Witches Be Crazy, page 3
One day while the king was making his rounds through the kingdom looking for his next plaything he came across the most exquisite creature. She had spectacular golden hair stretching down to the small of her back, smoother than silk and reflected light so brilliantly it was amazing she didn’t start fires everywhere she went. Her eyes cast an enveloping feeling of warmth upon you as they sparkled in the afternoon sunshine more dazzling than the most perfectly cut aquamarine crystal; and her lips and body perfectly conveyed to the king the notion that she was a healthy and viable individual with which to conduct reproduction activities. Needless to say, the king wasted no time before picking her up and whisking her away to the chamber of unspeakable happenings within his castle.
Unbeknownst to the king, this fraternization fuelled a fiendish fate for his city. The following morning she was not dismissed with the usual fruit basket and slap on the ass, but was rather escorted in a tour around the castle privately led by the king himself. She was treated to banquets and tournaments as the king’s special guest, and was quickly welcomed as a permanent resident into the castle. Much speculation was had as to exactly what she was doing to the king, but the results were indisputable. The king thoroughly besotted. When the king was completely wrapped around her fingers the drama would really begin.
The first step down the kingdom’s road to ruin came when the king had a very public and messy divorce with the queen followed by a hasty drive-thru wedding where leech and lecher tied the knot. In addition to being stripped of all her royal ties, the former queen was also inexplicably banished from the kingdom. But even more suspicious than her nonsensical banishment was the fact she had disappeared without a trace and even those most loyal to her were unable to locate her.
Only after she had firmly become the only woman in the king’s life did the new queen’s true colors begin to show through. She hoarded extravagant treasures, exclusively ate exotic and expensive foods, and regularly staged festivals; none of these things could have ever been afforded if she had not hiked the taxes up to extortionate levels.
During all of this turmoil the king, who up until this point had been a truly benevolent and caring monarch, remained uncharacteristically apathetic and dejected. The mysterious woman began to seize more and more kingdom control from him until eventually he had relinquished nearly all his power.
Over time the kingdom gradually began to buckle under this new regime, and talk of revolt began to circulate the streets. At the first hint of it, the queen enacted martial law. Peasants and general lower class individuals began to be swept off the streets in droves and made to disappear. After capture, one’s death was all but certain; but it always took place inside the castle away from the eyes of the masses. During all of this time, the gates were barred and under constant watch. No one was permitted to leave; only to suffer and stand helplessly by as their fair kingdom collapsed around them.
Finally came the most fateful day of them all. The remaining citizens who still drew breath cowered within the decrepit walls of what remained of their homes when they heard the marching of a thousand feet. The entire king’s guard patrolled the streets, searching every building for whoever would dwell within. Men women and children were torn from their homes and herded towards the castle where the mysterious woman and her pet king lay within. As per their orders, the guards ensured that every last soul within that city was herded into the bowels of the castle. However, after the doors closed behind them, not a single person emerged from that intricate pile of stones ever again. No peasant, guard, whore, noble, king, nor even the mysterious woman herself have been seen since.
By the time Stranger had finished even Jitters appeared to have been absorbed by his story.
“How did you escape?” Asked an unfamiliar voice.
Everyone turned to see a little old man had entered the room during the story without anyone noticing.
“Oi!” Dungar bellowed. “Buy a drink, buy a room, or get out!”
“B-But I’ve already bought a room.” The old man stammered.
“Then go to it!” Dungar ordered.
Muttering something about poor customer service, the man departed. When he had cleared the room, Dungar turned back to Stranger.
“I remember him.” Dungar chuckled. “Chauffeur by trade. Nice guy. He did have a point though, if everyone disappeared to never be seen again then how are you here to tell me all this?”
“I managed to leap from a window of my bedroom shortly before the guards stormed my house.”
“Ohhhhh. It all makes sense now.”
Stranger cocked his head to the side, looking at him confusedly.
“Well that’s clearly why you’re so terrified of being thrown out windows.”
At a loss for words, Stranger just gaped at him.
Slamming his hand on the table, Dungar began to cackle a deep throaty laugh. “Ah lighten up! I’m just kiddin’ ya!”
Seeing that the man was clearly not amused, he continued his inquiry. “So before I threw you out the window you were saying the same thing that did in your king was coming here.”
Stranger snorted loudly at the notion. “Coming here? She’s already here, you oaf. I’ve heard the talk of your king’s new ‘daughter,’ strange how she fits the exact description of my former queen.”
“Oh is that right.” The innkeeper responded with only slight interest, peering into Jitters’s mug. “So is that why you’re here then? Some good old fashioned revenge?”
“Nothing of the sort!” His guest huffed sanctimoniously. “Now that she has made her way here I’m headed eastward to Nonamay. You lot would be wise to do the same. It’s the only way to temporarily escape your doom!”
Dungar’s blissful mood evaporated immediately at this, partially because he’d rather die than go to Nonamay, but mostly due to the other implications. “You mean to tell me that you are the only one aware of a force that means to see us all destroyed, and you are going to simply carry on your way without so much as a warning?”
