The Kidnapped Prince (Tales from the Land of Ononokin Book 5) Read online

  Misty tilted her head at him. “You’re being rather forceful with that proclamation, you know.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, what’s wrong with me?” She crossed her arms. “Not good enough for you? Sure, I may not be perfect, but I’m pretty good in the sack, pal. Now, if you’re looking for some pure type, then I’ll accept that I’m not the candidate for this...”

  “It’s not that,” Heliok stated in a loud voice.

  “Oh.” Misty uncrossed her arms and swallowed. “What, then?”

  “I need you to do a show about the Fates.”

  “A show?”

  “You do work at a television station, right?”

  “Yes.” That’s when the light of clarity appeared to shine in her head. “Ah, I see. But why?”

  “Because,” Heliok replied, “as you’ve just soberly demonstrated, we have fewer and fewer believers every day. Our popularity is waning and we need a boost.”

  “I see,” she said, sitting a bit forward. “And you think a show will accomplish this?”

  “Can you think of anything better?”

  “Sure,” she replied. “Just come down to the planet and do a bunch of miracles. People eat that stuff up.”

  “I can’t. It’s disallowed.”

  “Oh, well, that’s no fun.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Of course, it’s not going to be a joyride to try and convince my boss to allow me to do a show about you guys either.”

  “Why not?”

  “You said it yourself, Heliok, nobody believes in you.”

  “Well, not nobody.”

  “Enough for you to warrant this meeting,” she argued. “And that’s the problem. How am I going to get approval to release a show that nobody’s going to watch?”

  “By just putting it on film and then sticking it on the air.”

  “You do realize that it’s not that easy, right?”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Too many reasons to list,” Misty replied, giving him the same scoff that he’d given her earlier, “but the big ones are that my budget is almost non-existent and people barely watch my channel.”

  “Hmmm,” he said.

  Maybe she’d not been the correct choice after all. But her admission of having such a low budget and a meager viewership meant that she would be hungry. This could turn her career around, which also meant that she’d work twice as hard for him as anyone else he’d chance upon.

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

  “What if I were to be interviewed on your television station?”

  “Why would that help?”

  “It’s not normal procedure,” Heliok said, ignoring her question, “but it may do the trick.”

  “Except that nobody will believe you’re who you say you are,” stated Misty. “They’ll just assume it’s some type of special effects trick.”

  “Valid point.”

  “Still,” she said after a moment, “I’ve got nothing else lined up, and my boss has given me three months to up our ratings or I’m out of a job.”

  “You too, eh?” Heliok said, sitting forward.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You were saying?”

  She frowned at him for a second, but then tilted her head thoughtfully.

  “Let’s think here,” she said while tapping her finger on her nose. “What do people want?”

  “Booze, money, and intimate relations, from what I’ve seen,” answered Heliok.

  “No...” she started, but stopped. “Well, yes, actually, but I think people want to see an underdog win.”

  Heliok wasn’t sure what she meant by this. “Go on.”

  “We have one show on our network that performs better than the rest. It’s called Unreal Makeovers. Heard of it?”

  “Sorry,” he answered with a shake of his head.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Misty answered, sitting up and putting her elbows on his desk. “Basically, we take unfortunate-looking folks and fix them up nicely. They end up looking amazing.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “At least until the makeup is washed off, their hair extensions fall out, and they gain all the weight back.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Anyway, you say you’re a god, right?”

  “Repeatedly.”

  “Exactly,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “Maybe you can help us find an exceedingly desperate-looking person to fill this role.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “From there you will end up in little interview snippets. At some point you’ll explain that you’re supporting this transition and all of that.” She was all smiles now. “We can call it Unreal Makeover: Gift of the Gods or something. It’ll be a smash!”

  “Fates,” he corrected.

  “What?”

  “Unreal Makeover: Gift of the Fates,” he said. “Technically, we are gods, but we call ourselves Fates. It’s a trademark requirement, mostly.”

  “Whatever,” she said after standing up and pacing around the office. “Point is that since you’ll be doing the changes to the person, they’ll be long-lasting. They won’t wear off. So when we do the obligatory “Where are they now?” episode, you’ll be the talk of the town—and so will we.”

  Heliok slowly came to grips with this idea. He liked it. There were problems with it, sure, but there were always issues that didn’t line up the way he wanted them to.

  “One issue is that I can’t just give gifts like that without some sort of quest being involved.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a rule of the Fates,” he explained. “We have to provide quests for people to accomplish in return for something. In this instance, it would be a makeover, as you’ve said.”

  She grinned heartily and her eyes creased. “Actually, that could be perfect.”

  “Oh?”

  “You could assign a few quests to this person and after they complete each one,”—she walked over and put her hands on his desk, leaning in—“they’d get something fixed about themselves.” She pressed back up and looked triumphantly at the ceiling. “People would eat that up!”

  “You think?”

  “I know. This is my business, remember?”

  Heliok wasn’t so certain. “Didn’t you say your ratings were awful, though?”

  “Which makes us the perfect team,” she said, holding out her hand to shake his as what he assumed was an acceptance of her plan, “especially considering that your ratings aren’t any better.”

