by Shae Hutto
“Brilliant, gimp,” Claire grunted as she struggled to drag Rackles’s inert form into the strange room they had unlocked. In the dimly lit room, there were metal shavings of all sorts copiously littering the floor. The walls were almost entirely covered with paintings of the night sky. If it weren’t such a low-tech world, Claire would have thought they were paintings of outer space. In the middle of the room stood a stand with what looked like a bird perch at the top. Perched upon it was a creepy blue scaly monkey with eyes that swirled in a nauseous spiral. It was gurgling happily at seeing them.
“Spanky!” yelled Roger with glee. Claire nudged him with her elbow.
“He meant ‘Ramses,’ Ramses,” she corrected. She remembered an exceedingly unpleasant psychic attack by the little alien when she called him Spanky the Wonder Monkey. She wouldn’t wish such an experience on her worst enemy. Or even on Roger. She eyed the weird little psychic lizard-monkey with distaste while hoping he couldn’t read her mind. She smiled tentatively. “It’s so good to see you,” she lied. “We’re just going to leave Rackles here,” she said as she dropped the butler’s ankle. “You wouldn’t mind taking care of him would you?” The alien stared at them impassively, his eyes making them both dizzy. The happy gurgling had stopped.
“Why don’t we take him with us?” asked Roger.
“He’s way too heavy,” replied Claire deadpan as she kicked the inert Rackles in the thigh.
“The blue monkey, you cheeky nutter,” replied Roger in exasperation. Claire suppressed a long-suffering sigh.
“Do you want to come with us, Ramses?” she asked the alien, trying her best to appear enthusiastic and welcoming. The creepy little lizard-monkey started his gurgling again and raised his arms like a toddler asking to be picked up. “Great,” Claire muttered under her breath. Roger hurried over and placed Ramses on his shoulder with every appearance of actual enthusiasm. He handed Ramses a handful of random coins from his pocket which the alien gratefully accepted and began to munch contentedly. It sounded like a frying pan being run through a metal shredder.
Claire hurried back into the hallway and motioned for Roger to join her when she saw the hallway was empty of potential assassins, informers and pop singers. They resumed their search for stairs leading to the Queen’s quarters but more carefully since Roger no longer blended in, with the ripped pants, visible sword and blue alien on his shoulder. When they came to the next crossing of passages and Claire started to go right, Ramses let out a little buzzing noise and his eyes flashed red when Claire looked at him curiously. She remembered from her earlier arrangement with the alien that flashing red eyes meant ‘no.’
“What do you mean no?” she asked. “Should we turn left instead?” The eyes flashed green. “You know where we’re going and how to get there?” Green, again. “Ok then,” she said. “We go left.” They went left. Ramses guided them in this fashion for a little while until they came to a door in a rounded stone wall. It was gilded and locked.
“This must be it, then,” said Roger happily as he tried the door knob. The lock was ornate and none of Rackles’s keys fit. Claire was annoyed at how used to the convenience of a magic wand she had become. In a fit of anger, she ran at the door and hit it with her lowered shoulder, fully expecting the solid wooden door to fly open. Instead, she rebounded off it and landed on the floor with an undignified screech of pain. “Yeah,” said Roger. “That was just stupid, love.” He threw all his weight behind a mighty kick to the door just next to the knob, also expecting the door to fly open. It didn’t. Roger managed to not fall down, but he still felt like a fool as he stumbled backward. Claire got to her feet and dusted herself off. Without a word, she stomped off around the corner, leaving Roger with a look of bewilderment on his face, wondering if he should follow.
He didn’t wonder long, because Claire reappeared a short time later carrying a marble column that had, until very recently, held a bust of some long dead king. It was about waist high and just about perfect for the two of them to use as a battering ram. Roger set Spanky on a rickety wooden table and hefted the column. They both wrapped their arms around it and started swinging it back and forth experimentally.
“On three, yeah?” said Roger. “One, two, three!” They swung the column into the door and connected with it solidly with a resounding ‘thunk.’ The door did not burst open, but it did give enough to be promising. They hit it again and the doorknob popped off and fell to the floor with a clatter.
