To say the guards waiting outside the catacombs were surprised when a hole was blasted in the rock wall was an understatement, it was equally an understatement to say they were shocked to see Lady Celeste walk out of the catacombs alive, let alone the mere human who'd been sent to his death in the vain attempt of rescuing her. The Winged Ones' daughter berated the guards for their failure to save her, something that clearly a mere human was capable of, and announced she was flying home. Once again Han and Chewie found themselves being grabbed up and lifted off the ground and taken back to the pantheon. There, in just as dry of a tone as before, Lord Azure briefly and unenthusiastically thanked Han and Chewbacca for rescuing their daughter and defeating the Minotaur.
He went on to tell Han, "I will grant you the freedom to leave here unharmed, despite my orders to the contrary from the Crown, but there my obligations to you end. I have no love for Alhazred, but he is my liege, and if Princess Cassima trusts him and wishes to wed him... I want you to leave the City of the Winged Ones and never return. I don't know who you are or what you want here, but I will not disobey my Crown further."
Han shot back a sarcastic expression at the man and replied, "Right back at you."
Once more he and Chewbacca were bodily hauled into the air, and this time they were given an extended courtesy of being flown back down to the bottom of the mountain by the sea, and then the guards were gone again. Han looked at his best friend and said, "Well on the bright side, Chewie, you probably gave a couple of them a hernia."
The wookiee roared in response.
"We're not any closer to getting back to the Falcon or getting her fixed," Han said as he took out the map, "this is starting to get discouraging. Hey, hold up, what's this?"
Chewbacca leaned over Han's shoulder and saw what the smuggler saw.
A new isle now appeared on the map, to the far right of the Isle of the Crown and under the Isle of the Beast, a teeny tiny blob that was a much paler shade than the other isles, but Han knew it hadn't been there before. A name appeared under it: Isle of the Mists.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder, Chewie," Han noted. "Well, we better stick with the original isles first, if this one just popped up, it's probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Alright...to the Isle of the Beast."
The isle on the right side of the map lit up bright blue, and the next thing Han knew, he and Chewie were somewhere else again. They turned around and found a wooded area surrounding the dirt walk path, and something else.
So far they hadn't seen a lot of animal life forms on the isles they traveled to, so the sight of an unusual creature hanging from a tree by its curled tail, that looked like a hybrid of two animals, the bottom half pink like a bald womp rat, and the top half a dark green with scales, looking like a dragon, swinging back and forth and playing with its paws, took both man and wookiee by surprise.
"Well that's certainly an odd looking thing," Han observed.
"Am not!" the creature yelled at him in an odd little voice, "Odd looking you are!"
Han took a step back and blinked. Why not? Talking animals he could deal with, it was all the inanimate objects forming opinions that bothered him.
"Sorry," he said, "I didn't realize you could speak."
"Speak not, funny is!" the creature yelled at him, "Speech I am and nothing but!"
Han was officially lost, and going by the side glance he was getting from the wookiee, Chewbacca felt the same way. The only thing he could think to say to the...whatever it was, was, "You speak strange," and he said this as a man who could perfectly interpret wookiee howls, which spoke volumes to how strange it was indeed.
"Strange my speech is not, eloquence I speak with," the little creature retorted as it continued merrily swinging back and forth by its tail curled around the tree branch.
"So what're you doing here?" Han asked.
"Away I fly my home from," he told the smuggler, "lost I am therefore."
"So where is your home?" Han asked, wondering if it was somewhere on this isle, or, one of the others.
"Know you I do not," the curious creature responded, "trust you I do not. Stay here I will."
Ordinarily Han would love nothing more than to do just that, he didn't like passengers, especially ones that didn't pay, but something was telling him wherever this thing lived, it would need him to get it back there. He reached up to try and grab it, but it curled its tail tighter to pull itself up just enough higher to be out of his reach entirely.
"Tickle me not!" it yelled at the smuggler. "Come down, why for? Know I do not."
"Well that makes two of us," Han remarked cynically. He turned to his wookiee companion and asked, "How about it, Chewie? You ever seen anything like this before?"
