©2025 SammyC

The blinding sun of midday greeted our eyes when we emerged from the proverbial hole in the ground where our vehicle had seemingly stopped of its own volition. We had been inside what Luna informed us was a “train,” a mechanical conveyance that moved through a tunnel someone or something had carved through the bedrock. Where Luna was now was a mystery, although she spoke cryptically of reuniting with her dead father. Malcolm told us a tall tale of an underground city of god-like denizens, but he’s not a reliable source of truth.

We gathered up our animals. They had been stowed in a chamber behind us. Being simple creatures, they showed no signs of stress or agitation. Someone had provided them with tubs of water. We, on the other hand, had not eaten since…I didn’t know when.

Our small caravan inched up a long ramp leading to a doorway that magically spread itself open like the petals of a blooming flower. Leading the way, Merlyn and I rode Emma, my trusty Rumperdon, through into a vista of green, rolling hills. Behind us, in single file, rode Amos, seated alone on his Rumperdon now that Luna was absent, Daisy and Edward on a third Rumperdon, and, bringing up the rear, Malcolm on his Hobnob, a position Amos had insisted he take.

“I’ve never been this far west, but I figure The Western Kingdom is very nearby. Didn’t Luna say an hour’s ride?” Malcolm shouted from his rear position.

“This looks very much like the trade route we traveled when Vance and I accompanied Father to deliver royal messages to the Prime Minister of The Western Kingdom. Poor Vance. We couldn’t even give him a decent burial....” Amos shouted something into the distance, then moved his Rumperdon in front of us as he pointed toward a thick forest half a kilometer away. “Look, there are creatures as tall as the trees over there!”

“Why are you going toward them, Amos? Shouldn’t we be running away?” I reasoned.

“I’m hungry! We haven’t eaten since…I can’t remember! I need to get closer to get a clear shot with my crossbow…”

With no other choice but to follow, we turned our caravan around. As we approached the strange forest of trees that seemed replete with some sort of unknown fruit, the “creatures” appeared not to be animals but human beings standing on wooden stilts, larger versions of the stilts children strapped on their legs to play tetherball. But here they weren’t trying to hit a swinging ball hanging from the top of a pole but harvesting those odd-looking fruits from the high branches of umbrella-shaped trees.

When Amos realized the truth of the matter, he shouted to them. “Kind sirs, we are escorting Princess Rani of the Eastern Kingdom to your royal court. Can you point us in the direction of the palace?”

One of the men on stilts took off his floppy straw hat and peered at me for a long second. He smiled and then made a whooping sound that hurt my ears.

“Your Highness! Excuse us, we thought you were just traders from the east. It’s not often, but we do get the occasional merchant party passing by.” He bowed, and I was afraid he would fall over, but surprisingly, he kept his balance and very agilely waved his hat in our direction. “If you follow this road for another five kilometers, you’ll see the royal palace shining like a burnished suit of armor behind a wide moat. I’m sure they’ll see you coming and lower the drawbridge for you.”

“What is a drawbridge, Merlyn?” I asked. She shook her head.

“I’ve never been to the Western Kingdom, child. This is the farthest away from home I’ve ever been. I only know Lydia, my counterpart as Royal Wizard, through letters we’ve exchanged over the years.”

“Oh, well, we’re here, so let’s get it over with. The things I have to do just to save the planet from destruction.” I sighed dramatically.

Amos had his arms full of fruits when he returned to our side.

“Those nice fellows gave us some of these. They’re called Jackapples. I’ve already tried one. Not bad.”

I accepted one of the oblong fruits in one hand and passed one to Merlyn.

“You peel it like this.” He snapped the stem off one and stripped it of its skin in one smooth motion. We followed his example and took a small, wary bite.

“Oh, it’s delicious. Juicy yet slightly meaty with a sharp but piquant taste,” I declared in the tone I’d heard my mother, Queen Hortense, use when sampling a new dish prepared by the Royal Chef.

We moved on to find the palace.

