by Kevin Hearne
“I’m sure we’re already saving days and days by traveling in this contraption,” he countered. “It’s much faster than horses and such.”
Grinda raised an impeccably shaped eyebrow, conceding the point. They were cruising across the land in the spanking-new Royal Pellican Centipod and Traveling Hootenanny. They were just north of Riverhead, traveling through Corraden to Meadow Verge, and thence to the Toot Towers on the southern border of the Skyr. It was a most comfortable ride compared to a carriage: The centipod was a gnomeric invention and a gift to the crown upon Gustave’s coronation. It was larger than many ships that sailed on the ocean, and it came with a galley and sleeping quarters and cargo hold and room enough for a sizable bodyguard in addition to assorted courtiers, minstrels, and professional yodelers. Musicians played festive tunes while said yodelers danced in polished boots of buttery leather, and vegetarian finger food awaited, a finger’s breadth away from his hand. He even had a gnomeric oatmeal chef in the galley, who was ready to sprinkle cinnamon, apple chunks, and shaved almond slivers on his whole oats whenever he wished. But it was difficult for him to enjoy all that when Floopi Nooperkins was in mourning about exploded kin, and Lord Ergot said everything was fine. He crunched the heck out of his carrot stick and sent more of it flying by trying to speak around it, dimly aware that this was considered rude by most humans but not truly worried about that when he had an argument to win with Grinda.
“If we summon Lord Ergot to us at the Toot Towers—or anywhere else—he can continue to hide whatever he’s really doing by simply lying about it. We need to see what he’s up to in person.”
Grinda tapped her chin. “What we need are spies.”
“That too. But since we don’t have those yet, we need to go there and do what we can for those gnomes.”
“You know who has spies already? Lord Ergot. He’ll know we’re coming.”
“How?”
“I am willing to bet he has spies on this very centipod. If we change course, he’ll hear about it before we get there.”
Gustave narrowed his eyes at his dancing yodelers. “You mean one of them?”
“Possibly. Or the halfling snack chef. Or one of your guards. Any of your employees could be getting paid for updates on your movements.”
The king lowered his voice. “Don’t you have some magic foo-foo that can do something about that?”
“My talents generally lie in the physical world. I can construct attractive sand golems to seduce people, and perhaps they would let slip something in an unguarded moment, but that would be time-consuming and have a high risk of failure.”
“Ugh. I don’t know why you like sand. It gets everywhere.”
His chamberlain ignored this and said, “We do know someone who could root out spies with a song, and visiting her would be on our way and in no way unusual.”
Gustave snapped his fingers, a practice he had come to enjoy since possessing them. His erstwhile goat trotters could never do that. “Argabella!” The bard had helped him gain his throne and she had only grown more powerful since his coronation, thanks to correspondence courses Gustave had generously gifted her after receiving ads in the mail.
“Draw Ye Thisse Foine Thatch Tortoise, and You May Be an Artiste!” the ads said, and Gustave supposed that was somehow bardically useful.
“That’s right. Let us say we are on our way to visit Tennebruss,” Grinda said. “We’ll stop to visit Argabella and Fia instead at Malefic Reach—what are they calling it now?”
“The Songful Tower of Roses,” Gustave supplied. He had granted them title to that estate after its former occupant, the Dark Lord Toby, had been killed by, ironically enough, a healer.
“A fitting sobriquet. We’ll stop there, have Argabella remove our spies, then head for Bruding without Lord Ergot ever suspecting our arrival.”
“I like this plan, Chamberlain. Make it so.”
Grinda rose and moved to the front of the vehicle, where the automaatti pilot awaited orders. Soon the great centipod swung northwest toward Neatcamp.
“We’ll head west from Neatcamp to avoid the Figgish Fen,” Grinda said when she returned, “resupply in Håpipøle, and enter Borix from the south, taking the trade route north to Dower.”
And it did go precisely as she said, with only a couple of days passing in between and great distances covered in very little time by the centipod. Nearly everyone asked where they were going, however, so it was impossible to tell from that who might be a spy among the courtiers and guards. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was not supposed to kill yodelers, according to Grinda.
