For a moment, you soared through the air, eyes gazing towards the sun setting over the distant horizon.
Then, you dropped like a stone.
CRASH! Red scales and bone shards scattered over the sharp rocks at the cliff base.
As the dust settled, the king called out from overhead, “I say, Cilea, are you alright?”
“Dammit, where’s Rodney!?” You shouted, hauling yourself out of the broken dragon carcass. Dusting off your breeches and swiping a bit of damp hair off your sweaty forehead, you squinted up at the shocked guardsmen staring down at you from the ramparts. “What are you all gawking at? Get Rodney!”
Seeing several of the faces disappear, you turned back to the mess around you.
“Oh my, but that’s the third dragon this week,” the king said from right over your shoulder, making you jump in surprise.
“Jeez, don’t do that, Your Majesty!” You gasp. “How did you get down here so fast?”
“Sorry. I have a secret passage that leads down here.” The king nudged a mangled foreleg with his foot. “What went wrong, this time?”
“Clearly, Rodney didn’t set the levitation spells correctly.”
“This will certainly put the filming even more behind schedule.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” you muttered. By now, some of the king’s men had arrived to clean the remains off the cliff-side. Mostly, this involved tossing the smaller bits into the ocean below. The rest would no doubt find its way to the table tonight. Dragon stew yet again. Joy.
“I’ll have Rodney executed straightaway.”
“Tried that. Didn’t work. These undead special effects wizards just keep coming back until their internship programs end and we can finally send them back to whatever so-called film academy spawned them. No, let’s just shove him off this cliff and let him swim back to teach him a lesson. I found that works a lot better.”
“And what about our filming? Will we be able to meet the deadline?”
You gazed at the king, considering your next words. “May I speak plainly, Your Majesty?”
“Of course, I always value the thoughts of my lead actress and director,” replied the king, fishing another apple from somewhere inside his voluminous sleeves. Taking a bite, he gestured for you to continue.
“Well, I know you’ve had your heart set on beating the Skystorm kingdom at the Holy Grail Film Awards this year, but I think this project has gotten a little too ambitious. Personally, I think we should leave out the dragon.”
The king spurted chewed pulp all over your shoes, adding in an exaggerated cough for good measure. Even off camera, the king liked his theatrics. “Leave out the dragon!? But Skystorm had dragons in their film, and they took first prize!”
“They’re elves, Your Majesty. They breed and train dragons for a living. All we’ve got are donated cadavers that Rodney reanimates in the basement. And even then, they need a pilot to make sure they don’t walk into walls or anything. Sir, we need a new story.”
“Nonsense,” the king scoffed. “We can make the dragon work! But I suppose we can skip you having to leave, probably because something happens that forces you to stay. Hm, maybe the ladies-in-waiting all get amnesia, and it turns out Princess Alisa had switched places with one of them for security purposes. You know, the whole decoy princess thing. So, now we have to figure out which one is the real princess when even she can’t remember!” The king started gesticulating wildly as he got into his narrative. “Oh, and then I sit on my throne and say, ‘Grr, I’ll have the whole kingdom beheaded unless you solve this mystery in twenty-one hours!’”
“Twenty-one, Your Majesty? Why not twenty-four?”
“Because I had twenty-one hunting dogs in my youth, and that number has meaning to me. Anyway, then you say, ‘But Your Majesty sir, how can we solve it so quickly?’ And I say, ’I called in an expert!’ Then, in walks the detective, one of those trench coat types smoking a cigarette. And he says-”
“Wait,” you said, holding up a hand. “Your Majesty, let me get this straight. You laid out the ultimatum, and you also hired the detective?”
The king nodded proudly. “That’s right! It’s called a plot twist!”
“I don’t think plot twists work that way, Your Majesty.”
“Well, this one does because it ties in with a second plot twist down the line. You see, beheading Drake was my end-goal all along, and the plot by the ladies-in-waiting gave me the opportunity I needed. Now, I’m simply getting rid of the witness.”
“What witness?”
“Why, the princess, of course.”
At this point, you felt a headache coming on. “Alisa? But you already stopped the ladies-in-waiting from basically assassinating her for you. Besides, if she has amnesia-”
The king crossed his arms in a very self-satisfied manner. “Oh, but I don’t know she has amnesia. That’s the second plot twist.”
Thankfully, before you could start crying, Rodney arrived, moving in his usual shambling way. “M-M-Maj-es-ty?” He rasped.
“Ah, there you are!” The king said. “What have you to say for yourself, my boy?”
The necro-wizard’s yellowed orbs slid to the soldiers carting off pieces of dragon, then back to the king. “I m-misss-sed some-th-ing?”
“You bungled the levitation, you twit,” you snapped, happy to take your stress out on someone available. “I almost died! You know what that means?”
Shoulders slumping, Rodney nodded and reached up to grip his pointy hat in place. With that, you shoved him off the rocks into the crashing waves. Dusting off your hands, you let out a deep breath. “Well, that’s that. Let’s call it a day. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my tower.”