Truman's Story Chapter 2

Two years before Diego had discovered the princess’s letter in his mailbox, Lionel’s face had been the front-page sketch in every newspaper. The articles called him A hero! A gallant knight! And handsome to boot! Truman knew the man’s face. He had also, on boring days, read the best-selling memoirs of the man who had saved Princess Eena from the infamous terrorist Rufus. He was well aware of Lionel’s pastimes and pleasures, as well as his appearance.

For the first time ever, this mattered.

Lionel was tall, blonde, tanned and manly, with green-brown eyes and sandy stubble. He liked horseback riding, travelling, charity work, and reading.

Truman, on the other hand, was short, brown-haired, and pale, with dark blue eyes and a baby face. He liked alcohol, no one and nothing else.

He spent several hours looking for some sort of attire that would make him look like Lionel. He eventually found a woolen sweater and a knitted cap at the town market. It dangled to his knees, which he hoped would cover up his un-knightly features. Diego laughed all the way to the palace, saying that Truman looked like a creepy old man.

Though he’d never say it out loud, Truman knew his brother was right.

Luckily, there were nametags at the ball to compensate for Truman’s un-Lionel-like features.

There were also hundreds of guests.

The twenty-one-storey castle towered proudly above the brothers as they waited impatiently in line to hand over their invitations in exchange for name tags. Checkered banners displaying the royal fire horse snapped in the wind outside the doors. Music and muted voices spilled out every time the double-wide oak wood doors were opened for a prestigious guest to enter. Finally, after three hours of travelling and two hours of waiting to be invited into the palace, they received their name tags – “Sir Lionel” and “guest” – and entered the building.

The ball was held in the palace foyer, which was easily six or seven times the size of Truman and Diego’s house. The walls were painted royal black-and-white; the carpet was a fiery red, with checkered marble flooring around the edges that clicked softly when tread upon. On the far side of the foyer was a monstrous staircase which the royal carpet climbed up, up, up, and around, into the other twenty stories of the palace. The ceiling was barely visible above them.

When the guards opened the doors to the palace foyer, the size of the room was hardly noticeable, due to all the guests in it. Neither brother had ever seen so many people, or heard so many voices all at once. The chatter washed over them like a wave of sound, filling their ears. Barely a phrase was audible.

The next thing to hit the brothers was the scent of food. They knew it was food from the way it made them salivate, but they had never truly smelt anything like it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for Truman and Diego tended to be beans, greens and stale bakery bread.

Rich meats were being cooked in the palace kitchens, and sweets were being carried on trays all around the foyer. Truman grabbed a sweet roll and shoved it in his mouth all at once. It was sweet and doughy, slightly sticky and wonderfully chewy. He nearly threw it up; his body simply couldn’t handle the new and amazing sensation. This didn’t stop him from snatching up another, though he ate the next one more slowly.

A man walked by in tight garb dyed three different shades of green. Truman hadn’t realized such colours could be found on clothing, and he shot his brother a stupefied look. The look was returned.

Another man came out of the crowd, short and dark-skinned, wearing a robe of nine different colours that reached the floor.

“Sir Lionel?” he asked with a suspicious squint. “Is … is that you?”

Truman broke his gaze with his brother and cleared his throat. “Yessir, ‘tis I. Sir Lionel Manx.”

“Ah. A hard man to recognize, but the wool gave you away.” Truman supposed it made sense for men who lived in the mountains to wear nice, warm wool year-round.

The man stuck a small hand out to be shaken. “The Saab of the Desert Region. Perhaps you’ll recall, we met briefly when … and who is this?”

Truman followed the Saab’s gaze to his brother, who had grabbed five little doughy rolls from a serving table as if they would disappear forever. The man beside him took a wary step back.

Truman had read enough to know that everything anyone did at a royal affair had to be done in the most stuck-up, diligent and pompous way possible. But of course, his brother would know nothing of this.

“My brother,” Truman said hurriedly, yanking Diego by the arm and causing him to drop all his food. “He’s … a little slow. Actually, he’s very slow. And a deaf-mute.” It was hard not to sound overly-happy about this. It was wonderful payback for Diego’s laughter all the way to the palace, and an excellent way to keep him from messing everything up.

The Saab cocked his head. “Really? I’ve read your biography twice; I don’t recall anything about a brother.”

Truman’s heart raced. Why couldn’t Lionel have been the deaf-mute? “Well, I just recently found him. He ran off as a child. He was very fast. And our parents never told me because they were so embarrassed.”

