Two figures were hunched at the front of the room when Darwin emerged through the richly carved stone doorway of the Paladin's Shrine Room. They both looked up when they heard his footsteps.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" all three demanded at once.
"Hey, now," said Darwin angrily. "I'm the Evil Overlord, I'll ask the questions."
"I outrank you," the woman said sharply. "I own voting stock."
Darwin snorted. "As if I care. What has the union ever done for me?"
The woman raised her eyebrows. "Aside from safe working conditions, fair wages --"
"Hah!" cried Darwin. "You're a real laugh. Who are you?" He stepped closer and raised his torch. The light flickered across an elegant maroon velvet dress. He frowned. "Mistress Riad? The Treasurer of the Board?"
"That's me," she said with a wry smile. "But now I'm afraid I'll have to kill you."
"Oh, hah-hah, very funny," Darwin said dryly. "You don't even have a weapon."
"Neither do you," she said with a smile.
Darwin grinned and tapped his head. "Oh, but I do, Mistress," he said. "I know more about the Paladin Sword, and its secrets, than anyone alive. And I can destroy you with it."
"Oh, do you really know so much about it?" she said coyly, stepping aside so he could see the frame leaning against the wall behind her.
Darwin's jaw sagged. "You had the frame? How did you get it out of the fire?"
"Quality construction and workmanship, that's how," the other figure rasped.
Darwin blinked. "Mr. Jenks?"
"The same," rasped Bob Jenks. "The same one who made you clean those blueberry stains out of the ceiling."
"Ah, yes," Darwin said, embarrassed. "I do remember that."
"So I don't think," Mistress Riad said in satisfaction, "that you're in much position to be telling me what to do. As I said, you have no weapon. While I," she said, turning to a glass case set in the wall, "have this."
Darwin caught his breath as his torchlight caught the blade. The sword was elegantly crafted, with runes carved into the pommel and set off with brilliant blue sapphires. "Oh, now," he said, "you wouldn't actually use that, would you?"
"Wouldn't I?" she said, eyebrows raised.
"Well," he said, "as I recall, you were always the one worrying about the balance of power, and the consequences if anyone retrieved the Paladin Sword. What happened?"
She shrugged. "If I use the Paladin Sword to wipe out the rest of the Evil Overlords' Union," she said, "then I can keep the insurance money from the damage to the castle, and nobody will be the wiser." She glanced at Jenks. "Or rather, we can split the insurance money. Right, Dad?"
Darwin shook his head. "Wow. Now that's evil."
"Keep an eye on him, Dad," Mistress Riad said. She turned back to the display case and picked up a tattered brochure.
Jenks stepped forward into the light, so Darwin could see the loaded crossbow he held, head-on.
"I'm not doing anything," Darwin said, hastily backing away half a step.
Mistress Riad held the brochure up to the light, flipped it open to the last page, and read the incantation printed there. The glass of the display case glowed blue for a moment, then vanished. She turned back to Darwin and smiled.
"It's kind of ironic," she said, "don't you think? That you should be the first one to fall to the new Paladin, when you were the one who concocted the whole scheme in the first place?"
"Uh, Mistress," said Darwin, with a hint of amusement in his voice, "are you sure you read the runes on the hilt?"
"Of course I did," she said testily. "It says 'Keep Out of the Reach of Children'."
Darwin raised his eyebrows. "Of course. Well, carry on, then."
She grinned an evil grin. "I most certainly shall," she said. She turned and reached for the sword.
And there was a flash of light and a sudden shriek, and Mistress Riad collapsed to the floor.
"Riad!" cried Jenks. "What did you do to her?"
"I didn't do a thing," Darwin said.
Jenks eyed him warily. "I don't believe you," he said. "Although I do thank you for saving me the trouble of taking her out myself. Can't say as I much wanted to split that insurance money if I could help it." He edged toward the display case.
"Uh, you might not want to --" started Darwin.
Jenks reached his arm out for the sword's handle. There was another flash of light.
"-- do that," Darwin finished, as Jenks' body slumped to the floor. He shook his head. "Why do some people never learn?" He approached the sword, and bent to read the inscription on its hilt. "Yes, my study didn't lead me wrong," he said in Riad's direction. "'To Wield in a Good Cause'," he read. "And you, milady, need glasses. Ah, well." He bent down to read the pages in the frame.
