Window Shopping: Kingdom Without a King- Part 10

I stepped closer to the man, immediately I felt Praesus’ hand on my shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Not knowing what to say, I said nothing at all. There was something that drew me to this man, to this prisoner. Who knew how long the Allaine’s and their cohorts had held him here against his will. Following some deep urge, I reached for the restraints that bound his right wrist.

Praesus, having never let go of my shoulder, pulled me back before I could make any progress at loosening his shackles. I could only see that their weight had gouged his wrists badly, leaving a circular trail of crimson over broken skin.

“He is not our concern.” Praesus spoke through clenched teeth. Old Rufus sniffed idly at the broken crown on the stone floor, and seemed to agree with Praesus’ stance.  In a hurry, Rufus trotted to Praesus’ side, an act I had never seen him to prior to that moment. I couldn’t tell if he was warming up to Praesus, or simply wanted to keep his distance from the shackled man.

“He is our concern,” I urged, pointing at the mam, “This could’ve been us!”

“We’ve no clue who he is, or what they are holding him for!” Praesus was, as usual, quick to anger and quick to expose the tenuous nature of our partnership.

I asserted, “You mean were holding, as soon as we are able, we are setting him free. I’m not leaving him here for the remnants of this  group to do with him as they see fit.”

Praesus’ face was the definition of disbelief, “You just used trickery, and the love of two siblings to subdue a woman who’s very reason for vengeance against you was due to you turning her brother into a flesh eating monster who you control, and now suddenly you feel like now is a prop’r moment for charity?” Praesus spoke slowly and methodically.

I shrugged, “You gotta pick your spots.”

Arms up in futility, Praesus swore and threw back his head in a hardy laugh.

“Hey, don’t try to make me out to be the bad guy here. I didn’t see you coming up with any morally acceptable means of escaping this shithole for the second time today!”

Old Rufus cut into our debate with a series of curt barks. Praesus and I turned to see the deceased Anton hovering with his open maw over his sister Asta’s shoulder.

“Anton get it together!” my voice rolled and echoed down the prison hall. The zombie Anton snapped to attention, immediately uninterested in the still living flesh that coated his sister’s arm.

Praesus took note of this, but said nothing. He was more focused on the unidentified prisoner. I didn’t venture any closer, but I gave the man a good once over to see if anything stood out. His garb, other than the well worn purple robe and cracked crown, was normal.

“Is he royalty, maybe from another portal? Someone they would’ve saw as a rival?”

Praesus was being more cautious than I, “He’s a burden we do not need. We need to fend for ourselves.”

“You need to fend for yourself, I am fairly confident with their captain under my command, and his sister captive, I can all but walk right through anything else they throw at me. Can you say the same?”

“Your newfound confidence astounds.” Praesus’ voice was grim, but my point stifled him, at least in the moment.

“I am not proposing taking him with us, just letting him go to give him a fighting chance.”

“He could be a cannibal,” Praesus was grasping at straws.

I stepped out of the cell briefly, gripping the torch from the wall that had concealed the man. “Great the arsonist, extortionist and kidnapper has views on the irreparable corruptibility of another.” Quickly, I hopped back into the cell and shone the torchlight over the man’s beaten face.

The torchlight was illuminating, in more ways than one. I was able to look past the man’s battered countenance; numerous welts and the long-dried blood spatters were caked all over his face.

Praesus continued in vain, “...a thief, some other kind of deviant. I am simply saying, you do not know this man, nor what he is capable of.”

“Yes, I do,” my arm went slack, the torch fell to the ground. I turned to Praesus and spoke weakly, “I do know this man, because this man is my father.”

Window Shopping: Kingdom Without a King- Part 7

The three of us trudged back the very same way we had entered this land hours before. In the midst of a remote snow field stood a window of miraculous qualities. An ordinary window it was not.

When we stepped in front of the window-like portal, Praesus, myself, and even Old Rufus the dog, noticed a problem. Namely, that the portal, instead of showing us view of the interior of Praesus’ chamber, from where we had traveled, showed only a fuzzy grey-black smudge. It reminded me of an old television set whose picture tube had just burnt out.

“Can we go through that?” I asked Praesus.

Carefully, he prodded it with his club as Rufus sniffed its edges. “Solid, it does not appear we can enter.”

“No you may not enter, for you still have dealings with us…”

The voice behind us sounded familiar, however, I couldn’t quite place it.

“Hands up this time please!”

“Oh, the lovely lady archer.” I raised my hands and turned. Praesus did the same, although he harbored his typical look of chiseled anger. Rufus simply patted before us, the look in his eyes seemed to indicate he knew how all of this was going to end.

