by Libbylawrence
Later, Nightshade found herself being ushered into a magnificent castle that towered over a pleasant village. Neatly uniformed guards clad all in royal purple lined the passages below the one the creature led her through.
“Is it just me, or are you trying to keep me to yourself?” she asked.
The noble creature lowered his head sadly. “Never would I seek to separate the Princess from her loyal subjects,” said Martin Tenbones. “My mistress merely wishes your return to be announced to the people in a more formal manner.”
Nightshade smiled as she imagined how she looked. The battle with the Black Guardsman had torn her costume, her time escaping from the rest had left her covered with cuts and dirt, and the mad rush through the forest had left her black wig wildly disheveled. She had wanted to inquire just how the creature knew that she was a princess of the Land of the Nightshades, but she had decided to bide her time and hold her tongue. She might learn more by listening than by asking questions in this strange new world.
She was led into a heavily perfumed chamber where two strange-looking figures awaited her. The first was a small, brown-haired monkey-like creature wearing a red bellman’s uniform and looking like an organ-grinder’s monkey; he smiled bashfully. The second figure was a green-feathered dodo wearing a white cummerbund and a baby blue bowtie. They looked like they could have stepped straight out of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic-strip.
“Prinado and Luz will help you restore yourself to your true form, milady,” said Martin Tenbones as the gigantic dog slowly backed away, bowing as he departed.
“Thank you,” called Nightshade.
The monkey nodded and took her hand. “Allow us to draw you a bath, Princess,” said Prinado with what sounded like a Cockney accent.
“And you may remove that strange disguise as well,” said Luz, the dodo. “You no longer need it here in your ancestral palace.”
Nightshade allowed them to bring her to a room where she could remove her costume, wig, and equipment. She then relaxed in a luxurious bathtub and tried to make sense of her adventure. This is not the Land of the Nightshades, she thought. It’s certainly not my ancestral palace, either. That is, not that I know of. I really know nothing of my mother’s past except that she was deposed from the throne of the Nightshade realm. Could she have originated here? I rather doubt it. Call it instinct, but I think these children’s storybook creatures have mistaken me for some other princess.
Emerging from the bath, she dried herself off with a towel and donned an elegant, if ethereal gown of pale lilac that had been laid out for her. The two creatures styled her long blonde hair into an upswept hairdo, and placed a jewel of rose quartz around her neck.
“You look right beau’iful m’dear!” said an astonished Prinado. Beside him Luz said nothing but stared coldly toward the new princess. Eve thanked Prinado and followed the two as they led her into a spacious chamber nearby.
“Our mistress will be with you soon,” explained Luz. “She sends her love, and promises that all will be made clear to you.”
The two started to walk away after bowing politely, and then Prinado stopped for a moment and said, “Oi jus’ wanted to say welcome back, ye Majesty. We prayed for your return, we did!”
Eve smiled warmly and said, “Thank you so much. Thank you both.” She had decided that in this other world there was no need to maintain her secret identity. Clearly the name Nightshade meant as little to them here as did her true name or appearance. Thus it was as the blonde Eve Eden and not as the goggled and bewigged Nightshade that she soon found herself facing a raven-haired woman with a scar along the cheek below her right eye who wore an elegant, old-fashioned white dress in a Victorian style.
“I am Lady Alianora,” said the woman. “Long have I watched over the Royal Family who once resided in this palace. They are deceased, so I am all that remains to govern here for now. The true heir has long been away in the world beyond. As you may have anticipated, I have allowed my servants to assume incorrectly that you are that missing heir returned full grown.”
“So you’re the local Fairy Godmother,” Eve said, impressed by the regal-looking woman’s precise, yet benevolent manner. “I have the feeling that you already know my name and my nature,” she added. “Am I right?”
Alianora took her hand and patted it with her own. “You are Princess Eve of the Land of the Nightshades, as well as Eve Eden, Nightshade of Earth. I know all about you. You were the child of Queen Magda of the Nightshade realm. Your mother was forced to flee her true dimension and seek shelter on Earth, where she posed as a normal woman and wed your father. You and your brother were born with royal blood, but you little dreamed that you truly came from a world beyond the one you knew. When your mother returned to her realm with her children, you learned the truth and lost her to her enemy the Incubus, who had stolen the throne. Your brother Lawrence was lost there as well. You escaped to Earth, and your father raised you without knowing the truth about his missing wife and son. (*) You have always sought a way to find Lawrence and depose the Incubus from your late mother’s throne. And now you seek to end the rule of the Succubus, the female counterpart of the evil Incubus.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See “The Image’s Idyl,” Captain Atom #87 (August, 1967) and “Poetry of Peril,” Captain Atom #88 (October, 1967).]
