Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “And get turned around in the dark when the storm hits? Do you really know where you’re going?”

  “Sort of. Pretty sort of.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Actually I’m all but certain that the lane to the old farmstead ran straight west, just inside the border of Far,” she said, steering Mystique across the ditch into the thick brush of the wood’s edge. “So if we angle off here, we’ll end up where we need to be and swing wide of the guardhouse.”

  They lunged up the side of a leafy hogback in the moonlight. Dodging trees, they came down the steep far side in a skidding rumple of leaves to stumble onto the abandoned lane. At last the farmstead came into view.

  “This won't work,” said Lukus over the breathing of the unicorns. “You can see the rafters through the thatch on all the buildings, clean from here.” He looked at the sky. The gusts of wind had died to velvety stillness, and the flickering towers of clouds had gotten close enough to be heard, rumbling balefully.

  “We’ll surely get less soaked back against a wall than out here,” she said. “I smell rain. We’ll never have time to find any other place. Let’s get the unicorns into the barn.”

  The wind rose, flinging the storm’s first huge drops as Lukus followed her inside and stood in the utter blackness. A flash of lightning lit up the barn, letting him to spy an old pierced metal lantern draped with cobwebs. “I sure hope this thing has a candle in it,” he said as he grabbed it up.

  “Over here! Me too!” she shouted over the wind. “But at least it had when Violet and I were here last. Do you have a striker in your pack?”

  “I didn’t think to bring one, nor candles either.”

  “I remembered a striker, at least. Here. I’ve undone her girth. Help me get her saddle the rest of the way off, and I’ll get it for you.”

  Directly, Lukus had the lantern giving forth a feeble winking light as he busied himself bedding down Starfire. “So when on earth were you here before, anyway?”

  “Oh my. I was just trying to think. It was with Violet, ’way back. I’m not quite sure when, but it was still all dolls and tea parties, don’t you know. Five years ago, maybe?”

  “Right. ‘Way back when you were merely a child. Yesterday morning you were a child. And today? Poof! You have your sixteenth birthday, and you're magically changed into some kind of grown-up woman. Pretty strange.”

  “Sure is, Lukus. But just you wait little brother. It'll happen to you, too.”

  “No it won’t.”

  “And what keeps you from such a fate?”

  “Oh, breasts for one thing. I won’t have those and...”

  “You know what I meant,” She said, glancing at the barn’s rafters. “Listen to that rain. It sounds like it’s coming across the fields in sheets. We’re going to get soaked to the bone.” And with that, she grabbed up her pack and bolted for the house.

  Lukus overtook her midway to the house’s collapsing porch. “What’s your hurry?” he hollered. “We’re in for a soaking whether we get inside or not! I think I’d rather stay out with the unicorns!”

  “Suit yourself!” she cried, as she leaped onto the porch, “but the lantern stays with me!”

  A throb of lightning lit up the countryside and the arrival of a roaring wall of rain. They stumbled through the front door, only to find that the parlour wouldn’t do at all. They groped from room to room between flickers and flashes until they found some cover against the inside wall of the kitchen where most of the thatched roof remained.

  They sat on the floor, combing their bedraggled hair from their faces with their fingers. Rose nudged Lukus with the striker from her knapsack. He struggled to light the lantern for some time. At last it came to, a wee sputtering yellow seed atop the dirty stub of candle. Shadows leaped and waved as rivulets of water found their way out through holes in the floor. “Oh, Rose?” he said. “Wouldn’t you say we’ve lived something of a sheltered life in the castle?”

  “Yes, yes. Quite.”

  “So you decided that to cultivate your new maturity, you should go out into the world for some exposure, aye?”

  “I didn’t plan the rain.”

  “If we just bed down along the wall here, I think it'll stay dry enough to sleep. And boy, am I ever hungry.”

  “Sounds fine to me, Lukus,” she said, “except...”

  “Except what?”

  “Except you seem to have left your pack in the barn,” she said, kneeling to open her own bag.

