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Chapter Twenty-Four: Ashes to Ashes
Vlad was starting to grow anxious with the eternally tedious cycle he was going through. Every time he got to the right most corridor in the fork, it would change to something different, a hall of mirrors, a moonlit garden full of roses, an enclosed tunnel where gravity didn’t apply---Costel was an imaginative character. That was for sure.
Vlad had finally decided that he was going to stop wasting time on this sadistic tunnel and simply hope that one of the other paths led to the princess… But first… he would try one last time.
Vlad took a deep breath and passed over the threshold into the right path again.
Instantly the whole labyrinth of ice melted away and Vlad found himself standing in a dark forest… trees surrounded him on all sides, swaying a little in a light breeze. Through the leaves he could see the unearthly beauty of the full yellow moon.
Vlad felt the wind stop and the whole wood grow quiet. Instinctively he drew his sword again and started walking through the woods… Fearfully, he wondered if perhaps the maze had rejected him all together and sent him to the forests surrounding the castle… Would he have to start over again? But something told him he was going the right way… Also---it couldn’t be noon-day yet, and this place was enchanted to look like midnight.
Vlad gazed up at the moon to see if he could notice it moving.
A sound from the shadows abruptly put the warrior back on his guard. He peered into the night, but before he could even see his enemy he was roughly shoved to the floor---his head smacked hard against the ground as a monstrous wolf dug its claws deep into Vlad’s breastplate. Big yellow eyes were obscured by big yellow fangs that nipped at Vlad---the beast’s breath was horrible.
Vlad cried out and tried to lift his arms but they were each restrained by the animal’s back legs.
Vlad kicked his legs forward and managed to knock the wolf off balance, enough that he could scramble out from underneath him and poise his sword to attack.
The wolf bonded forward, and snapped its jaws at Vlad.
Aggressively Vlad whipped the sword around the struck the wolf hard on the neck with the flat side of the blade. The wolf gave a shriek like a beaten dog, than viciously pounced on Vlad again and shoved him into a tree.
The wolf bit down hard against Vlad’s jaw for a split second, than he clamped down even harder as the warrior shoved his blade right through the animal’s gut.
The wolf cried out and fell from Vlad---it stumbled across the leafy clearing for a moment, with the sword protruding from its beaten body.
Vlad felt dizzy, he reached up and felt his face---there were a few puncture marks, and he was bleeding pretty bad---but he would live. He just might not be quite as pretty as he had been. Vlad realized he was on the ground and pulled himself up just as his opponent collapsed.
The wolf wined and Vlad crept forward to retrieve his sword.
A shadow crossed over them as a figure from the air descended, Vlad wrenched his sword from the beast as the dying animal yelped and turned to place his blade right at Bela’s neck.
Bela looked in disgust at the bloodstained sword, which Vlad promptly withdrew from attack stance.
“Are you alright?” Bela was looking at Vlad’s mangled face in concern.
“It stings,” Vlad admitted.
“You look awful.”
Vlad let his gave pass over the battered gargoyle for a moment, “What happened to you?”
“I saw you disappear as you walked into a new turn, so I went to follow you and ended up in here, where I got attacked by two other gargoyles… One of them transformed into Prince Theodor after I chewed through its hand! I think he’ll be alright… He disappeared just a moment after he became a man again…” Bela’s claws were also stained red. Bela glanced past Vlad, “I see you’ve been busy as well,”
Vlad glanced at the wolf---it was still breathing, but probably not for very long.
Suddenly the beast’s form began to grow distorted, in fascination and alarm they saw the monstrous hairy body of the wolf grow soft and pale until Liviu was lying on the forest floor, naked accept for the decorative tattoos over his arms.
Vlad swore and knelt in front of his friend---the wound that Vlad had given him was still fresh and deep.
“Oh dear,” Bela breathed, “Radu and Petre said that Costel had come and taken Liviu somewhere,” he knelt down as well.
“I’ve kill him!” Vlad choked, but he wasn’t panicking yet, quickly he started to strip his breastplate and arm protectors off, he ripped the fabric of his tunic into a few makeshift bandages.
