Categories > Celebrities > Beatles > Xanadu
Author's Notes: Don't think historically - think fantastically.
Warrior's Keep was nothing like the Mistress' castle. The Mistress lived in a castle of Georgian splendour, while Warrior's Keep was a much more medieval structure. It was a simple tower, set in the middle of a town which was in turn surrounded by thick stone walls patrolled by warriors. Outside the township was farmland, worked by peasants in rough, homespun smocks. Inside the town were blacksmiths, potters, bakers, and all sorts of other craftsmen and women. All the people had nodded respectfully to Warrior as they passed.
They had ridden in through a woodland which, Warrior told him, represented the boundary between her part of cyberspace and the other parts. It had certainly been an unusual boundary. The other side of the boundary had been a city - a huge city of glass towers where the light rarely reached ground level. They had ridden through the streets of the city, looking amazingly out of place amongst the punks, drunks, troublemakers, and survivors, although they hadn't been bothered. They had passed through the checkpoints within the city, eventually coming to a park. The park became woodland, which then turned into a forest which was only penetrable if certain paths were followed.
Not that all the boundaries were forests. The Mistress' boundaries had been represented by the almost impassable rocky and treeless mountains which surrounded her castle so closely. Gardener lived on an island in the middle of a vast freshwater lake. Silver lived in a space station. The boundaries also seemed curiously flexible. Ringo did not understand how it was that the lands inside the boundaries could grow or shrink without affecting the neighbouring lands. Nor did he understand how it was that the lands could be so well defined. The world simply wasn't like that! It wasn't that easy to see the boundaries between one country and the next.
Which led him to another source of worry. Ringo knew quite a bit about how the world was laid out. He should - he'd seen an awful lot of it. The lands he had travelled through failed to fit into any part of it that he had seen. Which meant that they had to be in some other land. But Daniel's execution told him that the Mistress' Castle was set on something unusual - certainly not anything he had ever seen before. This wasn't just another country, a part of the world he'd never encountered before. He reckoned that he knew what he would have found had he picked up a shovel and dug down into the soil. But now, he wasn't so sure.
He decided not to worry about it any more, and turned to examine the room that Warrior had lead him to. It was a circular room dominated by a huge bed covered with animal skins. He hoped that it wasn't stuffed with straw. The thought of sharing his bed with bedbugs, fleas and mice did not appeal to him at all.
The walls, however, contained something far more interesting. They were lined with tapestries. The tapestries were mostly faded and worn. The one immediately clockwise to the door, however, was brightly coloured, and depicted his adventures in the Mistress' castle. The top half of the next showed his journey from the Mistress' domain to Warrior's. The next was very badly faded, and he could barely make out an image of himself as a boy - although that was all that remained of the image. Of the rest of the tapestries, the only other one which showed anything at all depicted himself wearing a large red ring, surrounded by the various attempts he had made to remove the thing.
Ringo looked down at the ring, and frowned. His attempts had met with failure, although apparently the cult had also given up on him. This, he decided, was definitely a good thing. He gave it an experimental tug. No good - it was still stuck fast. He shrugged, and went to the window.
The countryside around the township was filled with farmland. He could see, beyond it, the forest they had travelled through to reach this place. To one side of the forest was an enormous cliff face, and he knew that the rest of the land would be surrounded with other, similarly impenetrable obstacles. On the other side of the forest was something he would never have expected to see - a spaceport. The port was surrounded by shops, although they were staffed with people just as medieval as lived in the rest of the land. There was a shuttle sitting there, and he knew that he would have to ask Warrior about it when he had the chance.
There was a knock, and the door opened. A man in a blue tunic came in carrying some clothing for him. The man put the clothes on the bed and tugged his forelock. "If you please," he said, "Warrior sends these clothes for you to wear while you are here. She will come to get you for dinner in half an hour."
"Thankyou," Ringo replied gravely, and the man left. Ringo picked through the clothes with interest, and found what looked like a good place to start. He stripped off, and tied what looked like a primitive suspender belt around his waist. It was obviously intended that they be used to hold up the hose, for instead of trousers there was a pair of what looked suspiciously like baggy, rust coloured stockings made of linen that most decidedly did not stretch. He looked at them dubiously for a moment, and then shrugged and pulled them on. He had a feeling that he had worn stranger clothes, although he couldn't quite remember where and when.
