Granny Trudy vs the prison break

“The uniform suits you, Trudy. You got the right face for it. All strict-like.”

“That means a lot coming from you.”

In her own stolen uniform, Dolly looked like the opening number of a parade. The two women had, through a series of errors and purposeful misunderstandings, snuck into the guard’s laundry. After all, no one much noticed two old women with baskets who were here to pick up the uniform for What’s-his-faces, oh dear, can anyone read this, I say these young people no longer learn how to write, is that a B?

Dolly turned to Mole. “Ready to face justice, prisoner?”

The supposed detainee raised bound wrists. “How long do you need to pick the lock?”

“Give me five minutes. And don’t worry so much. I never get caught.”

Mole at least looked convincing in his role. With his build, height, and beard he could pass for any sort of scoundrel, and Dolly had added an eye patch for effect. Every now and again, he growled and glowered at passers-by on the way to the prison, by the time they reached the gate the populace was giving them a berth wide enough to drove a coach through on either side.

The first hurdle were the guards at the entrance gate. Trudy found her path blocked by a halberd. “Halt! Who goes here?”

Trudy’s beady eyes glared at him. “The circus is in town, just imagine the elephants. It’s a prisoner transport, boy!”

The guard took one look at her uniform and went pale. He hurried to salute. “Si… ma’am!”

Apparently, Trudy had looted a higher rank, not that she’d been aware of. It hadn’t come with a convenient set of keys, since in the ineffable unfairness of the universe keys didn’t require much laundering.

The young guard looked at her, then at Dolly, who disinterestedly scratched her ear where the uniform cap bothered her, then at the grisly convict towering behind her. Mole was trying his hardest to look menacing without pulling a muscle. “You apprehended him yourself?”

With her new supposed rank, Trudy immediately went mad with power. “What, you think because we’re old we’re couldn’t do it?”

“No, ma’am!”

“You think because we’re women we couldn’t do it?”

“No, ma’am!”

“You think because we didn’t have the same opportunities at your age, we couldn’t do it?”

“No, ma’am!”

“That’s better! I bet you feel a sudden need to scrub the corridors with your toothbrush!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She approached the next man as the first scarpered, who stood still and sweating. “Anyone else feeling like a little insubordination?”

“No, ma’am!”

“Very good. Now let’s test your knowledge. What’s article 47b?”

“Uh …”

“Aha! Slacking off! Do you at least know where the wizard is who was brought in earlier?”

“Y-yes, block a, ma’am!”

“Now you show me how you escort a prisoner to block a. Here, take this.” She handed the rope that bound Mole’s wrists to the trembling officer. “One, two, one two!”

They reached block a to jeers from behind bars, which the actual guard countered with the ol’ baton-hitting-bar tactic and Dolly countered with a grin and a wink that on their own should have landed her behind bars on a morals charge.

Dolly kept an eye out for Munck as they moved along the rows of cells. She sidled up in front while Trudy kept the guard busy with question regarding sections 9 to 67, paragraphs 59 to 98, the city hymn, and hygiene rules.

“Get rid of him,” Dolly mumbled while their tour guide, for lack of a better word, was busy reciting uniform regulations.

“Trying,” Trudy hissed back.

Finally, Dolly quickly nudged Trudy and took off, out of sight of the guard, to the cell in which she had spotted a trembling wizard.

Munck looked up as she came closer to his cell. Several emotions played on his face before he realised he better not say a godsdamned word and clapped his hands over his mouth. “Enjoyin’ the amenities, scum?” she grinned at him before pulling several lockpicks out of her lavender curls. Leaning casually against the door, she went to work on the lock.

“Where’s the others?” Munck tried to ask quietly.

“In other cells, scum. Thought we didn’t catch all of you, did ya?”

The lock clicked open. “Alright, Scummy McSleaze, come on out. Time for a bit of cross-examination,” Dolly ordered gleefully and Munck tried his best to look downtrodden and obedient, which thankfully was an expression that came naturally to his watery eyes.

At this moment, Trudy came around the corner, and Dolly grabbed Munck’s arm in an attempt to look guardly. The actual guard seemed mildly confused why a prisoner was out, but was immediately ordered forward by.

“Now, guard,” Trudy barked before he had time to think. “What do we do before we lock up the prisoner?”

“Uh …”

“We inspect the cell to check for hidden weapons and other means of escape!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Well, go on. I want every stone turned in there.”

The plan had been to quietly sneak out while the guard was busy. But Dolly, never too subtle, slammed the door instead and sped off cackling.

