THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (best books to read now txt) 📖

trapped in their own illusion. We have to wake them up. Then we have the problem of Lucifer or Lucinda suddenly appearing.”
”Do you think she still is alive? I mean, I saw her die.”
”We will find out.”
Belinda was still standing in her cage, patiently waiting.
“Let us go.”
At a given signal they lifted, leaving the marble tiles of the floor under them. When they reached the hole in the cage roof, they noticed that it was big enough for them both to slip through.
They flew across the pit and entered the cage, landed on the floor inside Belinda’s cage.
She ran up to her father and embraced him.
They hugged and caressed.
Then she stepped back.
“My God. You have grown young.”
“And I can fly, you saw that?”
Belinda nodded. “Who taught you that?”
”Fellow helpers. Angelic warrior named Fabian.”
Belinda smiled. “Whatever he did, it worked.”
Adnicul smiled. “Your father is a handsome devil over here.”
Belinda was startled. She shook her head. “Your choice of words could be better, Adnicul!”
”I mean handsome angel, your highness!”
“That is more like it!”
They took a long look at each other again.
“I have missed you so!”
”I you!”
Adnicul cleared his throat.
“We need to go.”
They all nodded.
Belinda stretched forward her hand and Adnicul took it.
“Happy to have you here, Sire!”
“Happy to be here, your highness!”
”What is going to happen now, men?”
Alex nodded to the ledge by the hole.
“We are going to wake you all up, one by one and put you on the ledge. Then we will together go through that hole and somehow face what is there.”
Belinda spread her arms. “Then save me.”
Alex lifted her up and flew off.
As he did, he told Adnicul to wait here follow him to the ledge.
When he arrived at the ledge, he realized it be quite spacious, as if created to fill three dozen. There was even a small slide that lead to another level. Alex tried to see what was there, but couldn’t yet.
The two men put Belinda there and flew down to cage three.
Needless to say, the reunion between man and wife was a heartening one. It took strength to wake her up from her sleep. Once that was over, she cried in her husband’s arms as he carried her up to the ledge to speak with her daughter.
Cage four had Morgana as occupant and she was so startled to see her father there with Adnicul as guardian angel that she fainted on the spot. It took the flight to the ledge to wake her up.
No Lucifer yet. If he would come, or anyone else for that matter, then Adnicul would be there to protect Alexander.
Cage five had Steven in it. He had been pacing the south wall, holding a conversation with an imaginary person to his right when he saw Alex and realized where he was. Soon he was with the others. The reunion of another married couple was warm to say the least.
Maria in cage six was just as dumbfounded to find herself saved as Eleonora in cage seven or Patricia in cage eight. When Patrick in cage nine was saved he fell on his knees and thanked the lord from bringing him back to his family. In cage ten there was none other Marcus Ruztady, Eleonora’s husband himself. A third married couple was reunited. Alexander felt like an angelic saviour. The chatter up there was endless, everyone had a story to tell about where they had been in their illusion and who the guardian was next to Alex and where they were. Belinda had not heard it from her father personally, but it was clear to her than they were above the last circle of hell, put here by Lucinda herself.
In cage eleven, they had to wake up Martin d’Lumberville, who was crawling around, obviously thinking he was fumbling around in the dark, protecting himself from a vision of Lucinda in the castle. Maria and Martin went into their own corner of the ledge and cuddled, begiggled by the others.
Cage twelve had little Alfred, obviously believing that his mother was taking him on a walk though the castle. When he realized where he was, he had a nervous fit and it took a few minutes to calm the fellow down. Once up on the ledge with his parents there were constant questions about where they all were and how they would get out of there.
Cage thirteen had none other than Richard Landstorm and Morgana was thrilled to have him back, of course. They started to cuddle right away. Alex, this time, was overjoyed to see this scenario in action.
Cage fourteen was the first cage with two people in it. They were walking in circles as if wanting to find a way out of their illusion, obviously tormented by some inner vision.
They were the messengers Theodore and Philip.
There were now as many people on the ledge as there were liberated cages, fourteen.
What was so wonderful for Alex was that his solitude was over and for every person he saved his old life returned more and more and , lo and behold, they all were stunned to see how young he looked. Never the less, they recognized him.
In cage fifteen, Marie-Louise ran from one side of the cage to the other, chased by some invisible spirit. When she saw who was there she exclaimed:
“Master, where am I? Why … why are you so young?”
”Belinda will tell you?”
She smiled, no beamed: “She is here?”
And so, the two were reunited again.
Robert, her fiancée, was liberated from cage sixteen and fell into Marie-Louise’s arms, tears streaming down his cheeks when coming to the ledge.