Chewbacca's howl was not a positive one. But apparently whatever it was, it could understand wookiee, or at least part of it, because now it turned its attention to Chewie and said, "Where are you going? Where are you going? Know it I do, where are you going to? Like you I do, go I with you?"
Han turned and looked at his best friend wondering just what happened there, but decided it didn't matter. Chewbacca was able to reach up high enough to grab hold of the animal and bring it down.
"Keep it with you," Han told him, "let's see if there's anyone around here who can help us."
They started on the path that went past the trees, and came to a small clearing which possessed yet another unusual sight. The path ended, and it began again, on opposite sides of a small pond, which was boiling, the water bubbled and gurgled with immense heat, and there wasn't any way to get across except right through the water.
"Well there's something you don't see every day," Han dryly commented.
He had a good idea that what he was thinking was a very stupid idea, but all the same he decided to test it out by sticking one booted foot in the water to see if it was possible at all they could travel across the pond.
It was not.
Han screamed in pain as he felt his foot threatening to blister even through his boot. That water would boil anybody alive, no matter what life form.
"We can't get across," he told Chewie. "Why would anybody come here if they can't get past this...wait a minute, wait a minute, I got it. We go back and get a few of those icebergs from the Isle of Wonder, they're freezing cold, they'd have to cool this down enough we could at least get through."
"Take me home to."
The sentence was muffled and the smuggler and wookiee shared a confused look before Han realized it was coming from the, whatever it was, that was curled up on Chewie's shoulder.
"What?" he asked.
The creature raised its head and repeated in a half despondent voice, "Take me home to."
Han's eyes widened as something came over him.
"I think I know right where our little friend lives," he told Chewbacca.
"This is insane," Han said once they returned to the Isle of Wonder and headed for the book stacks, "Gotta jump from one isle to another, drop this thing off, pick up an ice lettuce, take it back to the Isle of the Beast, get that pond to stop boiling, this is no way to travel."
Chewbacca grumbled in response.
"What do you mean 'Stop whining'?" Han demanded to know. He saw the swarm of bees circling overhead and knew they were in the right place. He went over to the stacks and called out as he started rummaging through the books, "Where are you you fat caterpillar?"
"That's bookworm to you," the snooty voice responded as he popped up in the top of a stack again, "and what brings you back here? Hmmmm?"
"Does this belong to you by any chance?" Han asked as Chewbacca set the strange creature on the ground.
There was a look of recognition between them and the funny talking animal told the bookworm, "Coming home I am to!"
"Oh there you are you naughty boy, I told you not to leave the island," the bookworm said.
"Glad I am seeing you to," it replied as it crawled into a book at the bottom of one stack.
"So, you found my dangling participle," the bookworm noted.
Han did a double take, "That's what that thing is?"
"I suppose I have to give you something for that," the bookworm said, and disappeared back into the stack, only to pop up a moment later with a book and told Han, "This should do, a particularly rare book, a delicious little tidbit."
Han looked at it as if he couldn't decide whether or not to fling it as far across the island as he could, when the bookworm promptly disappeared back in his stack. Deciding it was worth a look, he flipped through the pages and quickly made a discovery.
"This looks like some kind of spell book," he observed, "probably something that died out with that Jedi religion."
Chewbacca snarled inquisitively.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't think any of this stuff would do any good...then again I never thought that map would work either, shows what I know," Han commented half to himself and stuffed the book in his pocket, "might be worth checking into later, let's get the lettuce and head back."
By the time they returned to the Isle of the Beast, Han Solo had nearly contracted frostbite in both hands from carrying two heads of iceberg lettuce. If this didn't cool down that pond, nothing would. He tossed them in and watched as they melted almost immediately in the boiling water, which slowed down its bubbling and gurgling until it was nonexistent, but plenty of steam still arose from the water.
"Well," he said hesitantly, "guess this is as good a time as any to try this."
He made a mad dash into the water and over to the other end of the pond as quickly as he could without slipping and falling in. The water was still unbelievably hot and burned clear through his boots, but at least it didn't scald him in the process. Chewbacca howled in disgruntlement as he made the quick trek through the steaming water.
"Well we're across anyway," Han replied, "let's see what's going on around here."
