Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “That's as hateful as Ugleeuh,” said Lukus.

  Fuzz woofed out a big belly laugh, then sighed and rubbed his eyes. “She's like that. She'd drive nails into her own mother.”

  “Fuzz!” said Rose. You couldn't bore anyone if you tried. This is fascinating. Please go on.”

  “Oh where was I?” he said, scratching his head. “Oh. Yes, yes. With Gastron dead then, Gastro needed a teacher and mentor to continue his magical training where Gastron had left off, and he chose Razzmorten, since he was the most powerful wizard remaining in the land.”

  “But what about Razzorbauch?” said Rose. “I mean, if he had Gastron's Staff, wasn't he more powerful than Grandfather?”

  “That's what one would think, but that assumes that Razzorbauch did indeed murder Gastron, and you remember that even to this very day, there's been no proof found that Razzorbauch murdered Gastron. Of course Gastro did think this, and he obviously would not apprentice himself to someone who killed his father. As a matter of fact, Gastro hoped that he would learn enough under Razzmorten to be able to force the truth from Razorbauch's traitorous lips and recover his father's Staff. And of course, before the Staff came into the picture, Razzmorten had always been the more powerful wizard, nearly as powerful as Gastron himself. However, it was quite conspicuous when Razzorbauch suddenly soared in power right after Gastron's untimely death. Right strong support for Gastro's claim, don't you think?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Lukus with a nod, “but couldn't Razzorbauch's increased abilities just be from having been taught by such a great master?”

  “That's exactly what Razzorbauch himself had to say,” said Fuzz. “And without any evidence to the contrary, what could anyone say? Of course Gastro had plenty to say on the matter, since he wasn't convinced at all. And neither was Razzmorten, by the way.”

  “If Grandfather Razzmorten believes that Razzorbauch was guilty, then I believe it, too,” said Lukus. “After all, who'd be more likely to know than his identical twin? Besides, if it was known that Razzorbauch had Gastron's Staff of power, didn't that incriminate him?”

  “Well sure. It would have,” said Fuzz. “I reckon I didn't make that clear enough. There was no proof that he actually had the Staff. “One wizard's staff pretty much resembles any other, so no one could say.”

  “But surely Gastro could have identified it,” said Lukus.

  “Apparently not. Gastro was only six at the time of the murder. He wasn't an eyewitness to the crime, either. And even though young Gastro had seen his father's Staff many times, one would think that he wouldn't have been allowed to play with, or even handle such a powerful device.”

  “So no matter how well founded his convictions were, the evidence was just too circumstantial to be credible in a court of law.”

  “You got it, Lukus,” said Fuzz. “That's been Gastro’s dilemma.”

  “Knowing who his father’s murderer was and being dismissed and ignored because he was a kid must really have eaten at him,” said Lukus. “I sure know how that is.”

  “That's the story so far,” said Fuzz, as they all fell silent.

  “So then,” said Lukus suddenly, “Gastro grew up with the hope of someday being able to avenge his father’s death and so became Grandfather’s apprentice. However, that's when he met Ugleeuh and became strangely smitten by her revolting charms, losing sight of his plans for vengeance.”

  “You've got it,” said Fuzz. “You're right good at induction, I see.”

  “But what happened then?” said Rose. “Did Gastro ever get Razzorbauch? What happened between him and Ugleeuh? Is he the father of Spitemorta of Goll? Where is he now...?”

  “Whoa Rose!” said Fuzz with a chuckle. “You ask too many questions at once. Let's see. Firstly, Gastro never managed to avenge anything. Razzorbauch was killed in battle before anything like that was possible. Secondly, Gastro is at this very moment under a spell, condemned to a life as a sea serpent, patrolling the coastline from the northernmost tip of Pirate Island to the south border of the Black Desert to keep anyone from invading the Peppermint Forest from the sea.”

  “Who did that to him?” said Rose, sharing wide-eyed looks with Lukus.

  “Ugleeuh did it, Rose,” said Fuzz. “But you're getting ahead of the story. You see, as Lukus so cleverly perceived, Gastro fell head over heels in love with Ugleeuh. The poor fellow tried every way he could think of to win her affection, but to no avail. She was smarting over an unrequited love of her own for another fellow, and she wouldn't give Gastro a second look for all his efforts. Whenever she was around, he'd fall all over himself to do for her slightest whim, waiting on her like some thrall, giving her gifts and following her around like a fool. As you might expect, she shamelessly accepted his gifts and attention, but gave him nothing in return. Well as they say, love is blind and...”

