“I’m here! And I’m fine,” Frederic said as he ran up to them.
“You’re all right? What happened?” Gustav asked. “Where’s the giant?”
“Okay, so it turned out that Reese—that’s the giant—he made the dummy that’s up in that cell in the tower. He didn’t want the witch to find out Ella had escaped,” Frederic explained. “Oh, new person! Frederic of Harmonia, at your service. And you are?”
“Snow White,” she replied.
“Well, that’s a pleasant surprise.”
“Ooh! That reminds me…,” Duncan said.
“And, oh my goodness, is that the dragon?” Frederic asked with a start.
Frank shoved his way in between Duncan and Snow White. “Don’t worry about her,” Frank said with a satisfied grin. “That dragon is ours now.”
“Oh, you fellows are here, too?” Frederic said. “I missed a lot, huh?”
“Yes, Frederic,” Duncan said. “And most importantly—”
“Not now,” Frederic interrupted. “I’ve got to tell you this story. So the giant is terrified of the witch. He’s afraid she’d do something terrible to him if she found out Ella was gone, something involving bacon. I didn’t quite follow that part. But anyway, when I explained to him that Liam had found the dummy and that he was in the tower right now, probably talking to the witch about it—”
“Frederic,” Duncan interrupted urgently.
“Just a moment! So I convinced Reese that he should run away and go into hiding. But he was certain the witch would hunt him down if he did, so I told him he should try to fool her again with a dummy of himself. He fancies himself a fabulous sculptor. Soooooo…” He led them toward the front of the tower and motioned to a large something sitting out in the meadow. “That’s the giant.”
An enormous pine tree had been stripped of all but two large branches, which stuck out to either side like a pair of arms. There was a crude face carved into the trunk near the top—two dots for eyes and a crooked slash for a mouth. Several dead yaks were piled onto the treetop for hair. And the tree was wearing the giant’s shirt.
“Does that mean the giant’s running around half-naked?” Gustav asked with a shudder.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Frederic!” Duncan shouted. Normally, his friend’s story would have held him rapt with attention, but he could no longer wait to break his news. “Ella’s inside!”
“Really? Ella’s here?”
“She got captured again by the witch,” Duncan said. “Liam did, too.”
“Where are they?” Frederick asked.
“Based on the crazy lights I’m seeing up there,” Gustav said, pointing to the tip of the observatory tower, “I’d say top floor.”
“Well, what are we standing here for?” Frederic said. “Let’s go.”
“I’m right behind you,” Gustav said. The two of them ran to the doors of the fortress. Frederic called back, “Duncan, are you coming?”
Duncan glanced from his friends to his wife, who was vigorously shaking her head. Those other princes were his first real friends. He’d imagined the four of them as old men, laughing together about their past escapades. It was one of the happiest daydreams he’d had in years. But Snow was his wife. And the first person to ever treat him with respect.
“I don’t think I can,” Duncan said sorrowfully.
“It’s okay,” Frederic said. “I understand. Really. You’ve been a good friend, Duncan.”
Frederic and Gustav entered the tower, ready for anything. But perhaps they would have chosen to stay with Duncan if they’d known the title of the next chapter.
28
PRINCE CHARMING IS DOOMED
This is the second time in two days that I’ve been tied to something, and I’m getting a little sick of it,” Liam complained. Magical purple vines bound both him and Ella to black marble pillars in Zaubera’s sky-high observatory.
“Well, this is the third witch’s tower I’ve been in this month,” Ella commiserated from the pillar next to Liam.
“No talking, you two,” Zaubera scolded. She was at her desk, hurriedly sketching final details onto a diagram she’d titled, “The Grand Demise of Cinderella and Prince Charming.”
“What’s the matter, witch? Can’t concentrate?” Liam asked.
“Have no fear, Handsome. I’m fully capable of focusing on more than one thing at a time,” Zaubera replied without looking up. “Case in point: I’m carrying on a conversation with you, diagramming your doom, and using my unmatched mental strength to keep you two tied up nice and tight. Go ahead—try to wriggle free of my vines.”
