The Magical Adventures of etc. etc.
Nov. 20th, 2007 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sandtree-Heroes last night = WUT.
-I broke Facebook. I somehow managed to remove 'is' from my status. I don't know how, it just happened. Proof:
Unfortunately, it came back when I changed my status. But for a few hours, I had triumphed over Facebook.
I'm posting these chapters now, because after this I have to go eat dinner, and then read about eight chapters out of textbooks. Huzzah.
Chapters One and Two
Chapters Three and Four
Chapters Five and Six
Chapters Seven and Eight
Chapter Nine – Martha Bright and the Idiot Royalty of Valmell
Meanwhile in Bogbury, Martha was having just as much trouble being admitted to the royal palace as her cousin had had being admitted to Napoleon Bonaparte’s shabby flat in Paris. It was already well into the afternoon, and Martha was still standing outside the main doors of the royal residence, trying to talk her way inside the building.
“Bring me Calpurnia,” Martha demanded, “she will let me inside.”
“Miss Bright, you know that is impossible,” the footman told her. “In any case, I have been instructed not to admit anyone bearing the name of Bright to the palace, ever.”
“When did this start?” she said angrily.
“Since we realised that your family was actively plotting to overthrow King Macalby and reinstate yourselves on the throne,” the footman explained.
“All right,” said Martha, becoming more and more exasperated as the day wore on, “but I am not here to overthrow anyone, I am here to give them a very important warning.”
“Then give me the warning, and I will relate it to the appropriate people,” the footman offered.
“No, thank you,” said Martha. “I want to see the royal family,” she insisted. “Bring me Prince Macalby. He can at least talk to me through the door, can’t he?”
“Oh, very well,” said the footman, clearly growing sick of her. “Wait here, and don’t cause any trouble.”
She listened to his footsteps echo away, and was left alone to quietly resent being treated like a troublesome child. She stood for fifteen minutes, and then slumped down against the warm stone wall, wishing she had brought a book, or something to amuse her while she waited. She could picture the footman meandering through the corridors of the palace, deliberately taking as long as possible to find Prince Macalby and bring him to her.
Finally, someone cleared their throat behind the door, and Martha leapt eagerly to her feet.
“Miss Bright, Crown Prince Macalby is currently away from home, visiting friends in the Isle of Man,” the footman said. “I have brought you Prince Bamber instead. I hope he will do.”
“Bamber!” Martha exclaimed, standing on the tips of her toes to peer through the iron grate on the door. “Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Prince Bamber replied, sounding apprehensive. “What do you want, Martha – I mean, Miss Bright?”
“I need to talk to you, let me inside!” Martha said, growing sick of this stupid game. “I am not here to steal your throne from you, for God’s sake.”
“How am I supposed to know that?” said Bamber, sounding very suspicious.
“I do not have time to overthrow anyone right now,” she said honestly, “Finnegan O’Fear has just killed off everyone in England, Scotland, and Wales, and he is planning to take down the Clandestine Council and yourselves.”
There was a lengthy pause, and then Bamber said, “Who did you hear this from?”
“Maybe if you would let me inside, I could tell you the whole story,” Martha insisted. “Come on, Bamber, I am here alone, what could I possibly do?”
“You can do magic,” he said, unconvinced, “everyone knows it. You are not to be trusted.”
“Is that what the Clandestine Council told you?”
“Maybe.”
“Well I’m glad to see you’ve been soaking up their rhetoric, but unless you want to be ripped limb from limb, or worse, by Finnegan O’Fear, you’ll let me inside now.”
“Why should I?” said Bamber. “You’ve already warned me. You have nothing left we need to know. Please leave.”
“That isn’t true!” Martha said, pounding on the door in frustration. “I can help your family fight against Finnegan O’Fear! We can make a deal, or something. Just let me inside.”
There was silence again, and Martha had almost despaired of ever being granted admission, when the door slowly swung open, to reveal Prince Bamber standing, and looking apprehensive, in the main hall of the palace.
“Finally!” said Martha, as she entered at last.
He was eyeing her with some surprise. “You’ve changed,” he stated.
“Maybe because the last time we saw one another, you were fifteen and I was twelve. Anyway, you haven’t changed at all, Bamber, you still look like you were hit in the face with a plank of wood. Where is your father?”
Bamber seemed to grow extremely uncomfortable at this question. “My father is... not here,” he admitted hesitantly.
“Not here?” Martha repeated. “Well, where on earth is he?”
Bamber hesitated, as if unsure whether he ought to tell Martha this or not. “He was in England, hunting vampires with George III,” he said at last.
“Hunting vampires?” Martha was not quite sure she had heard him correctly.
“Yes, well, you know my father and George III both had... active imaginations. And now, of course, they are both dead.”
“Dead!” Martha exclaimed. “So your brother is King of Valmell now!”
“Er,” said Bamber, “not precisely, no.”
“Not precisely?”
“Not at all, actually.”
“Don’t tell me your brother is dead as well,” Martha said, horrified. Had she been too late? Was Bamber the only member of this wretched family left alive?
Bamber nodded sadly. “We are trying to hush it up, because we are sure there will be riots if it gets out that my brother is dead, and his two-year-old son is technically King of Valmell.”
“Good God,” said Martha, “so a two-year-old is ruling the country.”
“Well, no,” Bamber admitted, “that would be the Clandestine Council.”
“You must be joking.”
“Martha, why are you so surprised?” Bamber asked, becoming annoyed again. “The Clandestine Council has always ruled this country, now they just have more of an excuse to do it.”
“If there needs to be a regent, the job ought to have fallen to your mother, or one of your uncles, or even yourself,” Martha said angrily, “not to the Clandestine Council.”
“Well, what can we do to stop them?” Bamber shrugged.
“That is exactly what I am here to do,” Martha replied. “Of course, we were hoping that Finnegan O’Fear would destroy the Clandestine Council for us, and that way I would only have to worry about destroying Finnegan O’Fear, but nothing seems to be going as planned.”
Bamber simply looked bewildered, as usual.
“I want to see Calpurnia,” Martha stated. “I haven’t seen her in five years. Don’t tell me she is dead as well?”
“Obviously not, unless one of us had killed her, and I can assure you, that is not the case,” Bamber replied, furrowing his brow. “Come on, then, this way.” He began to lead her through the corridors, deeper into the palace.
“What about your other two sisters, are they still alive?”
“They were the last I had word from them, which was this morning. They are in the country, and didn’t put anything in their letters about assassins.”
“Well, good,” said Martha.
