by James Riley
And then the head slammed into the ground maybe twenty feet away, and the resulting tidal wave of earth threw all three of them into the air. The walls began to collapse under them, and Jill grabbed Penelope as she slowed time down, avoiding any falling stones and making it to a safe spot in the wall, which just happened to be the spot her father already stood in. Of course he did.
Finally, silence took over, and Jill turned to her father, who just smiled and pointed down at the rope.
Someone was pulling on it.
Jill rolled her eyes. No. Way. There was no way. He was no Eye. He had no special training. He was just some kid. There was no way!
And then a hand appeared on the remnants of the wall, and her father reached down and helped pull Phillip up and over.
“Phillip!” Penelope shouted, and helped him as well, while Jill just shook her head. The perfect prince. “But . . . how did you survive?”
“I had it on good authority that one could grab on to the bit of skin hanging down over the throat of a giant,” Phillip told her as Jill held her nose. Being eaten did not smell good. “And then it was just a matter of jumping at the right moment.”
“I may have helped him with that,” Jill’s father whispered to her, and she rolled her eyes again.
“But how did you kill the giant?” Penelope asked.
Phillip reached into a pouch on a shoulder strap and pulled out a shiny-looking apple, with a guilty-looking smile. “I figured these should come to some use,” he said.
“That’s one of the Wicked Queen’s apples,” Jill said, her eyes going wide in surprise. “How many did you feed him?!”
“Just one,” Phillip said with a shrug. “I only had the two, but apparently they are stronger than you would think!”
Penelope laughed, and Jill even smiled. It was hard to hate someone who smelled so horrible.
And then, tiny hands pulled themselves up the rope, and a golden fairy appeared over the side of the wall. “Finally!” she said.
“Gwentell!” Jill shouted, and retrieved the dirty, shaken fairy. “Where did you come from?”
“Your horrible, stupid brother left me in the giant’s castle!” she shouted. “I had to ride along with him the entire way back here!”
“What’s she saying?” Jill’s father asked her.
“Same sorts of things,” Jill told him. She bent down to whisper in the fairy’s ear. “Jack . . . he died, Gwentell. The Queen killed him.”
The fairy looked at her in shock, then snorted. “No, he didn’t.”
Jill gave her an odd look. Did she know? “What do you mean, no he didn’t? I saw it happen.”
“Eh,” Gwentell said. “He’s fine. Trust me, I’ve seen that man-child make it out of things that should have killed him a hundred times over.” She brushed herself off, then gently flew up to Jill’s shoulder. “Now, what’s next?”
Jill smiled, then turned back to Phillip. “By the way,” Jill said, “I did what you asked. The Sea King is on his way. He’s marching his sharks and squids and everything over land and will meet us there.”
“The fairy queens have decided to help us too,” Penelope said, smiling at Gwentell. “They’re on their way as well.”
“Captain!” Phillip shouted, and a moment later the captain of the guard picked his way up the collapsed section of wall where Jill and Penelope had been standing moments earlier.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Gather anyone you can find,” Phillip told him. “We’ll need an army, if we can find one.”
“Of course, Your Highness,” the captain said. “But . . . for what?”
“We are going to attack the Wicked Queen’s castle,” Phillip told him. “We’ll start marching at dawn!”
“Might as well get wiped out all at once instead of dragging it out,” Jill murmured, and the fairy snorted.
CHAPTER 38
So wait,” Jack’s grandfather said as he absently pounded away on the contents of the Queen’s wooden heart box with a large hammer, frowning at the lack of progress. “How did the Wicked Queen come back? You skipped over that part. No one’s heard anything from her in over a decade.”
“We may never know the full truth of that,” Jack said, turning around so his grandfather couldn’t see him blush. “But that’s not really the point. I need to figure out a way to stop that heart, Grandpa, and nothing I’ve tried has worked.”
“If you know what’s going to happen, why don’t you just go stop it before it can?” his grandfather said.
Jack shook his head. “I got a bunch of headaches trying to figure that out already. If I changed things so the Wicked Queen wasn’t freed, then I’d never need to go to Punk to arrive here when I do, which means I wouldn’t be there to stop it, which means I’d go again, and on and on.” He grimaced. “I need to make sure this sticks. And that means I need to wait until the point I left.”
“So I probably shouldn’t be doing this,” his grandfather said, still hammering the heart.
Jack shrugged. “I’d be a lot more worried if I thought there was a chance of it working.”
“Well, I’d suggest something from my bag of magical curiosities, but I just gave those to you—the younger you,” the old man said, then gave Jack a suspicious look. “You still have them, right?”
Jack coughed. “Oh, I’m sure I gave them back to you or something in the future, unlessIlosttheminacollapsingcastle. Anyway, they’re not here now. Any other suggestions?”
“I missed a big part of that sentence, but fine,” his grandfather said. “I still can’t believe you went over to the evil side.”
“It’s not the evil side!” Jack said. “I mean, it is, but I had to get close to the Queen if she was going to send me to Punk so I could steal her heart.”
His grandfather glared at him. “You’re just like your uncle. And look where that got him.”
