Chapter 15 The Tower of Iron and Cotton #3
Annoyed, Morfran was about to ask, “What else should I call her?” when he saw the murderous look in Rapunzo’s eyes and quickly corrected course.
“Fine. This semi-partial-but-not-really acquaintance of mine has been wronged by the same woman who stole your powers. Since these powers used to be yours, we were hoping you could help us remove a hex on her.”
“Why would I help a woman?” Rapunzo balked, and then threw an arm around Morfran and leaned in as if sharing a deep secret. “She likely came here to steal Randy and ransack my tower. We should throw her out the window.”
Morfran looked from Rapunzo’s distrustful face to Bronwen’s unhappy expression as a tight knot began to form in his chest. It was uncomfortable, seeing their suffering.
He tried to stanch this discomfort by leaning towards Rapunzo and saying conspiratorially, “No, my friend, you’re not looking at this the right way.
We should tell her how to remove the hex on her.
Once it’s broken, she’ll be capable of killing Queen Ravana, who she’s vowed she wants to kill, anyways.
You see where I’m going with this? We can pit the two women against each other, they’ll both kill each other, and boom. The world has two less women in it.”
Rapunzo looked amazed at the sound logic. “Genius thinking. I like the part where they both die.”
Bronwen had overheard it all, and she obviously did not find it amusing, judging by the way she glared at Morfran. Luckily she wasn’t stupid, so she kept quiet while Rapunzo continued nodding. “All right, no window. Yes, no window. She’ll die by killing another woman. You. Woman.”
“My name isn’t—”
“Your name is Woman,” Rapunzo asserted, and Bronwen only slumped in her chair farther, clearly furious about her ill treatment as a visitor. “The hex can only be lifted by a kiss from your true love.”
A pause, and then Morfran burst out laughing.
“You’re joking.” Bronwen jerked to her feet. “You have to be joking.”
“I’m not.” Rapunzo rose and fetched a green leather-bound book titled How to Use the Powers of the Two Magical Rings Bestowed Upon Thee (Edition Twelve), opening it halfway, where a chapter on hexes was, and read, “ ‘Jinxes, hexes, and curses that you lay upon anyone may only be broken by a kiss from that individual’s true love.’ ” He slammed it shut. “See?”
She was shaking her head roughly. “What about defeating the one who hexed them? Or finding some type of loophole of sorts? There’s always been ways around this—”
“No,” Rapunzo said. “Only a kiss. The sorceress who gave them to me was strictly by the book.” He scowled. “Stupid woman.”
Bronwen sank back into her chair, burying her face in her hands.
Morfran continued snickering. He tried to imagine clumsy, brave, ambitious Bronwen finding her true love and…
and suddenly he’d stopped smiling. What type of fellow would that be?
Likely an honorable, righteous, goody adventurer…
someone like Gueldefore. Yet she didn’t like him in the slightest, she’d told him.
He was pompous and arrogant and egotistical and…
Oh no. He was describing himself. Did she view him like that?
He turned to inquire just exactly what type of man they’d have to track down, and only then did he notice.
“Bronwen?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Her shoulders were shaking. She dropped her hands after a few moments to show tears in her eyes. “I don’t have a true love anymore because he already died,” she whispered. “He died when I was younger. That’s the reason I went to Assassin Academy in the first place.”
Rapunzo and Morfran exchanged solemn looks.
“How’d he die?” Morfran asked.
“A woman?” Rapunzo prodded.
“No.” Bronwen wiped at her wet cheeks. “He was fighting Lord Morfran’s army at the Battle of Bacon. He…he stood up to him. He was the only one brave enough to. And in return that vile lord beheaded him.”
I’ve known men with ten times the bravery you have.
Rapunzo pointed at her. “Lord Morfran is the one who turned my true love, Ravana, against me! He seduced her and corrupted her, and that’s why she came and stole my powers.
She said she wanted to impress him. If there’s anything I hate more than women, it’s him.
” He clenched the leather book so tightly it erupted into a flutter of white pages.
Morfran sat ever so tensely in his chair, experiencing a thousand emotions at once.