Over the hose came a long linen undershirt, and over that an even longer tunic. The undershirt was of quite finely woven fabric and had been left in its original colour. The tunic was heavier, having been made of wool and died a deep green. When he put it on, it fell to his ankles. Finally, there was a tabard. It was black, and had a white beetle on it.
Left on the bed were a pair of boots, and a belt. The boots were leather, and fit him perfectly. He expected them to chafe badly, but the moment he had them on, he knew that they wouldn't. He decided that he really wanted to know who Warrior's boot-maker was. The belt took a little more effort - it was much, much longer than he was used to, and it took him several attempts to figure it out. In fact, it wasn't until he looked over at one of the tapestries and saw a picture of himself wearing a belt the end of which was allowed to swing free that he realised how it was supposed to be worn.
He was about to examine the contents of the scabbards on his belt when the tapestries caught his attention again. The third tapestry showed, with an attention to detail that was almost offensive, his attempts at putting his new clothes on properly. The fourth had been helpful but, as he watched, was fading. The other tapestries had images fading up into them. Each image was of a simple black beetle - it was a familiar beetle. It was the beetle that he and his friends had used as an emblem. He didn't know why, but he found it a sinister sight.
He was still staring at the beetles when the door opened again. Warrior came in, and she too looked at the tapestries. "Don't let them bother you," she advised him. "They don't have anything else to display, yet."
He looked around at her in surprise. "You mean, those tapestries will show my adventures?"
She looked approving. "You're quick," she said. "You'll have plenty of adventures, I think. Mind you, you're going to need a lot of training. You're really rather scrawny, you know."
"Scrawny?" he protested.
She laughed. "Come on down to dinner."
He followed her to the door, and down the spiral staircase which led to the base of the keep. At the base of the keep was the Great Hall, which was already apparently packed full of people.
The people were mostly human men, although he saw several people who could only be elves, more who were dwarves, and even a giant. Several dogs were trotting through the crowd, chewing on bones that had been left on the floor, and generally getting in the way. As Ringo watched, one man stepped backwards, and collided with a dog which had settled on the floor behind him, chewing on a chop bone. Both dog and man yelped. The dog jumped through between the man's legs, and the man fell. The man's companions laughed uproariously while the dog sought a safer place to finish his bone.
The noise was incredible. Men shouted, drank, and boasted of their deeds. As he watched them, he started to understand why Warrior thought he was scrawny. Warrior herself was a large woman - she looked like an Amazon, and towered a full head over him. She rivalled the men in the Great Hall for size, and Ringo suspected that she could match them in volume, too.
He was quickly proven right. Warrior waded through the throng of people, sucking him into her wake. Looking at the men around him, all of whom were considerably larger and brawnier than he was, he quickly decided that following her was his best chance for safety. Tangling with fans and the toughs of Liverpool was one thing - tangling with this crowd was something else entirely.
When they reached the main table, Warrior turned and bellowed for silence. Ringo, who was always deaf for a good twelve hours after a rock concert, felt his eardrums recoil in shock from the sound. And it wasn't just his ears that were ringing - the men closest to the main table shook their heads in a futile effort to clear their ears.
"Men!" she shouted, allowing her volume to lower to a level slightly closer to a foghorn in strength, "We have a new addition to our ranks! He's a scrawny sort of fellow, so he'll be serving as my squire for the time being! This is Ringo Beatledrums!"
"How does he come by his name, Warrior?" somebody shouted.
"He is named so because he drums, and drums such that even the most arrhythmical of folk may find their beat and dance! Will you make him welcome?"
Their answer came in a roar. "Aye!" they all shouted.
"Then let us eat, drink, and be merry!"
Bemused, Ringo allowed himself to be led down into the midst of the throng, where somebody handed him a tankard of a liquid which turned out to be mead, and somebody else poured a tankard of ale over his head. As he wiped ale out of his eyes, he blinked around at the smiling faces of the men of Warrior's court. He knew he was out of his depth. He knew that, sooner or later, he was headed for trouble. But right at that moment, he knew he was in for a good night's party.