“Where exactly did it get him?” Jack asked. “I actually have no idea who my uncle is. My father wouldn’t talk about him—”
“For good reason,” his grandfather said. “Even your fool father had more sense than that idiot. But enough about your mother’s less-than-intelligent family. She was a sweet girl, even for an Eye. Speaking of, can’t you just use that fool sword of yours?”
Jack opened his mouth to say something, then closed it quickly. Whoops. He hadn’t exactly tried that. And it had cut through frozen dragon’s breath six months ago, when he’d rescued . . . uh, accidentally freed the Wicked Queen. “I was going to do that next,” he said, then pulled his sword out and gave it a try.
The heart went right on beating, but the sword’s glow reminded him of someone he needed to talk to.
He gently placed two fingers on the sword, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the Charmed One.
A second later, his body collapsed to the floor, and he found himself sitting beneath an oak tree in the middle of a grassy field.
There, with an exact copy of Jack’s sword, was the Charmed One. Only, the sword was aimed right at Jack.
“She got to you before I could,” the knight said, circling around Jack. “I failed you, Jack, and for that, I apologize. But I cannot allow you to leave here under her control.”
“Apology accepted,” Jack said, then paused. “Wait . . . what?”
And then he realized that though the sword had come with him through time, the Charmed One apparently had not. So . . . the knight wasn’t in his head after all. Instead, the sword must pull him in from some . . . other place? Jack frowned, the whole thing giving him a headache again.
Then the Charmed One sliced through the spot where Jack’s head should have been, Jack barely dodging it, and he realized that he’d have a bigger headache if he didn’t pay attention.
“Well avoided,” the knight said half-approvingly. “I see she has trained you well.”
“Who, the Queen?” Jack said. “She didn’t train me, you did! You gave me this sword. You just haven’t done it yet. You will. In a giant’s mo
uth.”
The knight’s eyes narrowed, and he attacked again. Jack blocked with his sword and leapt away, trying to force the man to talk to him. “You really did!” Jack shouted. “You trained me! To . . . not become this, actually. So it didn’t go so well, but—”
The knight struck again, and again Jack defended himself, then moved away quickly. “I should have found you sooner,” the Charmed One said. “I never dreamed she’d find you this early. I thought you were hidden away safely, where no one would find you!”
“Hidden me?” Jack said, and then barely dodged as the knight’s sword flew straight at his chest.
“I cannot allow this, Jack,” the Charmed One said. “If you’ve joined her, I will see your mind dead, and your body will soon follow!”
“WAIT!” Jack shouted, but nothing happened even close to that. The knight attacked again, and this time, Jack fought back. The knight swept his sword low, and Jack leapt over it, swinging out one-handed with his sword at the knight’s shoulder.
The sword passed through the knight as if he were made of air, and yet the man flinched from what looked like pain. “First blood to you,” he said.
“You’re not bleeding,” Jack told him.
The knight growled and attacked again, moving so fast that the Jack of six months ago would never have even seen a movement. But Jack of six months ago was presently galloping away on a man-eating horse. This Jack knew a thing or two more.
Jack concentrated, and the knight’s sword hit nothing, as Jack completely disappeared, only to reappear right behind the man. Jack grabbed the Charmed One’s cloak and yanked, pulling the man down, then drove his sword down at the man’s unprotected neck, stopping just short of touching it.
“Despite how this looks, I really don’t want to hurt you,” he told the knight. “Seriously.”
“And what exactly is it that you want to do, Eye?” the Charmed One said.
And with that, Jack let him up and concentrated, making a dreamlike wooden box appear in his hand. “I want to destroy this.”
The Charmed One slowly pushed himself to his feet, his face full of shock. “That’s . . . the Queen’s lost heart. But where did you—”
“I found it lying around in some other world,” Jack told him. “The one the Queen fled to after . . . well, you know that story better than I do.”
The knight nodded. “So . . . you tell the truth, or some version of it. You couldn’t be her creature; she would never risk her heart being found. And now you want to destroy it but don’t know how?”
“Not so far. That’s why I came to you.”
The Charmed One nodded. “While I rejoice that you still fight for the good, I also despair for your quest. Only one other ever learned the secret of the Queen’s cursed heart, and she told no one.”
“So?” Jack said. “Who is it? I’ll go find this woman and get some answers.”
The knight sighed. “You may have a bit of trouble with that. You see, the one I refer to was poisoned by the Queen before she could share her discovery.” He smiled sadly. “And given that the only one who can wake this woman, me, is currently dead, I’d say we might have some problems with this.”
CHAPTER 39
Snow White?” Jack said.
“Her body is poisoned,” the Charmed One said, his voice cracking. “The poison keeps her mind from returning. Some mixture of the Queen’s, deliberately keeping Snow alive yet unable to live. Beyond cruel.”
“So we just need the counterspell or whatever.”
The knight opened his mouth, but no words emerged. Finally, he whispered, “There is none.”
“There’s always a counterspell,” Jack argued, his hope fading. “That’s how these things work. Magic can always be undone.”
