Chapter 9
"The Waiting Game"
Two things very quickly became obvious to Shrek as he set out with Fiona and Donkey in the direction of Odius' castle. One, the foreboding stone structure was quite a bit further down the road from town than the ogre had originally estimated, which meant that it was considerably larger than he had assumed — not the most reassuring of thoughts. And two, the chances of his reaching the castle without a lengthy interrogation from both Fiona and Donkey were about as good as the chances of — well, of Donkey staying quiet until they reached the castle.
To her credit, Fiona managed to rein in her curiosity longer than Shrek would have expected. But eventually, with the town of Slobberknob several miles behind, its neat cobblestone streets long since abandoned for a worn dirt path, the suspense and the silence proved too much, even for a princess.
"Soooo — who is this…person…we're going to see again?" Fiona asked as she coyly slipped her arm through the crook of Shrek's elbow — out of affection, mostly, but also as an effective (and subtle) way of keeping Shrek close at hand.
"Hmm? Oh…uh, Odius," a cautious Shrek responded, unsure where this was going. If this trip had taught him anything, it was that if Fiona really wanted to know something, she would eventually get an answer — but that didn't keep Shrek from hoping that just this once she might let a subject drop.
Obviously, that wasn't going to be the case, at least not this time around.
"And WHY are we going to see this 'Odius'?" Fiona pressed Shrek for details. Just as the journey had proven to Shrek that he couldn't long keep a secret from his wife, it had taught Fiona that he would try nonetheless.
"I…I've just got some questions for 'im — that's all…nothin' big…"
"And would these questions have anything to do with our visitor the other evening?"
"Who? Y'mean the pixie? No, o' course n— "
"You KNOW who I mean, Shrek," Fiona huffed, coming to a sudden stop. She untangled her arm from Shrek's, placing both hands on her hips as she fixed Shrek squarely in her sights, impatiently awaiting his response.
"They…um…they might…" Shrek mumbled as he fumbled with the knots that held his leather vest together, avoiding Fiona's gaze.
"So you DO think this Odius has something to do with it!"
"Maybe," Shrek conceded, looking up. "Then again, maybe not. I don't know. Ye never c'n tell with Odius..."
"Odius…Odius…man, there's another o' them ogre names!" the forgotten Donkey suddenly broke in, nudging his way between the ogres. "'Odius' — What's that mean, anyways?"
"I think it means…you know…bad — not nice," Fiona offered helpfully before turning to her husband. "Shrek?"
"Toss in mean-spirited an' power-hungry an' jus' generally unpleasant and ye've pretty much got Odius in a nutshell," Shrek replied with a smirk, counting off Odius' less-than-flattering traits on his fingers as he rattled them off.
Shrek had hoped that explanation would be enough to put a prompt end to Donkey's inquiry. But the thoughtful look on the animal's face quickly faded to one of confusion and concern, making it obvious that all Shrek's answer would get him was even more questions from his furry friend.
"Yeah, well, if this guy's so bad, then how come you're in such a hurry to see him?" Donkey asked, eyeing Shrek with suspicion. "Huh? Answer me that!"
"'Cause he's in charge — at least, that's what the guy back'n town said," Shrek explained nonchalantly, drawing on all the confidence he could muster in an attempt to convince his companions that he was still very much on top of the situation. "I figure, why not go straight t'the top?"
"An' this Odius guy's the top, huh?" Donkey asked, still unconvinced and unimpressed by Shrek's false bravado.
"Well, ye can't go much more 'top' than king, now can ye?"
To Shrek's surprise, his offhand comment drew an immediate response from the excitable animal, who instantly went from simply worried to outright panicked.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa — ya didn't say nothin' 'bout this guy bein' KING!"
"What's it matter?"
"What's it matter? What's it matter!?!" Donkey echoed the flustered ogre, pacing nervously back and forth between Shrek and Fiona, who could only look on in astonished silence as their friend grew increasingly agitated. "This guy's a KING, Shrek — ya can't just go marchin' up to a place an' demandin' t'talk to the king!"
"An' why not?" the ogre shot back irritably, not sharing Donkey's sudden concern. "It worked in Duloc, didn't it?"
"Oh, yeeeahhhh," Donkey drawled sarcastically. "It worked just GREAT in Duloc! 'Cept for Farquaad siccin' a buncha knights on us, and then almost shootin' us full o' arrows, and THEN makin' us fight a dragon! Or did ya just forget about that part? An' HE wasn't even a real king! 'It worked in Duloc' — man, what're ya thinkin', Shrek?"
