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.
"What do you have to trade?" Castle asked.
"You wouldn't need more spears by any chance, would you?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Aren't you from the Valley that King James XVII rules? That's a long way from here."
"I'm Princess Katherine and this is my husband, Prince Richard. My mother, Queen Johanna was kidnapped by the Wizard of Dok. We're going to free her."
The furry fellow smiled.
"Then you'd want to get to Skull Mountain as quickly as possible, wouldn't you?"
"Do you know a quicker way than the Great South Road?" Kate quickly asked.
"Indeed, we do."
"What do you want?"
"Ten, no twenty, of those wonderful ham and lima bean rations. For each of us."
"Done." Rick said. "Come and get them. Line up. We'll do this in an orderly manner."
Rick doled out ham and lima bean C rations from a cardboard carton on the roof of his track. Thanks to Queen Johanna's magic, as soon as one ration was removed, another took its place. Soon everyone had their rations.
"May we ride on your iron wagons?"
"If you're going to lead us you should probably get on the first two tanks. The first two vehicles."
The rabbit people jumped on and led the column away from the Great South Road. In less than a mile they came upon some dense undergrowth. The tanks crashed right through it and in another mile, they came upon another road exactly like the one they'd left. This one ran straight through a forest of tall, broad trees.
"This road will save you two days travel time." Yelled the leader of the rabbit people." We'll stay with you until you get withing sight of Skull Mountain."
They stopped before sunset. The helicopters managed to set down between the trees, but the command had to set up for the night in one long column.
It was just getting dark when Sergeant Ryan saw her. She was combing her long dark hair and was wearing a grey cloak over a green dress. He saw that her eyes were red from crying.
"Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints." He said.
"What is it?" Ann asked.
Castle ran to where the two were and looked.
"A woman?"
"Not a woman. A banshee."
Just then, the banshee began a long, drawn-out keening wail. It seemed to cut through the members of the column to their very souls.
"I've heard the word, but what is she?" Rick asked.
"A banshee wails when someone dies or is about to die."
Castle looked around and saw the Catholics in his command were crossing themselves, others were praying silently and even Sergeant Tranh's Buddhists were fingering their charms.
Then, the wailing stopped and the woman, or banshee, was gone.
"Obart, do you know anything about…whatever that was?"
"No, Prince Richard. Whatever it is effects humans only. We find the noise unpleasant, but nothing more. Those things do not foretell deaths among our kind."
"Well, people are dying all over this planet and on God knows how many other planets. Don't worry about it." Castle said loudly, but he felt less conviction than his words would imply.
When they began the next day, they found that the trees were further back from the road. The spaces between the road and the trees were filled with small gardens. Tending the gardens were small beings, no more than three feet tall, furry, with long tails. They wore wide brimmed hats and dark bib overalls. When the column passed them, the doffed their hats and smiled. In response, the rabbit people raised their spears and smiled back.
They came upon some very thick trees.
"Hey, look, Lieutenant." Kemper said to Rick. "Someone, or something, has made wooden platforms in the branches of the trees. They have roofs over them, too. Someone lives there."
No sooner did Kemper finish than one of the dwellers came out.
"That looks like a sabretooth tiger." Rick said. "I hope they aren't planning on jumping us."
"Sir," Sergeant Esposito said, "That one is smoking a pipe. And it looks like he's wearing pants."
When they passed the next inhabited tree, two sabretooth cubs ran to the edge of the platform and waved to the column. Castle and Kate and many others waved back.
By the end of the day, they were through the forest and back on a wide plain. They settled in for the night.
The next morning, they found they had trouble.
"Smoke on the horizon, sir." Yelled Pappy Brown. "Something on fire."
Castle grabbed his binoculars and stood on his track.
"it's just a blur on the horizon from here." He said. "This grass looks pretty dry. A prairie fire could cause us problems."
"We'll need a backfire, then, sir." Said "Buffalo Bill" Williams, the sniper.
"What the hell is that?"
"Start a fire and let the wind blow it away from you. When the big fire gets to you, you can move into a spot that's already been burned and be safe. As long as you burned a big enough spot."