“Your plague sorcery has decimated my home, and…” the young woman grew emotional, but caught herself just before tears, “and you’ve cursed my brother. You will come with me, or you will die where you stand.”

“Young madam,” Praesus said stepping forward, “on your authority alone we will be doin’ no such thing.”

The archer confidently whistled between her fingers, and a bevy of troops appeared against the cold breaking wind. They all showed gritted teeth and an array of readied weapons.

“That increases your authority substantially, I assume you’ll be escorting us back to the prison quarters?” I asked.

She motioned back the way we had come with bow drawn, “March, and be quiet as yer doing it.” Her reinforcements fell in behind her as we all headed back to the fort we had only escaped from minutes ago.

*

Back at the prison cell that I had broken out of earlier that day, the lady archer sat in front of Praesus and I on an old stool, only a set of time-weathered bars between us. The quarters smelled of shit and our own failure, the scents so entangled I couldn’t separate the two.

How could we let this woman follow us, and then subdue us?

I saw Old Rufus beyond the prison bars, chained just out of our reach

“I know what you’re askin’ yourself,” Praesus said, in spite of the woman listening to our every word.

“What?”

“How could we let this lone archer, and her band of merry idiots capture us?”

Surprised, I answered, “Actually, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Do tell…”

“We’re cursed young squire.”

“Eh, say again?”

“We’re cursed you and I, the two of us I mean, our working in tandem.”

“Right, and just how do you know this?” I spoke making sure Praesus would be well aware of my skepticism.

“No more talk.” the lady archer stood, as some noise came from the front of the prison. We heard a door open, the kind of sound you’d expect, ancient and medieval, hinged metal grinding against one another for the same space.

The lady archer shouted up the steps, “How is he? Is he ready?” her voice wavered with feeling.

Two guards came into view, they were escorting what looked to be another prisoner. With a closer look, I realized one of the guards was the man I had covered in Praesus’ elimination in order to prompt our earlier escape. They led, what I assumed was a man, down the corridor. Whoever he was, if it was in fact a he, was covered in a metal shroud that ended just below his neck. The contraption was something from Dumas' nightmares. This new prisoners hands were bound behind him, with a copious amount of chain.

They stopped in front of our cell, the now cleaned guard spoke to the lady archer, “He’s no better or no worse madam.”   

“Looks like we gettin’ a roomie squire.”

I didn’t fully realize what was happening until this new and mysterious prisoner turned towards me. The metal mask fastened to his head, had a narrow gap at eye level. Despite it’s small size, I could see a pair of those telltale green eyes glowing from within.

The lady archer nodded to the guards, one swung open our cell, the other unclasped the fastening mechanisms that held the mask on, letting it clang to the floor. Together they pushed the man into the cell Praesus and I shared. Without the mask, I recognized him instantly; Anton Allaine, the man who was commanding the opposing troops during our escape.

The lady archer’s resemblance to him was uncanny. As she leveled a finger at me, I saw the same sureness, same proud stance. In much the same way her brother had, she introduced herself, “You left my brother for dead and he ended up a ghoul. I, Asta Allaine would have you restore him or perish.”

Window Shopping: Kingdom Without a King- Part 1

As the purple light grew stronger, I could make out only a few footprints that remained in the dissipating snow. I had no way of knowing who they belonged to. As Old Rufus and I approached the gate, it reminded me how this was already our second journey.

The first started nearly the same, and not long ago. This creature had been there, nearly from the start. As it would happen, I was lucky to have him by my side.

I looked to him, but Rufus still had his head hunkered low, he was sniffing the ground intently. We were now within a few hundred yards of a weathered door, giant wooden planks sealed by a large metal brace and rivets that looked almost modernistic. Together they formed an ingress as big as the entrance to an airplane hangar.

The door was surrounded on both sides by the perimeter that the gate formed. The gate itself seemed to stretch into infinity in opposite directions. Directly surrounding the entrance, the snow had either been disposed of, or had melted away, as it was nearly non-existent. Tundra grass and dirt were exposed in countless patches and tufts.  Flanking the door small bushes, devoid of leaves, begged to be put out of their misery. To look at them was to know they had been burned. Except for one curious thing, a speckle of green couldn’t hide even behind the scorched bushes. It was a pine bough, fresh enough to still have it’s scent. Preasus?

As soon as I had noticed the pine bough Old Rufus seemed to as well. He darted forward. When he did this, I heard a shout from above. My eyes followed the noise, up and up for seemingly forever. Until I saw a dot of a man perched in a tall turret.