Warrior's Keep was nothing like the Mistress' castle. The Mistress lived in a castle of Georgian splendour, while Warrior's Keep was a much more medieval structure. It was a simple tower, set in the middle of a town which was in turn surrounded by thick stone walls patrolled by warriors. Outside the township was farmland, worked by peasants in rough, homespun smocks. Inside the town were blacksmiths, potters, bakers, and all sorts of other craftsmen and women. All the people had nodded respectfully to Warrior as they passed.
They had ridden in through a woodland which, Warrior told him, represented the boundary between her part of cyberspace and the other parts. It had certainly been an unusual boundary. The other side of the boundary had been a city - a huge city of glass towers where the light rarely reached ground level. They had ridden through the streets of the city, looking amazingly out of place amongst the punks, drunks, troublemakers, and survivors, although they hadn't been bothered. They had passed through the checkpoints within the city, eventually coming to a park. The park became woodland, which then turned into a forest which was only penetrable if certain paths were followed.
Not that all the boundaries were forests. The Mistress' boundaries had been represented by the almost impassable rocky and treeless mountains which surrounded her castle so closely. Gardener lived on an island in the middle of a vast freshwater lake. Silver lived in a space station. The boundaries also seemed curiously flexible. Ringo did not understand how it was that the lands inside the boundaries could grow or shrink without affecting the neighbouring lands. Nor did he understand how it was that the lands could be so well defined. The world simply wasn't like that! It wasn't that easy to see the boundaries between one country and the next.
Which led him to another source of worry. Ringo knew quite a bit about how the world was laid out. He should - he'd seen an awful lot of it. The lands he had travelled through failed to fit into any part of it that he had seen. Which meant that they had to be in some other land. But Daniel's execution told him that the Mistress' Castle was set on something unusual - certainly not anything he had ever seen before. This wasn't just another country, a part of the world he'd never encountered before. He reckoned that he knew what he would have found had he picked up a shovel and dug down into the soil. But now, he wasn't so sure.
He decided not to worry about it any more, and turned to examine the room that Warrior had lead him to. It was a circular room dominated by a huge bed covered with animal skins. He hoped that it wasn't stuffed with straw. The thought of sharing his bed with bedbugs, fleas and mice did not appeal to him at all.
The walls, however, contained something far more interesting. They were lined with tapestries. The tapestries were mostly faded and worn. The one immediately clockwise to the door, however, was brightly coloured, and depicted his adventures in the Mistress' castle. The top half of the next showed his journey from the Mistress' domain to Warrior's. The next was very badly faded, and he could barely make out an image of himself as a boy - although that was all that remained of the image. Of the rest of the tapestries, the only other one which showed anything at all depicted himself wearing a large red ring, surrounded by the various attempts he had made to remove the thing.
Ringo looked down at the ring, and frowned. His attempts had met with failure, although apparently the cult had also given up on him. This, he decided, was definitely a good thing. He gave it an experimental tug. No good - it was still stuck fast. He shrugged, and went to the window.
The countryside around the township was filled with farmland. He could see, beyond it, the forest they had travelled through to reach this place. To one side of the forest was an enormous cliff face, and he knew that the rest of the land would be surrounded with other, similarly impenetrable obstacles. On the other side of the forest was something he would never have expected to see - a spaceport. The port was surrounded by shops, although they were staffed with people just as medieval as lived in the rest of the land. There was a shuttle sitting there, and he knew that he would have to ask Warrior about it when he had the chance.
There was a knock, and the door opened. A man in a blue tunic came in carrying some clothing for him. The man put the clothes on the bed and tugged his forelock. "If you please," he said, "Warrior sends these clothes for you to wear while you are here. She will come to get you for dinner in half an hour."
"Thankyou," Ringo replied gravely, and the man left. Ringo picked through the clothes with interest, and found what looked like a good place to start. He stripped off, and tied what looked like a primitive suspender belt around his waist. It was obviously intended that they be used to hold up the hose, for instead of trousers there was a pair of what looked suspiciously like baggy, rust coloured stockings made of linen that most decidedly did not stretch. He looked at them dubiously for a moment, and then shrugged and pulled them on. He had a feeling that he had worn stranger clothes, although he couldn't quite remember where and when.
