Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  Ocker was aloft and hovering out of reach at once. “Not without proper pay. And I'd say hit's worth right smart, considering how desperate you act.”

  Talorg grabbed up a half eaten sandwich from under its flies and tossed it onto the balustrade to come apart at Ocker's feet. “Well here then,” he said. “Now tell me.”

  “You mother swyving toute face!” awked Ocker, springing into flight for the gargoyle.

  “Hey!” cried Talorg. “Where's Edward?”

  “Find him yourself, runt!” he awked as he settled onto the gargoyle. “I'll not be insulted by hog feed. I'm taken seriously.”

  “Yea? By whom?”

  “Meri Greenwood... King Neron... the witch Demonica...”

  “You've seen her?”

  “Not since I lived here,” he said as he dove off the gargoyle and swept down to land on the back of Talorg's chair. “And if you want to know where Edward is, you'll give me something good enough to be worth my time.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that gold chain about your neck...”

  “No!” cried Talorg. “This pendant of Madadh-Allaidh Neartmhor was the very last thing given to me by my children who were slain by the muckle witch Spitemorta...”

  “Well I'll declare,” said Ocker as he began an earnest sorting through the flight feathers of one wing. “That's where I'm going.”

  “What?”

  “Yea,” he said with a thorough dander flinging shake. “When you all fool around and insult me again, I expect Spitemorta will be happy to pay 'way better than that fiddly chain for Edward's whereabouts. Didn't Girom here say she was all anxious to quarter him and have a big time?”

  “You wouldn't do that...”

  “Bye.” And with that he was in the air, climbing aloft at once.

  “Hey!” cried Talorg and Girom, jumping and waving their arms. “Hey!”

  The moment Talorg began waving the chain about, Ocker stopped flapping and came back down in sweeping circles over the balcony to land well wide of the fly covered sandwich. “Hit might be a deal if you hand over the chain, swyver,” he said, trotting to a halt. “But we've not yet tried to come to terms over my keep.”

  Chapter 192

  “Yes, yes Your Omnipotence,” said the ruddy seamstress to one side of the pins in her mouth. “I very nearly have this hem. It won't be but another moment. But if I just stop short, we shall have this all to do over tomorrow...”

  “Does this help?” said Spitemorta sweetly as she dealt out a vicious slap with a pop that set the old woman onto the floor with a bounce.

  “Aah! Ahh!” gasped the woman, nodding her wild-eyes and beet-red handprint as she scrambled to her knees amidst her rolling pincushions and spools.

  “Now get out!” shouted Spitemorta as she stepped down from her stool and out of her dress.

  General Coel was just being shown in when the seamstress dashed by with a whimper. He waved aside the butler and stepped in to find Spitemorta's busily dressing silhouette on the lacquered silk folding screen.

  “Have 'ee a seat General,” said Spitemorta, snatching her shift off the top of the screen and slipping it over her head. “I'll be right there.”

  “I'm in no hurry at all...” he said, catching himself at the sight of her middle just before it was hidden by her falling shift. “My word!”

  Spitemorta followed the shift by wriggling into her kirtle. “And what does your word have to do with anything, General?” she said as she stepped from behind the screen, straightening and lacing. “And why are you still standing? Sit.”

  Coel ran his tongue to the back of his cheek as he backed up to the nearby chair.

  “You're carrying a child,” he said as he sat. “And you've not said a word about it.”

  “And you're an ass. Did you know that?”

  “With eyes,” he said with an agreeable nod. “Your figure makes a perfect shadow on that that lacquered screen with all the light from over yonder. Maybe you can still hide it, but your belly sticks out and no mistake.”

  “Yea? Well you didn't do it, so why should I tell you?”

  “Really! And suddenly you can't look me in the eye?”

  “I was married to Artamus, since you seem not to remember. Now I summoned you for a reason...”

  “Right,” he said, laughing out. “The 'toad,' you used to call him. You found him so good looking that you put off marrying him for long enough that Vortigern nearly went back on his agreement, in spite of how much you wanted to rule the world. And I believe I remember your joking about how you managed to keep him stumbling drunk on the rare occasions when you had no choice but to visit him after your marriage. Shall I go on?”

