by A. J. Ponder
In answer, Tishke stared at his heavy boots and the mud on her once immaculate floor.
Minutes passed.
“I will be back,” Phetero grated. “Next time, be more obliging, madam. You sorely test my patience.”
Tishke shut her eyes.
She didn’t hear his footsteps leave. Surely he would go. It would give her time to marshal her thoughts. Time for the hypothetical somebody who was supposed to thwart him to rescue her.
And if that hypothetical someone was Dirk, he’d better hurry.
Tishke cradled the multi-legged fear scuttling in her belly—and wondered at how terrible hope was. If, by some miracle, Dirk did come back in time to save her, she’d be forever in his debt. It was another horrid thought to add to a perfectly horrid day.
“Do you have anything to tell me?” Phetero asked, breaking into her thoughts.
He’s still here? Tishke opened her eyes and, for the briefest moment, thought she could see Phetero clutching at the door-handle, like a drowning man at an oar.
Tishke shook her head, her mouth firmly shut to hide an unbidden smile. She couldn’t help Phetero even if she wanted to. But revealing that truth would not help either, it would only make both her own situation worse, and dangerously widen the search for young Tomas.
Phetero’s clenched and unclenched his jaw. “You will tell me.”
Tishke glanced down, determined not to stoke his rage past the line of no return.
The door slammed. Heavy boots stomped down the corridor.
As the echoes faded, the multi-legged fear in Tishke’s belly started spinning a cocoon.
Preconceptions
The siren song of
Truth
Leads to rocky waters,
From whence many
Brave souls
Will ne’er return.
Why then,
Should illusion be less powerful?
Francis tried not to draw attention to the bloody rent in his stolen uniform and waited for the inevitable—for Dirk to tell these soldiers the truth.
Dirk managed to sound breathless as he addressed the officer on duty. Stretching his eyes wide in an impression of frightened innocence, he said, “Men down, sir. I’m not sure how, sir...”
The truth, indeed, Francis thought disparagingly, relief washing over him as imminent death no longer seemed so certain.
“What?” the officer said, his stare if anything more piercing than before. “It had better be good.”
“Sir, there was a fight, Sir. Alcohol everywhere. Sir.” It was unlike Dirk to be breathless and frightened like this, maybe he was hoping that in the poor light they’d look like flighty new recruits.
The officer took a deep breath... “Go get the captain, lad, I’ll dispatch another patrol. North was it?”
“Yeah,” Dirk said. “It’s a bit of a mess, sir.”
Francis’ stomach lurched.
The officer winced. “Bloody fools, drinking on duty. If they weren’t already dead, I’d kill ’em myself.
“Madison, Davis, you stay here.” He prodded his thumb toward Francis and Dirk. “You. Greenies. Go tell the captain. Get on with you, then. He won’t bite yer heads off.” The man chuckled. Grimly.
Francis interpreted the chuckle as, Actually I lied. Say goodbye to your heads, young fools, while I tidy up this mess and figure out how to get in the clear.
“Yes, sir!” Dirk boomed, nudging Francis.
Francis blurted out a weak, “Sir,” and hurried after Dirk, through the wide-open doors, and, into a blood-spattered corridor that was less inviting than giant teeth. As he placed one foot in front of the other, Francis couldn’t help but wonder what on earth had possessed Dirk to try something so foolhardy as walk through the front door of a besieged castle.
Safely round the corner, Dirk whispered, “Rule number one; get in fast, get out, faster.”
“I always hoped that was the plan,” Francis muttered acerbically. Given a choice, he’d be running out those doors in a heartbeat.
But Dirk didn’t blink. He kept straight on, occasionally raising his arm in a casual salute while Francis tried not to jump every time they saw soldiers. He tried to cover for his nerves by making it look like he was jumping to attention. At least, he hoped so.
Slowly, slowly, they edged closer and closer to Sylvalla’s rooms in a backward and forward, patrol-the-corridors kind of way. Nobody asked what they were up to, which was lucky, given that pretending to be on duty and explaining what that duty might be were two completely different things.
