The 10th Kingdom

by Kathryn Wesley

  “I found this huge pile of a hundred fresh, juicy bones,” the Prince said, ‘ ‘but they were so big, I could only carry one back at a time, and I knew by the time I came back they would have been found, so I took one and I buried the other ninety-nine.”

  That made no sense. Cinderella watched as the sycophants around her tried to figure out a reaction. Silence at first, and then mumblings of “brilliant,” “cunning,” “sound military thinking.” For heaven’s sake. He might have literally meant bones.

  But silly little Riding Hood didn’t think so. She said, “Build up our military reserves for times of war. Wise indeed.”

  The Lord Chancellor pounded again. “He has passed the second test.”

  Cinderella pressed a hand against her forehead as everyone around her started chanting, “Wise Wendell. Wise Wendell.”

  She did not join in the chant.

  Wolf heard the page announce that it was now midnight. Time for the Cinderella waltz. He waited, as he was instructed, for the sound of ladies’ shoes hitting the floor. Then he pushed his cart closer to the kitchen door and watched the young men as they gathered a single shoe and went to find its owner, who would then be their partner for the dance.

  How stupid were they? If Wolf had been dancing, he would have noticed what shoes his beloved had been wearing before the ritual throwing of the single shoe. But that would take too much planning for these people.

  Men knelt in front of women and tried to slip shoes on their feet. It didn’t take as long as Wolf had anticipated. Within a few moments, the music had started and most people were on the floor, dancing.

  He pushed the cart forward and handed goblets to the nondancers. It would take most of the waltz for him to pass out all of the goblets, and when it was done, the dancers would take theirs.

  Everyone needed a drink for the royal toast.

  Tony was getting used to the sword. It was heavy, but he could handle it. Virginia had been right. He felt better with a weapon in his hands.

  They had emerged from the weapons store into a thin stone tower with a spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever. High above, he could hear a waltz. The music was much louder than before.

  They had been climbing for a long time when they reached a passageway that went off in one direction, while the stairs kept going up.

  “Which way?” Virginia asked.

  “Here,” Tony said, pointing to the passageway.

  “No, we can’t be high enough yet. We have to keep on climbing.” She raced up the stairs.

  He stood in front of the passageway. He didn’t have half of her energy. “Why did you ask me in the first place if you weren’t going to listen to me?”

  She didn’t hear him, of course. She kept going without him. He had to trudge to catch her. By the time he reached the top, he was breathing hard.

  The music was very loud. He was beginning to realize that he hated waltzes.

  “I counted the levels,” Virginia said. “This must be the ballroom level.”

  Tony turned the handle gently and pushed against the door. It opened a few inches but he couldn’t push any harder. The door slammed closed.

  “It’s not locked, but there’s something heavy lying against

  it.”

  “Come on, Dad. We’re running out of time. Push.”

  He pushed as hard as he could. Virginia added her weight to his, and together they forced the door open.

  Inside were the three Trolls.

  “Oh, shit!” Tony said and slammed the door shut.

  “Skin them! Skin them alive!” the Trolls shouted through the door.

  Tony jammed his sword through the handle and across the door frame, wedging the door so that it couldn’t be opened from the inside.

  The Trolls started to rattle it. “Smash it open!”

  Tony grabbed Virginia and turned her around. “Back the way we came. Quick,” Tony said. “Take the other route.” They raced down the stairs to the passage. Virginia disappeared into it. Tony followed. By the time he caught up to her, she was already trying another door.

  “It’s locked.” She stood back and swung at it with her axe. Tony made sure he was out of the way.

  After a moment, he realized that the door was extremely thick. “This is going to take too long,” he said. “I’ll go back to the stairs. It was narrow there. Only one of those Trolls can get through at a time.”

  “Don’t, Dad,” Virginia said. “You’ll get killed.”

  He would, wouldn’t he? He stared at her for a moment. Then he smiled. It was all right. This wasn’t about him anymore. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s your destiny.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Go,” Tony said. “You have to save everybody. It doesn’t matter about me.”

