Saga Of The European King

Meanwhile, Colonel Glowfist’s crew were in the Sub-Kingdom Of the Rock People. It was called The Rock Kingdom. Some thought it strange that the King tolerated the existence of this rival kingdom just below the surface of proud Europe. The well-informed knew, however, that the Rock People were friendly and had no interest in the surface world, due to the weather. They also thought that gold was cheap and that jewels were just as valuable as horses. They liked to punch horses to death, but only the super-rich Rock People ever got a chance to do so, because horses were so rare. The King, with his trusty Ring Of Diplomacy, had also brokered a good peace settlement between The Rock Kingdom and Hell many years ago, so relations were really quite friendly. Maybe too friendly.

It’s one thing to just be cool rock guys and not go having war with Europe all the time, but it’s another thing to just borrow Jerusalem’s pool lights and not give them back. The Rock People said that they only needed the lights to check out some awesome new fish they found in this one pool really deep underground where there was no light at all. Michael thought this was cool and wanted to help the Rock People out, since they were always on time with their huge shipments of jewels and gold every month. They left them in a special basement under Jerusalem Town Hall that they could access whenever they wanted. Every month, Michael would have to round up seventeen horses from Jerusalem’s famous stud farms and herd them into the basement. Getting them down the stairs was really difficult. Every important town in Europe had a similar arrangement with the Rock People. Mechanicus had installed special technological horse-lifts in most of the civic buildings for just this purpose, but he hadn’t yet made it out to the frontier towns like Jerusalem. Until then, Michael just had to make do.

Even though they had promised to use the pool lights for just one weekend, they hadn’t given them back for six months. Even in The Rock Kingdom, where the sun is never seen, it’s hard to mistake one weekend for six months. A party without pool lights is eighty percent less great than a party without pool lights, because pool lights make a party great. Mechanicus had figured this out once in a scientific paper, and used to write the equations up on chalkboards so that young Europeans could appreciate the science. Since he was from the future, Mechanicus was worried sometimes that he was messing up Time by teaching people in Medieval times about scientific principles that they wouldn’t have figured out for thousands of years. In the end, he figured that since he wouldn’t ever see the future again, it didn’t matter if he changed it. He loved the King and he loved Europe, and he would leave neither of them for cheap future-thrills. He was wrong about this, a little, but let’s cut back to Colonel Glowfist’s sub-quest.

Colonel Glowfist’s plan was to entertain all / most of the Rock Kingdom with a splendid magic show while Sally Minefield used her little thieving tricks to steal the pool lights. Colonel Glowfist didn’t want to embarrass Michael and Jerusalem by going around demanding stuff, so this was the best way to get the lights back. Being honoured guests of Europe, it wasn’t hard to get an audience with the Big Rocks, who were really huge and second only to the Biggest Rock, which was the Earth itself, who hadn’t spoken since the King’s great-grandfather had made such sweet love to it centuries earlier. It was still in blissful sleep.

Colonel Glowfist was almost entirely out of breath by the time he had climbed down the hundreds and hundreds of stairs leading to the Chamber Of Big Rocks. It took him a little while to recover and his scalp tingled. Axe Axewound tried to speak for the Colonel, but the Rock People were horrified by his presence.
“It’s Axe Axewound!” they cried.
“High Prince Of The Blood Celts!” they correctly identified.
“Enemy of Europe!” they screamed, but that information was out of date.
“Now ye stone men, I ain’t aiming to do any harm, I love the King now. The Blood Celts aren’t enemies of Europe any longer! We made peace with the High Celts an age ago!” Protested Axe Axewound, but even his mighty voice could scarcely be heard over the boom of stone crashing on stone.
“He’s killed Colonel Clowfist, the King’s greatest ally!” shouted the nearest Stone Person, pointing at Colonel Glowfist, who was lying on the ground and wheezing heavily. The Stone People didn’t know that he was just out of shape. If Sally Minefield had been there she could have put things right, but she was crawling through the ventilation ducts in stealth mode looking for the pool lights. Unfortunately, because an enemy of Europe had been spotted, the Rock Kingdom Palace went into emergency lockdown and all of the ventilation shafts were flooded with cool, clear groundwater.

“Glowfist! Tell them to pack it in! If I fight them there’ll be all hell to pay!” shouted Axe Axewound at Colonel Glowfist’s unconscious form as the Rock People Guard closed in on him ever so slowly. The problem with a flaming axe was that it isn’t much good against people made of rock. Axe missed his old diamond axe which he had left on the bottom of the ocean some years ago. If only he’d bought a ‘return’ enchantment for it when he had the chance! Seeing no other option, he left Colonel Glowfist there on the floor and ran back up the hundreds and hundreds of steps to the streets of the Sub-Kingdom above. He almost made it, but the Palace had already gone into lock-down, and two guards were waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He stopped, even though he could totally have taken the guards, because he didn’t want to hurt Europe’s alliance with the Rock Kingdom. He surrendered. His axe was taken from him, not that it mattered since he could have it return to his hand any time he wanted. He was marched back down the steps and the Big Rocks passed their sentence immediately:

“Throw him to the Death Fish!”

End Of Chapter 25