"Hey, ye have t'admit — we DID get t'talk to Farquaad, didn't we?" Shrek answered with a sheepish grin. To be honest, he'd never really considered how close he'd come to ending up an ex-ogre on his little adventure. But then again, true love had a way of making all the little…inconveniences…along the way seem unimportant by comparison.
True love or not, Donkey wasn't about to forget those "inconveniences," or the overly direct approach that had prompted them. "Princess, tell Shrek he can't just go 'round bargin' in, talkin' t'people!" he urged Fiona, hoping two against one would be enough to change the ogre's famously stubborn mind.
"Wha— why me?" Fiona stammered, taken aback at her unexpected and involuntary entry into the debate.
"'Cause, y'know, you're a princess!" Donkey prompted the ogress helpfully.
"So….?"
"Sooo," Donkey spelled things out for the flustered Fiona, rolling his eyes in exasperation, "you oughta know all 'bout the whole 'royalty' gig, right?"
This time, it was Fiona's turn to look away, hands fidgeting nervously, eyes locked on the ground at her feet. Clearly, the conversation had taken a turn with which she wasn't entirely at ease.
"Uhm…well, actually…not really, no," she answered quietly, her voice little more than a whisper, especially compared to the very…vocal…protests that had preceded them.
"Huh? What d'you mean, 'not really'?" Donkey pestered the princess, one eyebrow cocked in a familiar look of utter confusion. "I mean, y'ARE royalty, aren't ya?"
"Well…you have to remember, Donkey, I was just a little girl when I was banished to Dragon's tower," Fiona tried to explain, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. "To be honest, I…I really don't remember much about life in the royal court."
"But ya gotta remember SOMETHING, right?"
"Let it go, Donkey," Shrek growled, stepping between the two and putting a quick end to the subject. He wasn't angry with Donkey (not yet, anyway), but it was obvious that Fiona didn't feel like talking about her past — a sentiment the ogre could certainly identify with. "It doesn't matter. Besides, it's not like Odius is REALLY a king, anyway."
"But I thought you said— "
"All I said, Donkey, was that guy in town said Odius was king."
"So ya think he was lyin', huh?"
"Well, no…"
"Oh. So ya think this Odius guy IS king, then?"
"No! Yes! Ohhhh…I don't know," Shrek groaned, wondering to himself how he managed to stumble into these kinds of exchanges again and again.
"I'm confused..."
"That makes two of us, Donkey," Fiona spoke up as she stepped forward, having taken the opportunity to compose herself. "Would you mind going over all that again, honey? Maybe a little slower this time?"
"Look, all I know is, Odius sure wasn't any king when I knew him."
"And that was WHEN, exactly?"
"Oh, y'know…back when I was still livin' in Slobberknob," Shrek answered, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder in the general direction of town.
"So ya used to be buddies with the king, huh?" Donkey teased in mock indignation. "Ya been holdin' out on us, Shrek! A couple hours ago you were sayin' ya didn't have ANY friends here, an' now all of a sudden you're like, 'Excuse me, I gotta go see my FRIEND, the KING!'"
"Hey, I never said we were friends," Shrek corrected him.
"So what WERE you, then?" Fiona joined in, as eager as Donkey to get a straight answer out of her characteristically evasive husband.
"We were…associates. No, not even that. More like…acquaintances, really."
"Yeah, well, don't look now, Mr. Big Shot, but it looks like your buddy the king's got some 'acquaintances' of his own," Donkey hissed, his eyes firmly focused on the road ahead.
"What're ye talkin' abo — oh."
Shrek's attention had been so occupied by the conversation that he had failed to notice Odius' fortress drawing rapidly closer — so close, in fact, that another 50 feet or so and the ogre would have gone toppling head over heels into the decidedly uninviting moat that circled the compound.
The bigger problem, though, was what lay on the other side of the moat.
Just across the rotten wooden drawbridge, its rusty chains and worm-eaten planks a testament to years of disuse, a heavy portcullis was set into the otherwise featureless stone walls, separating the travelers from the castle courtyard beyond. Flanking the gate were a pair of disinterested ogre guards, neither looking particularly alarmed by, or even aware of, the trio's arrival. In fact, the guard to Shrek's right — the older of the two, judging by a few sparse gray hairs sticking out from beneath his battered helmet — appeared to be fast asleep. Still, in their sturdy if poorly maintained armor, each armed with a nasty-looking spear easily as tall as Shrek himself, the pair were enough to give the ogre — not to mention his companions — pause.
