This was no bluff. We were at the mercy of Sydelle. Yet if she agreed to the deal, what guarantee was there that the king really would free us? None, I feared.
Chapter 20:
Hourglass
With our powers nullified within the cage, the king fetched an hourglass and set it before us. Immediately, sand poured through in a steady stream. Faster than I would have liked.
“One hour,” he said, then got to work. “Carl, go to the witch.”
Carl nodded and disappeared.
We watched helplessly as the king telepathically assembled his guards, first throughout his room and then later, we learned, throughout the castle, anywhere we had traipsed through, anywhere Carl could have returned, in fact.
When finished, he returned to his bedroom, pleased. Once he inspected the guards, he came over to us. “I’m no fool,” he said. “At least, not as big a fool as some think. I know your little friend could potentially teleport an entire army, if given enough time, now that he knows the lay of the castle.” He paused and leaned down toward our cage. He looked directly at me. “I also know that the witch has access to your mind, Jack of New York. She speaks to you from afar. Tell me, did she warn you that you were walking into a trap?”
Not true, came Sydelle’s immediate reply, for she heard what I heard.
The king rested his elbows on his meaty thighs. He was not a big man, at least for a giant. I guessed he was about a foot shorter than most. He made up for his diminutive height with great powers. He grinned now just as Sydelle spoke in my head.
“She’s speaking to you now, is she not? She can see me through your eyes? Yes, she is a powerful witch, indeed.”
Don’t answer him, Jack. He’s digging for information. He does not know that I can speak to you. He’s only guessing. He can only read your mind. He cannot hear me. Therefore, do not respond to me either—
But I don’t understand.
Trust me.
But he’s telling me that you led us into a trap. Is this true?
Jack—
I need to know, Sydelle: did you know that he would be able to read our minds, despite the shields?
Of course not. I didn’t know the extent of his magic. No one could know. Up until this time, he has been the most powerful sorcerer in the kingdom.
Was she telling me the truth? I wanted to believe her. I had put all my trust in her—
“Let me guess, Jack of New York,” said the King, interrupting my thoughts. He leaned his face a little closer to the cage. “Tell me, wouldn’t a sorceress of her ability—a woman who could fake her own beheading, I might add—have full knowledge of her own king’s talents?”
That made sense to me. Then again, I knew nothing of magic and sorcery. All I knew was that a very wicked man was presently staring down at me—at us. The same man who had turned children into rats. A man who destroyed lives on seemingly on a whim. A man who had ordered Sydelle herself put to death.
Good, thought Sydelle. Remember that. He’s an evil man trying to create a wedge between us. Don’t let him.
“Ah,” said the king, nodding. “You have concluded that I am a wicked man. A fair assessment, given the circumstances. See this from your limited perspective—yes, I’m reading your mind even as we speak—I can see that I have acted monstrous at times.”
He’s baiting you, came Sydelle’s thoughts. I was certain her own thoughts were hidden from him. But my reaction to her thoughts, or my pondering her words were not hidden from him. In fact, I was certain that the king could hear just one side of the conversation, my side. Which was how he had fathomed I was speaking to her in the first place.
I decided to not mask my thoughts. Why would he bait me, Sydelle? Why would he care what I think?
I can’t tell you, Jack. Not here. Not now. But know this: he has no intention to kill any of you. Please let this thought go, release it. Do not ask me any more questions, because he is surely following your thoughts.
Except I couldn’t help what appeared in my thoughts next: The third talent, I telepathically blurted out. He wants our third talent, whatever that might be.
Yes, Jack. But I don’t have time to explain. I must go.
You’re coming here? Now?
Not yet, Jack. Soon.
Then where are you going?
To fetch something important to me.
I knew exactly what was important to her, but I forced myself to not think about it. I knew this thing that was important to her would make her vastly stronger, and could very well give her the edge she needed to defeat the king. Instead, I asked, And how far away is this thing?