“Consider this your warning.” Stranger scoffed, draining the contents of his tankard. “I already tried waiting around to see how things turned out and I nearly paid for it with my own life, and missed out on getting to drink this rotgut oil you serve. You lot are responsible for yourselves, my hide is more important to me than yours.”
Without even a pause he got up to leave, but did not manage to make it far before he felt the familiar iron-grip of Dungar’s hairy bicep and forearm wrapped around him. The blacksmith was pretty quick for his size.
“Well I’ll be.” Stranger heard the bearded man growl into his ear. Although he couldn’t see them, he could feel the crazy eyes boring holes into his skull. “I don’t reckon we’ve ever had the same man volunteer for the window twice in one night.”
This time Stranger hardly struggled as he was hauled up the stairs.
“I am not the one who seeks to do you harm, innkeeper.” Stranger tried to reason.
“Perhaps not.” Dungar acknowledged as he placed Stranger before the familiar window frame which now overlooked the same landscape as before only this time under a blanket of the darkness of the night.
“But you are fine to just walk away without even trying to prevent countless others from facing the fate you yourself barely escaped. That makes me not very fond of you, and this is what I do to people I’m not very fond of.”
Without missing a beat, Dungar then drove his heel into the cloaked man’s midsection, propelling him a good five or six feet horizontally ass-first out the window before falling to the ground below and producing the satisfactory “Thud” that Dungar had come to grow very fond of over the last few years. He paused briefly to catch any last words that may be called out, but none came. As he made his way back down the stairs he surmised the man had likely been knocked out cold.
Upon returning to the bar, Dungar couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt for his newly departed patron.
“Don’t suppose you think I was a bit rough on him?” He asked Jitters.
For the first time since Stranger had arrived, Jitters looked up from his mug and into Dungar’s eyes. His tremors had noticeably diminished now that Stranger had been removed from his side.
“Ah you’re right.” Dungar rationalized, shaking his head. “That man was nothing but trouble. Likely wasn’t even speaking the truth.”
But as he did his nightly rounds clearing the clutter, he couldn’t shake the conversation that had just transpired. After all, the king’s health was never spotty before the arrival of this princess. He also had to consider the fact that no one was even aware of her existence before now. No matter which way he looked at it, considering Stranger’s story or not, the situation was certainly suspicious.
“I hate to say it, Mr. Jitters, but we’ve got ourselves a problem.” Dungar mused.
When he turned to face the old man he found the seat to be empty, Jitters having silently got up and left for the night.
“Boy he’s a quiet old bugger.” Dungar soliloquized. “But I suppose his days are numbered no matter what danger is lurking up north. It’s the rest of us that need worry about it.”
FOUR
Taking Action
Dungar awoke the next morning with a strong sense of purpose. He had slept like a baby the night beforehand, that is to say in sporadic sessions between repeatedly waking up in a state of distress. He had no evidence of his kingdom’s imminent danger, aside from the mildly suspicious rumors regarding the royalty and the unreliable ramblings of a random traveler. However there was still an overpowering feeling in his gut that such notions were true and that danger indeed lay brooding beyond the horizon. Therefore when he awoke that morning he decided that he was going to hijack the town meeting that just happened to be being held that afternoon.
With a goal in his mind and confidence in his step, he started down the overgrown alley that was the path to town whilst trying to formulate his pitch in his mind. He had never been to one of these meetings in his entire life. As such, he was unsure just how they were carried out. He briefly entertained the notion of simply storming the stage, but in practice it would probably just make him look like a crazy person.
As the wooden shacks in the distance began to creep closer, his steps began to slow and his confidence began to wane. No matter how he attempted to approach the subject it still sounded crazy. How was he going to pitch a far-fetched notion like an evil, perhaps even magical princess to a village full of people, most of whom hated his guts, and had no reason to believe him even if they didn’t? He began to mildly regret throwing Stranger out the window.
The words to express his concerns had still not come by the time he had reached the crowd. He gazed around at his neighbors and other fellow residents, none of whom had even acknowledged his presence. All eyes in the crowd were transfixed on the short, fat, and bald man with a hilarious patchy moustache and lazy eye who stood behind a podium addressing them all.
Town leader Walph Dooble, or Dooble Walph, no one actually knew which was his first and last name, was unanimously elected town leader fifteen years ago due to being the only resident to apply for the job. Despite being a rather simple man, he has continued to hold the position unopposed in the years since; primarily because the village leader had absolutely no authority and would probably be the only person to be killed in the event a foreign party tried to annex the town. However that is not to say he has brought nothing to the village since his appointment.
Attendance at meetings has steadily increased since he took office because he has a bizarrely high pitched and melodic voice that did not fit his ridiculous appearance at all. The combination of those two aspects made every speech given by the man an entertaining affair indeed, no matter what the topic.
“Onto our next order of business then.” The stout man chirped. “Has anyone yet come up with any ideas to deal with the troll problem?”
He glanced up from his podium to stare into the sea of blank faces which offered nothing more than the distant sound of a throat clearing.
“Anyone? Anyone at all? Come on, folks, they have preyed upon at least three people’s mothers this month!”
The crowd still remained silent.
“No suggestions on that one either. Alrighty then. That concludes our tri-weekly review of current events.”
