"Okay," said Barbara, "we've found the river. Now what?"
"Well, it's easier to get through when we're near people," Roderick said. "Or a town. Since we come from the mortal world, we're naturally pulled back toward that world. Other people there gives us something more to anchor on."
"But I thought Barbara said the worlds were closer out in wild areas," objected Stan.
"Hey, I don't know all the theory," said Roderick. "I just work here."
"So we just wander along until we run across people?" Barbara asked.
Roderick shrugged. "Pretty much."
There wasn't much left to do but trudge along the riverbank. They hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile, though, when Roderick stopped them. He frowned in concentration, looking at a spot a hundred yards in front of them. "There," he said, pointing.
"I don't see anyth--" Barbara blinked. "Hey, it's a bridge! Or -- no, I must have been seeing things."
"No," said Roderick, "there's a bridge up there. And people walking on it. It's just not in the faerie world. That's our way back."
"Can I make a suggestion?" said Johnson. He pointed to a fallen tree next to the river's edge. "I'm guessing that the people on that bridge are guards. How about if we make a raft, and cross the river before we go back to the real world?"
Roderick raised his eyebrows, then grinned. "You know, that's not a bad idea."
"Are you all right?" said Erik in concern, listening at the bathroom door to the sound of running water.
"I think I will be," came a muffled voice through the door. "Just give me another few minutes."
Erik sighed a melancholy sigh, and returned to check Gisella's bonds. The seventeen-year-old girl, a rather fetching brunette in her better moments, was not having one of her better moments at present. Her face was flushed with anger and distorted into a nasty scowl. He pulled the knots around her wrists a little tighter, and she made a protesting noise through the gag tied around her mouth.
"Sorry about that," he said. "We could have been a little nicer about all this, you know. The point was to piss off your father, not to harm you particularly." He shrugged. "But you had to be difficult. Pepper spray is such nasty stuff, you know."
Gisella made a noise that indicated she did know, and that she rather liked it nasty, especially in present company.
He shook his head. "Such manners," he said. "Didn't your father teach you anything?"
The bathroom door opened, and Peggy Jean appeared, drying her face with a frilly pink towel. "Sorry," she said, her eyes still red-rimmed and bloodshot from the pepper spray.
Erik looked at her appraisingly. "You know," he commented, "the red eyes suit you. Kind of a goth look."
She frowned at him. "I told you black's not my color."
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe so. I could try seeing you without the black." He ran his hand down her neck, and she giggled.
Gisella finally succeeded in spitting the gag out of her mouth. "Good grief, you two," she said, "get a room."
Erik's glare turned suddenly into a thoughtful frown. "You know, that's an interesting point," he said. "Sir Hugo is still at my castle, so it wouldn't be very safe to bring the girl back there."
"How about my place?" asked Peggy Jean. "It's got a stone basement."
Erik sighed expressively. "A woman after my own heart."
Gisella rolled her eyes.
Note to me: In a later revision, I need to clarify that Erik, Peggy Jean, and Gisella get across the river before the following scene occurs.
"So you're sure you're not on your way to become a Paladin?" asked the lead guard, disappointed.
"Of course not," snapped Darwin. "I've told you already, I'm an Evil Overlord. And you've already searched me twice."
"Oh. Well, okay," said the guard. "I guess you can go."
"Thank you," Darwin said coldly. "Oh," he added, "by the way, could you guys post one of these here by the bridge? Thanks." He handed the guard a poster from the large sheaf he was carrying.
"Uh, I'll have to ask my supervisor," the guard said.
"Oh, please," Darwin said. "Haven't you ever heard of empowerment?" He swept past the guard, mounted his horse, and headed across the bridge.
The guard frowned at the poster, then shrugged and headed back to the portable desk, got some pushpins, and pinned the poster up on one of the bridge's railings.
It said: "Announcing - the Wedding of Erik the Goth and Gisella the Mad - in a Lavish Ceremony at the Castle of Erik the Goth. Reception following. No Heroes or Rescuers Allowed." The date it listed was two days away.
"You know, horses can usually swim pretty well," Stan complained. "Why couldn't we have brought the horses with us when we took the faerie shortcut?" All four of them were walking, sopping wet, away from what little of their raft had made it to the far shore of the river.
