Chapter 2

 

 

Giselle took a deep breath, composing herself before she began her tale. There was so much to tell and much of it was terrifying.

 

‘My… my father, the king, remarried a month ago,’ she began. ‘My own mother died when I was a baby and my father brought me up himself in our castle. He had never shown interest in marrying again having loved my mother so much. But then he met Henbane at a castle dance a month ago and within a few days announced he would be marrying her.

 

‘I was a little surprised at how quick his decision had been, but was pleased that he had found happiness with someone. Henbane is an attractive woman, though in a harsh way and she was very nice to me before the marriage.

 

‘But that all changed once they were married. Within a week my father… my father fell very ill with some strange disease. Henbane confined him to his bed and whenever I asked about him, she would always say that he was on the mend, but still very weak. I wasn’t allowed to even see him as she said I might catch what he had.’

 

‘That must have been very trying when you loved your father so,’ Iron-Ear said.

 

Giselle nodded.

 

‘It was… but that wasn’t all that was so unsettling. Henbane was also acting very strangely… avoiding me when I wanted to ask about my father, but almost it seemed following me to see where I went. I would be wandering through the castle and she would suddenly appear around a corner and just stare at me… with an almost cold, calculating look before walking off again.

 

‘And sometimes when I would go into the town below my castle to see friends she would suddenly appear… watching me. She would always pretend it was just a coincidence and but it was so very creepy.’

 

‘Sounds creepy to me too,’ Iron-Ear said. ‘Wasn’t there anyone you could go to with your fears?’

 

Giselle shook her head.

 

‘As soon as father became ill Henbane replaced much of castle staff with others of her choice… even the captain of the castle guard who was a close friend of my father’s and many of the soldiers. I found myself very much alone and decided to see my father without Henbane’s permission and tell him what was going on.’

 

‘How did you manage that?’ Marble-Nose asked curiously.

 

Giselle smiled a little slyly.

 

‘A few years ago father told me of many secret passages in the castle, passages that led to nearly every room in the castle. Two nights ago I used them… to go and see him. I entered his bedroom and went straight over to his bed.’

 

She stopped and let out a heartfelt sob.

 

‘Oh, it was awful! He wasn’t getting better at all! He was just skin and bones… barely breathing and unconscious. He was wasting away to nothing and I was just horrified. Then I heard Henbane coming and quickly left.

 

‘I knew then that she was killing my father, but who was I to tell? I knew I had to escape… to find someone to help my father. But I needed proof of Henbane’s wickedness and I decided to use one of the secret passages to get into a room she keeps as her own to see if I could find something.

 

‘I entered and found a large black book on her desk.  It was a book of potions and spells.’

 

‘I think that would make your stepmother most certainly a witch,’ Marble-Nose said pointedly.

 

Giselle sniffed, tears threatening again. But she quickly wiped them away, thinking she had cried enough.

 

‘The book was opened on a specific potion…’ she said. ‘It was how a witch could become an Arch-Witch. It needed many ingredients and they were all ticked off… all except one. The last thing she needed was a young girl’s lilac eyes!’

 

‘Trolls breath!’ Iron-Ear exclaimed in shock. ‘She wants your eyes?’

 

‘Did the book say anything else about the potion… when it was to be completed?’ Stone-Fist asked.

 

Giselle nodded.

 

‘At midnight on winter’s solstice,’ she replied. ‘She has to remove my eyes and add them to the potion at the stroke of midnight.’

 

‘That’s only two weeks away!’ Marble-Nose said in alarm.

 

‘I know and that’s why I ran away tonight,’ Giselle said. ‘I used a secret passage that led under the castle walls to the forest outside. I was heading for a road the leads out of my kingdom… but got lost and ended up in the clearing and fell down your airshaft.’

 

‘And you couldn’t have come to a safer place, princess,’ Stone-Fist said reassuringly. ‘As it happens we dwarves do a little more than just dig holes in the ground.’

 

‘What do you mean?’ Giselle frowned.

 

‘Come on into our map room and we’ll explain,’ he replied.

 

They led her into a small room off the cavern. Giselle was surprised to find bookcases against the walls with deep shelves where rolled up parchments lay. There was a large one unrolled on a table and she thought it looked like a map of some kind. But it was an unusual one as it was mainly divided into coloured sections with dotted lines that intersected each other.

 

'Is this a map?' she asked.

 

Stone Fist nodded.

 

'Yes, it’s a map of your kingdom, The Kingdom of the Red Moon.’

 

‘It doesn’t look like a map of my kingdom. I can’t see anything I recognise.’

 

Iron-Ear chuckled.

 

'Well, you wouldn’t, unless you’re a dwarf,’ he said. 'It's a map of your kingdom from underneath.'

 

'Underneath!' Giselle exclaimed in surprise.

 

'Of course,' Stone-Fist said. 'Dwarves aren’t very interested in what lies on top of the ground. We’re interested in what lies under it, like gold, silver and precious gems. We’re a Dwarf Prospecting Unit and our job is to tunnel underneath a kingdom and map what’s there. Takes years of course and when we’re done here, we’ll move underneath to another kingdom.’

 

‘I thought dwarves mainly mined in mountains,’ Giselle said.

 

Stone-Fist gave a scoffing snort.

 

‘That’s an old dwarves tale!’ he replied. ‘A dwarf can mine anywhere!’

 

‘So how do you read the map?’ Giselle asked, quite fascinated by their odd occupation.

 

Marble-Nose pointed at the map with a thick, silver ringed finger.

 

‘Well, the dotted lines are shafts and the small circles are airshafts. So far we’ve found gold, rubies and coal under your kingdom and they are the coloured areas on the map… yellow for gold, red for rubies and black for coal.’

 

'That's amazing!' Giselle said in wonder. ‘Do you have an underground map for every kingdom in Kingdoms?’

 

Stone-Fist shook his head.

 

‘Oh, no! The Prospecting Units have only been around for a few centuries. We’ve only just started to scratch the surface with the number of kingdom’s there are.’

 

‘So what does all this have to do with me?’ Giselle asked.

 

The three dwarves smiled and Stone-Fist opened a draw in the desk and took out a small white card. He handed to her and whilst it was a bit tattered from use, she could still read its inscription. It read…

 

The Dwarven Society

for the Rescue of Princesses

from Wicked Stepmothers

 

She looked up in some surprise.

 

‘You rescue princesses as a job!’

 

‘Well, it’s a hobby really,’ Iron-Ear said. ‘You see, long, long ago when the very first dwarves rescued a princess from a wicked stepmother they felt so good about it they decided to set up a Society for it. We all take it very seriously.’

 

‘My word!’ Giselle said in wonder. ‘How many princesses has the Society rescued?’

 

‘Oh, dozens over the ages,’ Marble-Nose replied. ‘We smuggle a princess out of her kingdom and set her up with a new identity and money to start over. We call it the Princess Protection Plan or PPP for short.’

 

Giselle smiled in delight. It looked like she had found the help she so desperately needed.

 

‘So you’ll help me?’ she asked. ‘And my father?’

 

‘Of course!’ Stone-Fist said. ‘And the first thing we need to do is find out just how powerful this Henbane is. We need to know who we’re dealing with.’

 

‘From who?’ Giselle asked.

 

‘From another witch of course,’ Marble-Nose replied with a sly grin.