“Yield, wizard!” he said.
“And if I don’t?!” Seeboth asked.
“There are six million hells recorded in the Book of Flames — I’ll see that a piece of you arrives in every single one!”
“You fool!” Seeboth spat. “Do you honestly think you can stop me from killing the woman I love?!”
It was moments like these — trying to fight a wizard while dangling from chains one hundred stories above the ground directly over a princess charged with enough magical energy to destroy the entire universe — that seemed a good place for a chapter to end.
52
BETTER THAN NOTHING
Between the two of them — one man fueled by hatred, the other by desire for justice long denied — Captain Head and Jack Bravado burned a significant amount of what would one day be known as calories as they attempted to destroy each other on the stairwell.
After two full minutes of furious fighting, at the very moment Jack appeared to be getting the upper hand, he stumbled over an object on the stairs and lost his balance. Seizing the opportunity, Captain Head executed a textbook disarming maneuver that sent Jack’s sword spinning down the shaft.
“It ends, Bravado,” Captain Head panted. “Ye couldn’t save Whitethorne, ye can’t even save yerself.”
Jack frantically crab-crawled up several steps, but his enemy lumbered faster than Jack could scuttle.
“Ye can’t escape me this time, Bravado.”
“Actually wasn’t trying to,” Jack said. Then he kicked the thing that had caused him to stumble straight at Captain Head’s legs.
The pirate was understandably startled when the object grabbed his ankle. He was likewise startled when it pulled his foot out from under him and caused him to trip. As he fell, he caught the briefest glimpse of a severed arm clutching his boot. Then his steam-shovel jaw hit the steps with a jarring KA-LANNNG that spun his cannonball head around until it faced completely backward.
Dropping his cutlass, Captain Head flailed blindly. All he could see was the wall behind him, which would make disemboweling Jack virtually impossible. He rocked back on his knees and desperately tried to twist his head around.
Jack climbed to his feet and nodded appreciatively at Jeremy the Zombie’s severed arm. “What do you know, it was better than nothing.”
Before Captain Head finished getting his head on straight, he blindly grabbed at Jack and pulled him off balance. Jack toppled against him, and the two men rolled down the stairs, locked in a sweaty embrace. End over end they tumbled, fighting the entire way down the Shadowkeep.
It was a loooong way down the stairs.
It was a loooong fight.
In order to avoid tedious description of all the pummeling and swashbuckling that took place, suffice it to say they eventually reached the bottom of the stairs, landing with a particularly meaty THUD!
And Jack may have groaned, “My spine.”
53
THE SACRIFICE
Paul, Laura, and Seeboth leaped from one chain to another, jockeying for position above Princess Luscious like bickering squirrels fighting over acorns in an oak tree.
“You will not have her!” Paul declared.
“What right have you to interfere?” Seeboth demanded. “You think your love is worthier than mine?!”
Laura kicked at the wizard, trying to dislodge him without success. “You animal, you don’t love her!”
“You fool!” Seeboth jumped away from Laura, catching himself on a chain nearer to Paul. “The Spell requires me to love her, and I do! My love called white fire from the heavens themselves! It’s truer than anything you could ever know!”
Hanging by one hand, Seeboth slashed at Paul, swinging Judgment high and to the left. In spite of having overcome the debilitating effects of his curse and tapping into the strength and skill that had always been waiting inside him, Paul’s backhand was nevertheless quite weak, just as his father had pointed out so very long ago. As a result, the prince failed to adequately parry Seeboth’s blow.
Judgment, charged with the full power of Seeboth’s magic, shattered the Singing Sword’s blade and continued onward to sever the chain Laura clung to as well.
The handmaiden plunged toward the ground.
Wrapping his legs around his chain, Paul flopped backward, flinging his arm out to snag Laura’s wrist as she flashed past. Although he had saved her with an amazing feat of both acrobatics and strength, he had placed himself in a rather difficult position — that is to say, he was hanging upside down, clutching Laura in one hand, the stump of the Singing Sword in the other, his legs entwined around his chain, and completely powerless to intervene as Seeboth slid down his own chain toward the princess.