An hour on horseback.
It figured! I looked at the disappearing sand in the hourglass. My God, you have maybe forty-five minutes!
Then time is of the essence.
And with that, I felt her noticeably leave my head. I blinked and looked up to the king’s wide face and eyes that just might look slightly homicidal.
“And what did the witch tell you, human, other than she plans on pushing the limit of the one hour time limit? For your sake, I hope she does not.”
I did all I could to not think of Sydelle’s prediction; that, in fact, the king had no intention to kill us. I very badly wanted to puzzle this through, but puzzling it through would let him know that we were onto him. And then what? Would he then decide to kill us, after all?
No, I realized, but there were some things that were far worse than death, weren’t there?
“Dark thoughts for a human,” said the king, tilting his head slightly, clearly tuning in to me. “Do you doubt my intention to kill you, if your witch doesn’t show?”
“I have no doubt that you are a very cruel man,” I said. “What I would like to know is why you care what I think about you?”
He sat back on his heels. His boots were polished leather. His breaches were made of a fine, loose material. Rings adorned his fingers. Gold rings, silver rings, all topped with massive jewels. He wore no crown presently, but I saw a reddish ring around his forehead where such a crown probably sat during the day. His narrow beard was perfectly trimmed, and didn’t do a very good job of hiding his thin lips.
Harriet gripped my hand tightly. I gripped hers in return. We couldn’t read each others’ thoughts—not in this cage. Apparently, only the great sorcerers—the king and Sydelle—read our minds through the cage.
The cage.
It was a trap, after all. Why would a king have two such cages in his bedroom, of all places?
“You are not as dense as you look, Jack of New York,” said the King, standing now and rubbing his knees. He had, after all, been squatting for a few minutes.
“You were waiting for us?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You need us,” said Harriett, stepping forward.
The king studied her a moment. “More than you know.”
“How did you know we would come?” asked Joe.
“I have my own way of divining the future, human.”
“If you need us,” I asked, “then why send for Sydelle?”
The king visibly cringed at the name. “I need all of you, of course.”
“For what?” asked Joe.
“Enough questions, humans.”
“I can help you!” said Joe, rushing forward, pressing his face into the bars. “I know her weaknesses—”
“I doubt that, human. You lie, although I admire your spirit.”
“I know, I swear—”
I pulled Joe back, spinning him around. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I can’t die here. I can’t. I have a life to live. I have a beautiful wife. I have all that gold—”
After his tryst with Sydelle, he was so eager to betray her. I was disgusted.
“He’s not going to kill us,” said Harriet. “He said so himself. He needs us.”
The look in Joe’s eyes was wide and wild. “Maybe not kill us now. But what’s to stop him from killing us later?”
; The weasel had a point. I suddenly wished like crazy I had never ventured up the beanstalk. Or set out on this fool’s quest. It was obvious that we had been used to provide a doorway for Sydelle. Without us, she had no other way into the castle. Of course, the plan had been to kidnap the king. That would have worked, if the king hadn’t been so powerful. Sydelle would have known that. The king was right there, and she wasn’t being completely honest with us. Except, of course, she couldn’t tell us she was leading us into a trap. We wouldn’t have come. Now we were all in danger, pawns to a king and a sorceress.
I suddenly very much missed my crappy old job and my crappy old boss. At least he couldn’t read my mind.
The king paced in his room while his guards watched him without expression. I pondered. If the king could see into the future, had he seen a small army coming? And how many soldiers could travel along with Carl, anyway? A half dozen? A dozen? Maybe more. As many as who could touch him. But that was in one leap. What would stop Carl from leaping quickly, dozens and dozens of times, bringing with him more and more soldiers? The idea could work...but did Sydelle have that many soldiers? I didn’t know. I didn’t know if she had any.
I was surprised to discover that the king had paused and was watching me now, surely following my thoughts. “To answer your question, human, I have seen many probable futures. In one of them, she does indeed bring a small army.”
