Saga Of The European King

The Adventure Party rode Gappy on for two sad, somber weeks. Nobody spoke much to anyone else. It was awkward, and they didn’t get to have any showers and everyone stank. When they unpacked the settlement to camp for the night, lights were out almost as soon as dinner was finished. No one was in a talking mood.

The King knew about morale. He was the King, after all, and he knew people. He needed to find a way to cheer up the Adventure Friends, and to cheer himself up, too. Once they were happy and jiving, then the soldiers would follow the strong example and everyone would be pretty cool with the situation. The King went to Colonel Glowfist’s tent one morning. He found the Colonel doing lots of push-ups, with Roxy Tripfoot sitting cross-legged on his back. The Colonel was trying to lose weight, for he was still morbidly obese from all of the birds he ate when the Adventure Friends were in a bind. Roxy Tripfoot promised him that, if he were to become slim and good-looking again, she would totally love him. The King was not aware of this agreement between them. He thought that Roxy was going to marry his son, Prince David, for political reasons. This will be important later on. But for now, let’s hear what the King said to Colonel Glowfist.

“Noble friend and esteemed archmage, we’re going to have a party.” This is the King speaking.
“That’s just the thing we need to lift our enfeebled spirits, Your Majesty.” Said Colonel Glowfist, straining to do a third push-up.
“What we need, for a truly radical party, is the one man who can party unlike any other.”
Colonel Glowfist stopped doing his push-up. His stupid little arms gave out and he crashed to the floor.
“You mean, Michael? We’re going to go all out?” he said, from the floor.
“Dude, it’s going to be off the hook.” Said the King, and he meant it.

The man they were talking about, Michael Allweather, was the coolest guy in Europe. He lived on the way to the North, and it would basically be awesome for everyone if they stopped in at Michael’s town and threw a big party for the troops and everyone. Michael could get his band to play songs, and then they could have a concert. The King could play the greatest bass guitar in Europe, even though his hands were made of wood, because he practiced so much and believed in himself. With Colonel Glowfist on drums, Gappy on back-up guitar, Sally Minefield doing the singing and Axe Axewound just thrashing around and going crazy on his keyboard, in addition to Michael’s already totally rocking band, it could be the greatest party that would ever be seen in Europe.

So the King diverted the course and called up General Majesty and told him about the new schedule and Gappy rode on towards Michael’s town, which was called Jerusalem. Michael was the mayor of Jerusalem, because he was the first citizen to settle there. It had all happened years ago, when the King was a teenager. He had been adventuring around the countryside and had just killed his first demon, Ashleighroth, when Father Dominoes, who had been traveling with him as his tutor, told him that he had a big Physics test in just two days.

The King had forgotten all about the Physics test and was just so bummed out about having to do it, because he hadn’t studied. He’d been fighting demons. Also, he had wanted to sneak off school on Friday and kill Ashleighroth’s father, Ba’al, and score some awesome treasure. So the young King came up with a cool plan to get off school, do the test AND kill Ba’al all at the same time. When he was six, his father had taught him how to breathe life into unliving earth on a fishing trip. Recalling this lesson, the King went down to the river, scooped up a load of clay in his school-bag and went about making a duplicate of himself that could stand in for him on the Physics test. The man he made was perfect, and he was really cool, so the King called him Michael, which he decided was an exotic, Middle-Eastern sounding name that really suited a cool guy like the one he had just made.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Michael aced the test, but the King got in trouble with Ba’al and Michael had to come and rescue him. The King learned an important lesson about responsibility and Father Dominoes punished him by setting another Physics test for that Sunday (!), which was harder than any Physics test in Europe, and reshaped Michael’s face ever so slightly so that he could tell the difference between them. When it came time to move on, Michael decided to stay in the place where he had been born, and the King promised to visit him whenever he could, because their friendship was huge and meant something. Michael had learned the secret to breathing life into earth from the King, and went about making lots of friends for himself in this empty land. Before long, there was a whole town of people that Michael had made. They called the town Jerusalem, and they called themselves the Ashkenazi, but everyone in the neighbouring regions just called them ‘Jews’ for short. The Jews had lots of adventures, but what they liked best was partying, because Michael knew about people. It was as though all of the knowledge the King had about people wasn’t being used by Michael for running Europe, so he instead had the ability to put on really awesome parties.

