The Lord of the Curtain

by Billy Phillips

  “Excuse me?”

  “Crowmen trace the scent of digestive fluids easier than bodily flesh. They’re hunting you. We need to keep them tracking to this location while we go another way.”

  Glinda rushed out of the castle, clearly distraught. She was carrying some sort of fine antique magnifying glass. The handle was mother-of-pearl with brass mounts. The circular magnifier lens was oversized and set in an ornate baroque frame inlaid with semiprecious stones. “They’re on the way. We haven’t got much time.”

  How does she know that?

  The straw man turned to Caitlin. “We need it now.”

  She had never willingly poked her fingers down her throat before. She hated throwing up. More than crowded elevators. More than strips of slippery anchovies on top of her Caesar salads. But they were coming for her. Scarecrow was growing impatient. And Glinda had just warned that time was running out.

  Caitlin took two fingers and warily inched them down her throat.

  She gagged, but nothing came back up.

  “Deeper,” Scarecrow said.

  “Don’t think so.”

  Scarecrow held her hand as if to comfort her. Caitlin rolled her yes. “I appreciate the gesture, but your touch is making me shudder.”

  Scarecrow squeezed tighter. Somehow, as if worming through her layers of fear, Caitlin felt a welcome glint of warmth radiating from the straw man. Beneath all the petrifying straw, Scarecrow must’ve been the sweetest creature in their world.

  She took two fingers and tried again, forcing them deeper down her throat.

  She gagged. Then heaved.

  “Ta-da!” Caitlin sang when she was done. The decorative splat of vomit was bountiful.

  Come and get it, crowmen!

  Caitlin wiped her mouth. “I’m ready. Where to now?”

  Scarecrow’s eyes gleamed like red gemstones. “The Twin Mountains of Velarium.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Is that where Natalie is?”

  “No.”

  “But I thought we needed to find her to prevent an encounter with the Enchanter. Surely I need to find her first.”

  “Searching for her will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “That’s almost punny,” Caitlin said, pointing to his body made of straw.

  Scarecrow pressed the point. “We haven’t the faintest notion where Blackbeard is holding her. Which one of

  a thousand kingdoms should we search first?” he asked rhetorically.

  “So why go to this Velarium place?”

  “According to legend, the Twin Mountains of Velarium are said to be the home base of the Lord of the Curtain. And the source of his very power.”

  She threw back her shoulders. “Are you kidding? You want me to walk through Evil Incarnate’s front door and be like, ‘Honey, I’m home!’”

  “Yes.”

  “Only bimbos and dimwitted dudes in movies willingly walk into a house of horrors.”

  Tin Man addressed the query. “Darkness must be destroyed at the seed level.”

  “That’s a bit abstract—extrapolate.”

  “I’m a Tin Woodman.”

  “Got that part.”

  Tin Man pulled out his ax. He walked over to a small orchard of apple trees adjacent to the drawbridge and pointed to a branch. “Poison apple,” Tin Man said, pointing to a dangling fruit.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Poison apples are plentiful and quite famous in our world, as Snow White can attest.”

  The Tin Woodman swung his silver ax with a mighty thrust, startling Caitlin with his power and precision. He cleanly lopped off a branch, then held it up.

  “I just eradicated a deadly apple from the tree, treating the symptom by dealing with a branch. Yet, the tree is still filled with countless branches dispensing a panoply of poisoned apples.” He crouched and touched the ground beneath the trunk. “But if I dig it up by the roots, I can destroy the entire tree in one fell swoop.”

  She smiled. “Got it. We’re going to destroy the root of a mountain.”

  “No—the root of the Lord of the Curtain.”

  “How?”

  “By destroying the root of all darkness,” Scarecrow replied. “The dark power in ourselves. That’s the reason we became half blood-eyed in the first place.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “Way too dangerous. How do we possibly visit a mountain of unspeakable evil, destroy parts of ourselves, and live to tell about it?”

