“Where are we?” he asked nervously.
“The bad part of the forest.” Levondyth shivered as he spoke. “Get not off the caterpillar.”
Night had fallen and the full moon literally scowled down on them.
I said “literally”, and I meant “literally”.
“Is this still Saraan-Vishta?” Paul asked. He couldn’t believe how different it looked from the magical place he had just left.
“Yes, though darker magic here prevails, the angry magic of the slums,” Levondyth said, reining the inchworm to a halt. “So you see, though trackers here there may be, you’ll not wish to seek them out in such a place.”
Paul looked, and with his stomach sliding up his throat, he slid down the side of the inchworm.
“Shivers descending, perhaps I made not clear the doom impeding,” Levondyth said. He reached for Paul, trying to pull him back up. “The Flitterlings here are no lovers of Man — nor other Flitterlings, for that matter, sire.”
“I have to find a tracker,” Paul said. His mouth had never felt so dry before.
“Have you no companions? Perhaps it would be wiser—”
“Believe me, I’m better off without them.”
Unable to persuade the prince, Levondyth inched the worm around. “Then fare thee well, Man-Prince. Think not less of me. A coward I may seem, yet I will live to frolic another day. Yes. And I live to frolic.”
He waved goodbye and spurred the inchworm away. As it disappeared around the corner, Paul hesitantly surveyed the darkened street.
His Singing Sword began to hum something dark and menacing, an eerie whisper with deep bass pulses of horrible intent that populated every shadow with a potential attacker.
“Would you relax?” Paul said uneasily. “They’re only Flitterlings. How bad could they be?”
A trio of diamond-bright Poxies were about to show him.
Shuttling from cover, they crisscrossed above him, weaving a net from their trailing tails of flitter dust. It fell on Paul with surprising weight and dropped him to his knees.
Battle cries erupted from every side and a gang of fierce-looking Flitterlings tumbled from hiding. Strange tribal tattoos covered their wings, unlike the pristine wings of the Flitterlings in town, and they glowed a dark, luminous purple. The gang surrounded Paul in a barbaric circle of wild hair, painted faces, and leather armor. Though they were only three feet tall, they looked quite terrifying, and Paul nearly experienced a minor situation with his bladder.
“Something tells me these Flitterlings don’t live to frolic,” the Singing Sword muttered.
Flicker, the warlord Flitterling, jackknifed over the others and landed in an acrobatic crouch across the circle from Paul. She had sleek limbs and long dark hair wound in tight braids about her head. Twin bandoleers of tiny, infant-sized blades crossed her chest in an X. After sweeping the violet glow of her eyes over the prince, she casually plucked a knife from one of her belts and hurled it at him. As it sailed through the air, the blade magically grew to man-sized proportions before it unerringly knocked the Singing Sword from Paul’s grasp.
“I hummed you this would happen!” the Sword wailed as it plopped into the dirt.
Flicker strutted slowly across the circle. “Well, well, well, well, well. What manner of creature has chanced into our hunting grounds, eh? Why, we’ve netted a Manling!”
“I… I meant no harm,” the prince stammered. “I am Paul, crowned Prince of Lilypine—”
“A royal Manling!” Flicker declared.
Jeers and catcalls exploded from the crowd. Flicker unfurled her deep violet wings and took flight, slowly circling her captive. “So tell me, prince, what brings you to the slums of Saraan-Vishta?”
“I come… I’m here because I need—”
“Ah! So you come to take. Always you nobles come to take!”
“Please, I—”
“Take! And take! And take!” Flicker jabbed her finger at Paul’s face. “Your kind convinced us to prostitute our magic so you could take it. Turned us into servants and errand-beings so you could take us! Then forced us into the slums when your economy couldn’t support a surplus of our kind — and took our dignity! No more! It stops here! And it starts with you!”
The warlord Flitterling spun to face her gang and swooped around the circumference of the circle. “We’re fierce, we’re Flitterlings, and we’re in your face!”