Castle looked behind him. He could still see the forest.
"I don't want to start a fire that'll set fire to the forest. The people, or whatever you call them that live there, could lose their homes or their lives. We'll wait."
"We call them people." Kate said softly. "Just like us."
They watched for over an hour and the dark cloud of smoke got closer, but no bigger.
"I think it's coming towards us. Maybe like an old coal fired locomotive." Rick said. "I'm damned sure it isn't a grass fire."
It wasn't.
"What the hell is that?" Rick asked.
"I've heard that the Wizard has a giant mechanical man propelled by steam. That must be it."
"It's a giant all right. It must be fifty feet tall. But it's slow. Real slow."
And slow it was. The giant would take a step, then halt, there would be a whirring sound and after a minute or so, he'd lift the other foot off the ground and place it in front to the other foot. There'd be more whirring and after another minute or two, the whole process would be repeated.
"We could outrun that thing on foot. Hell, we could outwalk that thing." Castle thought for a moment. "Does it have any weapons?"
"I don't know."
When it got about two hundred yards away, they found it did have weapons. It raised its right arm and fired an iron ball, about the size of a bowling ball at the column. The round hit in front of the column and ricocheted across the prairie, grazing an ACAV, but doing no more harm than scratching the paint.
Castle got on the radio.
"Tanks, open fire. Everybody, move away from the thing and don't bunch up." He turned to Kate. "Does he have eyes or whatever in his head?"
"I think so."
"Everyone open fire on its head. Try to blind it."
Everything from .50 caliber machine guns to pistols were fired at the head but seemed to do no good.
The tanks fired armor piercing rounds at the chest of the iron man, but these didn't penetrate. Explosive rounds did no better.
"Tanks!" Castle yelled. "Aim for the knee joints. Aim for the joint on our left."
The giant machine took two more steps and then, as it put down its left leg, the leg collapsed slightly to the right, stopping the giant for a minute.
"Keep firing at that knee."
The machine stopped moving but moved the upper part of its body to continue to fire at the tanks. One round hit Pappy Brown's tank and ricocheted off but ringing the tank's turret like a bell. But the next round from Brown's tank severed the knee joint and the huge machine slowly toppled backwards and landed on its back. It still kept firing, but its arm was jammed in a position that would only allow it to fire straight up.
"Tanks! Concentrate your fire on the gun. Knock it out."
A half a dozen tank rounds later, the machine's gun stopped firing.
Castle had his tanks blow off both legs of the machine and had them towed far away.
"Any wounded?" He asked over the radio.
"Ruiz got his bell rung by a hit to the turret, but he should be okay." Was the first reply.
"PFC Ky, one of the Kit Carson Scouts, is dead." Sergeant Wiggins reported. "One of the rounds that hit a tank shattered and part of it took off his head."
"Does anyone know anything about Buddhist last rites? Sergeant Tranh?"
"Ky was raised in a Catholic village. I suspect he was still Catholic."
"I can handle the burial, as well as anyone." Sergeant Ryan said. "I guess the banshee did wail for a Catholic about to die."
Ky was buried and when the dirt was piled over his grave, Castle and the vehicles drive over the grave to tamp the dirt down solidly.
"I don't want any animals digging him up and eating him."
An hour later they came over a rise and saw Skull Mountain ahead of them.
"That can't be a natural formation." Rick said.
"Probably not." Kate agreed." But we're here."
He scanned the mountain with his binoculars.
"There's a road that leads right up to the Skull's mouth. I'm pretty sure we can drive the armor right in, but I doubt the Hueys can fly in."
He had the choppers land, and the aero-rifle platoon were loaded onto the armored vehicles. With the choppers circling above, they drove up the road and through the mouth of the Skull.
The inside was vast and light shining through the eyes was enough to see by.
"There are smaller passageways leading out of here. We'll dismount except for the tanks, the mortar track and one ACAV. Then we'll just pick a direction and go."
"Silence." Kate said. "I hear something."
They all did.
"A piano?" Rick said.
"Yes, coming from that passageway."
