Heroics for Beginners Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  JUST FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS

  Becky grabbed the book. “Handbook of Practical Heroics?”

  “Check it out. It’s all there. What to wear, what to bring, when to go. Armor, weapons, plans of attack, swordplay techniques. Complete instructions for penetrating fortresses and dispatching Evil Overlords. Discount coupons for lodging and restaurants.”

  “Kevin, this is insane.”

  “No, look at this.” Kevin grabbed the book and started leafing through it, showing her the chapter headings. “Okay, so when the villain is holding the heroine at knifepoint on the edge of a waterfall, and the hero comes swooping down on a vine and snatches her away, did you ever wonder where the vine came from? Well, this tells you. And here’s a bit about knocking a guard unconscious with a single punch to the jaw. And look at this! It even shows how to jump through a plate-glass window without getting a single scratch . . .”

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  HEROICS FOR BEGINNERS

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass market edition / September 2004

  Copyright © 2004 by John Moore.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed

  in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do

  not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted

  materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only

  authorized editions.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-441-01193-3

  ACE®

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my friends

  in the Fandom Association of Central Texas

  Before attempting to penetrate the Evil Overlord’s

  Invincible Fortress, the practical hero will seriously

  examine the option of maintaining a safe distance

  and picking him off the ramparts with a long-range

  weapon.

  —HANDBOOK OF PRACTICAL HEROICS BY ROBERT TAYLOR

  Dark gray clouds scudded against the moon. It was totally overcast when Thunk started out, but the sky partially cleared, and when the bright moon came out, it illuminated the Fortress of Doom and striped it with black-and-gray shadows. Thunk stayed motionless in one such shadow, thrown by a chimney, with his feet braced against the steep slope of the slate roof. Voices wafted from below, from the heavily guarded doorways. More guards, armed and armored, could be seen pacing across the gates, leaning out the windows, or standing at the parapets. Thunk the Barbarian waited. To pass the time he pulled an india rubber ball from his pouch and practiced grip-strengthening exercises. He flexed the muscles in his forearms and wondered if it was time for a new tattoo.

  When the moon darkened once again he allowed himself a derisive smile. For a man of his skill and experience, the seemingly impregnable fortress had posed little challenge. Soldiers walked the streets of the nearby village, but they had taken little notice of him. He did not find anything odd in this, despite the fact that a tall man with massive shoulders, dressed in barbarian leather and furs, and carrying a huge sword engraved with cryptic runes, usually attracts at least a second glance. The trail up to the Fortress was also guarded of course; but he had bypassed that, using his expert climbing ability to go directly up the cliff. He wasn’t surprised that the cliff edge was unguarded. No doubt they considered the sheer face unscalable. There remained the smooth stone walls of the Fortress itself, and a skillfully thrown rope had solved that problem. Then from atop the wall, a convenient cast-iron drainpipe provided access to the roof. An easy job. Not much of a challenge to a man like Thunk.

  Now he removed an iron grating that provided access to a ventilation shaft. The grate wasn’t even bolted down but just slid into a groove in the shaft housing. It was amazing how often the fools who built these castles forgot to secure the ventilation shafts. Anyone would think they’d know better by now.

  Once inside he replaced the grating and sat back, listening. All was silent on the roof. Reassured, he slid back the cover of his dark lantern. The shaft, wide enough for even the broad-shouldered barbarian, dropped away into darkness.

  Something, however, obstructed his view. He lowered the lantern into the hole. A faint thin odor of burning lamp oil filled the shaft. Four broad steel bars stretched across the opening. But not all the way across, and at one end they were set into a rotating cylinder. It looked for all the world like a turnstile.

  Thunk leaned forward for a closer look. It was a turnstile. Neat letters had been painted above a narrow slot. “Ventilation Shaft Entrance: 2p.” Puzzled, Thunk reached into his pouch and extracted a tuppence. He dropped the coin into the slot, then drew his sword. Carefully, he touched the blade to the bars. The cylinder rotated. The bars swung down against the wall of the shaft. He shrugged, replaced his sword in its scabbard, and slipped through the open gate.

  He left the lantern at the turnstile, braced his feet against one side of the shaft and his back against the other, and carefully and quietly worked his way down. His sword dangled from his belt, the point swinging gently. It was an easy descent, for he’d had plenty of practice at this sort of thing. Thunk had lost count of the number of impregnable fortresses he had penetrated by climbing through a ventilation shaft. True, Thunk would also be the first to admit that counting was not one of his strong points, but it was still a lot of shafts.