“And in the others?”
The king seemed to stare past me into, perhaps, the future. “We duel,” he said. “To the death.”
He continued pacing and I continued holding Harriet’s hand. Joe sat in the far corner of the cage, with Henrietta, stroking the bird for comfort. In a way, I felt sorry for him. Hell, I felt sorry for us. And I had been so close to living the dream life with Harriet.
Finally, we sat too, and watched the sands of time pile up in the hourglass.
The king watched it too, and I knew that he intended to carry out his promise. If not death, he would surely maim one of us, perhaps to the point of near death.
And as the last few grains of sand tumbled down, the king grunted and raised his hands in our direction...and that’s when the flash of light appeared.
I instinctively jumped in front of Harriet. I heard Joe squeal and Henrietta squawk.
I opened my eyes after a moment to discover a very large and lovely figure standing before us. Carl stood by her leg, a quarter of her size, although you wouldn’t know it. The man had guts and was ready to fight. I knew I always liked that guy.
Sydelle looked down at us and winked...and I saw something that perhaps no one else could see: the scar at her neck was gone.
She had her head back...and she was ready to fight.
Chapter 21:
The Kiss
Now the king saw her. “You’re here!” he exclaimed as if not quite believing that his ploy had worked.
“Maybe,” Sydelle said. She spun about and strode toward Topsy, who was standing by the bed, her likely home base. The concubine lifted her arms defensively, evidently not knowing how to deal with such a direct approach by a woman. Sydelle reached out and gripped Topsy’s elbows, drawing her close. Topsy tried to resist, and the two turned, almost embraced, and half fell on the bed, rolling over. And the sorceress kissed the concubine on the mouth.
“You’re a lesbian?” the king asked, astonished.
“No!” the two exclaimed almost together as they untangled with a double swirl of hair.
I was as surprised as the king, and not just by that suspicion. Because now there were two Topsies, each garbed in a revealing nightie, showing similarly provocative curvatures of breasts and thighs.
“Oh, man!” Carl breathed.
“You mean women,” Joe said, licking his lips.
“What the hell?” the king demanded.
“Stay cool,” Carl murmured to those of us remaining in the cage. “It gets better.”
“What the hell is happening?” Joe demanded, recovering his arrogance. “I thought she came to make war, not love.”
The two Topsies bounced to their feet and faced the king. “Destroy the imposter!” one said shrilly, pointing at the other.
“Yes, before she can attack you,” the other agreed.
“Ludicrous!” the king said. “You can’t fool me! I can instantly tell you apart.”
“Good,” one Topsy said. “Then you know she’s the impostor.”
“Me?” the other squealed, outraged. “You’re the impostor!”
“Silence, both of you,” the king snapped. “I don’t have time for this idiocy.”
Both giant women paused in place, similarly and beautifully disheveled. Now I understood the ploy: that rolling on the bed had made it difficult to track one or the other. If the king blasted one with a bolt of fire, he risked destroying his girlfriend while the sorceress remained to attack him. Which she would probably already be doing, taking advantage of his distraction. He needed to get it right, or he was probably lost. Obviously he hadn’t anticipated this particular dodge. Score one for Sydelle. But it was only the beginning. She needed to be sure he got it wrong.
The king focused, staring at the pair of them. “I have to give you credit for cleverness, Deli,” he said.
Deli? Short for Sydelle, evidently a pet name, and also for delicatessen, a place to eat. As if she looked good enough to eat. Which she did, regardless of her form at the moment. That bespoke a familiarity beyond what we had known about. Could he tell them apart by sight? That made me nervous.
“Oh, the lady dog is clever, all right,” one Topsy said.
“I told you you shouldn’t have left her disposition to the stupid guards,” the other Topsy said. “They fumbled it.”