Over the hose came a long linen undershirt, and over that an even longer tunic. The undershirt was of quite finely woven fabric and had been left in its original colour. The tunic was heavier, having been made of wool and died a deep green. When he put it on, it fell to his ankles. Finally, there was a tabard. It was black, and had a white beetle on it.
Left on the bed were a pair of boots, and a belt. The boots were leather, and fit him perfectly. He expected them to chafe badly, but the moment he had them on, he knew that they wouldn't. He decided that he really wanted to know who Warrior's boot-maker was. The belt took a little more effort - it was much, much longer than he was used to, and it took him several attempts to figure it out. In fact, it wasn't until he looked over at one of the tapestries and saw a picture of himself wearing a belt the end of which was allowed to swing free that he realised how it was supposed to be worn.
He was about to examine the contents of the scabbards on his belt when the tapestries caught his attention again. The third tapestry showed, with an attention to detail that was almost offensive, his attempts at putting his new clothes on properly. The fourth had been helpful but, as he watched, was fading. The other tapestries had images fading up into them. Each image was of a simple black beetle - it was a familiar beetle. It was the beetle that he and his friends had used as an emblem. He didn't know why, but he found it a sinister sight.
He was still staring at the beetles when the door opened again. Warrior came in, and she too looked at the tapestries. "Don't let them bother you," she advised him. "They don't have anything else to display, yet."
He looked around at her in surprise. "You mean, those tapestries will show my adventures?"
She looked approving. "You're quick," she said. "You'll have plenty of adventures, I think. Mind you, you're going to need a lot of training. You're really rather scrawny, you know."
"Scrawny?" he protested.
She laughed. "Come on down to dinner."
He followed her to the door, and down the spiral staircase which led to the base of the keep. At the base of the keep was the Great Hall, which was already apparently packed full of people.
The people were mostly human men, although he saw several people who could only be elves, more who were dwarves, and even a giant. Several dogs were trotting through the crowd, chewing on bones that had been left on the floor, and generally getting in the way. As Ringo watched, one man stepped backwards, and collided with a dog which had settled on the floor behind him, chewing on a chop bone. Both dog and man yelped. The dog jumped through between the man's legs, and the man fell. The man's companions laughed uproariously while the dog sought a safer place to finish his bone.
The noise was incredible. Men shouted, drank, and boasted of their deeds. As he watched them, he started to understand why Warrior thought he was scrawny. Warrior herself was a large woman - she looked like an Amazon, and towered a full head over him. She rivalled the men in the Great Hall for size, and Ringo suspected that she could match them in volume, too.
He was quickly proven right. Warrior waded through the throng of people, sucking him into her wake. Looking at the men around him, all of whom were considerably larger and brawnier than he was, he quickly decided that following her was his best chance for safety. Tangling with fans and the toughs of Liverpool was one thing - tangling with this crowd was something else entirely.
When they reached the main table, Warrior turned and bellowed for silence. Ringo, who was always deaf for a good twelve hours after a rock concert, felt his eardrums recoil in shock from the sound. And it wasn't just his ears that were ringing - the men closest to the main table shook their heads in a futile effort to clear their ears.
"Men!" she shouted, allowing her volume to lower to a level slightly closer to a foghorn in strength, "We have a new addition to our ranks! He's a scrawny sort of fellow, so he'll be serving as my squire for the time being! This is Ringo Beatledrums!"
"How does he come by his name, Warrior?" somebody shouted.
"He is named so because he drums, and drums such that even the most arrhythmical of folk may find their beat and dance! Will you make him welcome?"
Their answer came in a roar. "Aye!" they all shouted.
"Then let us eat, drink, and be merry!"
Bemused, Ringo allowed himself to be led down into the midst of the throng, where somebody handed him a tankard of a liquid which turned out to be mead, and somebody else poured a tankard of ale over his head. As he wiped ale out of his eyes, he blinked around at the smiling faces of the men of Warrior's court. He knew he was out of his depth. He knew that, sooner or later, he was headed for trouble. But right at that moment, he knew he was in for a good night's party.
Sign up to rate and review this story