CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time, there lived a young prince. He was dearly loved by his mother and father. They lived in the grand palace of Gotham, the greatest kingdom in all the land. The King and Queen were kind people who ruled with fairness and devotion. But for all their wealth and power, their son was their greatest treasure. They knew one day that he would grow up to become a great king. From the day he was born, the prince and his family lived each day together happily.

But one cold night, the young prince had a bad dream and left his bed to seek comfort from his parents in their chambers. When he pushed the door open, he saw blood on the floor. He looked up to see a hooded figure holding a crimson dagger over the lifeless bodies of the king and queen. Before he could even scream, Alfred, the royal family's faithful servant, grabbed the prince and bundled him away from the horror. The prince thought they were running away, but Alfred made his way through the shadowy castle halls silently and without haste. The prince was carefully concealed under his cloak. Alfred was careful not move in a way that would draw any attention from people who passed them. In the distance, the prince could hear a growing uproar of shouting and clashing weapons. Their soft steps suddenly became a swift run and before he knew it, they had both fled the castle. The prince was suddenly on the back of a horse gripping its saddle for dear life. He felt Alfred whipping the reins and holding him tight. The scenery blurred past and then there was nothing but darkness and the wind.

When they were somewhere deep in a forest, Alfred sat the prince down and told him what had happened. His parents had been murdered by the order of Duke Cobblepot. It seems the Duke had been plotting to usurp the throne for years. He and several traitors to the crown had seized the palace in the dead of night. Everyone in the palace who was loyal to the king and Queen were murdered all at once. The prince had narrowly escaped his own death by not being in his bedchamber when has was supposed to be. When he realized the plot, Alfred acted quickly and found the prince in time to get him to safety. He told the boy that the best thing he could do now for the kingdom was to stay alive and disappear. The prince was the rightful and sole heir to the throne. The Duke must never find him. The prince nodded grimly and the two continued their journey.

Alfred and the prince travelled a long distance, until the palace's tall towers were just a speck in the horizon. They found a cave deep in the mountains and settled there as their hideaway. As the young prince looked up at the stars through the blur of tears, he whispered a solemn vow to his parents that he would one day return to Gotham and bring them the justice they deserved. He would avenge their deaths and make Oswald pay.

It wasn't long before word of the royal family's deaths spread throughout the kingdom. Heralds reported the sudden and gruesome murders of the beloved king, queen and the young prince. Duke Oswald nobly stepped in to assume the power of the throne until the masterminds behind the plot were found. Anyone who so much as whispered an accusation against the Duke was charged with treason and subsequently jailed or tortured. Oswald enlisted a whole network of spies throughout the kingdom to report any dissent among the people. He also made sure to have the royal army under his thumb. He had everything in place to bend the kingdom to his will.

As the years passed, Cobblepot, the newly crowned King of Gotham continued to secretly search for the lost prince. His spies scoured every inch of the land in order to bring the boy back, dead or alive. The prince and his faithful friend continued to live a life in hiding. The prince himself, continued to live in mountain caves, far from most living souls. Alfred adopted the disguise of a hermit in the nearest towns so that he could continue to watch out for the spies and listen for any news that Cobblepot was getting any closer to the prince's whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the prince did not waste his time being idle in seclusion. He lived each day driven by the vow he had made. He filled his time with physical and mental education. When he wasn't learning different forms of combat and martial arts, he absorbed information of any kind. Over time, he amassed quite a collection of books and manuscripts for himself. Alfred, who had also once been a member of the royal guard, aided the prince in learning every skill he needed to. By the age of sixteen, the prince became quite tall for his age and acquired the bearing and dignity of someone much older and wiser.

As time passed, the prince would hear of the cruelty and carelessness of Oswald's rule. People were taxed into poverty. The crops of the poorest farmers were confiscated to feed the coffers of the king and his nefarious inner circle. Without any sense of order or justice, his beloved Gotham dissolved into crime and corruption. The prince could not simply stand back and watch his people suffer. He decided to help them, but he knew he had to be careful to keep his identity hidden. So he began to help people in secret. He used whatever he had learned from his self-training to defend the innocent from criminals and derail Oswald's graft. He fashioned many disguises that allowed him to move more freely in the shadows and remain unnoticed in public. Alfred did not approve of the prince putting himself in harm's way, but he could not stop him, though he tried. Secretly, he was very proud of the young man.

The people of Gotham were living in tyranny, but a streak of defiance sustained them. The term "Penguin" was a nickname the Oswald had earned in court, long before he rose to power as a duke. Behind his back, courtiers coined the nickname because he walked with a slight limp. The limp was a childhood affliction that caused the man shame his whole life. The combination of his gait and features apparently made him resemble some kind of ridiculous flightless bird. No one in court would dare utter the nickname near him now, but somehow the rabble got wind of it. Now that the duke was king, "penguin" took up a new meaning. The public used it to mean "false" or a "mock imitation". Despite Oswald's iron fist against any sort of treason, he couldn't stomp out their silent mockery. So the name stuck and he was soon known as the "Penguin King" throughout the kingdom and beyond its borders. As a result, "penguin" became a forbidden word punishable by death in Gotham.

