The Lord Son's Travels (65 page)

Elenna
allowed all sorts of ideas to pop into mind as they returned to the stairs.
 
Across the hall was a small empty room
they had disregarded during their first search.
 
Now she studied it again. She ran her fingers along the wall
to the right of the door, where a knob had been attached.
 
“Shit,” she murmured.
 
“Here’s your secret door.
 
Come on in,” she instructed
Adrien.
 
He complied though he
clearly wanted to argue against wasting their time.
 
When he had shut the door behind him, she pressed the knob,
and pursed her lips as they felt themselves pushed upwards.
 
“It’s called an elevator.
 
Not magic,” she announced to Adrien,
who had flinched at the sudden movement.

“Who
says it’s not magic?” A voice contradicted brightly with a touch of
amusement.
 
When Elenna opened the
door again,
 
it revealed a young
man dressed head to toe in sparkling bright white clothing waiting for them,
arms crossed as he leaned against the doorway.
 
He smiled with benevolence, and raised what Elenna guessed
was some type of military rifle and leveled it at Adrien’s chest.
 

Chapter 61

“Welcome,”
the man in white greeted.
 
His eyes
fairly sparkled with pleasure as he motioned them to proceed into the next
chamber.
 
A monster with three
golden eyes slid in behind them, raising a large studded club in warning.
 
“Nice to see you.
 
Why don’t we visit for a little
while?”
 
He focused his attention
on Elenna and smiled even more brightly.
 
“Come on, you know he’ll be dead before you can move a muscle, my Lady.”
 
He kept the weapon trained tightly on
its target.
 
Elenna involuntarily
startled when she recognized some of the room's furnishings.
 
They were in a vast chamber, apparently
the entire upper floor of the Keep was for Southland's personal use.
 
Across from them was a small but
functional kitchen complete with modern appliances.
 
A pair of lamps provided light; music played in the
background, which she recognized somewhere in her distracted mind as an old Led
Zeppelin tune.
 
Adrien kept his
attention on the strange weapon pointed his way; it was similar enough to what
Elenna had produced so that he could guess what it would do to him if the
stranger decided to follow through on his threat.
 
The monster, at his master’s command, roughly patted both of
them down and found both of their handcrafted empty pistols.
 
Elenna started to resist; Adrien caught
her eye and shook his head slightly.
 
She frowned but complied.

“Who
are you?” Elenna demanded.

“I
am the Lord of the Southlands,” he answered, still wearing a friendly smile for
her.
 
“And you are..?”

“No,”
she retorted, her fury turning her eyes cold and brittle.
 
“Who are you?”

“Alexander
Buchman, graduate student in mechanical engineering at Lehigh University.
 
Or I was.
 
Now I am having so much more fun being the Lord of the
Southlands and scourge of the rest.” His eyes remained cheerful.
 
He glanced once in a while at his
captive, but kept his attention mainly on his fellow traveler.
  
“Nice to finally catch up with
you!
 
I lost you on arrival, I'm
sorry to say, but I guess you managed quite well. So, what's your name?
 
I think you were a Lehigh student,
too.
 
I've seen you on campus a
couple of times before.”

“I
am Elenna Lord Wed of Allè-dôn,” she replied coldly.

 
Alexander blinked in surprise, then
laughed.
 
“Elenna Lord Wed?
 
Then this is the Lord Son.”
 
He turned his way and nodded
slightly.
 
“Well, this is sure my
lucky day then.
 
The rumors said
you traveled with a lady who knew magic, so I thought you two had somehow run
into each other.
 
Married, really?
But, if you really are Adrien…”
 
he
called over his shoulder instructions to ‘bring the rings’.
 
The monster behind them hurried over to
a desk near a large TV showing an old black and white movie.
 
He pulled out a pair of metal handcuffs
from a desk drawer and brought them to his master.
 
“I’ve heard all the stories about your magic sword.
 
These will make you a little bit easier
to handle.”
 
The monster roughly
locked Adrien’s hands behind his back.
  

Again
Alexander turned his eyes to Elenna, approaching her more closely now that her
companion was safely contained.
 
The weapon stayed in his hands, but he had taken his finger off of the
trigger and let it drop to his side.
 
“So you’ve gone native, huh?
 
I don’t blame you, this place is a lot of fun, isn’t it?
 
I know I’m having a blast.”

“You’re
having fun?” she snapped in disbelief.
 
“Having fun killing people?”
 
Both she and Adrien studied the weapon as Alexander swung it around
casually.
 
Elenna realized that it
was real, not a cobbled-together version like the ones they had carried; Adrien
knew enough from Alexander’s expression that he was quite willing to use
it.
 
He twisted his hands in
valiant effort to break free of the strange metal bracelets.
 
The monsters struck him roughly on the
shoulder with his club and grunted a warning.

Alexander
pretended to be upset by her reaction.
 
“You’re taking this all too seriously.
 
Lighten up, will you!
 
What, you think this is real?
 
This is just a game.
 
Really
awesome cosplay with the swords and elves and whatnot.
 
Hell, I've got whole armies I can send
around to do serious damage whenever I feel like it.
  
You won't believe some of the things I've been able to
do here.
 
Scoring some major game
points."

Elenna
blinked in bewilderment.
 
“You’re
crazy,” she said.
 
The anger
drained from her expression at the realization.

“That’s
what the doctors said,” he agreed.
 
“They put me on the happy pills and told my mom I won’t be seeing things
anymore.
 
And I didn’t, for a long
time.
 
But then, bam, one day I
wake up and I’ve gone completely over the edge into crazyville.
 
I’ve imagined a really great world,
though, didn’t I?
 
Admit it, you're
having some fun too.
 
Marrying a
prince, come on now..."

“Alexander,”
she said slowly.
 