“Then how did you know he was--”

“So, you’re the first male Sabb since the big rebellion,” Truman interrupted, hurriedly. "What was it, ten years ago?” He’d heard about that while paying off a debt working at the local tavern. He’d also heard that the Saab was a proud man.

“Why yes, actually, sir.” The conversation was all about him from that moment on.

This was good, because Truman’s alcoholic ears heard the chiming of glasses clinking as a server walked towards them. He turned to see soft yellow wine in tall, slender glasses being balanced above the head of a tayal server. Like all tayal the man was part-plant; his fingers were long and branch-like, with a few leaves sprouting out here and there.

Diego followed Truman’s gaze, and his eyes grew larger. He tried to communicate something silently to his brother, but Truman couldn’t be bothered to figure out what. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had white wine.

The Saab paddled the one man canoe of the conversation towards the rights of half-animal citizens. Truman nodded, turned to catch the server in a dire stare, nodded once more, and said, “Of course. But you fog up the windows of your palace, and before you know it, you can’t even see your people from it,” hoping it sounded intelligent, and left.

The Saab looked at Diego. He said, “Your brother’s become the object of his own affection,” and shook his head. Diego picked his nose, wiped it on the Saab’s colourful attire, and sauntered off to mingle. The Saab threw his hands in the air and cussed in a royal display of distress.

Truman reached the serving platter and took three glasses. He told the server, “For my cohorts, of course,” with what he hoped was a lopsided smile. Lionel was very well-known for his lopsided smile. The server raised an eyebrow, because it looked to him like Truman was trying to flirt, and failing.

Truman turned his back to the server and downed the glasses – one, two, and then the third -- in one easy motion. He gave his head a shake and smiled, setting the glasses down on the table.

“A man like that, he must be from the mixed race village, as he drinks like an animal,” said a woman’s voice with an accent so thick Truman thought the alcohol had already done its job. As she approached him, he realized that was not yet the case.

When Truman’s mother had died, he had dropped out of school, but he had managed to learn all his races first. This woman was an islander. Her skin was the colour of dark chocolate, which he had only just discovered existed, and her eyes were purple tinted with silver. She was big, all hips and thighs and breasts. As a boy, Truman had stolen a page of his textbook with her people in it: the women were powerful fighters, much more interesting than the nothings and nobodies of his town, and far more interesting than the royal rich folk of The Kingdom. They were generally naked, also. That had been the real reason he’d snatched their page.

“I’ll have you know I’m quite the beast,” seemed like the best response.

“Truly, though? I am much curious. I’ve never been with a mixed-race man or woman.” She took a step closer. “I have seen not one person from the mixed village all night. It is hard to cross off my list, them.” Truman tried to keep his jaw from dropping. Islanders were notoriously realistic: they ate when hungry, and fucked when horny, and had festivals once a month where they did much of both.

“I’m afraid not.” Much as he wanted to lie, it’d be too obvious eventually, and he’d rather stay a virgin than embarrass himself in that way. Plus, Lionel had eyes only for the princess. It was all any paper ever said.

She shook her head, “I would love to do the so many things to a mixed. Tis a shame.” She grabbed a snack off a tray and popped it between her big, red lips.

“Indeed,” Truman told her. “I’ll drink to that.” He grabbed a light brown alcohol from yet another passing tray and took a swig of it. It was chocolaty and earthy and woody, all at once. He almost gagged on it. Everything was filled with taste here; it exploded onto his tongue, down his throat, and into his stomach. A peasant could easily lose his lunch.

He’d managed not to spit out the flavourful drink, until his brother suddenly appeared at the woman’s side.

He cuddled into her arm with a loving look. She laughed, and while she wasn’t looking, Diego gave his brother a smirk. He knew he wouldn’t be stealing the woman from Truman – that had never once happened. Truman didn’t have women to steal. He could shove having her at all in his brother’s face, though. Being a mentally disabled deaf-mute wouldn’t stop him, either. In fact, it would probably help him somehow. Diego just had his ways.

“Oh, who’s this?” asked the woman. She gave Diego a happy look as he nudged her arm with his head.

Truman had to tell her what he had told everyone else. “He’s … my deaf-mute, slow brother.” He didn’t meet Diego’s eye. Defeat was too sour.

“Oh, the poor thing.”

“Yes. I spent recent years looking after him. Missing out on much of my adult life, caring for my brother after my parents passed.” As his drinks took effect, he decided he could make a comeback after all.