“In her cruelty, the Queen did create an antidote,” the knight said. “Me. She created the poison to only be cured by a kiss from Snow’s true love. And then she killed me with my own sword.”
Though the knight had hinted at that, Jack still went cold at the idea that the sword he held had killed the man in front of him. “But . . . how is it that you’re here, then? You know, I meant to ask you that, but there always seemed to be more important things going on—”
“You . . . meant to ask me?” The Charmed One looked confused. “But we have not met before now.”
Jack shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here arguing pointless points if you’re dead. Let’s get back to the important questions, like how can you exist here in this place if you’re dead?”
The knight pointed at his sword. “You really know so little about the sword and its power? I’m surprised an Eye would be so ill-educated.”
“I’m a surprising guy sometimes.”
“Did the Queen tell you nothing of her bargain?” the Charmed One said. “Did she not share how she came into possession of these swords?”
“Let’s assume I haven’t heard the story in a while. But how about the short version? My grandfather’s probably not happy with how long I’ve been out.”
The Charmed One seemed confused again, then shrugged. “The Queen had often explored other realities. Worlds with magic similar but different . . . even worlds without magic. One in particular she thought might make a safe retreat if ever she needed to flee.”
“I’ve seen it; it’s nice,” Jack said, not really wanting to think about that.
“But while exploring, someone met her between realities, another explorer like herself, someone else looking for knowledge. Though while the Queen wanted knowledge to use as power, this man sought knowledge for its own sake.” The knight seemed to be staring off into the space, as if he were imagining the man. “The Queen spoke of him as having two pet ravens, one on each shoulder. That was what gave her the idea for her familiar, in fact. This explorer carried a spear and rode a horse with sixteen legs—”
“Seems a little excessive—”
“And when this traveler heard of the Queen’s Mirror . . . he wanted nothing more than to speak to it. And the Queen agreed but traded the Mirror’s knowledge for something equally as important to this traveler: one of his eyes.”
“AGH!” Jack said, trying to sum up his feelings in as simple a sentence as possible.
“The Queen claims that the traveler had but three questions for the Mirror, then left with a patch covering his missing eye.” The Charmed One gave Jack a look. “And before you ask, I don’t know the questions.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“The Queen took this man’s eye and fashioned it into the swords we—”
“NO.”
“Wield, and each sword—”
“NO!”
“Much like the traveler, thirsts for knowledge. The magic each sword contains—”
“I AM NOT HOLDING SOME GUY’S EYEBALL!”
“Was given to it by the Queen, imparted to each sword individually. But each sword also contained everything that this man had seen. This is how each sword knows how to bend light past its user and move us through time faster than we might normally move on our own. This traveler had learned such things, and his eye had seen them—”
“I’M SERIOUS HERE. I’m not touching some guy’s EYE—”
“But each sword also learns from its user.” The Charmed One put a hand on his own sword. “And mine has learned well. I even managed to replace the Queen’s powers within the sword so that she could not listen through it, nor use my sight as her own. But putting so much of myself in the sword has resulted in this.” He waved his hand around bitterly. “I have moved on, the important parts of me, but the remnants . . . the part of me the sword knew . . . the sword can still access that part of me from the beyond.”
Jack put his hands up. “WHOA. So not only do I have some guy’s eyeball on my back, but it also has the essence of a dead guy in it? Do you understand why I’m having some issues with this? Also, how big was this guy that this thing could be part of his eye?!”
“He was quite large, I’m told,” the Charmed One said
, and Jack thought he saw the hint of a smile.
“You better not be enjoying this,” Jack warned him.
The Charmed One sighed. “I am afraid that I cannot help you with your task of ending the Queen’s reign.”
“NO,” Jack said. “If I have to carry this thing around with me, it’s going to be of some use. If you can be in here and you’re dead, then Snow White can stop on by too. And if I get the two of you together in here, then you can do the whole kissing thing and wake her up, right?”
The Charmed One paused. “I . . . do not know. Such a thing would require months of training—”
“I have months. I’m already six months in the past—”
“And could very well leave you as weak as a babe, unable to defend yourself.”
“That’s pretty much my usual day too.”
The Charmed One looked more hopeful than Jack had ever seen him. “I would of course be willing to try. If you were to attempt such a thing, to allow me to see Snow once more—”
“Let’s not give me more credit than I deserve,” Jack said. “I’m just trying to un-Wicked a Queen. But yes, that’d be a nice side benefit. So where do we start?”
“You’ll need a place where you can be alone for the training,” the Charmed One said. “No distractions, no other thoughts. I have an idea of somewhere you could go—”
The Charmed One gestured and showed Jack an image. Jack shrugged. “Seems a bit run-down but as good a place as any.”
“I would truly owe you, my friend,” the knight said.
“Just . . . try to talk some sense into me next time we meet,” Jack said. “I’m going to be pretty annoying and not want to listen. But sometimes, you just have to jump for it.”
“I . . . don’t know what that means.”
“You’ll see,” Jack said, then woke himself up, leaving as quickly as possible after his victory.
He was finally able to out-vague the Charmed One!
CHAPTER 40