  “No!” she snapped. “It could get you killed.”

  Coel closed one eye and crossed his arms.

  Spitemorta tapped at a tooth. “I don't care what you think, General Gnoff,” she said. “But you surely see that it's a matter of life and death for my subjects to believe what I want, don't you?”

  “Certainly. No omnipotent empress of the world would ever get rogered and swyved by her mere general...”

  “Good for you!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Now we can discuss what you're here for.”

  “So I have no claim upon the child at all?”

  “No claim and no responsibility, General,” she said, tugging at her laces and retying her bodice before taking a chair across from him. “But she'll have a far better life as royalty than she would with her lineage known. If you're concerned about your daughter, I suggest you remember that.”

  “A daughter, aye? And you're not likely to tell her, are you?”

  “Why? And complicate her life?”

  “You mean your life.”

  “Well mine too, certainly...”

  “Then it might be the least complicated of all for you if I went back to Gwael and you got another general...”

  “You really do have a stupid side, General,” she said as the help set out tea and cinnamon buns on the low table between them. “I've long suspected. You've completely forgotten that there's no place in the entire world you could go outside of my jurisdiction.

  If you leave here, you're still my general, no matter where you go. You would merely have a lowlier post. Permission denied, since you have no better sense. You're better off here.”

  “Why thank you,” he said as he watched her pour her own tea and tear open a bun without offering him any.

  “Of course I'm not so sure how much better off I am,” she said through her mouthful. “You seem to demand so much time. I mean, I've yet to even manage to tell you why I sent for you.”

  “Here I sit, all ears, politely watching you eat.”

  “Nasteeuh is alive,” she said, licking her fingertips, “so I want you to resume your search.”

  “So how do you know this?”

  “That's not your concern...”

  “And I'm searching for her? My word. And where would I begin my search?”

  “I really don't know. But I do know that she's alive and has been quite changed.”

  “She would be above twenty year older, at least...”

  “And has green hair and wings,” she said, carefully stringing honey over another buttered bun.

  “You're able to know something like this, yet you have no idea at all where she is? Why are you taking any of it seriously?”

  “My source is reliable.”

  “Then I need to begin my search by speaking with him.”

  “No!” she said, with a glassy clack of her cup onto its saucer. “Then you need to begin your search by doing as you're told. My source is beyond question. So get started.”

  Coel gave a sigh, clapped his hands to his knees and rose to leave. In the doorway he paused. “So, since you're right determined to not complicate your daughter's life...”

  Spitemorta froze with her buttered knife over the buns and looked up.

  “Since you're not going to complicate her life, I trust you'd neve
r use another name like Nasteeuh,” he said as he quietly pulled the door closed behind him.

  With a grating squeal, she hurled her bowl of honey, shattering it across the door.

  “Ass!” she shouted.

  “This is your declaration?” said Demonica, appearing in Coel's chair. “I wasn't quite braced for your sudden passionate honesty, dear.”

  “Beat it Grandmother. Go start your new life as Pitmaster's wench.”

  “Oh my. Mood swings. Should we have had you miscarry? Maybe your childbearing years should be over...”

  “And your life was over some time ago, witch, so leave me in peace.”

  “Sounds relaxing,” she said, looking this way and that at the folds of her kirtle where they crossed her knee. “But since you keep me here saddled with the responsibility of endlessly minding your affairs, I can't help but notice that you've yet to make any effort whatsoever to find out what lies beyond the Great Barrier Mountains...”

  “Because nothing's out there, Grandmother.”

  “That you know of. I mean, I should think that if I were claiming outright omnipotence, I'd at least want to know what was in such a vast land as that beyond the Great Barrier...”

  “I already do. There's nothing beyond those stupid mountains. And the last thing in the world I need is another one of your pointless reminders...”

  “Then you certainly don't need me reminding you about your morning skinweler delivery at ten bell.”

  “Shit!” said Spitemorta, springing to her feet and tramping right out through the streaks of honey and shards of china. The moment she had wiped her feet, she ran for the throne room to grab up her skinweler and commence her delivery before she had even gotten seated. She made her address short though, for half way through it she could see that something was not right. She set down her skinweler as it went out and chewed a knuckle for a moment before sending for Coel.

