by Shae Hutto
“I was improvising,” said Roger lamely. He looked around anxiously. “Doesn’t look like anyone is around to take much notice, though. Place is bloody deserted. Almost too quiet, if you ask me.” Claire looked around, too, measuring the silence. She shrugged. “And why is there only one guard?” he asked suspiciously.
“It could be a trap, I guess,” she said. “But what are we going to do? Turn around and go have a drink at the Colors? Go home?”
“I don’t suppose ‘yes’ would be a good answer to your question?” asked Roger, injecting a note of hopefulness into his voice.
“Not unless we want Connix to come have a honey cream ale with us,” she replied with a smirk.
“Seems like he might be George’s type, doesn’t he, though?”
“George?” asked Claire blankly.
“George Martin?” said Roger. “The beour what served the cream ale, love? Acres of bosom? Flirty, like?”
“Oh, that George,” replied Claire, grinning at the memory. “I had forgotten her.”
“Lucky you,” muttered Roger as he turned and marched through the gate. Claire couldn’t suppress a giggle as she followed, her Elven cloak helping her to blend into what shadows she could find.
They walked through the portcullis and followed the paved track into the castle proper and quickly found the entry hall and the little wood paneled room just off it. There were a few people hurrying about in the main hall, but nobody took any notice of them and they slipped into the familiar room with a feeling of relief.
“Now what?” asked Claire, mildly surprised that they had made it this far. Roger looked at her blankly. “You’re the one with the plan, man,” she said. “Lead on!”
“My plan is complete, yeah? We’re in, which is about all I was planning for. What we do once we got in was always your lookout.” Claire rolled her eyes at him and stood thinking, her hand stroking her chin unconsciously, unknowingly imitating her dad who often stroked his beard when lost in thought.
“Well, I guess we need to find some place to hide. Our whole goal at this point is to lure Connix to the castle and hope two of our enemies take each other out.”
“I’m all for hiding,” said Roger. “Beats getting roasted all to flinders any day.”
“What about getting eaten?” she teased.
“Beats that too, Claire,” he replied solemnly. She giggled again.
“Ok, where to hide?” she asked, her eyes lingering on the hidden door in the corner. Roger’s eyes followed her gaze and he shrugged. She moved over to it and opened the door cautiously. Darkness beyond shrouded the little stairway and she couldn’t make out more than the first two steps. She was on the first one when the entrance to the room behind them flew open with a mighty crash.
Claire turned in alarm, her wand already out of her pocket. Silhouetted in the doorway stood the woman Claire thought of as the Evil Queen, but who had been introduced to her as Queen Beatrix. Her corpse-pale skin almost glowed against her flowing black dress and cape and her sharp teeth flashed in her sinister grin.
“Did you really think you could just-,” began the Queen but cut off abruptly as Claire flicked her wand and the door swung shut violently, hopefully smacking the Queen in the face in the process. An indignant squawk from the other side of the door made that seem likely.
“Here, Paddy. Arm thyself,” said Claire as she quickly handed Roger his sword. They both bolted through the door and up the stairs as they heard the door behind them burst open again under the not so tender encouragement of the Queen’s Guard and their halberds. “We have to hurry,” gasped Claire as they pounded up the stairs two at a time. “If they get ahead of us, we’ll be trapped on this staircase,” she said, presumably to encourage Roger who was inches behind her.
“Shut it, and run,” Roger said close enough to her neck that she felt his breath. She pushed herself to climb faster and felt the exhilaration of success when she saw the outline of the door up ahead. All too quickly the taste of success turned to the pall of ashes when that door’s outline elongated and the door opened to reveal a soldier and a man in a robe that seemed to swirl with arcane symbols and magic runes. Without stopping, Claire used her wand to send a furnace-hot fireball sizzling toward them and was rewarded with the sight of the two men diving to either side of the doorway and an eye-searing explosion of fire in the hallway beyond.