She could see him coming. Try as she might to twist away, she was at the end of her rope — or, more accurately, her chains.
“Please, don’t—” she sobbed.
Seeboth slowed his descent as he neared her. “I love you, Luscious,” he said, “but honestly, it wouldn’t have worked out. I’m an evil wizard seeking godhood, and you… well… you’re a sacrifice!”
Paul cast about him for something else to do, some other way to attack, when one last, desperate idea struck him. He shook the stub of the Singing Sword and said, “Finish him!”
“Finish him?” said the Sword. “Look at my blade! I couldn’t slice sausage in this condition!”
“I don’t want you to pierce his heart — I want you to break it! Do it! NOW!”
And the Sword understood.
This was its purpose, the very purpose for which it had been forged. Yes, its blade was keen and its steel was strong, but its voice was that of the angels, and its enchanted music could cut through flesh and bone right to the very soul.
It sang.
It sang the most beautiful, heart-rending love song ever heard on this Earth. To repeat it here and now upon these pages would be to kill it, for its magic cannot be captured on the page, but only in the moment, and its words were not meant for us. They were meant for the man hefting the Judgment Blade toward the throat of Princess Luscious, the man looking into her tear-filled eyes.
The man who suddenly froze.
Judgment trembled in his hand. His eyes blurred with hot, inexplicable tears, and he watched the princess’ face go into soft focus. Memories flooded him…
Princess Luscious asleep upon her magnificent bed in Theandrea…
The first time he caressed her cheek…
Their exuberant embrace on the deck of the flying Shadowship…
The moment he transmuted her into manure…
Her beautiful blue eyes as he shackled her to the altar…
While the dark and momentarily conflicted wizard was thus distracted, Paul hoisted Laura back up and positioned her safely upon another chain.
Seeboth wiped his eyes against his sleeve. He glared down at the princess, but his sword wouldn’t move. “I… I can’t do it. I… can’t. But why?! What has happened to me?!”
While he was thus distracted, Paul slid beside him and kicked the sword from his hand.
Judgment traced spirals of green lightning across the night sky in a perfect downward arc before impaling a boulder on the beach far below, and there it stood, majestically glowing and crackling just as a magic sword should.
Seeboth spun on his chain to glare at Paul. “What have you done to me?!” Spittle flew from his lips.
“You did this to yourself when you fell in love with her,” Paul said.
“What are you talking about?!”
“You just learned the meaning of True Love,” Paul said. “Don’t you see? You sacrifice yourself for the one you love, not the other way around. You can’t hurt her now. You’ve lost!”
“What? No, this can’t be! Noooo!” His denial went on for a few moments longer until his fury overwhelmed it. “Well, I may not be able to hurt the one I love, but I can still hurt you!”
He lunged across the gap and threw his hands around Paul’s neck. Paul strug
gled but couldn’t seem to free himself. Then he simply stopped trying.
“I’ve died enough today,” he choked.
With that, he boxed Seeboth’s ears, grabbed the chain above his head for leverage, and brutally kicked the wizard with both feet.
Seeboth flew from the chains very much like the Judgment Blade had, but without the green lightning to make him look truly awesome.
“Flicker!” Paul yelled.
The warlord Flitterling, who up until that moment had been leading her gang in a battle against more Zombies that had surged onto the roof, swooped downward at the sound of Paul’s voice and caught Seeboth mid-plummet.
“No! Just let me fall, damn you!” cried Seeboth.
“Sorry,” said Flicker. “It’s a hero thing.” She began to lug the wizard back to the sacrifice platform, her wings working double-time to lift the extra weight.
As she did so, a clap of thunder rolled across the sky like a pair of dice.
