Capablanca looked down in shame.
‘And he told us about your prophecy.’ The Master paused. ‘Or at least, your half a prophecy.’
‘Half a prophecy?’ said Capablanca. ‘How do you know it’s half a prophecy?’
The Master reached into his black cloak and pulled out a piece of paper. A piece of paper that was not torn and was twice the size of the one Capablanca held aloft.
‘Because I have the full one,’ said the Master calmly. ‘Would you like to know where I got it?’
Capablanca said nothing but his body seemed to slump in defeat.
‘Somebody brought it to me,’ continued the Master. ‘Somebody I think you know.’
‘Uther?’ said Capablanca. ‘How did …’
‘Wrong again, wizard,’ said the Master. ‘It was not Uther. It was …’
The Master turned round and nodded. From behind the line of fierce minions emerged a bearded figure wearing a dirty cowl. He looked like a younger version of Capablanca, for his beard was not as long and straggly and his coat was not as dirty.
‘Teichmann!’ gasped Capablanca, his breathing coming in desperate short bursts. ‘A wizard! In league with Zoltab’s minions! Using his magic for evil! I … I …’
Capablanca was so overcome he could speak no more.
‘It is good to see you shocked,’ boasted Teichmann in a shrill voice that offended the ears of all who heard it. ‘For years as a young wizard I had to look up to you in the Cavernous Library of Ping. That is why I researched so hard to find this prophecy and brought it to the Master. For now you must look up to me.’
‘Who are you?’ demanded Blart.
‘I am Teichmann,’ answered the wizard. ‘Or am I?’
Suddenly the wizard’s face began to change. His cheeks grew wider, his chin doubled, his nose shrank and his beard shrivelled to nothing. A new face appeared. A face Blart recognised.
‘Votok!’
‘How is married life?’ said Votok the Hermit with a kindly smile.
‘You have mastered shape shifting,’ said Capablanca in disbelief.
‘A skill you never could,’ said Votok, but this time he spoke with Teichmann’s shrill voice. ‘But it really isn’t too hard to the truly gifted.’
And as if to prove it he returned his face to its original wizard-like features.
‘Does that mean I’m not married?’ asked Blart.
‘No,’ said Capablanca. ‘You are still married. I told you before that Teichmann was a friar before training as a wizard.’
‘You are correct,’ said Teichmann. ‘But being married will do you no good, pig boy. Zoltab will make your wife a widow before this day is done.’
‘But Zoltab will destroy everything,’ protested Capablanca.
‘Zoltab is the irresistible power on this earth,’ said Teichmann. ‘The world will be moulded in his image. All who study know this. We wizards must learn to adapt to a new order.’
‘You are betraying everything that is good and right,’ said Capablanca, but his voice sounded feeble in the cold air.
‘I am becoming part of the future,’ said Teichmann.
‘I never believed a wizard could …’ Capablanca’s voice trailed off. He seemed to have lost all will for the fight.
‘Reunions of old friends so often bring a tear to my eye,’ commented the Master scornfully. ‘Do you not think, wizard, that the time has come to admit your inferiority. You have half a prophecy while I have the full one. You will always lose to me.’
Blart looked up at Capablanca. The wizard seemed to have no reply to the cruel taunts of his nemesis.
‘What does the prophecy say?’ demanded Princess Lois.
‘It matters not now,’ said the Master. ‘But before the minions kill you I will let you read it to show the futility of your pathetic hopes. Guard! Bring out their friend. He can deliver it to them.’
One of Zoltab’s minions leapt to obey the Master’s command. And from behind the grim line of minions emerged Uther.
But it was not the Uther they had seen before. His clothes were torn, his walk was unsteady and he bled from numerous wounds. Contemptuously, the Master handed him the prophecy.
‘Take this to your friends. And then you are free to go.’
The weight of the paper seemed almost too much for the merchant to bear, but somehow he began the short walk towards his former comrades. Behind him he left a trail of blood. None of the questors could bear to look and yet none could wrench their eyes from the awful sight.
‘Here,’ gasped the merchant, thrusting the parchment into the wizard’s hand and then collapsing on to the snow.
Looking down the questors could see that Uther was near death. His breathing came in desperate gasps.
For one final time he looked up.
‘I remember,’ he said. ‘I remember …’
And then he stopped. What did he remember? Something that the other questors had forgotten which would allow them to defeat Zoltab’s minions? Or something more distant? Some far-off memory of childhood, when life was more than just profit and loss?
‘I remember,’ he wheezed, ‘that you all owe me money.’
