Читать книгу The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom - Christopher Healy - Страница 9

Over the years, Frederic had met his fair share of other princes. None of them were anything like this prince of Sturmhagen. Gustav was so gruff. He had no patience, no manners, and ridiculously poor communication skills. Frederic could only presume the man’s flamenco dancing was just as awkward. He wasn’t at all surprised that Gustav hadn’t been able to hold on to his relationship with Rapunzel. But considering his own fiancée had run off, who was he to judge?

As the two princes rode across the countryside in search of Ella, Frederic began to grow frustrated with Gustav. For one thing, the big man always insisted they camp outside. Anytime Frederic suggested they look for an inn, Gustav would respond with, “Bah!” Or sometimes, “Pah!” Or even, “Pffft!”

Every night, Gustav would contentedly sprawl out on bare grass, and then mock Frederic for attempting to curl up on a trio of spread-out handkerchiefs.

“Cleanliness, Gustav,” Frederic would say defensively. “I’m doing what I can in the name of cleanliness.” Dirt, of course, ranked fourth on King Wilberforce’s list of “Enemies of the Nobleman,” just below nose hair, but above hiccups.

As the days rolled by, Frederic also began to doubt Gustav’s skills as a tracker. He watched Gustav sniff the air, cup his hand to his ear to “listen to the wind,” and occasionally dismount from his horse to nibble the edge of a leaf. He couldn’t imagine how any of that would help them locate Ella.

And in reality, none of it would. Gustav had no idea what he was doing.

Eventually, Gustav took them off-road, into the thickest stretches of Sturmhagen’s pine forests, where the trees were so tall they blocked almost all sunlight. Every flutter of a bird or skitter of a mouse made Frederic flinch and drop his reins. The path was nearly nonexistent, and he and Gustav had to squeeze their horses between trees to get by. More than once, Gustav pushed aside a large branch and let it snap back into Frederic’s face.

Hours later, they finally spotted shafts of daylight ahead. “Aha,” Gustav said. He stopped his horse and hopped down. “Now I know where we are.”

“Now?” Frederic asked. “You mean we’ve been lost all this time?”

“Look there,” Gustav said, pointing out into a small clearing beyond the trees, where they could see a solitary stone structure. “Zaubera’s tower.”

“Zaubera? Is that the witch?”

“No, she’s some other old lady who has a tower in the woods,” Gustav quipped sarcastically as he rolled his eyes.

“This is where you led me?” Frederic asked in disbelief. “To one of the most dangerous places in Sturmhagen? And the one place Ella is guaranteed not to be? This is the tower Rapunzel escaped from. Why in the world would Ella come here to look for her?”

Gustav ignored his protests. “Let’s check it out,” he said, and stepped out into the clearing.

Frederic grabbed the bigger man’s arm and yanked him back into the trees. “What if the witch is there?” Frederic asked.

“Witch, are you there?” Gustav called out. He paused for a second, listening for a response. “She’s not there. Let’s go.” He stepped into the clearing, and Frederic pulled him back once more.

“Wait,” Frederic said. “This witch—Zaubera—she’s pretty powerful, right?”

“She’s an old lady,” Gustav tossed off. “I’m not afraid of old ladies. Are you?”

“Ones who can pick me up and throw me, yes.”

“Look,” Gustav said. “Here’s all you need to know about Zaubera.”

Zaubera was possibly the most powerful witch in the world. She hadn’t always been, though. There was a time when she wasn’t even evil. Zaubera was just a farmer woman living by herself in the small town of Jorgsborg. She was a dabbler in the magical arts, just as every member of her family had been for generations. But she never used her talents to do anything more than grow the tastiest turnips the world had ever seen. Still, the magic freaked out her neighbors. Despite her many attempts to befriend her fellow Jorgsborgians, Zaubera was always ignored—or worse, mocked. One particular group of local children used to stand at the edge of her property and call her names like “worm lips” and “hedgehog hair.” Discouraged, Zaubera gave up and retreated to her cottage to live the life of a hermit.

Then came the fateful day when one of the local hunters managed to capture one of Sturmhagen’s giant, fire-breathing beavers. The man brought the creature back to town to show off his catch—big mistake. The beaver broke loose and went on a rampage, setting nearly every home in Jorgsborg ablaze. As the fire raged out of control around her, Zaubera projected a magical force field around her farm, keeping herself and her home safe from the flames. But she noticed a trio of children trapped by the flames, the same children who insulted her daily. Zaubera dropped the shield around her home and protected the children instead. She lost everything she’d worked for, but, she thought, at least the townspeople would finally appreciate her.