  “Oh, great!” he said. “Couldn’t you just...? I mean I’ll just run out after the rain and pay you back, all right?”

  “Be neat for once, would you?” she said, handing him things out of her bag.

  They ate ravenously, listening to the steady downpour. “Dried apricots and cheese make one strange meal,” he said between thoughtful chews, “but you know? I think it’s pretty near the best supper I ever ate.”

  He finished eating to discover that no pack also meant no bed roll for him, but Rose was willing to let him use one end of her bedding as a pillow. “So Rose,” he said, settling himself onto his back, stirring the empty space over his head as though it were an orchestra. “You were telling me...”

  “Telling you what?”

  “You know. As you were saying back in the woods before we got off the road and came here. I mean you weren’t done were you? Isn’t there some sort of reason for our going to the Chokewood Forest?”

  For a long spell, the rain was the only sound he heard. “Lukus,” she said at last, “I may not be your sister at all. If there be any truth to what I was told at my awful birthday party, you and I are only cousins.”

  “Oh go on,” he scoffed. “That would make one of us Ugleeuh’s child.”

  “Ugleeuh? My word! You made that up.”

  “No I didn't.”

  “But no one would ever name a... So who on earth is Ugleeuh?”

  “Mother’s sister, Rose. Didn't you know her name?”

  “Something else I wasn’t to find out until I was sixteen, no doubt. How come they told you, anyway?”

  “No one made a point of telling me. I don’t even remember how I found out, but you weren’t singled out. It’s not as though anyone in the family was proud of her.”

  “But Lukus, I can’t believe Grandfather Razzmorten would name one of his daughters such a thing.”

  “Well he didn’t. Mother said that Grandfather was away when the baby was born, and she said that the baby’s mother, Mother’s stepmother Demonica, named it before he returned. She was suposed have a mean streak.”

  “How awful. No wonder she grew up with such a chip on her shoulder.”

  “Yeap. Probably had a lot to do with it, all right,” he said, rolling onto his haunches to stare into her face. “But good grief. She surely can't be your mother. No way.”

  “Yea? Well maybe Lukus, but somehow nobody, absolutely nobody back at the castle would be completely straight with me when I asked them, so I intend to find out for certain, one way or the other. So please don’t ask me any more questions right now. We need to get some rest. We have a long way to go, yet.”

  “But I want to know more about this, once we’re...”

  “Fine. On the road. Please, let’s go to sleep.”

  Chapter 28

  By the next evening, they found themselves coming to the town of Sweetpea, rising out of the downs of southern Loxmere.

  “I know I promised we’d stay the night here, Lukus,” said Rose with a wave at the houses, “but this close to Castle Loxmere? We will be found. No way we won’t.”

  “So just when do you think it will be safe to stop for a real supper and bed?”

  “We’ve got to ride through the night. Maybe that will get us far enough to think about some place.”

  “Somewhere with a real bed?”

  “I hope. I know you’re exhausted.”

  They could see cows being driven inside to milk. Shopkeepers were shooing out patrons. Wonderful aromas of fo
od made their mouths water and their stomachs rumble.

  “Reckon it would be safe to stop at that tavern up yonder, and have a quick bite of supper, Rose?”

  “It’s a risk and no mistake, but maybe if we don’t dally, we could get away with it. But remember that there's no way we can risk staying the night.”

  Lukus was already on his way.

  The inn was a great three storey whitewashed brick and timber affair, much like the houses flanking it, with a sod roof which was an occasional pasture for goats. A throng of townspeople milled about and sat on the benches running along the front wall. They tied up their unicorns and threaded their way inside to a crowded common room with a low ceiling. A delicious aroma greeted them at once. The room was a rambling sea of tables, spread with green and white checkered cloths. They picked one and had a seat at once at once.