The Jews had just had a party when Gappy rode up to the walls of Jerusalem. Everyone was all partied out, and no one came to the gate for fifteen minutes. When the tired gatekeeper put his head up over the wall and saw Gappy, he forgot all about being tired and having partied too hard. He ran to fetch Michael, who was drinking lots of water but otherwise fine. Michael ran out of the gate and hugged all of the Adventure Friends and kissed Sally real deep and hard. When he had finished hugging the King for the third time, he said, “We just had the greatest party, Your Majesty!”
“I know!” said the King. “We could hear it three days ago!”
“Wow!”
“Listen,” said the King, you’re going to top the party you just had. You’re going to top every party you’ve ever had. We’re going to put on the greatest party Europe will ever see, okay?”
“Okay!” said Michael. “We’ll need the Jewel Of Gyrolevikar!”
“Cool.” Said the King, drawing his sword.

End Of Chapter 21

Without even a night’s rest or a shower, the King took right off to the Cave Of Gyrolevikar. He ordered pretty much all of his soldiers to make camp inside the walls of Jerusalem, but took one hundred men with him, as well, of course, as his Adventure Friends, who really wanted some action. They rode Gappy for another whole day, camped out in a big old tree for the night, and arrived at the cave in the morning. This was the cave where Ba’al, the big old demon lived. Years ago, the King had killed Ba’al’s daughter, Ashleighroth, and got kidnapped by Ba’al and hung over a big pit while scorpions crawled down some ropes, coming to get him. If Michael hadn’t showed up with the grappling hook, the King would have surely have suffered a nasty sting.

The King wanted to get even with Ba’al after all these years. No one should ever make him look like a fool and get away with it. He sprinkled some demon-killing liquid over Cutty’s blade. Cutty complained.
“That water burns, Your Majesty, and it makes me hallucinate! You know that!”
“That’s because you’re part-demon, Cutty. If you bothered to be a better sword, we wouldn’t need the demon-water.” Muttered the King.
“Please don’t say mean things, Your Majesty. I’m sorry. I can’t help what I am. I just want you to be happy and well. Your hands are so rough!” said Cutty, starting to cry.
“I’m sorry Cutty. I will grant you mercy, just this once.” Said the King. He waved over to the others, lit a torch, and they all stormed the cave.

The first thing they ran into were bats. Bats were a joke. They were like birds, but not nearly as tough, no beaks and much smaller. Some of them could bite you and give you rabies, but Psalm 19: 10 could take that right away no probs. The one hundred men armed with swords that could cut through anything laughed as they massacred the bats.
“Stupid flower-lovers!” they said. “Go be stupid!” and so on.
The King and his Adventure Friends didn’t even get to kill a single bat, that’s how stupid the bats were. Later on, Axe Axewound got a spider that had somehow scurried through the soldier’s legs, and half a spitting snake nearly made it to the King, but on the whole the monsters of the cave weren’t much good. The King sighed. It had been so much more exciting when he was a boy. One spider was a threat, and bats could mess up your aim or get in your hair, at least. He got bored quite quickly and wondered about the Jewel Of Gyrolevikar. It was said to be able to produce any liquid endlessly from its one flaw. One of noble heritage or a hot lady could whisper to its cool side whichever liquid you wanted to come out of it. Michael had always spoken of using its powers to fuel the greatest party he would ever throw. He would have it pour forth a swimming pool of ale, a river of pina colada, a lagoon of mixer. The rivers that fed Jerusalem would be filled to the floodgates with vanilla vodka. When he was a teenager, the King had coveted the Jewel for the mere purpose of secret binges after lights-out at Camp that year. How his perceptions had shifted with the weight of adulthood!

The soldiers ahead of them were making light work of the giant snails, frogs, bears and the one T.Rex in the cave and built bridges over the bottomless in the floor and made sure all the stalagmites had fallen by running under them and quickly running back, when the King was jerked back by his cat-like alertness to a noise that he had just heard. He knew the noise was danger, and dived into the crowd of soldiers so that he may get to the front and protect them. But even the King was not quick enough to save the front twenty-two men from being burnt to a crisp by fiery Hell-fire. He ploughed through the panicking soldiers and thrust Cutty out into the flame so that he may deflect it. The soldiers made way for the Adventure Friends, who had experience with this kind of thing. They struck their poses, but the camera pulled back from their faces and up on a crane, and then we saw that they were surprised, and maybe even a bit embarrassed. Then we cut to what’s in front of them, the thing that burnt all the men and has surprised the King and his Adventure Friends like that.
“Ashleighroth!” snarled the King. It was his old enemy, returned, somehow from death itself. Though the King recognized her, she looked different from before. She was a different, more hardcore colour, and she had more spikes and her hair was up on end.
“No!” She screamed. “Super Ashleighroth!”