The path resumed through the woods, and when they finally reached a clearing they came to a stone wall, and mounted on top of it by the entryway was a statue of an archer, bow drawn and ready to fire. Over the wall they saw a grassy area leading to a walkway surrounded by rose bushes and shrubbery, past that it looked like there was a house there.
"Oh great, finally, people," Han said, "let's go."
As he walked towards the gateway in the wall, he heard a strange sound but he couldn't place it, he looked around and heard Chewie's warning howl in the splitsecond before he turned and saw the statue of the stone archer had turned so it was facing him, the arrow aimed directly at his chest! Chewbacca came up and punched the statue in its head hard enough that the whole thing shattered to pieces.
Han stood there in shock for a minute taking in what he'd just witnessed. Finally all he could conclude with was a half grumbled and half weary, "Chewie, I want to go home."
By which the wookiee knew he didn't mean Corellia, he meant back aboard the Millennium Falcon and get it back in the sky and resume their normal routine of searching the shady parts of the galaxy for people needing cargo hauled, back to what they knew, what actually made sense.
Chewbacca rumbled concernedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Han said as he tried to figure out what other non-living things could try to kill them before they were through here, he looked over the wall again and said, "I don't see anything else, let's head in."
They did, but before they could reach the house, the entrance was cut off by a set of vines that suddenly grew together between the rose bushes, growing unbelievably fast, growing impossible thick, cutting off any and all access to the property beyond.
"Now this is just getting ridiculous," Han said as he pulled out his blaster and shot at the vines, a few bolts had them dropped, curled and singed, and he would almost swear he could hear the plants screaming in pain as some of the vines seemed to retract from their own volition.
"That's more like it," Han said as he walked through the entryway with Chewie right behind him.
Instead of the house they found themselves in what looked like a shrubbery maze, only where they were, there was also a water fountain, and a metal gate, which was opened by someone on the other side, who joined the two intruders.
Maybe it was just from seeing the Minotaur earlier that day. The thing's appearance wasn't so far fetched from some of the life forms Han had seen around the galaxy, but none quite like this. The thing walked like a man, was dressed in a man's clothes, a royal man's clothes, but he had a warthog's face and long mangy hair, and lots of big sharp teeth. With a roar he demanded to know, "Who enters the Beast's garden?"
"That would be us," Han answered dumbfounded. Couldn't they find any normal people around here? It wasn't even their physical appearance that bothered him, but why was it everywhere they went, all they heard from anybody was 'What are you doing? Don't touch that! Who dares enter?'? "I'm Captain Han Solo and this is my navigator, Chewbacca."
The creature looked at Han and said, "And yet, you could hardly have accidentally broken through the three enchanted traps of the Isle of the Beast."
"Well we hadn't planned on it from the start, but that's just the way it worked out," Han answered.
The creature snorted and grumbled and said to Han, "This face before you is hideous, is it not?"
"I've seen worse," Han answered honestly.
"Ha! I'm glad you like it, for you will soon own one just like it," the beast told him, he then looked past Han and seemed to see Chewbacca for the first time and added in astonishment, "The curse doesn't work that fast."
Chewbacca snorted in remark. Even Han wanted to know, "What the hell are you talking about?"
The beast explained, "I too was once caring for nothing but adventuring and rescuing fair maidens. But I wrangled one too many evil hags, one dark night, I was turned into this obscenity you see before you. Warped in shape and trapped on this enchanted island over a hundred years ago. You see, my prison is also my sanctuary, you are the first to break through the barriers in these many years, that is except for the druids who stole my heirloom Coat of Arms."
"More thieves?" Han asked Chewbacca under his breath, "we've been missing out on some serious action."
"I'm afraid you don't understand," the beast told the smuggler, "the enchanted barriers were a warning and protection for you more than for me. Your prize for forcing your way past them is to join me in this dire life. By the laws of this sorcery, you are doomed to be trapped in the form of a beast; your reward for approaching this garden is to be my slave, a slave as beastly as I am. You have only a few hours of humanity left."
Han's eyes widened as he realized the...thing, was deadly serious. He wanted to respond with one of a few choice sarcastic comebacks, but they all fell flat as he actually tried to imagine himself looking like this...thing. Then he felt a knot in his stomach as he realized he wouldn't have to imagine it long.
