15Whee. Vacation. On some virtually unknown volcano, with a small ocean view. Only thing that could make this vaguely interesting would be if we got attacked by bandits, and which bandits would attack a king's caravan? Darn.
"Prince Julian?" the wagon driver inquired, as if not sure if I was still in the wagon.
"Aye." I replied, since I most obviously still was inside.
"We do be almost there." He stated, nodding his head.
I looked out the window, and not seeing a hill in sight, I was puzzled. "What do you mean? I see no volcano. What do you mean?"
The wagon driver turned around, and I saw very clearly, his fifteen teeth, all very yellowed and disgusting. Not only that, I saw his battleaxe very clearly too. Double sided, the edge looked sharp enough to cut through air. "What I mean, is that this is where you get out." He drawled, before pulling the horse to a halt, slashing the connecting ropes between the horse and the wagon, and jumping off onto the horse.
I cursed. He had probably planned this too, getting this all planned out, and a large group of bandits would be coming in an instant. I jumped out of the abandoned wagon, and looked around. Hmm. . . nothing that way. Big cliff that way. Some caves, probably occupied by bandits, or bears. Just a big dust cloud that way. . . Wait. "Thrice damned!"
I was quickly surrounded, and was relinquishing my weapons, wishing that I'd paid more attention to the weapons master and his stupid self defense classes. "Hm. . . Dagger, another dagger, a retractable punching dagger, 2 dirks, a dart shooter. . . Ooh. . . an ensorceled one. Nice. . ."
"I hope you don't expect you to get a hefty ransom for me. My brother doesn't care about me." I proclaimed. Maybe they'd let me go. . .? Hopefully, but I doubted it.
The leader grinned evilly, "Well, Mr. Prince Julian, we know exactly how much your "oh so faithful" brother wants you. In fact, he himself paid for you to be attacked, and captured."
Damn you, brother. May you be thrice damned to the deepest pit of Hades for your treachery. "Well then why don't you kill me?"
"Don't be absurd. Your brother paid an extra 10 stone in gold for you to be kept alive."
Ooh, maybe I can escape! I shut up, and hung my head, as if resigned to my fate.
"Good. You understand. Now, we'll take you to our high-tech, secret base." he laughed maniacally, until his laugh turned into a cough, and he was hoarse. "Too cliched."
They took me back to their 'top secret, high-tech base', really just a big rock rolled in front of a large cave, with a few amenities, such as running, warm water, and magic lights surrounding the cavern. It split off into roughly fifteen different passages. One was for a dormitory, another was the "war room", one a "torture chamber"', the showers, the "dungeons", the dining room, etcetera.
They took me directly to the "torture chamber", really just a small room with some different knives inside; they were rather squeamish about torture, as anyone would've been, and what they really did in there, was cut of any charms that a person might have, and wield knives threateningly.
They ordered me to strip naked, and seeing the lion birthmark on my ass, promptly lopped it off. They then brought in a healer, while I was yelling and screaming, and bleeding from my ass, who cut off the pain, and, healed my ass, minus the birthmark. I felt different, almost. . . high. My. . . sister, may she rest in peace, had once dared me to try some kind of drug. . . worst thing I ever tasted, and I'd never do it again, but. . . the feeling was interesting. Like this, except the nauseous feeling was nonexistent, and this was better. Strange. . .
They then threw me, bodily, into the dungeon, really a fairly nice room, with a view of the cliff, the only dungeonesque thing about it being the barred windows. They let me go around the cave, everywhere except the armory, and the war room, and I didn't really miss anything at the castle, except for my very few friends. The high feeling didn't go away after the lopping off of my birthmark, and if anything, it grew stronger. I didn't really hate my brother any more then previously, not yet, for I wasn't having too bad a time, I had even befriended the kindly healer who'd helped my ass, their magician, and a few of the bandits, too.
Around three weeks, I found a message on my window pane, probably teleported there by some magician, my brother making the pretense of looking for me, that jackass. I looked at the front, and saw on it, 'To: Julian, Prince of Athena.' It was written with some kind of red ink, a color not commonly used, since that meant negative money. Smiling, I turned it over, and saw a red thumb print, and a name inside the whorls. 'Jerry', a fairly strong magician, who had some interesting ideas on the economy and the aristocracy. I opened up the letter, and stopped smiling. It read thusly:
Julian,
After you left, Tort accused you of treason, and let it be publicly known, that he had you killed. He afterwards accused all of your friends of treason, as well. By the time you read this, I'll probably be dead. I'm sending this as my dying magic, and you'll never see me again. I know you're alive, somewhere. Give me, and your friends, revenge. If you won't give us revenge, think of your sister. Give her revenge. Kill your brother.
Goodbye,
Jake
I turned the envelope over, and looked at the front. It wasn't red ink, it was blood, as was the thumb print, marking it as his dying piece of magic, a non-specific 'envelope to Julian', thing. I began to cry, not just tears of sadness, for the loss of a good friend, but also at the betrayal of Tort. Then I screamed, and started running through the caverns, in my pyjamas, pushed aside the gigantic boulder after a few tries, my hands glowing blue, and I jumped off the cliff, screaming something even I couldn't really understand, about the futility of my situation, and the betrayal of brothers. Then I stopped screaming. I had remembered something.