Liam and Ella both struggled against their bindings but were unable to budge them. “We’ve got to do something to rattle her or we’ll never get out of here,” Liam whispered to Ella.
“I’ve got excellent hearing, too,” Zaubera singsonged.
“Why don’t you just zap us and be done with it?” Ella asked.
“Who would that impress?” the witch responded. With a sprightly energy that belied her age, Zaubera popped up from her seat and ran over to show Liam and Ella the new drawing she’d just finished. “See this? This will be remembered.”
Liam and Ella couldn’t quite decipher the complicated diagram, but what they could glean from it terrified them. Apparently, the witch planned to tie the two of them to the top of her observatory’s spire so they’d be in full view of—but utterly unreachable to—anybody who approached the fortress. According to the sketch, Zaubera was expecting huge amounts of people to charge the stronghold. She’d labeled them simply “heroes.” And whichever side they approached from, they’d be met with a grisly and certain doom. Rockslides would crush anyone coming from the east; those to the north would be tossed about and dashed into pieces by spontaneous tornadoes; people on the southern side would be engulfed in a wall of flame; and intruders from the west would be fried by a seemingly endless chain of lightning.
“We’re just the bait,” Liam said, horrified.
‘That’s right, genius,” Zaubera said. “It’s going to be spectacular. Just to be clear, though, I am going to kill you two as well. At the end.”
“Why are you doing this?” Ella asked.
“I hate heroes,” the witch said. “You think you’re better than everyone else. You think you can steal everybody else’s thunder? I’m finally going to get the fame I deserve. And I’m going to do it by destroying as many obnoxious heroes as I can. And it will be laughably easy. Because I know heroes. Whenever there’s a problem somewhere, you people think you’re the only ones who can save the day. You can’t help yourselves. You see a chance at glory and you rush headlong into it. Once I tell the world that I’ve kidnapped the most famous couple in the world, all I have to do is sit back and wait for the heroes to show up. And when they do, I will destroy them all. Because they will underestimate me and overestimate themselves. I will sit up here and pick them off long before they ever touch my fortress’s walls. And they’ll keep coming.”
Liam twisted and wiggled the fingers of his right hand until he was able to pull out one of the scrolls stuffed into his side pants pocket.
“One problem, witch: No one knows you’ve got us,” he said triumphantly. “Because we intercepted your ransom notes.”
Zaubera’s thin lips curled into a cold grin. “Oh, those notes got delivered to precisely the right people,” she said. “They were meant for you to read.”
Liam was speechless.
“As soon as I found out you were Prince Charming, I knew I had to have you for my grand finale. That courier you thought you were so lucky to catch? I had him follow your tracks from here and told him to make sure you four got the notes. I figured you would behave like typically predictable heroes and run straight back. Thank you for proving me right. Now I’ve got you as my extra-special bonus prisoner, and your three friends are no doubt dying outside as we speak. They’ll still be too stupid to run off for help. Am I wrong?”
Liam said nothin
g, his head hung low. How had he miscalculated so badly? Everything he’d done in the past two days played right into the witch’s hands. He was a failure.
“Besides,” said Zaubera. “Did you really think I’d announce my plot to the world with anything as mundane as handwritten notes? Watch this. The show’s about to begin.”
The witch made a few quick hand gestures and the observatory’s conical roof opened up above them, revealing a cloudless sky. Then, pumping her arms in the air, she launched a series of intensely bright sparks upward through the hole in the ceiling. It seemed to go on for minutes. Liam and Ella shut their eyes tight to keep out the blinding light. When the crackling sound stopped, they opened their eyes again and looked upward. There was a message, written in fire across the sky: CINDERELLA AND PRINCE CHARMING ARE MINE.
