ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“It’s true. I brought him into the palace as a young man. He worked as a librarian at first. Devoured every book in the palace library. Found ancient magic books and all sorts. Dark arts. Discovered that the blood of the King might just raise a beast from the dead. My boy is clever. Cleverer than any of you. He is a genius! My son yearned for power, and I encouraged him every step of the way. Soon he will be supreme ruler of this country, if not the world, with me, his mother, at his side!”
“Never!” shouted Alfred. “This country belongs to all of us, not just you!”
“He will. Trust me. He will. All we need is some of your royal blood!”
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“NO!” snapped Alfred. “I have seen what your evil son has done to my father! You are not having a drop!”
“Oh yes I am,” she purred. “And I will take it! Your blood is ours!”
With that, Nanny took out a jewel-handled dagger! She raised it high above her head, ready to bring it down upon the boy.
Alfred put his hands up to stop her, and at once they were engaged in a deadly arm wrestle.
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Nanny edged the knife nearer and nearer to the boy’s heart.
“NO!” cried Alfred, and he used all his strength to repel her.
Then the strangest thing happened.
In an instant, the light in Nanny’s eyes went out.
She dropped the dagger…
CLANK!
…and slumped down on to the stone floor beside him.
THUD!
Dead.
Now Alfred could see that Nanny had a sabre sticking out of her back.
Looking up, he saw that standing over her body was the Queen.
“Don’t you dare hurt my son!” she said.
“Thank you, Mama,” said Alfred.
“Anything for you, Lionheart.”
Mite scuttled over to join them. “I never did like that woman,” she remarked.
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
There was the sound of a scream.
“ARGH!”
It was Enid! She’d been hit.
“ENID!” cried Alfred as he crawled over to her.
“You go, boy,” replied the old dear. “Defeat this monster. We ladies-in-waiting will do our best to hold the guards down here in the vault!”
“But what about you?” asked Alfred.
“Don’t you worry about me. What was it the Old Queen said? ‘You are never too old for adventure!’ I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
Alfred nodded to Mite and the Queen, and together the three scuttled off on their hands and knees out of the line of fire.
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Just then the Octobut appeared through the door of the vault, holding a tennis racquet. It still had only two of its eight arms left.
“Anyone for tennis?” it asked.
One of the royal guards turned round sharply and blasted another one of its arms clean off.
ZAP!
CLANK!
The arm holding the tennis racquet was twitching on the floor.
The robot butler only had one lonely arm left. It was now really a Unibut.
“Thank you, Octobut!” called out Alfred.
Brilliantly, the accident-prone robot had created the perfect distraction for the royal guards, and the three of them escaped through the door.
“We made it!” said Alfred.
However, in the corridor, something terrifying was waiting for them.
From out of the shadows it floated towards him.
The three froze.
It was the All-Seeing Eye!
ZAP!
ZAP!
ZAP!
Lasers shot from the centre of the flying robot’s eye, and the three dodged out of the way as explosions went off all around them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The corridor was narrow, and there was nowhere to hide.
Alfred was frozen to the spot, standing right in front of the All-Seeing Eye. None of the lasers were shooting in his direction. Why wasn’t he a target? Nanny must have been telling the truth for once. They needed his blood!
The Queen grabbed her son’s hand and yanked him into an alcove.
“You could have been killed,” she hissed.
“It doesn’t want to hurt me,” he whispered back. “LOOK!”
Then Alfred stepped out into the corridor to come eye to gigantic eye with the robot again.
The Queen tried desperately to pull him down to the ground, but the boy was wilful.
“SON! NOO!” she screamed, holding on to his arm.
ZAP!
BOOM!
“ARGH!” screamed the Queen. “My eyes!”
In anger, Prince Alfred ran and leaped at the thing to make it stop. Just as he had grabbed hold of it, it whisked him up into the air at a terrific speed.
WHOOSH!
He held on for dear life as the machine flew up through the palace, leaving only Mite to tend to the Queen.
Bursting through some double doors…
BOOSH!
…the boy found himself on the ground floor of Buckingham Palace.
BOOM!
RAT-TAT-TAT!
KABOOM!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
From the sound of explosions and gunfire outside, it was clear the revolution was gathering pace. The revolutionaries must be at the palace gates already. It wouldn’t be long until they would break through them and storm the palace itself.
Through yet more doors they sped, until the All-Seeing Eye stopped, with Alfred still astride it, at the palace ballroom.
There, waiting patiently for the prince, was the Lord Protector. The evil man was standing on the huge chalked pattern he’d laid out on the floor. At the centre was the statue of the griffin. All around the floor were arranged the other nine stone statues of the King’s Beasts.
The Lion of England.
The White Greyhound of Richmond.
The Yale of Beaufort.
The Red Dragon of Wales.
The White Horse of Hanover.
The White Lion of Mortimer.
The Unicorn of Scotland.