Cage Seventeen held a certain Ulfaas Nordhjiil, who stood still like as statue when rescued, although he gave the crowd a horrendous story of how he had been chased through Prosperania by a giant bat the last few months.
Cage Eighteen held the person that Patrick for the past hour had been petrified could not have been saved. But as Erica came up, he exclaimed: “Wife!” and ran into her open arms.
Cage Nineteen had Lance cuddling the cocker spaniel Henry. Together, the two had obviously shared a nightmarish illusion of being trapped in a labyrinth somewhere in hell chased by none other than Lucinda herself, only the last hours or so there had been no Lucinda. That was a good sign.
Cage Twenty had Maria’s son Fabian trying to climb the bars, obviously believing them to be the walls of the castle. Apparently, his vision had been being locked outside the palace and not getting in.
Cage Twenty One was Mormidar, the stoic and sympathetic Hispanic King. He had known his fate, but never been able to break the illusion of thinking that he was home in Hispania without his wife.
Cage Twenty Two held his wife, and she had been positive that she was the only one trapped in her palace in Hispania and that her husband was gone.
Cage Twenty Three had Mustafus waxing his moustaches. His awe in seeing his ally so young made him gasp even more as he was flown to the ledge, dumbfounded.
Twenty-three people were chattering on the ledge now, eager to tell each other stories.
Cage Twenty Four was a horrific sight with Zedrick believing himself to hang from the ceiling in a noose, alive but unable to come down. He fell to his knees and embraced Alexander’s legs when he was awoken.
Cage Twenty Five had an interesting prisoner: Louis the gardener, forced to tend to invisible flowers who now and then chased him through the imaginary garden.
An old friend camped in Cage Twenty Six and Alex was happy to see him only read imaginary books when he was saved. Soon enough, Steven and Belinda’s best man Tom was among his friends again.
Henricus Balthazar was there in Twenty Seven and he had nothing more to say than:
”My strength had failed me, I could not flee any longer from those beasts!”
In the Twenty Eighth Cage, the two men found Geena crying and shouting loudly at someone who obviously flew around above her, laughing. She was freed from her illusions and carried up, sightably impressed about his majesty’s youth and scared about flying over the pits of hell.
Cage Twenty Nine had apparently an entire legion of demons marching over the prisoner’s mind. When Marcus the messenger was saved he found himself looking at Alex twice and Adnicul three times before actually believing what he was being told.
They were close toward the end now, Alex was afraid that something would happen before they were ready.
In Cage Thirty, Julius Cretan, who had joined the group’s potion experiment against his will that day in September 1425, was overwhelmed to see his majesty and told him: “Didn’t I say taking that potion was a nuisance?”
Alex nodded and smiled, before flying him to the ledge.
Cage Thirty-One held Bantrard, who obviously was forced to live and relive his worst nightmare: becoming the eternal entertainer to a group of uninterested ghosts and goblins and demons, who just laughed as he played song after song, regardless of its character.
Cage Thirty-Two held the clerical representative of the nation, holding a bible and running from one edge of the space to the other, obviously believing himself to be climbing the stairs of his own cathedral, running away from whatever monster was following him. Bernardus Paul was happy to see his king.
There was none other than a certain Mr John Lyghort in Cage Number Thirty-Three. His illusion obviously was being the captain of a ghost ship.
In the Thirty-Fourth Cage there was King Iwar of Margetania, who had joined them because his wife was too tired. He was now the only spouse alone and he was worried that she was not here. Alexander explained that she was just lucky, because when they all returned she would not know the difference.
“Lucky woman!”
The second to last held Walter von Ochsenskiöld and this time the heart-warming reunion was all Alexander’s.
One left.
The last cage held Rolf, who was speaking to someone that seemed to disappear when they came. Rolf was aware of reality and he fell into his majesty’s arms when he saw him.
The tragedy occurred when, for some reason, Adnicul promised to take Rolf in his arms and let Alex leave as last one.
The cages at once, about ten at a piece, dropped into the pit.
For some reason, Alex was stuck in the opening of the last cage.
Adnicul quickly flew to the ledge and positioned Rolf there.
“Where’s father?” Patsy asked and was given no answer as his friend, the former enemy, flew back to save him as fast as lightning.
When he came back, one cage was still dangling from the structure.
Alex took Adnicul’s hand as the cage dropped.
They felt themselves drop with the cage, the screams getting louder, the flames getting hotter.
Alexander, frantic and panicking, now escaped the whole and threw himself against the cave wall just as it fell into the last level of hell.
What they saw below them was pure chaos. All the other levels rolled into one. Disorganisation, cries for help, hard labour, trapped people, debauchery, war. Everything covered with flames.
“Let us leave, Alex!”
”Yes, let us!”
With that, they flew back up.
Two large monsters came shooting up from below and blocked