How to Save a Kingdom

by Bill Allen

  “Halt! Who goes there?” Two uniformed men stepped onto the trail before them, their swords drawn and no-nonsense looks in their eyes. “Oh, General Hawkins, sir,” said one, saluting. “We didn’t realize you were patrolling these parts.”

  “We need to see General Talbout right away,” Ryder said.

  The soldier did not question the general. “Yes, sir.”

  After signaling for his partner to stay put, he led Ryder and the others past several hundred marching soldiers until finally they caught up with General Talbout traveling midway up the pack. He was an old man, with the kind of face Greg normally associated with musty scents and faded photographs, but he was spry as any half his age.

  “Hawkeye,” he shouted when he spotted Ryder. Though he came to an abrupt halt, his men kept walking, eyes glued forward. Ryder’s face reddened. “Sorry, I mean, General Hawkeye.”

  “Uh, it’s Hawkins, sir.”

  Greg had never heard Ryder use such a meek tone. Even when he was hysterical over dropping off the cliff or the thought of riding Ruuan, he had argued with conviction.

  General Talbout roared with laughter. “You served under me for ten years, Hawkeye. Do you really think I don’t remember your name?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Of course not, sir.”

  “You’re no longer under my command, son. We’re both generals now. You don’t need to call me sir anymore.”

  “No, sir,” mumbled Ryder. “I mean, no, I know.”

  General Talbout laughed so loudly, Greg was reminded of Ruuan just before he lost control and nearly dropped from the sky. “Look, I’m pretty sure you’re not following me across the kingdom to discuss how we should or shouldn’t address one another. What is it you wanted?”

  “We’re looking for Corporal Widget, si—er—we’re looking for Corporal Widget.”

  The general’s smile disappeared in an instant. “What’s this about?” he asked, his tone no longer playful.

  Nathan stepped forward. “Perhaps I can explain.”

  “Nathaniel Caine.” General Talbout’s smile returned, but with far less enthusiasm than before. “How long has it been, my boy?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time for pleasantries, General,” said Nathan. He quickly explained about the spirelings’ amulet and how he believed Corporal Widget either had it or knew who did.

  The general’s expression turned grim again. “I’m afraid Corporal Widget can’t help you.”

  “But he must,” Priscilla said. “The spirelings are going to attack my family if we don’t give back their amulet now.”

  “I am truly sorry, Highness,” said General Talbout. “I understand your concern, but as I said, Corporal Widget cannot help. I wish he could, but believe me, he has the best of reasons.”

  “What reason?” the spirelings demanded.

  “I’m afraid the young man has recently passed away.”

  Greg’s New Task

  “We were not more than a week out from the castle when we ran into the largest band of trolls I’ve ever seen.”

  Greg noticed Priscilla had a hard time standing still while General Talbout told his story, even though both Gnash and Gnaw assured her that Queen Gnarla had not yet begun to rally her troops.

  “It was a fierce battle,” the general explained, “and many of my men were lost, but in the end we were the victors, and not more than a handful of the beasts escaped alive.” General Talbout’s face was as stoic as any Greg had ever seen, but still Greg thought he saw moistness in the old man’s eyes. “Corporal Widget was one of the first to fall—one of far too many, I might add.”

  “What about our amulet?” said Gnash. “Sorry,” he said upon observing the general’s expression, “but it is most important that we discover its whereabouts quickly.”

  The general shook off his sadness and regarded the spirelings grimly. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Sir, pardon me, sir,” came a voice from behind. Greg looked to where two columns of soldiers extended into the woods as far as the eye could see. General Talbout had called the troops to a halt soon after Nathan asked him about Corporal Widget, and the men had been standing at attention ever since.

  “Who said that?” asked General Talbout.

  One of the men stepped out of line. “Sir, Sergeant Hosselmeyer, sir.”

  “At ease, sergeant. Did you have something to say?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s about the amulet, sir.”

  The others looked hopeful.

  “Go on,” General Talbout prompted.

  “Corporal Widget started boasting about an amulet soon after we left Pendegrass Castle. I asked him where he got it, but I don’t think he knew. I think it just showed up in his bedroll.”

  “I see,” said the general. “Do you know what happened to it, sergeant?”

  “No, sir. I have not seen it since . . . well, since the battle. Corporal Sanderson checked the bod—checked Corporal Widget to see if he had any last effects, and he did not report finding it.”

  “Where is Corporal Sanderson now?”

  “Toward the rear of the troops, sir.”

  “Tell him to come here immediately.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  The sergeant bellowed for Corporal Sanderson, much the same way Greg often let his mother know she had a phone call. He could almost understand now why she hated it so much.

  But as the sergeant stepped back into line, the soldiers to the east hollered in response, and then Greg heard more cries from still farther off as word carried down the line. After a while the calls died away, and a minute later, a rotund soldier came jogging up the path from the east, his belly bouncing noticeably beneath his tunic with every stride.

  He stopped in front of the general, panting. “Sir, you . . . wanted to . . . see me, sir.”

  General Talbout ordered him at ease and asked if he remembered seeing the amulet.