  “Especially in this case,” said Lukus.

  “Indeed,” chuckled Fuzz. “And the harder he tried, the blinder he got. So, finally he got so desperate that he went off on a grand search for a gift he fancied so unique and wondrous that she'd surely see that he was worthy of her affections. He left Niarg, in search of some kind of treasure grand enough for her, and he ended up coming here.”

  “Whoa!” said Lukus. “Here? He came to the Peppermint Forest?”

  “Well yes, but this place wasn't peppermint then. Ugleeuh changed everything to peppermint, so to speak. This was all Chokewoods. Razzorbauch’s work according to Gastro, if you remember. Gastro found the Fudge Volcano here when he came. Razzorbauch was supposed to have created it to feed his captive dragons. But the big thing Gastro found here was the great wizard’s staff.”

  Rose and Lukus both gasped.

  Fuzz held up a hushing finger. “Ah, but once again there could be no definite proof that this staff was indeed Gastron’s Great Staff, but Gastro felt in his very bones that it was, and he knew that this would make a gift good enough to get Ugleeuh’s attention.”

  “What an idiot,” said Rose. “You mean to say that he just gave all that power to Ugleeuh so she would notice him? I'll declare. I certainly don’t feel sorry for him anymore. Idiot of idiots. And where was Razzorbauch at, anyway? Had he been killed already?”

  “Once again, Rose,” said Fuzz, “You are getting ahead of me. Gastro wasn't quite so stupid as to just hand over the staff to Ugleeuh. He did however make much of the fact that he had it and demonstrated its power to her. You can imagine how she coveted it. It got her attention enough to give him her hand in marriage. Of course, she only married him to get her evil claws on it. As for Razzorbauch, he hadn’t been killed yet. However, he had turned himself into a dragon and was trapped that way for lack of the staff to turn himself back. Meanwhile, Ugleeuh had no idea that this staff was the very one her dear uncle Razzorbauch had used to perform all his great magical accomplishments. But before we go off in that direction, let me tell you more about Gastro and Ugleeuh.

  “Ugleeuh insisted that she and Gastro keep their marriage a secret from Razzmorten and everyone else until he completed his apprenticeship, deceitfully claiming that Razzmorten had never wanted her to marry, but if she did so against his wishes, the betrothed would at the very least have to be someone of equal stature to him. Of course, all this was just to give Ugleeuh time to carry out her sinister plans and rid herself of Gastro at the same time before having to acknowledge any ties to him. As you can imagine, Ugleeuh got right to work once she and Gastro were wed. Right after they had tied the knot, Ugleeuh arose in the dark of night and took Gastro’s staff. She woke him and pronounced the curse upon him that sent him to these shores to live out his days as a sea monster protecting Razzorbauch's secret realm.”

  Rose and Lukus stared in wide-eyed shock.

  “Now Rose,” said Fuzz, “I have a question for you. You see, neither Gastro (so far as I know) nor I have any knowledge whatsoever about Ugleeuh having a daughter. Are you quite certain of this?”

  “Absolutely. Lukus and I both heard it from he
r. In fact, for a horrible period of time, we all believed I was that very daughter. It’s very complicated,” she said, noticing Fuzz's befuddled look, “but at any rate, we now know for certain that I'm only her niece. In the process of straightening out the confusion, we found out beyond all doubt who her daughter is.” Rose and Lukus exchanged a look of mutual agreement, then told Fuzz everything they had learnt about Spitemorta being Ugleeuh’s daughter.

  “That certainly makes sense,” he said with a serious nod. “It fills in a lot of missing pieces, as a matter of fact. You see, there was a period of time when Ugleeuh just up and vanished from Niarg, and no one had the vaguest idea where she'd gone. Then, when she returned, there was so much uproar in Niarg, particularly with her spreading samples of that damnable sukere all over the kingdom and with the dragon making burning forays across the countryside, that her disappearance from the kingdom seemed trivial.”

  “Fuzz,” said Rose, giving him a squint, “you certainly know a lot about Gastro, Ugleeuh and Niarg. Why is that?”