“Restrain the beast. And tell me, what business do you have here?” the voice was steady, and I noticed the man speaking had drawn an arrow from a quiver upon his back. It was primed and rested taught in his bowstring.

“Rufus, come back here.” Old Rufus unconcerned about the archer, lazily returned to my side. “Don’t shoot! Err, don’t fire. My name is...well my name isn’t important. I followed a man here, a umm, a villain!”

The man in the tower hollered, “Keep your sights on him. I’m going to meet him.” Then he disappeared out of sight.

It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to me. My eyes followed his gaze. There was a second turret, again with a platform at its apex, on it was another archer, this one a woman.

“Call reinforcements. Don’t move stranger.” the woman shouted down. Her lip curled in a smile. She seemed to be thrilled to have something to aim at.

“Do you want me to hold up my hands?” I shouted up to the woman.

She shrugged, “If I shoot you, I’m not going to shoot you in the hands.” I pondered this for a moment until I heard a horn sound from within the walls. It was a single long note. The machinery behind the walls groaned and squealed. Moments passed until I heard the mechanisms of the great door being swung open.

When it finally was moved aside four men and another woman greeted me. By greeted, I mean they all gazed at me with dour expressions. I waved, and Old Rufus wagged his tail with minimal effort.

The lot of them had swords, except for the first archer who pushed past the crowd and spoke, “You stated you followed a villain here?”

“That’s right.”

“What did this villain look like?” said a bulldozer of a man with a broadsword at the ready.

“Umm, blonde hair, long, in braids.”

The archer spoke again, “This man is your enemy?”

I don’t know why but I laughed, “You could say that.”

The group narrowed their eyes at me. The female archer, still atop her post yelled, “You want me to shoot him?”

My entire body flinched at the question.

“Not yet.”

“Yet?” I asked.

The archer spoke, “The man with the braids was caught in front of our walls a short time before daybreak. He was covering his footprints with a branch. Sort of the behavior that inhabitants behind the wall might find suspicious. Don’t you agree?”

I nodded.

“Much like the fact that another stranger shows up just after we’ve locked him up. Again, odd don’t you agree?”

“Wait a second,” I raised my hands, begging off.

“Shoot him.” the archer commanded.

Before I could argue any further a white light lit up my right temple, and my vision went black. The last thing I heard before I fell to the ground was, “Get the dog.”


TO BE CONTINUED!

Window Shopping : Kingdom Without a King- Prologue

The wind was cruel, it attacked me from all sides. Likewise, the snow crept higher along the sides of my borrowed boots, the same time as it crunched beneath them. The snow was no longer falling, but from the looks of things, it had came quickly and heavily, not much earlier. The temperature was crisp, cold, and well below freezing. Although, unthinkable, I ignored the elements.

Although, I had been doing the unthinkable for at least the past twenty four hours. I had befriended an otherworldly dog/wolf hybrid. I met some very interesting people who I learned nothing about despite being interrogated by them for hours. I was kidnapped. I stole a dead man’s boots. Oh, and that reminds me, I am at least partially involved in a murder perpetrated by the aforementioned dog/wolf thing. And in most unbelievable fashion, I had transversed dimensions, or worlds, or something.

To be fair, I didn’t really know what I had been doing. It was entirely possible that I may very well be passed out in my basement after drinking too much. But it all felt so real. I guess that’s what all the nutcases say.

Anyway, despite all of that I still felt compelled to leap through yet another window. This was to go after a guy that is nearly twice my size, and seems to be well versed in the art of getting what he wants from people, by any means necessary. Oh, and he has way better hair than me, it’s kinda long, wavy blonde, with these cool braids…

...But I digress. And that’s not why I followed him. If I’m being honest, and I think I am, its because I’m bored. And leaping through interdimensional windows (or whatever these things are) beats real life. I mean at least until wake up from this dream world it will at least provide a distraction.

Next to me, trudging through the same snow was Old Rufus. He was hard to see due to the absence of light. Yet the faint lupine shape seemed to be blacker than the darkness that surrounded. We both scanned a horizon that was barely discernable. The difference with Rufus was that occasionally he would glance at me, his eyes piercing the night. They seemed confident, like he knew where he was going, which was more than I could say for myself. I imagined his line of sight radiating out before us, as though his field of vision were casting high beams. It made me feel better about the journey, and was a way to distract from the cold. Inside another part of my head, the fanciful gave way to the analytical.

Is this pup following Praesus’s scent? We should be seeing footprints right? Wherever this guy Praesus was headed he should be only a minute or three ahead of us, and leaving behind a trail through the snow. Right? Was he supernatural? This thought made my stomach twist in a quick, but lurching knot.