The beast further explained, "The enchantment you are under is tied to my own, oh, the sorceress left me a way out, but I'm afraid it was her final bitter joke. You see, I need to only find a maiden to join me here, to share my castle, my life, willingly. Take another look at me. You can't help but admire the hag's terrible cruelty and cunning."
"If I had a working ship, I could find a dozen women eager for the opportunity, you'd be an improvement over most of the guys they're already seen with willingly," Han pointed out.
"Truly?" the beast asked, and grunted, "How determined of you. I personally would not waste my few hours as a man on an impossible errand. However, you may do as you please. I give you this token, it's my family ring and the only heirloom I have left, if perchance you should, if you think you'll have found a maid. She must accept it from her own free will, by doing so, she accepts me, not that you shall find anyone, mind you. Your time is short, count the minutes on your fingers while your fingers you have. Your master will await you."
With that, the beast turned and exited through the metal gate and was gone.
Han turned to Chewbacca and said, "Boy he's a cheery fellow, isn't he?"
The wookiee snorted in response.
"Okay...so," Han recapped, "to avoid having to shave my whole body every morning for the rest of my life, we've got to find some woman who'd willingly marry this guy, without seeing him first. So what women do we know?"
He leaned against the gate and recounted, "There're the queens on the Isle of Wonder, but I guess they're already spoken for...there's that Lady Celeste, but as uppity as she is, that's definitely out, and somehow I don't see her mother tossing over her husband to come here and marry that guy...hmmm," Han scratched his head for a second as he said to himself, "I wonder who that lookalike of Lady Celeste was in the catacombs?"
Chewbacca rumbled in suggestion.
"Azure said something about a princess who was getting married...but it didn't sound like he was sold on the idea...so maybe there's a chance we could steal her away from this Alhazred guy...which is back on the Isle of the Crown," Han realized. "Let's head back there and see what we can find."
"Some spell book, it doesn't say anything about how to reverse the curse on the beast. Oh well, Plan B, I wonder what the odds are we can get an audience with Her Worship," Han said once they returned to the Isle of the Crown.
Chewbacca howled in response as they started their climb up the hill, which had Han reluctantly conceding, "Yeah, getting an audience with her's one thing, getting her out of here would be another. I wonder if there's any chance she's making an appearance among her loyal subjects?"
They turned left at the fork in the road again and went into town, figuring it'd be easier to ask among the townsfolk than to try their luck with the royal guards at the castle. When they got back into town, Han saw a large sign on a stone wall that separated the shop district from the houses behind it, a narrow doorway the only path between the two points.
"That definitely wasn't up when we were here before," Han said, "Let's see what's going on."
They headed over to the wall and in large letters Han was able to make out the announcement: Citizens Rejoice! Announcing the royal wedding and coronation Vizier Abdul Alhazred and Princess Cassima. For reasons of security, the wedding will not be open to the public. Long live the new king and queen of the Land of the Green Isles.
"Not open to the public, so much for that idea," Han sighed. "Well, we better start looking for another suitable woman. Don't misunderstand, Chewie, it's not so much being turned into a warthog that bugs me, but if this curse actually works, I'm not going to spend the rest of my days slaving to anybody."
Chewbacca howled and nodded in answer.
They headed through the wall's entryway and shortly came to a large house in a large yard that was surrounded by a gate that was covered in red rose bushes. Tending to the flowers by the gate was a young woman with long blonde hair. She was pretty enough, she might even be beautiful if it weren't for the old rags she wore and the weathered expression her face that Han could recognize from a life of hard labor, much of it toiling out in the sun, though somehow despite that she maintained a fair complexion.
He was jerked out of his thoughts by the sound of a door slamming open, and the shrill voice of a woman who was too far away for Han to get a good look at, but sounded like something of a hag herself as she called to the blonde maiden, "You lazy thing, get back to work and stay away from those roses! I've told you a million times before those flowers are too sweet for the likes of you, you've still got to do the dishes, make lunch, clean out the stables, polish the silver, and go help my daughter fix her hair, do I have to tell you everything? And put your veil back on, no one wants to look at your face!"