  “One of the twin mountains is an ancient volcano. Violent. Vicious. Spews out blazing, blood-red fire and crimson lava. Legend says it’s the place where baby dragons come to kindle their first flame.”

  “Now I feel better.”

  “The other mountain sits directly above the Well of Velarium.”

  She silently mouthed Well of Velarium to herself. Then she said, “Like a Jack-and-Jill type of well?

  “Yes. Have you ever wondered why Jack and Jill climbed up a hill to fetch water when well water is usually found belowground?”

  “Can’t say I have. But now that you mention it—”

  “It’s a code. A cryptic reference to the mythical Dipping Pools of Velarium supposedly located atop the mountain summit. They’re filled with precious, violet-colored waters. This is the water newborn fairies come to suckle to draw their enchantment—at least they used to.”

  “What’s their connection to the Well of Velarium below the mountain?”

  “According to ancient legends, the Well of Velarium is really a vast underground reservoir, a near-boundless ocean of untouched, pristine waters flowing hundreds of leagues below the surface of our world.”

  Should’ve brought a bathing suit.

  “This sparkling underground sea is connected to the Dipping Pools on top of the mountain.”

  Caitlin narrowed an eye and wagged a finger. “I detect a recurring pattern here. Red fire from a volcano. Violet waters flowing atop and below a mountain. Two colors that just happen to lie at opposite ends of the color spectrum. And the elephant in the mountain is . . . the missing green.”

  “Precisely. Through an untold number of underground arteries, including those directly beneath our feet, these violet waters flow. They’re connected to every single of body of water in our world.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Indeed. There’s more.”

  The cold, immortal cry of the crowmen shook the skies.

  Glinda pulled a silver wristwatch from her pocket. She checked it.

  “Need to leave forthwith!” She was emphatic.

  The Wicked Witch hurried out of the castle, a flask of witch’s brew in one rickety hand, a folded umbrella in her other. “Filled to the brim,” the Wicked Witch said as she handed the flask to Lady Glinda. “Fare thee well, my former and most worthy adversary,” the old crone said. “I hope next time we meet you’re clear-eyed, I’m wicked-eyed, and we’re old-time mortal enemies once again.”

  Glinda handed her the ornate magnifying glass. “Keep this with you. And guard it well until she arrives.”

  The wicked old woman smiled knowingly.

  Until who arrives? And what’s with that fancy magnifier?

  “I’m off on a witch’s sabbatical,” the hag said with a snicker. “I’ll be back once those beastly crows come and go.” She popped open her umbrella with a whuuuump and immediately achieved liftoff, soaring into the skies. She flew concentric circles above her abode, cackling like the notorious hag she longed to be again, then disappeared into the low-hanging clouds billowing in the eastern skies.

  “Our turn to depart,” Glinda said as she led the way.

  Caitlin kept pace with the group as they ditched the old crone’s castle. She scurried up alongside Tin Man.

  “You said there’s more. Tell me.”

  The four
some crossed a wooden footbridge and then headed down a long, dry, sandy trail. The air was chalky and the land low and barren. A river channel hugged the trail line. Caitlin saw a lonely sign affixed to a wooden post: Zeno’s Forest: 1 League South.

  Beneath that was a warning: Beware of Quicksand.

  Caitlin kept her eyes glued to the ground in front of her as Tin Man continued.

  “The Twin Mountains embody fire and water,” he explained. “Naturally, fire and water are opposite forces. They cannot combine without destroying each other. An abundance of water will extinguish fire. Likewise, excess fire will evaporate water. They’re wholly incompatible.”

  Like Piper and Barton.

  “I get that. So?”

  “Their opposing spirits are the source of all darkness.”

  “Why?”

  “The lack of green. No balance. Which leaves only extremes—extreme hunger, extreme violence, extreme darkness.”

  “Sounds extreme,” Caitlin replied.

  “But there’s a great secret,” Tin Man said. “A secret that reveals a unique way to bind and unify the essence of fire and water without letting one destroy the other.”

  “Merging fire with water? Some feat. Spill the beans.”

