The Prince, the Princess, and the Other Wizard
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Castle is magic, but I have no magic. Or Castle. Rating: K+ for language Time: A few months after The Princess and the Wizard.
Ryan peeked under the mirror. He could see a stone foot and part of a stone dress. He lifted the mirror up a bit and saw two stone arms. Then he looked at Medusa's face. It was stone. He walked to her and looked her over. She was all stone.
He looked around. The place was huge and essentially one room. He guessed it was about a hundred yards long and maybe fifty wide. At the far end was a statue of a sitting man. From the huge size of the statue, he guessed it wasn't a giant that Medusa had seen.
There were other stone people scattered around. Almost all had weapons of some sort.
Medusa had lived on one small corner of the huge place. There was a brazier for heat and candles for light. There was a small dresser and a bed. On the bed was a stone man. He was naked and had an erection sticking straight up. Ryan couldn't really tell, but he didn't think the man had died with a smile on his face. There was also a large wicker cabinet for Medusa's clothing.
He turned around to leave and go back to the column. That's when he heard the sound of rocks hitting the floor. He couldn't decide whether to reach for his weapon first or the mirror. He was too late as Medusa ran towards him.
He noticed three things almost simultaneously. One, he hadn't been turned to stone. Secondly, Medusa now had long blonde hair and no snakes. Thirdly she was kissing him and rubbing her boobs against his chest.
"You reversed the curse!" She cried. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Then she kissed him again.
"You were cursed?" he said when she came up for air.
"Of course. Do you think I wanted to have a lot of ugly snakes growing out of my head or to turn everyone I saw to stone?"
"You won't turn me to stone?"
"No, silly Oh, what's your name?"
"Sergeant Kevin Ryan."
"Sergeant? That's an odd first name."
"My first name is Kevin. Sergeant is my rank in the US Army."
"Rank? Are you a noble?"
"Not hardly, but we have to get out of here. If I don't get back soon, my people will flatten this place with their tank guns."
"Tank? Guns? What are they?"
"Nothing you want to be on the wrong end of."
"How many of your people are women?" She asked.
"Three."
"How many men?"
"A little less than a hundred."
"Really? That's too many for me, but you're really cute. Do we have time for a quickie? I haven't gotten laid in years."
"What about the stone guy in your bed?"
"Julius? Sweet guy. I convinced him we could do it if I wore a blindfold, but he got so excited he knocked my blindfold off. I mean a hard man is good to find, but there are limits."
"We have to get going. We're looking for someone named the Wizard of Dok."
Medusa took a step back.
"And why do you want to see him?" She asked coldly.
"He's kidnapped Queen Johanna whose husband, King James XVII, rules the Valley from the mountains to the Endless Ocean. We're going to get her back and make sure this guy doesn't pull this kind of shit again."
"Then I'm coming with you. He's the one who put a curse on me. Said he wanted me for his harem. I said no way. I'm the Keeper of the Great Temple of Jove and I'm pretty powerful, so I chased him away. The next morning, I woke up with snakes for hair and the ability to turn people to stone. I owe the bastard."
"You'll have to talk to Lieutenant Castle about that. He's also a prince, by the way."
"You need me." Medusa said, heading for the wicker cabinet. She pulled out a blanket and began wrapping things in it. "The next stop on the Great South Road is the mine at Tollas Kervin. It's a Dwarven mine. I have a key to the mine. The dwarves hate having keys out there they can't control, so they'll trade."
"Trade for what?" Ryan asked.
"A key to the Magical Gate of Severand. It's goes right across the road. On either side are what looks like banks of fog. Seeing them. You'd think you could just go around them, but if you try, they just start extending. You can't go around the gate. If you go into the fog, you never come out. Well, a few people over the years have come out back where they started, but most never came out. People have tried everything. Tie a rope around yourself to find your way back and the rope gets cut, same with chains. People have tried to build a bridge over the fog, but it just goes higher into the air. If you try to climb over the gate itself, it just grows higher as you climb. No, you need a key to the gate."
When Medusa was done packing everything she needed into the blanket, she rolled it up and tied up each end. She put the roll over her left shoulder and tied the two ends of the blanket by her right hip.
"Let's go, Kevin."
"Lieutenant Castle, Ryan's coming back. He has some blonde with him." Said Pappy Brown.
"Any snakes in her hair?"
"Not a one."
Castle and Bravin, closely followed by Kate and Ann went to see who Ryan was bringing in. Behind them were their RTOs, Kemper and Gregory. Tagging along was Sergeant Willmoes, the second in command of the LRRP team. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses which he hoped might save him if things turned to shit. Or at least give him enough time to unload on this Medusa with his Stoner light machine gun.
"Did you take care of Medusa?" Castle asked.
"This is her, minus the snakes and the nasty glare."
Ryan explained what had happened, why Medusa wanted to come with them and how she could help.