“Hey!” yelled a man in alarm as he came running around the corner. “What are you doing? Those are the Queen’s private chambers!” Roger bent down and retrieved the doorknob from the floor and palmed it like a baseball in preparation for winging it at the man’s head.
“We know!” shouted Claire in a decent imitation of panic. “There’s a fire in the tower and we can’t get in!”
“Fire?!” exclaimed the man in genuine alarm. He was dressed in finery that led Claire to believe he was no servant, but rather some form of dignitary or noble. “She’ll kill us all!” he said in dismay. He quickly shoved his way between Roger and Claire and wrapped his arms around the column as well. Claire stared at him in disbelief but Roger just shrugged and counted to three again. This time the door broke at the latch and swung open with a teeth-rattling boom as it hit the wall. The man pushed past Roger and stopped to sniff.
“I don’t smell smoke,” he said musingly.
“Of course not,” said Claire calmly. “Smoke rises and we’re at the bottom of the tower.”
Roger contributed to the argument by hitting the man on the back of the head with the doorknob before he could reply.
“Ouch!” he screeched as he clutched his head in both hands. “What did you do that for?” Roger hit him again. “Hey, cut that out!” he yelled as he sank to his knees. “That hurts!” Roger hit him a third time and he finally fell over in a heap.
“Nothing ever works like in the movies,” complained Roger. “Just once, I’d like someone to fall down proper when I bash ‘em in the noggin.” He tossed the doorknob onto the floor with a muffled clunk.
“Welcome to reality, Roger,” said Claire and stopped to think. “Or one of them anyway.” She giggled. “When we’re done here, maybe we can find a world where doors fly open when you kick them and one tap on the head knocks people out.”
“You think there’s a world for TJ Hooker? Or CHiPs?”
“I don’t have a clue what those things are, dude,” replied Claire with a frown.
“Hill Street Blues?”
“Yeah, no. Give it up. You’re a dinosaur.”
“Miami Vice?”
“Stop. Just stop.” She examined the shoes of the unconscious man hopefully, but they were far too large for her. She dropped them in disgust.
“21 Jump Street?” Roger tried again.
“That’s a real movie and I’ve heard of it!” she exclaimed with a big smile. “But my parents won’t let me see it.”
“Movie?” Roger retrieved Spanky from the table where he was eagerly gnawing on a decorative clock.
Claire rolled her eyes. “Get in here, Roger.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the tower staircase. They moved the unconscious helpful man to one side and closed the door. It wouldn’t latch because the door was broken and the knob was laying on the floor, matted with blood and hair. “All right,” she said after they propped up the man against the door to keep it closed. “Time for our morning workout. Up we go.”
“Ladies first,” said Roger gallantly as he extended a hand to the stairs.
“You’re kidding,” replied Claire with a smirk. “Not in this skirt. You think I don’t know you just want to look at my butt? You first, amigo.”
“What?” cried Roger in mock indignation. “The thought never entered me head, I swear. Besides, it’s darker than the inside of a cow up there.”
“Shut up and start climbing,” Claire said and shoved Roger toward the stairs. He chuckled as he began the trudge up the stairs that asc
ended into inky blackness. Claire gave it a couple of seconds before she followed the receding footsteps upwards to avoid running into Roger and accidentally shoving her nose into his rear end. She giggled at the thought, then started climbing, one hand out in front, just in case. The stone stairs were cold on the bottoms of her sore feet.
The climb seemed to last forever, but that was probably because it was so dark. Sensory deprivation was putting them on edge and drawing time out like warm taffy. Claire knew the stairs were fairly long, though, because her thighs and glutes were burning by the time they arrived at the landing at the top. She was a little out of breath, too. And of course, her unshod feet were aching even more fiercely. The landing was dimly illuminated by one small window set in a niche in the stone wall. The window was too small to even fit her head through. Outside, it was near dark and overcast, which accounted for how dim the landing was. At first, Claire was bewildered by the lack of doors in evidence. She looked all around and thought with a sinking heart that they had made the climb for nothing. But then she recalled the unconscious man’s assertion that these were the Queen’s private quarters. Roger looked equally bewildered as he slowly turned in a circle and then shrugged, making Spanky rise a couple of inches into the air and back down again.