Uther’s eyes closed and he lay dead on the ground. And so Uther the Merchant suffered the fate of all traders: death took his wealth from him for ever, for there is indeed no pocket in a shroud.
‘What does the prophecy say?’ demanded Princess Lois.
Capablanca read out the words on the blood-spattered paper in a hopeless monotone:
‘There will come a time when friends are enemies and enemies are friends
When Zoltab, twice imprisoned, may once more be freed
To destroy the world or be defeated
By the hand of the husband of his betrothed.
But if he comes with men he’ll fail and die
If he comes with women the same
If he comes alone he’ll perish for aye
And Zoltab then will reign.’
Capablanca looked across the snow at the sneering contemptuous face of the Master.
‘You see how you have failed,’ said the Master. ‘The prophecy mocks you. Now you must surrender to me.’
Capablanca was shaking his head.
‘I will count to ten and then Zoltab’s minions will slaughter you where you stand.’
‘What are we going to do?’ the Princess asked the wizard.
The contempt of the Master seemed to jolt the last desperate vestige of life from Capablanca.
‘We must make the prophecy come to pass,’ he answered.
‘One … two … three …’ counted the Master.
‘Take it line by line,’ said Capablanca. ‘He cannot succeed if he is with men, therefore Beo and I must leave him. And he cannot succeed if he comes with women, so the Princess must leave him too.’
‘Seven … eight …’
‘Do it now,’ said Capablanca.
‘Desert a comrade?’ said Beo. ‘Never!’
‘We must,’ said Capablanca. ‘The prophecy is our only hope!’
‘Farewell, Blart,’ said Princess Lois.
‘Nine …’
Capablanca, Beo and Princess Lois began to back away from Blart.
‘What about the next line?’ said Blart helplessly. ‘The line that says that if I’m all alone I’ll perish and Zoltab will reign.’
‘One line at a time,’ shouted Capablanca. ‘And I’m still working on that one.’
Blart turned back to face the Master.
‘You may have saved the world once, boy. But this time you die.’
Blart didn’t want to die.
‘Ten!’
On the Master’s command Zoltab’s minions advanced towards Blart, their grim weapons of death held out in front of them. Blart wanted to run, wanted to shout, wanted to be anywhere other than in this icy waste, facing death. But he could do nothing.
And then there was a sound from behind Blart. A sound that he had heard the night before when he had bee
n lying in Votok’s cave. It was a sound that stopped the march of Zoltab’s minions.
It was the sound of the Wild Boars of Xanthia.
Up the mountainside they came, huge powerful beasts charging through the snow, smoke billowing from their snouts and their fearsome tusks glistening in the evening light.
The wild boars had sight of their prey and were determined to eat. They would gore every living thing on the slopes of Mount Xag to death and feast on the bloody remnants.
It was a sight that terrified questors and minions alike.
It terrified everyone except Blart.
To Blart they looked like big pigs.
He uttered a low whistle. It echoed off the mountains and it reached the pink ears of the Wild Boars of Xanthia. It seemed that the ferocious creatures were slowing down. Blart repeated the whistle. The closer they got to the summit of Mount Xag the slower they were getting. Again Blart whistled. A slow calming gentle whistle. The Wild Boars of Xanthia trotted towards him and gathered around him, snuffling the ground.
‘What are you waiting for?’ demanded the Master of Zoltab’s minions. ‘That boy has stolen Zoltab’s bride and come here to try and prevent his release. Kill him!’
Zoltab’s minions moved forward.
Blart whistled. This time not a low calming whistle. This time a high-pitched whistle. A call to arms.
As quick as their heads had fallen to snuffling the Wild Boars of Xanthia’s snouts rose again. They dug their trotters in the snow, bared their sharp teeth, pointed their tusks in front of them and charged behind their leader.
Blart was not coming with men.
Blart was not coming with women.
Blart was not coming alone.
Blart was coming with pigs.
The prophecy was fulfilled.
Zoltab’s minions panicked at the terrible sight. They turned and fled in front of the grunting onslaught. In vain did the Master urge them to hold their line in the face of the terrible tusks. In vain did he and Teichmann cast spells at the advancing beasts. There were too many of them to be stopped. With cries of anguish the Master and Teichmann were trampled underfoot. And nor did the fleeing minions of Zoltab escape the dreaded tusks. The Wild Boars pursued them and they were caught, gored and chased to their doom off the fearsome cliffs of Mount Xag.
Blart watched Zoltab’s minions disappear, one by one.