  He ran back toward the stairs, shouting, “Don’t wait for me! Go ahead. I’ll stay and keep them back.”

  As he passed through the corridor, he grabbed a new sword and shield. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t afraid, even though he was going to face the Trolls alone.

  He crept back up the stairs. He was halfway up when he heard the door he had jammed finally give way. The Trolls raced down the stairs toward him.

  Tony gripped his sword, raised his shield, and suddenly the Trolls were upon him.

  “Victory to the Troll nation,” Burly shouted as he lunged at Tony with an axe.

  Tony met the lunge with his sword. He fought like a madman, keeping them pinned against the narrow stairway. He had to buy Virginia some time. That was his only goal here.

  The Trolls kept hacking at him. Sparks flew off their axes as the blades hit the wall. Somehow Tony found an opening and stabbed Burly.

  Burly fell back, but Blabberwort took his place.

  She was fresh in the fight and she moved quicker than her brother. She brought an axe down into Tony’s arm.

  The pain was sudden and intense. He screamed.

  “We have him,” Blabberwort shouted. “He’s weakened.”

  They pressed forward, hacking at Tony’s shield and forcing him back.

  Virginia heard her father scream. She glanced over her shoulder and hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should go help him. Then she realized she couldn’t. He was right. Everyone else was relying on her.

  She brought her axe down hard one more time and created a hole in the door big enough to force her hand through. She unlocked the door from the other side, then pushed it open and ran through.

  And then someone brought in the world’s ugliest gold crown. They really should have retired it long ago. Cinderella watched as some page carried it toward the Prince.

  She sighed. The crown was quite inappropriate—gaudy and too big—but somehow she couldn’t quite imagine it on this Prince’s head.

  “If none question his appointment,” the Lord Chancellor was saying, “then I do solemnly—”

  “Wait!” Cinderella got to her feet. Oh, but those glass slippers were getting tight. “I question him.”

  The ballroom grew silent, and in the silence, she thought she heard the Prince bark.

  Bark?

  He had a hand to his mouth as if he had coughed. “Do you?” he said.

  She peered at him. “Are you really who you say you are?”

  He looked very nervous. “I am ...lam...”

  She frowned. “Are you really Prince Wendell White, grandson of Snow White and the man who would be King?”

  He loosened his collar, looking lost. He glanced at the curtains and got a panicked expression on his face, Then he closed his eyes and said, “No! No, I am an imposter!”

  Everyone gasped. There were cries throughout the hall. Cinderella waited. It was clear that he wasn’t done.

  “I am not a Prince,” he said. “I am ordinary. I will never be great like Snow White. Some are bom to lead, but I am a pack animal. I am not a leader, I am a retriever. I wish to tear off these royal clothes and run in the fields. I do not want the job. I will not
take the job. I am not worthy.”

  There was absolute silence in the hall. Cinderella studied him for a long time. If only she had heard that speech from Riding Hood III or any of the other grandchildren of the great monarchs. They all thought they were their grandparents’ betters, and of course they would never measure up.

  She nodded slowly, still not quite sure why she had felt so unsettled. “He has passed the third test. He has shown humility.”

  Someone applauded, and then the ridiculous ritual continued as the guests shouted, “Such candor. Such honesty.”

  Of course, the Lord Chancellor picked that moment to pound his stupid stave.

  ‘‘He has passed the three tests,” the Chancellor said. ‘ ‘Now let him be crowned.”

  Tony was fighting a desperate rearguard action, hacking and swinging with his sword. The two remaining Trolls had forced him into the passage, but he wasn’t going to let them get anywhere near Virginia.

  Somehow he was managing to hold Blabberwort off with his shield and Bluebell off with his sword. His energy was flagging. But then he remembered how much Virginia was relying on him.

  He used all his energy to renew the fight.

  “It’s time to kick Troll butt!” he shouted.