“Rightly so,” she told him, as she stroked Diego’s hair.

Or not.

Diego gave the islander a sloppy hug, absolutely not missing the opportunity to put his head between her breasts. She laughed some more.

Truman rolled his eyes and considered finding something else to drink. He turned away and crashed right into a stout tayal man with branches for hands and leaves for hair.

“You’re Lionel?” Asked the tayal.

“Um, indeed.” He had no idea what the tree-man could want with him.

The tayal gave him a suspicious look. “I swear you were taller when last we met.” Truman didn’t have time to find an excuse before he continued. “At any rate, the princess wishes for your company in the royal bed chambers. Seventeen flights up, third door on your left.” He smiled, bowed, and scampered off on wooden legs.

Truman turned and smiled at his big brother. Diego’s eyes were wide, and his mouth had dropped. His pathetic little brother was going to spend the night with the princess, disguised as her lover. No exotic island woman could best the look on Diego’s face.

Truman bowed and took his leave, having three more drinks before heading up the giant spiral staircase that loomed over the foyer. He tried several times to dance up the stairs, and ended up falling over just as many.

Truman was many things – a drunk, stuck-up, and poor, to name a few. He certainly was not athletic. The seventeen flights of stairs bested him several times, in fact. He was pleased to discover that they were devoid of party guests, though. Save for some cleaning staff, no one had to see him take several rests on his way to the princess. It truly would have blown his cover. It was also rather embarrassing.

By the time he reached the seventeenth storey of the palace, he was at least mostly sober. As such, when he went to knock upon the door of the third room on the left, a thought occurred to him. It was his first sober thought in hours, and it was horrifying.

In his drunken stupor, Truman had not considered how obvious it would be to Eena that he was not her dear knight Lionel. He had also failed to realize how pointless entering the princess’s room would be for him. There was absolutely no point, in fact. He was not a hero. He was not the hero. He didn’t even look like Lionel, nor what he stood for. Unfortunately, he was just Truman.

His hand fell from an about-to-knock-on-a-door position to a sitting-glumly-by-the-user’s-side position.

“Oh, what’s the point?”

Odd. His thoughts, it seemed, had suddenly employed the voice of a woman. His self-esteem must have sunk to a brand-new low. At least, he thought, I have an attractive female voice.

And yet this thought came in his mind’s typical, male voice.

Maybe this being Lionel thing has made my personality split.

And then he decided, Nope. I’m just drunk. What’s more, I still want to see the princess. And with that, he entered her room with his shoulders squared.

It was exceptionally typical of a princess’s room. White-white walls; red and gold carpet; large, extravagant windows revealing the evening sky, and The Kingdom below; a wonderfully polished writing desk in the corner; a curtain covering the bed from view; a beautiful young woman perched on the windowsill in a way that only experienced royalty could.

Truman’s eyes rested heavily on the princess as he slowly advanced towards her. Her golden hair was pined up in an ealborate mess of spirals and twists. She was tall and slender. She was beautiful.
Even when he could only see her dainty figure silhouetted against the window, she was beautiful, and powerful, and royal. She was every bit the princess he had heard about.

Due to his staring, he walked into a parasol that leaned against her desk, making his presence known with the resulting clatter.

She stared out the window, and continued to do so as she spoke.

“I knew you would come,” she said in a soft voice. “It’s so beautiful out. I wish I could be there. I wish I could leave. I’m treated as if I should be dealing with all the responsibilities my parents have past to me, but any real news is hidden from me. It’s said our spies have lost track of Rufus, and I only gained that knowledge by stealing a newspaper from my handmaid.” She stopped to sigh. “Sorry … I’m truly sorry. I know I’ve mentioned this to you before. But only now do I realize that it’s time to escape. You can be my escape, Lionel.” Her voice raised in excitement as she spoke.

Truman discovered that, should he look carefully enough, he could see her reflection in the window. If he squinted quite hard, he could see the slight downward curve at the edges of her lips. But as he looked, she raised her head slightly and almost smiled. “We should run away together. You have to come with me; you’re my knight in shining armour, after all. It’s your duty to save me!”

Truman wasn’t sure how to react. The princess’s request was treason. Was Lionel really her knight in shining armour, or was she using him to escape her royal life? Surely she would realize the penalty for doing what she asked.

But, what did it matter – Lionel wasn’t even in the room; he was replaced by a pint-sized beer guzzler from beyond the boondocks. If the princess realized who Truman was -- or worse still who he wasn’t -- he would be jailbait for the scariest torture chamber candidates available. Such a thought made him too nervous to move, freezing him in place.