As the crowd began to shuffle in their own directions Dungar realized that this would be his final moment to seize an opportunity and he had to either capture it or let it slip. He drew a breath to call out. Then he changed his mind and exhaled because he didn’t want to look like a lunatic.
“However, before you all leave, we have one last order of business on the docket.” Walph added hastily. “We have received word from governmental functionaries in the castle that King Ik has officially become living-impaired.” There was an awkward pause, perhaps out of respect for his passing, perhaps because it took some people a second to figure out what “living-impaired” meant. “And as such they have requested all settlements within the kingdom to send their most high standing citizens as suitors for the purpose of hastening the matrimony of his sole daughter, our new Queen Koey, so that the monarchy may be restored.”
He paused briefly to gauge the reactions of his audience, which had become no less tepid. “Do we have any volunteers?”
Dungar immediately realized this was about as perfect an opportunity as he was going to get. He stiffened up straight, put his shoulders back, and called as authoritatively as he could muster out of the crowd: “I volunteer as a tribute.”
Immediately he began glancing around, waiting for the scoffs and challenges from the inevitable folks who would contest him, but none came. A few heads within his vicinity turned and glanced at him, but his proclamation was largely ignored by the masses.
“Hey!” Dungar called out again.
A few more heads started to turn. He gestured around at the denizens of the crowd, commanding their attention and grimacing at the amount of half-humanoid blobs that surrounded him. He was astounded these junkies could even walk with such unbalanced bodies. But he now had their attention and was committed to his quarter-baked scheme.
“I’m a member of one of the deepest rooted families of this town. I own and run two businesses that have provided services to all of the lazy freaks that I’m forced to share my home with. Frankly I’m also a damn fine looking man too. Given all that, where would you find a more suited candidate than me in this dump?”
The now incredibly uncomfortable group of onlookers exchanged awkward glances, but none offered any rebuttal.
“Sorry I’m late, friends!” An all-too-familiar voice called out from a distance.
All heads now turned in the direction just in time to see Rainchild step out from the patch of trees. He had long scraggly brown hair that was perfectly parted down the middle to frame his face which constantly flashed his intoxicating smile that made most of the ladies and some of the men swoon each time they saw it.
His face bore the closest of shaves that Woodwall barbers had to offer so nothing would obscure his perfectly sculpted jaw line, and his glorious face was rounded off by his deep brown eyes that could permeate the core of your being and stare right on through into your soul. It was those eyes from which Dungar derived his true loathing of the man.
Rainchild had everyone else fooled, but not him. Behind those seemingly kind eyes Dungar knew lay the man’s true nature of being little more than an arrogant and entitled pissant.
“I am terribly sorry I couldn’t have been in attendance sooner, but I was making the final touches on the diamond adornments for our town’s wedding gift while I sang lullabies to the orphaned grouchawks I rescued this morning and fed them helpings of my organic honey root soup.” Rainchild explained to the crowd, smiling wide as he did.
Dungar rolled his eyes amidst the cooing of the congregation. Rainchild’s voice was smooth and articulate with just the slightest hint of an exotic accent. It offered significant contribution to his already infectious charm, and every word that slithered off of his silver tongue made Dungar’s eyes twitch and fists clench.
Mayor Dooble was incredibly relieved to see Rainchild, primarily because it meant he didn’t have to be the one to confront Dungar.
“Mister Earthumper I am so glad to see you! We had just finished discussing who we were going to send to the kingdom as a suitor. Naturally you are everyone’s unanimous choice. Isn’t that right, gang?”
“Aye!” The entire crowd erupted in unison.
“Hey!” Dungar bellowed yet again, but everyone resumed ignoring him.
“This is a true honor you have requested of me!” Rainchild gushed. “It will be so hard for me to leave behind my beloved kinsmen of my humble home, but if my presence is sought by royal decree then I owe it to everyone to participate!”
He continued to spout his saccharine speech but none of it was relevant. Dungar had to get out of there before he could no longer resist the urge to choke him out with his own hair. Defeated, he slowly began the trek back to his inn. He couldn’t bring himself to be particularly surprised by the outcome though; it would have been way more surprising if his scheme had actually worked.
By the time he returned to the bar everything had begun to sink in. He poured himself a drink and sat down in front of the Jenair coat of arms he had carved into his wall. It was official now, his king, King Ik of Jenair, was dead. He had never even left his humble home of Woodwall, let alone met the man, but in spite of that information he still had liked him a lot.
By all accounts the king had been a reclusive gentleman not unlike himself, but he had also served as a symbol of order and unity throughout the kingdom. He kept everyone under the same banner and served to remind the citizens of the kingdom that, irrespective of their differences, they were all on the same side. A side that hated everyone from the kingdom of Nonamay.
If there were two things he felt he needed from his home in order to lead a happy lifestyle, they would be freedom and homeostasis. King Ik’s general disinterest in governing resulted in a lack of royal intervention in nearly all sectors. However by merely existing he kept the government intact, preventing the kingdom from becoming ruled by anarchy. Dungar couldn’t have asked for a better person in charge, and now he was gone and the kingdom’s fate was unclear.