  “Many times,” said the soldier, “but not the day Corporal Widget was killed. Or any time since.”

  “Very well. You may return to your position.”

  The large man’s eyes grew slightly wider, but he did not complain. Instead he turned and puffed back down the trail in the direction from which he had come.

  “This is terrible,” said Priscilla.

  Gnash stepped forward. “More than you know, princess. But I do not think we should waste time discussing it. Queen Gnarla is not pleased. She asked me to let you know she is assembling her troops for the attack.”

  “Nathan, let’s go,” Priscilla insisted.

  General Talbout had instructed his troops to head straight for the castle, and they’d already marched away at double speed, but for some reason Nathan was lagging behind.

  “You go ahead, Princess. I need to talk to Greg alone a moment.”

  Greg glanced at the magician cautiously. It was bad enough they were really going to battle the spirelings. What other horrific news did Nathan have in store for him?

  Priscilla hopped about as if she couldn’t decide whether to stay and argue or let them be and run along ahead. In the end she disappeared down the trail after the last of General Talbout’s troops.

  “What’s going on?” Greg asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “I need to speak to you before the battle begins,” said Nathan. “I may not get another chance.”

  Greg felt his mouth go dry. He replied with a nod.

  “I told you days ago that I’d shared with you nearly all I know about the future. These past days have been difficult because I’ve had no way of knowing how much I should reveal. My intuition tells me it’s time I shared the last of my knowledge.”

  Still Greg said nothing. He found himself staring at Nathan so intently he had to force himself to blin
k.

  “Relax, Greg,” Nathan said, forcing a smile. “You’re safe, for the next few seconds anyway.” He dug under his cloak and withdrew the two objects Ruuan had given him. Even at a distance they made Greg’s skin tingle. One was ring-shaped, about the size of a bracelet. Nathan inspected it briefly and returned it to its hiding place. The other he held out to Greg. It was pentagon shaped, about half the size of the ring.

  “You were very clever to figure out Melvin would be the true hero of the upcoming battle, but that does not mean you don’t have your role to fill. I want you to take this.”

  “Me? But isn’t that the missing piece of the Amulet of Tehrer you told us about? Why would you want me to have it?”

  “You must take it to the witch.”

  Greg’s mouth dropped open. “Witch Hazel? Are you crazy?”

  For a brief moment Nathan’s smile looked more genuine. “Perhaps. But it may be the only chance Myrth has.”

  Greg gulped. “What do you mean?”

  “Take the amulet first. Then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Greg reluctantly took the pentagon from Nathan. The metal felt unnaturally cold and left his whole arm feeling as if he’d just struck his funny bone. He quickly moved it to a pocket in his tunic, where it caused his skin to prickle right through the cloth.

  “Now, we must get moving,” said Nathan. “We don’t want to be late.”

  “Wait, you didn’t tell me—”

  Nathan spun Greg around and pushed him off balance so that he had to begin walking or land face-first in the snow. “I don’t know where the spirelings’ amulet is,” the magician said as they walked, “but I have an idea where it will end up.”

  “Hazel’s?” said Greg.

  “Ah, you’ve been paying attention.”

  Actually, thought Greg, it was a lucky guess. “What makes you think Hazel will get it?”

  “Because she’s got the other three, of course.”

  “How do you know tha—? Oh, never mind. How did she get them?”

  “Well, she got the first several years ago, from me.”

  Greg stopped abruptly, but Nathan pushed him forward again. “Why would you give one of the sections to a witch?”

  Nathan took the lead and motioned for Greg to hurry. “She wasn’t always a witch, remember? She was my friend. Besides, I thought it important I didn’t have all three.”

  “You had three of the four pieces?” Greg asked. He quickened his stride, but still found it difficult to keep up.

  “Three of the five pieces, yes,” said Nathan.

  “But how did you get them?”

  “I told you that Hazel, Mordred and I scoured the countryside looking for anyone and anything magical we could find. Unfortunately we learned much more than children so young should know. We had obtained great knowledge and power without having to pay the price of experience, and we were too naive to know the dangers we were unleashing.

  “I’d always been a bit of a prankster,” he continued, “and I guess Hazel and Mordred followed my lead. All across the country we met generous people who were kind enough to help us, and we repaid them with trickery. Occasionally they’d give us magical artifacts of their own free will, thinking they were helping us. Other times we used what power we had to steal what wasn’t rightfully ours. I’d managed to get my hands on three of the amulet sections before I turned eighteen, years before I learned what they were. But fortunately I did grow older, more responsible, and I began to understand much of the danger inherent in magic.”

  “But you didn’t have the amulets when I came here last time,” said Greg. “What happened?”

  “Snake,” said Nathan.

  “How’s that?”

  “Snake!” Nathan’s staff shot out inches in front of Greg’s foot and speared the coiled reptile before it could strike. “You need to watch yourself,” said Nathan. “It wouldn’t do for you to get yourself killed now.”

  Greg exhaled deeply. “I’ll try to be more careful.”

  “Anyway,” said Nathan, picking up the pace again. “I had the three sections for years without knowing much about them, until one day I ran into Ruuan.”