54
THE PENTAGRAM OF LOVE
Together, Paul and Laura heaved Princess Luscious onto the platform. The planetary conjunction had passed, and with its passing, the princess’ glow had faded. Once her feet were back on a solid surface, she rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her vision. Although the enchantment had left her, the occasional lightning snap still popped and flashed from her eyes, making it difficult for her to see.
“Are you all right, princess?” Paul asked.
“I… yes, I think so,” she said, turning in the direction of his voice. She tried to fluff her hair, but realized it was pointless and simply said, “Thank you. Thank you for saving me and everything. I appreciate the effort — oh, that sounded stupid. I’m a little nervous, this is my first time being rescued.”
“That’s okay,” Paul chuckled. “It’s my first time rescuing someone.” He caught himself and shot a quick glance at Laura. “Well… second time… ish.”
Laura blushed. She didn’t mean to, and she didn’t like that she did it, but she did it anyway.
“We need to get you out of these shackles,” Paul said as he examined the iron cuffs around her wrists.
“Oh, I have a key, I grabbed it from his belt—” Laura started to say until she realized she did not, in fact, have the key. “Oh no! I must have dropped it when I fell off the platform.”
“It looks like someone else found it,” Paul said.
A rat clad in a black longcoat crawled up Princess Luscious’ gown, a brass key clamped in his whiskered mouth.
“Luscious, don’t move,” Laura said very calmly and quietly. “You’ve got something on you, but I will take care of it.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the princess replied. “The rat is with me. We… I guess we look out for each other.”
Rupert the Rat perched on her shoulder and presented the key to Paul with a slight bow. Bowing right back, Paul took it. His task completed, and apparently feeling a little vulnerable out in the open, Rupert slipped away to always and forever guard the princess from afar.
Paul unlocked her shackles and dropped them at her feet.
“So… who are you, my prince?” Princess Luscious asked. The final spark of lightning faded from her eyes, and Paul at last came into focus.
“I am Paul, crowned Prince of Lilypine,” he said.
The princess’ eager expression flattened a bit. “Oh. Did they, uh, send any other Prince Charmings with you?”
“Only myself.”
“Oh.”
“My lady, do you have something to say?”
Princess Luscious sighed. This was always the hard part, even for a princess. “Yes. Now don’t take this the wrong way. Thank you for the rescue — I’m very flattered — but this isn’t really the Happily Ever After I’m looking for. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Paul said. “Because this is the H.E.A. I want. I’ve wanted it my entire life.”
Laura dropped her eyes and backed away. It didn’t feel as if she should be present for this. She was surprised to realize she didn’t want to be there for it. She couldn’t bear to watch—
“I choose Laura,” Paul said.
“What?” said Laura.
“I told you I — wait. Her? You choose my handmaiden over me?!” Princess Luscious was suddenly mortified, a feeling she was not entirely familiar with. “You can’t!”
A dreamy smile softened Laura’s face. It had crept up on her unawares, and she was ashamed to have let it ambush her as it had. “You’re choosing me…” She was also ashamed to have said that, but it had slipped out before she could get her wall back up.
There.
Her wall was back up.
“Wait a minute, you’re choosing me? Choosing?! I’m not some prize you can just win, some prissy trophy like she is!”
“Prissy?! Laura, you dare speak to me thus?!” Princess Luscious hugged Paul’s arm. “My lord, defend your lady’s honor!”
“You said you didn’t want to be ‘my lady’,” Paul replied.
Princess Luscious laughed nervously, something else she was not accustomed to doing. “Perhaps… perhaps I was a bit hasty, my lord. Please reconsider. Surely you can see I am a worthy prize.”
Paul turned away from her. “I want you, Laura.”
The princess shoved past him so she could position herself directly in Laura’s face.
“How dare you steal my prince!” she said. “The ad was my idea! I was the one who nearly got sacrificed!”
That’s when Flicker finally settled Seeboth upon the platform. “You dropped something, my lord,” she said.