Kate took off down the passageway as fast as she could run. Rick caught up with her and grabbed her around the waist.
"Let's not just run into something we know nothing about, okay?"
Kate looked like she was going to argue, but then nodded.
The went carefully down the passageway and came to another large chamber. This one was lit by hundreds of magical candles, making the chamber as light as day. There, sitting at the piano was a tall, slender brunette. Sitting in a comfortable chair watching her was a tall, swarthy man dressed in a plaid three-piece suit and wearing a top hat.
"Mother! What are you doing here?" Kate screamed.
"Why, playing the piano. Do you think I should try the violin?" She pointed to one on a table nearby. "But what are you doing here, Katie?"
"We came to rescue you!" Kate yelled.
"You did. That's very sweet of you, but it really wasn't necessary."
"It wasn't necessary!" Kate exploded.
"Perhaps I should explain what happened." Queen Johanna said.
"That'd be a very good idea." Rick said.
"I was grabbed by the minions of Joshua Davidson, here. While he has some very powerful magic in some ways, he's quite deficient in others. All together he was no match for me."
"And now you're playing piano for him?" Kate said, barely controlling herself.
"Oh, not for him. I'm working on a spell to send him back to where he came from. Somewhere much like where Rick is from. It's called Iowa in the year 1880. He just came through a simple trans-dimensional space-time rift, but I just can't seem to get the spell right."
"You want to send him back to this Iowa?"
"Yes, you see he's…Why don't you tell them, Joshua?"
Joshua Davidson stood and doffed his hat.
"Your Highness, ladies, gentlemen, I'm Josh Davidson. I refer to myself as Doctor Davidson, a Doctor of Medicine, a Doctor of Philosophy and a Doctor of Divinity. However, I fear I never got past the sixth grade. I'm very much afraid that I've lived a life of crime. I sold medicines that did no good and probably harmed people. I ran crooked gambling games. I borrowed money with no intent of paying it back. I stole. I seduced innocent young women. In short, I did anything and everything to get what I wanted in life."
He sighed.
"I also did magic. Sleight of hand, and such. To my surprise, when I arrived here, I found I could actually do magic."
"And you want to send him back?" Rick asked.
"Yes. You see, Joshua has changed. Or I should say, I changed him."
Davidson nodded sadly.
"I'm afraid that when I go back, I'll be incapable of committing a crime, or lying, and I won't be able to help myself from helping others. Truly a horrible way for me to live, and I'll hate every second of it, but I won't be able to help myself."
"Your Majesty?" Master Sean said. "Have you thought of using both the violin and piano?"
"Why what a wonderful Idea, Master Sean. Will you accompany me?"
Master Sean picked up the violin and they both began to play. Suddenly, they could see musical notes flying through the air. The notes soon turned into a golden circle. Davidson bowed to Queen Johanna and walked into the circle and was gone.
"Mother, does this mean you can send Rick back to his Vietnam?"
"Oh, no, dear. Meredith the Mad's spell was far, far more complicated than the one I just used. I'm still a long way from that."
Both Rick and Kate silently hoped that Queen Johanna never mastered that spell.
"Now that I've mastered this spell, I can use it to take us all back to our home."
"If all we have to do is click our heels together and say, "There's no place like home.", I'll be really upset."
"You have the oddest ideas for spells." Kate said.
They all went back outside of Skull Mountain and Queen Johanna made a much, much larger golden circle. They all went through and found themselves looking at King James' castle and home.
"It'll be good to sleep in our own bed tonight." Rick said.
"Who says you'll be getting any sleep?" Kate retorted.
"There's no place like home."
The End
Author's note: As some of you may know, I sometimes use the names of real people in my stories. This time it's personal. My friend 1Lt Joseh S. Bravin was killed in action on September 18, 1968 in Quang Tri Province while serving with 1/5 Cavalry, Ist Cavalry Division. I hope that some alternate universe version of Joe is living on another Earth with a beautiful blonde and is fighting evil. Garryowen!
Next up is my annual Christmas Story, Christmas Island. Christmas comes but once a year. Right?