Crowns of the Kingdom
Chapter 22: Shadows of Adventures to Come
The fall was a short one, ending in a rough landing on a hard surface that felt like porous stone covered with a layer or two of dried grass and palm leaves. A moment's inspection proved it to be just that. They sat up, brushing themselves off (or in Pluto's case, shaking the dust from his coat), and took stock of their surroundings. They had fallen into a sort of cavern or excavation, more-or-less circular, perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, with walls of a dull, red-black rock. The air was warm and dry, probably due to the dozen or so tiki torches burning around the circumference of the chamber and providing illumination.
"Well, that wasn't so bad," said Daisy, working out a kink in her back. "At least we're not being attacked or crammed underneath chairs anymore. I think the Tikis did us a favor."
"Yeah," Mickey mused, turning around in order to get a good look at every side of the cavern. It was featureless except for the torches…and a tunnel about eight feet wide, leading off in one direction. Pluto approached the mouth of the tunnel cautiously, body slung low to the ground, sniffing rapidly. After a few seconds, he stood up straight and turned to bark encouragingly at the other two.
Mickey chuckled with relief. "Pluto seems to think it's okay. Let's go." He and Daisy took a torch each, and the rather scuffed party began following the tunnel.
They quickly determined that it was more of the same: dull, porous stone carpeted with dried plant material. Mickey was no geologist, but it reminded him of the lava rocks that Minnie used in her garden planters—which made sense, he supposed, in light of the Tiki Room's Polynesian theme. After a few dozen paces, he spotted something anomalous on the floor. It turned out to be a scarlet feather, in quite good condition.
"I wonder who this belongs to," he said.
"Let me see it," said Daisy. "Hey, I recognize this! This is one of Pierre's tail feathers!"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course! I'd know that shade anywhere. I took him with me to the salon once in order to color-match some nail polish."
"What I mean is, are you sure this is from the real Pierre, and not a Dispiration impostor?"
"I dunno. Do Dispirations molt? Have Pluto smell it and see what he thinks."
Pluto didn't react badly to the feather's scent, so they took it as a good sign and continued. After a few more minutes, they reached the end of the tunnel, where they found a bamboo ladder against one wall, clearly illuminated by what looked like filtered daylight coming down from above. No longer apprehensive, they put out the torches without hesitation and began climbing, Pluto first so that Mickey could assist his clumsy paws by boosting him as they went.
About halfway up the ladder, the walls of the shaft transitioned from stone to half-rotten wood, like the interior of a giant hollow tree. By this point, they could easily see the space toward which they were ascending—it looked like a Polynesian hut, complete with reed mat walls and a thatch ceiling. Mickey started to get a hunch as to where they were. It was confirmed when they reached the top of the ladder and he first heaved Pluto, and then pulled himself out onto a wobbly wooden floor. It was a Polynesian hut, all right, and a smallish door in one wall led to a narrow bamboo-railed balcony that provided an excellent view of…the main Adventureland walkway. They had arrived at the stilt-house across from the Enchanted Tiki Room. Mickey had never been inside it before, and had always assumed that it was just something along the lines of an equipment shed, decorated to blend in with the scenery.
"Huh," said Daisy. "You know, this isn't nearly as weird as I was afraid it was gonna be."
"Tell me about it," said Mickey, thinking about the illogic of the passage to Merlin's library. Something about the thought seemed vaguely important, but he mentally filed it away in order to focus on the more immediate task: "Come on—let's get down from here."
No safe way down was immediately obvious—the Tiki birds wouldn't need one—but the presence of the ladder indicated that the emergency escape tunnel was intended for the use of non-flyers as well, so Mickey was pretty confident that they would find something useful. What they discovered was that they could step almost directly from the far end of the balcony to the thatched overhang shading one of the side entrances to the Adventureland Bazaar. From there, Mickey and Daisy managed to lower themselves to the ground without mishap, and then Pluto jumped and Mickey caught him—again without mishap per se, although the impact knocked him flat, and then he had to contend with Pluto's grateful tongue on his face.
He couldn't help but laugh…and suddenly he was laughing hysterically, for reasons that had nothing to do with his dog's ticklish licks. In fact, Pluto stopped slurping him altogether and stared in astonishment at Mickey, sprawled on the ground and convulsing with enormous belly laughs until the tears were streaming from his eyes. He laughed because it was better than crying or flying into a rage and breaking things. By the time the catharsis was complete, he was gasping for breath, half-paralyzed with the volume of emotion he had just expelled. Pluto nosed his face concernedly, and Mickey gave the dog's head a reassuring pat.