Sounds of pursuit echoed in the stairwell behind them and a blast of magical energy scorched the wall above their heads as the Queen unleashed some seriously nasty stuff at them. Ahead of them, the two men reappeared in the doorway, singed, smoking and sporting unhappy expressions, but seemingly none the worse for wear. Grimly, Claire fired another ball of burning death and watched with horror as it rebounded off an unseen magical shield around the man in the creepy cloak. She grabbed Roger by the collar and bore him to the ground as her own fireball howled by, narrowly missing her bowed head. She felt the heat of it on the back of her neck, through her thick mop of unruly hair.
“That mog is begging for a baytin, like,” snarled Roger and surged past Claire, shoving her down even further as he used her as a springboard. Her strangled protest at such rough treatment went unheeded as Roger charged up the few remaining steps at the men in the doorway, sword leading the way and an echoing scream rattling from his throat, sounding something like, “ABOOO!!” Claire watched in astonishment and made one attempt to shout a warning to Roger that was unnecessary. As the cloaked man unleashed a destructive spell that looked like a hundred bolts of black lightning with the heads of snakes, Roger threw himself to the ground, rolled under the ghastly conjuring and slashed the cloaked man’s ankle with his sword. All of Roger’s weight and momentum was in the slash and Claire clearly heard something snap as the man’s leg bent unnaturally and he fell sideways like a felled tree; a look of shocked pain on his face and a dismayed cry on his lips.
Claire turned and looked back down the stairs and saw a pointy halberd leading the way up the stairs at a fast climb. She tried to shoot an ice missile as she scrambled backwards up the stairs but her nervousness and fear caused the spell to fizzle and she reached in her pockets for something useful. Anything. There was nothing and she panicked as she got to the top of the steps and stood. As she turned, she expected to see Roger standing victoriously over his two opponents, but the luck of the Irish was no substitute for fighting skill in this instance. She saw his unmoving form sprawled on the stone floor next to the cloaked figure who was howling in pain. Immediately, she tried to go to him but was grabbed by the remaining soldier and restrained. She yelled his name in despair, fearing the worst and then everything went black.
CHAPTER TEN: RUN
"It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better."
- Sir Francis Drake
Amanda woke with a start. She was oppressed by a sense of time lost and she looked around guiltily as she sat on the floor in the corridor, her back propped uncomfortably against the wall. Nick and Weenie were both snoozing peacefully, the latter’s head on the former’s thigh. She wondered in vain how much time had passed since she had closed her eyes. Time left no trail in the corridor and Amanda wore no watch. Irritated at her own weakness, she stood up and stretched, then nudged Nick with her shoe. She had a moment of apprehension when she woke him, unsure if he was going to pull his explode into shadows trick and appear behind her with a knife at her throat. Instead, he opened one eye to peer at her balefully and reached over to push Weenie’s head off the wet patch of doggy-drool on his pants.
“Rise and shine, Nicky, darling,” she said playfully.
“Ugh,” he responded wittily as he also stretched and yawned. “What time is it?” he asked before he realized the answer would have no real meaning where they were.
“Time to get our butts in gear, I think,” said Amanda as she took stock of her equipment, noting particularly where her blaster pistol and new .45 were. She checked her ammo for the chrome monstrosity that Jack had been p
acking and found that she only had 5 rounds. She put it back in the ruck sack and winced as it clicked metallically against the Eye of Connix. Weenie whined.
“What is it, boy?” asked Nick, slightly concerned because Weenie didn’t whine often. “You just tired or what?” Weenie looked at him with contempt and started growling. “Whoa, Weenie,” said Nick with his hands held out before him. “No offense, dude.” It became apparent Weenie wasn’t growling at Nick as a troop of rats and a wheeled robot that looked like a cross between a Roomba and Inspector Gadget rounded a corner down the hall and didn’t pause as they approached.
“Are those rats?” shrieked Amanda as she took an involuntary step backwards.
“Yeah,” affirmed Nick. “They’re no real danger as long as you let them know who’s- “he cut off before reaching the end of his sentence as something new stalked around the corner behind the familiar rat brigade. The newcomer was so tall, it’s boxy stereotypical robot head nearly brushed the ceiling. Amanda’s first geeky thought was ‘Cylon.’