I pieced more of this together: when Sydelle kissed Topsy, not only had she assumed her appearance, she had read her mind in depth, so that she could imitate her mentally as well as physically. Now when the king read their minds he would find the same thing in each. Clever, indeed!
“I see I’ll have to do this the hard way,” the king said. “You can fool me by sight and by mind, but there’s one experience Topsy has had that Deli hasn’t: love. Topsy loves me, while Deli hates me. Neither can fake the opposite emotion. One kiss will sort it out.”
“Yes!” one Topsy said. “Kiss me!”
“Yes,” the other agreed. “I want it.”
“Uh-oh,” Harriet said. “He’s going to kiss them both, and know.”
“No, he needs to kiss only one,” Joe said. “Then he’ll know the other by elimination.”
The king raised his hands. There was a flash, and both Topsies stiffened, becoming like statues. “Well, that didn’t work,” he said. “Deli could have resisted, thus giving herself away. She didn’t. But that means she is now helpless to avoid my kiss.” He considered. “But it will be distinctly safer to kiss the real Topsy. Deli could have primed herself to detonate at my intimate touch, taking us both out like a suicide bomber. It’s the kind of sacrifice play she is capable of. So this remains a fifty-fifty proposition. If I guess wrong, I’m in trouble.” He glanced at Carl. “She’s primed, isn’t she?”
“I can’t lie to you, and don’t even want to,” Carl said. “She’s primed.”
The king nodded. “I did not anticipate this particular situation, where the issue is in doubt. So I say this to you, Deli: I have excellent reason for requiring the services of you and your cohort. It is not romantic, much as I would like to plumb your resistive torso in bed. I can’t safely open my mind to you to prove it, so you will simply have to consider my word: you do not want to kill me. There is mischief afoot that goes beyond the two of us. So if I guess wrong, keep that in mind. Killing me will be worse than being captured by me, no matter how badly I may treat you. I trust you understand.”
The two Topsies remained frozen. They couldn’t respond, but that wasn’t the point. The real one understood what he said, and it might influence her action, if he guessed wrong. But I wondered, knowing how the sorceress h
ated the king; was he gambling on a long shot?
“So—on with it.” The king approached the left side Topsy. All of us held our breaths. He put his arms around her, brought her in unresisting, and kissed her firmly on the mouth. It looked just like a meeting of lovers.
There was a flash of light that made them both glow. Then they fell apart.
“Oh, rotten cabbage!” the king swore. “I got it wrong.”
“Yes you did,” Sydelle said, resuming her proper form.
“But he’s still alive!” Joe protested. “She flashed him, but he’s not even hurt!”
Flashed him? Oh—he meant the flash of light as the magic struck. Still, it was odd that the king seemed to be intact.
“That depends on your perspective,” the king answered Joe. “She just hit me with the one spell I did not anticipate, or protect myself against: love.”
“Love!” Topsy said, appalled. “That can’t be! I’m your lover!”
I worked that out too. “Because she hates you. The last thing she wants is your love. So you ruled that out as an attack.”
“She finessed me,” the king agreed ruefully. Then he glanced cannily at Sydelle. “But I do know something about that spell: there’s a certain amount of backwash. You may not love me in return, Deli, but you no longer hate me.”
“I no longer hate you,” Sydelle agreed grimly. “That’s a necessary penalty of that spell. You’re a despicable excuse for a person, but I won’t hurt you unless you force me to.”
“Such as by trying to kiss you again,” he said. “As I would so very much like to do, now that I am smitten. But I know better. You’re my master now.”
“Mistress,” she said sharply. Then reconsidered. “In the master sense.”
The king smiled. “Understood. Your wish is my command.”
“Do you really love her now?” Topsy asked the king somewhat plaintively. “Instead of me?”
“My feeling for you is unchanged,” the king told her. “It has merely been preempted by my desperate passion for Deli. I suspect she will be satisfied to leave you as my concubine, as it is not a function she seeks with me, unfortunately.”