  At the jostling of the candles on the table, they looked up to see the most obese woman either of them had ever seen. The sight of her left both of them speechless when she completed the adjustment of her apron by picking up in her arms first one then the other of her ponderous breasts and shifting them across the front of her. “The pot roast be the best to my notion,” she said as she labored to breathe, “Hit comes with peach cobbler and tea.” She leant forward to set the candles to one side, emitting a blubbery hiss from her apron as she did so, causing Lukus to jerk upright with raised eyebrows. She stood up languidly, making a plumping sound from the same place and continued: “’Course if ye ain’t all that ‘ungry, you might just want a bowl of our beef stew, but I’d stay away from the pea soup if I was you ones. My 'usband was lax as usual and scorched hit.”

  Rose and Lukus ordered the stew and leant across the table toward each other to giggle the instant the massive woman had turned away.

  “Rose! Did you hear that?”

  “That must have been her belly button.”

  “Do you suppose she bathes with a bottle brush, Rose?”

  “I don’t suppose she bathes. But to be fair, her clothes were spotless. Poor thing. I think she’s sweet. I feel sorry for her.”

  Lukus could see that it was time to stop. “This place seems to be doing right well for itself,” he said, looking around. “There isn’t a seat left and there's even a crowd waiting for tables. I'd never guess so many travelers would pass through Sweetpea.”

  “They're probably mostly local,” said Rose.

  “What about those sleazy characters over there by the fireplace? Suppose they're here to waylay travelers?”

  “Fiddlesticks Lukus! You and your imagination.”

  “Yea? Well I’ve been watching them since we sat down, and they've been watching us every time I've looked up.”

  “So?”

  “Maybe they're thinking about robbing us.”

  “You keep looking over there. Are you going to rob them?”

  Lukus grew sullen. To Rose’s relief, the food arrived, saving her from further comment. By the time they were through eating, the men were gone and Lukus was in much better spirits. “I’m stuffed.” he said, pushing out his belly to make a point of patting it. “With this kind of food, no wonder it’s booming. I’d eat here every day.”

  “Well you managed to today,” she said as she stood and slipped on her cloak. “We need to make haste.”

  “It’s not too late to turn about, Rose,” said Lukus as they rode away from the lights. “Are you sure we can’t stay the night back there?”

  “Who was worried about the seedy characters by the fireplace? And I can’t believe you’re all ready to cast aside caution and return to an unbelievably busy road house only a few miles from Loxmere Castle.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” he said, “and unfortunately, I agree.”

  Before them lay the border of Loxmere, beyond which lay the Jut of Niarg, a southern arm of their own country, filled with a dense forest known as the Jutwoods. They crossed the border in the broad moonlight by leaving the road in order to avoid the guard houses. When they had found their way back onto the road, they were nearly three leagues beyond Loxmere in very dense woods. Suddenly Rose halted Mystique so abruptly that Lukus ran his knee into the skirt of her saddle. “Hey! Rose, call your shot next time.”

  “Hush!” she said. “We’re being watched.”

  “It must be the robbers from the inn. I told you they were up to no good.”

  “Can you see them, Lukus?”

  “It's 'way too dark. I can’t see anything. They could hide anywhere. Maybe they're pacing us through the woods, just off the road.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Run or hide. We’d better choose one right quick, 'cause I just heard something. We can make out the road by the gap in the trees.”

  “Then let’s ride like the wind!”

  At once three figures stepped into the roadway.

  “Lukus!” she cried, wheeling square about and charging back the way they'd come. Lukus tried to follow, but Starfire reared and bolted off the road and through the brush to throw him sprawling in the briars as two hooded figures rushed out of nowhere and grabbed Starfire's reins. Lukus scrambled to his feet in time to be pounced on and rolled up in a blanket.

  Rose was too far away by now to hear him over Mystique's pounding hooves, but she suddenly saw that he was gone. “Lukus!” she cried. The moment she turned about to go back and find him, three hooded figures stepped into her way, spooking Mystique off the road and through a thicket while she hung on for dear life. As they raced under an oak, someone dropped onto Mystique's back and grabbed her. She gave a throat shredding scream.