The eventual stop at the Songful Tower surprised most everyone on board, who thought they were on the last leg of their journey from Dower to Tennebruss. Gustave dispatched a gregarious yodeler to knock on the tower door, warning him to beware of the UNWELCOME mat, which was a trapdoor to a widely feared cellar packed with delicious preserves and voracious vermin. The mighty Fia and Argabella the bard appeared twenty minutes or so later, for it took that long to descend from the tower’s apex, but the yodeler fetched the estate’s farm boy in the meantime from the barn. His name was Morvin, and during the time that Gustave had been a goat, Morvin’s sister, Poltro, had tried to turn him—Gustave, not Morvin—into curry. Morvin knew nothing of this; he knew only that the King of Pell was outside in his fancy gnomeric centipod, and the young man quite likely felt unmannerly in his overalls and dung-covered waders. He was a dark-haired, dusky-hued lad, lean and ropy of limb, a smidge bowlegged and a lot besmeared with all manner of barnyard filth, but he might clean up really nice if given a chance. Once introduced, Gustave asked him if he looked after the entire estate himself.
“Yessir, I do. Ever’thing outside the tower, anyway. Dementria looks after ever’thing in the tower.”
“I imagine it’s a lot of work.”
“More’n I can handle, sir. Can barely keep up with chores most days, much less get any work done on bigger projects. My sister used to help around, especially when it came to kicking chickens and losing eggs, but she’s…gone now.”
“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry,” Gustave said, though he wasn’t. Poltro was a ghost these days and he liked her better in a form that was incapable of eating him. “Tell me, Morvin, is your jam cellar easy to escape?”
“Naw. Sometimes I’ve forgot ’n’ stepped on that mat in fronta the door ’n’ then I’d not geddout until the Dark Lord Toby heard the cows talkin’ ’bout not havin’ milk yanked outta their pink parts. He heckin’ hated moos, boy howdy. Couldn’t hear me hollerin’ in the cellar, but if them cows started talkin’ he’d shoot green lightnin’ outta the window ’n’ some kinda sorta-bread would always fall outta the sky, ’n’ I got wise after a while ’n’ kept some butter handy for them times because summa that sorta-bread tasted kinda good—”
“Not easy to escape. Great. Thanks, Morvin,” Gustave said.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry ’bout ramblin’ on, it’s just that I’m nervous ’n’ whatnot ’n’ I just sorter talk t’myself all day while I work an’ them heckin’ animals don’t care if I don’t make sense. No, sir, they just listen and get to cluckin’—”
“Right. Thanks again, Morvin.”
“Oh. You’re welcome, king m’lord-liege, sire, holiness, uh…whatever I’m supposed to say. Maybe you can just pretend I said it—”
“No need to pretend. You said it all.”
Despite the fact that Morvin possessed an immense natural talent for prattling and babbling, Gustave instinctively liked him and supposed he would’ve made a decent pooboy. Then again, as Gustave now understood it, even the king shouldn’t poach pooboys from the homes of his dear friends.
Fia and Argabella arrived at that point and saved him from any need to continue the conversation. They looked very happy—both to see Gustave and in general. Fia was still the tallest human he had ever met, still
the fiercest too, but she smiled often now that she had the roses and peace she’d longed for. Her chain-mail apron barely covered her front, and in the rear it was merely…a chain. Argabella the bard used to be unsure of herself and easily frightened, in part because she’d been cursed into a half-rabbit form, but now she was Brimful of confidence and swagger, she might say. She had brought her lute down with her, perhaps guessing it might be needed for singing or possibly bashing unwanted door-to-door sales-elves and that she wouldn’t want to spend an hour on the stairs doing unnecessary cardio. After a few minutes of pleasantries, Gustave took them aside and explained what he wanted, while Grinda called out all hands on deck for a general announcement.
“We are all quite lucky today,” the sand witch said once they were all assembled, “for one of the finest bards in all Pell is going to sing for us. Please listen carefully to Argabella.”
