The Princess and the Wizard
By
UCSbdad
Disclaimer: There are Castles and castles in this, but I own neither. Rating: K Time: 1967 and elsewhen.
Author's note: To get a look at what Castle's unit looks like, go to http colon back slash back slash ctrp dash 3d dash 4thcav dot com backslash troop dot html Click on org chart.
"Where the hell's this egg?" Castle yelled.
Kate ran through the remains of the mother spider and grabbed something, then ran back to Castle.
"I have it." She said, holding out something in her hand.
"That's the famous Golden Egg? I've seen chicken eggs bigger than that."
"So?"
"I just expected something more…grandiose."
"We have to get out of here. The lights are starting to dim."
As they headed back across the walkway more than the lights were failing. More of the webbing was tearing loose from the walls of the cave and plummeting to the depths. Spiders of all sizes also fell. Several fell on the walkway but didn't attack. They staggered around as if unsure of what to do. They were destroyed anyway.
The lights failed entirely before they reached the exit, but they could still hear the destruction behind them.
"We're at the entrance." Someone yelled. They ran through the tunnel and outside.
"Still daylight, but the sun's going down." Castle said. "We need to get out of here."
They began the long walk up the stairs.
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, it was dark.
"Lieutenant Castle, is that you?" Pappy Brown called out.
"It's us. We have some wounded, but not badly and we have the Golden Egg, for what it's worth. Are we all set to move?"
"No, sir. We set up our night defensive position. We'll need to pull up the chain link fencing, the barbed wire, and safe and recover our Claymores. Take a half an hour."
"Get to it. This whole place freaks me out. I want to put a couple of miles between us and here."
It was decades before anyone else went to the bottom of the Pit of Astorkal and they didn't report finding much. But for a mile around the old pit, nothing grew and there were neither birds nor animals there.
Castle woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee. Pappy Brown was standing by with two cups of coffee in his hands.
"Thought you might like some coffee first thing, sir." He handed a cup to Castle. "I already gave a cup to Miss Alexis and I have one for Princess Katherine."
Castle looked around to see that Kate was climbing out from under a furry blanket about ten feet from him.
"What's coffee?" She asked.
"A mild stimulant." Castle answered. "The Army runs on coffee and paperwork."
Kate took the preferred cup, tasted it and made a face.
"It's kind of bitter."
"Just a bit, ma'am." Brown said. "I have some sugar and some creamer for you. It might help."
He poured both packets into Kate's cup and then began to throw the empty packets away. He laughed.
"Not just ammo and C rats gets replaced magically. The packets are full and sealed again."
Castle looked at the coffee cup he'd been given. It was silver or at least silver plated. He read the inscription.
"70Th Tank Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division. Korea. 1950-1951. PFC George Brown." He turned the cup around. On the other side was a drawing of a tank he wasn't quite familiar with, although he thought maybe he'd seen one somewhere before.
"What's the tank, Pappy?"
"An old M4 Sherman tank, sir. Actually, the M4A3E8. The Easy Eight we used to call them. When it hit the fan in Korea, they loaded us up and sent us from Fort Knox to Korea and assigned us to the First Cavalry Division. They'd been having a hell of a time with them Russian T34s. Us and the few M 46s we had were the only tanks that could knock out them Russkies."
"You bought this then?" Castle asked.
"No, sir. When I went back to Korea in 1958 and 1959, there was a jeweler in Seoul who'd make that sort of things for GIs. I've had it ever since to remind me of combat. I guess I'll need another one."
"I'll buy it for you, Pappy. Maybe one for the entire platoon."
Pappy turned to Kate.
"How's your coffee now, ma'am?"
"Much better. I kind of like this."
"Which one of the places are we headed for now?" Castle asked.
"The Library of Montrieff. It contains the Book of Books which has the magical wisdom of the ages written in it."
"A library? Can't be that bad."
They spent two days driving east. As they drove, the terrain returned to rolling country covered in grass. They started passing small farms and occasional villages. They even saw the occasional farmer working in his fields, but no one came near them.
Finally, they pulled up about a mile from the library.
"That's one hell of a library." Castle said, examining it through his binoculars. "It's got to be a mile on each side and I count twenty-seven stories."
"I understand there are eight floors of basements." Kate added.
Castle looked at the doorways.
"There are eighteen doorways and not one of them is big enough for us to get a track through, let alone a tank. Are there any other doors? Something big enough to get a vehicle in?"
Kate shook her head.
"There are doors all around, but they're smaller than the front doors."
"Okay, it'll be me, the grunts and the scouts again, but I want to leave some of the injured behind. Just in case."
The Big Kahuna heard that and went to talk to Castle.
"I'm fine, sir. And I'm more than fine. I'm the best machine gunner in the whole squadron. I'm going."
Doc Mellon spoke up as well.
"I can't find anything wrong with any of the men, sir. They're good to go."