  “Hush!” cried the someone, clapping his hand over her mouth. “You'll scare lean air out of Lukus, and cac too, Princess!”

  Directly, she was helped off Mystique by the one who had caught her, while the two others unwraped Lukus. “You have us!” she shouted. “So what are you going to do to us? And just how did you know Lukus's name?”

  The three pushed back their hoods. She gasped at the sight of their pointed ears. “Elves don’t exist! Your not from the tavern and you must be an enchantment.”

  “We're as real as you are,” said one of them with a bow. “And enchantment would be beyond you, I'm afraid. I'm Danneth and these are my brothers, Strom and Jarund, and we most certainly mean you no harm. In fact, we're here at your service.”

  “Yea?” said Lukus. “By waylaying us and rolling me in the briars?”

  “Yes, that was awkward,” said Danneth. “You have lots of energy.”

  “Just how many of you are there? Nine? Twelve?” said Rose.

  “We are three only,” said Danneth.

  “Now you're playing us for fools,” she said.

  “Not at all,” said Jerund. “We're merely quicker'n you.”

  “Rose, they don’t have to let us find out. It’s pointless,” said Lukus. “Though if you had any honor, you'd tell us just who and what you are.”

  “But Rose saw that we're Elves,” said Danneth.

  “I'm convinced that you're Elves, all right,” said Rose. but why would you waylay us?”

  “You tried to flee right when we had to stop you for your safety,” said Danneth.

  “How's that?” said Rose.

  “Oh fiddlesticks,” said Lukus.

  “We were about to show ourselves when you heard us,” said Danneth. “You'd have been in trouble right away. This road across the Jut of Niarg is dangerous at night. It's not even safe in broad daylight. Folks usually get jumped by robbers miles closer to Sweetpea. And after dark, trolls and werebeasts are certain to get you.”

  “Elves are one thing,” said Rose. “But trolls and werebeasts? Are you playing us for fools? And if you aren't, why should you help complete strangers who might be dangerous?”

  “Ahh, but Elves are much better at reading the human heart than Humans [see human in the glossary] themselves,” said Danneth with a grin. “It behooves us, Princess Rose and Prince Lukus, to see you safely by the shortest route to t
he Enchanted Land.”

  “You couldn't know any of this!” cried Rose. “You must read minds.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but you’ll want to come with us for your safety and to give us the time to answer your questions.”

  “Well,” she said. “Could you take us by shortcut to the Chokewood Forest?”

  “No way!” said Danneth. “Elves never go there. You'd be wise to follow our example.”

  “You must have your reasons, but I'm on a quest which forces us to go there. Lukus and I have no choice.”

  “So it is indeed time,” said Danneth gravely.

  “Just what are you talking about?” said Rose.

  “You'll know in time, Rose,” he said, gathering up Mystique’s reins and offering her his arm. As they started into the woods, the black canopy of leaves blocked out the feeble moonlight, plunging them into complete blackness.

  Chapter 29

  Just as Rose was wondering if they were going to go stumbling about in the dark for an eternity, they stepped into an expansive glade with the most astounding village she and Lukus had ever seen. Each home and building had great windows of faceted lead crystal, so that even without moonlight, the light from within spilt out in a rainbow profusion of colored splashes and iridescent hues, lighting even the darkest places with scintillating sparkles and flashes.

  “It's breathtaking,” she said. “I'd never guess that something like this would be found in such a wicked woodland.”

  “Well the woodland isn't exactly wicked, Your Highness,” said Danneth. “It protects us. But come. Let's show you our village.”

  “From what?. Are you hiding?”

  “Nowadays, but we weren't always,” he said. “Elves and Men once lived and worked together. Then came the dark times, when Humans came to distrust and fear magic.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Oh it's some story, Princess,” said Jarund. “And it seems that you're part of it, since you were surprised by the very sight of us. Do you realize that your own grandfather Razzmorten is the last wizard on this continent to live right out in the open in a palace tower?”