"What was that all about?" asked Daisy.
"I don't know," Mickey admitted, making the effort to prop himself up on his elbows. "I guess I just really needed it."
"So what now? We look for the Tiki birds?"
Mickey gave her question a moment of hard thought. "Actually, no. We've got the entire park to worry about—we can't let ourselves get sidetracked chasing down characters who can fly away from danger anyway. And I keep thinking I should check in with Merlin and Professor von Drake. We'll just have to assume the birds have made themselves scarce and trust them to take care of themselves."
"Fair enough," Daisy agreed, and the trio set out for Fantasyland.
Mickey felt slightly guilty about just leaving the Tiki birds to their fate like that, but he found that he wasn't actually worried about them. He felt too optimistic. In fact, he felt fantastic. The fit of laughter had done him a world of good; the fatigue had been purged from his body and mind, leaving his energy high without a hint of uncomfortable restlessness. His every sense felt effortlessly honed to razor keenness, making the short trek out of Adventureland and clockwise around Central Plaza a sheer delight of sensation, from the vivid colors of the planter vegetation to the whisper of the summer breeze to the little temperature changes as he stepped from sunlight to shade and back again. For the first time in days (or was it decades?), he actually felt relaxed.
His good mood wasn't lost on Pluto, who nosed his hand as they walked, wagering that it was a good time to ask for an ear-scratching. (It was.) Or on Daisy, who remarked "Boy, Mickey, you sure have been moody since this adventure started. Less than an hour ago, you were freaking out over the Space Mountain thing, and now—"
"Space Mountain!" Mickey exclaimed, pulling up short in order to punch his palm. "That's what I wanted to ask Merlin and Professor von Drake about! I bet they'll be able to figure it out!"
"Great!" said Daisy. "Maybe they'll have something to say about those Martians, too." Mickey suppressed a tolerant smirk. Daisy was a fine one to go around accusing other people of being moody.
They arrived in Fantasyland expecting to be besieged with questions, especially variations on the theme of whether they had found the next crown yet. Instead, they found the courtyard, if not quite deserted, certainly not as crowded as they had left it. Four out of the Seven Dwarfs, two per side, were standing watch on the rooftop fortifications they had built, and quite a few children were enjoying the open-air rides under light supervision by the Radcliffes and the Fairy Godmother. Apart from that, though, it was pretty empty.
"Daisy, take Pluto and see if you can find out where everyone is, would you?" said Mickey.
"While you go down to Merlin's library? Are you…cutting me out of the action?"
"Of course not, Daisy. It's just more efficient this way. Now, Pluto, Daisy's in charge until I get back, so you be a good boy and do what she says, all right?"
Pluto snorted heavily, but let Mickey know with a wink and a grin that he intended to behave. With that settled, Mickey made his way to the library entrance and slipped inside.
Merlin met him at the door. "Oh, there you are, Mickey," he said. "You're a bit late, you know."
"I am? Sorry…I guess." Mickey was of the opinion that if someone used clairvoyance to predict someone else's arrival and they showed up a few minutes later than expected, it was the clairvoyance that was wrong and not the visitor's punctuality. But Merlin saw, or foresaw, things differently.
"So, then, you had a, er, question about something?" said the old wizard, gesturing for Mickey to come in and take a seat, which he did.
Mickey remembered Daisy's plea concerning the Martians. "A couple of questions, actually," he said while Merlin fumbled with a tea tray. He wondered where von Drake was, looked around, and spotted him in the far corner of the library, fiddling with a microscope.
"Splendid!" said Merlin, thrusting a cup of tea into Mickey's hands. "Did you hear that, Professor? He has at least two questions."
"Don't start without me!" von Drake beseeched. There was a series of crashing sounds, punctuated with yells of distress, and then the academician skidded up to them in a small tangle of papers and test tubes and dowsing rods (and, for some reason, a bowling ball), glasses askew and clipboard at the ready. "Now you may begin," he said with as much decorum as he could muster while wearing a copy of The Life Cycle of the Common Kelpie on his head.