The corridors near the princess’ bedrooms seemed to be poorly guarded.
Francis’ heart leapt. We might make it!
His hopes were quickly dashed when Dirk whispered. “This isn’t good. It’s too easy.”
Is it a trap?
“Keep walking,” Dirk ordered under his breath.
When they reached Sylvalla’s room, an even ruder surprise awaited them...
The door to Sylvalla’s room was smashed open.
Francis stood in the doorway, blinking stupidly.
§
“Don’t stop now,” Dirk hissed, grabbing Francis’ tunic and pulling him along. “We can’t be caught anywhere near here.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’ll pick up some rumours, boy. Reconnoitre.”
“Shouldn’t we be going to the dungeons, or something?” Francis asked.
“Let’s try the kitchens first,” Dirk volunteered, happy to have an objective that didn’t involve going down to the dungeons. His skin crept at the thought of those dank, rat-infested hell-holes.
“Why? Sylvalla’s hardly likely to be in the kitchens,” Francis said. “They’re more likely to be holding her in the dungeons—if she isn’t already safely escaped or holed up somewhere.”
“Possibly lad, possibly,” Dirk agreed in his best imitation of affable. He stifled his impulse to kick the boy while tactfully not mentioning the other distinct possibility: Sylvalla could already be dead.
As they inched their way back and forth down the corridors, Francis turned his face from a gaggle of prisoners being ushered past. “Somebody’s going to recognise us.” His head flicked nervously this way and that.
“Don’t worry,” Dirk said, oozing confidence from every pore. “Nobody truly sees a man in uniform. Eyes front, boy. Subterfuge is different from sneaking.”
Dirk hoped Francis would get his head together. At least there were no soldiers scurrying around looking for intruders—a good sign their ruse to get into the castle had held up. He’d thought as much, after all it would take a pretty unusual combination of brave and stupid to mention the incident of drunk and brawling soldiers up the chain of command. Common gossip, yes. The story would be all around the barracks by morning—but reporting it to a superior who could have you court-marshalled and hanged on a whim[54]? Not likely.
This peculiar brand of cynicism, bravado, and convoluted logic made Dirk dangerous.
Francis, on the other hand, not understanding how they’d managed to come so far, was dallying with such dangerously fanciful notions as luck and fate. The dream of rescuing his princess with nothing more than pluck and the goodness of his heart, was a seductive one. “Dirk, when we find her...”
“Now, boy, one step at a time.” Dirk paused, re-considering the task at hand.
1) Stop Francis from doing something stupid.
2) Find Sylvalla.
3) Rescue Sylvalla.
4) Get out.
“Chest out, lad. The kitchens will be swarming with soldiers and I’m very hungry, so fill up your pockets, and don’t be a slouch about it.”
“Why?”
Because it keeps you busy while I work. “It’s a time-honoured tradition[55],” Dirk whispered as they saluted and tramped past a trio of soldiers in what could, with a little leniency, be considered military fashion. “Eyes front,” he snapped as they approached the busy kitchens. “No slacking. We’re here to do a job
.”
The smell of meat and onions assaulted them with all the force of cheese in a mousetrap.
Francis backhanded a trickle of sweat from his face.
Surely it wasn’t that hot? Dirk pushed the lad into the kitchen before anyone noticed him standing in the doorway, mouth opening and closing like a drowning fish.
Once inside, they were greeted by a sizeable lady waving a rolling pin.
“Gerroff me pasties, yer filthy pajama boys. Don’ yer even think about commin’ in ‘ere an’ filchin’ all me ‘ard work.”
“Huh?” Francis squeaked incoherently. “Guards?”
Even Dirk was taken aback. Although the mystery of where the guards were was solved soon enough. Eight of them were squeezed into a corner of the room. They swaggered a little, while keeping firmly within a line of salt drawn on the floor.
Banging her wooden spoon on the table, Cook began to address the newcomers with a speech that rattled off her tongue like a well-worn song. “We ’ave a deal, you pyjama boys don’ get in my way, an’ I don’ gerin yours. I told ‘em, I run the kitch’n my way, or no way. My guess is your boss gets pretty grumpy on an empty tum.”