“…He’s bleeding a lot… And since he isn’t disappearing the way Theodor did---I’d better take him to the medical witch right away.” Bela stated urgently.
“How do we get out of here?” Vlad looked around the dark forest.
“It starts to fade into fog if you fly up too high, I’ll show you,” Bela offered.
Vlad tightly wrapped the cloth around the wound in Liviu’s middle, and lifted him to Bela.
The gargoyle gingerly carried Liviu in his arms, “Grab my legs as we fly up,” he sprang into the air and Vlad obeyed.
The trees became small and grew closer together, as the sky stretched out in front of them---they didn’t have to go too terribly high before the world started to fade into fuzziness… The fog was thick and black, at first, but slowly it faded to grey, and then white. As soon as the fog became the purest white you could ever imagine it shattered like a mirror and revealed the ice maze again.
Vlad let go off Bela’s leg as he continued up above the snowy walls, and hit the ground harder than he’d expected. He glanced around at the cold scenery and found himself back at the fork.
Something fluttered inside Vlad and he knew that the right most path would led him straight to Vanda this time…
Since Vlad was never the kind of person to ignore such a firm impression, he walked to the same path, for the last time…
Stefan was strolling through the maze, as if it were nothing more than a very lovely place to take a walk, he looked as handsome as ever and just as wise, just as passionate in his pursuits…
“Clara… Dorin,” Stefan bowed politely.
The royals didn’t really know how to respond… It was at that moment, that they both realized that in spite of the evil this man had done to them, they still felt a little guilty for what they had done to him all those years ago.
…Just a little.
“You kidnapped Vanda,” Clara shook her head in disbelief, he eyes sparkled with tears, “You tried to give her to that vampire…”
“I was planning to seduce her myself, as well,” Stefan responded abruptly, “But things change…”
The king’s jaw tightened.
Stefan smirked at the royal couple expressions, “…You know. I’ve had no trials in this maze so far? No monsters, no fights… I’ve just been wandering through these icy hallways, hoping I’d stumble upon the middle. It’s not like me to put so little effort into something like this… but maybe I’m wrong---maybe it really is this easy and I’ve found my way to the center?” he glanced past the royals at the archway.
“You’ve found the entrance,” Dorin corrected him.
“Blast.” Stefan sounded completely unconcerned.
The queen pressed against her husband gripping more tightly to his arm, “I want to go… Let’s find Vanda, quickly,” she whispered.
“You know,” Stefan spoke up, “I think my problem is that all along, it hasn’t really been your daughter that I wanted to find,” grimly Stefan pulled his sword from his hip and lightly poised the blade toward Dorin from his side.
Understanding the message perfectly, Dorin drew his own blade and stepped toward Stefan, as his wife sank away from them, to watch the fight from a safe distance.
They skipped pomp and protocol and instead lunged at each other---one struck left and the other right---their swords met in midair with a clang, that was so loud in made a few of the more unstable piece of ice fall from the walls. The queen cringed at the sound that seemed to mix perfectly with the roar of the dragon outside of the maze.
Their swords skidded across each other, as the two of them spun to take their weapons back.
Dorin drew back as Stefan advanced and almost stabbed him right through the neck. Dorin slapped Stefan’s blade away from his face and whipped it around, but was blocked by Stefan who did the same attack, but wasn’t blocked.
Dorin stumbled backward as a line of red appeared from his ear to his chin, his eyes twitched but he ignored the cut and went straight back to his punishment of Stefan.
“You’re not as good as you used to be,” Stefan accused him lightly, as he blocked two blows and countered with a stiff kick to the knee.
Dorin stumbled backwards and almost fell from his knee but managed to stay oriented in the right way to take another slice at Stefan, “You’re right---I haven’t been practicing as much.”
“I’ve gotten much better,” Stefan continued.
“You’re right---but you must remember, I was significantly better than you were.” Dorin pointed out, before he struck out two the side and disarmed Stefan, mercilessly he lifted the sword above his head, ready to bring it down hard on his opponent, but Stefan snaked to the side, and lunged forward, tackling Dorin to the ground and forcing him to drop his sword. Stefan posted up high on Dorin’s chest and quickly pressed down hard on his throat. Dorin’s face started to turn red very quickly, as he lost air, he clutched onto Stefan’s hands as they squeezed his neck harder but it was useless---so instead he punched Stefan as hard as he could in the face.