Thanks to the central location of the Orphaned Wastes, the enormous fiery letters could be seen from nearly every part of the five kingdoms that surrounded it. Throughout Sturmhagen, Sylvaria, Avondell, Harmonia, and Erinthia, people were scrambling in a panic. No one knew who had sent the message, but they knew it was obviously a magic-user of incredible power—and they had no reason to doubt what she said. And just as Zaubera had hoped, heroes everywhere snapped into action. Knights donned their armor; rangers filled their quivers and tossed their bows over their shoulders. Soldier readied their lances, warriors sharpened their swords, swashbucklers buckled their swashes. In a matter of time, they would all converge on Mount Batwing.
“Her plan’s going to work,” Liam said in a resigned tone.
“Why do you say that?” Ella asked, frustrated.
“Because she’s right,” Liam said. “There are loads of people out there who consider themselves heroes, and they’re going to come. I would.”
“Well, snap out of your funk, hero,” Ella said. “Because you and I need to get out of here and stop her before anybody else shows up.”
“You’re right,” Liam said. “We should have several hours at least. Maybe even until morning. We need to get out of these vines before then.”
“Ooh-hoo-hoo!” Zaubera howled gleefully. She was standing over by the observatory’s big westward-facing window. “First guests have arrived! And it’s an entire army. I have to say, that was even faster than I expected.”
“Impossible,” Liam muttered. He and Ella glanced out the west window. Men on horses—hundreds of them—were rising up over a distant hill, riding fast toward the fortress. They couldn’t be more than twenty minutes away.
“But how?” Liam asked.
“I’m sorry, Liam,” Ella said. “I sort of sent your sister for help. That would be Erinthia’s army.”
“Is Lila with them?” Liam gasped.
Ella tried to shrug, but the vines had suddenly tightened to a point where they didn’t even allow that much movement. Zaubera was dashing about in a wild fury, taking quick peeks through all of the observatory’s other windows.
She scrambled to the east-facing window and, without really looking, called out, “Reese, we’ve got an early curtain! Ready the props!” The tree she was speaking to, of course, did nothing.
Zaubera then ran to the northern window and yelled, “Bards, take your places!” Liam and Ella heard the bards whimpering outside as the purple vines dragged the songwriters to perches along the fortress walls.
The witch zipped to the southward window and grumbled. “Where are those bandits? No-shows, eh? Oh well, I was just going to kill them when I was done anyway.”
She turned back to the center of the room. “And now for the stars,” Zaubera said.
The witch twirled her hands. Liam and Ella struggled fruitlessly against their bindings as the animated vines slithered around them both, peeling them from the black stone pillars and lifting them upward toward the opening in the ceiling. Zaubera checked on the approaching army again and saw that the soldiers were being led by a golden coach.
“Excellent,” the witch purred. “We’ve got royalty in the house.”
Lila! Liam thought. “You don’t need to do this,” he begged. “Kill me if you must, but leave the people out there alone.”
“So chivalrous,” Zaubera mocked. “Can’t bear the thought of others being harmed, can you? That’s why it will be so much fun to make you watch their deaths.”
“No,” Liam wheezed, as the vines squeezed the breath out of him.
That was when he heard the familiar sound of Gustav’s growl. The bald and burly prince bounded up from the stairwell and rushed toward Zaubera with his sword drawn. The witch quickly worked up another ball of blue energy and hurled it at him.
“Gustav, this was all a trap!” Liam yelled. “She’s going to kill that army out there! My sister’s with them! Duck!” Gustav ducked. The glowing blue orb sailed over the prince’s head and blasted a hole right through the northern wall of the tower. Orange sunlight poured into the observatory as bricks, debris, and hundreds of rejected doom-plan diagrams rained down onto the lawn below.
As dust and smoke filled the air, Frederic appeared at the top of the steps.
“Frederic!” Ella called. Frederic had imagined this moment—him running to Ella with open arms, calling her name—but being as winded as he was, doubled over with his hands on his knees, all he could do was nod in her general direction.
Gustav set upon the witch, repeatedly slashing at her with his sword. Zaubera dodged the blows but seemed to be struggling.
