Pence Page 29

  Chapter XVIII

  The iron wheels whinnied like parched horses as they raced ahead, gears and chain-links crinkled, the purple-clad giant huffed and panted–these were the only sounds throughout the night. Although the Purloiner did not speak again, a story with murder and black hearts told to a boy in the dark has a way of echoing in silence; inside the bottle, Pence crouched against the wall, hiding from visitations of a killer’s beady eyes.

  The bicycle shot out the gaping maw of a seaside cavern and onto a broad, laboriously tiled avenue awash in morning sunlight. The avenue lined the coast as it ran in a stately curve to the tower, met on the right by the mountainside and on the left by a sloping beach where a thousand and more chunks of chalky stone littered the white sand. The stones looked to be ages old, smoothed by the elements, some as large as a man.

  “Are we there?” Pence called out, sore and throaty. When no answer came he lamented to himself, “I miss the garden. I miss my old husk. I miss my friend, the foot. I liked him–his toes were all in a row. I wish I was free of this cesspool, if only to see the Sun again for a moment,” Pence said fondly. Catching himself, he hastened to add, “Just to make sure he isn’t up to no good.”

  The Purloiner joyously sang over the wind and the sea, “What a night, young master, what a ride! We came within an eyelash of our lives a hundred times, but here we are, as I promised, you and the penny as safe as spinach on a silver plate.”

  “You must be in better physical condition than I surmised,” Pence said to the Purloiner’s head, “to bypass such deadly obstacles as though the road were ever flat and true. Are we almost to the Princess, now? When can I get out of here?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot reach my hat until we stop,” the Purloiner said pleasantly, as though commenting on the maintenance of the road with a passerby. “Won’t be long, now.”

  Presently, the squeal of metal stopped. The grog responded to the abrupt change in momentum by throwing a wave like a boxer’s punch into Pence’s mouth.

  “We are arrived,” announced the Purloiner.

  The top hat disappeared in a flourish. Dazzling colors danced across the contoured glass of Pence’s prison. A shaft of sunlight poured into the bottleneck, split in two by the penny stuck in the opening. Pence’s eyes were nearly white as he stared out his only window, for the sky was as bright as the gardener’s beard.

  “Is that not beautiful?” whispered the Purloiner. He stood on the first step of a long, narrow stairway which rose from the seaside to the tower’s one and only door. “You see? I have not exaggerated for splendor. Why would a man pay homage to a white tree when he could worship a king in a white tower? Is it not undeniably grander than anything in your garden?”

  “Certainly it is,” replied Pence. “It’s much like the stump, only a little taller, I suppose. But some folks would rather sit and listen to a bird sing than to a king. And my old man says the White Tree will grow again–then we will see which of the two is best.”

  “Look,” marveled the Purloiner, “you cannot see the topmost windows from down here, even when the clouds part! What do you say to that, young master?”

  Pence could see the tower out the top of the bottle, for the Purloiner kept him balanced as perfectly as a butler with a serving tray on his head. “Actually, I can see all the windows just fine. There’s a white flower in the highest one.”

  The Purloiner did not answer. Instead, he picked up the bicycle and swung it over his back, hooking it to the shoulder strap of his haversack, a feat he could never have achieved if the machine was built for anyone other than a young girl. His knees creaked like distended pulleys as he climbed the narrow stairs.

  “Let us enter,” said the purple-clad giant when they reached the top, “I am eager to see who awaits us. Perhaps you will meet a King this day, young master. Else, a Queen.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Pence called moodily.

  “It would be prudent for you to remain hidden until we have located the Princess,” the Purloiner said amicably. He placed his hat back over the bottle.

  “Hey!” Pence shouted. “Bad hat! Let me out! I never agreed to this arrangement! If I wanted to be prudent, I’d be a prune, darn it, and I’m a potato, so set me free!”

  The clomping of the Prince’s boots told Pence they were advancing over stone floors. A door creaked, held, a lock tested. A pause. The explosion of an axe into wood and metal was followed by the grating of rusty hinges. More clomping.

  “Hey! Can you hear me or not? Are there guards here? Guards! Guards! Seize this man!”

  “Silence!” the Purloiner hissed. “We are very close. Here is the Throne Room. Beyond are the great stairs that circle up into infinity.”

  “Oh,” said Pence, suddenly unsure whether to continue ranting about his wrongful imprisonment or to go along with the Purloiner’s plan a little longer for the good of his own garden-given mission.