Stefan’s nose started to bleed immediately, and he withdrew his hands and clutched at his face groaning angrily. He pulled his bloody hands away and went to attack Dorin again---but before he could, the king attacked quickly and head-butted him in the face.
Submissively Stefan rolled off of him, and scrambled to retrieve his sword---he scooped it up from the ground, and turned to bare down on the king again---but he was stopped as Clara drove a dagger right into his chest.
Stefan looked at her in disbelief, than slowly his eyes fell to rest on the hilt of the blade. His sword fell from his grasp, and leisurely he collapsed against the wall of ice, a pool of red forming beneath him.
“Vlad!” she cried when she saw him---she was still chained to her resting place but she could see him through the doorway---he’d stepped out from one of the turns.
Vlad sprinted toward the princess, but was stopped dead in his tracks as a fiery arrow blurred by and stopped him dead in his tracks…
Vanda’s eyes went wide with fear, and she struggled to see who had shot at Vlad.
Vlad stood very still, his eyes averted from his attacker---he knew that Asad had another arrow aimed right at him, if he moved.
Never mind---it seemed that he would shoot at him whether he moved or not.
As soon as Vlad heard the other arrow leave the bow, he flinched backwards and avoided the blow, he spun backwards and kicked a rock up from the ground in desperation---the rock flew up and struck Asad on the back of the hand, he swore and let go of the bow, it gave Vlad just enough time to appear right next to the foreign prince with his dagger at the man’s neck.
Asad chuckled. He didn’t look quite as worn as Vlad did---he still had his armor on at least and all of his weapons were intact, though stained with blood. The prince had put his helmet on as well and sustained a few dents in it. “…May I propose something, before you slit my throat?”
“Do it quickly,” Vlad ordered.
Asad motioned across the hall, past the door that peaked into Vanda’s cell. Lying on the bare lake floor was a plain brown bow and a quiver of arrows.
“A duel?” Asad suggested.
“…Why would I want to duel you if I could just kill you right now?” Vlad pressed the blade a little tighter to the prince’s throat.
Swiftly the prince jumped backwards and knocked Vlad’s blade away, raising his bow and arrows again.
“What’s going on?!” Vanda’s voice issued from the cell, but it was muffled.
Vlad held the knife up, poised to throw it. They faced each other down for a moment, than Vlad started backing toward the bow and arrows. He never turned his back to Asad, the whole way, than he laid his knife aside and quickly raised the weapon.
“Find a target---we’ll fire on three,” Asad suggested, he had the arrow aimed right at Vlad’s chest.
“To be fair… why don’t you take your armor off? I seem to have misplaced mine,” Vlad wondered.
“No,” Asad answered shortly.
Vlad sighed, “Alright,” he looked Asad over… the best place to hit him would be right in the exposed skin of his neck, since if he hit his chest the arrow would just bounce off of the armor, and his head was protected by a helmet… He aimed, then listened for Asad to count.
“One, two---FIRE!” the arrows both sprang from their bows.
Vlad felt a sharp pain just below his shoulder on the left side, he fell backwards and gripped the arrow.
“Vlad?! Are you alright?” Vanda pleaded from her prison.
“I don’t…” Vlad forced his eyes opened and looked at Asad.
Vlad’s arrow had hit the prince right in the eye, he lay on the ground, clearly dead…
“I missed,” Vlad admitted quietly to himself.
“Vlad?!” the princess called again, growing alarmed.
“I---are you alright?” Vlad pushed himself up, with the arrow still stuck in his shoulder and limped toward the princess’s door, he reached inside the neck of his shirt and pulled out the key that Costel had given to him.
Petre hated dragons, and he was fighting what Radu had concluded was possibly the meanest most ruthless and crazed dragon of all---and on top of all of that, he had a wife and child on the way, who Radu knew he would feel guilty enough to care for if Petre died.
It was at about this precise moment of thought-process, that something amazing happened that tore Radu’s mind away form all thoughts of guilt.
