by Jon Etter
“Maybe no, but it is how they do. I see enough and I talk to enough of the fairy folk to know that my story is no the only story like it. From where I stand, there’s no the difference between the Seelie and Sluagh. They all do what they want, take what they want, and the rest of us, we gotta pay for it.”
Shade’s mother studied Ginch as if they were in armed combat and she was searching for a weakness to attack. Ginch glared at her defiantly. In the end, Nia was the one who broke first. “The ponies should be rested enough,” she announced, climbing into the saddle. “Mount up! We don’t stop riding until we’re at least out of Stormfield.”
They rode in troubled silence through Stormfield and across the grassy plains beyond until they reached the castle walls of Dinas Ffaraon where at least four of the five riders hoped to stop a war. As for the fifth, Shade wasn’t sure and was too afraid to ask.
In which there are plenty of thistlepricks and puckernuts for everyone …
The ramparts of Dinas Ffaraon were filled with guards and archers on high alert when Shade and the others arrived. Fifty arrows were nocked, drawn, and ready to fly at them until Princess Viola rode to the front of the pack and cried, “Lower your weapons and let down the drawbridge! I must see King Julius at once!”
Murmurs of the “It’s the princess!” “The princess escaped!” and “Is that the Great Owl?” spread amongst the troops until they were cut short by their commanding officer. “You heard Her Majesty! Get that drawbridge down and let her in! And for the love of St. Errol’s goatee, unnock those arrows before somebody accidentally shoots somebody!”
Bows creaked as strings were relaxed and arrows shushed back into quivers (although there was one Thwang! followed by an “Ow, my foot!” and a “He warned you, Gluteus!”). The drawbridge was lowered with a great clank and clatter, and armored guards rushed to aid their princess only to be dismissed with a wave of her hand. “I don’t need any help other than what I’ve already received from these four. Where is my uncle?”
“He and his advisors are meeting with the full war council,” the ranking officer replied.
“Take us to him at once,” Princess Viola commanded.
“At once, Your Majesty.” He gave a short bow and he and several other troopers began to walk.
As Shade and the others followed, there was a mighty gurgling sound. The Professor put his hand on his stomach and bared his teeth savagely. “Hey Principessa, you mind if we visit the kitchen instead of the Juicylus?” Ginch asked. “The Professor, he gets-a the hangry if he no eat three times his weight every day. I think he maybe’s got-a the tapeworm or something.”
“Of course—whatever you need,” Viola said distractedly, her mind clearly on more important matters.
“Hey, Captain Klinkity-Clank, you heard the principessa,” he said to the nearest soldier. “We’re-a the heroes of the hour, so how’s about you take us to wherever you keep the mead and the mutton and the pickled eggs and everything.”
“Right away, sir. Follow me,” the soldier next to him said. “And that’s Sergeant Klinkity-Clank.”
“Well, if the food’s good, we put in the good word and maybe get you promoted,” Ginch said. The Professor saluted the elf as they hustled to keep up with him. “Hey, I think it’s-a pretty good that I guess his last name even if I get the rank wrong, eh? We catch up to you later, little Sprootshade.”
“Are your friends always this obnoxious?” her mother asked as the brownie and pixie disappeared down a corridor.
“No. They’re usually a lot worse,” Shade said with a smirk. Her mother did not, however, return her smile as she followed the soldiers, determined and fierce, through the palace to a rounded oak door.
As Shade and the others drew near, two guards stationed there crossed their halberds in front of the door. “By orders of the king, none shall pass,” one of them said.
“By order of me, get the donkle out of our way,” Princess Viola demanded.
“And if you don’t move, I’ll move you myself,” Nia declared, pointing at them.
“Princess Viola!” one gasped.
“The Great Owl!” gasped the other.