  The crows’ screams returned to the skies.

  That was, like, way too fast!

  She figured they’d located her spewed stomach stew at the castle. Probably polished it off quick as a blink and renewed their hunt.

  Caitlin ignored the caws and listened attentively. It wasn’t often that one learned the clandestine methodology for combining fire and water.

  “Take an empty crystal goblet,” Scarecrow said. “And fill it with water. Then set the goblet over a hot flame. The fire infuses the water with its essence, swiftly bringing it to a boil. Two opposites have thus merged energies. All by virtue of the goblet.”

  “Nifty. Where’s our goblet?”

  “You are it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a goblet?”

  “You’re a vessel; you hold both ends of the spectrum inside of you. Fire and water. You can become the mediating power that merges both sides to bring balance.”

  “How?”

  “By resisting the red. And the more red, the greater you need to resist. And that is how we will drain the Lord of the Curtain of his power. And then Natalie’s encounter with the Lord of the Curtain will not be fatal. We must get you there before they meet.”

  “And what if—”

  Caitlin felt a slurping suction on her left foot.

  Her leg quickly sank ankle deep into a patch of quicksand.

  One heartbeat later, her right foot sank into a second patch.

  Wait.

  There were no “patches.” The entire ground beneath her was moving like liquid sand, and Caitlin was standing—or sinking—dead center in the middle of it.

  Scarecrow had already managed to leap into the air and land securely outside the range of the quicksand.

  Nice footwork.

  And Tin Man had liquefied lickety-split. He skimmed across the sinking ground to safety and reconstructed in seconds.

  Boy, he’s quick!

  That left the two girls calf-deep in the drink.

  Glinda grabbed Caitlin’s hand, as if that could prevent them from sinking to their knees in the sucking muck.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” Glinda said, “or we’ll be swallowed whole.”

  Scarecrow wrapped his legs around the trunk of a tree, then laid down on the ground, his body fully stretched out.

  Sluuuurrrp!

  “Hurry!” Glinda shouted. “We’re sinking fast.”

  Tin Man reconstituted himself, then kneeled down and set his ankles in Scarecrow’s hands. The straw man tightened his grip.

  Splosh!

  The girls continued to sink farther.

  “Gotta titanic problem here!” Caitlin shouted. “Pun intended!”

  Tin Man sprawled on the ground and reached his left arm toward Glinda’s right. They interlocked fingers. Glinda gripped Caitlin’s hand harder.

  The daisy chain was in place. Which was a good thing, because both girls were waist-deep in watery sand.

  Scarecrow pulled . . .

  Tin Man tugged . . .

  Glinda squeezed . . .

  Caitlin prayed . . .

  This daisy chain was so tight, with everyone pulling with such enormous strength, that nothing happened—and that’s because Scarecrow’s straw arm had come unstuffed. It flew right out of its socket.

  Caitlin and Glinda were now neck-deep in muck.

  The mud was hot and scratchy from chest to chin. Caitlin noticed, though, that it had an almost-sweet aroma.

  “Only one thing worse than sand in your shoes and undies,” Caitlin said with minimal facial movement. “Sand in your throat and lungs!”

  Though her sentiment was glib—a result of the ghoul in her bloodstream—she was trembling like cold Jell-O, panic-stricken at the prospect of being buried alive.

  Hot, liquefied grains rose above Caitlin’s chin. They began pressing just below the overhanging curl of her bottom lip. It took unimaginable willpower for her to not flail her arms and kick her legs hysterically in an attempt to tread and stay afloat.

  Glinda began spitting out sand grains. Caitlin tasted gravel on her tongue, and granules crunched in her back molars.

  The time had come.

  She and Glinda prepared for the inevitable.

  They drew a gargantuan gulp of air into their lungs and held it tight.

  And then the two girls were submerged, vanishing beneath the pool of milky quicksand.

  Caitlin’s world turned as dark as mud.

