“Okay, it’s your call. Here we go.”
Cecil moaned aloud. “Oh, lord, no. Not another –”
His protest was cut off as Sarah teleported the three of them over a hundred leagues northeast. Once the dizziness passed, and Cecil had finished groaning on the ground, Steve straightened and saw that they had been deposited just outside the west gate of Lentari’s capital city. The castle, home to the king and queen, was visible in the distance. Thanks to its position on a gentle sloping hill, the many turrets and towers of the castle were situated higher than the rest of the city and were easily seen by all. Steve nudged Cecil and pointed to the east.
“That’s where we’re headed. The king and queen should be there.”
“What if they ask us what our business here is?” Cecil wanted to know.
“It’ll be no problem,” Steve assured his friend. He turned to look back at Sarah, who was nervously clasping her hands together.
“If you’re not back at the waterfall in two days time then our backup will be right here at the gate,” Sarah told him. “Be at one of those two spots in two days.” She hugged him tightly. “Be safe, okay? I don’t want anything happening to you. To either of you two, for that matter. Agreed?”
Steve smiled. “Agreed. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do if the sheriff tries to retaliate?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. The answer would be yes. I do have an idea.”
“Care to share the details with me?”
“Let’s just say that I think I have a way to ensure no one, especially the sheriff, will ever bother Luther and Cora again.”
“Oh? Now I am really curious. What’s your idea?”
Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss.
“I’ll tell you all about it when you get back.”
“You tease. Fine. Just promise me you’ll stay safe, okay?”
“I will.”
They embraced a final time. Sarah stepped back and smiled at the two of them.
“I’ll be back here in two days,” Sarah told them. “Let’s say by sunset?”
Steve automatically looked at his left wrist. He hadn’t worn a watch for years but apparently the habit was hard to break.
“We’ll be back at the waterfall in two days,” Steve vowed. “Or here. By sunset.”
Sarah blew him a kiss. “Miss me!”
Steve nodded. “Always.”
Sarah vanished. Steve and Cecil looked at each other.
“What now?” Cecil wanted to know.
Steve pointed at the distant castle.
“We go that way. The sooner we check in with the king, the sooner he’ll give us his blessing to get another athe crystal.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Steve strode confidently out over the drawbridge, gesturing for Cecil to follow.
“Let me do the talking,” Steve called back to him as Cecil hurried to catch up. Steve nudged Cecil’s shoulder with his own and nodded his head toward the two guards leaning languidly against the stone wall of the castle’s keep. Both men were more involved with the argument they were having amongst themselves than in keeping an eye on the foot traffic crossing the drawbridge.
Steve kept watching them as they crossed into the city, surprised that the soldiers weren’t at least asking them the nature of their business. As the two of them slowly made their way across the wooden drawbridge, and passed under the heavy iron portcullis, a family of six noisily pushed by them and made their way into the city. The father was unsuccessfully trying to stop two of the older boys from squabbling, while the mother held a crying toddler on her hip, all the while dragging a petulant looking four year old behind her.
A merchant pushing a cart full of the purple fruit passed them next. The two-wheeled cart, with wide wooden wheels, clattered noisily past as the villager disappeared into the milling throngs of people.
The guards, Steve noted, hadn’t even bothered to look up.
“You made this sound like it’d be difficult to get inside the castle,” Cecil whispered.
“It usually is. If we were back in my time we’d never have made it across without someone asking us who we were or what we were doing. Well, that’s not exactly true. Most everyone knows me there so we still wouldn’t have been bothered. But you, on the other hand, would have been stopped.”
Steve led Cecil down the busy streets, steering him away from dozens of eager vendors looking to make a sale. He had to pull Cecil away from a cart that was piled high with linens of all styles and colors.
“Oh, AnnaBelle would love some of these,” Cecil remarked more to himself than anyone. “Imagine the clothes she could make if only she had –”
Steve appeared at his side and pulled him gently, but firmly, away. Cecil looked longingly back at the colorful fabrics.
“We should make a point of coming back here so I can select a few fabrics for AnnaBelle.”
Steve eyed his friend with a stern expression.
“Really? With all that is going on right now, including leaving your wife and mine unprotected, you want to go clothes shopping? Dude, we need to work on your priorities.”
“I thought you said Sarah can take care of herself?” Cecil complained as he cast one last furtive look behind him. The vendor was still standing in the middle of the street, waving several examples of his wares back and forth.
“She can, yes, but do you think that makes me feel better? We need to get this damn crystal and get home as soon as possible.”
“How difficult do you think this will be?” Cecil asked yet again.
“As I told you before, it all depends on the dwarves. We may get lucky and the king will tell us he has a spare crystal here in the castle that he’d be willing to let us have.”
“Or we could be thrown in the dungeon,” Cecil whispered, remembering Steve’s uplifting suggestion on possible outcomes after they met the king.
Steve grinned and shook his head. “Trust me, we have nothing to worry about. Let me do the talking.”