Claire grinned and reached above her head. Roger’s eyes followed her hand and, thankfully, not her skirt as she gripped the handle to a door set in the ceiling and pulled. The door was well weighted and oiled and it offered little resistance as it extended quietly, unfolding into a ladder a lot like the one into Claire’s attic at home.
“You first again,” she said with irritation as she smoothed her way too short skirt back down. This time Roger didn’t joke or argue, but climbed up the stairs with alacrity. Claire followed him up the ladder and emerged to stand next to Roger as they both stared about the room in surprise.
“Not what I was expecting,” said Claire.
“Have a jook at it, would ya, redser?”
“Jook?”
Roger waved away her question and just gestured broadly at the overly girly décor. The furniture was pink and white and the stone walls were painted a cheery pastel blue with a huge rainbow mural on one wall. The bed was a massive four-poster and the bright pink comforter was hardly visible for all the stuffed animals and fluffy pillows that sat on it. An assortment of bright rugs covered most of the floor. A massive dollhouse took up one whole corner and next to it was a rocking horse with a pink bow tie. Light flooded the room from a large glowing orb suspended from the roof. Two huge floor-to-ceiling windows framed by pink curtains showed a twilight view of the realm for many miles. There was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers on one wall, both white with pink edging and trim. A pair of footed pajamas hung neatly from a hook by the wardrobe. There was a black silhouette on the wall of a dancing ballerina.
“We must have the wrong room, Roger,” said Claire.
“Let’s take a gander through yon door before we go climbing back down the apples and pears.” He pointed at a door set in the far wall, opposite the bed. Claire thought it was most likely a closet. Or, the local equivalent of a bathroom. Roger tossed Spanky onto the bed amongst the stuffed animals. Spanky gurgled with glee as he sailed through the air and disappeared into the mass of fur.
“Probably full of more stuffed animals,” she muttered as she crossed the room to the door, intentionally stepping on all the fluffy rugs she could on the way. They felt good on her abused bare feet. The room behind the door was quite a bit larger than Claire was anticipating and it functioned as both the expected closet and the bathroom. A great stone tub filled one corner next to a garderobe. The other side of the room was filled with racks and shelves of women’s clothing. Some of it was the girly stuff from the outside room, but the vast majority was stuff much more in line with what Claire would expect from an Evil Queen: lots of black and reds in leather and velvet. On a table in a corner by itself was a heap of junk that Claire immediately recognized as her and Roger’s stuff, or most of it anyway. She eagerly crossed to the table and grabbed one of her wands poking out of the pile but dropped it when her eyes caught a shoe rack on the other side of the table that had been hidden by it until she got close.
The rack of shoes held everything from combat boots to ballet slippers. There were rows dedicated to heels and another one to sandals. Incongruous jogging shoes that would have looked at home in a sporting goods store back home sat next to elegant leather half boots accented with gemstones. On a whim, she grabbed a pair of black patent leather pumps and tried them on and was shocked to find that the Queen’s shoe size was the same as her own.
“What a holy show this is,” said Roger as he stood in the doorway, shaking his head sadly. “I can’t leave you alone for five seconds and you’re trying on bloody shoes. I wish a I had a camera.”
“You’re not the one who had to roam around a freaking stone castle in bare feet, Paddy,” she replied fiercely. “Why don’t you start gearing up before we have to use this stuff and you’re standing there with nothing but your wit,” she scolded. “Which would leave you pretty much unarmed, wouldn’t it?” she added and instantly regretted it.
Roger tried to look unimpressed by her insults, but she could tell that he was offended. She was afraid that he might be really angry but her pride wouldn’t let her apologize. The knowledge that she was in the wrong just made her angrier. She stamped her foot in agitation. Suddenly, he grinned at her.
“You’re just cheesed off because you’re in here throwing shapes and there’s nobody to gawk at you.”
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.