"Maybe," Castle said. "but I don't want to have to take the same people into combat over and over. That's not fair. The tankers will stay here. The M48 is our ace in the hole if things really turn to shit. I'll have everyone else draw straws or something to see who goes this time."
"I have to go, sir." Doc Mellon said. "I'm the only medic you have."
"Me too." Added Kemper. "I'm your RTO."
In the end, six new people were to go with Castle into the library.
Castle gave last minute orders to Pappy Brown, who was left in charge.
"Put the vehicles in a defensive circle, put up the chain links, the razor wire and claymores and be damned sure you have lookouts. Maybe you should move back over to that hill over there. Further away from the library."
Pappy shook his head.
"If you come tear assin' out of there with something on your ass, you'll want me nice and close, sir. I'll stay where I am."
Castle, Kate, Alexis and the rest of his troops headed for the library. Once inside they found it was a mess. Dirt, leaves, scraps of paper, and all manner of junk was scattered around. From what they could see, the book stacks were in good order.
"Looks like the entry desk over there." Kate said, pointing.
The desk was dirty and battered, but had a small bell on it. A card said "Ring for service."
Castle slapped the bell and rang it. Then he rang it again.
He heard something slithering towards them, and a snake head appeared behind the desk, followed by the body and a pair of extremely thin arms.
"Welcome to the Library of Montrieff. How may I be of service?"
"The library is run by a snake?" Castle said.
"Sir!" He said drawing himself up straighter. "I am a bookworm, not a snake."
"My mistake." Castle muttered.
"We need to take out the Book of Books." Kate said with a smile.
"Do you have a library card?"
"No, actually, I don't think any of us do."
"You'll only need one card to take out one book. The fee will be five gold pieces."
Kate took five gold pieces from a leather bag on her belt and handed it over. In return she received a very ornate card with copperplate writing on it.
"Will you need a map of the library?" The bookworm asked.
"I suppose."
"That'll be another five gold pieces."
She handed them over.
"This is a book of maps for the entire library. This is the map that'll show you to the fifth underground level. You'll see a red dot here." He pointed." And a blue line. The red dot will show you where you are. Just follow it and keep on the blue line and you'll be all set." He handed the map book to Kate. "Oh, and do you need a magical amulet to ward off the Ginas?"
"Genies?" Said Castle. "You have genies, like Barbara Eden?"
"No, sir. We have Ginas. Would you like an amulet?"
"How much are they?" Kate asked.
"Ten thousand gold pieces apiece. You'll need one for each of you."
"We don't have enough gold for even one."
"In that case, enjoy the library." And the bookworm slithered off.
"Do you have any idea what a Gina is?" Castle asked Kate.
Both Kate and Alexis shook their heads.
"We'll find out, I guess." He said.
The map led them through the library to a staircase and then down five floors. On that floor, the floors were deep in dust with a few scuff marks and tracks indicating someone had been down here. The books all seemed to be in the stacks, however.
"Straight ahead." Castle said, checking the map.
They walked for what seemed like a half a mile and then the map told them to turn left. After a bit, they turned right and went past several aisles. Then left, then right, then left and right again.
"It looks like we're being taken the long way. Maybe we should just go straight ahead." Castle said, looking at the map.
"There might be a good reason for the turns." Kate said.
"Yeah. Bookworm wants to sell more maps."
They kept following the map, seeming to move a hundred yards closer to the far end of the library for every five hundred yards they moved parallel to it.
Then a woman stepped out in front of them. She was tall and blonde and dressed in a diaphanous shorty nightgown of some sort. It left nothing to the imagination.
"Hello." She said, breathlessly. "Don't you think I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever seen?"
"Okay, you're better looking than anyone I'd run into in Saigon on a Saturday night, but we have things to see and people to do. We'll be leaving."
"Perhaps I'm more to your liking." Said another voice.
It was an identical woman, but this one had Kate's long, curly chestnut colored hair.
"Thanks, but we have to be moving along."
"But she's beautiful." Said Kate, taking a step towards the blonde. Castle grabbed her, but she struggled to get to the blonde.
"How about me?"
The third woman was identical to the first two except for her flaming red hair.
"You're perfect." Alexis said, and headed for the redhead.
"Wiggins, grab her. Something is really wrong here."
"Do I please you?"
The next woman was slightly different from the others. She had long, glistening black hair and a slight epicanthic eye fold. She was also dressed in tiger stripes.
"Will you get the fuck out of our way?" Castle screamed.
"No!" Screamed the blonde. "I demand you come to me. I demand it."
"No way."
"I command you to come to me!" the woman shrieked.
"Oh, shit. We've done this before."
And before Castle was finished, the woman leaped at him.
Holding Kate with one arm, he wasn't able to bring his M16 to bear, but he managed to jam the rifle butt into her face.
"Fuck! She has fangs!" He yelled.
TBC