Thirty minutes later the two of them were standing in front of the castle drawbridge and eyeing the four fully armed guards that were standing stiffly at attention. All four of the soldiers had spotted the two foreigners and were warily eyeing them back. The armor the guards were wearing had been polished to a mirror shine, thereby causing spots to dance before his eyes whenever Steve looked their way.
“Come on; follow my lead.”
Steve strode confidently out across the wooden planks of the open drawbridge. They hadn’t quite made it halfway across when the first guard stepped into their path.
“Halt. State your business.”
“Hey there,” Steve said jovially. “We’re on our way to see if we can get an audience with the king.”
“Peasants are not allowed to address the king until next week. Return then.”
Steve held his ground.
“I have an important matter I need to discuss with him. Trust me, he’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
Two more guards flanked the first. The soldier addressing him dropped his right hand down to let it rest on the hilt of his sword.
“Be gone. You will not be pestering his majesty with trivial matters today.”
Cecil shrugged and started to turn around. Steve caught his arm and held him in place.
“Look, pal,” Steve said, growing angry, “we have come a very long way to see your king.”
“A very long way,” Cecil repeated in a rather high-pitched voice.
Steve shot him a concerned look and pressed on.
“Can you at least take a message to him? You’ll see that I’m not making this up.”
The final guard, one that was easily half a foot taller than Steve and full of muscles, joined his companions.
“Be off, peasant,” the soldier rumbled. “You heard him. This isn’t the day his majesty hears from the villagers. Return next week. Off you go now.”
>
Steve crossed his arms over his chest and returned the huge guard’s patronizing stare.
“Off you go? Do I look like I’m five years old? You know what? We’re wasting time.” Steve walked over to the side of the drawbridge and looked down at the murky moat water. “Is Bredo in there yet?”
“What was that?” the burly guard asked, confused.
“What was that?” Cecil echoed. “Did you ask if there was a burrito in the moat?”
“Bredo is the name of the moat monster from my time,” Steve answered, in a low voice. He turned to look back at the four guards standing abreast before him. “Are there any monsters in there?”
The big guard shook his head no.
“It’s not a bad idea,” he admitted. “It would be a great deterrant to keep pipsqueaks like you away from the castle.”
“How deep is it?”
The first guard scoffed loudly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Cecil again tried to run. Steve sidestepped to his left and blocked his retreat.
“Okay, guys, I’m sorry to do this to you. Just remember that we asked nicely first.”
Thinking they were about to be ambushed, all four guards drew their swords. And then dropped them. Cursing and madly shaking their hands through the air as though they had just grabbed the handle of a hot frying pan, the men stared at their fallen swords in shock. The hilts were glowing!
“How the ruddy hell did you do that?” the first soldier demanded. He reached for a crossbow hanging from a nearby rack of weapons.
Steve instantly clenched his fists and sent out an order to his jhorun. Before the soldier had taken more than a few steps towards the weapon rack all four men shouted with alarm and started the most ridiculous strip tease Steve had ever seen.
“Get it off me!” one man screamed as he frantically pawed at his armor. “It’s burning me up!”
Since strapping a person in to a suit of armor can be time consuming, and obviously the process to remove oneself from said armor can be just as time consuming, two of the guards elected to dive headfirst into the green algae infested water encircling the castle. The guard that could give a certain barbarian from Cimmeria a run for his money had managed to pull off his gauntlets and one greave by brute force alone, but ended up splashing into the moat as well.
A few seconds later the final guard gave up trying to get his armor off and joined his companions in the moat. There was a chorus of “Aaaahs” as the dirty but cool water cooled the hot metal off. Thankfully the moat wasn’t that deep as each man had sunk into the deep mud of the moat’s floor and was now chest deep in the filthy water. Four sets of eyes glared angrily at him.
Steve shrugged.
“I tried to warn you. For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
Steve pulled Cecil across the drawbridge and vanished into the castle interior.
“What are you going to do when those men make it out of the water?” Cecil wanted to know.
“By that time we should have found the king,” Steve told him as they came to a junction in the hall. “Okay, to the left is the Great Hall. That’s where the king should be. Stay close to me. If a pyrotechnical demonstration is necessary then the last thing I want to have to worry about is you.”
“If a what is necessary?”
Steve mentally rolled his eyes.
“If I have to play with fire,” he translated.
Cecil nodded. “Got it. If the fire comes out, stick close to you.”
Steve pushed the double doors open and stepped out into the Great Hall. Right away he noticed the layout of the royal reception room was different than what he remembered. In his time the two golden thrones were against the eastern wall, with tables and chairs arranged in the center of the room, much like one would expect to find in a conference room.
