CHAPTER FIVE: THE PRINCE.
He opens his eyes, mists swirls around him and through his mind. He blinks, the mist clears from his eyes, but his mind remains fogged. He looks around him in the dim light; he sees damp stonewalls carved from the rock itself. His limbs feel so weak, he moves them with an effort to see further around himself, he hears the chink of chains and feels the cold cutting metal against his wrists and ankles.
“Oh thank God, you’re awake,” exclaims an overexcited voice near by. “Can you believe this, we’re trapped in an actual dungeon.” Ayden sits up and looks towards where the voice is coming from. “I mean look at this place, its like a horror film set but real, I mean its carved out of rock and have you seen these iron bars?”
In the cell next to him is a young boy, dressed in baggy green trousers and a red and black striped hooded top with a shock of blonde hair standing out from his head in all directions as if it had never seen a hairbrush. His dark eyes are wide with astonishment as he starts climbing and shaking the bars of his cell door. “Just how thick are these bars, and really strong, they don’t budge an inch, they’re really serious. Wow, look at you, you’ve got pointy ears just how cool is that. Can you hear really well with them or are they just to look cool?” Ayden reached up and touched his ears as if he’d never realised they were there before, continuing to stare at the boy in wonderment. “And what were those green creatures that caught us, they had pointy ears too, hey you’re not one of them are you?” Ayden shook his head, and opened his mouth to respond but the boy had barely stopped for breath. “No, I guess not really otherwise they wouldn’t have locked you up too and you aren’t really ugly like them. I mean just how gross do they look?”
He starts walking around his cell doing orc impressions, pulling faces and making noises. Ayden continued to look at him in amazement, he was obviously a teenage human, and this was the first time he’d encountered this world, but his reaction to it was most unusual. He didn’t seem at all scared, which is what he would have expected really. He broke off from his orc impressions and came over to the bars in-between their cells. “So are you okay? You’ve been out cold for a while. I’m really sorry about crashing into you earlier, I always go too fast on my skateboard and it was getting dark, I didn’t really expect anyone to be there. Stupid thing to do really, but about right for me really, if there is a stupid thing to do you can bet I’ll do it; it is kind of my forte. I guess this is all my fault then really isn’t it, if I hadn’t crashed into you and knocked you out those things wouldn’t have got you. Sorry. How come you’ve got chains on and I haven’t? Are you really strong, or are they really scared of you or are you really important? I’m really glad you’re awake now thou. I was starting to get bored.”
Ayden really didn’t know what to make of this boy who did not pause for breathe, and didn’t seem to really need an answer to any of his questions.
“Are you okay?” he managed to ask. “This must be all a bit of a surprise for you.”
“Oh I’m fine,” he answered off-handedly. “I like surprises, and this one takes the biscuit.”
“My name’s Ayden.”
“I’m Jack. This place is so cool; really it is, however I think I might really get a bit bored of it before too long. I hope those orcs come back, how wicked are they? Would you like a sweet?” He says pulling several packets of brightly coloured sweets out of his pockets and chewing some in rapid succession. He peered closer at Ayden “So what are you exactly? You’re not like me are you? I mean you’re not human with those ears and eyes are you?”
Just then the heavy iron studded door at the far end of the hollowed out cave they were imprisoned in started to open. Jack jumped up and went to look through his cell bars.
“Ohh goody visitors,” he exclaimed. A group of four orcs entered, not dressed in hoodies anymore but in their more usual collection of leather and tarnished armour each carrying a heavy-looking weapon of some description, pole arm or club-like sword.
“Oooh look at them,” exclaimed Jack in wonderment, Ayden gave him a sideways look, he really was quite peculiar. “Look at those ears and those pointy teeth and just how big are those yellow eyes. Oh look at that one his arms almost touch the ground. They are just amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it, they are just so ugly.”
“Who you call ugly pipsqueak?” growled one of the Orcs grabbing Jack by his shirt almost lifting him off the ground and pressing him towards the bars.
“Well you’re all pretty ugly, but on consideration,” he glances at the others. “I think you just might be the ugliest.” The Orc sneers at him. “I think it’s your nose that gives you the edge, the way is hangs nearly all the way over your mouth, and you’re really got some quite impressive warts on it.”
“Shut up, runt.”
“Now I know how you’re teeth got to be such an interesting colour. You so really need to floss or something, you’re breathe just stinks, really it does. I’m amazed you’ve still got so many pointy teeth.”
“Can’t you shut up?”
“No. Apparently not. You must be really strong to keep holding me up all this time too, your arm’s not even shaking.”