“Here we are.” They had reached Princess Calpurnia’s chamber door. Bamber knocked loudly, and then called, “Calpurnia, it’s me, and Martha Bright is here as well!”
There was the sound of muffled footsteps, of the door knob turning, and then the door swung open, to reveal Princess Calpurnia. She was seventeen, exactly the same age as Martha, but was in every other way completely unlike her. Princess Calpurnia was the most beautiful woman the world had ever seen. Beside her, Helen of Troy would have looked like a hag. Her beauty was so astounding, that no man could stand within one hundred metres of her, without being knocked unconscious, unless they were blood related. To other women, and to her male relatives, she looked like a completely normal girl, although she did have the tendency to sparkle.
“Martha?” Calpurnia blinked at her. “What are you doing here? You haven’t come to overthrow us, have you?”
Martha was sick to death of people assuming that she had come to overthrow them. “No, I haven’t,” she snapped, “so kindly don’t assume that I have. If you really want to know, I have come to try and protect you from Finnegan O’Fear, but apparently you would all rather jump into bed with the Clandestine Council than actually do anything to help yourselves.”
“Martha, why are you always so rude?” Calpurnia said sadly. “I was quite happy to hear that you had come to see me, because you know I am never allowed to go outside, and it’s very dull here. Bamber is so tiresome. But if you have nothing nice to say, you can just leave.”
Martha took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and counted to four hundred. When she opened her eyes again, Calpurnia and Bamber were staring expectantly at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and forced a smile. “I understand your concerns, but I promise you, I have no intention of overthrowing you at present. I simply came to warn you that Finnegan O’Fear is out for your blood, and I thought that we could perhaps work together to stop him from conquering and destroying the earth.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said Calpurnia. She smiled. “I think we should all sit down to discuss this. Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, yes,” said Martha, relieved, and followed Calpurnia and Bamber into Calpurnia’s room. There were two chairs facing each other near the window, and Martha and Calpurnia sat down in them; Bamber was forced to stand.
“I think that the most important thing right now is Prince – or should I say, King – Macalby’s safety. Where are you keeping him?”
“Oh, he is with his nurse, as usual,” said Bamber, unconcerned.
“With his nurse!” Martha exclaimed. “You fools! Don’t you know that Finnegan O’Fear is very likely searching for him now, or sending people at this moment to kill him as well? His goal is to be rid of your entire family!”
“Oh, yes,” said Calpurnia, looking worried. “What should we do?”
“We need to find him a better place to hide, that is what we need to do,” said Martha.
“Oh, of course,” Calpurnia agreed. “Bamber, go and retrieve Abby, and bring him here at once. If Finnegan O’Fear really does control the Clandestine Council, I suppose we ought not to trust them.”
Bamber consented, and immediately left the room to locate the King of Valmell. Martha and Calpurnia sat without talking for some minutes, Calpurnia humming a tune to herself, Martha becoming more and more annoyed.
“I suppose you are going to try to overthrow us one day, despite the fact that you are helping us now,” Calpurnia remarked at last.
“Yes,” Martha admitted, “that is, if Finnegan O’Fear does not succeed in killing off your entire family, which seems likely at present. But if your family does somehow come out of this alive, I still hope that the regime change will not have to be violent.”
“I do not see how it wouldn’t be,” Calpurnia said with a sigh.
“You could give up peacefully,” Martha pointed out.
“Oh, yes, I suppose you are right,” mused the princess. “I had not thought of that. But I do not suppose my brother would like it. He thinks that Abby would be terribly upset if he grew up and learned that he might have been king, and was not.”
“Well as for that,” said Martha, “I still hope that we can make some sort of a deal. Frederick’s son can marry a girl from your family, and then their heir will be part Macalby. That ought to satisfy you all.”
Calpurnia shook her head. “But what about Abby?”
“What about him?” Martha replied, growing frustrated. “We will give him a title and some land, I suppose, and if he does not want to co-operate, we will have him exiled to the Isle of Man. It would be poetic justice.”
“Martha, we used to be such great friends when we were children,” Calpurnia sighed, folding her hands in her lap and looking at her wistfully. “Whatever happened?”
“I realised that your family had usurped the rule of a country that rightfully belonged to my family, and so we went our separate ways,” said Martha. “That’s what happens when you grow up.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Just then, Bamber burst into the room, looking panicked. Martha took this as a bad sign. He rushed over to them, and then stopped, breathless.
“What’s wrong, Bamber?” Calpurnia asked. “Where is Abby?”
“He has gone missing!” Bamber exclaimed, breathing heavily. “Well, not missing, precisely, but taken – taken by the Clandestine Council! That is what their representative told me when I met him in the hall. They said they had taken him to a secret location in the north of Valmell, and that we ought not to waste our time looking for him.”
“What are we going to do?” Calpurnia cried anxiously.
“We have to rescue him!” Bamber replied.
“He is most likely already dead,” Martha pointed out.
They both turned to look at her with horrified expressions.
“What?” she said. “I’m just being realistic.”
“We don’t have time for realism!” Bamber shouted. “We have to find our nephew, and save him from the Clanestine Council, or Finnegan O’Fear, or whatever else is currently threatening his existence!”
“Martha, you promised to help us,” Calpurnia pointed out.
“Er, about that...” said Martha, beginning to feel uncomfortable.
“Martha, you can do magic! You have to help us!” Calpurnia exclaimed tearfully, clutching at her.
“Fine, fine!” said Martha, backing away. “But I hope you know that this is most inconvenient for me. My brother and my cousin and Mr. Sevenson will be coming to look for me, and they will expect me to be here, and I will be gone. All of our plans are being completely trampled over.”
“We’ll leave a note with the footman,” Bamber said. “’Gone to secret location to find King of Valmell – we will be back, possibly never. Signed, Prince Bamber, Princess Calpurnia, Miss Bright.’”
Martha agreed to this, and the three disembarked from the royal palace by steamboat, making for an unidentified location in the north of the country. Where they were going, they others hadn’t a clue, but Martha had a suspicion – the only secret location she knew of in the north of Valmell was inside of a tree.
Chapter Ten – Mr. Sevenson and Frederick and the Ambassador and that Valet versus Finnegan O’Fear
“LOOK OUT!” Mr. Stratford shouted. “IT’S FINNEGAN O’FEAR!”
Indeed, Finnegan O’Fear had materialised in the parlour that had previously been occupied by only Sir Rupert and his trusty valet. Now, they were horrified to be standing directly across from the most feared magician the world had ever known.
