He jumps. One day he will be famous for that gravity-mocking jump. Right now, he’s not worried about fame. He doesn’t know why he can jump so high. He doesn’t care. He concentrates on using this new-found talent to clear the big lizard with the heels of his boots. He comes down on the flashing switch at the monster’s back. Some laborer’s instinct tells him this is the lynch pin, the thing holding the bridge together. His feet smash it, letting the bridge behind him collapse. The lizard falls too, plummeting with a cartoonish laziness.
He doesn’t look back to watch. He hears the clak-clak-clak of the bridge coming down and knows he has won. Instead of gloating, which isn’t his nature anyway, he takes a few deep breaths. He lets his pounding heart slow down. His cap trembles in his hand as he removes it to run his fingers through his thick, dark hair.
It’s over. That’s all that matters. He’s rescued the girl, that pretty blonde he’d met years ago. The day is saved and maybe they can live in peace for a while.
He wonders if he can really live here in her strange country with her. He doesn’t know if he can. This place, where rust-colored stones pave every bit of the ground, unsettles him. The conical grassy hills that rise from it remind him of burial mounds.
His mind wanders back to the even more disturbing things he’s encountered. He thinks of the mushroom he ate that made him grow like Alice in her Wonderland adventure. He thinks of the bricks that hang, suspended by nothing but as solid as any masonry he’d ever seen.
Still, he had been able to topple a few with the new strength his increased size gave him. Others had not yielded even to that. Instead, they had given up treasure, mostly copper coins, bright and flashing and as big as his head. A few had held stranger treasures; there were the Wonderland mushrooms that made him grow, there was a large-blossomed flower that gave him power over fire, there was a rare star-shaped amulet that wreathed him in a protective aura.
And he had needed the protection. In this world there were monsters. He’d faced terrible hybrid animals that hadn’t seemed aggressive at first, but had proven deadly when engaged. There was a breed of tortoise spliced with some kind of raptor. The product was an armored beast with a sharp, tearing beak. He’d learned to dodge the mouth and strike the crown of the shell but the lesson had been costly.
He feels calmer now. The darkness is hot and oppressive inside the castle, but he has mastered it. He has beaten the guardian and now he stands, catching his breath in the inner rooms of this evil den. Not bad work for a common union plumber. He is no prince charming, short and swarthy as he is, but he can get a job done right.
He snugs his hat back into place. It is a brilliant scarlet thing that is impossible to miss, even in this gloom. The bright, vivid colors were his father’s doing. His father had told them, him and his brother, that to be successful they must be memorable. His own mother had sewn the first set of vibrant uniforms.
Sometimes he thinks the bright clothes make him look like a gypsie, especially with his darker, Mediterranean complexion. But, people remembered his name and the brothers had always stayed busy before they’d come to the strange country he was in now.
He has one more thing to do. He enters the long, narrow chamber on this side of the chasm he fought to cross. His eyes fall on a writhing sack on the bare floor.
They stuffed her in a sack! His love, his princess, tied up like potatoes in a feed bag!
He looses the knot binding the neck of the sack and pushes the rough canvas away. Instead of the spill of pink satin and blonde hair he expects a large, spotted toadstool tumbles out. The toadstool stands up on tiny legs and blinks at him. an expression both grateful and apologetic is on its face.
He recognizes the creature. It is one of her people, one of her subjects. To love her is to love them. But, he can’t hide his disappointment. He misses her and his fear is mounting the longer she stays lost.
“Thank you,” says the toadstool, “but our princess is in another castle.”
Tears leak from his eyes, frustration and fear spilling out. His nerves are raw, his limbs exhausted. He only nods and leaves by the door at the back of the room.
When he is outside again he stares at the alien landscape for a long moment. A dark shape smudges the horizon. It is a castle. Another castle.
“Our princess is in another castle.”
He thinks of the three levels of Hell he has already descended to get here; the weird stone-paved plains, the cavern with it’s shifting platforms and pitfalls, the weird forest canopy of flat-topped trees. He thinks of the castle full of fiery traps and nightmare creatures.
He pushes the clutter of anxieties out of his mind. His resolve firms into an iron-clad perseverance. He will find her. He will rescue her. He loves her and will not abandon her. He will fight his way to the next castle, through the next castle and the next and the next. He will follow her to the end of all worlds and fight the king of all monsters if it means he can see her once more.
He leaves the rust-colored ramparts behind and sets out for the distant horizon. A wicked mushroom creature with baleful eyes sidles toward him. He jumps. He brings his heavy steel-toed boots down, smashing the ill-fated monster flat.
He will go. He will fight.
His princess is in another castle.
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