Many things were unknown to him. The world was vast and full of magics, but to discover that Hell was truly a place? Chalk that up to experience. He didn’t intend to revisit it anytime soon.
John muttered a curse then settled the spectacles into place. After a few breaths, he strode forth into the brighter light and colors, into the busy street and the noise.
People bawled out the price of goods, manned carts, waltzed into shops, kissed their girls, held hands, strolled. Dogs darted through the legs and skirts. Horses and carts and coaches clopped and rolled past. Multi-colored balloons bobbed on long strings above a street-wide banner announcing a coming food festival. Grand Poncifer hustled and bustled, and it did so far more extravagantly than it had a year ago. The new financial advisor was supposedly the reason for this resurgence of fortune.
Though the king was dead, having fallen while mountain climbing, his queen had died in childbirth, so that child was next in line to the throne of Bitzocoin. Princess Pollianna, nicknamed Po, smartest royal ever, would soon be crowned queen. The required year of mourning was over, and someone had grabbed his brother.
Did they wish to stall the coronation? He did not know.
If he did know, he would also know where they had taken him. Wouldn’t he? John rubbed his brow as a headache throbbed into being.
He liked to know.
Not knowing led to bad things. People dying. Various and sundry unwanted side-effects.
The princess would have detectives to do her bidding and other smart people.
First stop, his spectacle maker, whose shop was on the way to the palace. Second stop, the palace.
A seated man rustled a newssheet in his face. He seized the man’s wrist and stared at the dateline below the masthead of the paper.
Monday the third.
“Three bitz!” offered the news seller.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
John weaved through the thickening crowd. He was correct. This was, somehow and strangely, the same day as the ambush. He and his brother had been riding from their estate. They had reached the outskirts of the capital when a band of hooded soldiers poured from the trees lining the road. Though not in uniform, their actions said trained soldiers.
Held at sword and arrow point, he and Xander had watched as a tall man threaded through the ranks of their attackers. He had counted to one hundred, as he always did since puberty, tamping down his natural murderous impulses. That had been a mistake.
“I am the Storyteller,” the stranger said, and the words were stamped with capitals.
After which… John came to a halt, his boot heels grinding on the stone of the street beneath. After that point in the ambush affair, he recalled little more than the words condemning him.
If Xander was gone, the wedding and coronation would be difficult, since he was supposed to marry Princess Po. Their assailants would not be hanging about. They would be fleeing the country.
Clearly, he should not try to thwart the Storyteller by himself, no matter his singularly great skill at killing.
Yes. Spectacle-maker, first, to order a new pair like the glasses on his nose, ones that blocked out the flames. The suspicious and startled looks he was getting from those passing by would otherwise become tiresome. After which, he would visit the princess and tell her of his kidnapped brother.
Organize a rescue party. Pick up his new spectacles. Set out post haste with the armed party arranged by Princess Po, and some detectives, if that was possible to arrange at short notice. Catch and kill said Storyteller. Get back his brother. Watch the wedding. Reap the benefits when his bro took over the kingdom.
Excellent plan.
A round, dirty fluff-ball mutt bounded into view and circled him making growling noises, pausing in its circumnavigation to sniff the knee of his black pants. Despite his several discouraging words, it followed him and was still bounding at his heels when he reached the gatehouse of the palace grounds. He now wore a pair of very dark spectacles. The spectacle maker had fortuitously possessed some pre-ground dark glass and had popped the lenses into place on the spot.
The guards refused him entry.
“But I am the brother of the groom. I am John—” His throat seized up, and the next words were not his, well, not exactly his, even though he did speak them. “… the Wickerman.”
“No,” they repeated, adjusting their grips on their pikes while frowning.
Their bright red-and-white uniforms bounced glare off his eyeballs, despite his new lenses.
John took a few steps backward. Coarse hair brushed his ankles and pants legs—the fluff ball was down there.
The tall metal gates with the spear-shaped finials at the top remained shut. The road beyond them led straight to the palace itself, that monstrosity of turreted towers, white walls, and sky-scraping brickwork. The roofing tiles of those turrets were purple.
The designer should have been knifed in the kidneys, in John’s subtle opinion.
The fluff ball squeaked up at him then ruffed. He glanced down and watched as it sniffed the same place on his pants.
“You’re right. We need to get in there.” Somehow this mutt had joined him, and he hadn’t even asked for applications. “I suppose I could just kill my way in?”
Ruff cocked his head.
And… he wasn’t quite sure Ruff was even a he. Far too much hair. Too scruffy.
“Correct, the princess would not like that, but stuff her. Even if my bro wanted to really stuff her, with his sausage.”
He walked a little further from the gatehouse. Ruff followed. So much hair there, he would swear he couldn’t see its legs move. Or any paws. The creature sort of glided, and occasionally it bounced.
“Did you say love?” It hadn’t but he wanted to argue.