"Hey, don't look at me," said Johnson. "I've never built a raft before. I don't know diddly about it."
"The raft was your idea!" Stan protested.
"We are going to need horses," Barbara said. "We're not going to steal horses again, are we?"
"But if we only steal them from the bad guys, then --" Stan started to say, but he shut up when Barbara glared at him.
"Let me see that brochure again," she said to Roderick. He shuffled around in his pouch and pulled it out, dripping wet. She flipped through the pages. "Ah, here it is. To show worthiness for the rank, the prospective Paladin must at all times be an honest, upstanding citizen, must always help his fellow man when in need, and must always be prepared for the occasional sidequest -- for example, rescuing damsels in distress. As a particular example, the would-be Paladin must never steal horses, except from the bad guys --" She stopped short.
"Hey, let me read that," said Stan, grabbing for the brochure.
"No!" Barbara cried, backing away from him and accidentally stepping on Johnson's toe.
"Ow!" exclaimed Johnson, jumping backwards and sending Barbara sprawling.
"Enough!" said Roderick. "I think we're coming up on another crossover point." He squinted ahead. "Yeah, it looks like there's a road there. Everyone ready to cross back?"
"I'm not sure," said Johnson. "Would we be able to duck back over here if things don't look good there?"
Roderick frowned. "Without an invitation back? I don't think I'd try, even if I knew how."
"Well, then maybe we should just stay on this side until we get to Mount Paladin," Johnson suggested.
An acorn came sailing through the air and bounced off Johnson's helmet, making a resonating bong noise. "Ow!" he said, rubbing the spot.
"I think that was the brownies' opinion of your suggestion," said Roderick.
A single leaf blew through the air and lodged itself in Johnson's beard. He tugged it loose. The leaf was dry, withered, and black, and crumbled when he touched it. "And that would be the dryads, eh?" he said. "Anyone else I should be worried about?"
Snarls and growls erupted from various unseen points around them.
"Sounds like we cross back," Johnson said hastily. "Okay, let's go."
Bob was just working on hanging the poster. Doug was idly watching the rider disappear around a bend when four very soggy people flickered into existence right in front of him.
"Gaah!" he shouted, jumping backwards into Bob, who stumbled and dropped the poster off the side of the bridge.
"Hey!" Bob cried. "That's the only copy he gave us!" He hurried down to the water's edge, but the page had already landed in the water and was drifting away in the current.
Barbara gave Roderick a stern glance. "Must always be helpful?" she reminded him.
He sighed. "I'll get it," he offered. "I'm already wet anyway." He jogged down to the river's edge and waded in after the poster, which had gotten snagged in a low-hanging tree branch fifteen yards downstream. He pulled it out, being careful not to tear the wet paper, and looked it over as he waded back out.
"Hey, Barbara," he said, "look at this. It looks like a sidequest." He spread the poster out on the boards of the bridge so it could dry in the sun.
"By the way," Johnson said suddenly, "where did the sun come from?"
Roderick looked up, startled. "Hey, it was still nighttime when we left," he said. He shrugged. "Oh well. Time passes differently in faerie, you know."
"In faerie?" Bob said, startled. "What, did you just come from there?"
"Yeah," said Stan. "It's a long story involving a questionable escape tactic and some very poor engineering."
"I told you I don't know anything about building rafts!" Johnson insisted.
Bob looked at them suspiciously. "Are you guys on your way to Mount Paladin?"
"Why do you ask?" Stan said smoothly.
Doug looked questioningly at Bob, who shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, it's just that the coming of the Paladin is prophesied in our union bylaws," he said. "I did a research paper on it my junior year, for my World Politics class. The prophecy mentions something about the Chosen One passing through the realm of faerie on the way to Mount Paladin." He frowned. "Let me think, I know there was something else."
"Well, if you're on your way to Mount Paladin," said Doug, "then it's our job to stop you."
Roderick finally looked up and glanced at the two guards. "Oh," he said, "it's you. Hi, Bob. Hi, Doug."
"Huh?" Doug looked at Roderick more closely. "Oh. Hi, Roderick. Didn't recognize you with your hair all wet like that." He glanced at Bob. "Hey, you don't really think Roderick could be in on all this Paladin stuff, do you?"
