Quests for Glory

by Soman Chainani

  A loud hissing noise interrupted, followed by dog barks and crashing furniture.

  Pollux had met Reaper.

  Twenty minutes later, Agatha was in the Library, a two-story collection in the Gold Tower that must have once been impressive, but was now a heap of cobwebs, moth-eaten books, and so much dust she could hardly breathe. There were colorful sheets slung over the bookcases and desks, as if someone had started renovating a decade ago and never got around to finishing. Agatha slouched at a desk shrouded in a purple sheet, trying to take notes as Pollux scrawled on a squeaky chalkboard, his face slashed with claw-marks, suggesting he’d lost the battle with her cat.

  “You certainly don’t want to be like Princess Kerber, who was so overwrought on her wedding day she ate an entire jar of peanut butter and vomited on her poor groom’s shoes. Conversely, learn from the example of Princess Muguruza, who married a commoner, nearly prompting a revolt, until she revealed her bridal gown, made entirely out of pink pearls she’d dredged from the Savage Sea. No one dared attack a girl who’d braved such treacherous waters and in time, every last dissenter forgave her. . . .”

  Agatha glazed over, her head drooping into the purple sheet. She tried to force herself awake, prying her eyes open—

  That’s when she saw the pattern stitched on the fabric.

  Tiny, silver five-pointed stars in a purple night sky, like they’d been drawn by a child.

  It wasn’t a sheet at all.

  It was a cape.

  Agatha held in a smile, her eyes on Pollux’s back. She put her nose to the purple velvet and inhaled the scent of fresh cocoa, as if someone was brewing it right now. . . .

  “Then there was Princess Mahalaxmi, whose father kidnapped her during the ceremony and sold her to a Never warlord in Ravenbow,” Pollux rattled. “Which goes to show all family entanglements should be sorted before the wedding. . . .”

  Agatha rose from her chair, careful not to make a sound, and slipped her palms into the cape, vanishing her hands like a magic trick . . . then her arms . . . then her shoulders. . . .

  “I don’t hear your pen, Agatha. This is for your own good,” Pollux tutted—

  But by the time he turned, all that remained of his student was a single clump, somehow left behind.

  The moment Agatha put her face through the cape, she felt herself swaddled in velvet, then plummeting through darkness, pulses of blinding white light streaking by. She closed her eyes and let herself free-fall, her arms raised, her one-shoed feet splayed, her mind untethering from her thoughts, her fears . . . until at last she crashed face-first into something fluffy and soft and tasted sweet cloud in her mouth.

  Agatha opened her eyes and craned up to a purple night sky lit by thousands of silvery five-pointed stars, as if the childish pattern on the cape in the Library had come to life in heavenly dimension.

  “The Celestium,” Tedros once called it. The place where wizards go to think.

  Agatha rose to her knees and saw there was indeed a wizard peering thinkingly at her, sitting cross-legged on the cloud with purple silk robes, a droopy cone hat, horn-rimmed spectacles, and soft-furred violet slippers.

  “Merlin,” she smiled.

  “Sorry to interrupt your lessons, dear girl, but I’m afraid we have more important ones at the moment,” the old wizard said, sipping at a mug of cream-topped cocoa. “First, tell me: Do you want whipped cream in your chocolate? Provided my hat complies. A third mug of cocoa might be too much to ask. He’s been rather insubordinate of late, insisting on a minimum wage and a month of paid vacation—”

  “A ‘third’?” asked Agatha, confused. “But there’s only you and me here.”

  “Goodness, you two really do have a hard time seeing eye to eye, don’t you?” Merlin murmured.

  He leaned back, revealing a boy sitting next to him, who’d been obscured by the wizard’s profile.

  Tedros didn’t look at Agatha. He held his own undrunk mug of chocolate, heaped with cream and rainbow sprinkles, his bare legs dangling off the cloud. He wore a sleeveless white undershirt and pajama shorts, his gold king’s crown sunken into his wet hair.

  “Agatha and I have work to do, Merlin. Not that you would know since you’ve been gone for half a year, but we’re in charge of a kingdom now,” Tedros said, dumping his steaming mug over the cloud. “Our coffers are empty. We have no knights. Mother and Lance are missing. There’s unrest all over the Woods. We don’t have time for a wizard’s games.”