"Shrek?" Fiona whispered, now sharing Donkey's anxiety toward her husband's "plan." But if the ogre had any notion of changing his mind on the subject, he wasn't letting on. On the contrary, he seemed more at ease than he had since leaving Slobberknob. Obviously, confrontation was one thing Shrek DIDN'T have a problem with.
"Jus' hold on a second — I'll handle this, OK?" Shrek reassured his worried wife, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Taking her half-hearted nod as a "yes," he strode off purposefully in the direction of the castle.
"Hey! You there! You with the spear! Anybody home?" Shrek bellowed as he stomped across the drawbridge, the ancient timbers creaking and groaning beneath his considerable weight, loose boards and splinters raining down on the moat below.
Reaching the opposite bank without incident, he marched right up to the castle gate. For a second, it looked as if the ogre might be able to walk right past the guards and raise the portcullis himself, but no sooner had his hand touched the gate than a pair of spears slammed down in front of him, forming a threatening "X" across the gate's cross-timbers.
"Nobody gets in," the younger guard snarled as Shrek instinctively took a step backward. "King Odius' orders."
Shrek, though, seemed less than intimidated by the show of force — especially after glancing down to see the elder guard still slumped against the castle wall, his helmet pulled tightly over his eyes, the single arm raised to keep the spear aloft the only sign he was even conscious.
"Humph! Is that so?" Shrek sneered in response. "Well, tell King Odius that Shrek's here t'see him"
"The king ain't here."
"WHAT?!!"
"Y'heard me," the guard grunted. "The king has left the building."
"Oh, f'r Pete's sake…" Shrek grumbled, growing increasingly frustrated by these constant complications of what had already been a trying trip. "An' when'll he be back, then?"
The guard just shrugged. Apparently, answering questions from belligerent visitors wasn't part of his job description — at least not the way he understood it. But Shrek could be just as stubborn as any castle guard.
"I'll wait."
"Hey, it's your life, pal. Hey, Grogg!" the guard barked at his napping cohort, "I'm takin' this guy down t'the waiting room."
"Me AND m'friends…" Shrek corrected him, gesturing to Fiona and Donkey to join him.
As the two inched their way across the rickety drawbridge, Donkey took the opportunity to get a closer look at the moat.
He immediately wished he hadn't.
Just a few short feet below the less-than-trustworthy wooden bridge, menacing shadows slithered and darted in the brackish depths. Now and again, SOMETHING would break the water's surface, offering a fleeting glimpse of slimy, greenish-gray skin and jagged scales. What it was, Donkey had no idea — and frankly, he didn't WANT to know. He was just glad to reach the other side, where the guard had raised the portcullis and was signaling impatiently for the three to follow him.
Donkey rushed forward, more out of fear of being left behind with the things in the moat than of enthusiasm for the destination ahead. He had just reached the gate when he felt something take hold of his tail, bringing him to a sudden, and painful, stop. He turned to see the appendage firmly in the armored grip of the "sleeping" Grogg.
"Pssst!" the guard hissed, beckoning for Donkey to move closer. Looking uneasily from the grizzled guard to Shrek and Fiona and back again, he leaned forward, his ears (and the hairs along his neck) standing on end in uneasy expectation.
"Y-yeah?"
"Good luck in there, fuzzy— "
Taken aback by the rare friendly words, Donkey grinned broadly. Maybe things here wouldn't be so bad after all!
"Hey, thanks, man!" he gushed. "I gotta admit, I was a little worried there for a min— "
"Yer gonna need it…"
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"THIS is the waitin' room?"
Shrek had expected the guard to take him and his friends into the castle to await Odius' return. Instead, they had been led down a flight of slippery stone steps to the labyrinth of dungeons and catacombs that wormed their way beneath the fortress. Now that he stood outside the heavy wooden door of one of the dungeons' countless cells, Shrek was feeling considerably less confident than he had just minutes earlier in demanding to see the king.
"Yup," the guard grunted in response as he rummaged through the myriad pockets and pouches of his armor before producing a rusty metal key. Forcing the key into the door's similarly rusted lock, he swung open the door with a squeak of long-unoiled hinges and gestured for the three visitors to enter. "Now git inside an' wait."
If Shrek and Fiona were uneasy about entering the room (and they were), then Donkey was downright mortified. Following the ogre couple, he hadn't taken more than a couple steps into the cell before spinning on his hooves and heading hurriedly for the door and the departing guard.
"Y'know, I really appreciate the tour an' all, but I think I'll just wait outside if that's OK with y—
*WHAM!*
The door slammed shut in Donkey's face, coming to rest just inches from the shocked animal's face.