“Hey, let me out! Ma’am!”

“Let that be a lesson to you to always have your keys!” Trudy cried, hobbling off at high speed with Mole and Munck in tow.

They legged it to the front of the tract, at which they fell into a brisk walk, punctuated by Trudy’s “One-two!”, which earned confusion from every other person present.

Especially the actual upper rank.

“Hey, you!” Those two words were never a good sign. Trudy ignored it and increased the volume of her “One-two!” until her way was barred with authority. “What’s all this then? Do you have the paperwork for this transport?”

Trudy very much did not and instead looked at the man like at a tax collector who was a quarter early: full of rage. “It’s on your desk, read it on your own time.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to like this?”

“I won’t be bossed by a kid!”

“I’ve half a mind to…”

But before the superior got to have a full mind, Dolly elbowed Mole and made meaningful eyebrows for several seconds. When the penny finally dropped, the old adventurer gave a roar and tore free from the lightly bound rope. He legged it towards the exit, smacking anyone and everything out of his way.

“After him!” Trudy cried convincingly, bulldozed over the guard superior and hoped Dolly and Munck were keeping up as she hobbled off.

“Over here,” Mole tried to whisper from a small passageway into which he had wedged himself in a three-yard distance from the ground like he was in a chimney. Trudy pushed the others in. A few seconds later, several uniforms passed by at high speed.

“Thank the gods that’s over,” Hungerford wiped sweat off his brow when no one seemed to be coming after them.

“Better get rid of the evidence.” Dolly struggled out of her uniform. “Anyone remember where we parked the cart?”

Trudy yanked off the uncomfortable uniform cap. “It’s right over there in the side street, Dolly, really, your memory …”

“Now we only have to escape town. Just like the old days,” Mole laughed loudly and was immediately shushed.

“They’ll stop us at the gate, they’re stopping everyone,” Hungerford remembered, which prompted a sigh from all sides. The wizard scratched his chin and racked his brain while inside the cart costume changes were going on. “Maybe I can modify a flying spell to get us over the wall.”

Dolly’s fingers played a little riff on the lightly used guitar she had purchased earlier. “Or … well, they’re looking for two women and two men, right? A wizard and a big bloke. They’re not looking for four women.”

“Hm,” Mole mused. “Fine, but I’m not shaving Horace again!”

“We can probably hide the worst with a face veil,” Trudy said.

The wizard looked from one nodding elder to the other, who had come to a silent agreement that made him uneasy. “What are you three talking about?”

Mole grinned down at him. “Munck, friend, this is an old escape technique. Watch and learn!”

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Munck tucked at his girdle. “Is this thing on right?”

“Boy, your tracts of land are turning into an avalanche,” Dolly approached and boxed the stuffing on his chest back north. Dolly and Trudy had haggled their way through the used clothes stalls at the market with results that could only be described as haute couture in the first degree.

Hungerford reached up to balance the old-fashioned double hennin Dolly had forced onto his head. “Why couldn’t we just dress as four men, wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Neither of us three can grow a beard that fast,” Trudy said categorically.

Munck sighed in hat-related discontent. Even Mole had only been afforded one hennin. In combination with the face veil and dress he looked like a watch tower that was closed for renovations. He sounded just a tad muffled when he said, “Munck, have you finished with that mascara? I think I need a touch more.”

Hungerford handed it over on the third try, himself gazing at the world through a curtain of black beetle legs.

“I think we might go for additional distraction,” Dolly said, took the guitar off her back, and slid the top of her blouse past her shoulders. “What do we think?”

“Might work if there was something more to look at,” Trudy said.

Dolly looked down at herself. “You’re right. Help me with the stays. Now, if you’d just hold ‘em up like this and then pull the strings …”

“I can’t possibly do both, I’m not an octopus. Ford, help me here.”

“Absolutely not!” Munck had squeezed his eyes shut the moment Trudy’s hands had wandered to the landmass, as it were, and neither woman seemed to mind.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Then pull the fastenings of her stays, you can do that.”

Trembling with embarrassment, Munck was placed, eyes still firmly shut, behind Dolly and had strings put in his hands.

“Like this?” he heard Trudy say and was glad he couldn’t see.

“Little more. There you two are! Haven’t seen you since my fifties …”

“Alright, Ford, on three, you pull. One, two, three … heave-ho!”

Munck pulled with all the might in his scrawny arms. Trudy helped him with the knot.

The result was distracting, alright.