With a quick blow---and probably as a last resort Petre had flung his sickle down at the great red dragon, and very cleanly sliced the remnants of it’s left ear off with a chorus of ringing metal from the weapon as it lodged itself in a nearby tree after doing the damage.
Radu breathed a sigh of relief, expecting that Costel would instantly burn up in a flash of red and orange flame… instead… The fight continued.
Radu stared at them in bewilderment, from his safe hiding place, that had progressively moved further, and further away form the main battle site…
Petre didn’t look confused---he looked exhausted, he probably was only barely aware that he had even chopped off the dragon’s ear, he had unsheathed his sword after being robbed of the sickle, and was still holding it out toward the monster. He was poised on Dhum’s back---both the warrior and the horse had sustained some bad burns on their left sides---Dhum had lost most of the feathers on his left wing, and refused to fly anymore---as a result the dragon had grounded himself too.
The only good thing to report from the battle that Costel had stopped blowing fire only about five minutes in---he’d been trying to hard at the beginning to toast them right away, and had run dry. Sadly, he was still fully possessing all the other deadly aspects of his vicious character.
Radu stared at the bloody mess on the grass---the remains of Costel’s ear… Why wasn’t he dead?
At once Radu felt something strike him… It turned out to be hail---but attached to that piece of frozen rain was an idea, and as Radu rubbed the back of his head, he had an epiphany.
Radu wrenched the knife from his boot, and sprinted down the hill toward the tree that the Harkin Angius had tied Costel’s old human body---behind him he could hear the dragon, Dhum and Petre raging as they each came in for another attack… As he reached the tree Costel slipped the knife into his mouth, and used his remaining arm to pull himself up eye-level with his cousin’s pasty human corpse.
“Sorry,” Radu shrugged, only halfway sincere and quickly sliced Costel’s ear clean off…
“Good heavens! You’re a mess,” Vanda grimaced at Vlad’s damaged appearance, his lack of half the standard issue armor, his ripped clothes and the smeared war-paint that was mingled with blood and dirt around his face.
“I can’t have been through anything more trying than you have-” he shook his head in disbelief, “-You were dead, I laid you in the earth myself… what trails you must have been through.” his injured arm shook a little as he spoke. He had wrapped it and was still able to use it properly, but the pain was pretty bad and they both knew they needed to get him to a mage soon.
“It wasn’t so horrible,” Vanda admitted, “I don’t remember much… That’s probably good.”
Vlad laughed and held her tighter, “You can’t know how good this feels!”
“…I’ve got some idea.” Vanda pulled back a little and grinned up at him, sheepishly.
All at once Vlad’s face feel back into somber reality, “…Princess,”
“Yes?”
“Do you hear that sound?”
Vanda frowned… She did hear something. It sounded like running water.
No sooner had the two of them realized what it was they were hearing, than their eyes got wide and the walls of ice around them suddenly caved in and splashed into each other---instantly becoming water again… very cold water.
Vlad held his breath in time, and Vanda was able to resurface for a brief moment before the current pulled her back under again---the two of them clung to each other as they were whipped and turned and tossed, and finally pulled straight to shore, as if guided by magic.
Vanda coughed up a mouthful of freezing fish-flavored water, and tried to pull herself from the swallows---her mom’s wedding dress was getting caught and ripping in the reeds, next to her Vlad was a little cleaner, and clutched at his shoulder, his knuckles white.
“What was that for?” Vanda demanded angrily---she heard more coughing like hers and looked to see that her parents were also roughly detaching themselves from the restored lake…
For a moment Vanda felt anger… They were the ones who started this mess---but the second she saw the expression in her mother’s eyes she was inclined to scream, “MOMMY!” and run to the queen’s arms just like any other silly little girl who’d just been dead for three days would do…
“Daddy!” she cried out again, through the muffling, cold wet fabric of her mother’s gown---the king was making his way toward them from the water as well---a long string of seaweed was hanging in his hair and Vanda insisted on pulling it out as she embraced him as. For a moment the three of them were just silent and held each other---listening to the queen sob. But they all calmed down and went back to their usual royal state of demanding to know what had just happened…
“Good gracious sweetheart! What have you done with my dress?” the queen demanded, as she roughly pushed the last dregs of happy tears from her face.
