At the same time that Rosemarie was confronting the Dark Duke, back in Winkle Pooglie-Wooglie’s cottage, there sat five men, conversing around a table with two small candles upon it. The air was hot and humid, as often it is underground, and the tension was even thicker than the earthy walls that surrounded them. In their faces could be seen anguish, fury, and hope – a strange mix, and an even stranger crowd: two Pooglie-Wooglies (Winkle and Pommer), two regal heirs, and one hefty villager by the name of Cosko, who Taylor and Robert had asked to attend.
For over an hour they debated strategies, to little or no avail, until finally frustration spread over them, and they each sat in reserved silence. Even the usually outspoken Pommer, the Head General of the Pooglie-Wooglies, could not evolve a plan in his great, thick head which the others did not find fault with, and eventually he was forced to fold his arms over his chest and sit motionless upon his stool, the twitching of his mustache and the heaving of his chest the only signs that he was still alive. He had been staring for a while at the wall opposite, when finally it hit him. A fly, that is. Right smack on the nose. He sniffed - sniff, sniff, sniffed - and the fly flew off onto the wall beside him. It was close – so close, that he knew he could get it. Slowly he rose, his hand flat in the air. Slowly. Real slow. Closer now. Closer. Close-rrrr – Wham! – The fly flew quickly out and away – for it was Taylor’s hand that had crashed down - hard against the table.
“Forget all this!” he cried, jolting up and pacing back and forth. “If we can’t come up with something, I’ll go get them myself, and that is it!”
“Patience, young man,” said Winkle. “The odds against us are enormous. Strategy is our only chance.”
“He is right,” added Robert. “I, too, want to kill with my bare hands, Taylor, but we must be reasonable. Think what my father would say if he were here.”
“But he is not,” Taylor countered, “and it is our hands that his vengeance rests in, and it will be vengeance we seek for the others if we do not hurry.”
“Vengeance,” said Winkle, “is a very unstable thing. Vengeance is only for the reckoning, and we, my son, seek more than a reckoning. Vengeance may drive your passion, but you cannot let it drive you; for vengeance is a terrible mule. It will only take you down the road of despair if not tempered by logic.”
Taylor stopped in his pacing and pressed his hands down upon the table, the two candles in between them.
“Logic?” he said, as if the very word left a bad taste in his mouth. “Logic? – Hu! While we’re in here thinking, the Dark Duke is doing as he pleases with our loved ones and our homeland. How much more room do we have for logic?”
He began to pace again, draping his head to the floor as if it were too heavy to carry. His mind was quickly turning into a boiling pot, with ideas and emotions clamoring for attention, while fear and worry gripped at his very eyes.
“You must not let anger rule your reasoning,” Winkle cautioned. “Or fear, for that matter. Please, sit back down again.”
But Taylor paid him no heed.
“What about Dermer?” Robert said, after they were all silent for some moments.
“What about it?” Taylor asked.
“You were, after all, sending Rosemarie to sequester help there,” Robert pointed out. “Maybe one of us could do the same…”
“Don’t be a fool,” Taylor rejoined, a hint of laughter in his voice. “That was complete gibberish, and you know it. There’s no way Dermer would ever give aide to a king of Belsden.”
“Ah, my friend,” said Winkle, raising up his finger, “but you forget: you are not truly the king until you can reclaim your throne.”
Taylor paused in his pacing and turned to him, his arms folded curiously over his chest.
“What is your point?” he asked in an even tone.
“My point is this,” Winkle persisted. “Would not Dermer jump at the opportunity to avenge its old enemy – to right the wrongs of the past – to seek…a reckoning? Surely they would, and now would be just the time!”
“Yes,” said Taylor. “But still, why would they support me? Why would they want any part in putting a king on the Belsden throne? What incentive do they have?”
“Incentive?” cried the old man, shifting himself in his seat to face the younger. “Why, the last laugh, of course. The triumph. Victory from defeat. Glory from anguish. And certainly they fear the Dark Duke as well. They don’t want him to conquer them and lay their country to waste. They might jump at an opportunity to charge their men into the enemy’s lair, and snag conquest out from under his feet.”