  “You used to share your chocolate with Agatha. Now you’re wasting it,” Merlin upbraided him.

  “I didn’t ask for chocolate,” said Tedros, yanking his crown tighter. “I’m too old to be bribed with sweets.”

  “But not too old to let your dear princess go hungry?” Merlin asked.

  “I’m stuffed from dinner,” said Agatha, trying to play both sides.

  “Where’s the girl’s cocoa!” the wizard bellowed into his hat.

  “You can’t keep me here all night,” Tedros scorned. “Air’s too thin in the Celestium.”

  “I can keep you here until you’re as white-haired as me. I’ll just turn you into a goldfish and put you in a bowl. Agatha can feed you,” said Merlin, giving his hat a good shake. “That is if she doesn’t dump your food off a cloud.”

  The hat spat chocolate at Merlin, who promptly sat on the hat in return. “Now let’s begin,” the wizard harrumphed.

  “Begin what?” asked Agatha.

  “We don’t need this, Merlin,” Tedros hounded.

  “Need what?” asked Agatha.

  “You need this more than your obsessive workouts and overdeveloped stomach muscles,” said Merlin, sitting harder on his squirming hat.

  “You don’t know anything about me anymore,” Tedros snapped. “You disappeared when I needed you like you always do, haven’t sent so much as a postcard in six months, and then drop in acting like you can help me when you don’t have the faintest clue. Just go back to whatever hole you were hiding in.”

  “Because you were doing such a fine job as king without me,” said the wizard.

  Tedros snarled. “My father was right to banish you from the castle.”

  “Well, you’re certainly seeming more and more like him each day,” said Merlin.

  “Stop it! You’re like squabbling hens, the both of you!” Agatha yelled, echoing into the night. “What is this? What are we doing? Why are we here!”

  The two men gaped at her sheepishly.

  But it was the hat that spoke from beneath Merlin’s rump, scowling at them all—

  “Couples therapy!”

  6

  TEDROS

  Two Theories

  Somewhere inside, Tedros knew this would happen. He couldn’t continue the way he’d been going, treating Agatha like a distant cousin while wrestling his own demons down down down into the basement of his soul.

  These past six months, he’d told himself it was the only way forward—that Agatha was best left to the hopeful, happy duties of wedding planning while he reassured his castle staff that Camelot would return to glory. But he could only lie to himself for so long. There was nothing reassuring about his guards looking at him with pity and doubt, their eyes darting to his sword jammed in a balcony. And there was nothing hopeful or happy about a princess planning a wedding to a boy who was doing everything he could to avoid her.

  Someone had to intervene. Someone had to save him from himself. But now it was happening and he wasn’t ready.

  The worst part was that he’d been through this before—only he’d been the one ignored and abandoned. He’d been the one in Agatha’s place.

  He was nine years old. His mother had fled the castle with Lancelot, deserting both him and his father. But right when he needed his dad most, his father turned to drink instead, slowly poisoning himself rather than admit how much pain he was in. He’d begged his father to stop, but Arthur insisted it was Tedros’ mother who needed help, not him. Yet in the end, it was his mother who’d
been honest with herself, giving her a second chance at life, while his father numbed his feelings all the way to the grave.

  Now, sitting with Agatha and Merlin, Tedros felt his own buried pain return. He didn’t want Agatha to suffer the way he once did, shut out by someone she loved. And he didn’t want to be like his father, refusing help until it was too late.

  “I thought everything was going to be okay when we left school,” he said finally, unable to look at his princess. “I didn’t want her to worry for the rest of her life. She’s been through enough. But then I saw her watching me this morning when I was on the balcony and I could see she was hurting—”

  “‘She’ meaning . . . me?” Agatha asked.

  Tedros saw Merlin squeeze Agatha’s wrist, telling her this wasn’t her turn to talk.

  “Merlin, where were you all this time?” Tedros said, clearing his throat. “No one’s seen you since the coronation. Not that I really ‘saw’ you then either.”

  “I’d hope not. It took a meticulous spell to turn me into a mosquito that could last a decent amount of time without sucking someone’s blood,” said Merlin.