“What about that?” she asked. “Is that a real danger?” It answered her question by pointing one mechanical hand at them and sending a bolt of energy sizzling down the corridor in their direction. The weapon produced a bolt similar in appearance to the ones Amanda’s blaster generated, just a different color and larger. All three of them dived in different directions to avoid being blasted. The ionized air crackled where the bolt and passed and Amanda felt her hair standing up. As she lay on the floor with her hair reaching for the ceiling, Amanda rolled to her ruck sack and groped for the .45. Her palm came up against the firm, smooth, warm surface of the Eye. An unpleasant vibration pulsed out from the Eye, seeming to resonate in her very bones. It tingled and it itched and it felt like it would tear out her fingernails. Time stopped. Amanda felt her essence, her very being and consciousness, flow into the ruck sack and she was falling into an ever-open, all-seeing Eye. She was a mote in eternity, an irritant awaiting a fatal scratch, then the Eye rolled towards her with purpose. It focused on her and she felt like the tiniest, most insignificant speck of being before the gaze of omnipotence. Despite this over-awing display of power, Amanda held tight to the awareness that this was most likely an illusion; a forced hallucination and she was probably still lying on the uncomfortable floor of the metaphysical corridor, about to be blasted into her constituent atoms by a vengeful robot. But it was very convincing.
She floated: observed, weighed and measured by the Eye. Amanda brazenly gazed right back; a sort of inverse of the Nietzche quote about staring too long into the abyss. It stared into her and she found herself weighing and judging it, in turn. Displeasure. The Eye did not approve of her daring to judge it.
“See!” it demanded and completely at its mercy, she saw. Comprehension accompanied the seeing, gratis. Amanda didn’t have to work to understand what was shown to her, it was part of the experience. She understood that what she was witnessing had yet to happen. It was an offer; part of a bargain. This could be her future, if she chose. It was a possibility, but how it would be brought about was unclear. Obscured. That was not shown to her. The part of her mind that insisted she was still lying in the corridor, groping for a pistol, whispered to her that this was fool’s gold. A sham. A veritable deal with the Devil. She felt herself being pushed back out of the Eye, back toward her own reality and knew that the offer was still on the table. She could think on it and decide at a later time. No hurry. She would know when it was time to choose.
Reality exploded into being around her, stunning her with its violence. Sounds, smells and all manner of input assaulted her senses. Her hand found the pistol and she yanked it out of the ruck sack, fumbling for the hammer. She saw Nick’s dagger bounce off of the steel carapace of the advancing metal warrior (Cylon, insisted her brain) with a clang. It was followed by his masonry hammer, which produced a more profound clang, but did no more noticeable damage. The dagger vanished before it hit the ground and she knew it was back in Nick’s hand. The hammer clunked onto the carpeted floor. The .45 was finally pointed in the right direction, flat fluorescent light making the gaudy chrome finish wink feebly. The report was louder than she expected, and it stunned her ears painfully. A neat hole appeared in the torso of the metal man and she exulted. But not for long.
Devoid of any outward display of emotion, the robot aimed its weaponized hand at Amanda whose eyes widened in recognition of the threat. She desperately rolled to the side as a bolt of death burned the carpet next to her. She sprang to her feet and put another neat puncture into the robot as it took another step toward her. Nick dissolved into shadows.
“I have to learn that trick,” she muttered as she began to backpedal down the hallway.