“Umm…”
“Look---Costel, Radu and Petre are approaching!” the king motioned to the three very worn and angry looking young men, with a very disgruntled looking Dhum following close behind them. The magnificent horse had lost his wings, and he seemed to feel for the loss, but it didn’t stop him from rushing to greet Vlad and Vanda.
“-You don’t think you deserve any pain at all?! You started a whole cursed war and killed a bunch of people!” shouted Radu, “I did not personally kill anyone, you will recall! And I’m highly offended that you would refer to that… ‘Me-shaped-creature’, as actually being myself, when clearly---he was a completely different being! Nothing like me, I don’t even enjoy the company of this Harkin Angius thing!” Costel argued---for some reason his hair was falling strangely around his face.
“You went crazy.” Radu stated shortly.
“THIS DOESN’Y JUSTIFY CUTTING MY EARS OFF!” shouted Costel, he stopped in his march and turned to shove Radu.
“That’s a very un-Costel-like thing to do,” Petre commented, looking annoyed, “Maybe the Harkin Angius left some anger behind, eh?”
“Why did you cut off both his ears?” Vlad frowned, “I thought you just needed to remove the left one.”
“Yeah well---I accidentally sliced the right one first, and nothing happened, so I had to take the left,” Radu shrugged, “It’s no big deal, you can still hear and your good looks aren’t ruined forever---you’ve replaced limbs by magic before, remember that time when Liviu and Vlad were playing that knife game and Vlad accidentally sliced his finger off?”
“Yes, yes---In a few hours I’m certain I’ll have retained at least some of my magic back and then I can fix this,” for effect he pushed his long blonde hair back so they could see the bloody, gapping holes left behind, “Then… maybe I can get around to cleaning up the mess this… Harkin Angius, made,” he motioned to the country-side around the castle… Although the changes and renovations that Costel had made to the royal grounds, had disappeared, there was still a lot of damage. The whole place was scared, it made Vanda sad to look at it…
Costel glared at Radu, “But even if I have all the magic in the world, I refuse to rebuild your lost arm for at least a month!” Costel waved his hand in disapproval at Radu and started to march away.
In spite of how tired and sick Petre looked, he chuckled a little at the indignant and fearful look on Radu’s face.
“Will you punish him?” the queen whispered to her husband as the two of them watched Radu and Costel continue their argument as they headed toward the barracks.
“…I don’t dare,” the king admitted, “I suppose he does have a point---he didn’t really start the war.”
“He took over your throne,” Vlad frowned.
“…Alright he started the war---but I’m blasted scared of him… and Bela told me to just stand back and let him walk off, so that’s what I plan to do.” Dorin nodded with finality.
“Where is Bela?” Vlad’s thoughts were thrown back to poor Liviu and the wound he had inflicted upon him when he was a wolf.
“There,” Clara answered quickly, motioning to the sky.
Majestically Bela landed softly on the ground and folded his bat-like wings back, “Liviu is alright,” Bela assured Vlad quickly---though the warrior had already assumed the best from the tranquil expression on Bela’s face, “Theodor is, as well… But he’s very angry with me.”
“…Now,” the king stepped forward and looked at all of them in turn, “I must discover what exactly has been going on.” He requested sternly.
Vanda sighed inwardly, the last thing she wanted right now was an interrogation, so she was very grateful when Petre offered to take a walk with the royal couple and tell them everything…
Bela smiled sadly at the princess and Vlad, then began to walk toward an old tree, were a very old man was waiting for him…
Vanda waved to her grandfather, who was smiling very big, just like he always did, when he saw her.
Without real intention to go anywhere in particular, Vlad and Vanda started walking toward a shady spot---as the sun’s ray disappeared from Vanda’s eyes she melted into the ground, happy she could finally rest. The course grass was a much more inviting seat that that sadistic lounge…
“Is… the silver sorcerer dead?” Vanda wondered.
Vlad couldn’t understand why he was hesitant to answer---it must have something to do with the fact that the princess was almost engaged to the man, despite her apathetic feelings toward him, “Yes. We dueled… I won.”
“…Stefan?”
“I’m not sure,” Vlad grunted and sat down, “I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone killed him.”