  He took her hand. “Touché.”

  LOVE LETTERS

  Kwap sat alone in his office, thinking things through.

  He could try brute force to break Jack free from Kleeshay’s clutches, but that would only put his friend’s life in further jeopardy. There was also the option of sneaking in and liberating the man. The problem there was that he had nobody on his team capable of such stealth. He certainly wasn’t. It was all he could do to stand up without grunting these days.

  The big question, though, was why did Kleeshay take Jack in the first place? What strategic value was there? The only thought that came to mind was Kleeshay had Blaze and Pilk followed because they worked for Kwap. Everyone knew that Kleeshay had designs on taking over as kingpin, so doing anything that would disrupt Kwap’s reign would feed into that venture.

  Then again, there could be some reason that Kwap didn’t know about. He’d been best friends with Jack since they’d roomed together in college, but there’d been many people over the years that Kwap thought he knew really well only to learn that he didn’t know them at all. He’d never told Jack about his being in the mob either, let alone being the leader of the local chapter, so maybe it was just a case of his best pal having his own set of secrets too.

  Could it be that Prince Jack Nubbins had some tie-ins with the local Orc mob that Kwap was unaware of?

  He shook his head. No, Jack wasn’t the type. He was too laid back. He did
what was right, almost always. Jack Nubbins was a good guy.

  Plus, his family had money. It wasn’t like he needed anything. On top of that, he was marrying soon and his fiancée was loaded.

  Kwap melted slightly at the thought of Princess Jill Henroot. She was all he’d ever wanted in a woman. Gruff, tough, rough, blond, and she looked amazing in chainmail.

  He’d met Jill for the first time when she’d come to visit Jack in college. She barely even acknowledged Kwap's existence, which made her all the more attractive, causing him to mentally catalog her every move. The grace with which she carried herself, the firmness of her voice when chastising Jack for barely maintaining a passing grade in history, and the deftness with which she’d knocked out a rather pesky Ogre who, during a drunken stupor, made a pass at her.

  She was a dream.

  Jack knew how Kwap felt about her. In fact, Jack had asked Kwap to help him write her love letters. At first this seemed like an odd request to Kwap, but it soon became clear that the reasoning was that Jack wasn’t in love with Jill. He was marrying her due to royal reasons. Kwap thought this was insane, and quite a bit unfair, but he never did understand royalty.

  As the dutiful friend that he was, though, Kwap had agreed and set off writing many letters that Jack would sign and ship.

  At first, Jack assumed that Kwap was just seriously good at writing love letters. But he soon caught on that Kwap had really fallen for Jill. This made for an awkward time in their sophomore year. Eventually, though, Jack spilled the beans regarding his love for another, and he showed his own love letters that were written to her. They were even more beautiful than the ones that Kwap had penned, demonstrating that true love was capable of painting its feelings most stunningly on the canvas of colloquy.

  He grabbed the key from around his neck and unlocked his desk drawer. Inside, he saw many letters that he’d never given over to Jack. This was his best work, and these he’d even signed himself. He could never send them, obviously, but the heart couldn’t be stopped, even when conflicted.

  Kwap selected one at random and opened it.

  My Dearest Princess,

  Would that I could be by your side through all manner of weather. My heart soars in your presence and suffers the darkness of the pit in your absence. The winter’s chill is naught but a trifle when thoughts of you warm my spirit. To bring you into my arms in a loving embrace would be...

  A knock came at the door and Blaze and Pilk pushed inside. Kwap quickly refolded the letter and shoved it back into his desk.

  “Do you two ever knock?” he said angrily.

  “We did knock, boss,” Blaze answered.

  “Oh, yes, I guess you did.” Kwap fought to calm himself. “But you’re supposed to wait for someone to say that it’s okay for you to enter, too.”

  “Told ya,” said Pilk.

  “Shut up, Pilk.”

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “Just not sure what to do next, boss,” said Blaze. “We was hoping you could give us some direction here.”

  Kwap didn’t want to look overly flustered, but he was having difficulty getting the image of the princess out of his mind. He shook his head. The bottom line was that his best friend was in trouble here. He needed to get to work, regardless of the fact that Jack was going to be forever linked to the woman that Kwap loved.

  “Ugh,” he said.

  “What’s the matter, boss?”

  “Him look sad.”

  “Huh?” said Kwap, sitting up quickly. “No, I just have gas.”

  “Ah, yeah. Can’t eat at The Loaded Taco and expect anything less.”

  “Dat true.”

  “Anyway,” Kwap said, looking up at his henchmen, “I’m still thinking about what to do. I’ll have something for you two soon. Just be ready, yeah?”

  “Yep,” said Pilk with a smile.

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  They walked back out and Kwap reached again for the letter that he’d been reading. He stopped. Now was not the time for this. Frankly, it would never be the time. Jill was Jack’s bride-to-be. Unfair or not, that’s how it was, and the sooner that Kwap accepted that, the better.

  He slumped as he felt a hairline fracture forming on his heart.

  KLEESHAY

  Jack’s head still throbbed, but at least he was no longer cuffed and hooded.