Suddenly, a hero arrived. The armored Sir Lindgren galloped into town on his white stallion and quickly slew the beaver. He then rode up to Zaubera and told her to release the children. Confused, she dropped her shield. Sir Lindgren scooped up the kids and rode away.

As the town began to rebuild and people returned to their homes, the townsfolk didn’t thank Zaubera. In fact, they shunned her more than ever. And then she caught wind of a new bard song, “The Ballad of the Knight and the Beaver,” in which the hero knight not only slays the beast but rescues three children from the clutches of a wicked witch. It was at that point that something in Zaubera snapped.

Fine, she thought. If they want a villain, that’s what I’ll give them. She got her gnarled hands on some ancient spell books and taught herself some dark magic. Then she wreaked havoc on the town. She used fireballs to blast down every cottage that had been rebuilt. She tore up gardens with sorcerous winds. She shot bolts of mystical lightning at the very children whose lives she’d saved earlier, sending them running, screaming and crying. Everyone fled. And no one ever returned to Jorgsborg.

Zaubera had gotten a taste of what it felt like to be truly feared. And she wanted more. The whole world should be trembling in fear of her, she thought. She’d heard about other witches that had become notorious for deeds that weren’t even remotely impressive. Putting someone to sleep? So unoriginal. Trying to cook a couple of kids? That didn’t even require magic! No, Zaubera deserved to be more infamous than all of them. She needed word of her wickedness to spread across the kingdoms. And for that, she couldn’t rely on a few sizzled kids. She’d need to go big. She’d need to get the notice of the bards.

On the day she caught a wandering peasant swiping some turnips from her newly replanted garden, she came up with the perfect plan. Instead of simply frying the man where he stood, Zaubera offered to let him go in exchange for his young daughter. The peasant was surprisingly quick to agree to this (he was not a very good dad), and that was how Zaubera ended up with Rapunzel. The witch locked the girl away in an impenetrable tower and then waited gleefully for some heroes to try to rescue the fair maiden. She knew they would come. Heroes just can’t stay away when they hear about a person in danger; heroes crave the glory that gets heaped upon them when they pull off a rescue. Oh, how Zaubera hated heroes. And when some stupid heroes showed up to storm her tower, she planned to blast them into nothingness; the levels of pain and destruction she would cause would simply be too great for the bards to overlook.

But no one came. Rapunzel’s father never sent anyone to try to get his daughter back. He never even told anyone she was gone. Like I said, he was a very bad father. He just sat home and enjoyed his stolen turnips.

Years went by, during which Zaubera was stuck with a prisoner she never really wanted. But the witch used the time wisely, learning every terrible magic spell she could—a spell to bind her enemies, a spell to grant her superhuman strength, even a thesaurus spell to help her think up new and creative ways to insult people. Before long, she was a master of dark magic. Then, one day, out of the blue, she got the rescue attempt she was hoping for. Sort of.

One of the lunkhead princes of Sturmhagen tried to attack her, and she made quick work of him. But the fool had come alone; there was no one to share the story of how Zaubera had destroyed the prince. No one except Rapunzel, that is. Desperate for fame, Zaubera set Rapunzel free to tell her tale. She never considered the possibility that the longhaired lass would save that near-dead lunkhead and become the hero of her own story.

After “The Song of Rapunzel” became popular—the song in which the bards made the witch sound incompetent by implying that Rapunzel escaped on her own—Zaubera was more determined than ever to prove her wickedness to the world. She also now had a vendetta against heroes and bards.

The witch spent weeks concocting her Supreme Scheme for Infamy. Instead of kidnapping one prisoner this time, she was going to kidnap five. And she was going after captives that people would actually miss and want back, prisoners that the world’s heroes would be climbing over one another for the chance to rescue: She was going to snatch the bards themselves.

And that’s exactly what she had spent the past few weeks doing. She didn’t worry about anybody getting wise to her plan before she was ready—there was no communication between kingdoms. And without bards, who was going to tell the people that the bards were missing?

Sturmhagen, Harmonia, Erinthia, Avondell, and Sylvaria: When the heroes of these five kingdoms hear that I’ve got their beloved lute-pluckers, they’ll come running, the witch thought. And when they arrive, they’ll bear witness to the grandest display of evil power this world has ever seen. No one will ever ignore Zaubera again.

Of course, Gustav didn’t tell any of that to Frederic—Gustav didn’t know any of that. What Gustav said to Frederic was: “She’s an old lady. End of story.”

Gustav strolled cockily out into the clearing, with Frederic quivering behind him. As it turned out, someone had heard Gustav’s shout after all. A girl’s head popped out of the tower’s lone window, some sixty feet above the ground.

“Who’s out there?” Ella shouted, as she looked down. She was stunned to see her fiancé. “Frederic, is that you? What are you doing here?”