Munck dared to open his eyes again and immediately looked away. Mole himself seemed to be taking an interest in the clouds.

Dolly hopped up and down a few times to test the sturdiness of the stays. “What’s with you lot? They might have been in service, but they’re still glorious.”

“I, for one, think we did a good job,” Trudy said, nodding solemnly at her work.

“We don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Miss Dolly,” Mole said, red behind his face veil.

“Uncomfortable, me?” Dolly shimmied at them. “These are gonna be our ticket out of here, just you watch!”

“I’d rather not,” Hungerford mumbled, voice now so squeaky he at least wouldn’t have trouble pretending.

Dolly shouldered the guitar. “Just leave the talking to me.”

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The wagon rumpled slowly to the gate. Munck held his breath, crossed his fingers, and tried to pray silently.

On cue, a gate warden stepped in front. “Halt! Who goes there?”

Dolly, in the driver’s seat, leaned forward to maximum effect. “Hiya, sweet cheeks! Open the gate for us, there’s a good lad.”

The man raised a piece of paper and a trembling pen. “Name and business?”

“Behold,” Dolly swung an arm and other parts of her swung along for emphasis. “Miss Merrigold’s Travelling Singers! We’re your top troupe for weddings, funerals, and battle motivation!” And in case someone wasn’t convinced, she swung the guitar in front and played an expertly delivered verse of the tavern classic “Sire Good Spirits.” “We got an engagement in our next town, if you’d be so good as to let us pass?”

“Uh-huh,” the guardsman said, staring transfixed at the show that was already in front of him. Dolly moved in a way that produced a maximum of motion in the upper body. It was mesmerising to watch, but the inexperienced viewer felt a sudden need for not a cold shower but a hot bath and all the soap his eyes could take.

His colleague pushed him out of the way. “We gotta search the wagon, orders is orders. Everyone down.”

The four climbed down obediently.

As a rule, the back gate of every city has a half dozen men on watch duty at all times, and as another rule, all of them were bored out of their helmets. The sight of colourful skirts lifted their spirits while the wagon was searched, and the prime targets were soon selected.

Hungerford had been wondering if the garish camouflage would be convincing. Now he began to hope it would fail. The mumbling had been going on since the cart had come in view. Hungerford’s red ears had been privy to comments such as “Bet she could keep a man warm at night” and realised the man who spoke was looking at Mole.

“The other’s not bad either.”

“Bit thin, though.”

Munck noticed the guard elbowing another and realised, embarrassed and ready to scream, that they were talking about him.

“Well, little lady,” a guardsman craned his neck to look up at Mole. “What’s a lad gotta do to peek behind the veil?”

Mole tried a giggle and a high-pitched “Oh, you” before lightly slapping the man on the shoulder, which in Mole terms meant the man almost went flying into the wall.

Another guard approached and Hungerford had the chance to observe a watchman’s nostrils from close up. It was not a comforting sight. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t ya? Why don’t you give us a call when you’re back in town?”

Hungerford laughed his uncomfortable high-pitched laugh that was entirely natural before Dolly slid herself in front of him. “I say, young fella-me-lad, you’re not too bad yourself. How many people fit into that guard booth?” She flashed a wide grin, and the guardsman suddenly remembered he was wanted elsewhere. However, he found himself stuck between an elderly rock and a geriatric hard place, as he ran into Trudy.

“You know, I’m free this Saturday night,” Trudy said reproachfully in the direction of the guard, staring with the searing intensity of a thousand suns.

“Oh, uh, no can do, ma’am, I’m washing my hair that night …”

He sighed with relief when Dolly decided to accost the cart-searching colleague with a shimmy.

“All good with the cart, cutie?”

“Uh, yes. Nothing, uh, suspicious. You may pass.”

Hungerford nearly tore his skirts clambering onto the cart. Compared to him, Mole followed almost elegantly.

“Bye, boys, I’m gonna remember all of you!” Dolly called gleefully and gave them a last shimmy before she cracked the reins and the horse trotted on through the gate.

Only when the city wall was out of sight did anyone dare speak again, or rather cackle. Dolly slapped her thigh. “What did I tell you? Always works. Ha, I’m sure at least one of them goes home sick.”

“Good thing you stored all your weapons under your dress, Mole,” Trudy said, eying the veritable circus tent that hid him.

Mole would have accepted the compliment were he not sweating feminine buckets and had several pounds of steel dragging at his suffering back. “Are we out of sight yet? The arsenal’s getting heavy. And these shoes are killing me.”