In this time, however, the thrones were nothing more than ornately carved wooden chairs and they were along the northern wall of the large chamber. There was something else that was different. With a start, Steve realized what it was. The light. The light in the room was less, and that was due to the absence of most of the windows. There were less than a handful of windows for such a large area, and those windows were nothing more than thin narrow slots that ran horizontally for a few feet. Steve imagined they were a throwback to the days when the castle had to be defended on a daily basis. It’d be perfect for archers or soldiers with crossbows.
Steve turned his attention back to the darkened room and took a few steps in. The king was there, and he was looking bored out of his skull as some castle noble was regaling him with a tale of woe about something or other. Physically, the king looked to be younger than Steve. However, as was usually the case when a single person carried the responsibility of so much on their shoulders, the king had a thick mop of premature gray hair atop his head.
“Halt!” a voice shouted. “Intruders! Stay where you are!”
Steve and Cecil whirled around to see four soldiers running towards them, trailing water and green sludge out of the chinks of their armor.
They might as well have smacked the side of a bee hive, Steve thought angrily. The Great Hall exploded with activity. Steady streams of soldiers poured out of nearby doors. A wall of men sprang into existence all around the thrones as the safety of the king must have been drilled into each and every soldier present. Those who weren’t guarding the king drew their swords and advanced angrily on the two of them.
Steve glanced over at the king but was unable to see him anymore as there were too many people between them. Hoping that the king could somehow see him, or else someone was describing what was happening to the king, Steve raised a hand up into the air and gave a smile in the king’s general direction.
“Pardon me, your majesty,” he called out in his loudest voice. “I need to talk to you. Hang on a sec.”
He didn’t know how he knew it but Steve was sure the king’s eyebrows had just shot up in surprise.
Steve turned to the dozens of soldiers flanking them on all sides. He smiled. All were wearing armor of some sort. Steve cracked his knuckles and elbowed Cecil in the ribs.
“Here we go. Watch this.”
The shouts and the dancing began. Soldiers began hopping around on one foot, then the other, as various implements began heating up. The dancing became frantic. Pieces of armor were flung off and tossed across the room. Swords, daggers, axes, and an assortment of other weaponry fell unceremoniously to the floor as they were abandoned by their owners.
“Enough of this.”
Thinking the king had addressed him, Steve turned to face the thrones but his attention was drawn to a single guard walking towards him. Slightly shorter than he was, the guard had shoulder length jet black hair with streaks of gray visible on the sides of his head. From the way he was holding himself Steve figured he had to be an officer of some type. In deference to his status, he instructed his jhorun to leave this soldier alone. Besides, he was decked out in leather armor, not plate.
“What spell have you put on my men?” the guard demanded.
Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s no spell. Who are you?”
“Sauer, captain of the royal guards. You want to speak to the king?” Sauer swept his arm around to indicate his men. “Convince me of your peaceful intentions. Cease this frivolous nonsense.”
“How do you know I’m peaceful?” Steve wanted to know.
“If you had wanted to harm the king then you would have. Who are you? What do you want?”
Steve instructed his jhorun to stop heating the various bits of metal found on the guards before them and let the heated armor, swords, and the like cool off.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you,” Steve confessed. “Can you get me a piece of paper and a pen? If you’d be so kind as to deliver a message for me I believe I can put your mind at ease.”
“Do I look like a messenger to you?” captain Sauer demanded.
“Tell you what. If the king doesn’t want to talk to
me then fine, we’ll leave.”
Captain Sauer motioned to a nearby court page and told the young man what he wanted. Once the paper and pen had been retrieved the captain pushed the items into Steve’s hands.
“This had better be good, peasant,” the captain growled.
Steve took the paper and began to write.
“First of all, I’m no peasant.”
Unconvinced, Sauer remained motionless. “I haven’t seen you before. You’re no noble.”
Steve wrote one sentence on the paper and then folded it in half. He handed it to the captain. Sauer looked at the folded parchment and unfolded it to see for himself what was so important. The captain quickly looked up at the two of them before looking back down at the paper. Without saying another word he headed straight toward the knot of soldiers guarding the king. Thanks to the gap that had formed as Sauer pushed his way through, Steve was able to see the captain and the king. Steve watched as Sauer handed the king the paper.
The king pulled a pair of spectacles from one of his pockets and perched them on his nose. He peered at the paper and gasped so loudly that even Steve and Cecil heard him. The king’s eyes shot over to Steve’s and stayed there, as though the king was trying to bore holes into him. The king finally shifted his gaze to Sauer’s and mouthed a word. Sauer nodded. He returned to Steve’s side and gestured towards an open door to their right.
“Let’s go. He wants to see you in –”
“The Antechamber,” Steve cut in. “I know. I saw him.”
“You know about the Antechamber, too?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
“I’ll be telling you shortly.”
Once they were inside the room especially created to repel all but the strongest of jhorun, and the guards and servants were ushered out, the king turned to him. He held the paper up questioningly.
“Explain this.”
Cecil looked at the paper and finally saw what Steve had written on the paper:
Luther needs help or his mission will fail.
A Portal for Your Thoughts Page 16