Taylor pondered this all for a moment. It seemed sensible at first, but then he remembered all the stories that he’d been told as a boy by Sir Roth – how Belsden and Dermer hated each other, and how the blood of a Belsdanian king was worth more than gold in that enemy country. He laughed at the thought.
“Hmf!” he cried, shaking his head. “To think that Dermer would help us – help me – a Belsdanian heir to the throne. It’s an absurd idea!”
Winkle folded his hands upon the table, focusing down on them with his eyes.
“Taylor,” he said, “let me ask you something…the Dark Duke has already conquered Sarbury and Monastero…What d’you think he intends to do with Dermer?”
“Conquer it,” Taylor replied. “That’s fairly obvious to us.”
“Exactly,” Winkle said. “A thought which, I’m sure, is already on their minds. So if they were offered the option of being conquered or of attacking Belsden, their arch rival, which do you think they would choose?”
Taylor turned away. “You don’t understand.”
“The sentiment of hatred for the Belsdanian people by the people of Dermer is not so great as you assume,” Cosko interjected. “It is not so great as to cloud their judgments and have them lose their homeland. I have had friends in Dermer for many years, and it is not so much the people they hate, as the humiliation of having been defeated – a feeling that you can stand to eradicate.”
“But how do I know that they will not decide to attack without us?”
“Because they would fail,” said Winkle. “You are their only chance.”
“How so?”
The old man shook his head and let out a soft, vibrating chuckle. He stood and put his hand to Taylor’s shoulder, his distorted mouth curling in a distorted smile.
“Because, my friend,” he said, “you possess something of great value to Dermer’s king…”
“And exactly what is that?” Taylor asked.
Winkle’s smile faded, though the gleam remained in his eye. His voice became a hoarse whisper:
“The underground.”
“I don’t quite follow,” said Robert.
“The underground!” Winkle cried, turning to him. He began to walk around them all, including the stout Pommer, who sat nodding his approval. As he spoke, his hands followed his tongue, miming every word as it departed. “The underground,” he said. “We have tunnels. Many tunnels. More than you think, and they lead to many places. – From Belsden to Dermer to the world as you know it! And maps! We have mapped out each and every tunnel that we have found, made, or crawled, and we know them all! And nobody – nobody! – knows them better…than Pommer here.” The old man stopped behind the stool of the chubby general, placing his hands down upon confident shoulders.
“Are you saying, then,” Taylor asked, “that you could transport an army from Dermer right into the heart of Belsden?”
“Ah! He’s a quick one!” Winkle cried.
“How close to the palace in Belsden could you get us?”
“There are two tunnels near the palace,” Pommer said, taking the liberty. “Old ones, and I know them well. One is a mere quarter-mile from the palace, and the other only a mile on the other side.”
Taylor and Robert looked grimly at each other.
“Farv,” Taylor said. “He’s the key. His army. If they’re close to the palace, then our odds are not good.”
“Who is thi
s Farv?” said Winkle.
“He is the leader of the Dark Duke’s conquests,” Robert said. “He has been chasing us for many days now.”
“If he has been chasing you, then either he is still chasing you, or he is preparing for another conquest. Either way, he is most probably not by the palace.”
“He is by the border,” Pommer stated. “I feel certain of it.”
They all turned to him.
“What is this?” Taylor said. “What do you mean?”
“Speak,” said Winkle.
“We have seen things,” Pommer explained. “Out hunting. We take little notice of above-grounders normally – avoid them, in fact - and paid little heed to it at first, but it was most certainly an army, that I am sure of. They were lined up by the border, behind the hills that lead to Dermer. The army was so spread, that we were forced to take cover from them amongst the trees. Is this man Farv tall and rugged? Does he ride a dark horse and wear gloves of black?”
“That is he,” said Robert.
Pommer nodded.
“He is there as well. He must be splitting his time between chasing you and organizing the invasion.”
They all were silent for a moment. At last, Taylor turned to Pommer.
“Do you know the way to Dermer well?” he asked.
“Certainly,” Pommer said.
“How fast can you get me there?”