The Orc growls at him and flings him to the floor.
“Wow, just how fearsome was that growl?” said Jack trying to imitate it. “It was really throaty and deep with a real edge to it.”
“One more word maggot, I cut out tongue.”
“Good threat, I’ll try and keep quiet,” said Jack sitting down and making a zipping motion across his mouth. He fidgets for a minute and the orcs go over to Ayden’s cell. “Your grammar is just rubbish you know. Did you not go to school or something? I tell you my teachers certainly wish I hadn’t. Could you imagine me in a classroom all day.”
The Orc roars at him and bangs his cell door. “Keys now,” he shouts to another of the orcs who bring them over and unlock the door. The orc draws a dull curved knife from his belt. “Get him.”
“Leave him alone,” shouts Ayden. “He’s just a boy.”
“You shut up as well or you get same treatment.”
“He’s not one of us. He’s got nothing to do with this.”
The orc with the keys ignores him and goes into the cell; Jack backs up against the wall and says in a concerned voice. “Hey I can’t help it this is just how I am, I can’t help it if I’ve got a mouth that can’t shut up, but don’t you think cutting out my tongue is a bit extreme. Haven’t you guys heard of gaffa tape… its worked in the past.”
The orc grabs hold of him dragging him out of the cell door to stand in front of the orc with the knife now leering at Jack with a twisted smile on his face. Jack starts to look afraid and the orc holding him grabs hold of his jaw forcing his mouth open. The orc produces a pair of pincers from his belt and flex them in front of Jack’s eyes, his smile widening. Jack looks from the pincers to the knife.
“This is all looking a bit professional. You’ve done this before haven’t you? Wow look at that knife, I mean I can see it’s really sharp from this distance, despite how rusty it is, and look at all those nicks in it. Is that blood on it as well? Wow that is one serious knife.”
“Why not shutting up?” howls the orc, disappointed as he realises the look of fear has left Jack’s face in his fascination with his knife. Still determined to go through with his threat despite the lack of pleading and screams for mercy he usually encountered, he puts the pincers into Jack’s mouth in a business like way to try and grab his tongue but his heart’s not really in it and Jack’s still talking. “I was going to get my tongue pierced as well.”
“Enough,” says a firm but soft voice from the doorway of the cave. All eyes go the darkened doorway and a tall slim figure steps into the light pausing for a moment on the threshold one arm reaching up to the top edge of the door frame as she leans against it one leg placed in front of the other. The room goes silent in contemplation of this stunning picture. The figure is dressed in a long black silky dress which trails out beh
ind her and has a ruff of feathers around her shoulders. Her vivid purple eyes blaze out of a full-face black silk mask topped with long black feathers. She laughs softly as she slowly and elegantly walks into the room. The black silk mouth of the mask, disturbingly, also laughs. She walks over to Ayden’s cell first, walking past it running her hands along the bars.
“You see I have caught you, again, I can be patient.” Her mask smiles sweetly at him. “But I seem to have caught your little friend also,” she says turning to look at Jack still held by the orcs.
“Wow, you are amazing, you must be for me to have not said anything for so long. How do you get your mask to move like that, it’s really cool?”
Ayden interrupts him. “Let him go, he has nothing to do with us, he’s just a boy. I’d never even seen him before tonight.”
“Do you always wear a mask or are you having a party or something? Is it just a monster boss thing to do to wear a mask? Or have you got scars or a hideous disfigurement underneath it?”
“Silence,” she snaps angrily, pointing a long black fingernail at him. Jack is silent. Much to his puzzlement. She walks up to him and gently strokes a tuft of his hair with a smile on her mask.
“But from what I understand, “ she says sweetly turning back to Ayden. “It was him that helped capture you, my incompetent minions came upon you by happy chance and it would appear this boy also arrived by a happy chance for me.” She smiles sweetly down at Jack, twisting the tuft of hair and pulling it sharply, Jack pulls a face. “He has seen too much now for me to allow him to go back to his own world, you should have come quietly and then he would not have been involved and he would have seen nothing of our world.” She releases Jack’s hair turning back to Ayden.
“Oww. That really hurt are you an expert hair puller or something? I tell you you’ve got nothing on seven-year old girls.” She looks back sharply at him, her body rigid. “You are an evil lady in a really scary way. “
“Why thank you,” she replies with a smile.
“Did you have to study to be so creepy or does it just come naturally?”
She turns to the orcs. “I think tongue is off the menu for the moment.” The orc with the knife lowers it looking disappointed.