“Ella!” Frederic squealed with delight. “Oh, my goodness. It’s you! I, uh, I came to find you.”

“You did?” Ella said. “Wow. You did. You’re really here.”

Okay, this is it, Frederic thought. Time to show her what you’ve got. “It’s the all-new me, Ella. I’ve slept on dirt. I’m ready for adventure now.”

Frederic couldn’t see Gustav behind him, but he could feel his eyes rolling.

“How’d you get up there?” Frederic called.

“It’s a long story,” Ella said.

It’s not really a long story. Here it is:

Ella rode into Sturmhagen (it took her two days to cover the distance Frederic traveled in a week) and visited a village where she hoped to gather some information about Rapunzel.

“Do any of you happen to know Rapunzel?” she asked a group of townsfolk strolling down the street, and then tried (unnecessarily) to jog their memories by singing a few bars. “Listen, dear hearts, to the tale I must share; the tale of a girl with very long hair. . . .”

Zaubera, out on the prowl, slunk by just at that moment, pondering a cleverly theatrical way to spread news of the bards’ kidnappings. It might be a poetic touch, she thought, to snatch a passing minstrel and use him or her to sing about the crime.

And when Zaubera saw some loudmouth in a dress singing to a crowd on a street corner, she figured she’d found her minstrel. Only it was really Ella. As soon as the crowd dispersed, the witch sidled up to her.

“Get your facts straight, you chuckleheaded throat-warbler!” Zaubera spat. She then trapped Ella—who was utterly baffled—in a binding spell and took her back to the tower.

See, it wasn’t that long.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ella said. “Please, go get help before the witch comes back.”

“No, we’re not leaving without you!” Frederic yelled.

“Who’s that with you?” Ella asked.

“Oh, this is Rapunzel’s prince. He helped me find you. And he can get you down. He’s got experience with this.” He turned to Gustav and asked him quietly, “How do we get her down?”

Gustav walked to the base of the tower, looked to the window above, and yelled, “Cinderella, let down your hair!”

Ella looked perplexed. “But it only comes to my shoulders!”

Gustav walked back to Frederic and shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m out of ideas.”

Frederic was befuddled. “Well, there must be some way up there. I mean, she got up there.” He called up to Ella, “How did you get up there?”

Ella glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. “Run! She’s coming!”

Frederic and Gustav darted under the cover of the nearby trees. They saw a tall, thin woman draped in red and gray rags emerge into the clearing. Her pale skin was creased and lined, and tufts of white hair shot from her head in random directions.

“Zaubera?” Frederic asked.

Gustav nodded. “Let’s watch and see how she gets up there.”

With a voice like broken bagpipes, the witch yelled up to Ella in the tower. “I could have sworn I heard you talking to someone, dearie. When I get up there, I had better find you alone.” Then she turned toward the woods and called out, “Reese!”

Soon there was a loud rumble. Branches shook and leaves fell as a man taller than the tower itself muscled his way through the trees and stomped into the clearing. The giant reached Zaubera in one enormous step, then knelt and placed his hand on the ground, palm up, for the witch to climb onto. He easily lifted the old woman up to the tower window, and she stepped inside.

“Well,” said Frederic. “We can’t get in that way.”

That was when Gustav went berserk. He whipped out his big, double-bladed ax and ran into the clearing with a long, thundering shout of “Stuuuuuuuurm-haaaaaay-gennnnnnn!” The giant, dumbfounded, simply stood and stared. So did Frederic.

Gustav slammed his ax into Reese’s humongous shin. With a bellow of pain, the giant grabbed his injured right leg and began hopping up and down on his left foot. The ground trembled with every hop, causing Gustav to tumble over himself. He dropped his weapon as he fell, and the heavy ax blade plunked down into the loamy soil. From the trees, Frederic watched in horror as his companion crawled to retrieve the weapon, unaware that he was directly in the shadow of the giant’s enormous right foot. Gustav was about to be squashed like a bug.

Think! Frederic told himself. What would Sir Bertram the Dainty do? The answer came to him. In The Case of the Ill-Mannered Milkmaid, Sir Bertram had to get the attention of a governess who was about to use the wrong kind of wineglass. Frederic could use the same tactic here. Eight years of yodeling lessons were about to pay off. Frederic cupped his hands to his mouth and let out a long: “Yodel-odel-odel-odel-ay-hee-hooooooo!”

It worked. Nothing annoyed Gustav more than yodeling. As soon as he heard the trilly alpine melody, he glanced angrily at Frederic—who was frantically gesturing upward. Gustav dove out of the way just as the giant’s big bare foot smashed down—and landed directly on the lost battle-ax.