Between sips of tea, Mickey described the puzzling specter of Space Mountain that had appeared in Tomorrowland. Almost as an afterthought, he also mentioned the Martians. Neither Merlin nor von Drake asked for clarification on anything, although the latter scrawled madly on the clipboard the whole time Mickey was speaking. And when he had finished, von Drake leaned forward dramatically and tapped Mickey on the nose with his pencil.
"Aha! You see, what did I tell you? Disneyland is disconnecting from reality! People's memories is gettin' all mixed up!"
"I thought as much," said Mickey. "But why Space Mountain? And why does it look the way it does? It's not like we ever had just the building skeleton visible to the guests or anything like that."
"It looks that way because accurate memories are colliding with inaccurate ones," Merlin explained. "Frankly, considering the potential for confusion, I'm surprised it doesn't look more solid than you described."
"But," said Mickey, "what is there to be confused about? How could someone who came here in 1975 remember Space Mountain? They would have to be…psychic or something!"
Ludwig von Drake snickered. "You know, statistically speaking, some of them probably was psychic," he said. "I got an abstract on it, gonna turn it into a book one of these days. But that's not where the mixed-up memories is coming from!" he caught himself. "It's not people what came here in 1975 and went away thinkin' they saw Space Mountain." He suddenly became uncharacteristically serious. "It's people what went somewhere else in 1975, and saw Space Mountain, and then later, maybe years later, remembered the wrong way around and thought they came here."
Realization dawned. Space Mountain hadn't been built in Disneyland by 1975, but it had been built elsewhere. Disneyland was no longer the only phenomenon of its kind. And to a young child from the American Midwest, it made no substantial difference whether the family had gone to California or Florida for their vacation…
The phantom he had seen on the Tomorrowland skyline had definitely been an image of Disneyland's Space Mountain, and not Walt Disney World's. (The differences between the two were subtle, but unmistakable to someone familiar with both, as Mickey was.) But the proper version was only two years off, after all—he supposed that the manifestation had struck a compromise of sorts between all the different ways people might remember it…might misremember it.
"Or people who came here after Space Mountain was built, and misremembered the year," Mickey added, almost to himself. He let his gaze wander about the library, and it lit on the double diagram they had shown him before—the one that reminded him somewhat of a yin-yang. He remembered the two scholars' explanation of how the park had literally been moved to Inpotentia, though it was still anchored to reality. But the line between the two was wavy, not straight, and the strength of that anchor likely depended on whether Disneyland was settled in an inside curve, or teetering on an outside one…"I think I understand now," he said. "But this disconnection from reality…it's bad, isn't it? It's not something we want to be happening?"
"I should certainly say not," said Merlin, arching his eyebrows. "We cannot yet tell what ramifications to expect, but that alone should be reason enough for us all to be wary."
Mickey nodded his understanding, biting his lip. He felt the tension start to rise again and quickly drove it down, unwilling to let his good mood be wasted quite that easily. "In that case, I'd better get going. This quest isn't going to finish itself!" He gave the two an optimistic smile and a jaunty wave before taking his leave.
"Well, he seems to be holding up well," Merlin remarked, finishing his tea.
"Let's just hope he can keep it up," said von Drake.
"Come now, Professor. Things are not all bad—take Hypatia, for example. If she is any indication, the Dispirations as a whole might—"
"About that, Merlin…" von Drake interrupted. "It looks like we were wrong. She's still made of the same stuff after all."
"Oh, that is disappointing," said Merlin, his face falling. "But at least she'll remain harmless and friendly as long as she stays here."
"Let's just hope so," von Drake said again. In his fingers, he twiddled a deep auburn feather.
Mickey returned to the courtyard to find a small commotion. The children who had been riding the Carrousel and the Tea Cups were clustered around a bench, chattering excitedly about something in the middle of the huddle. Daisy's lavender bow was visible, bobbing above the heads of the group, and he could hear Pluto's staccato barks, but some subtlety in the way the kids were aiming their attention told Mickey that neither of them was the center of it.
Whatever was going on, it was apparently so engrossing that no one noticed his approach—no one except little Michael Darling, who as usual had been shunted to the margins of the gathering. And as usual, no one paid him any heed when he began to exclaim: "Oh, Mickey Mouse! Here he is! Hey, everybody! Mickey's back!" The rest of them did not realize that he was there until he was about six feet away, at which point he loudly cleared his throat and enjoyed the startled jumps that resulted.