“You’ll come with me of course, lov-” she turned now to look at Lionel – Truman -- and her voice dropped from loving to angered. “Who the hell are you?”

“Well, I’m not Lionel Manx, that’s for sure.” He could call it A.S.S. -- automatic sarcasm syndrome.

“No shit.” Despite the less-than-royal saying, Princess Eena stood daintily, if only by instinct and training, and took a step forward. Her tight-fitting red-and-gold dress flowed behind her as she approached him. She pointed a finger at him, and Truman trembled as if it were a gun. “Who the hell … No. Why the hell … No. How the hell…”

“I can explain.” Truman’s hands were in the air, but he did not know why.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll listen.”

There was a tremendous sound then -- several sounds all at once, in fact. The room shook, the castle seemed to screech as if it were in pain, and things crash, and in the distance, people screamed.

Truman took a step back, and suddenly he was falling. The princess was falling, too. The desk and the bed slid and rolled and crashed until they were upside-down and in pieces. Her mattress rolled off the bed frame to land on the window Eena had just been looking through, and the glass shattered and fell away.

Truman shakily grabbed hold of a piece of the writing desk and tried to stand. The windows were where the floor should have been, and he had enough of a buzz still that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had just happened. He was able to locate the princess, five feet away from him. He tried to move towards her, but she put a hand out.

“Stop right there,” she said with all the authority of her royal rank. “What the fuck did you just do?!”

“ME?” If Truman wasn’t so horrified, he’d have laughed.

“Yeah, you. You sneak into my royal room, poorly disguised as my beloved, and you flip my palace … on its side?” Her last words came out as a whispered question. She turned and looked out the window, and that was when it occurred to Truman that below them was not land. It was not the Kingdom, or his boondocks home. All he could see were stars scattered against night’s dark sky.

Eena lunged at him and barreled Truman over. He had always been easily pushed around, but with his stupor and the situation, he couldn’t even be bothered to fight back. The princess then pinned his arms to the floor with her knees. “What is this? Black magic? What have you done with my palace?” She gasped suddenly. “Are you working with Rufus?”

“The terrorist?” Truman’s voice came out in an embarrassing squeak.

“This is not happening,” Eena told him, bringing her face close to Truman’s. “I’m not getting stolen again. He’s not taking me away this time. I didn’t sign up for this scapegoat shit. What did you do with Lionel?”

“Do you actually care? Or do you just want him to save your royal ass?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Excuse me? Haven’t you read the papers? Or his book? He’s my knight in shining armour!”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

At that moment, to Truman’s horror, there was a crash. Eena turned around to see what had happened, but Truman couldn’t see past her light hair.

Eena let out a whispered, “Rufus.”

“Yes, Eena, ‘tis I: your friendly, neighbourhood, princess-snatching criminal mastermind.”

A man appeared over Eena’s head, as fat and round as Santa Claus, with hair as red as fire, and the kind of moustache only strange men bothered to grow. The princess gave Truman a blaming glower and all he could do was shrug, what with his arms pinned under her knees.

“Am I interrupting something between you and your little knightly love?” Rufus asked with an eyebrow raised. “Nice to finally meet you, Lionel, by the way.”

Eena rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, please. Your cover’s blown; I already guessed he was working for you. Give it up.”

“Who? Lionel?”

“I’m not Lionel and I’m not a terrorist’s henchman and I’d appreciate it if you could get off me for a second, princess," said Truman, flustered.

Rufus looked at Princess Eena, and the princess looked back at him, and they both looked utterly confused.

“Then who are you?” Rufus asked.

Eena got off Truman’s arms, standing just out of Rufus’s reach. She looked troubled.

Truman stood slowly, feeling very dizzy. All the food and drink in his stomach spun around, and he fought the urge to throw up by telling them off. “I am a guy who has had two hangovers in one day, gotten a knight’s mail by accident, tried to disguise himself as said knight -- who is not my mirror image, by the way -- and tried to sneak into a royal party held by my beloved ruler as if she were my high school chum – more like someone I wish was my high school chum -- pretended my brother was mentally retarded, got assaulted by a princess, and then questioned by a famous terrorist.” He caught his breath. “I am just a man who wants to go home now, please.”

Rufus laughed a truly evil laugh and said, “Well, you can’t. I stole the top half of the castle so Lionel couldn’t wreck my plans again. As a matter of fact, you’re currently thousands of feet in the sky, floating below my hovering headquarters.”

