~o0o~

Quaraun leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on the palm of his hands. His brow furrowed. The last time he had seen the princess, she was with him. Wasn’t she? If that was her. He couldn’t be certain, as he was a stranger in this town. He did not know the royal family. As the two guards talked, Quaraun wondered what the girl’s name was. Was she a prisoner? He couldn’t recall there being any processes here in America. Why were they chasing her? Did she run away?

“It’ll be our fault if she escapes,” one guard said.

“But he won’t come out unless the princess is there. So if he doesn’t show, then what?”

The castle guard chuckled. “Well, then we kill him.”

Silence followed.

After a moment, the companion spoke some more."What if the princess has a mate? Huh? What then? Tell me that. What if she didn’t get out on her own? What if someone helped her escape?"

“Like who? She doesn’t know anyone around here.”

“What about that necromancer over there? He showed up right after she ran off, didn’t he?”

The guard looked at Quaraun.

“That’s true. Maybe the girl knows him. Maybe she meets him somewhere.”

“Maybe so.”

They both glared at Quaraun, wondering if the old Elven necromancer had helped their princess escape.

“Hmmm, maybe not. I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Me neither. I mean, look at him. Old man can barely walk. Drags his leg and leans on a cane. You think he could scale that wall and get her out?”

“But what if he did? Necromancer, you know? Maybe he can fly.”

“Necromancers don’t fly.”

“Even so, maybe he can help us find her. Use magic to lead us to her.”

Silence followed for a few moments as the guards eyed Quaraun suspiciously.

“He showed up right when she escaped, though, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Maybe he took her than sat around waiting for us. Maybe there are others in on it with him. I’ll bet they helped her escape while he sat in that room waiting to be a distraction for us, to give her time to get out of here while we fussed over bringing him here to the prison cell.”

Quaraun shook his head, no.

“Yeah, probably not. But you’ll help us catch her, won’t you?”

“Will I?” Quaraun asked.

“You will.”

“Why?”

“Because you’’re a necromancer and you’ll be executed for practising dark magic. But maybe if you found our princess and brought her back to us, we could forget where we put the key to this here prison cell and you could just walk on out of here.”

“I’m the world’s most powerful wizard,” Quaraun said."What makes you think I couldn’t just walk out of here right now?"

“He knows where the princess is,” the companion said. “I can feel it. You can see it in his beady eyes.”

“I don’t have beady eyes,” Quaraun said. “I have eyes that are fine and clean and blue and clear as cut crystal.”

“I can feel her too,” the guard ignored Quaraun’s comment about his eyes. “Can’t you feel her?” He asked Quaraun.

“No,” Quaraun replied. “I cannot feel her anywhere near me.”

“Yes, you can. I can feel her and you know why? Because I know you can and I can feel what you are feeling.”

“How could you possibly feel what I am feeling?”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” the companion said."Just tell us where she is. It;s a lot easier to keep the keys if we have her in our hands, isn’t it?"

“Keep the key?” Quaraun asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on, come on! Come with us! Let us take you to our princess. Then you can tell us what is wrong with her and why she isn’t home yet and where her other little friends are.”

“I don’t believe you,” Quaraun said. “I don’ believe you or your story about a princess. This is America. They don’t have princesses in America. Something is not right here. Not with any of this.”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry,” the companion said. “She needs to be returned to us or we might just go crazy.”

“I think you already went crazy. None of this makes sense.”

“That old man will probably kill us for taking her and then try to kill us for kidnapping her.”

“Kill you and then kill you again?”

“Oh, yes!”

“You’re ghosts, aren’t you?”

“The old man wants her there by morning and we’ve lost her.”

“Old man? What old man?”

“The old man, of course! But enough about that. Your little friend the princess, she left her keys.”

“She did?”

“She did!” the guard exclaimed. “So, do you know where she is or not?”

“I don’t even know who she is. You haven’t even told me that much yet.”

“Or, tell us, should we go looking for her?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“We can’t find the key anywhere. Do you have anything special, like a talisman or a spell or any kind of magic that will let us find the key for her?”

“He don’t know how to do magic. Look at him. He’s only an Elf. He wouldn’t know what kind of magic would open the lock.”

“We Elves are more likely to know magic than you Humans and you already know I am Quaraun the Insane, The Pink Necromancer, the world’s most powerful wizard. Of course I know magic, but give me one good reason why I should help either of you?”

“No, no, no!” scolded the castle guard. “Don’t upset the old mage. We don’t know where to find her. We need his help.”

The guard turned back to address Quaraun. “We have to find her. You’re a sorcerer, aren’t you?”

“I am a necromancer.”

“That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No,”

“Well, it’ll have to do. Do you know where the keys are?”

“What keys? I don’t even know what you two are talking about.”

“Oh, dear.” The guard paced around the prison cell, stopping to stare out the barred window. “Where would she have hidden them?”

The two guards left the prison cell, talking about searching the rooms for the key. A few hours later, they returned, stating that they had searched all the rooms and found nothing.

“We will ask our friend the necromancer,” the guard said as he entered Quaraun’s prison cell once again. “You, Necromancer! Where is our princess?”

Quaraun sighed and leaned back. “There is nothing I can tell you.”

This continued throughout the evening and into the next day, with the guards continuing to leave, search the castle, then return to report to Quaraun that they had found nothing.

