Akiko in the Castle of Alia Rellapor by Mark Crilley Read Free Book Online Page A

to Alia Rellapor.
    “Couldn’t you, um, talk this over with King Froptoppit?” I asked. “I’m sure he’d understand if you told him how you feel.”
    “No!” she answered, raising her voice angrily. “I will not allow myself to be further contaminated by that cowardly little man!”
    “But King Froptoppit’s not so bad,” I replied. “He—”
    “Froptoppit is a fool!”
she bellowed.

    Her voice echoed loudly around the room. Mr. Beeba leaped back, quivering pathetically in Spuckler’s shadow. Gax’s spindly little neck was extended as far as it would go, his mechanical eyes opened wide. Prince Froptoppit tensed but dared not move. Even Throck looked a little startled, but also pleased, as if he thoroughly approved of Alia’s performance. Only Poog remained unimpressed, his face as blank as it had been when we first entered the room.
    “The King and his ilk will not survive, I tell you,” Alia continued, her voice trembling with anger, her pretty face twisted into an ugly scowl. “It is the natural order of things that weak rulers be cast aside by strong ones.”
    There was a pause as Alia allowed the full implication of her words to sink in.
    “So make your choice now, Akiko,” she added, staring into my eyes, “for when I seize power, I will show no mercy to Froptoppit and his deluded followers. I will uproot them like weeds, I will exterminate them like the pests they are!”
    The gentle, kind Alia Rellapor of a moment before had utterly disappeared, replaced by a woman every bit as frightening as Throck himself.
    “But—” I began.
    “Enough!” Alia snapped. “I am weary of this fruitless conversation. You have trespassed upon my property. You have attempted to steal my son away from me. You must be punished.”
    She turned to face Throck, who watched her every move with great concentration.
    “Tell me, my friend,” Alia said, “what would you say to the idea of putting these intruders into the hole?”
    “An excellent choice, Empress Rellapor,” Throck answered, sounding slightly winded.
    “Very well, then,” Alia said. “Escort them there at once. We’ll see if they won’t reconsider their loyalty to old Froptoppit.”
    A half dozen Torgs emerged from the shadows, encircling us like a snare. Spuckler looked as though he wanted to fight them but for once could see that this was a battle he could not win. Throck raised an arm, barked a few orders, and led us, Torgs and all, back out of the room.

    I turned around and caught one last glimpse of the Prince as we left. He still sat there on Alia Rellapor’s lap, his face anxious, his body looking too tired to move. I wondered if it was the last I’d ever see of him. I certainly
hoped
it was the last I’d see of Alia Rellapor.
    Before long we were being herded through a dark, damp corridor that felt like the passageway to a medieval dungeon. As we moved farther and farther into the blackness, I tried to make sense of some of the things I’d just seen and heard. It wasn’t easy. The thought that Alia Rellapor was the Prince’s mother was so devastating I didn’t want to face it, and the idea that King Froptoppit and Mr. Beeba and everybody had been lying to me was enough to make me sick. My head was spinning with so many questions, I didn’t know who was lying and who was telling the truth. Why did Alia Rellapor seem so nice at first and then turn so nasty? Did she really hate King Froptoppit simply because he was weak, or was that just some excuse? Why hadn’t Poog said anything on our behalf the way he had before?
    As for the hole, well, I didn’t even want to
think
about what that might turn out to be.

 Chapter 14 

    After we had passed through the long, dark hallway, Throck led us into a huge round room. In the middle of the floor we saw a pit that must have been twenty feet wide. Above the pit, hanging from a sooty black chain, was a large iron cage with a single squarish door. On one side of the pit, a narrow stone