  He waved his sword wildly, forcing them back. A blow from Blabberwort sent him reeling, but he rallied and stabbed her in the arm with his sword.

  Virginia had been confused by the sound. The passageway had opened above the ballroom, not into it. She was in a gallery about thirty feet above the floor. The glass ceiling, far above her, had made the music echo so that she had thought the ballroom was higher.

  She ran toward the stairs that led down into the ballroom proper when a hand clamped around her mouth.

  “You only get to watch,” the Huntsman said.

  He pulled her back against him. She struggled, but he held her tightly.

  Down below, the crowd was cheering the Dog Prince as if he were Wendell.

  One of the Lords pounded a staff against the floor. “Arise, King Wendell.”

  The Dog Prince was holding a goblet and grinning widely. Wolf stood before him. Virginia stopped struggling and watched as Wolf poured the last of the punch into the Dog Prince’s goblet.

  “Time for the toast, Your Majesty,” Wolf said.

  The Dog Prince looked behind him. Virginia followed the look. Gold curtains to the back of the room were parted slightly, and through them, she could see the Queen, holding the real Prince Wendell and smiling.

  “Oh, yes,” the Dog Prince said.

  He stood up very slowly.

  “The Royal Toast!” someone shouted.

  The Dog Prince lifted his goblet. So did everyone in the room except Wolf, who had a horrible expression on his face.

  Then Virginia knew. It was what Snow White had said. The Queen would poison them all. The Huntsman tightened his hold on Virginia’s mouth as if he knew that she was going to scream a warning.

  “To everlasting peace,” the Dog Prince said, “and all the bones we can gnaw.”

  “To everlasting peace,” everyone repeated, “and all the bones we can gnaw.”

  Virginia struggled really hard as the Dog Prince drained his goblet. She couldn’t free herself. Everyone else in the room did the same, swallowing poison as if it were wine.

  The Dog Prince sat down and grinned. “I did really well!”

  An ancient woman wearing glass slippers fell across a table. People gasped. As the ladies in waiting rushed to help her, they collapsed as well. Then a beautifully dressed Elf fell backwards off her chair.

  The Dog Prince tried to stand, but he collapsed too. Guests started screaming as more and more people slumped over their tables.

  “Poison!” shouted a woman in a red hood. “We’ve been—”

  She collapsed before she could finish. The remaining guests were panicking, running for the door, and falling. Those most hardy tried to climb over the others, but they fell too.

  Wolf watched it all, his expression impassive. He had committed mass murder for the Queen, and it didn’t seem to bother him.

  The Huntsman held Virginia tightly, but she had lost the urge to struggle. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Only Wolf remained standing in the entire ballroom. Everyone else was dead.

  Bluebell was the only Troll still fighting. Tony was bleeding from four different wounds, and he was older and weaker than the damn Troll. He didn’t know how much he had left in him.

  Axe and sword clashed violently time and time again. Finally the axe cut Tony’s sword in half.

  Bluebell laughed in triumph and raised his axe.

  But Tony was taller than this little Troll and he still had a weapon. His shield. He brought it down hard on Bluebell’s head. Bluebell toppled over backwards, completely unconscious.

  Tony collapsed against the wall. He had never been so exhausted in his life. But he couldn’t stop now.

  “Come on, Tony,” he said to himself.

  He tripped, fell to the floor, and forced himself up.

  The Huntsman dragged Virginia down the stairs. She was getting over her shock, and she was beginning to get angry. She had looked into the face of evil and realized that it belonged to her mother.

  The Queen had stepped out from behind her curtain. She was dragging the real Wendell. Wolf still stood by his beverage cart. He was watching everything as if it weren’t real to him.

  The Queen saw Virginia and smiled.

  “You certainly are persistent,” the Queen said. She stopped less than a foot in front of Virginia.

  Virginia raised her chin. The Huntsman had let go of her mouth, now that there was no one to warn. “Are you going to kill me as well?”

  “I was going to let you go,” the Queen said. “I don’t know why.”

  “You know why,” Virginia said.

