"What"s your name?"
"Charming."
"Prince Charming?"
"Yes."
"Then you"re the one, all right. I was sent out here to find you.
"Who sent you?"
"Ah," said the pony, "that would be telling. All will be revealed to you at some later time. If you live long enough, that is."
"Of course I will," Charming said. "After all, I"m the right one."
"Get up on my back," the pony said. "We can discuss it as we go along."
Chapter 4.
Prince Charming rode along on the pony, until at last the woods opened and he could see a field in which many tents were pitched. Strolling among them were knights in holiday armor, eating barbecue and flirting with damsels in tall pointed hats with flimsy veils who went back and forth carrying wine, mead, and other drinks. There was even a little orchestra playing a sprightly air.
"Looks like a goodly bunch over there," Charming said.
"Don"t you believe it," the pony replied.
"Why shouldn"t I?"
"Take my word for it."
Charming knew, in the part of his mind which housed ancient wisdom, that s.h.a.ggy little ponies who appeared mys-teriously in the woods could be counted on to give good advice. On the other hand, he also knew that men were not supposed to follow this advice, since if one always listened to the voice of reason, one would never do anything interesting.
"But I"m hungry," Charming responded. "And perhaps those knights know the way to the enchanted castle."
"Don"t say I didn"t warn you," the pony said.
Charming kicked the pony in the ribs and it ambled for-ward.
"What ho!" cried Charming as he rode into the midst of the knights.
"What ho to you!" the knights called back.
Charming rode closer. "Art thou a knight?" the foremost of them called out.
"Indeed I am."
"Then where is thy sword?"
"That"s quite a story," Charming said.
"Tell it to us, then, will thee?"
"I met this sword named Excalibur," Charming said. "I thought it was a proper blade, but no sooner had we started traveling together than it opened on me a mouth such as you would not believe. And it grew pa.s.sing strange, till finally I had to escape it lest it kill me."
"That"s your story, is it?" a knight asked.
"That"s not my story, it"s whathappened."
The knight made a gesture. Two knights came out of a white pavilion carrying a baby-blue satin pillow between them. Lying on this pillow was a sword. It was dented, covered with rust, and its ta.s.sels were frayed, but it was recognizably Ex-calibur.
"Is this your sword?" the knight asked.
"Yes, though that"s not how it looked when last I saw it," said Charming.
Speaking in a thin shaky voice, Excalibur said, "Thanks, fellas, I believe I can stand on my own."
The sword rose off the pillow, almost fell over, then bal-anced steadily on its point. The bright jewel in its pommel looked at Charming without winking.
"It"s him, all right," Excalibur said. "He"s the one who abandoned me on the field of battle."
The knights turned to Charming. "The sword a.s.serts that you abandoned it on the field of battle. Is that true?"
"It wasn"t like that," Charming said. "The sword is raving."
The sword swayed, then regained its balance. "My friends," it asked, "do I look deranged? I tell you, he threw me away for no reason at all and left me to rust on the hillside."
Charming made a gesture of finger to the temple, denoting that the thing referred to was crazy.
The knights didn"t seem convinced. One said to another, in a clearly audible voice, "A little weird, perhaps, but definitely not crazy."
One of the knights, a tall gray-bearded man with the eagle-eyed look and thin lips of a spokesperson, took out a sheet of ruled parchment and a stylus.
"Name?"
"Charming."
"First name?"
"Prince."
"Occupation?"
"Same as first name."
"Present a.s.signment?"
"Mission."
"What type of mission?"
"Mythic."
"Nature of mission?"
"Awaken Napping Princess."
"By what instrumentality?"
"A kiss."
After completing their questions, the knights retired to a quiet part of the field to consider what to do next, leaving Charming trussed hand and foot with silken cord and rolled under a hedge.
It seemed to Charming that these were not the ordinary run of knights. Their line of questioning was unexpected. Their faces, bony pallidities half-hidden behind moldering iron-and-wood casques, were unprepossessing. Charming overheard them talking as they moved off: "What"ll we do with him?"
"Eat him," came a reply.
"That goes without saying. But how?"
"Frica.s.seed is nice."
"We just had frica.s.seed knight last week."
"Then let"s do the pony first."
"How?"
"What about roasted with fines herbes? Did anyone see any fines herbes around here?"
Charming immediately decided (a) knights didn"t speak as he had supposed they did, or (b) these fellows were not knights at all but actually demons in knights" clothing.
A general consensus was reached on the frica.s.seeing. But they had some difficulty getting a fire going. It had rained recently in this part of the forest and there wasn"t much dry wood to be found.
Finally, one of the knights caught a baby salamander. Pil-ing moist kindling against it and rapping its nose sharply when it tried to escape, they soon had a good blaze going. Two more knights turned to the creation of the sauce, and another pair made the marinade while the rest sang.
Charming knew he was in deadly peril.
Chapter 5.
Azzie was under way again, having given up the Seven League Boots in favor of his own demonic flying abil-ities. He flew and scanned the woods, noting a fire in the distance. He went to it, circled overhead, adjusted his vision, and saw Charming, trussed like a capon, await-ing frica.s.seeing aux fines herbes while the pony cooked and screamed.
"You can"t do this to me!" it cried. "I haven"t finished briefing him."
The demon knights kept on singing.
Quickly Azzie set down in the bushes nearby. He was considering things he might do to hara.s.s the knights and free Charming when, of a sudden, Babriel appeared beside him, resplendent in white armor, his dazzling white wings fluttering.
"Come to brag about your cathedral?" Azzie asked him.
Babriel looked at him sternly. "I hope you"re not thinking of wading in there yourself, old man."
"Of course I am," Azzie said. "What do you think, I"m going to let my hero be eaten by renegade demons?"
"I didn"t mean to intrude, but it is my duty to keep an eye on you. I can see that your Prince is in trouble.
But you know the rules as well as I do. You mustn"t help him. Not directly. You must not try to influence matters by your own actions."
"I"ve just got a few things for him," Azzie said. "A dagger. An invisible cloak."
"Let me see them," Babriel said. "Hmm. Dagger seems all right. Can"t tell much about this cloak, though."
"That"s because it"s invisible," Azzie said. "But you can feel it, can"t you?"
Babriel felt it all over.
"I guess it feels okay," he finally acknowledged.
"Even if it didn"t," Azzie asked, "who"d know the differ-ence?"
"I"d know," Babriel said. "And I"d tell."
Prince Charming lay trussed up and feeling foolish. Why hadn"t he paid attention to what the s.h.a.ggy pony had tried to tell him? Now it couldn"t continue the questing lecture. Why hadn"t he believed? If you won"t believe an oracular s.h.a.ggy pony, what will you believe? It did smell good, though. . . .
Then he heard a sound. It sounded like someone saying, in a loud whisper, "Hey there!"
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Your uncle Azzie."
"I"m glad you"re here, Uncle! Can you get me out of this?"
"Not directly, no. But I do have a couple of things for you."