“Gentlemen,” said Finnegan O’Fear, in a strong Irish accent. He was tall and pale, with red hair and freckles, and seemed to be drunk. He was carrying a potato in one hand, and a shamrock in the other. His entire air, in fact, radiated the fact that he was Irish.
“Get away, you Irish fiend!” Sir Rupert yelled in warning. He knew that he was hopeless against Finnegan O’Fear, but he thought that it would be only proper to at least pretend to make some sort of defence of himself.
“Excuse me,” said Finnegan O’Fear, giving Sir Rupert a stony glare, “but what does my being Irish have to do with any of this?”
“Ireland is a black mark on these islands’ perfect record,” Sir Rupert said, bracing himself for the inevitable attack. “More evil magicians have come out of Ireland than anywhere else in the world!”
“Er,” said his valet, “how many evil magicians have come out of Ireland, sir?”
“As far as I know, only the one,” Sir Rupert admitted. “But still, that has got to mean something.”
“It means that you are about to die,” Finnegan O’Fear announced. He walked toward Sir Rupert, and then sent him flying into a large glass cabinet using only the power of his mind. Sir Rupert was impaled with thousands of shards of glass, and flailed around on the floor, bleeding profusely.
Finnegan O’Fear then turned to Mr. Stratford, and reached out with his hand – Mr. Stratford was instantly turned inside out, and lay on the floor, a gory mass of exposed guts.
“Ooh, that was fun.” The evil magician smiled. “I will have to try that one again some time.”
He walked over to Sir Rupert, who was trying to remove all the shards of glass that had implanted in his flesh one by one, and set him on fire. Sir Rupert was burnt to a crisp, and all that was left of him was a pile of black ash on the once clean parlour floor, and the lingering smell of charred human flesh.
“I am victorious!” Finnegan O’Fear cried in jubilation, pumping his fist in the air. “And now, to find those pesky Brights, and dispose of them!” He strode out the door, spread his obsidian wings, and began to fly toward Valmell.
Or rather, all of this would have certainly happened, had not Frederick Bright and Mr. Sevenson burst through the door, just as Finnegan O’Fear began to walk toward Sir Rupert, with the intention of sending him flying into a large glass cabinet.
As it was, Finnegan O’Fear never got to achieve his diabolical plan. He was thwarted by the appearance of his only living son and his only living son’s best friend.
“It’s you!” shouted the magician, whirling around to face Mr. Sevenson.
“Surprised?” said his son, glaring and flexing his fingers, ready for an epic battle.
“Very,” his father admitted, “though I don’t know why – you clearly have no sense of propriety, no respect for parental authority, not even common politeness – you could have written to tell me you were coming, you know. But I suppose you did not think of that, Joseph. You always were a self absorbed child.”
“I’m not a child!” Mr. Sevenson said defensively. “I’m a grown man, Father, and I am here to thwart your evil plans!”
“Joseph, when will you learn? You are heir to my evil plans. That involves a considerable amount of money.”
“I don’t want your money,” said Mr. Sevenson, “I hate you.”
Finnegan O’Fear shook his head sadly. “Young man, do you know how much it upsets your mother when you say things like that? She always finds out, and she is always out of sorts about it. You are fraying her nerves, my boy. Won’t you think of your poor mother?”
“Poor Mother indeed!” shouted Mr. Sevenson. “Why do you always have to bring her into it? This has nothing to do with her. You come here, and kill off the entire population of Britain, and I come here to thwart whatever diabolical plans you have, and suddenly this is all about me disappointing my mother again?”
“All right, really now...” Frederick began, but trailed off. Mr. Stratford was sneaking up behind Finnegan O’Fear, meaning to hit him over the head with a large plate.
Finnegan O’Fear rolled his eyes, turned around, and kicked Mr. Stratford hard in the groin. Mr. Stratford doubled over, gasping in pain.
“You stupid man,” said Finnegan O’Fear, “I can see out of the back of my head.”
“But you can’t see out of the back of my head,” Mr. Sevenson said.
“What?”
Mr. Sevenson lunged at his father, producing a rapier out of thin air, and bringing it down swiftly to sever Finnegan O’Fear’s head from his neck.
“Joss, you did it!” Frederick cried out in surprise.
Mr. Sevenson looked victorious, but no sooner had he turned his back on the decapitated corpse of his father, then it sprang up, and whipped the potato it had been holding in its hand at Mr. Sevenson. The potato hit Mr. Sevenson square in the back of the head with tremendous force, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
The corpse sauntered over to where its severed head lay, picked it up, and placed it back on its neck. After a moment, it had completely reattached, and one could make out no sign of previous injury at all.
“Is my head on crooked?” Finnegan O’Fear asked, concerned.
“You cad!” Frederick exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, about the potato,” the Irish magician said, and actually sounded a little apologetic, “I had to do it. Who knows what he would have chopped off next? Anyway, he will be out cold for another hour or so, so I will have time to kill you all before he wakes up.”
“Why do you want to kill us?” Sir Rupert demanded.
“Because, you moronic imbecile, you are about to go searching for the Crown of Righteousness – and you, Mr. Bright, and about to try to take the throne of Valmell away from the Macalbys, who I am finding very easy to manipulate and kill off, and we simply can’t have that, now, can we?”
“You are insane,” Frederick said, horrified. “Absolutely, utterly, completely insane!”
“Yes,” said the magician, “but there is very good reason for that. It all started on a fine summer day in 1746, when I was born. I was eight months early, but I had grown impatient of life in the womb, and so I tore myself out of it, and ran away.”
“You tore yourself out of your mother?” Frederick asked, shocked.
“Yes,” said O’Fear, “well, what else was I supposed to do? Now, kindly do not interrupt me again. After breaking free of my fleshy prison, I went to Dublin, where I was apprenticed to a cooper. Making barrels was my passion. I would stay up for hours into the night, picking out the bits of wood that curved in just precisely the right way, and fitting them together; finding the best nails; polishing the finished product so that it shone bright; and testing to make sure that they rolled properly, especially with people in them; in short, I was the most accomplished cooper in Dublin by the time I was two years old. People came from far and wide, just to see my barrels.”
“Where exactly are you going with this?” Frederick demanded. He had never been a patient person, and was not just going to stand around while his friend lay unconscious on the floor, Mr. Stratford was still doubled over in pain, and Sir Rupert was in too much shock to react to much of anything at all.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT ME, FOOLISH BOY!” Finnegan O’Fear roared, and instantly Frederick found his mouth magically sealed shut.