Daisy stuck her head out of the crowd. "Oh, there you are!" she said. "We've been waiting for you. Scoot aside and let him through, kids." The children parted like coats in a closet when someone is looking for someone else presumed to be hiding at the back, giving Mickey a clear view of the object of all the hubbub, perched on Daisy's hand.
It was in fact a bird. But it wasn't one of the Tiki birds. It wasn't even a Dispiration. It was about the size of a pigeon, with a sky blue body and pink wings. And a large, stubby pencil for a head.
"What's a Wonderland bird doing around here?" said Mickey.
"It's been asking for you," said Daisy, gesturing to Pluto, who was gripping in his teeth several paper sheets torn out of a souvenir autograph book. Each one had the words MICKEY MOUSE written on it in the simple block print favored by the pencil-birds. "Apart from that, we don't know what it wants—that's all it's written since it got here."
"Hm," Mickey mused. "Better clear off, kids. If this little critter has something to tell just me, it probably doesn't want an audience. With a chorus of whining groans, the children dispersed and went back to their play, although most of them continued to peer curiously back toward the bench, on and off.
The pencil-bird gestured urgently with its lead point toward the autograph book, lying beside Daisy on the bench. Mickey opened it to the first untorn page and held it out to the bird, which began scribbling at once.
Daisy read as it wrote: "Mess…message…from…Q2…no wait, it's drawing a heart, not a two."
"Queen of Hearts!" Mickey shouted suddenly, startling both Daisy and the pencil-bird. "Oh, wow, oh, gosh. I'd completely forgotten that I asked her to keep tabs on the other Villains!"
"Well, you've got a lot on your plate right now. Something was bound to slip through the cracks." The bird turned a fresh page and continued writing, and she continued reading. "Let's see…it's about the other Villains, all right. It says 'Shere Khan…getting some support…for takeover plan…but…most want to…get back at…Maleficent.'"
"I almost want to say they can have her," said Mickey.
"Wait, it's not finished. It just wrote 'or.' 'or…stay out…altogether.'" The pencil-bird slumped backwards in Daisy's palm, panting.
"Huh," said Mickey. "I guess that's good news. We can probably handle it easily if just a few Villains try to make trouble."
"Yeah. I suppose there—" Daisy began, but the pencil-bird had pepped back up and was indicating that it had more to write. Mickey held up the autograph book against, there was another spate of scribbling, and Daisy read: "'Some opinions still unaccounted for. More to follow as info becomes available.' Well, that's that, I guess. Good job, little guy." The bird bobbed its head in a perfunctory bow and flew off, disappearing over the Fantasyland rooftops.
Mickey mulled over the bird's report, idly leafing through the pages it had written on. "Something's fishy," he said. "Last night, the Queen of Hearts told us all the Villains had been discussing things together. So how can there be any opinions unaccounted for? It would have to mean some of them are keeping to themselves, and that says 'secret plot' to me." He sighed heavily. Pluto nudged his hand in sympathy.
"Come on, Mickey," said Daisy. "Since when are you the pessimistic sort? I'm sure she just hadn't managed to get everyone's opinion yet."
"I guess we'll find out later," Mickey said.
"So what did Merlin and Uncle Ludwig say? About the Martians and Space Mountain?"
"Something about inaccurate memories getting mixed up with the rest of them. And somehow it's tied into what Professor von Drake said earlier about the park disconnecting from reality."
"That doesn't sound good!"
"It sure doesn't, but I don't see that there's anything we can do about except keep plugging away at the quest. Once we bring this place up to the present, it'll go back to the real world…at least, it should. Anyway, what did you two find out? Where is everyone?"
"All over," said Daisy. "All over Fantasyland, anyway. The kids are all sticking close to the courtyard, obviously, but almost everyone else is going through and making sure the whole area is secure against the Dispirations. And actually, the Princes are talking about expanding to more of the park. But they won't change their plans without your go-ahead."
"That actually sounds like a pretty good idea," said Mickey. "But it can wait. We should probably get back to the Tahitian Terrace—with any luck, the others will have finished early too and we can see what they make of all this new stuff before we head back into the jungle."
They started back toward Central Plaza. "Do you think we'll ever reach the point where we managed to solve more complications than the new ones that pop up?"
"I dunno," said Mickey. "Why don't we ask your water heater repairman?"