The Black Bull of Clarence.
The Falcon of the Plantagenets.
Alfred realised that it wasn’t a chessboard, after all.
It was a map.
A giant map of Britain.
Each of the ten beasts had been placed where it had come from. The dragon in Wales, the unicorn in Scotland, the lion in England, and so on.
“Your Royal Highness! How good of you to join us!” purred the Lord Protector. He did a little theatrical bow as if he were being deferential, though it was clear he was being anything but. “Just in time too.”
Prince Alfred slid off the All-Seeing Eye and on to his feet.
“Where is my father?” he demanded.
“I’m here, Alfred,” replied the man.
Lying on the floor behind the statue of the griffin was the King. Alfred rushed over to him and fell to his knees.
“FATHER!” he cried.
The King looked like death. He was even more hollow and pale than before, and his eyes were closed.
“He has no more blood left in him,” said the Lord Protector. “Which is why I need yours!”
“Son?” whispered the King, his eyes flickering open.
“Yes, Father, it’s me. Alfred.”
“I’m sorry, son. The Lord Protector has been controlling me for years. My mind. My body. He has weakened me to make this beast strong.”
“I know, Father.”
“I sent you and your mother to the Tower because I thought you would be safer there. Away from this beast.”
Alfred hugged him close.
“He has been too greedy. My blood is too thin now for his wick
ed plan. Run, son, please run, or the Lord Protector will unleash a power so great it is impossible to imagine.”
The boy rose to his feet. “No! I have to stop this evil man once and for all.”
“And how, pray tell, are you going to do that, child?” purred the Lord Protector, who had been listening all along.
KABOOM!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
BOOM!
RAT-TAT-TAT!
“Can’t you hear that?” exclaimed Alfred. “The revolution is underway! The people of this country have had enough of you and your evil rule. The game is over.”
The Lord Protector smiled. “Oh no. The game has only just begun.”
He turned to the royal guards. “SEIZE HIM!”
At once, Prince Alfred was surrounded. Roughly, he was dragged towards the bottom of the map.
“What are you doing to me?”
“You will find out soon enough.”
One of the guards passed the Lord Protector an ancient leather-bound book. Alfred could make out the gold lettering on the front. De Libro Albion.
“The Book of Albion!” exclaimed the boy.
“So you were paying attention in my Latin classes, after all,” remarked the Lord Protector.
“That one was always kept under lock and key in the palace library!” exclaimed Alfred. “I was never allowed to look at it!”
“For good reason,” purred the Lord Protector. “This is the most ancient book in the world. Handwritten and illustrated by holy men centuries ago. This is the only one in existence. The only one ever made. It tells the story of the creation of Albion.”
“Albion! The ancient word for Great Britain.”
“Your history is not too shabby either, child. It begins with the story of the first-ever ruler of this island. Long before King Alfred. Long before official records began. Back then a beast was terrorising the people of Albion.”
The Lord Protector showed the prince some of the ancient illustrations of the story. They were hand-painted and looked like the stained-glass windows you see in churches. In the pictures, there was a huge fiery beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion.
“A griffin!” exclaimed Alfred.
“The very same. One brave man stepped forward, and in a fearsome battle he slew the beast with this very sword.”
The Lord Protector indicated the ornate sword that one of the royal guards was holding. It was the same sword with the jewelled handle he’d used to cut the palms of the King’s hands and draw his blood.
The pictures in The Book of Albion showed the sword in the man’s hand.
“Legend has it,” continued the Lord Protector, “that once he had slain the beast, he drank its blood. Blue blood.”
Indeed, in the book the griffin’s blood was painted blue.
“The people of Albion fell to their knees. They believed this man now had the power of the beast. The power of life and death over all of them. Divine power – the power of a god.”
“So that’s why you need royal blood?” guessed Alfred, trying to piece together the parts of the Lord Protector’s plan. “If the first-ever king of Albion, or Britain as it became known, had some of the griffin’s blood mixed with his, then all of those in the royal line have a trace of the beast’s blood within us.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed the Lord Protector.
“That is why you needed my father’s blood to bring this beast back to life.”
“Yes, and why – now he has none left – I need yours.”
This sent a chill down the boy’s spine.
“Your evil mother, Nanny, tried to take it from me, but she failed!”
“Where is she?” asked the Lord Protector.
“Dead.”
The Lord Protector paused for a moment. “She made the ultimate sacrifice for me, her son. Thank you, Mother.”
Alfred shook his head. What a wicked pair. “Why is the book so important in all this?”
“The Book of Albion has many clues as to how this terrifying beast might one day rise again. Through the dark arts. Chants and prayers, and ancient maps. And royal blood dripping on a statue of the beast to bring it to life.”
The Lord Protector flicked through the pages of the book, which showed scenes of the griffin’s resurrection.
Alfred gulped…
GULP!