  The opening above him grew smaller, the light from the lantern grew fainter, but presently Thunk could make out a dim glow beneath him. He had dropped nearly sixty feet and was well into the interior of the castle. A few feet later he reached the bottom of the shaft, which ran horizontally in four directions. The glow came from a square of glass set into the side of the shaft. Behind it was a candle. Below the glass was a small metal plaque. Thunk lay down in the shaft and put his nose nearly against it, barely able to make out the etching. It showed a vertical shaft descending against a black background and branching out into four horizontal shafts. At the intersection was a small dot, with an arrow pointing to it. The arrow was labeled “You Are Here.”

  Thunk had plenty in the way of physical courage and a good deal of native cunning, but not much of a sense of humor. He grunted and unsheathed his sword, keeping it pointed in front of him. It was obvious now that he had descended into a trap. A trap set by someone who did have a sense of humor. Not a clever sense of humor, mind you, but some wise guy had made the attempt. Thunk looked at the entrances to the four shafts and debated which one to take. All of them, he suspected, would turn out badly. He considered climbing back up the shaft and forcing his way through the turnstile. Then he looked at the g
lass plate and the lamp.

  Someone had to light the candle. Someone had to replace it when it burned down. There must be a door in back of it, one that led into the castle. He peered through the glass. Yes, in the back of the alcove he could see the edges of an access panel. The Barbarian Swordsman hesitated not a moment before reversing his sword and smashing the hilt into the glass plate.

  Immediately the shaft began to fill with gas.

  Thunk’s instinctive reaction was to draw a deep breath and hold it. But it was already too late to avoid getting a lungful of gas. His nostrils filled with a faint, opium-like scent, his ears filled with the hissing of a gas valve. And just before he lost consciousness he heard something else. It was far away and very faint, barely audible under the gas noise. But he was sure he heard the sound of evil laughter.

  There were fairy-tale kingdoms, twenty of them, clustered on the edge of an ancient and primitive land, a land of magic and mystery, where crystal waterfalls dropped from icy peaks and wild beasts skulked in hidden glens, where castles guarded the cities and wishing wells dotted the countryside. It was peopled by lords and ladies and knights and scholars, by wizards and witches and bandits and intrepid travelers who were always told that yes, it really was safe to drink the water in any of the Twenty Kingdoms but to be on the safe side you might want to boil it first, or just stick to beer and wine. Not all of the twenty were actually ruled by kings. Some were ruled by queens and a few were more or less constitutional monarchies. But all of them were definitely fairy-tale kingdoms.

  Now fairy tale is a rather broad definition. Here, it does not refer to the children’s storybook type of fairy tale, populated by cutesy talking neutered animals. In the Twenty Kingdoms the cartographers filled the blank spaces on their maps with the warning, “Here Be Dragons.” The cartographers weren’t kidding around. And the dragons didn’t talk either.

  But neither were they the gruesome and grim sort of fairy-tale lands, describing the kind of place where wicked stepmothers not only killed their children but boiled them into soup and served it up at royal banquets. Oh sure, there were evil villains and awful crimes, but they weren’t the norm.

  It is more the romantic type of fairy tale that is being referred to here, for the Twenty Kingdoms were lands of gallant knights and elegant ladies. Lands where polite discourse and courtly manners were interspersed with fiery speeches and deadly duels. Lands of dramatic gestures and passionate romances. Real romance, that is. Heartfelt love. Tender emotion. Devoted adoration. Caring. Sensitivity. Not that hot, sexy, bodice-ripping sort of romance that was so popular in the more decadent kingdoms. There was none of that. No.

  Well, okay, there was some bodice ripping. But, really, most of it was consensual.

  And years ago, in one of these fairy-tale kingdoms, a man named Eric Timberline ascended the throne of Rassendas. He was a fair and just ruler. He maintained a powerful army, but thanks to clever diplomacy and alliances he managed to avoid war. He kept the roads in good repair. He improved the schools. He discriminated against all ethnic groups equally. Eric was a good king, but he was not called King Eric the Good. There already was an Eric the Good of Calvados, so King Eric of Rassendas became known as Not-Eric-the-Good-the-Other-One.

  Needless to say, he didn’t care much for this nickname. It seemed to imply that if he was not Eric the Good, then he was Eric the Bad. He could see it coming. All it would take would be one lazy historian, and he would be down in the books forever with an unwanted nickname. He was determined to stop it. For a while he involved himself in the Rassendas court system, hoping to earn the name of Eric the Just. But he didn’t have the devious mind necessary to succeed at law. A number of churches hinted that, for an appropriately large donation, they could arrange for him to become Eric the Pious. This was entirely too sleazy for him. His worst idea was to seduce a large number of women, in the hope of getting a name like Eric the Sexy. His advisors warned him that this plan had a high potential for backfiring. Eric didn’t listen, but he fell in love with the next woman that hopped into bed with him, married her, and forgot the seduction scheme. Eric the Philanderer was not the reputation he was looking for.