  Soon he was tramping and jingling up the carpet, removing his helm as he came.

  “I had just gathered the reins and found my stirrup,” he said, planting his heels together with no pretense of a bow.

  Spitemorta gave a dubious squint as she lifted her chin.

  “You sent me after Nasteuh.”

  “Yes. Well there were too many dark skinweleriou when I gave my delivery, just now.”

  “Maybe there's some kind of excitement going on out in the empire.”

  “What? There's not one feast that I know of. No fairs. This isn't a holiday. But there've been more and more dark skinweleriou, just lately.”

  “So? I don't know of a soul with a skinweler who's not passionately proud of it.

  Everyone brags about what he's seen in his own.”

  “Yea?” she said as she rubbed her sticky bare foot back and forth on the rug.

  “Well there's a certain taverner I wonder about by the name of Beli, at Tafarn Coch in Gold Lake, 'way, 'way west of here in the Pitmaster's Kettles. I have no use for him at all.

  His whole tavern has been in the habit of watching my deliveries in his skinweler every single day, but not today for certain, and maybe not for a few days.”

  “So what am I to do?”

  “Just make sure that you look in on him while you're out hunting for Nasteeuh.”

  “Even if I'm not going that way?”

  “Surprise him.”

  “Is that all?” he said, shifting his helm from his arm to this hands.

  “Wait,” she said. “Actually it's not. I need you to rid me of a nuisance. I need to know what's out in the Wilderlands besides the Red and Black deserts. And isn't there another chain of mountains, the Sunsets or something?”

  “Seems so,” he said with a shrug.

  “Find someone to lead one or two score men, and a captain and crew to sail the Dread Sea and up the west coast with them. And from there I want at least two or three good expeditions inland across that western chain of mountains. And find a cartographer.

  We need one of those. I don't think anyone has ever made a map of the west coast.”

  “Now? Before I set out for Nasteuh or Beli?”

  Spitemorta clicked her fingernails on the arm of her throne. “No,” she said, “but it needs to be the first thing you do when you get back.”

  ***

  Teeuh rose from where she had been kneeling and patted Longbark's trunk. “Now that be straunge,” she thought as she closed and opened her wings. “Hit be as if she by som thyng doun the mounteyn ben dystracted the verray moment I to stonden up.” There was nothing more to decide. She had to go see, particularly when she loved any excuse to peer over the rim of the crater at the gorgeous countryside. She flew to the rim at once and landed in the shade of a great towering rock to gasp and duck out of the sight of strangers leading an odd looking unicorn up the mountainside to the other crater.

  “Ffairyes!” she said as she crept 'round for another look. “And hiera heer al geen to seed ybe. I moste Mammas and Rodon to telle.” And with that, she flew with a frantic zig-zag, down from the rim and past Longbark in the orchard to vanish into the lava tube and fly its entire length to the kitchen, where she landed, clinging to the board, pumping her wings and panting.

  “My verray worde!” said Rodon as he set up a toppled vase of lilacs. “That as egre to eten ybe as Ich bileve Ich have evere to seen.”

  “I love straubery panne kakes,” she said, as she looked about at the board, “but weo fyve Ffairyes doon haven ycomen up hyll, i-leding a unycorn with a bobbed horn.

  And ech oon of hem hath hadde hise hed ga to seed.”

  “Whi, Ich nevere the lyche have hered, hony dewe-drope,” said Celeste.

  “Ye,” she said, taking a big stack of the acorn meal pancakes. “Everych sengle oon of hem hath hadde hise heer ga fro bryhte grene to the colour of newe cutte whete stree. Do weo ripen out in the sonne?”

  “Thise folkes aynt Ffairyes, derre,” said Alvita as she passed the butter.

  “But Mamma Alvita, they hadden erys juste lyche un-to min.

  “And Ich thynke hit tyme thou loked in-to thy bal ybe, Celeste,” said Nacea, licking her fingers as she passed the honey pitcher.