“Not so good fighting in close quarters, eh, old lady?” Gustav taunted as he kept on swinging.
“Ella, I can’t believe you’re here,” Frederic called up as he attempted to cut the magical bindings that held her and Liam suspended halfway through the hole in the roof.
“My sword’s doing nothing to these vines,” he said.
“She controls them with her mind,” Ella said.
“Frederic, we need to break her concentration,” Liam said.
“She’s in a wrestling match with Gustav—that’s not breaking her concentration?”
“She’s incredibly powerful,” Liam stressed. “We need to really break her concentration. And fast.” He looked westward. The army was getting closer. Ten minutes, tops.
“Gustav will do it,” Frederic said. “Look, the witch is starting to flag. You know she’ll tire out before Gustav. Nothing stops Gustav.”
Frederic was right. Zaubera was slowing down. Gustav finally managed to land a blow against her. His sword sliced through the witch’s gown of rags and into her left arm, drawing blood.
Liam tried the vines again, but they were still tight.
“Man, she’s tough,” he groused.
Gustav landed another slicing blow across Zaubera’s shoulder. The witch stumbled backward and braced herself against the eastern windowsill.
“You’re done, old lady!” Gustav roared as he advanced on her. But before he could strike a third time, he spied something outside that stopped him cold. “You’re kidding me,” he said. “My brothers?”
Zaubera grabbed Gustav with her uninjured right hand, lifted him over her head, and threw him clear across the room. The brawny prince’s body smashed into a marble column. Gustav slid to the floor with a thud.
“I miss my armor,” he groaned.
Zaubera turned to look out the window behind her. Gustav’s brothers were weaving their way around the base of Mount Batwing. They’d be at the fortress in six or seven minutes. “Well, well,” the witch said as she wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “A whole gaggle of princes. That’s priceless.”
Frederic hacked wildly at the vines, but to no avail. “I’m so sorry,” he panted. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Zaubera licked her colorless lips as she cracked her knuckles and formed a huge ball of sparking blue energy between her hands. It was triple the size of any of the magic bolts they’d yet seen her throw.
Suddenly a strangely melodious sound rose from the top of the stairwell, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Wi
ld card!” Duncan sang as he pranced into the center of the room. Zaubera’s ball of energy fizzled out as she stared, agape, at the newcomer. “Check it out, witch! Meat!” Duncan exclaimed as he opened a damp burlap sack, whipped out a muskrat steak, and chucked it at Zaubera. The slab of stinky meat slapped into her forehead—thwap!—and slid to the floor, leaving a trail of viscous grease and greenish chunks of fat along the witch’s puzzled face. It was an attack that was so unexpected, so … stupid, that it left Zaubera completely flummoxed.
“Ack!” she barked, as she tried to wipe the gooey muskrat fat from her eyes. In a panic, the witch shot fireballs and lightning bolts blindly around the room. One shattered a pair of magic mirrors on the wall. Another sizzled her black cat (What? You thought she didn’t have one?). A third almost hit Gustav, but instead sent a series of cracks coursing through the pillar he was hiding behind.
The fourth blast smashed directly into Duncan. It lifted him off his feet and sent him careening backward. Daring Duncan, Prince of Sylvaria, sailed through the gaping hole in the tower’s back wall, out into thin air, and plummeted out of sight.
Everybody stared in horror at the empty space where Duncan had just been—including Zaubera, who, with grease in her eyes, hadn’t actually seen what happened to him. It was during that moment, when the only sound was that of brick and tile dropping to the floor, that Liam made a crucial discovery. He felt the ivy around his chest give.
“The vines!” he whispered. “They’re loose! Duncan did it! He finally broke her focus!”
Frederic swung with all his might and chopped through Ella’s vines at last. She tumbled to the floor and Frederic helped her untangle herself. Ella touched her palm to Frederic’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you,” before grabbing his sword and rushing to cut down Liam.
By that point, Zaubera had managed to gather herself. She noticed Frederic and Ella freeing Liam and raised her arm in their direction.