  It was the merest chance that solved his problem. One bright sunny day, while riding through the city, he looked in a shop window and saw a pair of spectacles with smoked glass lenses. King Eric dismounted and handed the reins to an assistant. He went into the shop. The spectacles, he was informed, were designed for explorers who had to cross sun-beaten deserts or glaring ice fields. King Eric bought a pair. He tried them on. He liked the way they made him look. He liked them so much, in fact, that he took to wearing them all the time, even at night. And a few months later he discovered, to his delight, that he was now being referred to as Eric the Totally Cool.

  Prince Kevin of Rassendas was a long way from home, and he was thinking of his own reputation. It is when you are away from home, surrounded by strangers who know little of your past achievements, that your reputation becomes important. If his father was Eric the Cool, and Kevin was simply Prince Kevin, did that mean Kevin was not cool? It is disconcerting for a young man to think that his father is cooler than he is. That’s not what fathers are for.

  “Kevin the Good,” he murmured to himself. “That would be bad. Kevin the Bad. That would be good. Kevin the Nice would be the worst.”

  “Beg pardon, sire?” said his valet.

  “The hot babes don’t go for nice guys,” explained Kevin. “They think they’re boring. Girls like bad boys. They think bad guys are exciting.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  The Prince of Rassendas carefully adjusted his cuffs, flicking an imaginary speck of dust off the lace. His expression, when he looked at himself in the mirror, was perhaps a trifle smug. Light brown hair flowed over the carefully starched pleats of his collar and tumbled about his shoulders.

  His strong hands adjusted the satin waistcoat over his hard, flat stomach. The dark cloth of his trousers draped smoothly down long, straight legs to meet the highly polished black calfskin of his boots, breaking just above the silver ornamental spurs. Prince Kevin cut a dashing figure, and he knew it. With great precision, he twisted a lock of hair around his finger and let it fall over his forehead. In doing so, he saw, behind his own reflection, his valet approaching with a piece of folded silk.

  “Will you be wanting your diplomatic sash, Your Highness?”

  Kevin considered it. “I think not, Winslow. Makes the whole thing seem a bit too mercenary, don’t you know?”

  “It will be a marriage of convenience, sire.”

  “Yes, but no sense rubbing the fact in the girl’s face. May as well maintain a pretense of romance, however thin it may be.” He saw a cloud pass over his valet’s face and turned away from the glass. “You disagree?”

  Winslow did his best to sound neutral, but his look of fatherly concern was plain to see. He hesitated before speaking, his gray eyebrows drawing together. “Sire, I realize your father wants the match very much, but I have a concern, arising from my longtime—erm—service.”

  “Friendship, would you say?”

  Winslow permitted himself a small smile. “Yes, sire. That is, I cannot feel honest enthusiasm at the betrothal of yourself and Princess Rebecca. From all accounts she is quite unsuitable in temperament.”

  “A cold-hearted bitch, I believe is the term.”

  “Um. Yes, sire. Even her own people call her the Ice Princess.”

  “Well, maybe she’ll warm up to me.” Kevin turned back to the mirror and gave his cuffs one final tug. “Come, Winslow. We mustn’t keep the court waiting.”

  “Certainly, sire.” Winslow put the scarlet sash away. “Will you be wearing your court sword this evening?”

  The Prince reflected on this. “Logan is quite the martial hero, isn’t he, Winslow?”

  “Yes, sire. I expect him to be in dress uniform, with full miniatures.”

  “And he’ll have a sword, of course. No, no sword for me. We mustn’t try
to outshine him at his own game. Nothing that smacks of the military. Just a cane, I think.”

  Winslow brought him an ebony walking stick, topped with a gold knob, and helped him fasten his cape around his shoulders. The valet himself was dressed in plain dark blue trousers and a jacket with the Rassendas crest on the pocket, the standard uniform of the Rassendas court. The two men set off down the long corridors of the Castle Deserae. They had been guests here for several weeks and had started to become familiar with its many rooms and multiple staircases. It was to be a busy night, and the broad hallways were bustling with visitors and servants. The Prince greeted as many people as he could by name, including the servants, and acknowledged the rest with easy smiles. He was pleased to notice how the castle’s staff treated Winslow with respect.

  “A good sign, I think,” he told him in a low voice. “Those in service always know what’s up before the gentry, don’t you think?”

  The older man nodded. “Very true, sire. The fact that the other valets are showing deference to me indicates we are certainly still in the running.”

  “How many are here?”

  “There are four other potential suitors, Your Highness, counting Lord Logan.”

  “Hayward didn’t show?”

  “His lordship was taken ill, sire.”

  “Not seriously, I hope. I’ll send a note tomorrow. What about Monty?”

  “The rumor is that Prince Montcrief is about to announce his own engagement.”

  “Lady Allyson?”

  “So they say.”

  “Good for him. About time, I should think. Those two have been making puppy eyes at each other for half a year now. All right, so that leaves me, Logan, Raymond, Harkness, and Bigelow.