It only took him a moment to locate the applicable passages, and he smiled broadly. "I'm so good it's scary," he said softly.
He stood, turned, and reached for the sword's hilt himself.
His fingers had just begun to close on the hilt when a commanding voice rang out. "Drop the sword, Darwin!"
He spun around. The sword caught against the edge of the display case and clattered to the floor in front of him. "Who's there?" he called.
Barbara stepped forward. Behind her was Roderick, his sword already drawn.
"Um, if you don't mind me asking this," asked Gisella as they hurried along the trail cut into the side of the ravine, "how do you expect to become a Paladin if you run away?"
"Hey, you ran away from your father, right?" said Calvin the Bold, nervously eyeing the drop-off into the sheer gorge. "We're just continuing that a bit farther, until I can find the Paladin Sword."
"I don't think we're going the right direction, though," Gisella said. "We're going down. Wasn't Castle Paladin up above us?"
He stopped. "Oh, great," he said. "Now you tell me."
A crossbow bolt streaked out of nowhere and clanged into the pommel of his sword so hard that it drove it into his nerve. The sword clattered to the ground from his suddenly numb fingers.
He turned and looked back up the trail.
"So," Sir Hugo said, advancing slowly toward them with another bolt already readied in his crossbow. "You dared to kidnap my daughter. Come here, Gisella."
Gisella took a deep breath. "No, Father."
Sir Hugo stopped in his tracks. "What?"
"I'm leaving, Father," she said firmly. "I'm not going to let you run my life anymore."
Sir Hugo's eyes widened as he looked back at Calvin the Bold. "What have you done to her?"
"The question is, what have you done to me, Father," Gisella cried. "You've kept me a prisoner in our own home for my entire life! You haven't allowed me the slightest degree of freedom for as long as I've lived!"
Sir Hugo looked troubled. "But, my dear, you're all I have left of my dear departed wife! I cannot let you go!" A wild look came into his eyes. "I won't! Gisella, come here! Now!"
She took a long, shaky breath, looking him in the eye. "No, Father."
He stood very still for a long moment. Then he raised his crossbow again. "Then, Daughter, if I can't keep you safe from the world, then no one shall." He aimed the crossbow squarely at her heart.
And suddenly screamed in pain. A hissing, spitting ball of white fur had attached itself to his leg. He dropped his crossbow, which bounced off the ledge and went tumbling into the abyss. He shook his foot violently, and a small kitten tumbled away.
"Noel!" cried Calvin the Bold, dropping to his knees in front of the kitten. "Oh, baby girl, are you all right?"
But Noel the Not-So-Bold as Calvin the Bold was already back on her feet, hissing at Sir Hugo as he advanced. He was flexing his fingers before him, as if to strangle his foes with his bare hands -- as perhaps was his intent. But the kitten sprang again, turning into a hissing, crackling fury of claws and sinking deep into his thigh.
Crying out in pain, Sir Hugo stumbled forward just as the kitten detached herself again. He fell to one knee, and then pitched over the ledge.
His scream echoed through the gorge as he fell.
The little white kitten marched proudly over to Calvin the Bold, her tail held high.
"Well," was all Calvin the Bold could say. "Baby girl, I think I'm going to have to change your name to Noel the Bold." He looked up at Gisella, frowning. "Which would make me... Calvin the Not-So-Bold as Noel the Bold."
She tried to suppress a smile. "Well, thank you for standing up for me," she said. She helped him to his feet, and kissed him, long and thoroughly.
When they broke off, he had a dazed look on his face. "And that means," he said, "that I'll have to get new business cards, and... uh..."
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, does that mean you're not interested in me anymore?" she said. "That you don't actually care about me, other than wanting to seduce me so you could get to my father?"
"And that means," he said, "that I'll have to get, uh, new... uh, what was that again?"
"Did you just want to seduce me?" she repeated patiently. "To get to my father?"
"Uh, well, I can't say I'd mind the first part," he said with a goofy grin.
She laughed and kissed him again.
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