“There. Now, where was I? Oh yes, barrels. Well, unfortunately my employer grew jealous of my amazing abilities, and tried to strangle me while I slept in my bed. So I chewed his hands off, and ran away to New France, and became a coureur des bois, that is, I ran around in the woods, collecting furs. Unfortunately I did not make much money at this, as I was told that I had come about two centuries too late, and that the boom had ended. This enraged me, so I killed the next thirty people I came across, which happened to be the entire population of Trois Rivieres.
“I moved on to Quebec, which was rather dull. I would have much rather been in Montreal, because it was quite rowdy there, but I found Quebec more lucrative for my business, which was the business of murder. You would not imagine how many people were eager to murder their neighbours and relations. I found les canadiens to be quite a vicious race.
“Eventually I grew tired of speaking French all day long, and so I found a drunken English scoundrel named James Wolfe, and instructed him on how to invade and conquer Quebec. He seemed quite eager to do this in his severely drunken state, and so I magically assisted him in the battle. It was, obviously, a decisive victory for the English, but only because I was involved – the poor dolts didn’t know a cannon from a pocket watch.
“Of course, the military fellow who ran Quebec, I believe his name was Montcalm, was quite displeased, and put a curse on me with his dying breath, but I don’t think the curse ever took hold, because curses usually do not take with me.”
Sir Rupert could no longer take this. “What, exactly, is the purpose of this rubbish, if not only to prove that you are even more evil than we at first suspected?” he said, at last finding his voice.
“SILENCE, BRAINLESS ONE,” Finnegan O’Fear exclaimed, and Sir Rupert found his mouth magically stitched shut, just as Frederick’s had been.
“I have never known a worse audience than you gentlemen,” the evil magician complained. “Anyway, after the English were victorious, Quebec grew very boring, and so I returned home to Ireland. This was in 1763. This was when I first began to build my reputation as the most powerful magician in the world. It was not difficult – I have a great deal of natural talent. Soon, everyone learned to fear me, and I even had the Clandestine Council under my control.
“I grew bored again, and was still upset that the English had contributed to my boredom, so I organised a revolution in the American colonies for fun. The English were soundly beaten and driven off because of my machinations there, and I had a good laugh whenever I thought of it for years after. I still do, come to think.” He chuckled to himself.
“Around that time, I met my lovely wife, and we had our first child, Edward O’Fear. After Edward came Edmund, then Edgar, Edric, Edwin, Edison, and then this one – “ he nodded at Joseph, looking disappointed “ -- who frankly I often wish had not been born at all, and then the girls; Mary, Elizabeth, Katherine, Sarah, Jemima, Caroline and Charlotte (the twins), Laura, Diana, Mabel, Cassandra, Frances, Gillian, and Ellen. They are all lovely children, except for all of the boys, and Katherine, and Sarah as well, because she managed to get herself lost in Sweden, or some similar backwards country. But the rest of them are really spectacular children.”
By the time Finnegan O’Fear was done making this lengthy speech, Mr. Stratford had managed to tie a large brick to his ankle, drag him outside, and push him into the river. Finnegan O’Fear seemed very surprised to find himself sinking rapidly to the murky bottom.
“By God, Mr. Stratford, you did it!” Frederick exclaimed, free from the spell that had been put on him, now that Finnegan O’Fear was being drowned.
“Yes,” said Mr. Stratford, “but we all know Finnegan O’Fear better than to think that this will hinder him for long. Come, let us collect Mr. Sevenson – we will have to leave immediately.”
Mr. Stratford, Sir Rupert, and Frederick ran back inside, and managed to lift the still unconscious Mr. Sevenson from the parlour floor. The carried him outside to their waiting hot air balloon, and heaved him over the side of it. Then they all climbed in, and pulled the string or something, and the balloon rose from the ground, carried on the wind back west toward the kingdom of Valmell.
“Hurry!” Frederick shouted at the hot air ballon. “My sister is in Valmell, and she may need our help! Who knows what nonsense has been going on there since we left? And we have to rescue Mr. Blackstone!”
The hot air balloon did not seem to hear Frederick’s pleas. It continued to drift toward Valmell at its own pace, and the men were left to rage away to themselves, excepting, of course, Mr. Sevenson, who was still quite unconscious.
The balloon finally landed in the middle of Bogbury, just as the sun was rising over the horizon. It seemed as though half the city had turned out to herald their arrival, but they had no time for festivities. Mr. Sevenson had finally woken up, and all four men jumped over the side of the hot air balloon when it was merely eighteen feet above the ground, and dashed toward the royal palace.
They began to pound on the heavy double doors, but received no answer. They continued pounding for another half an hour, when finally a footman emerged to ask them in very annoyed tones, what it was that they wanted.
“I am looking for my sister, Miss Martha Bright!” Frederick exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, of course,” said the footman. “She was here not long ago.”
“Was here?” said Mr. Sevenson. “Well, where is she now?”
The footman shrugged. “Damned if I know. Last I heard, Miss Bright, Prince Bamber, and Princess Calpurnia had rushed off to some secret location in the north of Valmell, in order to locate the King of Valmell, who has been kidnapped by the Clandestine Council.”
“The King of Valmell!” Sir Rupert exclaimed incredulously.
“Yes, only the former King of Valmell is dead, and so is his son, the Crown Prince, so the current King Macalby is actually the two year old boy formerly known as Prince Abby. It is nice to see you again, Sir Rupert – we all thought you must be dead, you know.”
Sir Rupert ignored this, and said, “You say they left for a secret location – do you have any idea where it was that they were headed?”
“Obviously not,” said the footman scornfully, “if I had known where they were heading, it would not have been a secret location, now, would it have?”
“There is no need to get clever,” Frederick snapped. “Fine, then. Joss, Sir Rupert, Mr. Stratford – we have no other choice but to seek out and rescue Martha ourselves. I feel that she is heading directly into a trap.”
“But what about Adam?” Mr. Sevenson reminded him. “He is supposed to be meeting us here.”
Frederick considered this for a moment, then turned to the footman. “If a highly talented blind man shows up here and asks after us, will you tell him that we have gone to find Martha Bright at a secret location in the north of Valmell?”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” said the footman.
“No,” said Frederick.
“Very well. Blind Man. Martha Bright. Secret location. You can count on me, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Frederick, clapping his hands together. “Well, everyone, let’s be off – oh yes, I know precisely where we are headed, because there is only one secret location in Valmell, and everyone knows where that is!”
Tomorrow: Mr. Blackstone and Pierre Noir are discovered, pretty much everyone takes on the Clandestine Council, and Adam has an admirer.