  “Go,” the Queen said. “Get out while you can.”

  The Huntsman let her go. No one held her anymore. She could leave if she wanted to.

  “No!” Virginia said.

  “You were nothing but an accident. You should have been killed at birth.”

  Virginia slapped her across the face as hard as she could. There was twenty years of anger behind that blow. The Queen staggered backwards.

  “How dare you talk to me like that,” Virginia said. “How dare you.”

  The Queen rose slowly, hand to her mouth. She said to the Huntsman, “Kill her now. Now, or I’ll do it myself.”

  “Yes, milady,” the Huntsman said.

  He raised his crossbow at Virginia. He was about to fire when Wolf tackled the Huntsman with crunching force that sent them both to the ground.

  The crossbow bolt shot straight into the air and smashed through the ballroom’s glass ceiling. The Huntsman wrestled the crossbow from Wolf and smashed him across the face, forcing him backwards.

  Virginia screamed his name. He had saved her again.

  The Huntsman pulled out his jagged knife, but there was a crunch from above. The crossbow bolt had come back down through the glass ceiling, and as Virginia watched, the bolt fell with deadly accuracy.

  It punched straight into the Huntsman’s heart. Wolf gasped as the Huntsman fell on him. The bolt pinned both of them to the floor.

  “Cripes,” Wolf said.

  He struggled but couldn’t seem to get free.

  The Queen looked at the dead Huntsman in horror, then turned on Virginia. She sank her nails into Virginia’s neck and started to choke her.

  Virginia put her hands up, but couldn’t pull the Queen off her. The Queen was exceptionally strong.

  Virginia couldn’t get her breath.

  The Queen forced her fingers into Virginia’s throat, and the pain was enormous.

  Virginia had to fight to keep from blacking out.

  Her vision was getting dark. She probably hadn’t recovered from the last time.

  Wolf was still pinned to the floor, unable to free himself.

 
She was going to have to do this herself, but she didn’t know how.

  She tried pushing the Queen away, tried hitting her, but nothing worked.

  Then, as spots danced in front of her eyes, she saw the comb. She wrenched the comb out of the Queen’s hair and, using all of her remaining strength, brought it down on the back of the Queen’s neck.

  The Queen let go of Virginia’s throat.

  Virginia gasped for breath.

  The Queen pulled the comb out of her neck, spraying her white dress with blood. She stared at the comb’s teeth, which were dark red.

  “You have drawn blood.” The Queen rubbed her hand on the back of her neck.

  Virginia stepped back, horrified.

  The Queen took an uncertain step forward, then fell to one knee. She looked up at Virginia, then down at the comb. Her hand slowly fell open, and the comb clattered to the ground.

  “No, no, no, no,” Virginia said, suddenly understanding what she had done. She hurried to her mother’s side.

  Her father appeared on the gallery above them. “Oh, my God,” Tony shouted. “What’s happened?”

  And without waiting for an answer, he ran down the stairs.

  Virginia pulled her mother close. “Oh, please don’t die.”

  Now that the spell had been broken, they might have a chance.

  “Please,” Virginia said, “please remember who you really

  are.”

  “Why does it matter?” the Queen asked. Her voice was a throaty whisper.

  Virginia’s father had reached her side.

  The Queen started to twist and thrash. For a moment, her face turned into that of the Evil Stepmother, vicious and bitter in defeat. Then that image went away, leaving a face Virginia barely remembered.

  Her real mother, from so long ago. Her expression was soft and warm as she looked at Virginia. “Don’t cry,” she said. She bowed her head. Her voice was just a whisper. “I gave away my soul.”

  “No!” Virginia cried. “I’m not going to let you go! Not now1!”

  But it was too late. Her mother died in her arms.

  Her father knelt beside her and gently eased her mother out of Virginia’s grasp. Then he hugged Virginia close.

  Wolf managed to free himself and crossed over to them. His face was battered. He stood near her for just a moment, looking helpless; then he moved out of her range of vision.