Eve Eden nodded, tears briefly filling her eyes. “Yes, that’s all true. Why have you brought me here?” she asked.
“My world is a magical dimension much like the realm your mother ruled, except this place is one in which science and magic both work,” Alianora began. “It is called the Jewelled Land. This is the domain of a noble house that had long ruled this land in peace and tranquility. However, just as your late mother was deposed by the Incubus, the people of this realm were attacked by an evil usurper who sought to either force them to become slaves or die at the enemy’s foul hand. I was unable to save many of them, but I did the best I could, and received this scar for my efforts.” She pulled strands of her hair away to show her the scar running down her cheek. “The King and Queen bravely sacrificed their lives to buy me enough time to save their baby girl, the heir to the throne, before the oppressor could find her. I placed Princess Barbara on Earth, where she was found and taken in by a young couple in Florida, the Andersons.
“I have watched Barbara grow to a child of seven. Because time flows differently between Earth and the Jewelled Land, were she to return here, she would be somewhat older due to the magical differences in time, but still a child at heart would she be. Thus I have bided my time as I awaited her coming of age so that the change would enable her to become an adult woman in this realm and rightfully inherit her throne. She is still too young to do what she is destined to do — depose the one who killed her parents and enslaved this land.
“Although I had thought we could wait, we are now faced with true peril. The Cuckoo, wicked usurper of the Jewelled Land, has found the wise old seer known as the Hieromancer and imprisoned him, along with Colonel Knowledge. The Cuckoo has also enslaved the messenger called the Tantoblin in order to acquire certain jewels of power that were scattered on your Earth. While the Cuckoo itself cannot leave this realm, through the Tantoblin it has promised the Succubus an army — the Black Guard, whom you encountered earlier — to destroy her own foes in exchange for her services in finding the missing jewels on Earth. The Cuckoo’s true goal is to find the fabled Porpentine, the greatest of such jewels, in order to destroy the Jewelled Land and then escape to spread its seed to many other such lands.”
“So you brought me here to stop the Succubus?” Eve asked, her head spinning.
“No, my child,” said Alianora. “Others will see to her. It was her attempt to switch places with you that enabled me to bring you here. She has taken the true heir, Princess Barbara, but she will not harm her while the Princess can be used to bargain with the Cuckoo.”
“Wait,” said Eve. “You said you switched me with Barbara when the Succubus tried to grab me. How could you place your own princess, a mere child, in such deadly danger?”
Alianora furrowed her eyebrows and said, “I did what the Land required of me. I serve it before I follow the desires of my own heart. Young Barbara Anderson could not help her world, but you can. You are needed to do what Princess Barbara is still too young to do. We need you to rescue the imprisoned Hieromancer and Colonel Knowledge and lead a revolt against the Cuckoo before it can use the recovered Porpentine to become one with the Jewelled Land itself. The peril is too immediate for us to wait on Princess Barbara to mature enough to fight.”
“So, since I’m an adult with experience and powers of my own,” said Eve, “you’ve brought me here to pose as this Princess Barbara and beat the Cuckoo?”
“Exactly,” said Alianora. “We needed a royal princess, and we found one with unique gifts all her own. You are a heroine, and only a true heroine may save the Jewelled Land.”
Nightshade nodded grimly. “I will help you,” she said. “If it will save lives and eventually bring down the Succubus, then I will be your Princess Barbara for as long as it takes.”
***
Eve Eden was as good as her word. For the next few days she appeared throughout the Jewelled Land and began rallying its strange-looking inhabitants — many of whom looked like refugees from the Island of Misfit Toys — to thunderous pledges of support and devotion. She was carefully costumed in one exquisite pink or purple gown after another, but it was her passion and beauty that carried the day more than her sheer allure and glamor.
She was a capable leader, since she had conducted dozens of missions for the CIA, the OSI, Femme Force One, and the Sentinels of Justice over her twenty-year career. With the backing of Lady Alianora, and the clothing, jewels, and manner of a true princess, for all intents and purposes Eve Eden truly was Princess of the Jewelled Land.