The gang screamed right back at her, “We’re fierce, we’re Flitterlings, and we’re in your face!”
Paul could feel his heart like a fist punching against his ribcage. His breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. He closed his eyes, clutched handfuls of dirt, and forced himself to calm down… to take slower and deeper breaths… to think. “Stand up,” he whispered to himself. “Stand up, no matter what.”
So stand up he did.
“I’m… I’m not afraid of you,” he said.
Flicker swung in Paul’s direction. “You must be very brave, or you must be very lying.”
Paul pressed ahead. “I see your conditions. I… I understand your anger, but… please, I do not expect to take something from you for nothing.”
A strangely melodic laugh escaped Flicker’s mouth. “Promises mean a lot coming from a Manling in a net!”
Paul’s mind raced. A thought was beginning to form. “Perhaps… I can help you. A… a bargain. I propose a bargain. Yes. Look around you — is this what you want? The forests of my kingdom are vast and untouched — I offer them to you. If you will help me, I guarantee sanctuary to you all.”
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Flicker slowly clapped her tiny hands. “Stirring, but you are still a monarch, full of lies like all the rest. There will be no bargains.”
Paul had gone too far to stop now. Taking another deep breath, he said, “My Quest is urgent. I require your aid. If you refuse to give it, then… I… I… I want you to smite me as hard as you can.”
The gang instantly fell silent. Just for a moment, not even Flicker could hide her shock.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“You… I think you heard me.”
“You challenge me. To a duel.”
“To win your allegiance, I… yes, I do.”
A broad smile split Flicker’s face. “Well, this suddenly got interesting.”
She drifted up to Paul’s face and hovered there, nose to nose.
“You’re scared, boy. There’s the stink of a curse all over you. A curse… and something more.” Flicker’s eyes widened in surprise. “Something wild.” The warlord smiled, intrigued. “You might be worth my time after all.” She gestured and the net dissolved into wisps of golden glitter. “Show me.”
Paul scrambled to his feet and scrabbled the Singing Sword from the ground. He spun to face Flicker as the warlord bounded back and drew two more of her tiny daggers. To an outside observer, the fight appeared to be incredibly mismatched, for Paul stood twice as tall as his Flitterling opponent, but even so, Paul hesitated.
“SHOW ME!” Flicker yelled.
Startled into motion, Paul whirled his sword through a dramatic demonstration of the moves he’d been practicing on the Sphinx. To an outside observer, the display appeared both impressive and intimidating.
Flicker nodded in appreciation. “Very pretty.”
Then she launched straight up into the air with a single thrust of her wings and flung a barrage of blades at Paul. One after another, the tiny daggers grew in flight until they became large enough to do serious damage. Paul barely managed to deflect the first of them before he scrambled back.
Knives skewered each footprint Paul left behind, and then they laddered their way up a tree beside his head as he ducked for cover. To an outside observer, Paul looked like he was getting his buttocks kicked.
Pausing the onslaught, Flicker taunted, “You walk into my forest and start talking smite, you think you can just run away?”
She banked around the tree and batted Paul back into the circ
le with her wings. The prince hit the ground and rolled to his feet, but before he could do anything else, Flicker hammered him with a humiliating series of kicks and punches.
“Stop running!” shouted the Flitterling. “Embrace it!”
“What…?!” Paul gasped as he dove behind a giant, wrinkled mushroom.
“You can’t run forever. Running won’t save you!”
The Fierce Flitterlings jeered. Their laughter accelerated around Paul, reverberating, sending the forest spinning. He closed his eyes against the emotional vertigo of his curse, but it was too late. He couldn’t shut it out. It was happening again. The noise, the mockery — it poured over him like molten shame, crushing him under its weight.
His curse had become his Curse.
He felt so small.
He felt so worthless.
He felt—
SMACK!
Flicker slapped him hard. Paul reeled into the circle once more.