The musicians and yodelers in the Traveling Hootenanny looked excited at this news, but many of the others, who’d had to listen to those musicians and yodelers for most of the journey, looked less than enthused at the prospect of yet more music. In truth, Gustave wasn’t counting on Argabella’s song to be especially fine or delightful; he was counting on it to be effective, for when she slung her rhymes and put some will behind it, she could accomplish surprising feats of magic.
The bard strummed a few clear chords and plucked out a sweet melody for a few measures, then opened her mouth and began to sing over the lute:
“We’re going to play a game today
To see who will go and who will stay.
If you’re loyal to the king
Keep your hands still while I sing:
But if you’re working as a spy
And are not in fact the king’s ally,
Please raise your hands up to the sky
So we may now identify
Who is in fact a dirty spy—”
Two people raised their hands but also tried to make a run for it, hands still raised in the air and shouting denials. One of them was the halfling snack chef named Pierre Batterslab—Grinda had predicted as much—but the other was Hurlga, Gustave’s governess, and that both surprised and hurt him.
These two miscreants were brought before Gustave for questioning and driven to their knees by Gustave’s buff guards. Argabella changed her tune to one called “Tell the Truth, Forsooth, or Lose a Tooth.”
Gustave crossed his arms and glared at them both. “First, you’re not going to die. I don’t kill people. But there’s a pretty awful jam cellar underneath the tower, and we might have to throw you in there for a while to think about what you’ve done. It’s dark and cold and possibly full of spiders and such, but on the upside it’s pretty dry and you’ll have plenty of jam to eat and rats to talk to. So what’s the story, Batterslab? Working for the drubs?”
“Yes.” The halfling’s eyes widened in panic, and then he scowled at the bard, who continued to quietly burble about telling the truth.
“Were you going to poison me when they gave the signal?”
“No!” Batterslab panicked and spoke quickly. “I swear it! I’m just here to listen and report back to Marquant Dique. We want you alive, because you don’t have anti-halfling sentiments and are neglecting the Skyr and could possibly be open to bribery in the form of oatmeal cookies.” The halfling put a hairy hand over his mouth. “I mean…no poison!”
“I heard everything you said. Thank you for your honesty.”
“But I meant to say nothing, and if the Big Dique finds out I squealed, he’ll cream me!”
“Yes, well, Argabella’s a pretty good bard and I think we have what we need. Jam cellar for you, sir. Fia will let you out in a few days and you’ll be free to find employment elsewhere. I suggest you do not make yourself available to the drubs. If I see you again, I’ll have you manning the walls at Fort Valiant, which the giants periodically assault to pick up a quick bite to eat.”
Two guards picked up the halfling and dragged him away, howling. Gustave heard Morvin offer him some tips before he was thrown in the cellar: “If y’get angry ’n’ smash all the jam, you’ll just attract more bugs down there with you, and summa them critters like meat. Had my heckin’ nose nibbled more’n once. The neater you are, the less chewed on you’ll be. The kumquat marmalade is in the back, if you’re inta that sorta thing. An’ stay out of the invigorated ham jam, y’hear? That’s mine.”
The king’s guards tossed Pierre Batterslab onto the UNWELCOME mat, and it dropped away under his weight. He fell screaming into darkness for a half second before grunting as he hit the bottom. The trapdoor swung up and cut off his last cry of “Augh, spiders!”
Hurlga was sobbing by the time they turned their attention to her, her beefy shoulders hunched up around her boulder-sized noggin. Grinda requested that she be allowed to question the governess, and Gustave waved her to proceed as Argabella’s effective song continued to burble about in the background.
“For whom are you spying?” Grinda asked.
“Lord Ergot of Bruding,” Hurlga replied without hesitation.
“And were you in his employ when I hired you?”
“No, Miss Grinda. And he’s not paying me now either.”
Gustave bleated softly in surprise at this betrayal.
“Then why are you spying for him?”