Both Truman and Eena said, “What?” in unison, with equal amounts of horror.

“Good reactions,” Rufus told them. “But they’ll be better when I tell you just how I’ve achieved this.”

He let a silence fall. Truman thought he was trying to create suspense, but then Rufus said, “Well, guess.”

“Oh,” said Truman. “Was it black magic?”

“That was going to be my guess,” the princess said, and it was clear from her tone that she didn’t much care for Truman.

“I know, that’s what put it in my head. You accused me of using it.”

“Well, you have to make your own guess.”

“What? I just did! You can’t go around blaming everything on black magic!” Truman wasn’t sure he liked the princess all that much, either.

“It’s the most potent form of magic, and highly accessible. Why would it be anything else?”

“Enough!” Rufus yelled. He had grown quite red. “Why are you two even bickering? The greatest criminal of our times stands threatening you! Cower!”

Truman sighed and shook his head at Rufus. He was terribly frustrated with how the night had gone. “Quite honestly, you aren’t even that scary. You were bested by someone who managed to remain unseen by you or any of your henchmen, you haven’t even gotten the princess working up a sweat over here, and you look like that one weird uncle that I was never allowed to be alone with. Sorry.”

“Maybe this will change your mind!”

For a second, Truman worried. But when Rufus pulled a three-foot-long pink-and-yellow cane out from behind him, both Truman and the princess laughed aloud.

“Oh no, princess, he’s going to make us prance with the all-powerful fairy cane!” Truman said between chortles.

“Is that really what you used to levitate the top levels of my palace?” Eena giggled. “I’m just barely impressed.”

“It is. And it can do more than that.” Rufus’s deep voice was faltering.

“Like make a garden magically appear?” Truman asked.

“Or make a kitten mewl on command?” added Eena. It seemed the only person she disliked more than Truman was Rufus.

“You want to see the awesome power of the gods?” Rufus asked them.

“The gods? As in the ancient religion that was completely debunked under my parents’ rule?” Eena sneered cruelly. “Those gods?”

“Debunk this,” Rufus told her with a sinister grin and an evil laugh.

He raised his wand high above his head with both hands. A flash of blue burst from its tip, shooting straight up like lightning before curving back down to hit Rufus, swallowing him in a sharp blue glow.

Slowly, painfully, he began to change. His body curved inward, and began to grow. A wind rose up from no source at all, whipping at Truman’s and Eena’s eyes and hair and their cheeks. It howled, but did nothing to block out the sickening crunch of bones breaking as Rufus grew and contorted and twisted. His skin melted away, until in his place stood a skeleton standing eight feet high, with hands large enough to hold three of Truman within one of their grasp. Sinew and muscles strained to hold the bones together.

The wind, the blue light and the sounds faded, then ended, and the skeleton clacked its massive teeth, flexed its hands, and stomped its feet. Truman realized that he had never been so frightened. He was almost crying. His brain could hardly fathom what it was witnessing.

The creature that was once Rufus roared, and its voice sounded like the cries of dying animals, and its breath smelt so foul, he heard Eena gag.

“Die,” said the creature, in a voice that was too loud and horrifying for Truman to handle. He covered his ears, in fear that it would speak again.

It reached out a giant hand, covered in sinew to keep all its bones in place, and grabbed Truman. The hand covered him, though he could see through it. He saw Eena’s horrified face as the creature lifted him higher and higher.

“Stop! Let him down! He didn’t do anything,” she told the creature.

“I’ll deal with him,” said the terrible voice. “Then I’ll deal with you. Lionel’s not here this time, princess.”

The creature moved slowly, but with enough force that it was still able to throw Truman through the broken window and into the night.

He heard Eena scream as he struggled to grab any part of the palace and save his own life. As the building fell further and further away from him, Truman still found himself reaching out, his fingers stretching until they hurt, his body begging to be saved.

Suddenly, Eena’s head appeared from the window. At first Truman thought she had been thrown, too. But then she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she yelled to him. “This is all my fault!”

“No,” Truman said, entirely to himself. Eena was too far away to hear his response now. “It’s not.” It wasn’t. He had snuck into her room, into her castle. She had just been a princess.

Eena’s head was gone suddenly, and Truman knew the creature that had been Rufus had grabbed her. She screamed once more. Even as the palace grew smaller and smaller, Truman could hear her scream.

He wished he could do something. He wished he could help the princess. He wished he truly was Lionel.

And he was so scared to die.