The young woman stayed where she was but sighed deeply and answered submissively, "Yes, Step-mother."
"I've got an idea, Chewie," Han told his friend.
The wookiee gurgled in inquiry of just what that was.
"I'm going to use my natural charm," Han answered.
Chewbacca grumbled loudly in disagreement. Han did a double take, "What do you mean 'Try something that actually works'?"
He cut across the road and reached the gate before the woman headed to the house. Chewbacca stayed back and couldn't make out much of what either of them said, but whatever Han was doing, it seemed to be working so far, the woman hadn't slapped him or taken off running. The two of them talked for several minutes and at one point Han took the beast's family ring and put it on the woman's finger. She looked at it, and they exchanged a few more words, and she exited through the gate and joined Han as he turned and headed back to his friend.
"Let's go, Chewie," he said, "we've got a date to keep."
It hadn't really dawned on Han Solo up till now that they could transport another person with them with the magic map, but the three of them returned to the Isle of the Beast, and returned to the gate at the start of the hedge maze, and the beast came out to meet with them. As he spoke with the young woman, Han and Chewie hung back to see what would happen, and Chewbacca leaned over and grunted in Han's ear.
"Well it's very simple, Chewie," Han answered, "there's a common language some of us speak, which is: getting the hell out of here at any cost. Now you know I'm not too hot on arranged marriages, but I asked her point blank if she thought she could love a guy who looks like this, as long as it meant she got the hell away from that house and her slaver stepmother, and she wouldn't have to grind her fingers down to the bone from sunup to sundown every day anymore, and she jumped at it. She said and I quote, 'I could love anybody for a life like that'."
Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, which momentarily blinded Han Solo and Chewbacca, when the light disappeared, the beast was gone, and in his place stood a man, a tall, skinny, pale complexioned man with a ridiculous powdered wig that looked like he had his hair in rollers.
"The enchantment!" he exclaimed in a far more human voice, "It is broken!"
Han looked at him with wide disbelieving eyes, leaned over to Chewbacca and murmured, "He looked better before."
Chewbacca grunted in agreement.
There was another blinding flash of light, and when it cleared, Han saw that the woman's rags were gone and replaced with a new floor length dress which made her look very much a suiting counterpart to the prince.
Han shrugged at Chewbacca's questioning grunt and said, "So I was wrong, apparently some princesses are made, not born."
The newfound couple thanked the smuggler for his help and disappeared through the gate to go and begin their new life together.
Han yawned and sat down by the fountain and told his companion, "This has been a hell of a day, Chewie, crash land in this strange place, can't find anyone who can help us, bounce from one island to another to another, kill a Minotaur, save the princess, break the curse, this hero stuff is cut out for younger people who actually want it, we've been on the run so long we haven't even had time to get a drink."
The cold water raining out of the fountain looked so inviting. He cupped his hands and caught enough to take a swallow of it, right now that tasted better than any spirits in the galaxy. Chewbacca made a deafening gargling sound as he too got a drink. Han sat there for a couple minutes and thought.
"Hey Chewie, didn't the guards on the Isle of Wonder say, that the beast stole their singing stone?" he asked.
Chewbacca grunted in agreement.
"But he said he hasn't left this island for a hundred years once the curse was put on him," Han realized, "and...he said that these Druid people stole his family's coat of arms...what are Druids?"
Chewbacca snorted and shrugged his huge shoulders.
"And the guards of the Sacred Mountain said that the queens from Wonder, arranged to have their golden fleece stolen..." he scratched his head and thought about it and said, "something is not adding up here...these people certainly haven't been too friendly towards us and we haven't done anything...so I find it hard to believe they would've been too amiable before their stuff got stolen either...doesn't make sense."
Chewbacca made a whining sound as he agreed with the pilot.
"Hmmm," Han took the map out again and looked at the new isle that had appeared once they left the catacombs.
"Still wonder how this one just magically appeared out of nowhere," he said.
Chewbacca howled in response.
"I know that's what it does," Han replied, "but why now? Why wasn't it there before?"
The wookiee had no answer.
"Well, I guess it's worth checking out," Han said as he stood up, "let's get back to the water. It's a small enough island, there shouldn't be too much going on there."