  He was sitting in a small room that he assumed was in the basement of an abandoned house in a back alley somewhere in Pren. It was dank and flat, with plain walls and no adornment. There was a single light that was doing its best to illuminate the area.

  The place wasn’t uncomfortable, per se, but he’d just been kidnapped and there was an Orc sitting across from him who had a look that spelled trouble.

  Jack’s best friend, Kwap, was an Orc, so it wasn’t as though he’d never seen one up close before. In fact, he’d roomed with Kwap in college. But this Orc wasn’t like Kwap. First off, he was dressed far too properly, wearing a pinstriped suit, a white shirt, and a red tie, and while Jack couldn’t see his feet, he assumed there were some freshly shined shoes attached to them. This Orc also had a decent haircut, which looked somewhat odd to Jack. Orcs just weren’t meant for normal haircuts.

  “I know you are Kwap’s supplier,” the Orc said in a voice that was posh and uppity. “There is no point in denying it.”

  "Supplier?" said Jack. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you don’t,” Kleeshay replied, smiling.

  “Seriously,” Jack replied, feeling confused by the entire ordeal. “Kwap makes soap. My family makes rope.”

  “Soap?” Kleeshay said with a squint. “Rope? Must be new terms for it.” He looked down by Jack’s shoulders at the Dwarf and Halfling who stood guard at either side of him, and said, “If you’ve heard anything about soap or rope, Gespo, I’m all ears.”

  “Not me,” answered Gespo. “I mean, I’ve heard of soap on a rope. Clever idea, since dropping the soap in the shower around here can be dangerous.”

  “Me neither,” agreed Henrik, and then frowned and glanced at Gespo. “Hey, was that shower comment aimed at me? I told you I slipped.”

  “Enough.”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “Well,” Kleeshay said after turning his attention back to Jack, “whatever the name on the street for it is, at the end of the day we call it dope in this building.”

  “Again,” Jack pointed out, “we make rope, not soap or dope.”

  Kleeshay eyed him dubiously. Jack was not used to this type of scrutiny. Sure, the peasants gave him the stink-eye from time to time. It went with the territory of being royalty. But this was different. This could have dire consequences. Thinking about it, so could riling up the peasants too much.

  “Save your breath, Prince Jack Nubbins,” Kleeshay said finally, clearly having made up his mind regarding how he viewed the current situation. “I know you’re Kwap’s supplier, and with you out of the picture his world will soon be crashing around his feet.”

  Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Does he always speak in clichés?”

  “Well, it is his name.”

  “Right.”

  “Now,” Kleeshay demanded with a rap to the table, “either you help me take down his empire or you’ll be as dead as a doornail.”

  “Take down a soap empire?” Jack said. “Who’s even heard of such a thing?”

  “Want me to bonk him on the head, boss?” asked Henrik.

  “No.” Kleeshay stood and walked to the door. “Leave him to stew in his twisted words.”

  “How is ‘soap’ a twisted word?” asked Jack.

  “Don’t rock the boat too soon, Prince Jack Nubbins.” Kleeshay opened the door and stepped out, but quickly spun back and added, “Don’t take any wooden nickels, either.”

  MY FUTURE

  Whizzfiddle had searched the house for his apprentice, but he was nowhere to be found.

  He'd tried Gungren's room, which was k
ept neat and tidy, only containing a small stack of books and a framed picture of a rock that he'd thrown during his coming-of-age celebration in his hometown of Restain.

  The little Giant could usually be found in the study, reading through one of his many books on magic. Whizzfiddle wasn’t fond of this pastime, as he much preferred the kick-back-and-do-nothing lifestyle. Alas, he wasn't there either.

  He was just about to check the basement when he spied the tiny Giant through the kitchen window.

  Gungren was out feeding the ducks and skipping rocks. He always fed the ducks, but it was usually managed by a quick walk out, tearing bread to shreds, throwing it up in the air as high as he could so that it would land haphazardly, and then heading straight back in the house to do his next set of chores. For him to be just sitting on the bench was out of character.

  Whizzfiddle pushed out the back door and was immediately greeted with a flurry of gnats. He attempted to shoo them away, but they were persistent, so he took a quick sip from his flask and muttered, “Getum-lost-ya-rangy-gnats.” They stopped bugging him.

  “Still depressed, are you?” Whizzfiddle asked as he took a seat on the opposite side of the bench.

  Gungren didn’t look up. “It just not fair. Time go too slow.”

  “Me thinks there’s more going on than you’re telling me, Gungren,” said Whizzfiddle as a duck ran out from under the bench. “I know you’ve always been driven, but I've noticed you’ve grown more impatient over the last few weeks.”

  “Yep.”

  “But what I don’t know is why this is happening.”

  “It cause I found out that there may not be much time,” he replied.

  “Ah,” Whizzfiddle said, getting it. “Is this because I’m old? Remember that I was cursed with long life from that Fate Quest that I did many years ago. I’ll be around for quite some time, of that I can assure you.”

  “No, not you,” Gungren said. “I talking about me.”

  “You?” Whizzfiddle felt his blood go cold. “Are you ill?”

  “I don’t think I are.”