“How do you get yourself a gang of scary minions anyway? Do you have to advertise or is their an agency set up for all your evil overlord needs? I mean can these guys even read if you did advertise? And I mean what do you look for in a minion? I mean this guy here obviously has the whole cut out tongues thing going for him, is it a requirement to have some sort of creepy fetish?”
“I can see why you wanted to cut out his tongue. Does he ever stop?” She looks at him in wonderment. “Why isn’t he terrified? My orcs are usually so good at that sort of thing.” She walks up to him and holds his face in her own sharp nailed hand; she towers over him, bearing down her gaze into his eyes. “Why aren’t you afraid?” she hisses at him. “Do you know what I could do to you, I am a mighty and powerful sorceress. I could turn your face inside out; I could make you think who were made of stone or a frog. I could drag your deepest fear out of you and make you face it.”
“Wow, really. That is so cool. Can you really do those things? That’s amazing.”
“Is what I’m saying to you going in, do you want a demonstration of my powers before you’re as terrified of me as you should be?”
“Look, I’m really sorry, you are doing a really good job on the scary and terrifying front especially with the mouldy green gang and I am trying really hard to be genuinely scared. But I just don’t have the attention span…sorry. I just can’t keep an idea in my head for more than five minutes, it’s very frustrating, I think for other people more than me to be honest, or that’s the general impression I get anyway. I am just too easily distracted, really. You should see me in an amusement arcade, all those flashing lights and sounds and buttons and levers. I just totally freak out.”
The sorceress continues to gaze at him in wonderment; she has never come across anyone quite like him.
“So what’s under the mask? Are you a gross monster under it, or just so beautiful that all men would go crazy if they caught a glimpse of you?”
“You are a strange creature,” she says stroking a black nail down his cheek. “I think I should keep you as a pet.”
“Cool, I think, would I have to wear a collar and lead? Would you take me for walks? Could I jump up on the bed and chairs? Hey,” he points at one of the other orcs. “Look, he can move both his eyes separately, like a chameleon, how do you do that? Can you see two separate things or just one?” The orc tries to look to see what his eyes were doing and failes. Jack laughes at him. “That is just so funny what you can do with your eyes.”
“Oi, no laugh at me,” the orc thunders, advancing towards him fists raised.
The sorceress looks meaningfully at the orcs. “I want my pet to stay in one piece and unbruised.” There is some grumbling.
“Ha, you can’t touch me, wiggly eyes,” he laughs. “Oh no, I’ve just become sorceress’s pet, I wonder if this is worse than teacher’s pet?”
The sorceress turns away from Jack baiting the orcs and goes back to Ayden. She looks at him with a small smile.
“Let him go please, you have no need of him and he can be of no harm to you.”
“Oh but he does amuse me. He is a most peculiar creature, I have never come across his like, are their more like him out in the human world, not that I’ve paid much attention to them before.”
“I have not come across his like either I must admit, but he is harmless, you loose nothing by letting him go and gain nothing by keeping him here.”
“No, he stays at least until I am bored with him.”
“You have caught me, what do you want with me?”
“I’m sure this is no surprise to you, that I want the same as last time.”
“What to take over the world, have you not tired of that ambition after all these years, all those years spent banished?”
“Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But there is the revenge aspect now of course, revenge against the meddlers, it’s a shame they’re dead already, that’s the problems with humans, such a short life span, it looks like you are the only one left. So I’ll have to make do with the pain I’ll cause you when I cast my spell. To see all the people’s of this land falling at my feet as well as those from the other lands.” She glances at Jack who is trying to poke one of the orcs pointy ears, a look of fascinated disgust on his face. “There is no one to stop me this time. An event is occurring at the perfect combination of moon and planet alignment for my spell, and it is most opportune that I have caught you just in time. It will be just marvellous.” She throws back her feathered head in a tirade of hysterical laughter, which stops suddenly, as she leans towards him. “No, quite seriously it will be.” She sweeps away from him towards the door, pausing momentarily to pat Jack on the head, and sweeps out of the door her black silk gown trailing behind her. She leaves quiet in her wake, Jack is shoved roughly back in his cell and the orcs follow her. Ayden slumps back on to the floor of his cell. Jack runs to the bars of his cell and shouts after the orcs.
“NO, don’t leave me in this cell, please let me out, I don’t want to stay in here any more, please let me out, you can’t keep me in here, please I’m begging I can’t take anymore being locked up, please. I’ll get so bored.” But his shouts are ignored, the door of the dungeon stays shut and locked. “Oh, I’ll have to find interesting shapes in the boulders again.”