Then they fought.

End Of Chapter 22

Ashleighroth used all of her attacks against the Adventure Friends, and, when the chips were down, her super-attacks too. Sally got knocked out before she could sneak up behind the demon, and that happened pretty early on in the fight. Axe Axewound got all up in her face while Colonel Glowfist kept him all magicked out with shields and whatnot. Roxy kept the healing coming and the King just kept on throwing David, armed with Cutty and protected by his Chinese belt, right between the demon’s eyes.

Ashleighroth went down, and it was emotional because she was the first demon the King had ever killed and here he was, all these years later, killing her again. It made him wonder what he had accomplished in the years between. Then he remembered that he was King of Europe and that everyone loved him and that he had done enough adventuring for three lifetimes and that he was eighty four and still looked good, and had this kid that he loved and was great, so all in all he had had a sweet life so far. So he felt good when Ashleighroth hit the floor of the cave and screamed and melted.

The Adventure Team didn’t celebrate. They knew better than that. They knew to expect the demon to get up, change colour and maybe grow into a giant and then try to kill them again. They knew to expect the demon to be replaced with two demons, which would be doubly hard to kill. They knew to expect the floor of the cave to drop away for no reason, or for the whole place to start to explode. They knew to expect another demon to come out of the shadows, a demon that is pissed off and angry. This is what happened. Ba’al, Keeper Of The Jewel Of Gyrolevikar, who had once bested the King himself in combat, came out of the shadows of the cave and screamed. The soldiers who had been hanging around the back of the cave screamed too and charged at Ba’al, eager to protect their King, but Ba’al just ate fifty of them really messily. He didn’t even care to swallow, he just wanted to get as many of them in his mouth as possible and chew. It was so gross. The King was disgusted. He hurled David at the demon-king, and David cut Ba’al’s head right off, stopping the eating.

While Ba’al grew two new heads to replace his old one, he talked with the King. He was upset, because the King had killed his daughter again.
“Real fathers don’t keep their kids in a cave all their lives!” bellowed the King, putting his hand on David’s head and ruffling his hair. The King had once had a daughter who was such a super-hot vixen babe that he had to have her locked in a tower, so he knew what he was talking about. That’s why he decided to start again with David, who had never been locked up anywhere his entire life.
“Do you know how long I had to wait in queues in Hell to get her back?” cried Ba’al. “I didn’t want to lose her again!”
“Hand over the Jewel Of Gyrolevikar, archfiend.” Snarled the King, getting ready to throw David again.
“You can’t. It’s mine. I need the liquids for my projects,” said Ba’al, “Besides, even you couldn’t beat me. Not even your father could beat me.”
“Colonel!” screamed the King, hurling David with all of his might. Colonel Glowfist whipped out his License To Kick Ass and, as his obscene piles of fat drifted away and his one filthy rag was replaced by the finest sheer leather cloak, Roxy Tripfoot’s heart beat so fast that she had to sit down, right there in the middle of the fight. She was sweating hard and she couldn’t see. Colonel Glowfist leaped right up into the air, caught David as he flew towards Ba’al’s heads, used some magic so that David turned into a giant monster with spikes, then forced the David monster, who was also on fire, down Ba’al’s throat where he exploded, and wet pieces of Ba’al flew everywhere. Colonel Glowfist then picked up Axe Axewound, and did the trick again, only this time he shoved him down Ba’al’s other throat on his other head. Then the License To Kick Ass wore off, and Roxy had to get up on her shaky legs and cast a Drastic Heal spell to counteract Colonel Glowfist’s heart attack. She cradled his fat head in her lap and got him to sip some lemon tea. Axe Axewound and David also turned back to normal, by the way.

Ba’al lay down on the cave floor next to his dead daughter. He was pretty embarrassed.
“Okay. Guys, you can borrow the Jewel. But just for one day. It’s mine and I need it. Clear?”
The King did not think that this was an honourable deal. He reckoned that Ba’al needed to be taught an important lesson.
“Deal,” said the King, extending a hand out to Ba’al, who took it and got up. “But there’s one condition, Ba’al.”
“What’s that?” said Ba’al, dusting himself off.
“Do you still play those drums?”
“Sure do.” Ba’al winked.

End Of Chapter 23

“Okay,” said the King. “For the next part of the plan, we need to split up.” They were back in Jerusalem, sipping martinis by the pool. The Jewel Of Gyrolevikar was hooked up to the bar opticals. It was making banana liqueur. Michael was jamming with Ba’al, but Ba’al kept on hogging the spotlight with his flaming drum solos. He wouldn’t let Michael shine. It was so frustrating.