The halberds were immediately uncrossed, and Princess Viola flung open the door. On the other side gathered around a large table were Blather, Bicker, Dicker, a number of stern old elves wearing heavy gold chains that marked them as senior leaders of the Seelie military, King Julius in green and silver robes a half-size too big for him, his too-big crown askew, and Jamison at the king’s elbow furiously taking notes. On the tabletop was a map of Elfame covered in small figurines painted to look like either Seelie or Sluagh troops, most of them clustered near the middle of Stormfield. Also on the map were a number of figurines of Julius in gold armor holding aloft a sword. These figures, almost twice the size of the troops, were spread liberally across the table.
“Now each of these statues celebrating my glorious defeat of the Sluagh should have a little bit of a local flavor. Maybe for Bilgewater, we include a barrel of fish. You know, just for the halibut.” Julius elbowed Jamison and waggled his eyebrows. “See what I did there?”
“I did, Your Excellency,” Jamison said wearily. “I did.”
“King Julius, we really must talk about troop movements,” one of the military leaders insisted.
“Make sure they eat enough fruit and their movements will be regular enough.” Julius nudged Jamison again. “What do you think of that one? I know, pretty crappy.”
Jamison massaged her temples. “And we’ve hit a new low.”
“Uncle!” Princess Viola called from the doorway.
“Viola!” King Julius jumped up and ran across the tabletop, then bounded over to sweep the princess up in a big hug, his crown clattering on the floor behind him. “You escaped! Jamison, let’s add another monument celebrating that. We’ll have me standing behind Viola, proudly—”
“Uncle, we can’t go to war.”
“What? But I already put a deposit down on the battlefield, and if you don’t cancel a battlefield rental at least a week in advance, you never get your money back. Besides, we need to show those Sluagh what for for kidnapping you and—”
“The Sluagh didn’t kidnap me! It was all a plot—”
“That we need to tell you about in private,” Shade said, eyeing Blather, Bicker, and Dicker warily. “Tell the rest of these guys to scram, Your Excellency.”
“Now, Your Excellency,” Dicker oozed, “surely as we move toward the military victory that will make you indisputably the greatest king Elfame has ever seen—”
“I could dispute it,” Bicker sniped.
“—you will want your most trusted advisors by your side at all times,” Dicker finished.
“Uncle, Shade’s right. They all need to leave.”
“You heard my niece and my favorite sprite. Scram.” Julius shooed them all away. “And don’t let the door hit you on the way out. We just had it refinished.”
The generals frowned and grumbled but dutifully filed out. Dicker, Bicker, and Blather looked at each other uneasily. “Why, Your Excellency, such would be the epitome of horsefeathers and duck soup, I’m afraid,” Blather blathered. “It puts me in mind of a most unfortunate gala at Lady Rittenhouse’s estate, where—”
“Out, all of you,” Viola commanded. The advisors wringing their hands and wiping at sweaty brows departed, glancing back nervously as they left.
“Me as well, Your Majesty?” Jamison asked, tucking her pencil in her messy bun.
“No, you stay, please,” Viola replied.
“Shouldn’t she go too?” Shade whispered in Viola’s ear.
“No, if there’s anyone around here other than me that can talk sense into my uncle, it’s Jamison,” Viola whispered back. “Uncle, Jamison—this has all been a plot by your advisors, the Duchess of Sighs, arms merchants, and some of the nobles to trick you into declaring war.”
Viola and Shade recounted all they had seen and heard over the past several days—secret
meetings, abductions, imprisonment, magical doubles, malodorous monsters, and so forth. When they concluded, King Julius shrugged. “Well, I’d say that pretty much settles that. Jamison, take a letter:
To the honorable, beautiful, and frankly a little intimidating Queen Modthryth,
In re: the forthcoming war, it looks like we were duped, especially you, so let’s call the whole thing off. I’ll lose the deposit on the battlefield, but don’t worry—I’ll send the receipt so you can pay me back. And I apologize for all the nasty things I wrote about your elderly Aunt Hygd in that declaration of war. Everything about your elderly Uncle Halga, however, I stand by, the four-flushing swine! So, in brief (because boxer shorts get all bunchy when I wear them), no war, pay the bill, Halga’s a jerk.