Quaraun could easily have escaped his prison cell at any time, but so bemused was he by these two ghostly guards and their bizarre pursuit of this mysterious princess, that he decided to stick around and see if he couldn’t figure out more of what was going on.

Quaraun suspected these guards were part of a curse, as was this castle, for Quaraun was certain the castle had not been here the night before.

No. He was sure of it.

The night before, he had entered this strange village to find its farm lands deserted, it’s houses empty, and a group of bandits attacking him, chasing him. He'd run into a farmhouse to hide, and somewhere along the line, opened a bedroom door which had led down to a cellar. There he had read a few books, only to be interrupted by the woman, he could only a assume to be the escaped princess. After which these 2 guards appears and lead him upstairs, where the door no longer led to the farmhouse bedroom, but instead opened into this castle, where he now sat in its prison cell.

And that meant something happened last night, but he could not think of anything, besides the fact that his head hurt terribly and he was very hungry.

But no one else felt the pain when they passed out, and no one else seemed to feel it either.

After some more hours of the same routine that followed, Quaraun realized something strange was going on. The guards would check the dungeons, but would never enter them, nor visit any prisoners in the area. They were always the last ones to return to the cells after they finished, as they didn’t want to stay long, even though the rest of the guards often spent hours there. As for the corridors, there would only be one way from one hallway to another; through a large room filled with coffins, where most of the guards slept or meditated.

As Quaraun pondered this new phenomenon, he noticed one odd thing, the only person the guards allowed near the dungeon was him.

When the guard first saw him in that coffin the other day, he looked like an ordinary man, except for the chains that held him. However, those weren’t just normal chains; they were enchanted chains, binding him in the coffin until he would die.

“There is strange magic at work here,” Quaraun said to himself. “And where there is magic, there is a mage behind it.”

He picked up the book titled “The Dark Side of Camelot” once again, opened it, laid it on the bed in front of him, and stared blankly at the open page muttering the line: “I have always liked stories about knights who fight the evil sorcerer, Merlin.” to himself a few times.

“I wonder? Could this be a spell book? And a clue?”

The guards were arguing again. Quaraun watched the pair through the bars as they stood together in front of the prison door.

“Interesting. The room keeps changing. That was an oak door last night. Now it has bars on it.”

As the sun began to set on this Quaraun’s second night in the prison cell, a loud crash, sounded from outside the dungeon. The two guards ran from their post at the door.

Quaraun glanced towards the door, then back at the book. He closed to book and placed it face down on the mattress. He took a deep breath and listened, waiting, but no further sounds could be heard.

Suddenly, a ghostly visage of a woman appeared in the room. Her hair glowed golden. A pale green mist surrounded her. She raised her staff in front of her and chanted words Quaraun could not understand. He tried to speak to the lady, but no sound came out.

And then, as quickly as she had appeared, she vanished.

Just then, Quaraun heard the cell door open. The two guards tumbled in, each carrying an oil lamp. They placed their lanterns on the floor and looked around the room, then stared at Quaraun.

“What was that?” one guard asked Quaraun.

“What was want?”

“We heard a sound in here.”

“I heard a sound too, but it came not from in here. I heard a crash coming from outside.” Quaraun pointed to the barred window as he spoke. “The crash came from out there.”

One guard looked out the window.

“I see nothing but trees. And a tree down across the gate. That must be what we heard. Wait... I see something.”

The other guard rushed to the window.

“What did you see?”

“I saw ... something. It was moving fast. And carrying a white light.”

The other guard scoffed. “So what? You saw a white light. That means nothing.”

“No, there was more. The light moved like... like ... flames.”

"A fire? There is no fire. This place is cold and it will get colder still and soon."

"I was like a fire though."

They looked out the window again. Nothing seemed to be out there. The only thing visible were some trees in the distance.

Quaraun spoke up.

"Burning did you say?" Quaraun asked.

"Yeah. Like fire."

"That could be important," Quaraun started to say, but was unable to continue the rest.

"That means nothing!" Snapped the first guard. He left the window and marched up to Quaraun. "Do you know where you are?"

"A strange village?"

"Stop being crass. What is this place?"

"This? This is a prison."

"Yes. It is. And we are the guards and you are the prisoner and you don't talk unless we say so, you hear?"

He stomped back to his companion still by the window.

"Fire you say, eh?

"Yes."

"Blue flames..."

"What are you talking about?"

"A white light, like hot blue flames. Like flames."

"And what exactly are those, eh?"

"I don't know. a Will O the Wisp maybe?"

"A will O the Wisp?"

"Yeah."

"You read too many fairy tales. A Will o the Wisp, eh? So what exactly are those?"

"I don't know. But they come from up there. From beyond the mountains."

The first guard shook his head.

A long pause followed as the two guards scanned the area.

Quaraun stared at the open and now unguarded prison door. He suspected, if he so choose to do so, he could walk out the door right now and neither guard would notice. However, he was intrigued by the overall mystery of this place, so sat on the bed, unmoved.

Finally, the guards returned to their post. Their conversation resumed with some comments about how Quaraun should be grateful for his safe haven, but how he was lucky to be caught, and even better to still be alive and imprisoned in the first place.

They talked about their plans for Quaraun, how he must be treated. They didn’t seem to realize the real meaning of what they were saying to Quaraun.