“David, Roxy Tripfoot and I will travel Southwest to the mountains on Gappy. Colonel Glowfist, I need you to weave us a blanket of haste for the journey. Sally, the Colonel and Axe will take one of David’s boats to the Viking prison colony downriver. Ba’al and Michael will stay here and practice their set.”
Everyone seemed pretty cool with this plan, so the King gave them their missions. Each group had two goals to achieve. The King’s missions were to visit an old musician who lived on top of a mountain, and also to go to the Market Of Prague and stock up on eats and chips. Colonel Glowfist’s group was to break into the Viking prison colony to rescue a guy and also to recover the pool lights from the rock people who lived under the Earth, who had borrowed them some time ago and not given them back.
“We have three days. I believe in you. We can do it.” Said the King, smiling.

So the King rode out on Gappy with David on Roxy’s lap. They were sitting on a beautifully knitted Blanket Of Haste, that was working very well. Every step Gappy took was like four or five steps. David kept on punching Roxy in the breasts and then hiding his face. When the King saw this, he laughed his deep, rich laugh, which always made Gappy whicker happily.
“He likes you!” said the King. “Things bode well for your marriage. Your children will see a Europe at last at peace from the unsettled gypsies. When we have conquered Ireland, we shall raze it to the ground and let the gypsies settle there.” Said the King, thinking politically. Roxy was not sure what to say. She did not want to marry David when he had come of age, because she was sure that Colonel Glowfist would have lost a lot of weight by then and that she could safely marry him, not David. But she also very dearly wanted peace for her people and for all of Europe, which she loved very dearly. All she could do was hug David closely so that he could not punch her in the breasts any longer. She thought about how she would have to get used to hugging David, and that some day he would be bigger than her. This made her feel things, some of which conflicted with other feelings she thought were better to have.

They arrived at the Market Of Prague in no time flat. They bought huge amounts of chips, dips, carrots, celery and little sausages. They bought charcoal for the fire, balloons for the decoration, bottles of Prague-water for the non-drinkers, mixers for the vodka and gin and brandy that the Jewel Of Gyrolevikar was making, bin bags for the clean-up, napkins, paper cups, three slaves, eighteen heads of swine, tinfoil (for cooking potatoes) and some big umbrellas in case it rained. The King, it should go without saying, was fabulously wealthy from killing so many monsters and generally adventuring around, so he didn’t even need to borrow some cash off of Roxy. They loaded Gappy up with all of the supplies and went right on with their next mission, to visit the musician who lived up in the mountains.

The journey would normally have taken them a week and a half, but the Blanket Of Haste made it so Gappy could cover the distance in just over one day. By the time they made it to the top of the mountain where the musician lived, the Blanket Of Haste was steaming and too hot to sit on or too touch. The King suggested that they hang it out on the mountain top, where it was very, very cold, so that it would be fine by the time they set off again. The cold reminded the King of Winter and how it must be stopped. He thought of all the European children who might be suffering and dying in the cold, and he cursed himself for not having killed Winter in single combat yet. As soon as this party had lifted his spirits, he would get right on the Winter-killing mission. Nothing would stop him – not Terrorthaw, not Dark Spaniards, not gypsies nor the Irish themselves. Giant Jake would have to get stuffed, the President Of The United States would have to wait and Mistress Sex would have to pester some other guy. No demon would thwart him, no magical beast deter him. He would kill Winter with his bare wooden hands if he had to. He screamed then, there on that mountain top. His scream was heard across four lands. Everyone knew that the days of Winter were numbered.

When the King had stopped screaming, he took Roxy and David by the hand and led them to the tiny hut on the mountain’s top. Outside there was an old car. He didn’t need to knock, because he was the King, and the man inside was one of his closest childhood friends and what’s more, they were homies. When they went through the door, they saw the inside of the opulent hut. Solid gold records were framed up on the walls. A naked woman got up and bowed, then grabbed her coat and left.
“Don’t mind her, she knows this is important.” Said a voice.
“It’s been a long time,” said the King, warmly.
“From what heard outside and what I can tell by your being here, you’re out to kill Winter and you want me to lift your spirits with a song or two.”
“You’re as wise as ever, Leonard Cohen.” Said the King.
“Reckon I might have a few more tunes left in me,” said Leonard Cohen. He picked up his old guitar and played one a song so sad and beautiful and about girls that there was an avalanche outside.

End Of Chapter 24

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