I left these thoughts and returned to the real world. To our right was a faint light in the distance. It peeked in a hazy dark purple that broke against the blackness. But the shape was not reminiscent of a moon, or sun. It was a slash, one that cut a jagged swath across the flesh of the sky. As my eyes adjusted to the new, yet weak light, my brain also adjusted to take in what I was seeing.

Ahead of us was an outline, barely visible thanks to the strange new light in the sky. I had read enough fairytales as a child to know that the silhouette before me was that of a castle. Old Rufus turned to me and grinned in that panting smile that canines have. He then faced forward, lowering his head, hardening himself for the rest of the journey. His body language seemed to hint that once we arrived at said castle our work would just be beginning.  

Window Shopping Part 4

The man continued to stare back at me. If he was weighing the validity of my arrival, his face didn’t show it. In fact, it only showed one thing, irrevocable distrust.

Without a word the man got up and left the small one room cabin where he had asked me the only question that seemed to matter to him; “How did you get here?”

As he stepped from the door, he was careful to shut it tightly behind him.  I saw a glimpse of the sun setting outside. It had evidently taken much of the day to get here, it seemed the remainder would be spent trying to convince my new acquaintances of my honesty.

In silence, I scanned the room, I saw no indication of who these people were, what they stood for, what they valued. The cabin was sparsely decorated and held only the chair I sat upon, a small table and an additional two chairs. There was a small stone fireplace behind me, unused at the moment, but there were logs inside it at the ready.  

Some time passed, I can’t be sure of how much. My anxiousness tells me an hour, but it very well could’ve been ten minutes.

However, long it was the man came back, entering the cabin the same plain face. I was surprised to see a woman trailing behind him, for whom he held open the door. The man hung back by the entrance, as the woman walked towards me.  Unlike the man, she had a mature face, but the years had been more kind to her, giving her a look that was both matronly and majestic. She wore a long dress, and was wrapped in an equally long coat, both were an earthy brown. She slowly drug the empty chair the big, bent old man had been using, but rather than sit a comfortable distance away as he had, she sat upon it right in front of me.

Before she spoke, she brushed a wisp of long grey hair away from her face.

“What luck you had finding the dog,” she gave an easy smile that felt neither fake, nor forced.

I nodded.

The canine stood, leaving my side for the first time in hours, and went to the woman. He sniffed her outstretched hand, and then licked it a few times.

“Sweet animal. And hungry I can see.” The woman gave a sideways look to the door and hollered at the man, ”Thaddeus fetch the dog a plate...and some water.” I noted that as she spoke to the man, apparently Thaddeus, her eyes never left me.

“What’s your name?”

“Rob.”

“Mine’s Helena, I am pleased to meet you, in spite of the circumstances surrounding the meeting.” She paused as if I was expected to say something, so I did.

“Forgive me ma’am as I say this, but I’ve been here- wherever here is- for quite awhile and I would like to say thank you for your hospitality,” I pointed to the dog, ”And for feeding the dog. But- and you probably saw that coming, but again I have been here for awhile now and I get the sense that I may be am being held against my will here.”

Helena held up a hand, stopping me short, she flashed that concerned smile again, “Yes and?”

I swallowed hard, my nervousness giving way to full blown fear. “And I have no way to prove to you how I got here, other than my word, nothing more that will make you believe me.”

Helena nodded, but said nothing.

“If I meant you harm, I wouldn’t have come to assault you wearing Wal-Mart pajamas, a tee shirt, and shoeless. I mean I don’t know karate…” I chuckled even though the joke fell flat, noting an odd flash of confusion in Helena’s eyes.

After my weak laughter faded Helena said, “That’s all fine and dandy mister, but that still doesn’t explain the dog.”

“Pardon?”

She nodded to the dog who was still at her side, “Do you know this dog’s name Rob?”

“No it didn’t have tags.”

Again, I saw Helena scrunch her brow, for the briefest of moments.

“The dog went by Old Rufus.”

Shrugging, “I don’t follow.”

“The dog went by Old Rufus when he was around twelve years old.”
“I’m sorry, if this is supposed to mean something to me…”

Helena’s eyes narrowed, her tone lost much of its matronly air, “That was over forty years ago when I was a small girl.”

I didn’t have the words, connections were still being made inside my mind.

“Rob,” her inflection questioned the truth of my name, “Old Rufus died before I finished school, decades ago.”

TO BE CONTINUED!