  “I’ll bet that hurt,” Greg said, scouring the trail ahead for more snakes.

  “What? No, I mean I met Ruuan, in the woods. I learned he held the fourth section in his spire, or at least the spirelings did. The other three he thought were distributed safely throughout Myrth, so he was quite shocked to discover I’d found them all. Lucky for me we had a history together, or he might have scorched me and taken the pieces back for a second try at distributing them.”

  “You had a history together?”

  Nathan nodded. “A story for another time.”

  “So, Ruuan let you keep the amulets?”

  “Not exactly. He explained what I told you and the princess about the significance of the five pieces. Believe it or not, none of the others who held them before me knew the sections were part of a larger whole. Once Ruuan told me the entire history, I knew I must give them back. But Ruuan didn’t want that kind of responsibility either. He entrusted me to scatter the pieces I’d found out into the world.”

  “So you gave them to your friends?”

  “I asked each to hide one. From what Ruuan told me, I knew it wouldn’t be wise for me to know the whereabouts of all three. So I gave one to Mordred, which he in turn gave to King Peter upon taking up service to the crown. The second I gave to Hazel. She may have kept hers, or she may have passed it to someone else and gone back for it after her exile. I don’t know. The third I kept for a while but later gave to Norman Greatheart, who helped me out of a tight spot. He used it throughout the remainder of his career, and then passed it on to his son Marvin when he retired.”

  “So, what makes you think Hazel has three sections now?”

  “Because it’s not especially easy to remove a magical artifact from its rightful owner. Hazel and Mordred are the only two people I know who have the power and the know-how to take them.”

  Greg’s next stride covered no less than eight feet. The stick he had been about to step on looked an awful lot like a snake. He picked it up and weighed it in his hands, considering its worth as a weapon. Nathan did not slow his pace.

  “Come, Greg, we must hurry.”

  “But if either Hazel or Mordred could have taken the amulets,” Greg said as he ran to catch up, “then Hazel might not have them. Mordred might.”

  “He probably did at one time,” Nathan said. “But if so, he’s surely given them to Hazel by now.”

  “I knew he was evil.”

  “No. Everything Mordred’s done, he’s done to help the kingdom.”

  Greg heard voices drifting on the wind. The others must be close. “By what stretch of the imagination is giving Hazel the amulets helping the kingdom?”

  “When we were boys, I told Mordred about Simon’s two prophecies,” said Nathan. “Not the details, mind you, just the gist of things.”

  “You never did tell me how you knew about Simon’s prophecies before Simon did.”

  “And I don’t plan to. Mordred knew Hazel would hold four pieces of the amulet by the time the upcoming battle was through. If I were to guess, I’d say he didn’t trust Fate to deliver them to her, so for the good of the kingdom he delivered them himself. He also knew Hazel had already recovered the one originally given to her, and the two belonging to King Peter and Marvin Greatheart would have been simple for him to retrieve, but the fourth was a different matter. He knew a soldier from the Army of the Crown would end up with the spirelings’ amulet because I told him. But even I didn’t know how it would be taken, so neither did he.

  “After your encounter with Ruuan in the last prophecy, you mentioned smelling ozone in the Passageway of Shifted Dimensions. My guess is that Mo
rdred was there too, just as he had been throughout our journey, lending a hand to the prophecy whenever he felt it needed his intervention to come true.”

  “But I kept smelling ozone that whole trip,” Greg said, “every time something horrible was about to happen.”

  “Just as described in the prophecy, yes. I know it sounds like Mordred did a terrible thing, but who’s to say? If he hadn’t taken advantage of the spirelings’ evacuation of the spire to sneak in and retrieve that amulet for himself, who knows where we might be today?”

  “Probably back on Earth where I belong,” said Greg angrily.

  “Yes, well I was referring to the rest of us,” said Nathan. “After all, it wouldn’t do for one of Simon’s prophecies to go astray.”

  Again Greg heard voices ahead, but he could see nothing through the trees. “Do you think Hazel has the spirelings’ amulet?”

  “If not yet, then soon.”

  “So if she has all four pieces, how are we going to get them back?”

  “We aren’t. You are. You’re going to trade her the pentagon I gave you for the other four.”

  “The pentagon? But you said that’s the most powerful piece of Tehrer’s amulet.”

  Nathan grabbed Greg’s arm and helped him hop over a narrow gully, nearly pulling Greg’s shoulder out of the socket. “Correct. That’s why she’ll be willing to trade four for one.”

  “But why trade at all? Without the last piece she’ll never have the full power of Ruuan’s amulet. Why not just let her keep what she has and hide the other pieces again so she’ll be sure never to find them?”

  Nathan shook his head. “The spirelings feel they have dishonored the dragon by losing the amulet he gave them. They are a proud race, and they will not return to a normal existence until they get it back. Make no mistake about it. They will do anything to retrieve it, including attacking the castle if they think it will help.”

  “But that’s crazy,” said Greg. “Would they really fight the entire Army of the Crown over an amulet we don’t even have?”