“So what? You two look gorgeous,” said Trudy, pleased with their work.

“We don’t even look like ourselves,” said Hungerford.

“What’s your point?”

Mole freed himself from his headgear and then methodically removed sword, flail, mace, dagger, other dagger, and slingshot while Munck struggled back into his trousers, shirt, and robes without revealing too much of himself to Dolly. He took the reins from her. “We better hurry to Muirburg. One more day and we can all take a break.”

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“They’ve redecorated. I don’t like it.” Trudy looked about the capital with a pronounced tut. She didn’t quite remember how many decades it had been since her last visit, but that didn’t give anyone the right to rearrange the entire city. She couldn’t remember a thing except the main temple, much like Mole the day before partially draped in cloth for renovations. The pub she remembered was right next to it was no longer there. Neither was that really good dressmaker. And they’d removed some of the lovely old buildings to broaden the street, which only meant that it was now clogged with even more carts much like their own. What was the point of going somewhere nice, she wondered, if they changed everything that was nice about it?

“Indeed. What’s the point of a capital that’s clean and respectable?” Dolly said agitated and continued to no one in particular, amidst melancholy guitar tuning: “When I was young, the streets were crowded and dimly lit any time of the day, drunks would stumble blindly even in the daytime, why, you couldn’t move for rats and ladies of ill repute, though of course some gentlemen rated them highly.”

Mole, on his part, was drowning in nostalgia: “That’s where the pub was where I first met the mysterious stranger who hired me for my first quest. That’s the corner where I almost got stabbed by a kobold. At least I think it was that corner. That shop for exotic body jewellery used to the thieves’ guild office. Oh, look at that tower. I had to swordfight all the way up and then the bastard assassin kicked me out the window …”

Hungerford grew more exhausted with every reminiscence. He’d never been to the capital since he had been a child and had hoped to enjoy it without being constantly reminded of the manifold ways the present time was found wanting.

“So what now, Ford?” Trudy asked. “What are we to do to end this farce?”

“Well, I’ll introduce us at the palace, show them the official prophecy seal, and ask for an audience, and I suppose we’ll hear from the king within five to seven business days …”

Trudy’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What?”

“How about we get you a nice cup of tea on the way?” He tried to smile at her. “With scones?”

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Munck had prepared a gracious speech about their request which he intended to soften the royal guards’ hearts with. In hindsight, he needn’t have bothered, for no sooner had he finished speaking than the four of them were complimented inside the palace and towards the locked staircase that led to the ancient chapel under the palace.

“The king is expecting you,” droned a guardsman inside his armour, which surprised everyone but especially a wizard who had most everything go wrong for him for the past few weeks.

“Oh. Already? How did he know …”

“Merunas the wizard informed us of your arrival.”

“He made a pretty good guess when we’d be here, I must say …”

The chapel had been built in a time when fashionable architecture demanded that the ceiling should be held up not by structurally sound pillars, boring, but by statues of comely naked individuals. In the dim light of the torches that painted long shadows on the curved walls the walls, they seemed to be looking down screaming. Since the chapel was meant for private use of the royal family, a throne had been carved at the head, and someone was sitting in it. The four dropped into bows as they approached.

“Sire, uh …” Hungerford began, only to be pushed aside gently by Mole, who had severely more experience with nobles.

“Sire, behold your humble servants, the Children of the Sky!" This was punctuated by a dramatic guitar riff from Dolly's direction. "That’s the three of us, there, the boy’s too young, obviously. Made for a pretty decent guide, though, if your worship is considering a reward. Come to think of it, your father once sent me out on a quest, do you perhaps remember the name Brab…”

“I don’t think he’ll talk to us,” Trudy said, walking right up to the throne. “He’s dead.”

Munck stopped his attempts to shush Mole. “What? He can’t be dead! He’s probably napping. Don’t wake him!”

“Boy, when you get to be my age, you get very good at recognising the twelve signs of death, and I tell you, you could light candles in his nostrils, you couldn’t wake him.”

In the shadows, it was indeed hard to see much of the king. Royal robes and crown glittered through the gloom, but his face remained shrouded in darkness, and he didn’t seem to take notice of the old woman who now stood next to him and peered at him with impertinence.

“If he’s napping, let’s wake him up. Hello, king! Kingy-boy, wake up!” She slapped him on the shoulder. The lifeless body fell forward, exposing the carved hilt of a knife and leaving everyone to make an educated guess where the blade had ended up. “Now that’s what I call a dead king.”