Cook loomed closer, waving her wooden spoon at the already-cowed soldiers who slouched even further into their corner. The soldiers twisted their faces into jeers, doing their best to pretend they were taking up just as much room as they pleased.
“Now’s you can see how things are, you two twits c’n shove-off. An’ tell yer mates to do the same.”
Francis, perfectly accustomed to cooks with evil temperaments, almost purred. “Just one of those pasties miss, they do smell so delicious.”
Cook remained rooted to the ground.
Taking her indecision for opportunity, and not noticing Dirk’s warning tug on his tunic, Francis walked over to the central table groaning under the weight of meat pies. He smacked his lips together. “Just like my dear old departed ma used to make.”
“No. Don’ try tha’ on me, laddie,” Cook said.
With a slight of hand not to be scoffed at, Francis swiped a couple of pies from under Cook’s nose. He’d never really thought she’d agree. Asking was simply a useful tactic in the war to obtain food. A war Francis understood far more intimately than any prince should.
Dirk cursed. This wasn’t going to plan at all. No soldiers chatting. No gossip. No practical way of finding out what was happening. Staying here was nothing short of stupid. If only he could tell Francis the plan had changed.
Still, Francis had made good, and at least the food would help keep their strength up until Dirk could come up with another plan.
The options looked bleak. They couldn’t keep roaming the castle forever, and going blindly into the dungeons was little short of suicidal—given the types of guards who tend to specialise in dungeons.
Dirk began to drag Francis away, his head crammed with bad ideas about how to best sneak past psychopathic guards—but just as they were turning to go, Cook recognised Francis. “You!” she shrieked, brandishing her rolling pin at Francis’ head.
With a dull thud, and a splatter of gravy, Francis dropped the two heavy meat pies hidden under his jacket.
The soldiers looked at each other. “Come on,” a grizzled veteran said, sword held high. “It’s time we made ‘em realise who’s boss.”
The commander nodded his agreement, “Not too rough, lads,” he said.
His soldiers understood him immediately. Bash a few heads together for the sake of the general peace, and try not to kill too many, or ruin the food. After all, defending their countrymen (or, more accurately, the men dressed up as their countrymen) was all the excuse they needed.
Francis stepped back as the previously peaceful scene transformed.
Dirk glanced at the cook. What had she been thinking? Seeing his expression, her mouth opened in dim realisation. Slowly, so slowly, her jaw closed that treacherous gap.
Kitchen knives were hefted.
Too late.
“For our countrymen!” a grizzled soldier yelled.
“For Sylvalla’s,” Dirk yelled—to everyone’s surprise, including his own.
Bare steel rang out in the kitchen, the tang of metal and oil, thick as perfume. This was no longer about banging a few heads together, the soldiers swung their long pointy steel things around unprotected flesh with frightening gusto.
The kitchen staff were fighting back, tossing knives from drawers. Good weapons, and versatile, if less than pinpoint accurate when thrown. A soldier howled as a blade took his nose. Blood gouted from the wound. Cook herself, more than handy with a rolling pin, was backed up in a corner, blood gushing from a deep wound in her arm. A kitchen hand screamed and fell. Another, disarmed and pinned to the wall, was choking on blood.
Dirk pulled out his sword easily taking down two soldiers, but still being pushed backward. Given time, he’d probably win. But they didn’t have time. Worse, Francis was cowering like a frightened rabbit, if he didn’t do something soon he would die.
“Pull your sword!” Dirk yelled.
Francis scrabbled back, and, for the first time in his life, drew the sword Capro Goodfellow had given him…
…Now steel has an innate quality. When wielded properly it moves through the air like a fine, sharp wind. Solid substances, like bones, tend to ruin the mystic nature of such things, Dirk understood this, even better than the soldiers did. He knew all about the psychology, physiology and physics of both steel and flesh, and was vigorously applying theory to practise when he heard Francis drawing the sword he’d freed from Mr Goodfellow’s rock.
