatever.” Julian peeked over the counter top, bracing himself to be hit in the face with a flying dish. He found the serving set and grabbed it by the handle atop its domed cover.
“Unhand me at once, you brute!” said the serving set.
Julian ducked back down and held the set out to Dave. “Take the tray.”
“Once the master hears of this, you will be AAAH AH AAAAH!”
“We’ll be what?” said Dave, holding the steel tray.
“I think we just ripped his jaws apart,” said Julian. “He can’t form consonants now.”
“AH AAAAAH AAAAAAH AAAH!”
Julian looked back at Cooper. “Hold him just a little bit longer.” He nodded at Dave and Tim. “Let’s go.”
Julian and Dave used the cover and tray of the serving set as shields while escorting Tim to the door leading out of the kitchen.
The iron pot flung dishes like Frisbees. The serving tray raised cries of vowels every time it caught one.
While Tim worked on the door, Julian and Dave crouched beside him, hiding as well as they could behind their makeshift shields. Finally the lock clicked open.
The cooking pot stopped throwing dishes. “Hey!” It threw down its dishes and ran out from behind the washtub.
“Come on, Cooper!” shouted Dave.
Cooper sprang to his feet and ran across the kitchen. Behind him, the door swung open to reveal the bipedal pig-monster Garçon had become.
The pot reached Julian and Dave just before Cooper did, and they swiped at it with their pieces of the serving set. The pot fought back with its little handle arms. As far as fights go, it was a pretty piss-poor effort from both sides.
Cooper ended the fight abruptly by grabbing the pot by the rim and pulling it backwards. It crashed onto the floor, spilling gallons and gallons of hot delicious soup all over Garçon’s projected path.
“SQUEEEE!” cried Garçon as his hooves slipped out from under him. He landed with a splatter in the chunky brown liquid.
The cooking pot’s arms weren’t long enough to push itself back upright, but they were long enough to grab one of Garçon’s legs.
“Let’s go,” said Tim.
While Garçon wrestled a cast iron pot, Julian, Tim, Dave, and Cooper hurried through the door and found themselves in the great foyer, where tapestries of what Julian assumed were likenesses of the prince in his pre-beast days hung
on the side of a grand curved staircase.
“There’s the front door!” said Dave. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.”
Julian looked up the staircase. “We have to get Bella.”
“Fuck that,” said Cooper.
“Dude,” said Tim. “She’s sixteen.”
“No. I meant fuck the idea of going to get her.”
Tim nodded. “Oh, right. I’m with you there.”
“Come on, guys,” said Julian. “She’s a prisoner here the same as we were.”
Dave shrugged. “She seems happy enough here to me.”
Julian glared at him. “You’re the one who brought up Stockholm Syndrome, dickhead.” He glared down at Tim, then up at Cooper. “You all leave if you want. Ravenus and I aren’t going to allow a little girl to grow up as some pervert-monster’s sex puppet.”
Ravenus poked his head out from under Julian’s serape. “Well spoken, sir.” He gave the others a glare as well.
Cooper frowned. “It sounds kind of shitty when you put it that way. Fine, I’m in.”
Dave looked at Tim, then back at Julian. “We don’t actually know that we’re in the story. That was a guess. This could be a completely original...” He looked at his feet. “Okay, fine.”
“Goddammit,” said Tim. “Lead the way, Prince Charming.”
Julian ran up the stairs as fast as he could. At the top he found a long hallway lined with doors leading who knew where. “She’s probably in the library. Let’s start from the right and hope we find her before we find the Beast.”
“No,” said Dave. He pointed at the double doors at the left end of the hallway. “It’s over there.”
“How do you know?” asked Julian.
Dave looked at his feet again and put his hands behind his back. “I recognize the doors.”
Cooper snorted. Tim chuckled.
“Come on,” said Julian. He ran toward the doors Dave had indicated and pulled gently on the handles. They swung open easily and silently.
Bella was reclined on a purple chaise lounge, reading a book, in the most enormous privately owned library Julian had ever seen. The large window on the far wall displayed a beautiful full moon rising over the countryside. Waxoff stood on a nearby end table, supplementing the moon’s light while reading over her shoulder.