  Fuzz was quiet for so long that she was not certain if he had heard her, or if she had hurt his feelings in some way, but at last he met her eyes and cleared his throat.

  “Yes, I do know a good deal about those things,” he said, as he slowly rubbed the scar on his face. “You see I was, or am, perhaps Gastro’s best friend. I was there when all of this happened. Now I see by the looks of both of you, that you have dozens of questions, and before you start in with all of that, let me say that it is getting quite late and we need to get up very early to start on our journey in the morning. Perhaps you could grant an old bear a bit of a reprieve until tomorrow? We can then take up this tale once more as we travel, if it pleases the two of you to do so. And I will indeed answer anything you ask.”

  “We'd love it,” said Lukus. “Just one teensy short little question and then we will fly straight to bed.”

  Fuzz nodded with a sigh.

  “You aren’t really a bear, are you?”

  “No I’m not, Lukus. Gastro and I grew up together in Niarg and we've been close friends for as long as I can remember. When he vanished, I surmised that Ugleeuh'd had something to do with it and set out to discover just what. Eventually I came here in search of answers and found him, a sea monster. By then however, Ugleeuh had been banished here too, and she had no intention of letting me leave to tell the tale.” He drew a deep breath as a bristly shudder swept through him. “It amused her mightily to turn me into...this. And so, I remain a bear to this day, and probably for all the rest of my days, as well. Now please, no more questions until we are underway tomorrow.”

  Rose and Lukus each quietly hugged poor old Fuzz and went straightaway to bed as their heads reeled with a veritable avalanche of questions.

  Chapter 43

  “Today we shall reach Niarg,” said Hubba Hubba as his sparrows hauled him along above the landscape of rolling meadows and hedgerows. “It's about time, too. Maybe I can at least get something decent to eat there. In a place that big, there must be a sweet shop or something. Well, one thing's for sure, Ugleeuh had better be real nice to me when I get back after all I've been through.

  “But I can't wait 'til we reach Niarg,” he groaned at his rumbling stomach. “I have to find something to eat, now.” He studied the fields, orchards and juts of woods below, but couldn't see anything promising. “Fly lower,” he said. At once they dropped to just above the treetops. “Why, this is an apple orchard. And what's this growing in that field? Rose's detested sweet peas? Yes, yes, sweet. Another possibility. And they seem to be growing all over the countryside. So that awful village which we flew through with no sweets anywhere must have been Sweet Pea. So I'm right. We could reach Niarg for supper. Apples first, though. Hey sparrows! That apple tree right there! Put me down.

  “What a bland community. These apples don't look any more candied than cobblestones.” The sparrows gently draped his bulk across a big limb. “Hey! These are caramel apple insides, that's what,” he said, thinking better of it as the fragrant red apples set him to drooling. “These could be inside any caramel apple Ugleeuh ever made. They'll set my beak on edge, but they'll beat that unsweet sweet corn I puked up.” He hefted himself sideways down the branch to the biggest apple and pecked into it, finding it delicately flavored and actually sweet by his reckoning. He lunged back at it, champing voraciously. “Ah! Here's another,” he said, deliriously. “Oh, I feel so much better.” He had pieces of apple sticking all along his beak. “Oh! One more.”

  Something went: “Twang!” He jerked back from his apple to see. The instant he did, something whizzed through his feathers, ripping out a number of them by the quills. “What was that?” he squawked, choking on his apple. He coughed and coughed, ruffling his neck feathers with a shake and wiping his beak on the branch as his eyes watered and blurred his vision. Another shot smacked him on the head and he lost his footing on the limb and fell over the side, jerking to a halt at the end of the lines held fast by Chirp, Tweet and Squeak, where he flapped helplessly, dangling in a daze as they strained to pull him back onto the limb. By now there were angry shouts from a blithering human, jumping up and down by the fence. As they watched in bewilderment, he drew a bow. When it twanged, they all knew what it was and sprang terrified into the air. “Out of here!” cawed Hubba Hubba. “Out! Out! Out!”

  They towed him high into the sky and a long way away from the apple orchard. “Out! Out! Out!” he cawed, until at last he breathed a grateful sigh of relief. As he did, he felt a lancing pain shooting up his wing. “I'm wounded!” he screeched in panic at the sight of blood all over his feathers.