Window Shopping Part I

I hadn’t even noticed it when I walked through the house for the first time. I was too distracted by the old world charm, rustic build and the dark, cherry hardwood floors. Maybe that’s materialistic of me, but if it’s any consolation I regret not looking deeper. I regret that a lot.

It wasn’t until I was getting moved in that I first saw it. And to make matters worse it was after a couple (five) glasses of wine, which ebbed my doubt. I mean don’t get me wrong- I would have been skeptical otherwise, I mean who could simply accept the fact that they discovered a gateway into another world?

That’s what it is right? Like I’m in another dimension? Something like that?

Anyway, I first saw it when I began taking empty boxes to the basement. Well it’s more of a cellar really, mud and stone walls. They told me it had been built in 1856- the house I mean- who knows about the cellar, probably nearly as old if not the same age.

But I had a box of my old toys- a box my mother had insisted I take...Nevermind, you don’t want to hear about that, I’m sure. I was taking this box downstairs to store, when I noticed it for the first time. There was-is, in my world, I guess a sort of dividing wall. Thinking about it now, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it before. I mean it’s right smack dab in the middle of the room. It runs floor to ceiling, and cuts the middle portion if the room in two. It’s the damndest thing when you see it. You wonder; Just what the f-hell--heck were they thinking putting this thing here, ya know?

But umm, I sat the box down on the floor, impressed with myself that I had also carried my wine glass down the stairs at the same time by balancing it on top of the box.

I noticed the dividing wall, it was just sort of there...Dim yellow-grey stone, aged from years of damp, and it looked like the darkness of the basement had seeped into it along with the elements. I retrieved my wine glass and walked around the wall, studying it along the way. It was fine on the side facing the steps leading into the downstairs; normal stone, coarse to the touch and earthy to the nose. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The back of the wall though- that was a different story entirely. You see- and you might know this already- I’m not sure, but there was a window.

Yes that’s right- a damned window sitting on a wall in the middle of a room, down in my basement!

Through the glass I could see a landscape. It looked like one of those sepia scenes of the shoreline in some east coast state, like South Carolina. There was sloped sand and surf and tufts of long lazy grass. An open sky beckoned to me.

At first I thought it was a picture or a painting, but then the grass swayed from the wind off the coast. I thought I was losing it, but when I got closer to the supposed picture I could actually hear the wind coming off the waves and cutting across the sand, the waves rolling into the shore.

My right hand opened without my knowing and the glass of wine went crashing to the unfinished floor. I gave it no thought in that moment(even stepping over it later). Unconsciously, that same hand went to the window, instinctively going for a small wooden knob on the side. Of course I did, I couldn’t resist you see? My inhibitions being lowered, my sense of danger dulled. That coupled with my curiosity was the catalyst for all of this.

I stood there, swaying from my drunkenness, my brain bobbing and swimming in irrational thoughts and wine. I sized up the window. It was only about 120 square inches, far from the size I would need to crawl through, let alone walk through. But I wanted very much to go through that opening, to see the beach, to touch the water. In fact the sensation to do so was near overpowering. I stared at the window, and longed to be on the other side, I was mesmerized at the possibility.

My mind cycled through ways by which I could deliver my fixation. Eyes darted from corner to grimey corner of the basement, looking for a particular tool. I yearned to transport myself unto my current mania.

In the final corner of the cellar I saw it. A rusted sledgehammer sat propped up on its head. Barefeet plodded across the dusty floor, greedily I groped for the hammer.  I lifted it and smiled, I couldn’t see my face, but imagine my grin was a cross between lunacy and satisfaction.

I turned to face that wall with the inexplicable window, and I swung, my body powered by a force that was both unsettling and unknown. The first swing cracked the thin glass pane, the second shattered the wooden frame. The third swing was the slightly rusted hammer meeting stone, and I was frightened for a moment that the hammer’s head would be dislodged from its worn handle and fly across the cellar.

Instead the hammer held together, and it was the stone that gave way. A small chunk crumpled at first; the lip-like sill below the window disintegrating. I reeled back again, sweating now from compulsion, letting loose with blow after blow as the stones did the same.

How many times I had to bring that hammer down, I do not know. But when I let the hammer fall for the final time I was breathless. In front of me was now a near-man sized hole. I could now not only see the beach, but feel it’s wind actually enter the basement. It was cool, much more frigid than the stuffy cellar and quick to cool the sweat on my brow, and chill my bare feet.

After surveying my work for the better part of a minute, I felt a driving thought cut through my mind, as if another person was yelling at me from inside my own mind.

That voice within the within screamed a question in warning; What are you doing?

I crouched and stepped through the newly created threshold…

TO BE CONTINUED!