"Well, so much for service with a smile," he grumbled to himself as he walked across the room to join his friends. Fiona had sat down on one of a row of rough wooden benches along the left wall and was thumbing through a stack of long-untouched magazines left next to her seat, while Shrek stood leaning against a small, barred window on the far wall, shouting loudly at whoever was on the other side.
Whatever the room was now, it was obvious even to Donkey what it HAD been. Here and there, the cell's damp stone walls were "decorated" with empty manacles — empty except for the pair directly across from Fiona, which still held the yellowed, cobweb-encrusted bones of the dungeon's last ogre "tenant."
Man, can't Shrek find a castle that ISN'T full o' dead people? Donkey thought unhappily. Everywhere we go, it's dead knight, or dead ogres — yeah, that's REAL comfortin'…
He had just made himself at home on a cold patch of floor at Fiona's feet when an obviously disgruntled Shrek stomped over and plopped onto the seat next to his wife.
"They tol' me t'take a number!" Shrek griped, waving a small slip of paper in Fiona's face. "A NUMBER! Like there's a line or somethin'!"
"So what's the number?" Donkey piped up from the floor. Shrek unfurled the slip and, squinting, tried to make out the tiny number printed thereon.
"Lessee…one…one-forty-seven."
"147?" Fiona asked incredulously. "They DO realize we're the only ones here — don't they?"
"Yeah, unless y'wanna count our 'friend' over there," Donkey added sarcastically with a nod toward the skeleton.
"Hey, don't worry," Shrek reassured them both. "Probably jus' some sort o' clerical error or somethin'. Trust me — We'll be in an' out o' here bef— "
"Four!" a gravelly voice screeched from the other side of the window. "Number Four!"
"Number Four!" Shrek bellowed, jumping to his feet and marching over to the window.
"Hey, you in there!" he yelled, banging loudly on the metal bars. "What do ye mean, 'Number Four'?" I wanna talk t'someb— AAH!"
Shrek jumped back in surprise as a pair of bloodshot eyes suddenly blinked into existence, staring back through the bars from beneath thick, shaggy eyebrows.
"Take a number!" the voice growled from the other side.
"I already took a number! Number 147! That's what I wanna talk to ye abo— "
"You have a number?"
"Yeah, but— "
"Then wait!"
"But I'm the only one here!"
"Wait!"
"But…but I— "
"WAIT!!!"
With that, a musty, faded windowshade came slamming down on the inside of the bars. Scrawled across the blind in faded type letters were the words "Back at ___."
No time followed.
"Fine. I'll wait, then…" Shrek muttered, crumpling up the slip and tossing it away before reclaiming his seat next to Fiona.
"So?" she asked hopefully. "What'd they say?"
"We wait."
"Well, you might as well make yourself comfortable, then," she offered as she rifled through the magazines. "Let's see. We've got 'Better Swamps and Gardens,' 'Highlights for Goblins,' 'People' — looks like some kind of cookbook…"
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"One-forty seven!"
"Wha? Huh?" Shrek sputtered as he awoke with a start. He had dozed off while waiting — all three of them had, judging by the weight of Fiona's head on his shoulder and the unmistakable sound of snores coming from his feet.
Well, it HAS been a while since any o'us had any sleep he reminded himself. Or a decent meal…or a shower…
Stiffly, he labored to his feet and shuffled over to the window. "I'm 147!"
"Well, good for you," the voice sneered sarcastically from behind the bars. "Slip, please."
"Slip? Oh, for— " Shrek grumbled as he began to search his pockets. "Now, where did I put th— "
"Ahem!" a voice coughed behind him, and Shrek turned to find Fiona, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, holding out the crumpled wad of paper she had retrieved from the cell floor.
"Oh. Right. Thanks, dear," Shrek whispered apologetically, doing his best to smooth out the slip before sliding it through the bars. "There ye go — Slip No. 147."
A gnarled green hand snatched the piece of paper from the window's narrow counter and disappeared into the shadows beyond. An instant later, three laminated cards appeared on the counter.
Baffled, Shrek took one and held it up to the meager torch light.
"Visitor's pass — King Odius' Palace," he read out loud. "Huh."
With a shrug, Shrek handed one to Fiona, who pinned it to her dress, and the other to Donkey, who, finding himself without a place to pin his, gripped the badge firmly in his teeth. Shrek had just finished fastening the final badge to his own vest when the clinking of a key in the lock announced a new arrival. The cell door swung open, revealing the same bored guard who had dropped off the three now well-rested visitors hours earlier.
"The King'll see you now…"
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