Princess Luscious ran to Seeboth’s side and threw her arms toward him. He flinched, expecting her to strike him, but instead she flung her arms around him.
“Fine!” she pouted. “You don’t want me, I’ll take him! What do you think about that?”
“I think he just tried to kill you,” Paul said.
“Keep out of this!” Seeboth snapped. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he didn’t want to do anything that might jinx it — and being a Shadow Wizard, he knew all about jinxes and just how much damage they could do.
“That’s right!” Princess Luscious said. “You may be a prince, but he’s the most powerful wizard in the world.”
Enter the jinx. Seeboth cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“Actually, that’s not entirely true,” he said.
“What do you mean?” the princess asked.
“My power… it’s, uh… it’s gone, at the moment. It was all in the sword.”
Princess Luscious pulled away from him. “You mean you’re powerless? You can’t make us fly?” She stared significantly into his eyes. “You can’t transmute me anymore?”
“Not as such. No. But I love you—”
Princess Luscious threw up her arms in exasperation. “So does half the world! You’re going to have to do a little better than that!”
At that moment, Jack sauntered up the steps to the platform. Though he was sweaty and bruised, he wore a jaunty smile on his face and carried Captain Head’s cannonball head — without its body — tucked under his arm.
“Who woulda guessed, the thing just screwed right off.” Jack smirked and tapped the arrowhead imprint. “Not so tough without a crew or a body, are you? Now you’re just evidence.”
The steam-shovel jaw suddenly sprang upward like a bear trap and bit Jack’s hand. Yowling, he wheeled across the platform and started smashing the cannonball against the altar, trying to get it off.
Princess Luscious didn’t know who this strange, noisy man was, nor did she care. “Back to the princess, here? Okay, I admit it, I was just kidding about the wizard—”
“What?! I gave up godhood for you!”
“Thanks. Done with you.”
Utterly and completely confused, Laura looked from Paul to the princess to Seeboth. Looking at them did nothing to relieve her confusion, so she tried running instead, retreating down the stairs.
Paul pursued her.
Pri
ncess Luscious started to follow. “Wait — I have a reputation to think about! A handmaiden over me?! What will they say back home!”
“Hey, don’t forget about Jack Bravado.” Having managed to get the head off his hand, he now took it upon himself to wheel Princess Luscious into a dramatic dip. “This is a pretty emotional time, and we all need someone special to grab on to. Lucky for you, I’m still available.”
Then he kissed her. He leaned over, pressed his lips against hers, and wiggled them about a bit. Such was his style.
ZAP!
A residual magic charge cracked from her kiss and blasted Jack across the platform. He landed hard beside Seeboth.
Horrified, Princess Luscious raced down the stairs after the others. “Gods, it’s not easy being rescued,” she said.
Jack looked up at Seeboth, cross-eyed with smoke wisping from his mouth. “Oh yeah, that’s the stuff, darlin’. Once you’ve had Jack, you never go back.”
“How dare you taste her lips before me!”
Seeboth tore himself free of Flicker’s grip and dove atop Jack. The Flitterling drifted across the platform to take a seat on the altar where she could enjoy a better view of the show.
55
THE END
King Hofnar’s knees hit the sand with a thud.
The barbarian knelt before the overwhelming might of the army of Illigoz. His peasants had fled. His war hammer had failed him. His queen was still frigid.
King Sterling and Prince Savage sneered down at him encased in suits of shining armor that had never been scratched for they had never once seen actual battle.
“I’ve come to collect, Hofnar,” King Sterling said. “Surrender Lilypine or die like your son surely has.”
Hearing King Sterling speak so callously of Paul, hearing him speak of the death of his only son, King Hofnar felt something wild boil up in his blood and something hot stream from his eyes. He surged up, lunging for King Sterling’s throat, but the soldiers of Illigoz shoved him back down.
“So be it,” King Sterling said wearily. He drew his sword.
Happily Ever Awkward Page 20