Capablanca, Beo and Princess Lois emerged from the icy hollows they had dived into.
‘You made the prophecy come true,’ said Capablanca.
‘You have triumphed over tremendous odds,’ said Beowulf.
‘You have to admit you got lucky,’ said Princess Lois.
On the ground in front of him lay the Master’s body, blood oozing from a fatal tusk wound to his heart.
‘We will take his body back with us as evidence of our defeat of Zoltab and his minions,’ said Capablanca. ‘Then all will know that we fought against the Dark Lord, war will be averted and we will once more live like free men.’
They were standing just below the summit and from above them they heard an angry cry.
‘Master! What has happened? What was that noise? Where have you gone? I command you to release me.’
The questors turned and began the long walk down the mountain, leaving the voice of Zoltab howling in anger to an empty wasteland.
Epilogue
‘A toast,’ said the King, rising to his feet.
The feasting room of the King and Queen of Illyria was full. All had eaten and drunk well.
‘To peace,’ said the King.
‘To peace!’
The Duke of Northwestmoreland, the Earl of Nethershire and the Prince of Murkstan raised their glasses. The Grand Alliance had been dissolved. The threat of war was past. From outside the feasting room where Pig the Horse was eating his fill of the best hay and oats in the kingdom, there was a neigh of satisfaction.
Capablanca the Grand Wizard raised his glass. An emissary from the Wizards’ Committee at the Cavernous Library of Ping had arrived that day, restoring Capablanca’s magic powers, conferring on him a new title and informing him that a new, even more comfortable chair was to be constructed in his honour. To triumph over Zoltab and the Master and the traitorous wizard Teichmann without even magic to aid him – Capablanca was once more considered the Greatest Sorcerer in all the World. Only more so.
‘Step forward, Beowulf,’ said the King.
Beowulf rose from his chair and walked a trifle unsteadily, for he had drunk many flagons of mead, towards the king.
‘Now kneel.’
The warrior did as he was bid. The King touched Beowulf’s shoulders lightly and he was a warrior no more.
‘Arise, Sir Beowulf.’
With some difficulty the knight stood up.
‘Hurrah!’ cried all at the table.
But a ferocious knocking at the feasting-room door dampened their cheering. The great door swung open. Standing there, his flawless complexion shining in the lantern’s flame, was Anatoly the Handsome.
He rushed across the room and flung himself at the feet of Princess Lois.
‘Princess,’ he said, ‘I have searched for you high and low. I have followed your trail to castles and to forests and to mountains, each time arriving just after you departed, and yet still I have followed you to prove my devotion. What has kept me going is the thought of your beautiful face, of your tender white hands, of your ruby lips, of your –’
‘Get to the point,’ ordered the Princess. ‘My pudding is getting cold.’
Anatoly got on with it.
‘Having proved my devotion I must ask once more for your hand in marriage and insist that I am not denied.’
There was a silence at the table.
Princess Lois looked down at Anatoly the Handsome. She thought about how married life would be with him. Compliments raining down on her morning, noon and night. She shuddered.
‘I’m afraid I can’t marry you,’ she told Anatoly, ‘for I am already married.’
‘Who to?’ demanded Anatoly the Handsome.
‘To him,’ said Princess Lois and she pointed across the table at Blart, who, just a moment previously, had dropped custard on his new tunic and was trying to rub it off.
‘Him?’ said Anatoly, indignantly considering Blart’s looks and his manners and his demeanour and concluding that he, Anatoly, was infinitely superior in all regards. ‘What can he possibly have to offer that I have not?’
Princess Lois looked at Blart and his custard stain. At least marriage with him meant that she would not be showered with endless meaningless compliments, and for such small mercies she was momentarily grateful. And then she looked back down at Anatoly the Handsome.
‘He has just one thing you do not,’ she told him.
‘What thing?’ demanded Anatoly.
‘My husband saved the world,’ explained Princess Lois. ‘Twice. He is a hero.’
Everybody at the table looked at Blart. It was true.
Blart looked up.
‘And that’s the last time,’ he said.
THE END
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Michael Barker, Suna Cristall,
Ele Fountain, Lucy Holden, Ian Lamb, Nancy Miles and
Helen Szirtes.
Also available
Blart: The Boy Who Didn’t Want
to Save the World
Blart: The Boy Who Went on a Questionable Quest
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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This electronic edition published in January 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Dominic Barker 2007
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eISBN: 978-1-4088-3872-3
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The Boy Who Was Wanted Dead Or Alive - Or Both Page 23