  Another door smashed asunder, lock chewed apart by insatiable steel. More hinges groaned, these much larger than before. The Purloiner advanced several strides and stopped. Without tipping his head or his hat or the bottle, he gave a graceful bow and a sharp snap of his cape.

  “What’s happening?” Pence shouted in a whisper. “Who’s out there? I have rights, too!”

  “Would you care for a drink, your majesty?” The Purloiner’s words were loose and proud. “You’re looking as parched as the land itself.” He removed his hat and switched it for the bottle with a flick of his fingers. “It’s the finest in the land.” There was no response. “Not thirsty? Suit yourself.”

  The Purloiner jerked the bottle up to his lips and tilted it high without a word of warning for Pence, who was instantly caught in a squelching vortex of grog as the Purloiner sucked down gulp after gulp.

  Pence spread his feet, bracing each against the curving walls of the top of the bottle, but the glass was too slick and his legs slid inwards until they pegged into the bottleneck. The vortex pulled him down until he had one leg to either side of the penny, and pulled him lower still. The coin began to slice up Pence’s middle, just a hair, when the Purloiner finally withdrew the bottle from his lips. Then the top hat was back over Pence’s prison like a blanket on a birdcage. “Long live the Queen,” the Purloiner hailed in a prolonged belch. A gaggle of bubbles from his nostrils marked the occasion like so many miniature balloons.

  The Purloiner unfastened his axe. He swung it once, to jarring impact, and a sound of ringing stone filled the air, accompanied by the clunk and clank of a skull rolling away and the pitter-patter of broken bone chips sprinkling onto the tiled floor. Only the hands of the King remained after the dust settled, gripping the stone arms of a crumbling throne. “You promised to escort me upstairs, last we spoke,” said the Purloiner to the mess he had made, “but I believe I remember the way.”

  They were walking again. Another door tested–locked; another sound of axe splitting wood and metal. Then there were steps, a winding stair. The grog jostled and splashed with each iterative bounce. “Absolutely intolerable,” Pence muttered, wiping the foul glop off his face with his blunt, stunted arms.

  “I hope you’re comfortable in there–this is going to be a long go,” said the Purloiner as though he relished every step of the repetitive climb. “Fortunately, the way down is a lot quicker.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Pence asked bitterly.

  The Purloiner chuckled to himself and cracked his nose.

  “You know that’s completely revolting, don’t you?” Pence commented sourly.

  The Purloiner did not speak for a thousand flights of stairs and he did not stop until they reached the top. With a bicycle on his back, an iron chain as big as a jungle snake in his bag, and a bottle balanced on his head with no other support, his legs pumped as though it was all as easy as riding down a hill.

  “Well?” Pence ventured when they stopped moving a long while later.

  “This is it,” the Purloiner whispered reverentially, �
��the door to her room. And over there, the stairs to the very top–to the Prince’s own–they are blocked with ruins…?” His voice was profoundly languished. “What has befallen here? Those stones… on the beach… must have fallen…”

  “The Princess’s room? Really?” Pence asked. “She’s been in her room this whole time? What’s so hard to find about that?”

  “Should I knock? Or just knock it down? Perhaps she has succumbed to ruin, as well.”

  “Who’s there?” came a woman’s startled voice from the other side of the door.

  “It’s her!” cried Pence. “I can’t believe it! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!”

  A familiar vibrating thud–the silver dragonheads of the black-handled battleaxe hitting the floor.

  “Oh no,” said Pence.

  “Who goes there?” the woman called again, raspy and distressed. A terse whistle came from behind the door.

  “It is I, the Crown Prince, your protector and beloved brother!”

  “What?” cried Pence.

  “Be gone!” the woman commanded. “Stay out!” Another quick whistle came from her room.

  “I’ve been had?” asked Pence, realization dawning.

  “Stay out?” the Prince cackled. “Did you hear that, young master? She wants us to stay out. But this is a rescue!”

  “Noooo!” Pence bellowed, falling to his knees.

  The axe whistled–wood splintered everywhere like a barrage of arrows from an army of mice. “See that? You could have been skewered alive, young master, had I not taken your best interests to heart. You should stay where you are a little longer, don’t you agree?”

  “You fiend!” Pence screamed, flushed with rage, slapping grog about like a bird in a bucket of water. “You are the Prince! Arrrghh! I was fuscated the whole time!”

  The hinges of the battered door swung open tentatively, exchanging nervous creaks with one another.

  The Prince entered his sister’s room dragging his axe behind him. The steel etched a skittish trail across the stone floor, bright sparks popping alongside the blades like lapping dogs chasing a spilling cartload of carrion.