  Chirp, Tweet and Squeak all looked at him and nodded.

  “Well?” he squawked. “How bad is it? Am I dead already? I feel like puking! I feel faint! Maybe we should land and rest. Do I need a healer?”

  The sparrows paused flapping long enough to trade eyeball rolling glances, shrug and shake their heads.

  “What does that mean?” he shrieked. “It's bad isn't it? And you can't tell me. Oh, why me? I haven't been such a bad bird. All right, all right! So I've been a little rough on you guys, from time to time, but then you're slaves for cryin' out loud. Come on, admit it! For simple drudges you've had pretty good lives, haven't you? And I was even nice to Rose and Lukus, even though they were the epitome of evil when Ugleeuh first brought them home.”

  The sparrows gaped at him in astonishment.

  “What?” said Hubba Hubba. “Oh sure thing. Righty-o! You guys can look at me like that because it wasn't you who was the brunt of all their jokes. You weren't humiliated day after day, so...”

  “Hey!” tweeted Squeak, jerking frantically on his line. “Master Hubba Hubba! You have to pump your wings, if we're not to crash! Look how fast we're sinking!”

  “You weren't humiliated, day...”

  “Master Hubba Hubba! Please!” squeaked Chirp.

  “All right! All right!” he croaked, as he began flapping. “You weren't humiliated day after day, so don't you dare act as if I have no cause to say what I just did. Impudent peons.”

  It took a good while, but in time they managed to regain a fair altitude, well above the treetops. Hubba Hubba flapped away for a good long spell, studying the landscape to avoid looking at the sparrows as it changed from arbors, orchards and cultivated fields to rolling meads and pasture land and ever larger juts and patches of timber. He didn't give much consideration to what he saw, for all he could think about was the very nerve of his thralls.

  “Very well. I'll grant you that after a time things changed,” he croaked, after his longest fuming silence of the entire journey. “But that did not erase the torture they put me through. You weren't humiliated day after day, and if you had been, instead of me, even you three would think I was right tolerant. With all Lukus did to me, I only bit him a few times. And that was right when Ugleeuh should 'ave turned him into a bug and squashed him, too. Pretty heroic of me, if I do say so myself. Besides, who else but me would be a
true and loyal friend to someone like old wart faced Ugleeuh? And then she turns on me and threatens to cook me. That's the thanks I get. This is all her fault. I deserve better. She chooses me to send off to my oblivion... What kind of look is that? Well, it could be, don't you know. I might be dying, here.” He began faltering with his flapping.

  “Hey!” he cried as Chirp suddenly yanked on his towline.

  “What kind of sensitivity is that? If I'm flying to eternity, what gall do you have to go jerking me around?”

  Chirp rolled his eyes and jabbed with his beak at the ground below.

  “The castle! I told you!” he cawed, lunging for it in a winging sprint. “For all the good it does me now, coming all this way to die.” He went limp at once, ceasing his flapping altogether.

  “Master!” squeaked Chirp, “We'll crash if you don't help!”

  “We've still got some speed,” chirped Tweet. “Let's aim for the top of that tallest tower! Isn't that what Rose and Lukus...?”

  “Yes, it was,” tweeted Squeak, amidst his blur of frantic wings, as the three of them heaved forth, hauling Hubba Hubba with everything they had, trying to stretch their plummeting arc to reach the tower.

  “We're going to miss it!” squeaked Chirp.

  “The first window below!” chirped Tweet. “Let's try for that!”

  “We're going to miss that one, too!” tweeted Squeak. “Come on, Master! Please!”

  “So what kind of respect for the doomed is that?” squawked Hubba Hubba, as he half-heartedly resumed his winging.

  “There's the window, Master,” squeaked Chirp. “Please! Just a bit harder, or we'll miss it, too.”

  “All right, all right!” he said, as he flapped in earnest.

  Through the window flew all three sparrows. Hubba Hubba slammed against the wall below the opening, hooking his beak over the sill to hang on as he flapped for dear life. Chirp, Tweet and Squeak bobbed and fluttered madly at the ends of their lines, trying to pull him in. “Help!” he cawed, as his beak sawed back and forth across the sill. Suddenly he was lifted up and set in the open window by a bearded old man.