  With a nod, Celeste rose and got her scrying ball from a little drawer in the sideboard. As she closed the drawer, she paused, squeezing shut her eyes.

  “And thou be thynkinge aboute Meri, aynt thee soote herte?” said Nacea.

  Celeste gave a rigid little nod and a sniffle and sat down at once to begin scrying.

  Teeuh was on her feet at once, giving Celeste a squeeze and staring over her shoulder. “Seest?” she cried at the sight of the climbers. “They didde so ga to seed.”

  Celeste barked out a twinkly-eyed laugh. “Thou hadst no way of knowinge, soote herte,” she said giving her pat between the wings. “They aren Elven. And that beest with the bobbed horn which they lede be a mulycorn, which bethe the menest lyve-stokke thou wolt ever wante kykyng thee.”

  “But what didde happe to hiera heer?”

  “That be the kynde of heer Elven doon haven,” said Celeste. “And som of hem evene silver heer and som ayther red or blak heer doon haven.”

  “Thou knowest eny of hem?” said Alvita.

  “No. Ich...” said Celeste. “O ye Ich ydo. That Ri Neron ybe... And Sulacha, as hit thynketh me, but Ich can the ootheres nought.”

  “Good,” said Teeuh. “Ich wante to meete hem.”

  “Looketh lyche thou art goyng to,” said Celeste. “But hit doth na lok lyche they konnen gete the mulycorn to comen doun in-to the krater. Ga fechyn hem in, Rodon.”

  And with that, Rodon dropped onto all fours and dashed out.

  Alvita had nearly finished a towering stack of pancakes by the time Rodon led the Elves around the corner to stop short, wide eyed and speechless at the sight of Teeuh, who was every bit as fascinated with them.

  “This has to be Spitemorta's child,” thought Neron as he bowed and shook hands, “but how could Razzmorten and Minuet call such a serene and gorgeous creature a 'damned baby
?'“

  Celeste and Rodon had everyone introduced and seated before anyone had found the wits for enough conversation to break away from their self conscious gaping at Teeuh. Celeste, Alvita, Nacia and Rodon began at once, telling the tale of Nasteuh's end and Teeuh's beginning as well as the story about Rodon's new tail and leg. And in their turn, the Elves told them about what had come to pass across the land since the day Minuet and Razzmorten had left Mount Bedd and crossed into the Wilderlands.

  “And here we sit,” said Neron, “all brought up to date. So in the morning I shall travel to the New Dragon Caves, planning to return in a few days with enough dragons to fly my company back with me. Otherwise we will be walking for weeks upon weeks.”

  “I do nat understonde,” said Teeuh, turning to Rodon. “If hiera mulycorn can carien hym ther and bakke so fast, why nat usen the wayn they leeft atte the bothem of the hyll and takyn al of hem atte oones?”

  “My apologies my dear,” said Neron with a gracious nod. “That would be confusing indeed without knowing that I am a wizard by blood as well as king of the Elves. I am heir to the taisteal gift and can travel great distances in the blink of an eye.

  Since none of my companions have taisteal, I shall need to fly back for them by dragon.”

  Teeuh thought for a moment as a look of wonder swept over her. “Ich have magyk to, Kyng Neron. Koude I by taisteal to travayle?”

  “My word!” said Neron, turning to Celeste. “Could she?”

  “Ich do ne can,” she said, giving Teeuh's hand a squeeze. “Ffairyes travayl under grounde fro Ffairye rying to Ffairye ryng by aredig, which beth oure yifte by blode. Weo han aredig in stede of taisteal. But everych day Teeuh hath us supprised a-newe. Weo juste myghte to fynden that she can done bothe.”

  “Mammas,” said Teeuh. “Ich wante for to tryen. Mooder Longbarke yknoweth.

  May Ich hir to axen?”

  “Of cours,” said Celeste, looking puzzled.

  “I didde ne axe the righte question, Mamma. If Mooder Longbarke seyth I taisteal do haven and Kyng Neron agre, may I travayl with hym to the Newe Dragoun Kaaves? Ich wol righte bakke hoom with hym to comen.”

  Suddenly the kitchen was so quiet that water could be heard gurgling in the lava tube outside.