Eventually there was talk of a rebellion being formed. At the forefront of this rebellion was the former knight, Sir James Gordon, who had served the king and queen faithfully in the past. He refused to serve Cobblepot and was branded a traitor to the crown. He and a handful of dishonored knights disappeared from public eye and began an underground operation. They started to gather followers with the aim to undermine Cobblepot's power and authority in Gotham. Upon hearing of this, the prince was inspired by the movement. He had to convince Alfred that they should both join their cause. Alfred refused at first, knowing that becoming active rebels would create a greater risk of the prince's true identity being discovered. Even the knights who remained loyal to the king and queen could not know he was still alive. But the prince was adamant, so Alfred agreed to offer his services as a spy for the rebellion, as long as the prince himself would remain an invisible member.

Thus, the prince aided the rebellion, using all his skills and resources. As a lone and anonymous agent, he found that he could handle missions that the rebellion found difficult to accomplish. He could work more efficiently on his own. He could easily break into strongholds and disable the security without sounding any alarm. Alfred would relay to him whatever task the rebels needed done for their larger plans to work. The prince would always be up for any assignment no matter how difficult or seemingly impossible. Over time, he became invaluable to the rebellion's operation. The people of Gotham became aware of the rebellion's growing success and hope began to spread throughout the land. Alfred would never give up the details of his highly skilled secret agent so the rebels began to call him nicknames like "The Gray Ghost" or "The Bat" among themselves. It seemed just as likely they were aided by some phantom or a creature of the night. The prince didn't mind staying unknown and uncredited for all his great deeds. All he cared about was doing good work.

One day, Alfred told the prince that he would be gone for a day or so for a quick reconnaissance mission. He warned the prince to be more discreet until he returned. He had heard talk that Cobblepot was straining his spy network to weed out members of the rebellion in every town and village. The prince assured him he would be careful and wished him a safe journey. With Alfred gone, the prince kept up his usual patrol in neighboring villages. When he was not heavily in disguise, he was careful to be as unremarkable and forgettable as possible. He was already used to being an unfamiliar face to most people wherever he went.

A few days passed and the prince waited to receive word from his friend. He waited a few more days, but there were no messages, signs or signals from Alfred at all. The prince began to worry. As a safety measure, Alfred set up a protocol they would both follow if they were living apart or working separately. The had to send word or signal to each other every three days, if only to show proof of life. Five days had already passed.

The prince left his cave and decided to check Alfred's hermitage in the village. He arrived in time only to meet Alfred's horse, Grayson, hurrying up to a well by the stable. As soon as he reached the well, he almost drowned himself to quench his thirst. The animal looked like he had been running for days. He stamped and threw up dirt in agitation. He was exhausted but he couldn't keep still like he was still experiencing some kind of fright. Grayson was a war horse. He wasn't spooked easily. The prince's heart went cold seeing Alfred's saddle missing. There was no trace of his belongings. He waited for the horse to have enough to drink and helped him settle his nerves. Working quickly, he gave him food to eat as he rubbed down the creature's sore muscles. When Grayson was calm and fairly rested, the prince then quickly replaced his saddle and ordered him to take him to where he had left Alfred behind.

The steed promptly took the prince into the woods. At first, they travelled through familiar roads, passing by well-known towns, but as they went deeper, the prince noticed that they began taking paths he no longer recognized. The trees grew close and thicker, until the sun could no longer shine through them. Soon they were no longer on any discernible path or trail. They were simply climbing and stumbling over jutting rocks and root. The wood was growing wilder around them, but they kept up their pace. The prince became aware that they were completely lost.

Suddenly the prince could see his own breath thicken and disappear into the air. A sudden chill seeped into his bones. He stopped Grayson when saw that the woods before them was covered in snow. They hadn't climbed anything higher than a hill all day and it was the middle of the summer season, but he found himself standing before a dimension in the forest that was deep in winter. Magic was the only explanation for this. The prince grew more tense but he was unperturbed. He pulled his cloak tight against the cold and guided Grayson carefully into their new snowy terrain.

When they came upon a clearing among the trees, Grayson stopped and stomped at the ground. The prince's eyes immediately spotted and recognized some of Alfred's belongings scattered in the snow. Next to them were tracks of Grayson's hoof prints interspersed with the unmistakable markings of wolves. There were clear signs of a struggle and there was blood dried on the snow. The prince dismounted to inspect it more closely. There wasn't much blood on the scene where the pack must have flanked them then attacked. He couldn't be sure how severe Alfred's injuries were. The prince tried hard not to think the worst. He focused on the evidence in front of him. Alfred and Grayson were probably separated. Having been cornered, Grayson must have panicked and thrown off his rider. Alfred must have hit the ground running and the wolves gave chase to the prey that already wounded and much slower on foot.