  “Too bad it couldn’t be Lady Gremlaine’s,” Agatha offered.

  The wizard frowned at her.

  “You watched the coronation as a mosquito?” Tedros asked.

  “I was hoping to avoid detection and have all attention be on you, my boy. If anyone saw me, they would have foolishly tried to execute me and it would have led to quite the spectacle indeed. But then you created your own spectacle by presenting your mother and Lancelot to the people against all reasonable advice. It was a stunning act of stubbornness, something a swaggering boy at school would do rather than a new king trying to build faith with his kingdom.”

  “And I’m sorry for it,” said Tedros softly. “I thought it was the right thing at the time.”

  “I could have helped—” Agatha started.

  Merlin’s hat bit her bottom.

  “Maybe I did do everything wrong and messed it all up. Maybe I am the worst king in the world. But isn’t that punishment enough?” Tedros fought. “You didn’t have to punish me too by disappearing for six months!”

  “Punish you?” Merlin said, aghast. “Tedros, dear, I’ve been gone keeping two people you love safe.”

  Tedros gaped, suddenly understanding. “You were with Mom and Lance! I’ve been going crazy trying to track them. . . . I got these mysterious cards from different parts of the Woods—”

  “And she would have sent far more had I let her,” said Merlin.

  “I knew it! There wasn’t anything written on them, but they smelled like honeysuckle, which she knows is my favorite. Where are they? When can I see them? I need to see them—”

  “Patience, boy. Your mother and Lancelot still have Arthur’s rich bounty on their heads: a bounty you can’t rescind until you pull the sword and finish your test. Getting them to safety was difficult enough. As soon as they were dragged into the castle at the coronation, I turned them to fruit flies and hustled them into the Endless Woods. We couldn’t return to the old safe house in Avalon; The Tale of Sophie and Agatha had revealed its existence to our whole world, which meant Avalon Island would be crawling with your mother’s enemies. So to both hide your mother and Lancelot and distract them from worrying about you, I took them on a tour of kingdoms they’d never seen, given their years of exile. We traveled by enchanted ship: the Igraine, which obeys any ‘lady’ of Camelot, princess or queen, and can fly through the air or turn invisible on that lady’s command. Soon news started spreading of what happened at the coronation, with WANTED posters for Guinevere and Lancelot tacked up everywhere we went. I had to be creative about disguising them. But that, as you know, is a specialty.”

  “So they’re . . . safe?” Tedros asked anxiously.

  “The Igraine is returned to Camelot harbor and your mother and Lance are hidden close by, rested and at ease. Except for the fact they’re missing you. Well, your mother more than Lancelot,” the wizard winked.

  “Hope you disguised Lance as a girl,” Tedros said, remembering his own time as a girl named Essa. All of a sudden he was craving his favorite hot cocoa and he wished he hadn’t dumped out his mug. Why did he always act first and think later? He tried to catch Agatha’s eye, wanting to somehow start a conversation, but he’d ignored her too long and now she was ignoring him.

  “Merlin, if you were touring other kingdoms, surely you saw some of our classmates on their quests?” the princess asked.

  “Indeed,” the wizard said, finally acknowledging her.

  Tedros’ face fell. “And have they, um, you know . . . heard about me?”

  The wizard paused. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one encountering obstacles on their quest.”

  “Huh? But I’m not even on a quest—” said Tedros.

  “Every fourth-year Ever or Never from the School for Good and Evil is on a quest, Tedros,” the wizard corrected. “A quest to discover if they have the strength, wit, and will to become a legend and have their name remembered for all time. It’s just your classmates’ quests for glory took them to faraway lands, while yours brought you back home.”

  “Doesn’t feel like much of a quest to me,” Tedros murmured. “I’m supposed to be king. It’s what I was born to do.”

  Merlin peered at him as if he’d missed the point entirely. “You may have been born to do it, but that doesn’t mean you’ll do it well.”

  Tedros said nothing, two hot spots appearing on his cheeks.

  “Tedros, have you thought about why your father’s sword is stuck in the stone?” Merlin asked.

  “Well, at first I thought it was caught at the wrong angle, then I thought maybe there was a riddle or a game that if I solved, the sword would pull loose.”