“Do you know why you’re losing?” Flicker asked, streaking back and forth beside Paul. “Every fight is a story, but you’re letting me tell it. And that’s a mistake, because in my version of the story, I win. I win and you lose! Is that what you want?”
“Stop…” Paul begged.
“Is this how you let the story end?” she asked. “You’re not very good at this, are you!”
The whole forest seemed to implode with laughter. Though Paul tried to run away, there was nowhere to go for a wall of sneering Flitterlings completely surrounded him. He clutched his head. A roaring sound filled his ears, and he wondered if it might be the rushing of his own blood.
“Stop it,” Paul said.
“This was your idea, yet you choose to flee,” Flicker persisted. “You waste my time! You pathetic coward, don’t you have anything else to SHOW ME!”
Paul realized the roaring he heard was the sound of his building rage, much like the sound of a barbarian horde charging through his head.
“Stop it!!!”
And his rage finally exploded.
Several of Flicker’s knives still protruded from the trunk of the tree beside him. Planting his foot on the handle of the lowest, Paul kicked off and launched himself high at his antagonist. The sudden lunge caught Flicker by surprise and Paul tackled the Flitterling in midair. His weight sent them both crashing to the ground.
Flicker squirmed free, but Paul plucked a knife from Flicker’s bandoleer and stabbed it through her tunic, pinning her to the earth. He jammed his sword against the Flitterling’s throat—
—and then his rage passed like a summer rainstorm that pours for one moment and is gone the next. Paul couldn’t believe what he had just done.
The gang of Fierce Flitterlings couldn’t believe it either. They stared at the combatants in dead silence.
But Flicker smiled.
“I thought you had it in you,” she said. “Of course, you almost had these in you as well.”
Nodding her head, she indicated the dagger she held at Paul’s groin, and the other poised at Paul’s heart. With a waggle of her eyebrows, she tossed the weapons aside.
“I yield,” she said.
The other Flitterlings surged forward, but Flicker’s savage voice stopped them.
“I said, I yield!”
Slowly, Paul rocked back onto his heels and stood up. Confusion creased his brow as Flicker knelt before him.
“Prince Paul of Lilypine, this night I, Flicker, Warlord of the Fierce Flitterlings, swear allegiance to you.” She bowed her head, as did the rest of the gang.
Paul looked around him in shock. Everything had happened so quickly, he didn’t know what to say, so he said, “I… thank you, Warlord Flicker.”
“What do you require of us, my lord?” Flicker asked.
“I… I seek someone to track a magic trail. I hunt a wizard.”
Without being asked, a green-and-purple-glowing Poxie swooped out of the trees and perched on Paul’s shoulder. She wore a tiny version of the Flitterlings’ leather armor, and even though she was only six inches high, she looked a bit dangerous.
“Blink is the best tracker we have,” Flicker said.
The Poxie stroked Paul’s hair.
“And she likes you,” she added.
“I seem to have that effect,” Paul said.
“It is done!” Flicker turned to her followers. “Break out the casks! Tonight we celebrate!”
A cheer cascaded through the gang and the Fierce Flitterlings scattered, but Paul held Flicker back.
“You let me win,” he said.
Flicker hovered before Paul so she could look him in the eye and said, “I sensed greatness in you, I just needed to be sure. And you just needed some help to find it.”
“That wasn’t greatness,” Paul said. “That was the Curse. I was trying to run away… I wasn’t thinking.”
Flicker shook her head. “You’re wrong. The greatness in you could topple the world if you let it, and I want a part of that action when it comes. Of course, giving us a forest didn’t hurt your position either,” she added with a wink.
“I can’t topple the world. I can’t even rescue a princess.”
“That’s your story to tell, not mine.” As Flicker swooped away to ready the evening’s revels, she paused long enough to call back over her shoulder, “What happens next is on you!”
Technically, what happens next is on the next page… if such things interest you.