  CHAPTER Twenty

  The pasty, beardless, rum-smelling ghoul calling himself Blackbeard had unfastened the leather constraints and taken a curious Natalie down from the torture wheel. He had retied her to a wooden stool in the center of her subterranean cell. He sat down directly in front of her.

  “Tell me more,” Natalie said, thankful she was chained upright to a chair as opposed to strung upside down on an unspeakably uncomfortable medieval contraption. Her head was still spinning like a Ferris wheel and the contents of her stomach were still jouncing from all the spinning.

  The warm, feverish feeling also returned.

  Have I caught the flu?

  Blackbeard gave her a wide smile. The only thing not decomposing on the living-dead buccaneer were the gold molars that glinted in the back of his mouth.

  “A bona fide princess, you’ll be,” Blackbeard said. “Governor of yer own world, I tell ya. Yer own rules. Controlling ol’ Mother Nature herself. The laws of the kingdom, too.”

  “What world are you referring to?”

  “Eos is the name.”

  “Eos? Like the Greek goddess of the dawn?”

  Blackbeard’s face contorted. “Don’t know squat about any goddesses. All’s I can tell ya is that this will be a blessed world of brightness. No darkness, I tell ya. No sickness either. A happy, merry world full of fun.”

  “Is this a world or a theme park?” Natalie said.

  “Keep runnin’ a sassy mouth, and you’ll talk yourself into one helluva mess o’ trouble.”

  “Noted. So what’s so special about this world?”

  “Ya control everything with your mind. A realm where your dreams come true just by thinkin’ about ’em.”

  Natalie rolled her eyes. “Telekinesis, psychic power—pure bunk.”

  A wily grin lit Blackbeard’s face. He stroked his salt-and-pepper bristles as if considering his next words. Then he nodded with resolve.

  “Bunk, ya say? Okay, little bird, I’m gonna reveal a long-kept secret ta ya,” Blackbeard teased. “A secret no one—in any world
, in any kingdom—knows. And when I says no one, I mean no one! I learned it from the Lord of the Curtain himself.”

  Natalie shrugged.” And what is this ancient, enigmatic secret that no one, but no one, knows?”

  “Mind over matter!”

  Did he just say “mind over matter?” Hmmm. Now that’s a rather intriguing turn of phrase coming from the mouth of an old, undead, grammatically challenged pirate.

  Natalie cast a curious eye at her captor.

  “What about mind over matter?” she asked.

  “I says ya already have it.”

  “Is that what ya says?”

  “Don’t mock my speech, ya pint-size bag o’ wind.” His eyes hardened. “I’ll grab ya by the ankles and swab the crapper with your mop o’ curls.”

  “Eloquently put.”

  “Now you’ve gone too far. Back on the rack ya go.”

  “Wait!”

  “What?”

  “I have to pee.”

  Blackbeard shifted squeamishly. He grunted. “I’m in the middle of interrogatin’ ya.”

  “You’re not interrogating my bladder.”

  He went silent, as if giving consideration to her comment. He got up abruptly, without word, and left the cell. Natalie’s forehead wrinkled as she stared quizzically at the door. A minute later, it reopened. Blackbeard reappeared with a sullied, empty pail in his hand. He tossed it on the floor in front of Natalie.

  “Use this.” He untied her hands. “Ya got two minutes.” He left again, locking the wooden door behind him.

  She fanned herself with a hand. Then she fluttered her top to release the heat coming off her skin.

  Natalie didn’t have to pee. Even if she did, there was no way she would crouch over that filthy, unhygienic bucket and risk contracting some infectious disease. She massaged her wrists, stretched out her arms, and exhaled long and hard. She was still dizzy from her Ferris-wheel-on-steroids tilt-a-whirl. The room was rocking.

  She had less than two minutes to devise and execute an escape plan.

  CHAPTER Twenty-One

  Every bone in Caitlin’s body screamed in frantic desperation for air; every cell pleaded for her to somehow reach the surface. But she knew if she struggled, she’d sink lower. If she remained calm like a good girl, she’d suffocate in minutes.