…and looked around the huge palace ballroom. There wasn’t just the griffin. The other nine of the King’s Beasts were placed around the map too.
“But why have you got all the statues up from the vault?” he asked.
“Because I have gone one further than The Book of Albion. If I can bring the griffin back to life, why can’t I bring all the King’s Beasts to life too? With them at my side, I, and I alone, will rule this kingdom, and every other kingdom of the world, FOREVER! I will be the King of Kings for all eternity!”
His eyes lit up with demonic glee.
“You’re nuts!” was Alfred’s not unreasonable response.
“Madness and genius are often intertwined,” said the man.
The Lord Protector turned to the guards. “Hold out the prince’s hand.”
Alfred struggled and struggled, and struggled some more, but it was impossible to escape their clutches. Next, the Lord Protector was handed the ancient sword. A sword that had belonged to that very first king of Albion. He held it high above his head before slicing open the palm of the boy’s hand.
“ARGH!”
screamed Alfred. Next, the evil man guided the boy closer to the statue of the griffin. His royal blood, which had left a trail on the floor, was now dripping on the eagle head of the statue.
DRIP! DRIP! DRIP!
The guards held the boy’s hand in place, so more and more royal blood would drip. They began to chant, as the Lord Protector read aloud from The Book of Albion.
It was Latin, and
immediately
the statue
began to
hum…
Gradually, the stone statue of the griffin started to glow. At first it was like there was a light burning inside, before the surface of the stone blazed like the sun. Then flames began licking the side of the statue, and the heat was so blisteringly hot it singed Alfred’s pyjamas.
SIZZLE!
The Lord Protector grinned a ghoulish grin. His wicked plan was working.
Alfred noticed that the other nine statues of the King’s Beasts had begun to hum too. With ten beasts of fire under his control, the Lord Protector would be able to rule the world for all eternity.
The evil man continued reading from the ancient Book of Albion.
The prince had to do something. And fast. He noticed that the royal guards either side of him had become distracted by the griffin coming to life. Now was his chance. With all his strength, Alfred pulled his arms together, so the two guards’ helmets bashed.
CLONK!
Finding himself free, he surged forward towards the Lord Protector. One of the guards managed to grab the boy’s arm.
“GET OFF ME!”
In the struggle, they fell hard against the glowing statue, knocking it over.
THUNK!
It toppled on to the Lord Protector.
DOOF!
The statue had become like molten lava. It burned the Lord Protector, and he convulsed on the ballroom floor in the most excruciating pain.
“AAARRRGGGHHH!”
The guards who were dotted around the room froze in fear. They didn’t know what to do other than watch their evil leader writhe in agony.
“NOOO!” cried the Lord Protector.
This was Alfred’s moment to flee. He rushed over to the King.
“Father, Father, we have to get out of here. Now!”
The King opened his eyes. “I don’t have the strength, son. You go. Flee. Flee for your life.”
“Not without you!”
“Son! Look!”
The boy turned round to see the most horrifying sight.
Far from killing the Lord Protector, the statue had melted with him to create one super-being.
Made of fire, the creature was half griffin, half man.
And all
MONSTER.
It stood on two lion legs, had the talons and wings of an eagle, and the face of a man. The face of the Lord Protector.
The guards began to escape. Even the All-Seeing Eye, which presumably had seen it all, couldn’t believe its eye. It was trying to fly out of harm’s way. However, this monster was growing and growing as each second passed, and the palace ballroom was becoming an INFERNO!
“The sword, son, the sword!” said the King. “Help me slay the beast!”
The ancient sword was in the hands of one of the guards, who was now running away. As he dropped it on to the ballroom floor in a rush to open the door…
CLANG!
…Alfred raced over and seized it. Then he helped his father to his feet and passed him the sword. The King bravely stood right in front of the monster. It must have been at least three or four times the size of him. The King lifted the sword above his head heroically.
“I do this for Britain!” he shouted.
But, before he could strike, the griffin breathed a deadly blast of fire on him.
WHOOMPH!
It turned him to ash in a heartbeat.
CRUMBLE!
All that was left of the King was a pile of black dust.
“NOOO!” cried Alfred.
The ancient sword fell to the floor.
CLANK!
The blade broke clean in two. Alfred snatched up the pieces, and carried them off.
Outside the ballroom windows, a group of revolutionaries had gathered, poised to burst into the palace itself. On seeing what had just happened, their expressions betrayed only horror. Alfred gestured for them to get back, and they hurriedly retreated.
The griffin beat its mighty wings, and began flying towards the boy, backing him into a corner. King Alfred, as he now was with his father gone, was prepared to meet his destiny.
“Lionheart?” came a shout. It was his mother, the Queen, still blinded by the laser blast from the All-Seeing Eye. She had finally found her way up to the ballroom with the help of Mite, who was holding her hand tight.
The Beast of Buckingham Palace Page 14