As we made our way to the Kingdom’s “burnished suit of armor,” we passed by fields being worked by armies of peasants, many of them pausing from their back-breaking chores to wipe the sweat from their brows with a rag or just a bare hand. There were a number of Hobnob-drawn carts filled with stacks of sorghum, sugarcane, and barrels full of fruits like the Jackapples we had eaten ambling along the road. The peasants turned their ruddy faces to us as our small caravan rode by them. Most of them smiled.

Finally, the moat that the man on stilts had told us about stopped our progress. The Royal Palace rose above the high walls of the Kingdom’s keep, perhaps a few hundred meters beyond it. It did reflect the sun quite brightly. Enough that one had to shield one’s eyes with a hand in order to look at it directly. Amos was ready to bellow out a greeting when the “drawbridge,” which Merlyn had no clue about, began to lower itself and provide us with a dry path into the Kingdom. We moved quickly to enter.

Once inside, six warriors on Hobnobs silently escorted us to the palace. Underneath us, the path consisted of bricks painted gold. On either side of the wide path were rows of trees that had been manicured to resemble giant facsimiles of the spears the warriors were carrying. On the grounds in front of the palace, beautiful birds with rainbow-colored plumes pranced about. Merlyn remarked that they reminded her of the pictures of peacocks she had once seen in a long-lost book about the flora and fauna of our home planet.

An officious man in a knee-length black tunic greeted us after bowing in my direction. Two of the warriors offered to help me dismount from Emma, but Amos waved them away and took my hand as I carefully stepped down the rope ladder that we threw down from the basket. Malcolm was gallant enough to help Merlyn down the ladder.

The officious man took us inside the palace and, at the end of a short corridor, had us stand waiting before entering the main chamber. Shortly thereafter, we heard the blaring sounds of trumpets, and a stentorian herald announced our arrival.

“Your Royal Highnesses and esteemed members of the Royal Court! Princess Rani of The Eastern Kingdom, accompanied by her Royal Entourage!”

The officious man nodded and signaled to us to enter.

Sitting on matching thrones at the far end of the chamber were King Cyrus and Queen Melora, wearing robes of brocade fabric illustrated with mythic beasts from our home planet, lions and tigers. Jewel-encrusted crowns sat cozily on their heads. They wore several large, gleaming rings on their fingers. Standing to the side of Queen Melora’s throne was an aged woman I supposed was Lydia, Merlyn’s Wizard counterpart. She spoke.

“Welcome to our humble kingdom, your Highness. I am Lydia. It is I who has summoned you to undertake this mission of utmost importance. The salvation of our world from the Dagger of Heaven, which at this very moment is rushing to our destruction. It is the wrath of the Gods for our iniquity and faithlessness. The union of Your Highness and Prince Kelvin will serve as a sign to the Gods that our people are united in our fealty to our Supreme Masters, the creators and destroyers of worlds.”

“These are true words, Lydia,” Queen Melora declared, entering the discussion. “Not only will this marriage of pure souls save our world from fiery doom, but it will also bring our two kingdoms back in harmony, as it once was and was forever fated to be. From tomorrow onward, our two peoples will be one. It is a good thing, Praise the Gods!” Everyone in the room applauded. For no reason at all, I bowed to Queen Melora.

“Princess Rani, your beauty surpasses my imagined vision of you. Even in those strange clothes your party is wearing. Are these a uniform of some kind?”

I shook my head. The non-answer didn’t stop her speech.

“This must be the inestimable Merlyn that Lydia has spoken so highly of. Forgive me; I do not know the others. Are they servants?”

I nodded, which seemed to dismay Amos as he sighed audibly.

“But who is this barbarian behind you? Is he a member of your entourage? We do not suffer the presence of outlanders in our kingdom. Past experience has taught us to avoid contact with these primitives. I would advise against you keeping such trash as pets, however entertaining they may be.”

Malcolm stepped forward with angry intent but Amos held him back, shaking his head.

“Oh no, your Highness, this is Malcolm. He is no barbarian. He rescued us from the clutches of the very type of villainy you’ve mentioned. If it were not for his bravery, we would have been sold to cannibals, the underground people!”

“Really, Princess? Well, this is certainly a sign of changing times. Perhaps we can make an exception in the case of your savior Malcolm.” She turned to Malcolm and addressed him directly, slowly enunciating every word. “Malcolm, you are welcome to stay on the assurance of your benefactor, the Princess.”