“Yow!” Reese bellowed, hop-ping in pain once again. Only this time, he couldn’t keep his balance. The giant staggered backward and collapsed into the stone tower.

“Uh-oh,” Reese moaned. The entire structure wobbled, and huge chunks of stone began to shower down.

“Oh, no,” said Gustav as the tower collapsed into a pile of stone and clouds of dust. Another failure. And this time there would be a song about how he not only didn’t rescue the girl, but actually killed her by accident.

“Ella!” Frederic screamed. This is my fault, he thought. Ella is gone, all because I tried to be something I’m not. I should have listened to my father.

But as the giant sat up and brushed away the loose bricks and stones that littered the clearing, he revealed an astonishing sight. Inside a shimmering green bubble of energy, the witch stood completely unharmed. And Ella was draped over her bony shoulder, alive and kicking hard.

“A magic shield,” Gustav said. Frederic nearly fainted with relief.

“Reese, you big oaf! Look what you did!” Zaubera hissed.

Reese pointed a huge finger at the princes. “It was their fault.”

The witch turned to see whom Reese was talking about, but Frederic had already hustled Gustav back into the trees. Hiding under a gorse bush, the two princes listened to Zaubera.

“Don’t tell me you’re blaming the bunnies, Reese,” the witch said.

“No, ma’am,” the giant said. “It was a couple of men. They were trying to get the girl.”

Gustav popped up out of the bush. “Put Cinderella down, old lady!”

Frederic leapt up onto Gustav’s back and yanked him back down into the shrubbery.

“See?” Reese said, feeling vindicated. “Should I smash them?”

“Never mind those buffoons, Reese,” Zaubera said as her thin, colorless lips curled into a smile. “Did you hear what they just called our prisoner here?” The witch grabbed a handful of Ella’s hair and looked her in the eyes. “Well, look at this,” Zaubera chuckled. “Forget the singing ransom-grams, Reese. I’ve got a genuine celebrity for a hostage. Cinderella. This is going to require a much more spectacular announcement. Ooh, this is going to be fun.”

Ella glared back at her, unwilling to show the witch any fear.

“But what if the heroes follow us, ma’am?” Reese asked.

“Hero, singular,” Zaubera replied. “One of them is a complete coward. And yes, the hero will follow us. That’s what heroes do. We’ll just be ready for him. When we catch him and his sidekick, you can grind their bones into bread. Now come.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the giant intoned in his booming voice. “But bread made from bones sounds awful, you know.”

“I didn’t hire you to be a meal planner, Reese,” grated the witch. “Start walking.”

“All right,” the giant rumbled. “Have you ever tried it? Bone bread, I mean. I can’t imagine it tastes good. And you’d still need flour, no?”

“Shut up, Reese.”

“My foot hurts.”

“Try wearing shoes, imbecile.”

After a couple of minutes, their voices and Reese’s thundering footsteps could no longer be heard. The princes crawled from under the gorse bush. Out of habit, Frederic tried to dust off his soiled and torn suit but quickly realized it was a lost cause.

“Okay, let’s go,” Gustav said.

“Go where?” Frederic asked.

“You want your woman back, right?” Gustav said. “We’re following them.”

“No,” said Frederic. “We’re not. I am not going anywhere with you. You nearly got Ella killed. You would have died yourself, if I hadn’t done something.”

“You yodeled,” Gustav snarled with contempt.

“At least I did something,” Frederic returned. “How could you not have noticed those horribly callused toes looming above you?”

Gustav brought his face very near Frederic’s, close enough for Frederic to feel his breath. “Are you telling me I’m not a good enough hero for you?”

Frederic tried very hard not to blink.

“Are you saying that I can’t do this?” Gustav hissed. “That I can’t rescue someone? That you—Mr. Silky White Pants and Fancy Golden Dingle-Dangles—are better than me?” His forehead touched Frederic’s.

“No,” Frederic muttered. He was only slightly less afraid of Gustav than he was of the giant. “I’m not saying that at all. Of course I need your help.”

Gustav inched back.

“You did find Ella, after all,” Frederic went on. “I’m sorry I underestimated you there. But this isn’t just about finding a missing person anymore; this is a rescue mission. And a dangerous one, considering there’s a witch and a giant involved. So maybe the two of us aren’t enough. Maybe we could use a little extra help. Another set of hands, maybe. That’s all.”

Gustav thought about this for a moment. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have another swordsman at my side,” he said.

“Someone with a little more experience in rescuing people from witches and monsters, perhaps?” Frederic offered.

“Ha!” Gustav laughed. “Who are you going to get? That guy from ‘Sleeping Beauty’?”