"Gee," said Roderick sourly, looking up from the poster, "thanks for the vote of confidence."
Bob stared at Roderick. "You mean you are?" He glanced back at Doug and grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Oh boy, that bonus is gonna be ours!"
"Backup!" Doug yelled across the bridge, as he and Bob circled around to cut off access to the road.
"Oh, no," said Barbara, sitting down on a rock in the clearing by the road, and putting her head in her hands.
"Oh, boy," said Stan, backing off the road and into the clearing, as two trolls appeared from under the bridge and started lumbering forward.
"You lost them?" said Count von Himmel. He was sitting at Cindy's breakfast table, his fork still halfway to his mouth, his scrambled eggs slipping off it and onto the table.
"Hey, you're not even paying for that breakfast," Cindy said reproachfully. "Watch the mess. I'm the one who's gotta clean it up."
"Sorry," said von Himmel, cleaning up the spilled egg with a napkin. "Now, again: you lost them?"
"Uh, yeah," said the red-bearded guard, Leif. "They didn't make it across the bridge, of course. But they ran off into the woods, and we were about to catch up to 'em, but then one of them started shouting something, and next thing we know, we were all knocked flat on our duffs and they were gone."
"Gone where?" von Himmel demanded.
"That's what I'd like to know," said Leif. "There wasn't a trace left of 'em. We woke up Weems, our tracker, but there wasn't anything to track. They'd gone in, sure enough, but then their tracks just stopped. Nothing but a little pile of leaves where each one of them had been when we last saw 'em."
Cindy reached across the table and grabbed von Himmel's hand. There was a startled look on her face. "The prophecy," she said.
"What? What are you talking about?" said von Himmel.
"Well, I was dating this guy a few years ago, and he was working on a research paper. And he wrote it about some prophecy that was mentioned in the union bylaws."
Von Himmel frowned. "I can assure you, there are no prophecies in the union bylaws. I'm a board member; I know those bylaws."
"Oh, not the Evil Overlords' Union," she said. "Sorry. The Henchmen's Union. It said that, oh, something about one who would rise to become a Paladin, and that it would be someone who got past an obstacle by going into the realm of Faerie."
"What?" Von Himmel half-rose from his seat. He placed his hands on the table and turned to Leif. "Send a messenger immediately. Bring me a copy of the Henchmen's Union bylaws. But I want you to come right back." Leif nodded and hurried out of the room.
Von Himmel sank back into his chair with a sigh, and distractedly ran his fork through his scrambled eggs. "Well, there's one more problem." He glanced back up at Cindy. "But it did say this would-be Paladin would only pass one obstacle this way?"
She frowned in thought. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it said that. That's all I remember of it, though."
He shook his head. "Well, that's all right. That messenger should be back within an hour, and I can read the entire prophecy then." He looked up as Leif came back into the room. "Has the messenger been sent?"
"Yup. He just rode out."
"Very well. Now I need you to return to your post. The prophecy didn't say which obstacle would be passed in this way?" von Himmel asked. Cindy shook her head. He continued, "Then we do still need to have a full complement of guards on the bridge at all times. Now, when this happened, you did send a messenger ahead to the patrols in the badlands, yes?"
Leif nodded. "Whoever those guys were, they didn't cross the bridge. But we alerted the patrols that they'd been seen in the area, and to be on the lookout. We sent a description of the four, too, to be spread around to all the patrols, there and elsewhere."
"Good." Von Himmel dismissed Leif with a wave of his hand.
When the man had left, von Himmel looked across the table at Cindy.
"I can't help you," she said. "I'm all tapped out. Those four the other night are the only guests I've had."
He sighed. "I suspected as much. Well, while the availability of funds wasn't the only thing keeping me here," he said, giving Cindy an appreciative glance, "I'm afraid I must relocate a bit closer to the action. Would you care to accompany me?"
She shook her head. "Sorry. I've got too many repairs to do around this place."
"I feared as much. Well, aside from promising to refer business your way, is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?"
Cindy glanced thoughtfully around the kitchen. "Well, you could help me with the dishes."
He blinked.
"Or you could help me upstairs," she purred.
A quirk of a smile appeared on his face. "I must say, I much prefer the second option..."
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