Love and kisses,
King Julius the First
“Send that off right away via messenger or crow or magic mirror or however you take care of these things, Jamison.”
“Very good, Your Excellency.” Jamison bowed and headed to the door. Shade and Viola shared a smile and breathed sighs of relief, which Shade couldn’t help but notice were not shared by her scowling mother. However, just as Jamison started to open the door, she turned back. “Before I go, Your Excellency, I think I should mention—”
“Just get going, Jamison!” Julius waved her along. “When the king makes up his mind, he makes up his mind.”
“Of course, Your Excellency.” Jamison bowed again but made no move to leave. “It’s just that, well, what if Queen Modthryth doesn’t call off the war?”
“That won’t happen,” Viola asserted.
“Yeah,” Shade agreed. “She doesn’t want a war either. She’ll definitely keep the peace.”
“Well, there we go, Your Excellency. Nothing to worry about,” Jamison said. “But if she did decide to go to war anyway and showed up at Stormfield in a couple days—”
“And I didn’t show up like I said we would for the big opening battle, I would look chicken! Why, all this peace talk is just a trick to make me look like a coward! Think about it! I extend my hand in peace and what does she do, Jamison?”
“Um, spits in it, Your Excellency?” Jamison suggested.
“Exactly! Spits in it, Jamison. Spits in it. And probably after she’s eaten something really gross like Brussels sprouts or Limburger cheese. I can’t believe you almost fell for this, Jamison!”
“I’ll try to be more careful in the future, Your Excellency.” Jamison bowed her head. Shade thought she saw a hint of a smile on the servile secretary’s face.
“Uncle, this is lunacy!” Viola objected.
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve every heard, and I have heard some amazingly dumb things,” Shade agreed.
“I found treasonous insubordination charming when we first met, but it’s starting to wear a little thin, pipsqueak.” King Julius turned to Shade’s mother. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were the Great Owl.”
“I am.”
“Really? Well, I still insist there is a resemblance.” King Julius turned away from her then abruptly back. “Say, you really are the Great Owl! You’re a war hero—what do you think about going to war with the Sluagh?”
Shade held her breath. Please say the right thing, Mom! Please! she hoped.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
“Mom!”
The king pointed at Nia. “And that is how you become my favorite sprite right there! Great Owl, I’m promoting you to general and want you leading from the front in two days. You can go let the other generals know and start strategizing. I’ve got more important matters to attend to, namely getting fitted for my battle duds. It took some doing but I was able to haggle that armorer into selling me a coat of armor with two pairs of metal pants.”
“Mom! How could you!” Shade demanded as the king dashed from the room. “After everything we told you about the plot and—”
“I know. That doesn’t sit well with me either, and we’ll have to get it sorted out eventually, but regardless how it happened, we need this war. We have to vanquish the Sluagh once and for all,” her mother insisted.
“No, we don’t!” Shade fired back.
“Listen to your daughter,” Princess Viola pled. “The queen and her son only want peace and—”
“No disrespect, Your Majesty, but you’re just a child. You don’t understand what the Sluagh are really like.”
“What about me, Mom? I’m not a kid anymore and—”
“You’ll always be kid to me, Little Acorn.”
“But I’m not a kid and you are wrong, Mom!”
Nia’s face flushed. The muscles in her jaw clenched. “I spent most of your life imprisoned because of the Sluagh. During that time, your father, the love of my life, died and I wasn’t there for him. During that time, you were left alone in this world and I couldn’t be there for you. And during all that time, I feared the Sluagh would one day track you down and try to kill you, and Perchta did exactly that. As long as the Sluagh Horde exists, you’ll never be safe, and I can’t have that.”
“I can take care of myself, Mom!”
“You think you can, but I know better. This is the only way.” Nia reached out to touch Shade’s face, but Shade backed away.
“It isn’t the only way, Mom. And if you do this, I … I don’t know if I can have you in my life.”
Nia took a deep breath and exhaled. “If that’s the price that I have to pay to keep you safe, then so be it. That’s how much I love you.”