“Run,” whispered the incorporeal Nick from nowhere. Scooping up her bag, Amanda ran. She slid around a corner as more shots from the robot scorched the wall where she would have been. This robot seemed to be playing for keeps. Ahead of her, Nick coalesced and opened a door seemingly at random and disappeared through it, leaving it open behind him. Instead of immediately going through the invitingly open doorway, Amanda turned and dug out her blaster pistol. She put the .45 back in, causing another one of those skin-crawling clunks as it impacted the Eye. She aimed for where the robot had to appear if it came around the same corner as she had and was rewarded with the sight of its menacing metallic form lumbering around the bend, lethal hand leading. Her first shot dissolved the joint holding its other arm to its body, sending a fine spray of molten metal across the corridor and doing absolutely nothing to lessen the danger the towering machine presented. Her second shot never came. Pressing the firing stud elicited nothing but a tired electronic whirring sound from the weapon. Whatever it ran on, it was out. Weenie was nowhere to be seen. He would have to fend for himself. She felt a pang of guilt at abandoning the loyal dog as she dove through the doorway just in time to avoid being roasted by the robot’s returned fire.
As Amanda rolled across a curiously tilted wooden planked floor, Nick closed the door behind her. Relief flooded through her system, as yet again she avoided violent death by the skin of her teeth. She reflected briefly that perhaps her boring life which had presented her with zero near death experiences up until today, was making up for lost time. Was there, perhaps, an average rate of almost fatal experiences for a person’s life? If so, surely, she was above it by now? Maybe life could go back to being boring for a while to average it out again? It occurred to Amanda that there was probably a relationship between how exciting your life was and the choices that you made. She briefly wondered if there was a way to quantify the ratio of excitement to boredom and draw conclusions, but quickly realized she didn’t have the math skills. Whatever. She waved away her musings with a mental hand and took stock of her situation.
The deck she was lying on was not totally motionless. As she watched, a hammock slung in the corner of the all wooden room rocked slightly. So did Nick, his hips and knees flexing automatically to shift his center of gravity to compensate. She came to the conclusion that she was on a ship again. At least this one wasn’t in space. Light was let in through large windows behind her, through which she could see the ocean. This was obviously a water craft of some sort. She became aware of a commotion somewhere above her; men shouted and screamed, wood rubbed violently against wood and there was the intermittent pop of small arms fire. A cannon went off, its sound dwarfing the noise of the rest of the conflict and shaking the timbers of the ship. Nick was studying the two cannons secured to either side of the room with a look of intense concentration.
“I think we’re on a ship,” she offered lamely. He looked at her with annoyance. He obviously didn’t appreciate her poor attempt at humor.
“But what ship?” he asked softly. “It’s not Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge,” he said as he walked with a lopsided step to one of the cannons. “It’s also too small to be one of Nelson’s at Trafalgar.”
“What made you think of that?” she asked, genuinely curious.
Nick seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Because we’re made fast to another ship. Most of Nelson’s ships boarded the French and Spanish ships after firing a couple of broadsides into them. I think this ship is boarding the one next to us, not the other way ‘round.”
“Why?”
“There’s nobody hiding in here, for one,” he said, touching the cannon reverently. “Second, most of the sound of battle is coming from over there,” he said as he pointed toward the side the deck was inclined toward.”
“How do you know all this? I don’t remember them teaching the battle of Trafalgar when I was in fifth grade,” Amanda said, half joking.
“I was there,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I was serving as loblolly boy aboard HMS Phoebe, a 36-gun frigate under the command of Captain Thomas Capel.”
“Loblolly boy?” she asked, shocked that Nick had served in a major naval engagement two hundred years ago, but unable to get past the unfamiliar term.
“Surgeon’s assistant,” he said with a grimace. He moved back toward the door that lead back to the corridor. “Since we closed the door, a whole hour will have gone by,” he said. “Let’s have a look and see if our friend is still there.” He opened the door with the obvious intention of stepping through, but threw himself to the side as an energy pulse burned past his head and blew a hole in the wooden side of the ship, revealing yet another ship... and another hole where the bolt had gone all the way through. Nick slammed the door with his foot.
They heard voices coming closer.
“In the captain’s cabin,” someone said loudly in a British accent not too far from the door to the room they were occupying. The door leading to the corridor looked like it usually led to a smaller side compartment. Dining cabin, maybe?
“I think we’re about to have company,” said Amanda ominously as she stood up and rummaged in her bag for the .45.”