“Do you think we’re safe now?” She sat up on the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Probably not, but I dearly hope we’ll be allowed to rest for a while.” Vlad smiled at her.
Tentatively, Vanda reached out and took the chain from around Vlad’s neck and drew the key into her palm, “…It didn’t disappear,”
Vlad frowned, “that’s strange,”
“You saved me,” Vanda leaned in a little closer, “Thank you…” her lips just barely brushed his, but Vlad pulled back.
“No… no,” Vlad shook his head, “I didn’t save you to take you as my wife---I just wanted to protect you-”
“-Oh fine!” Vanda growled angrily, “You just go and assume that I feel obligated to be in love with you, now that Costel has claimed to magically engage us, as if I’m that weak!” she cried, “It never accrues to you that I just might actually want to kiss-”
Vlad’s expression had faded from surprise to amusement so quickly, that the princess hardly noticed---he finally stopped her chatter by kissing her, long and hard, the way properly engaged people would…
“That boy will make a fabulous king,” Simu expressed his approval, “…and don’t be worried just because my track record on picking good kings isn’t fabulous.”
“I’m not worried… Vlad will be a good king. But Vanda… she will be a really sensational queen.” He decided.
“Did you foresee all this?” Simu wondered.
“…Not all of it,” Bela turned away from them, “But I did see this part.”
“What part are we at?” Simu’s white hair fluttered in the wind as he went to join Bela in his stride.
“…The part where I walk away, fully confident in the future.” He smiled at his old friend, “At least for a while.”
Costel did regain all his former strength and then some---within a week he had repaired most of the structural and monetary damages sustained because of his war. But the people were bitter towards him and after several envoys the King cautiously requested that he accept banishment from their country. Costel left quickly to avoid mobs of villagers, who were starting to suspect that he had lost his wickedly omnipotent powers and to claim the Kingdom of Octavia, which after the death of Prince Asad was rightfully his… Radu went with him (and Costel did eventually give Radu his arm back, after a few months, when he felt that his cousin had been sufficiently humbled by the experience.)
With some magical help, Liviu was able to heal quickly, and held no bitter feelings toward Vlad---quite the contrary, he was rather ashamed for having tried to kill him in the first place, and maintained that Costel had enchanted him to lust for the blood of any other creature he met. Liviu stayed at the palace and became a general in the royal army.
Petre returned to his wife just in time for her to give birth to their first child---a baby girl. He lived out the rest of his days with his family in Ash-lips, taking Stefan’s place on the council and reforming some imperfections with their… system.
Cami was finally given her old body back, and everything was explained and straightened out with Teodor, who despite everyone’s fears, had been left unharmed by Costel. The two were married and Cami found herself very inclined to enjoy the royal life for the rest of her days.
King Dorin and Queen Clara both lived long enough to see his first Grandchildren, and gracefully hand over the royal title to their predecessors. Clara and Vanda gradually became closer as both their lives progressed…
And of course---Vanda and Vlad were married just a fortnight shy of the princess’s nineteenth birthday. They never did stop fighting, but they never stopped making up either---so things balanced out… After the strange events of the Harkin Angius, the two of them spent much of their time searching for the Keeper’s Journal, for some time Vanda suspected she had lost it during their escape from the Infernal Mountain, and they never did find the book, but instead discovered a mysterious pile of ashes.
The End
(A/N: I hope that wasn’t too abrupt. I just figured---okay, I’ve done everything I wanted to with this story… so I guess that means it’s over! Cool? Well---I just wanted to briefly say thanks to all of you awesome people who read this and sent me such lovely, helpful and encouraging reviews… You guys are so hot! Now---if you have any questions, complaints, anything at all---just email me at or you can leave a comment on my Blog or Myspace accounts if you’d rather do that---both those addresses are on my profile. Anywho---You guys are just too cool… And I hope you’ll consider reading my new story that I’ll have posted up in a few weeks called Ugly Angel… It’s about Bela, but it’s not really a sequel. I mean---technically it’s a sequel, but you don’t really need to know anything about what happened in Trinket. ANYWHO! I’ll finish this now. I really hope you enjoyed this!)