With a strong hint of indignation, Malcolm answered, “Thank you for your forbearance, your Highness. I will be honored to extend my visit to your kingdom. And my hearing and command of the language is quite satisfactory, despite being a barbarian.”

“Well, very good then. I’m sure you are in want of a proper meal after six days of hard travel. The chamberlain will show you to your rooms, where you can rest until lunch is served. And Princess Rani, you’ll meet Prince Kelvin, your betrothed, then as well.” She clapped her hands twice, and the officious man who had ushered into the palace came forward to lead us to our rooms.

“Your Highness,” I asked, perhaps out of turn, “where is Prince Kelvin right now? Wasn’t he told I had arrived?”

“That young boy is always deep into his books. He can’t be disturbed when he’s in the Royal Library, reading his favorite subjects. But fear not, he’ll emerge to have lunch. Food is his second favorite subject.”

Amos slapped Malcolm on the back. “Count your lucky stars Rani spoke up for you. Otherwise, they’d be making up a pallet in the stables with the Hobnobs for you.” Amos slapped him again and laughed.

“You’re very pretty,” Prince Kelvin stated rather diffidently as he sat next to me at the enormous roundtable we were having lunch on. He was still holding a dog-eared hardback book in his lap as he stabbed at the pieces of blinkbird on his lunch plate.

I drew in his looks as I sat there, not being very enthusiastic about the meal they had prepared for us. Kelvin was definitely a nine-year-old boy. Not a day older. Beneath his wavy locks of auburn hair, his demeanor belied his youth. Normally, one might say he was well-behaved. But, in actuality, he was possessed of a serene self-confidence that no child I’d ever known displayed. It was a little disturbing to see that in someone 30 centimeters shorter than I.

“Of course, pretty is what girls do,” he added.

“What do you mean by that?” I feigned indignity.

“Everyone in society has a role. Just as everyone has a class they’re born into, I mean, I could’ve been born a peasant, working the orchards on stilts or herding Rumperdons. But, by the Gods, I was born into royalty and possess the qualities of someone in that social position. It’s not necessary for me to be nice to look at, but girls, especially girls of royalty, well…”

“You talk strangely for a boy your age, Kelvin. When I was nine years old—” I stopped, pretending to choke on some food. Releasing the book from his left hand, Kelvin handed me a cup of water.

“See what I mean? Girls are stupid.”

“Lydia is a girl. She’s very smart, isn’t she?”

“Just between you and me, I was the one who explained to her what The Dagger of Heaven was. The only time she looks up at the sky is to correct her astrological charts. Bunch of hogwash if you ask me.”

“So The Dagger of Heaven isn’t real?”

“Oh, it’s real enough. But it hasn’t been sent by the Gods. It’s just a rock. An odd-looking rock but a rock all the same. If you’ve read any old books that survived from the original colony, you’ll know it’s a meteor. Do you know what a meteor is?”

I turned to Merlyn on my right and I asked her, “Do I know what a meteor is?”

Merlyn wiped her mouth with a cloth and swallowed. “Yes, yes, of course you do.”

I turned back to Kelvin. “Yes, I do. Now, why go through this wedding with me if you know The Dagger of Heaven is just a made-up story…that you made up?”

Kelvin was silent for a long second before replying. “Because made-up stories have their uses. People who are dumb are open to suggestion. And one can use that to one’s advantage.”

“I don’t follow you,” I admitted.

“Forget about it. Do you like games?”

“That’s funny. I was more than half-expecting to have to play a game of tetherball with you. After all, you are a nine-year-old boy.”

“Tetherball is for children. I prefer games that require mental skill. Do you play chess?”

“I’ve played it before, but the only person I’ve played with is Merlyn and she always beats me. It’s not a lot of fun, if you ask me.”

“The way I play it is fun. I can make all the preparations in half an hour.”

“Preparations? What do you have to do to prepare to play chess?”

“We play in costumes that match the pieces on the board.”

“Well, okay, but what should I wear?”

“You’ll be in costume as The Queen, of course.”

“Of course.”