Why do I feel like such a bastard right now?
And not a very cool one? Even more, why did the knowledge that she had a true love gut him like an axe hacking out his chest?
Because of course someone had fallen in love with her, and of course she had fallen in love with someone brave and honest and selfless.
It made him feel even more wretched than he did before.
“What am I supposed to do?” Bronwen asked to no one in particular.
“I can’t do anything right anymore, not since Ravana cursed me.
I’m no use to anybody if I can’t kill, and I’ve devoted my life so that one day I could kill Lord Morfran and Queen Ravana to get vengeance and now…
” She looked dangerously close to erupting into sobs.
“Maybe I should be tossed out the window.”
Rapunzo set down the remainder of the book and wiped his hands, moving as though he was about to do just that. Morfran quickly scampered up, putting himself between her and the big fellow.
“No,” Morfran said. “We’re not going to do that. We’re going to fix this. We’re going to…”
For once, he had no idea.
“I’m utterly useless,” Bronwen murmured to herself, and the drowning look in her eyes was so painful he couldn’t bear it. “I’d like to go,” Bronwen told Rapunzo. “Can you lower me out of the tower?”
To Morfran’s surprise Rapunzo nodded. “Yes.”
There was a fifty-fifty chance that Rapunzo would let her fall forty feet rather than let her down safely, and the problem was that she seemed completely fine with it. Morfran followed at their heels.
“Don’t drop her,” Morfran threatened Rapunzo as the big man tossed his beard hair out the window and held a bar attached to the side of the tower. Without another word, Bronwen began sliding down into the fog.
Rapunzo turned to him with an enormous frown. “Are you leaving, too? You don’t have to.” He inched closer to him and whispered, “We could be bosom brothers up here. Randy likes you. He told me himself.”
The man’s words reeked of desperation, and yet Morfran couldn’t help but feel horrid.
Ravana had indeed been prophesied to rescue a prince from a tower, who was in turn prophesied to one day heal the kingdom of its hurts.
Instead, Morfran had mocked the prophecy to such an extent that Ravana defied it to please him.
And then there was Bronwen’s story about her dead sweetheart…
He’d clearly dirtied something here, and for the first time in a long time he didn’t feel particularly good about it.
He looked at the child’s bed with its many stuffed critters, to the weight equipment, to Randy the Duck slurping down escargot off Rapunzo’s plate.
It was sad sight, and while earlier he’d found it amusingly pathetic, now he just didn’t want to be here.
“Look.” Morfran put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I know you’ve been wronged by dozens of people in your life. But this”—he gestured at the room—“isn’t healthy. What Ravana did was terrible, but you do have seventy feet of hair here that you can use to get yourself down from this tower.”
Rapunzo frowned. “This is my world. I can’t just leave it.”
“You could if you really wanted to,” Morfran replied solemnly. “You can escape this place. Get a new haircut and beard trim. Share your talents of cooking with others who’d enjoy it—that escargot was the best I’ve had in years.”
The bearded man smiled slightly.
“Take Randy with you, too. You may find that most women aren’t as horrid as the ones you’ve met to date. Most people aren’t as bad as the world makes it seem.”
Rapunzo’s expression darkened. “But Ravana and Morfran still rule the kingdom. Where they go, torture always follows.”
Morfran didn’t want to give him false hope. He didn’t have plans to stay in the kingdom, but Ravana sure did. But he couldn’t leave him here looking like this. “Maybe not for much longer.”
Rapunzo shrugged unhappily, looking like all he needed in the world was a hug.
Morfran wasn’t one for touching, nor did he think he could survive a second hug from this walking muscle, so he just drew closer towards the window, preparing to make the slide down the beard rope. “Think about what I’ve said at least?”
Rapunzo stared at his feet, downcast. “Everything here is a part of me…all of it. I can’t leave it.”
Morfran sighed, looking out into the fog. “If you want to live in the present and not the past…you’re going to have to.” For some reason, he felt like he was talking more to himself. With that, Morfran left Rapunzo in the tower and rappelled into the darkness.