-I broke Facebook. I somehow managed to remove 'is' from my status. I don't know how, it just happened. Proof:
Unfortunately, it came back when I changed my status. But for a few hours, I had triumphed over Facebook.
I'm posting these chapters now, because after this I have to go eat dinner, and then read about eight chapters out of textbooks. Huzzah.
Chapters One and Two
Chapters Three and Four
Chapters Five and Six
Chapters Seven and Eight
Meanwhile in Bogbury, Martha was having just as much trouble being admitted to the royal palace as her cousin had had being admitted to Napoleon Bonaparte’s shabby flat in Paris. It was already well into the afternoon, and Martha was still standing outside the main doors of the royal residence, trying to talk her way inside the building.
“Bring me Calpurnia,” Martha demanded, “she will let me inside.”
“Miss Bright, you know that is impossible,” the footman told her. “In any case, I have been instructed not to admit anyone bearing the name of Bright to the palace, ever.”
“When did this start?” she said angrily.
“Since we realised that your family was actively plotting to overthrow King Macalby and reinstate yourselves on the throne,” the footman explained.
“All right,” said Martha, becoming more and more exasperated as the day wore on, “but I am not here to overthrow anyone, I am here to give them a very important warning.”
“Then give me the warning, and I will relate it to the appropriate people,” the footman offered.
“No, thank you,” said Martha. “I want to see the royal family,” she insisted. “Bring me Prince Macalby. He can at least talk to me through the door, can’t he?”
“Oh, very well,” said the footman, clearly growing sick of her. “Wait here, and don’t cause any trouble.”
She listened to his footsteps echo away, and was left alone to quietly resent being treated like a troublesome child. She stood for fifteen minutes, and then slumped down against the warm stone wall, wishing she had brought a book, or something to amuse her while she waited. She could picture the footman meandering through the corridors of the palace, deliberately taking as long as possible to find Prince Macalby and bring him to her.
Finally, someone cleared their throat behind the door, and Martha leapt eagerly to her feet.
“Miss Bright, Crown Prince Macalby is currently away from home, visiting friends in the Isle of Man,” the footman said. “I have brought you Prince Bamber instead. I hope he will do.”
“Bamber!” Martha exclaimed, standing on the tips of her toes to peer through the iron grate on the door. “Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Prince Bamber replied, sounding apprehensive. “What do you want, Martha – I mean, Miss Bright?”
“I need to talk to you, let me inside!” Martha said, growing sick of this stupid game. “I am not here to steal your throne from you, for God’s sake.”
“How am I supposed to know that?” said Bamber, sounding very suspicious.
“I do not have time to overthrow anyone right now,” she said honestly, “Finnegan O’Fear has just killed off everyone in England, Scotland, and Wales, and he is planning to take down the Clandestine Council and yourselves.”
There was a lengthy pause, and then Bamber said, “Who did you hear this from?”
“Maybe if you would let me inside, I could tell you the whole story,” Martha insisted. “Come on, Bamber, I am here alone, what could I possibly do?”
“You can do magic,” he said, unconvinced, “everyone knows it. You are not to be trusted.”
“Is that what the Clandestine Council told you?”
“Maybe.”
“Well I’m glad to see you’ve been soaking up their rhetoric, but unless you want to be ripped limb from limb, or worse, by Finnegan O’Fear, you’ll let me inside now.”
“Why should I?” said Bamber. “You’ve already warned me. You have nothing left we need to know. Please leave.”
“That isn’t true!” Martha said, pounding on the door in frustration. “I can help your family fight against Finnegan O’Fear! We can make a deal, or something. Just let me inside.”
There was silence again, and Martha had almost despaired of ever being granted admission, when the door slowly swung open, to reveal Prince Bamber standing, and looking apprehensive, in the main hall of the palace.
“Finally!” said Martha, as she entered at last.
He was eyeing her with some surprise. “You’ve changed,” he stated.
“Maybe because the last time we saw one another, you were fifteen and I was twelve. Anyway, you haven’t changed at all, Bamber, you still look like you were hit in the face with a plank of wood. Where is your father?”
Bamber seemed to grow extremely uncomfortable at this question. “My father is... not here,” he admitted hesitantly.
“Not here?” Martha repeated. “Well, where on earth is he?”
Bamber hesitated, as if unsure whether he ought to tell Martha this or not. “He was in England, hunting vampires with George III,” he said at last.
“Hunting vampires?” Martha was not quite sure she had heard him correctly.
“Yes, well, you know my father and George III both had... active imaginations. And now, of course, they are both dead.”
“Dead!” Martha exclaimed. “So your brother is King of Valmell now!”
“Er,” said Bamber, “not precisely, no.”
“Not precisely?”
“Not at all, actually.”
“Don’t tell me your brother is dead as well,” Martha said, horrified. Had she been too late? Was Bamber the only member of this wretched family left alive?
Bamber nodded sadly. “We are trying to hush it up, because we are sure there will be riots if it gets out that my brother is dead, and his two-year-old son is technically King of Valmell.”
“Good God,” said Martha, “so a two-year-old is ruling the country.”
“Well, no,” Bamber admitted, “that would be the Clandestine Council.”
“You must be joking.”
“Martha, why are you so surprised?” Bamber asked, becoming annoyed again. “The Clandestine Council has always ruled this country, now they just have more of an excuse to do it.”
“If there needs to be a regent, the job ought to have fallen to your mother, or one of your uncles, or even yourself,” Martha said angrily, “not to the Clandestine Council.”
“Well, what can we do to stop them?” Bamber shrugged.
“That is exactly what I am here to do,” Martha replied. “Of course, we were hoping that Finnegan O’Fear would destroy the Clandestine Council for us, and that way I would only have to worry about destroying Finnegan O’Fear, but nothing seems to be going as planned.”
Bamber simply looked bewildered, as usual.
“I want to see Calpurnia,” Martha stated. “I haven’t seen her in five years. Don’t tell me she is dead as well?”
“Obviously not, unless one of us had killed her, and I can assure you, that is not the case,” Bamber replied, furrowing his brow. “Come on, then, this way.” He began to lead her through the corridors, deeper into the palace.
“What about your other two sisters, are they still alive?”
“They were the last I had word from them, which was this morning. They are in the country, and didn’t put anything in their letters about assassins.”
“Well, good,” said Martha.
“Here we are.” They had reached Princess Calpurnia’s chamber door. Bamber knocked loudly, and then called, “Calpurnia, it’s me, and Martha Bright is here as well!”