29
FLITTER NECTAR
Famed theologian and flagellant Bangle the Perpetually Tender had this to say on the subject of godhood.
“Yea, verily, the mind reels when contemplating the gods. Such fearsomely awesome beings capable of bending the cosmos to their will, they elude the clay of man’s intellect. Can man possibly imagine the terrible responsibilities — or the divine benefits? Swilling ambrosia, arbitrarily smiting annoying bastards, and, in a word, virgins.”
Eventually, Bangle’s discourse settled upon more relevant theological topics, such as the famed battle between two rival gods, Jahalael and Gauron, for supremacy in the pantheon.
They dueled over Planet Earth long before life walked its surface. The ground trembled at the energies unleashed. The heavens boiled away in amber firestorms. Reality itself shattered, remained iffy for a very long time, and then finally put itself back together as best it could. Though the duel was a draw, its aftermath yielded the world we know today.
The only other thing in the universe known to wreak a comparable amount of havoc is a full shot of flitter nectar.
Jack’s eyes glowed like a rainbow.
His brain sizzled like lightning.
He imagined impossible things in odd languages he didn’t understand.
He saw things no one else could see and did things no one else could do.
At least that’s what he thought he was doing.
To say Jack was currently “thinking” would have been generous. What Jack was actually doing was chugging a full bottle of flitter nectar. Thought and flitter nectar were not typically compatible.
The effects of flitter nectar on a human have been compared to the head trauma knights experience on the field of battle when they forget to wear their helmets. In the case of flitter nectar, the field of battle was usually a party, and the head trauma was typically raging stupidity leading to a lifetime of embarrassment, regret, and memory loss.
Hooting like a maniac, Jack drained his bottle, raised his hands above his head, and then vomited a stream of rainbow-colored glitter.
The gang of Fierce Flitterlings cheered his antics around their bonfire.
Slipping unnoticed from the chaos, Laura weaved unsteadily through the shadows to the cleanest of the mushroom houses in the area. A doorway and window had been cut through the mushroom’s stem. Pushing aside the curtain strung across the doorway, she entered without knocking.
The interior of the mushroom’s stem had been hollowed out to produce a single room with spongy white floors and walls. Paul sat on t
he floor with his back against the wall, for the mushroom was devoid of furnishings. He looked up when Laura entered. The dancing firelight outside backlit her body.
She was beautiful.
And tipsy.
“Why you hiding in here?” she asked with a lopsided grin. “Is big strong hero scared of a little fun?”
“You’ve been drinking flitter nectar, haven’t you,” he said.
She pinched two fingers together as tightly as she could. “Teensy tiny. Haven’t you?”
“I don’t like to drink.”
“You’re no fun,” she pouted. “What’s wrong with you? You’re a prince — your whole life should be one big party, right?”
Paul rocked his head noncommittally. “It’s not as great as you might think.”
Laura snorted. “Try being a handmaiden.”
“Want to trade?” Paul asked.
“You think I wouldn’t?” Laura asked right back.
“Why would you want to?”
“Why?!” Laura said. “This is the most fun I’ve had in my entire life! Adventure! Excitement! Romance! I wish Luscious would get kidnapped more often—”
Paul stared at her in surprise.
“I… I didn’t mean that,” she said. She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “I never meant for her to get hurt.”
“I know,” Paul said.
“I didn’t,” she repeated. “But now… she might die.”
“That’s not your fault, Laura,” Paul said. “Well, it is a little. But she won’t die.”
Laura turned back to him, and her eyes were more serious than Paul had ever seen them. “We may not always agree, but… I love my princess. I’d trade places with her right now if I could, just so she could be safe.”
Paul nodded. “I know you would.”
“I’d die for her,” Laura said. “Paul, please… please save her.”
Paul’s lips moved, but he said nothing. He looked down as if he might find something to say in his lap.
“Do you promise?” Laura asked. “Promise me you’ll save her.”
Happily Ever Awkward Page 13