With little more than a whisper, the gleaming blade erupted from its leather scabbard and all Dirk’s preconceptions were shattered.
Expectations and Introductions
When reality is cut asunder
And made anew
When the world cries out for Heroes
And Death awakens
When Evil slithers through
The cracks of Truth
Then comes a moment,
A call
Then comes a simple illusion that breaks its bonds
And becomes.
Far be it for me, as the author, to insert myself into the story, but I just happened to be passing by at the very moment when it happened. Capro and Jonathan were wandering the university gardens, a drink in each hand, Jonathan barely recovered from his illness.
A lovely evening to be out for a walk,” I said, swinging my cane and trying to sound jolly.
“Hi Freddy, what’ve you been up to?” Jonathan asked me, the strain from his illness cracking his voice.
I smiled. “Oh, I’m working on this little piece you might be interested in. Heroism in the Age of Chivalry[56], it parallels the...”
“Boy, does that sound interesting,” Capro said, twitching the way he does when he’s nervous. “Some other time, then?”
“Yeah, I guess, I wouldn’t mind a word about—”
“Sure, anytime, just—”
And that’s the exact moment when it happened. The famous sound of diamonds and steel, Capro Goodfellow’s alarm, echoed through the university.
Jonathan reeled, almost crashing into us, and checked himself. Drink splattered down his front, he gasped. “Did you feel that?”
Capro Goodfellow coughed loudly to cover his surprise, or lack thereof. Of course he’d felt it. It was his damned alarm after all. A safety measure he’d placed in the sword when he’d created his sword-in-the-stone charade.[57] Now fear and death had set off the sword’s alarm. Francis was in mortal peril.
Capro turned back and forth, as if caught in indecision. “Um, Freddie, Jonathan, why don’t we hurry inside. Make sure everyone’s alright?”
“Where? Who? What was that?” Jonathan asked as we hurried back into the hall.
Those were all questions Mr Goodfellow Senior could answer. Where? Avondale. Who? Francis. What? Fear and death. But Capro didn’t say a word, he just broke into a run. He wanted an answer
to the most important question. Why was all this happening?
“You have to go somewhere?” Jonathan asked his father.
“Not yet. Not yet,” Capro lied, trying to think of a nice way of saying goodbye so neither of us would catch on too quickly. He pleaded illness and scurried away.
Once in his rooms, Capro packed a few magic baubles, time slipping away faster than he’d hoped. He says the temptation to take some poorly thought out time-cut was almost uncontrollable, but instead he slowed down and took a moment, and remembered there were worse things than death. As the old lesson says. Two minutes. Two hours. Time is. There are worse things a wizard can do than follow its crooked path. Do not play with time, for mortals who stray out of time, may never find its path again, or their souls.
“Time,” Capro muttered, glancing round his comfy room. “Is not my friend.” He glanced around the comfy room one last time, wondering what he’d forgotten, and fled.
§
In the palace kitchens Francis stood tall.
An air of regal power radiated from Francis’ sword. It glowed as bright as the day he’d first drawn it from the stone, bathing him in a kingly radiance, and announcing his presence with inaudible[58] triumph.
Blades ceased in mid-stroke. Heads turned. Some of the younger faces half-smiled in awe and hesitated to advance. One even dropped his sword in wonder.
Two of the older soldiers cracked grins, and stepped in.
Fortunately for Francis, his time with Sylvalla and Dirk had taught him which end of a sword was pointed. He parried a stab to his groin, and stepped out of range of the other soldier, confidently adding a flourish only after he noticed neither soldier was bothering to press their attack—mostly because they were dead.
The two bodies sank to the floor, revealing a grim-faced Dirk, his blade dripping blood.
In the eerie calm that followed, Francis considered introducing Dirk. Something good and fearsome like, Protector of the Innocent and Death of a Thousand Men. Then again, introductions were hardly necessary, these people should already know Dirk, and if not, Dirk had effectively introduced himself.