“How dare you…” she started in an imperious tone but cut off abruptly as Roger crossed the distance between them in two long strides, grabbed and pulled her to him. Before she knew it, his lips were firmly pressed against hers. She went rigid with shock, but he wasn’t letting her go and she felt herself relax in his arms. Her lips parted slightly of their own volition and her startled, popping eyes closed. Her nose was filled with the smell of him, sweat and soap and an earthy scent. He tasted faintly of cinnamon. Guilt waged a brief but fierce war with pleasure and lost. She gave herself up to the moment and wrapped her arms around him. This wasn’t Claire’s first kiss, but it was the first one that made her tingle all over. The world shook. At first it failed to register and she felt only a sense of loss as he released her and his soft, wet lips left her own.
“What the devil?” he exclaimed. The tower shook again and they both heard an angry screeching roar from outside.
“Now I really hate that dragon,” she snarled as she grabbed her wand from the pile of equipment and stormed out of the closet. She noticed Roger was hastily gathering all the gear he could hold and trying to store stuff in its proper place about his body as he followed her out of the doorway. She paid no attention to him as she stalked with a purpose to the large window and threw the tacky yellow curtains wide and stood in the window, wand in hand, ready for battle. She ripped the cliché maid’s cap off her head and threw it out the window as she shook loose her mass of coppery curls.
“What’s he up to out there?” asked Roger from behind her as he tried in vain to peer over her shoulder. That was a good question. What was the infernal beast doing? He wasn’t attacking the tower like she had expected. The horrid flying reptile was attacking all right, just not the tower with them in it. He was circling overhead and breathing the occasional fireball at the castle. What looked like a guard in the Queen’s colors dangled from his talons. Arrows flew from the battlements in flights of hundreds. Most missed but the few that hit him bounced off with no discernable effect. As she watched, a trebuchet launched a futile payload of rocks in his general direction but it was impossible to aim with any accuracy and a moving target was impossible for it to hit. A ballista in another, lower tower had a chance to penetrate his scales, but the bolt went wide and sailed off into the forest. It was too dark to tell what part of his body it came from, but a bolt of some sort of energy
zipped from his neck and head region to blast a flaming chunk out of part of the curtain wall.
“Looks like he declared war on the Queen,” mused Claire, her wand and her anger forgotten.
“Wasn’t that what we were hoping he would do?” asked Roger.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It was. I just didn’t think there was much chance of it actually happening.”
“Get out of that window before you fall out, redser,” said Roger. “And go change clothes so your bum’s not showing, yeah? I’m going to see if I can shift this bed over the trapdoor.”
Claire self-consciously smoothed the ridiculous skirt down in the back in a futile attempt to make it hide more than physics would allow it to and then walked rapidly and smoothly (to keep it from bouncing) back to the closet and ransacked the Queen’s wardrobe for something more appropriate to wear. That wasn’t hard, since what she was wearing was pretty much the most inappropriate thing she could think of. As she browsed for something to steal, she could hear scraping noises and grunting as Roger moved the bed. From outside, filtered the sounds of a battle with a dragon. Claire was not happy with her choices. Apparently, the Queen did not wear cargo pants or anything else that might be considered decent adventuring attire. Claire discarded the idea of putting on her own old clothes, since they were gross with sweat, dirt, blood and who knew what else. She clucked her tongue as she appraised and ruled out several dresses. She was tempted by one form-fitting green ball gown that would complement her hair marvelously but couldn’t justify the sacrifices of utility just to look fabulous.
“I think someone’s coming up the bloody stairs!” yelled Roger from the other room. The straining and screeching noises got louder and faster. Claire hurried her dressing considerably and only fell over once as she tried to pull on boots. Her hair was a mess, as usual. She borrowed one of the Queen’s brushes and was trying to get her hair to stay in some form of disciplined style. “Move yer arse!” screamed Roger from the other room. Now she could hear a loud booming sound as someone tried to move the bed from underneath. She looked in the mirror and scowled at both her uncooperative hair and her magically mismatched eyes; one purple and the other a shocking crimson. “For the love of Jaysus!” screamed Roger amid loud booms and angry yelling. With a sigh, Claire hefted her wand and kicked open the door.