“Better tell the guard before someone thinks this was us,” Dolly said reasonably. “In a minute, say. I wanna see how many of those jewels fit in my pockets …”

“No, I’ll notify them right now,” Hungerford decided.

He backed into someone. Hungerford yelped as he spun around, expecting a person of a guardly nature, and looked straight into Merunas’ bearded face.

At least the older wizard would be able to explain this to the guards. “How did you get here?”

“Postcoach. Dreadful, I tell you,” the long-suffering senior wizard rubbed his backside. “If it wasn’t the end of the world, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“End of …”

Merunas corrected himself quickly: “Oh, yes, on account of the New Golden Age, I mean. Now, are the Children … Seniors … of the Sky ready?”

“Uh … we have a bit of a bigger problem …” Hungerford indicated the stabbed king.

Merunas squinted. “Oh my. Bit of a pickle, this. Well, it’ll all get sorted out with the Golden Age. I suggest we just get that part over with.”

“Shouldn’t we alert …”

“Nonsense, boy, kings come and go, mustn’t get attached to ‘em. They’ll have a new one tomorrow.”

“The prophecy didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual,” Trudy said, abandoning the puzzle of the dead king for a moment. She’d heard they often had fatal run-ins with power-hungry viziers and obscure heirs. This seemed to fit the bill, but something at the back of her mind nagged at her. She’d never liked Merunas. “What are we to do?”

“Why don’t you sing the first thing that comes to mind?”

“The only thing I can think of is some old skipping rhyme, it’s been stuck in my head for days now.”

“Same here,” Dolly agreed.

Merunas clapped his hands together. “Why don’t we start there? Just to get the voices warmed up. Now if you wouldn’t mind standing here in the middle …”

As Trudy moved, she noticed something drawn on the floor and began to wonder how much earlier Merunas had arrived or if the display was the work of some court wizard. “What’s that drawn onto the floor?”

“Oh that?” Merunas looked innocently at the scarlet depictions of uncommon runes. “Just a bit of a magic circle, need it for rituals. Now, if you’d be so good as to just stand in a round and start chanting whenever you’re ready …”

“Is anyone else not liking this magic business?” Trudy asked.

“Let’s just get it done,” Mole shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen? Well come to think of it, this reminds me of …”

Trudy cleared her throat pointedly and began in her rough old-lady voice that was more used to shouting than performing. Mole followed in an untrained but otherwise soothing baritone, and Dolly, after being convinced that the ritual required no instrumental accompaniment, possessed a surprisingly attractive contralto. It was a surprisingly simple ceremony. A simple affair for a simple song.

Sing a song for sixpence

Pocket full of lies

Four and twenty black clouds

In rivers over skies

The king was in his chamber

Dreaming in the waves

The queen was in the boneyard

Digging all his graves

The stewards in the garden,

flesh and blood and bone,

danced in a round so jolly

And called the forgotten home

Something about the song had the same effect on Munck as nails on a chalkboard. In the dim hall, it echoed several more times than it should, taking on a deeper tone with every syllable.

Hungerford felt he was being watched and made the mistake of turning. A scream of terror died on the way to his throat as he looked into the dead eyes of the king. The purple energy that had dragged the corpse to its feet was thick as molasses and smelled like the depths of the ocean. It opened the king’s mouth and oozed over him, a slingering, smoking mass, twisting into a circle, through the black centre of which unfamiliar stars became visible.

Hungerford stumbled back from the portal, back to the three who by now stood frozen on the blood-red runes, watching without understanding. Saw something ooze through the portal into the chapel, things not composed of flesh and blood. They had a shape, but the shape was not of matter. Dark purple shapes, expanding and glistening, which shook gelatinously into existence.

Hungerford had been warned in the course of his studies in demonology, as all wizards had, of these beings that had filtered down from stars when the planet was still young, amorphous blights upon the world long banished to the unlighted cells by the powers of old to save all living things from madness and destruction. And now, the seal was broken. “I think you did something wrong! Very wrong!”

Merunas patted his shoulder calmingly. “Oh no, it’s working splendidly. Just as intended.”

The tentacles grew more solid with every second, less like smoke, more like things that touched the unexpecting swimmer in a lake the depth of which no one was sure about. “These are creatures from the Carceral Realm!”

“Exactly.”

“But it was supposed to be…”

“Of course it’s a new Golden Age. For them.” Merunas jabbed a thumb at the congealing mass of ancient evil. “Didn’t Balgimantas ever mention that part?”