There was the sound of muffled footsteps, of the door knob turning, and then the door swung open, to reveal Princess Calpurnia. She was seventeen, exactly the same age as Martha, but was in every other way completely unlike her. Princess Calpurnia was the most beautiful woman the world had ever seen. Beside her, Helen of Troy would have looked like a hag. Her beauty was so astounding, that no man could stand within one hundred metres of her, without being knocked unconscious, unless they were blood related. To other women, and to her male relatives, she looked like a completely normal girl, although she did have the tendency to sparkle.
“Martha?” Calpurnia blinked at her. “What are you doing here? You haven’t come to overthrow us, have you?”
Martha was sick to death of people assuming that she had come to overthrow them. “No, I haven’t,” she snapped, “so kindly don’t assume that I have. If you really want to know, I have come to try and protect you from Finnegan O’Fear, but apparently you would all rather jump into bed with the Clandestine Council than actually do anything to help yourselves.”
“Martha, why are you always so rude?” Calpurnia said sadly. “I was quite happy to hear that you had come to see me, because you know I am never allowed to go outside, and it’s very dull here. Bamber is so tiresome. But if you have nothing nice to say, you can just leave.”
Martha took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and counted to four hundred. When she opened her eyes again, Calpurnia and Bamber were staring expectantly at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and forced a smile. “I understand your concerns, but I promise you, I have no intention of overthrowing you at present. I simply came to warn you that Finnegan O’Fear is out for your blood, and I thought that we could perhaps work together to stop him from conquering and destroying the earth.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said Calpurnia. She smiled. “I think we should all sit down to discuss this. Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, yes,” said Martha, relieved, and followed Calpurnia and Bamber into Calpurnia’s room. There were two chairs facing each other near the window, and Martha and Calpurnia sat down in them; Bamber was forced to stand.
“I think that the most important thing right now is Prince – or should I say, King – Macalby’s safety. Where are you keeping him?”
“Oh, he is with his nurse, as usual,” said Bamber, unconcerned.
“With his nurse!” Martha exclaimed. “You fools! Don’t you know that Finnegan O’Fear is very likely searching for him now, or sending people at this moment to kill him as well? His goal is to be rid of your entire family!”
“Oh, yes,” said Calpurnia, looking worried. “What should we do?”
“We need to find him a better place to hide, that is what we need to do,” said Martha.
“Oh, of course,” Calpurnia agreed. “Bamber, go and retrieve Abby, and bring him here at once. If Finnegan O’Fear really does control the Clandestine Council, I suppose we ought not to trust them.”
Bamber consented, and immediately left the room to locate the King of Valmell. Martha and Calpurnia sat without talking for some minutes, Calpurnia humming a tune to herself, Martha becoming more and more annoyed.
“I suppose you are going to try to overthrow us one day, despite the fact that you are helping us now,” Calpurnia remarked at last.
“Yes,” Martha admitted, “that is, if Finnegan O’Fear does not succeed in killing off your entire family, which seems likely at present. But if your family does somehow come out of this alive, I still hope that the regime change will not have to be violent.”
“I do not see how it wouldn’t be,” Calpurnia said with a sigh.
“You could give up peacefully,” Martha pointed out.
“Oh, yes, I suppose you are right,” mused the princess. “I had not thought of that. But I do not suppose my brother would like it. He thinks that Abby would be terribly upset if he grew up and learned that he might have been king, and was not.”
“Well as for that,” said Martha, “I still hope that we can make some sort of a deal. Frederick’s son can marry a girl from your family, and then their heir will be part Macalby. That ought to satisfy you all.”
Calpurnia shook her head. “But what about Abby?”
“What about him?” Martha replied, growing frustrated. “We will give him a title and some land, I suppose, and if he does not want to co-operate, we will have him exiled to the Isle of Man. It would be poetic justice.”
“Martha, we used to be such great friends when we were children,” Calpurnia sighed, folding her hands in her lap and looking at her wistfully. “Whatever happened?”
“I realised that your family had usurped the rule of a country that rightfully belonged to my family, and so we went our separate ways,” said Martha. “That’s what happens when you grow up.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Just then, Bamber burst into the room, looking panicked. Martha took this as a bad sign. He rushed over to them, and then stopped, breathless.
“What’s wrong, Bamber?” Calpurnia asked. “Where is Abby?”
“He has gone missing!” Bamber exclaimed, breathing heavily. “Well, not missing, precisely, but taken – taken by the Clandestine Council! That is what their representative told me when I met him in the hall. They said they had taken him to a secret location in the north of Valmell, and that we ought not to waste our time looking for him.”
“What are we going to do?” Calpurnia cried anxiously.
“We have to rescue him!” Bamber replied.
“He is most likely already dead,” Martha pointed out.
They both turned to look at her with horrified expressions.
“What?” she said. “I’m just being realistic.”
“We don’t have time for realism!” Bamber shouted. “We have to find our nephew, and save him from the Clanestine Council, or Finnegan O’Fear, or whatever else is currently threatening his existence!”
“Martha, you promised to help us,” Calpurnia pointed out.
“Er, about that...” said Martha, beginning to feel uncomfortable.
“Martha, you can do magic! You have to help us!” Calpurnia exclaimed tearfully, clutching at her.
“Fine, fine!” said Martha, backing away. “But I hope you know that this is most inconvenient for me. My brother and my cousin and Mr. Sevenson will be coming to look for me, and they will expect me to be here, and I will be gone. All of our plans are being completely trampled over.”
“We’ll leave a note with the footman,” Bamber said. “’Gone to secret location to find King of Valmell – we will be back, possibly never. Signed, Prince Bamber, Princess Calpurnia, Miss Bright.’”
Martha agreed to this, and the three disembarked from the royal palace by steamboat, making for an unidentified location in the north of the country. Where they were going, they others hadn’t a clue, but Martha had a suspicion – the only secret location she knew of in the north of Valmell was inside of a tree.
“LOOK OUT!” Mr. Stratford shouted. “IT’S FINNEGAN O’FEAR!”
Indeed, Finnegan O’Fear had materialised in the parlour that had previously been occupied by only Sir Rupert and his trusty valet. Now, they were horrified to be standing directly across from the most feared magician the world had ever known.
“Gentlemen,” said Finnegan O’Fear, in a strong Irish accent. He was tall and pale, with red hair and freckles, and seemed to be drunk. He was carrying a potato in one hand, and a shamrock in the other. His entire air, in fact, radiated the fact that he was Irish.