After giving the scene another quick glance, the prince got back on Grayson, and followed the wolf tracks. Occasionally, he would note a light blood trail among the paw prints. He kept his eyes focused on the ground, tracking the progress of the hunters. They seemed to slow down and stop before turning away to the opposite direction, almost as if they abandoned their hunt altogether. He looked up abruptly when he heard the soft squeaking of metal.

It was a gate. He straightened up fully and saw that it was the only entryway along a large wall that stood as high as the trees. The wall itself was covered in vines and greenery that he couldn't be sure how far along it was before it merged into the forest. He hesitated for a moment. He looked at the tracks he had been following. The wolf tracks had stopped just before the gate but the prince saw the blood trail cross into the threshold.

Without another thought, he went through the gate, but stopped again when he finally saw the castle.

It was nothing like the palace of his childhood. There were no torches lit along the walls nor any warm lights shimmering within its stained glass windows. The thick forest stopped short outside the gate but it's feeling of desolation flowed right into the land he walked into. He could see the sky again and twilight had long passed, yet the castle was in total darkness. Even with so little light, the prince could still tell that it was a crumbling ruin. Its facade seemed worn away like rocks on a seaside. It reminded him of old medieval castles that had simply diminished from neglect and time. The grounds were also covered in heavy snow. No roads had been cleared for people or carriages.

His own personal research had confirmed the existence of magic and how it pervaded bits of the realm. He hated the idea of dealing with it because it was unpredictable and there seemed to be no way for him to understand it completely. From what he could gather, magic was just another natural element in the world that historically did more harm than good, at least when humans were involved. He felt it was no coincidence finding an abandoned looking castle hidden within an enchanted forest. Whatever magic was affecting the woods, the castle was at the center of it. Or whatever it was that was inside it. Regardless of what he was walking into, Alfred was hurt somewhere inside and needed help.

Making their way through the deep snow, he and Grayson soon found themselves upon the entrance. Sure enough, he saw footprints on the steps leading into it. The large entrance door was left open. The prince looked up at the forbidding structure. He wondered for a moment if any outsiders like him ever left the same way.

The prince secured Grayson close by and cautiously entered the doorway. As the heavy door creaked open, he unsheathed his sword. He called out to Alfred in the darkness, but his voice only shook old dust loose into the air. Hey could barely make out anything in the dark. The echo in his voice and footsteps simply told him he was in a large empty room. He walked on further and then he was able to make out some dusty candelabras on a table. It still had candles with usable wicks but he realized he had no means to light it. He cursed under his breath and he muttered to himself that he really needed some light. Suddenly warm light bloomed in front of him. He jumped back in surprise. Every wick on the candelabras was lit. The prince whirled around to find a cause, but he was all alone in a dimly lit entrance hall. He turned his attention back to the candles themselves. He began to inspect them more closely when the sound of distant coughing broke the still air. The prince recognized Alfred's voice.

He grabbed the lit candelabras and found it easier to navigate his way. He followed the echoes of Alfred's voice up a long staircase. He climbed and climbed until he realized he was climbing up the steps of a high tower. As he got closer, he became certain that the voice belonged to his friend. The prince began to cry out to him, "Alfred! Alfred, where are you?"

He reached the top of the steps and saw a single prison cell at the end of the small chamber. Alfred was leaning weakly against the steel bars. The prince's heart lifted and he bounded up right away towards him. Alfred was still hacking and coughing but his eyes lit up when he recognized the prince. The prince dropped to his knees and gripped Alfred's hands through the cold bars. "Alfred, your hands are like ice." It was all he could say as he looked his friend over. He was clearly running a high fever. The prince could also see that Alfred had an injured leg that he managed to bandage himself. It must be where the wolves had managed to take a bite of him. "We have to get you out of here." He began to apply pressure to the bars and searched for a weak spot.

But Alfred seemed to ignore his words, "No, your Highness-you can't stay here another moment. You must leave at once." Alfred tried to keep his voice steady but his whole body was seized by the cold. His teeth were chattering and he was shivering in his heavy cloak. "This whole castle has magic! If you don't try to escape now, she can trap you here too!" The prince wasn't sure he understood. "What do you mean? Who is she?"

"Me," answered a voice in the darkness.

Suddenly, a loud thunderous crack filled the whole tower. The prince jolted back to see two gleaming beads of light staring straight at him. It belonged to a figure that descended slowly along the wall, as if walking on air. As the creature came towards him slowly, it gave a low, sinister yowl.