“He has my brother!” Hurlga wailed. “He says he’ll kill him if I don’t tell him where you go and what you’re doing!”
But Grinda’s firm façade never broke, in part because the magic holding her face together wouldn’t let it. “Tell me about your brother.”
“His name is Ralphee and he’s only nineteen. He looks like me, but shorter, and with different bits in some places. He’s a mason’s apprentice.”
“What about your parents?”
“They joined some strange cabbage cult in the Misree Hills. Ralphee escaped them a year ago. Please help me save him, Miss Grinda! He’s all I’ve got left. Especially now that you’ve got to throw me in that cellar.”
Grinda huffed and tapped her foot, considering. “How were you supposed to communicate with Lord Ergot?”
“Send him a letter via the postale service in every town we visit. Little yellow envelopes.”
“So you did that in Neatcamp and Håpipøle?”
“I did. And Dower too. I told him we were heading to Tennebruss and there was nothing else to report, because we were just traveling.”
“Do you like your job?”
“Yes! It’s wonderful to see the king trying to improve Pell, especially now that he can wipe his own tushy. It feels historic. Except…”
“Except what?” Grinda prodded.
“Well, I’m a target now, and my brother is too because of me, which was not something I expected. Or something I like.”
Grinda pursed her lips and glanced at Gustave. He thought he knew what she might be thinking. “We have to do something,” he said. Grinda nodded once and turned back to Hurlga.
“Do you know precisely where your brother is being kept?”
“Not precisely, no. Lord Ergot has dungeons, I imagine. And he also has the Ping-Pong Palace and Refugee Center.”
“What the Pell is that?” Gustave asked.
“It’s a large space for warehousing bodies, sir. There’s a housing shortage in Bruding, though I hear Lord Ergot is working on solutions. The refugee center is a temporary shelter.”
Grinda narrowed her eyes. “And he might be keeping your brother prisoner there?”
“Possibly. I hope so, really, because it’s nicer than an actual dungeon. Less damp and fewer rats, although an unhealthy amount of Ping-Pong, from what I understand. I don’t want Ralphee to be suffering overmuch Ping-Pong on my account.”
“Should we manage to free your brother, would you be loyal to me again?” Gustave asked,
noting that Argabella was still playing her song. “Even if I occasionally make a very patriotic boom-boom without really meaning to?”
“Yes, of course, King Gustave.” That was good to hear, and the tightness in Gustave’s chest and across his shoulders relaxed somewhat.
“Very well. I’m going to ask you to stay here awhile with Argabella and Fia so that Lord Ergot will not be able to apply any pressure on you. We’ll go see if we can free Ralphee.”
“Oh, thank you! But…I won’t be in the jam cellar?”
“No. Please make yourself useful in whatever way you like. Help Morvin with his duties outside the tower, or help Dementria inside the tower, whichever seems the least terrible. You’ll continue to receive your full pay. When Argabella and Fia return to Songlen for their next six months of service, you can come with them and resume your duties at the palace.”
That completed Gustave’s icky work, and the finest warrior and bard the king knew invited him and his chamberlain to stay the night in one of the tower’s many luxurious round rooms.
“We’ll have a proper feast like Lord Toby used to,” Fia said, but Gustave gave them his regrets. They needed to rescue Ralphee, on top of all their other business, and he didn’t want to give Lord Ergot any time or a reason to hide the boy somewhere other than the usual places. So they bid farewell to Hurlga, promised to do something about Lord Ergot, had Argabella sing a “Let’s All Be Loyal to King Gustave or Get Kicked in the Nards” song, and rumbled away on a hundred mechanical legs. The Royal Pellican Centipod and Traveling Hootenanny turned north to Bruding, skipping Tennebruss entirely, and kept to the western side of the Misree Hills.
Gustave did not sleep much during the night, brooding, as it were, over the necessary if temporary loss of Hurlga, who had done more to help him adjust to being human than anyone else. She was kind and considerate of him, so he’d tried his best to learn about his new body, to make her job easier. There were many features he still didn’t understand, but no one had yet written a proper manual.