“Get away, you Irish fiend!” Sir Rupert yelled in warning. He knew that he was hopeless against Finnegan O’Fear, but he thought that it would be only proper to at least pretend to make some sort of defence of himself.
“Excuse me,” said Finnegan O’Fear, giving Sir Rupert a stony glare, “but what does my being Irish have to do with any of this?”
“Ireland is a black mark on these islands’ perfect record,” Sir Rupert said, bracing himself for the inevitable attack. “More evil magicians have come out of Ireland than anywhere else in the world!”
“Er,” said his valet, “how many evil magicians have come out of Ireland, sir?”
“As far as I know, only the one,” Sir Rupert admitted. “But still, that has got to mean something.”
“It means that you are about to die,” Finnegan O’Fear announced. He walked toward Sir Rupert, and then sent him flying into a large glass cabinet using only the power of his mind. Sir Rupert was impaled with thousands of shards of glass, and flailed around on the floor, bleeding profusely.
Finnegan O’Fear then turned to Mr. Stratford, and reached out with his hand – Mr. Stratford was instantly turned inside out, and lay on the floor, a gory mass of exposed guts.
“Ooh, that was fun.” The evil magician smiled. “I will have to try that one again some time.”
He walked over to Sir Rupert, who was trying to remove all the shards of glass that had implanted in his flesh one by one, and set him on fire. Sir Rupert was burnt to a crisp, and all that was left of him was a pile of black ash on the once clean parlour floor, and the lingering smell of charred human flesh.
“I am victorious!” Finnegan O’Fear cried in jubilation, pumping his fist in the air. “And now, to find those pesky Brights, and dispose of them!” He strode out the door, spread his obsidian wings, and began to fly toward Valmell.
Or rather, all of this would have certainly happened, had not Frederick Bright and Mr. Sevenson burst through the door, just as Finnegan O’Fear began to walk toward Sir Rupert, with the intention of sending him flying into a large glass cabinet.
As it was, Finnegan O’Fear never got to achieve his diabolical plan. He was thwarted by the appearance of his only living son and his only living son’s best friend.
“It’s you!” shouted the magician, whirling around to face Mr. Sevenson.
“Surprised?” said his son, glaring and flexing his fingers, ready for an epic battle.
“Very,” his father admitted, “though I don’t know why – you clearly have no sense of propriety, no respect for parental authority, not even common politeness – you could have written to tell me you were coming, you know. But I suppose you did not think of that, Joseph. You always were a self absorbed child.”
“I’m not a child!” Mr. Sevenson said defensively. “I’m a grown man, Father, and I am here to thwart your evil plans!”
“Joseph, when will you learn? You are heir to my evil plans. That involves a considerable amount of money.”
“I don’t want your money,” said Mr. Sevenson, “I hate you.”
Finnegan O’Fear shook his head sadly. “Young man, do you know how much it upsets your mother when you say things like that? She always finds out, and she is always out of sorts about it. You are fraying her nerves, my boy. Won’t you think of your poor mother?”
“Poor Mother indeed!” shouted Mr. Sevenson. “Why do you always have to bring her into it? This has nothing to do with her. You come here, and kill off the entire population of Britain, and I come here to thwart whatever diabolical plans you have, and suddenly this is all about me disappointing my mother again?”
“All right, really now...” Frederick began, but trailed off. Mr. Stratford was sneaking up behind Finnegan O’Fear, meaning to hit him over the head with a large plate.
Finnegan O’Fear rolled his eyes, turned around, and kicked Mr. Stratford hard in the groin. Mr. Stratford doubled over, gasping in pain.
“You stupid man,” said Finnegan O’Fear, “I can see out of the back of my head.”
“But you can’t see out of the back of my head,” Mr. Sevenson said.
“What?”
Mr. Sevenson lunged at his father, producing a rapier out of thin air, and bringing it down swiftly to sever Finnegan O’Fear’s head from his neck.
“Joss, you did it!” Frederick cried out in surprise.
Mr. Sevenson looked victorious, but no sooner had he turned his back on the decapitated corpse of his father, then it sprang up, and whipped the potato it had been holding in its hand at Mr. Sevenson. The potato hit Mr. Sevenson square in the back of the head with tremendous force, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
The corpse sauntered over to where its severed head lay, picked it up, and placed it back on its neck. After a moment, it had completely reattached, and one could make out no sign of previous injury at all.
“Is my head on crooked?” Finnegan O’Fear asked, concerned.
“You cad!” Frederick exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, about the potato,” the Irish magician said, and actually sounded a little apologetic, “I had to do it. Who knows what he would have chopped off next? Anyway, he will be out cold for another hour or so, so I will have time to kill you all before he wakes up.”
“Why do you want to kill us?” Sir Rupert demanded.
“Because, you moronic imbecile, you are about to go searching for the Crown of Righteousness – and you, Mr. Bright, and about to try to take the throne of Valmell away from the Macalbys, who I am finding very easy to manipulate and kill off, and we simply can’t have that, now, can we?”
“You are insane,” Frederick said, horrified. “Absolutely, utterly, completely insane!”
“Yes,” said the magician, “but there is very good reason for that. It all started on a fine summer day in 1746, when I was born. I was eight months early, but I had grown impatient of life in the womb, and so I tore myself out of it, and ran away.”
“You tore yourself out of your mother?” Frederick asked, shocked.
“Yes,” said O’Fear, “well, what else was I supposed to do? Now, kindly do not interrupt me again. After breaking free of my fleshy prison, I went to Dublin, where I was apprenticed to a cooper. Making barrels was my passion. I would stay up for hours into the night, picking out the bits of wood that curved in just precisely the right way, and fitting them together; finding the best nails; polishing the finished product so that it shone bright; and testing to make sure that they rolled properly, especially with people in them; in short, I was the most accomplished cooper in Dublin by the time I was two years old. People came from far and wide, just to see my barrels.”
“Where exactly are you going with this?” Frederick demanded. He had never been a patient person, and was not just going to stand around while his friend lay unconscious on the floor, Mr. Stratford was still doubled over in pain, and Sir Rupert was in too much shock to react to much of anything at all.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT ME, FOOLISH BOY!” Finnegan O’Fear roared, and instantly Frederick found his mouth magically sealed shut.
“There. Now, where was I? Oh yes, barrels. Well, unfortunately my employer grew jealous of my amazing abilities, and tried to strangle me while I slept in my bed. So I chewed his hands off, and ran away to New France, and became a coureur des bois, that is, I ran around in the woods, collecting furs. Unfortunately I did not make much money at this, as I was told that I had come about two centuries too late, and that the boom had ended. This enraged me, so I killed the next thirty people I came across, which happened to be the entire population of Trois Rivieres.