“This isn’t a
hallucination.
 
This is all
real.
 
You've been killing real
people.”

He
shook his head, laughing.
 
“That's
just what fantasy people would say, right?
 
But I’ve learned not to believe them.
 
I figure I’ll just have some good times
before I wake up in the crappy real world again.”

“But
I'm real.
 
You saw me walking to
class,” she argued.
 
Her eyes noted
his fingers shaking slightly as they clasped the barrel of his weapon.
 
It was heavy, and he was getting
tired.
 
He followed her gaze,
shrugged lightly, and ordered the monster to take over the weapon.
 
He obediently took the weapon and
placed the muzzle against Adrien’s forehead.
 
He remained calm, waiting with an self-control Alexander
found annoying.
 
He glared at his
hostage, but remained on the subject at hand for the time.

“I
did see you there,” Alexander pondered out loud.
 
“I guess I thought you were pretty hot, so I remembered you
and brought you into my fantasy.
 
I
figured you’d be entertaining for a while.”
 
He glanced again to Adrien to gauge his reaction.
 
The royal refused to answer his look
with anything but a disinterested vacant gaze towards the far wall.

“But
why didn’t you bring me directly here?” Elenna argued her point.
 
“If all this is under your control,
then why send me to the wrong side of the Eastlands?”

His
eyes searched the room as he searched for an answer.
 
“Because you didn’t bring me,” Elenna answered herself
quickly and with surety.
 
“Maybe
you did pick me out, but you used someone else's power to get me here, the same
whoever it was that originally brought you.
 
You’re just a pawn, Alexander.
 
Someone is playing you.”

Alexander
flashed red.
 
“This is my place
now,”
 
He motioned grandly with a
wide sweep of his arms.
 
“My
fortress, my troops, and pretty soon my own world. And you people are not going
to screw it up for me."
 
He
reached around for the pistol he kept in his waistband in the back.
 
Running on instinct, Elenna spun away
from him to roughly shove Adrien out of the way at the same time she called for
Midiral. The blade arrived in time to slice the monster’s arm off its body as
it raised the weapon towards her.
 
It howled and collapsed to the floor.
 
Alexander grabbed for Adrien as he reeled from her sudden
blow, catching his arm and pulling him back towards him as he aimed his handgun
with his other hand.
 
Elenna swung
around behind them both, pulling Midiral’s razor sharp blade tight against Alexander's
throat.
 
The three froze in place.

“I
guess no one told you about my magic sword,” Elenna said.
 
“Now drop the gun, hand over the key to
the handcuffs, and we can talk about our next step.”

“You’re
going to have to kill me,” he answered, the cracks in his voice lending little
evidence to the bravado of his statement.
 

“Game’s
over, Alexander,” Elenna snapped, “don’t be an idiot.”

“This
is my game, and I’ll say when it’s over.
 
Besides, what are you going to do with me?
 
Allè-dônian jail?
 
He'll just have me executed anyway, won't you, Lord Son?”

“Give
it up!” she snapped.
 
He shook his
head.

“I
guess you can tell I can go back and forth pretty often,” Alexander
offered.
 
“Let me go and I’ll take
you home.
 
Want to see your family
again?”

She
grimaced.
 
“Shut up and put down
the gun!”

“Your
dad has been looking for you.
 
Signs up all over the place, offering a big reward.
 
Even the FBI is involved.
 
Want to let them know you’re
alive?”
 
She trembled with anger,
but held steady.
 
He
continued.
 
“Seriously, do you
think you can fight the big guy and win?
 
You’re never going to get back home without me.
 
You’ll be stuck here in the long ago
and far away.”

“Alexander,
will you shut the fuck up and put down the gun?” Elenna’s hand twitched.
 
The blade cut into his neck enough for
a trickle of blood to slide down his throat.

“Go
ahead, kill me.
 
What’s it
matter?
 
Hey, I was back there a
couple of days ago.
 
Some
terrorists hijacked some jet planes and rammed them into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon.
 
Thousands
dead.
 
Know anyone who worked in
the WTC?”

“Bullshit,”
she muttered, but thought of her uncle who worked in Building 7.
 

He
shrugged slightly against the blade.
 
“You want to be a hero, go back home.
 
They can use some heroes there.
 
Go slice up some terrorists with your fancy sword.”

Elenna
bit her lip.
 
“Midiral is
Allè-dônian,” she stated softly and slowly.
 
“And so am I.
 
I
am a sworn citizen and royal of Allè-dôn, and I will do whatever it takes to
protect my land and its future king, so I give you one final warning: drop your
weapon!”
 
Alexander shrugged at the
fierceness in her voice.

“Too
bad,” he said, and shifted his finger on the trigger of the pistol.
 
She twisted Midiral, and the sharp edge
dug inches into his neck.
 
He
dropped limply as blood poured out from the gash across his neck.
 
Elenna sent away Midiral and tried her
best to hold him up, but they fell together to the ground in a bloody
pile.
 
Adrien pulled her close the
best he could with his hands locked together, whispering fervent words of
comfort.

“We’ll
return for him,” he promised.
 
“But
now we have more to accomplish quickly before we are discovered.”

“We
need the key for those cuffs,” she answered dully, rising again to her
feet.
 
She found the key after
ransacking the drawer from which the monster had removed the cuffs, and set her
husband free.
 
He gripped her in a
tight embrace for a moment, feeling the thudding of her rough heart beat
through his chest as she released a few heartfelt sobs.
 
She then fell silent again.

“You
have served Allè-dôn well, Lord Wed.” he said softly.
 
“Now it is my turn.”
 
He caressed her cheek in passing as he crossed the room to the far,
dimly lit corner.
 
Elenna raced a
few steps after him.

“I’m
going with you!” she insisted.
 
He
smiled softly and shook his head.