"Okay, as long as she doesn't go along turning people into statues, she can come with us." Castle checked his watch. "We were up most of the night, worrying about what might happen. We'll rest today and head out tomorrow."
As everyone walked away, Castle stopped Willmoes.
"I've never seen a weapon like that. Tell me about it."
"It's a Stoner 63, designed by Eugene Stoner, the same guy who designed the AR 15 for Armalite which eventually became the M16. He came up with a weapon that could be changed around with different barrels and other parts to be either a carbine, a rifle, a squad automatic weapon or a belt fed light machine gun. Interesting idea, but it's too complex due to all the parts involved, but I like it."
"How'd you get this one?"
"The Army bought some for Special Forces troops. I borrowed this one from a guy."
"Does he know you borrowed it?"
Willmoes just smiled.
Ryan showed Medusa around. She was fascinated by the iron wagons and the flying machines.
"Kevin, I'm sure you'll demolish the awful Wizard of Dok."
"I sure as hell hope so."
It took another day to reach the mine at Tollas Kervin which was a good mile off of the Great South Road, but easy to get to. Medusa stopped them in front of a solid rock wall.
"Is the mine around here?" Castle asked.
"The entrance is right in front of us."
Medusa hopped down off of Castle's command track and took out a very large iron key. She ran it over the rock face and suddenly a keyhole appeared.
"It's protected by magic, of course, but the key found the keyhole."
Part of the rock wall slid silently back.
"Shit. It's too small to get an ACAV through." Castle said.
"We'll manage." Kate said.
Once the door was fully open, they saw there were hundreds of armed dwarves inside. To Castle they looked exactly how fairy tale dwarves should look. Not one was over five feet tall, but they were very stocky. He was sure the smallest one was over two hundred pounds. And they were all armed and armored. They wore mail coats and were armed with swords, axes, maces, spears and bows.
"Who are you to open the door of Tollas Kervin?" Bellowed a dwarf with a huge, bushy blond beard.
"Sven, it's me, Medusa. Remember?"
"You're not turning people into stone anymore?"
"Have I turned your people into stone? I'm looking at all of you." She put her arm around Ryan. "This handsome, brave soldier reversed the curse. I'm just fine."
"So, why did you drop by?"
"This company of adventurers is going after the Wizard of Dok, the bastard who gave me snake hair and all the rest. The Wizard kidnapped Queen Johanna, wife of King James XVII who rules…"
"We know who he is." Sven interrupted.
"I'd like to trade the key to Tollas Kervin for a key to the Magical Gate of Severand. They'll need it to get to the Wizard."
"I assume you also with to hire some of us to fight for you since you obviously have no weapons."
"We have plenty of weapons. And better weapons than yours." Castle said quickly.
"Better than ours?" Roared Sven. "Nonsense! We dwarves are the finest makers of weapons and armor anywhere."
"Suppose we give you a little demonstration." Bravin said, seeing some mining materials nearby. "Can you loan us a helmet and a mail coat you won't mind us destroying and let us borrow some of those mine timbers and sandbags."
"Of course." Sven said. "But you'll never be able to damage dwarven armor. It's the best."
The assembled dwarves roared their approval of Sven's statement.
"Dwarven armor and weapons are the best!" They chanted.
"Williams, will you go get your Dragunov? And Reddick, set up your M60 right here. The rest of my platoon, help me with the timbers and sandbags."
They were in a large hall that seemed to go on for quite a way. Bravin noticed that the floor was paved in blocks of stone that seemed to be one yard square. He paced off two hundred and fifty yards and then had his men set up the mail shirt and helmet on two thick timbers, held upright by sandbags.
Bravin went back and called Williams and Reddick to him.
"The armor and helmet are about two hundred and fifty yards away. Williams, shoot from the prone position on my order and aim for the helmet. Reddick, you'll fire from the prone position when I order you two to fire. Any questions?"
"How much damage do you want us to do?"
"Wreck them."
The two men smiled.
When the two men assumed the prone position, the dwarves laughed, commenting that there was no way the men could swing their clumsy clubs hard enough to injure anyone.
"Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready on the firing line?" Bravin said. "Fire."
The noise of the weapons, especially the machine gun shocked the dwarves. What shocked them more was that they could see tracer rounds from the machine gun going through the mail coat.
Finally, Bravin ordered a cease firing. He turned to Sven.
"Would you like to have your people bring your armor back here so we can all see what it looks like?"
No dwarf had ever seen such damage done to their armor before.
"Your weapons are…amazing." Sven said. "You have no need of my people to destroy the evil Wizard."
"One other thing." Castle said. "If you'll check our vehicles outside, you'll find we have heavier, much heavier weapons."
"Now that that's over," Medusa said, "let's trade keys and we'll be off."
"Yes, the key to the Magical Gate of Severand. There's a slight problem. Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure."
"What problem?" Castle asked.
"The key is in the lower depths of the mine."
"So? We can go downstairs if we have to."
"We have an infestation of snakes in the lower depths."
TBC