“I moved on to Quebec, which was rather dull. I would have much rather been in Montreal, because it was quite rowdy there, but I found Quebec more lucrative for my business, which was the business of murder. You would not imagine how many people were eager to murder their neighbours and relations. I found les canadiens to be quite a vicious race.
“Eventually I grew tired of speaking French all day long, and so I found a drunken English scoundrel named James Wolfe, and instructed him on how to invade and conquer Quebec. He seemed quite eager to do this in his severely drunken state, and so I magically assisted him in the battle. It was, obviously, a decisive victory for the English, but only because I was involved – the poor dolts didn’t know a cannon from a pocket watch.
“Of course, the military fellow who ran Quebec, I believe his name was Montcalm, was quite displeased, and put a curse on me with his dying breath, but I don’t think the curse ever took hold, because curses usually do not take with me.”
Sir Rupert could no longer take this. “What, exactly, is the purpose of this rubbish, if not only to prove that you are even more evil than we at first suspected?” he said, at last finding his voice.
“SILENCE, BRAINLESS ONE,” Finnegan O’Fear exclaimed, and Sir Rupert found his mouth magically stitched shut, just as Frederick’s had been.
“I have never known a worse audience than you gentlemen,” the evil magician complained. “Anyway, after the English were victorious, Quebec grew very boring, and so I returned home to Ireland. This was in 1763. This was when I first began to build my reputation as the most powerful magician in the world. It was not difficult – I have a great deal of natural talent. Soon, everyone learned to fear me, and I even had the Clandestine Council under my control.
“I grew bored again, and was still upset that the English had contributed to my boredom, so I organised a revolution in the American colonies for fun. The English were soundly beaten and driven off because of my machinations there, and I had a good laugh whenever I thought of it for years after. I still do, come to think.” He chuckled to himself.
“Around that time, I met my lovely wife, and we had our first child, Edward O’Fear. After Edward came Edmund, then Edgar, Edric, Edwin, Edison, and then this one – “ he nodded at Joseph, looking disappointed “ -- who frankly I often wish had not been born at all, and then the girls; Mary, Elizabeth, Katherine, Sarah, Jemima, Caroline and Charlotte (the twins), Laura, Diana, Mabel, Cassandra, Frances, Gillian, and Ellen. They are all lovely children, except for all of the boys, and Katherine, and Sarah as well, because she managed to get herself lost in Sweden, or some similar backwards country. But the rest of them are really spectacular children.”
By the time Finnegan O’Fear was done making this lengthy speech, Mr. Stratford had managed to tie a large brick to his ankle, drag him outside, and push him into the river. Finnegan O’Fear seemed very surprised to find himself sinking rapidly to the murky bottom.
“By God, Mr. Stratford, you did it!” Frederick exclaimed, free from the spell that had been put on him, now that Finnegan O’Fear was being drowned.
“Yes,” said Mr. Stratford, “but we all know Finnegan O’Fear better than to think that this will hinder him for long. Come, let us collect Mr. Sevenson – we will have to leave immediately.”
Mr. Stratford, Sir Rupert, and Frederick ran back inside, and managed to lift the still unconscious Mr. Sevenson from the parlour floor. The carried him outside to their waiting hot air balloon, and heaved him over the side of it. Then they all climbed in, and pulled the string or something, and the balloon rose from the ground, carried on the wind back west toward the kingdom of Valmell.
“Hurry!” Frederick shouted at the hot air ballon. “My sister is in Valmell, and she may need our help! Who knows what nonsense has been going on there since we left? And we have to rescue Mr. Blackstone!”
The hot air balloon did not seem to hear Frederick’s pleas. It continued to drift toward Valmell at its own pace, and the men were left to rage away to themselves, excepting, of course, Mr. Sevenson, who was still quite unconscious.
The balloon finally landed in the middle of Bogbury, just as the sun was rising over the horizon. It seemed as though half the city had turned out to herald their arrival, but they had no time for festivities. Mr. Sevenson had finally woken up, and all four men jumped over the side of the hot air balloon when it was merely eighteen feet above the ground, and dashed toward the royal palace.
They began to pound on the heavy double doors, but received no answer. They continued pounding for another half an hour, when finally a footman emerged to ask them in very annoyed tones, what it was that they wanted.
“I am looking for my sister, Miss Martha Bright!” Frederick exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, of course,” said the footman. “She was here not long ago.”
“Was here?” said Mr. Sevenson. “Well, where is she now?”
The footman shrugged. “Damned if I know. Last I heard, Miss Bright, Prince Bamber, and Princess Calpurnia had rushed off to some secret location in the north of Valmell, in order to locate the King of Valmell, who has been kidnapped by the Clandestine Council.”
“The King of Valmell!” Sir Rupert exclaimed incredulously.
“Yes, only the former King of Valmell is dead, and so is his son, the Crown Prince, so the current King Macalby is actually the two year old boy formerly known as Prince Abby. It is nice to see you again, Sir Rupert – we all thought you must be dead, you know.”
Sir Rupert ignored this, and said, “You say they left for a secret location – do you have any idea where it was that they were headed?”
“Obviously not,” said the footman scornfully, “if I had known where they were heading, it would not have been a secret location, now, would it have?”
“There is no need to get clever,” Frederick snapped. “Fine, then. Joss, Sir Rupert, Mr. Stratford – we have no other choice but to seek out and rescue Martha ourselves. I feel that she is heading directly into a trap.”
“But what about Adam?” Mr. Sevenson reminded him. “He is supposed to be meeting us here.”
Frederick considered this for a moment, then turned to the footman. “If a highly talented blind man shows up here and asks after us, will you tell him that we have gone to find Martha Bright at a secret location in the north of Valmell?”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” said the footman.
“No,” said Frederick.
“Very well. Blind Man. Martha Bright. Secret location. You can count on me, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Frederick, clapping his hands together. “Well, everyone, let’s be off – oh yes, I know precisely where we are headed, because there is only one secret location in Valmell, and everyone knows where that is!”
Tomorrow: Mr. Blackstone and Pierre Noir are discovered, pretty much everyone takes on the Clandestine Council, and Adam has an admirer.
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Date: 2007-11-21 03:23 am (UTC)http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb293/timkloske/napoleon.jpg
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Date: 2007-11-21 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 06:09 pm (UTC)*adds Alison on Facebook*
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Date: 2007-11-21 06:37 pm (UTC)Yay, new Facebook friend!