A weary, wary trio emerged from the shaded tunnel that housed the exit from Pirates of the Caribbean, blinking in the sudden daylight and casting about guardedly for signs of Dispirations. Rather to their surprise, they found none. There was something vaguely unsettling about that, about the way hordes of the creatures would show up to harry them on one trip through a given area, only to vanish utterly by the next time they approached the same area. It had happened in Adventureland after their first foray into the jungle, and now it had happened in New Orleans Square. It was enough to make the three of them wonder what Maleficent was playing at.
But for the time being, they weren't about to question their good fortune. They simply rounded the Pirates building and headed back toward Adventureland and the Tahitian Terrace, glad for once of the emptiness of the park. It beat the current alternative.
Then they arrived at the table-strewn patio, and the day got a whole lot better.
"Mickey!" Minnie cried, flinging herself into his arms.
"Daisy!" Donald exclaimed, zipping up to his girlfriend and planting a huge kiss right on her beak.
"Uh…Pluto!" Goofy said, feeling he should join in.
Relieved and laughing, the six of them sat down to trade stories about their day, hammer out a more specific plan for the musicians they had managed to recruit, and wait for nightfall…when said musicians would arrive and they could put their plan into action.
To Be Continued…
A/N: This chapter quite a bit shorter than the last few, but I reached a good breaking point and I didn't want to make you all wait any longer than necessary for an update. I haven't been able to devote much time to writing lately because I just moved into a new apartment, a process which is not only extremely time-consuming, but also eats up a lot of brainpower that could otherwise be used to hammer out plot details.
On the bright side, though, I recently acquired a fantastic resource for making my descriptions of Disneyland's past not only accurate but vivid: The Disneyland Encyclopedia by Chris Strodder. This guy has really done his research, and more impressively, he has done it without any help at all from the Disney Corporation. The subtitle of the book is "The Unofficial, Unauthorized, and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop, and Event in the Original Magic Kingdom," and it's not kidding. There's stuff in there that I had never heard of before, as well as stuff that I had heard of, but never been real clear about. I cannot recommend this book enough to Disneyland fans who want a really comprehensive guide to the park's evolution.
As a consolation for the long wait and the shortness of the chapter, I have a present for all of you out there in Readerland. While I was in the process of writing this chapter, I experienced a surge of inspiration having to do with events much closer to the story's finale. I wrote it down so I wouldn't lose it, and offer a taste of it here as proof that I will not abandon this thing until I have finished it and given it the spectacular ending it deserves:
As she had before, Minnie interposed herself between Maleficent and Mickey, spreading her arms and lowering her head slightly, like a goose defending its young from a predator. "You've lost, Maleficent," she said. "Just suck it up and leave Mickey alone already!"
Maleficent blinked. "As you wish, Miss Mouse," she said evenly. Then, before either of the two mice had the chance to get properly alarmed at such suspiciously quick acquiescence, she made an abrupt diagonal sweep of her right arm. The glow emanating from the orb of the staff flicked forward, expanding, and enveloped Minnie, sealing her inside a globe of magical force.
Mute with shock, all Mickey and Minnie could do was hammer against the barrier from their respective sides, just long enough to realize the futility of it. Then Maleficent moved again, holding her staff aloft, and the sphere launched skyward, well out of Mickey's reach and still rising, until a swirling phenomenon, neither clouds nor wind, opened over the Castle like an evil eye, casting harsh ultraviolet light onto a horrified Mickey, and swallowed it up without a trace. The vortex closed up after it, but a hint of it remained as a discolored blot on the sky, bleeding wisps of black light into the surrounding air.
"There, that should do it," Maleficent said with calm satisfaction, like someone finishing up a knotty household chore. She met Mickey's eyes for a brief moment, answering his stricken gaze with a smirk of triumph. Then, without another word, she was gone. Mickey was left alone on the Castle parapet, staring aghast at the high-up spot where Minnie had disappeared.
So don't despair—not only do I have a solid ending in mind, but in the next chapter, we'll finally be leaving 1975 behind and moving on to the next segment of the adventure. I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with different character dynamics among the Sensational Six and plan to hand the spotlight over to Minnie and Daisy for a good chunk of 1985. Girl power, and all that. I also plan to give more love to some of the popular attractions that haven't been featured yet, such as the roller coasters. Stay tuned!
—Karalora