“Mom! Don’t go! You can’t do this!” Shade shouted after her mother, but the only response she received was the slamming of an oak door.
Princess Viola rounded on Jamison. “You! You did this! Uncle Julius was going to call off the war until—”
“It was you all along, wasn’t it?” Shade said. “The rade was your idea. And you planned the abduction, the framing of Justinian—everything.”
“Why, Jamison?” the princess demanded. “How could you?”
“Money.” Shade looked at Jamison in disgust. “The people who profit from war paid her off.”
Jamison shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me, there is much that must be attended to. Princess, I’m afraid you won’t be seeing your uncle at all for the next few days—as keeper of his schedule, I can tell you he will be very busy, so don’t even try to meet with him.”
Jamison opened a concealed panel in the wall. As she walked into the passageway hidden behind it, Shade called out, “So did you want the princess killed in Stormfield, you termite-kissing traitor, or did Perchta not tell you about the monster?”
The secretary paused. Shade waited for an answer, but none came. Jamison merely shook her head and disappeared into the darkness.
Princess Viola turned to Shade. “What do we do now? If I can’t get to my uncle, I’ll never be able to talk him out of this stupid war.”
Shade frowned. “I don’t know. Let’s head back to the Grand Library. If we’re lucky, Beow talked some sense into his mother. Maybe if the Sluagh stand down, we can get the Seelie to do the same.”
“And if we can’t?” Princess Viola asked.
“Then thistlepricks and puckernuts,” Shade muttered. “Plenty of thistlepricks and puckernuts for everyone.”
In which desperate times will call for desperate measures …
The wait for Beow was a long and anxious one, filled with much pacing and the frequent asking of the questions “Where the donkle is Beow?” and “Why is it taking so dingle-dangle long for him to get here?” Finally, hours after the Grand Library had closed for the night and almost everyone had gone to bed, a furious Beow stormed in with an even more annoyed than usual Grouse trailing behind. “Please tell me you were able to talk some sense into your uncle,” he said.
“I wish I could.” Viola and Shade leaped from their seats and rushed to meet him in the middle of the great reading room. “Please tell us that your m
other is smart enough to call off this.”
“I wish I could.”
“What?” Shade’s jaw dropped. “Why the donkle would she go to war? I talked with her. She doesn’t want a fight and, unlike Julius, she’s not an idiot. No offense, Princess Viola.”
“None taken. He is an idiot.” Viola sighed wearily.
“So why—?”
“Because the most powerful, bloodthirsty, and fat-headed members of the Sluagh Horde are demanding a war and don’t care if the reason it was declared walks into the room and tells them it was all a plot to make them declare war. Mom thinks if she tries to back down, she’ll be deposed and replaced by someone who will lead them into war anyway, probably Lady Perchta.”
“But she’s the thistleprick who tried to get you killed!”
“I know, but we have no hard evidence to prove it, and she’s got the support of so many of the other nobles that she’s all but guaranteed to be named queen if they turn on Mom.”
A bone-chilling realization washed over Shade like a frigid arctic wave. “Maybe that’s the plan. Make Perchta the queen of the Sluagh Horde and whatever puppet Jamison wants to rule the Seelie Court. Or maybe the two just rule all Elfame together.”
“My mother would fight to the death to keep Perchta from taking over.”
Shade nodded. “I’m sure that’s part of the plan too. They’ll try to make sure that the queen doesn’t survive that first battle in Stormfield. Probably the king too.”
Viola and Beow looked to each other, making no attempt to hide their fear. “We’ve got to stop this war!” they said in unison.
“You’re dingle-dangle right we do,” Shade said. “But how? We’ve got to think of something.”
The three sat at a table and looked at each other. Nobody said anything.
“’Ey, whatta you do, eh? You have the staring contest?” Ginch asked as he and the Professor stumbled down the spiral ramp, mugs of mead in hand and a string of sausages hanging from the Professor’s neck. The Professor sat at their table and put on a pair of glasses with eyes painted on them. “We want in and I bet you five gold my partner wins.”