  “That was my theory too,” said Agatha.

  Tedros looked at her, wondering why she hadn’t said something to him before, only to realize he’d never given her the chance.

  “And now?” asked Merlin.

  “I’m back to thinking it’s caught at the wrong angle,” Tedros sighed.

  “What if we consider it from Excalibur’s point of view?” Merlin asked.

  “You think Excalibur doesn’t want me to pull it out?” Tedros asked, surprised.

  “More like it doesn’t want you to be king,” said Merlin.

  “But I am king—”

  “Only because someone else who has a rightful claim to the throne has yet to pull the sword. And no one does, since you are King Arthur’s only child. So again: Why won’t Excalibur let you complete your father’s test?”

  Tedros crossed his arms. “How should I know what a sword thinks?”

  “Excalibur is a weapon of immense power, forged by the Lady of the Lake to fight Evil. It does not want to spend its days trapped in a balcony,” said Merlin. “Perhaps the sword is trying to be sure you are ready to be king and is waiting for you to prove it. In which case, the question is . . . how?”

  Merlin wiped his spectacles with his robes, making them even dustier. “That’s theory #1.”

  “And theory #2?” Agatha asked.

  “That it isn’t the sword making these decisions at all,” said Merlin. “That someone else has found a way to control it, like a master controls a puppet, preventing you from sealing your own coronation. In which case, the question is . . . who?”

  “But no one is powerful enough to control Excalibur,” Agatha rebutted. She slowly turned to Tedros. “Unless . . .”

  “No way. The School Master is dead!” Tedros scoffed.

  “Like forever dead,” Agatha agreed.

  “Like really forever dead,” said Tedros.

  They goggled at each other, then back at Merlin. “Right?”

  “These are the same questions I have,” said the wizard, looking troubled. “But it is up to Tedros to find the answers, since it is his test. The sooner he retrieves his sword and seals his coronation, the better. Not just for Camelot, but for the sake o
f the entire Woods.”

  “Entire Woods?” said Tedros. “What do you mea—”

  “Are you talking about the attacks in the papers, Merlin?” Agatha cut in. “I’ve been reading about problems in Ever and Never kingdoms: pirate raids in Jaunt Jolie; a poisoned wishing well in Bremen; a band of werewolves looting families in Bloodbrook . . . but none of it seems connected.”

  “It isn’t. Just a bunch of petty crime,” said Tedros. “Leaders of neighboring kingdoms think it’s more than that, but they just want Camelot to come in and clean up their problems like Dad used to. We have our own problems, thank you. But kings and queens keep writing me letters, demanding meetings.”

  “Which you clearly haven’t answered,” said Agatha. “I heard two chambermaids whispering about why you haven’t investigated the fire on Glass Mountain.”

  Tedros turned to Merlin quickly. “Well, are the attacks connected? You said our classmates are having trouble on their quests. What’s happening out there in the Woods?”

  “Are they okay?” Agatha pressed.

  “Dear girl, maybe you’d know the answer to that if you’d been answering your letters,” the wizard replied. “Your best friend’s included.”

  Tedros looked at Agatha, dumbfounded. “You haven’t written Sophie?”

  Agatha’s big brown eyes turned wet.

  “But why?” Tedros blurted against all better judgment. “I’m happily rid of that girl, but you two have so much history. You can’t just cut her off—”

  “She seems so excited about the wedding . . . and you don’t,” said Agatha, choking up. “Any time I tried to write her, all I could picture is me walking down the aisle to a boy I used to share everything with and now acts as if he barely knows me. But Sophie knows me: she’d see through anything I wrote . . . she’d see how I was feeling . . . and I didn’t want anyone to know—”

  She covered her face, muffling her sobs.

  Tedros looked at Merlin, sitting between him and his future queen. “M, do you mind if I talk to Agatha alone?”

  “Thought you’d never ask. Even wizards need the toilet,” Merlin breezed. “Just jump off when you’re finished and you’ll find yourselves back where you started.” He snatched his sleeping hat, which startled awake, spurting rainbow sprinkles, before the wizard dove off the cloud like a champion swimmer and vanished into the darkness.