Carole was inclined to skepticism but the bitch sniffed at her former master’s posterior and though her ears were flat, her tail twitched uncertainly. “I may be wrong as well, but I think the old man’s trying to learn new tricks.”
“I doubt that,” Jack said severely. “He is a cruel man. He knew where the pomegranate was all along but he forced us to do difficult and dangerous tasks to look for it, hoping we would be slain.”
“No! No, I didn’t,” Loefric cried. “Except for the dogs, nothing I asked you to do was really dangerous. It’s just, it’s just that I was so infernally tired of my own company I wanted to keep you around as long as I could and—” Tears started dribbling down the ruts in his cheeks and into his beard. “And you were so sure of yourselves, I wanted you to learn how hard it is to get what you want and find it’s not worth what you paid for it, as I did. Every year I grew more tired and discouraged and I guess I’ve been afraid to leave the keep—afraid I’d be shunned or murdered. All those Mages and Kings I executed had quite a few relations. I’ve worried about it so long, it’s made an old man of me. I don’t even know if Fwin will have me by him anymore but perhaps the thing to do after all is ask him.”
* * *
Loefric’s was not the only change. He had no sooner finished his speech than he was knocked off his knees by a violent quake that shook the earth.
“Run!” Anastasia cried. “All of you, run for the forest!” Since no one had any better ideas, run they did, and just in time too, for suddenly the ground split and the castle walls thrust themselves out of it like magic toadstools. Perhaps the weeds had weighted the castle down, perhaps it had been originally buoyed above the swamps by an enchantment now reinstated with the removal of the pomegranate, but at any rate the edifice rose again. Muddy, crumbling, but still mostly intact, it reared up, complete with jagged battlements and gape-roofed turrets. Stranger still, the river gushed up from its underground prison and filled its old channel, flooding the area surrounding the castle walls, so that hounds, prince, swan and children all found themselves standing on the banks of a moat. Just as they were getting used to these radical alterations, and thinking everything surely must settle down now, six giant black swans landed on the brand-new moat.
The dogs started barking but Anastasia cried out ecstatically: “They have returned! My sisters have all returned to our original nest!” And with that, she hopped into the moat and glided out to speak with them. After a brief conversation, all seven glided back to the bank, the other six fanning out behind their elder sister, who said, “Abigail, Agata, Amelia, Alastraina, Ashling and Ailis, this lady is our colleague, the Princess Bronwyn of Argonia. All except the vandalous elderly person who has so disgraced his lineage by ill-treatment of our home are in the Princess’s entourage.”
The swans trumpeted and gabbled and spoke some of the human words they remembered—for they had been speaking so long in the swan’s tongue they had all but forgotten their human speech. While they gossiped among themselves, the air was once more filled with the beating of wings and down flew Gilles Kilgilles and Rusty Raspberry, each mounted on a magnificent steed and between them leading three others.
“Loefwin and the army have flown on ahead,” Rusty reported breathlessly, pulling her bright hair up from inside her collar and flinging it back into the hood of her cloak in a dashing manner. “As soon as the Miragenians saw in their pool that you’d gained the pomegranate, they sent word that the war in Argonia is going worse than ever for us and Loefwin and his men should join the King at once. They wanted Gilles and me to swing by here and pick you up first, so here we are. But please do be quick.”
Bronwyn nodded impatiently while mounting one of the extra horses.
Since Loefric pleaded to be allowed to fight honorably by his brother’s side, which was all right with the others as long as he flew downwind, Anastasia offered to carry Jack upon her back so the Prince could ride one of the winged horses. Her sisters promised to gather bones and meat before night fell again in the forest, so that the hounds might eat.
They stopped only once between the monster-ridden shores of Frostingdung and the Gulf of Gremlins, and that was far out to sea. Carole suddenly hauled on the reins. Her mount obediently skimmed the surface of the vast green sea while Carole pulled forth the whistle given her by Lorelei and trilled one of the songs of calling the siren had taught her.
Though the other riders were too intent on reaching their destination to notice Carole’s defection and flew on without her, Bronwyn noticed at once and impatiently reined in her own horse and circled above Carole. Shortly, they were both rewarded by the sight of Ollie bumping across the sea, followed by half a hundred whales and an entire herd of seals, with a porpoise or two clowning along beside the parade. Lorelei and Cordelia, however, were the first to arrive.
“Well, sweeting, had enough of the landlings?” Lorelei asked.
“No, I—er—” Carole began. She had called thinking to ask for the help of these beings she had once so greatly admired, but at the sight of their beautiful, alien faces the memory of their disregard for human life and casual cruelty reached out to smack her as sharply as if she had been bowled over by one of their muscular tails.
“We had a piece of gossip we thought you’d enjoy, actually,” Bronwyn hooted down merrily, as if they were all old chums. “My cousin has been feeling like a wretch since depriving you of that ship…”
“And well she might!” Cordelia said with a stab from her gray eyes directed at her erstwhile disciple.
“So she thought you’d enjoy a chance to meet a colleague.”
“Colleague? Another siren? In these waters?” The mermaids exchanged indignant glances, replete with the promise of trouble for the interloper.
Bronwyn and Carole for their part exchanged quick, covert grins and Bronwyn continued, “No, not a siren. A man, if you can believe it, who controls sea weather like a siren. Why, he’s been sinking ships right and left along the Gulf of Gremlins. I hear he’s done more damage in a month’s time than you did during your whole life in that area, Lorelei.”
“Is that so?” Lorelei demanded, slapping the water with her tail so hard she sent up a fountain of spray as high as a ship’s mainmast. “We’ll just see about that! Suppose you take us to this split-tailed impostor and we’ll see how good he is.”
“Indeed we will!” Cordelia agreed.
“Dear friends,” Carole said, beaming. “I knew I could count on you.”
* * *
Neither the flying horses nor Loefwin’s army—or rather, airborne cavalry, had been able to penetrate the barrier of lightning bolts with which the Ablemarlonian wizard latticed the perimeter of King Roari’s island shelter. The horses and their riders hung back at a safe distance, watching the exhausted men and dragons being ever more tightly enclosed by the ships remaining to harass them. The bulk of the foe’s navy had already sailed for Queenston, and Loefwin was ready to give the order to his troops to fly there to defend the Argonian capitol and abandon the shipwrecked army.
Before he could give the order, five horses and a swan quietly joined his ranks, and in the sea below an incredible scene began unfolding. First the entire navy, island and all, was enveloped in a thick white mist, which the lightning bolts were impotent to pierce. Then, with a deadly gentleness that seemed slow and random but was extremely swift, the ships one by one turned their bows inward toward the island and rammed it, all but the one with the wizard, which was pulled away from the others and wrapped in the coils of a great serpent. The serpent squeezed and timbers, sails, and all disintegrated into formless flotsam. The lightning bolts died and the sea boiled with the happy activity of the sirens, and the sporting of the other creatures amid the ruins of the ships.
At Loefwin’s order, as the magic mist thinned, the winged cavalry swept down upon the island and scooped up the survivors. The dragons lifted their bright heads and valiantly tried to broil what they saw as a new assault, but sank back, defeated by ex
haustion. A gray-bearded man with pointed ears joyfully allowed himself to be dragged aboard Rusty’s horse, whereupon the two of them told the dragons what was happening and the rescue was allowed to proceed without incident.
King Roari embraced his daughter wonderingly, before he climbed onto Carole’s steed, shoving his niece ahead of him.
Bronwyn’s flying horse heaved with relief. It was sure that the weight of both the giant King and his overgrown daughter would have broken its back.
They flew as quickly as possible for the city, but within a league of Queenston Harbor, Bronwyn heard her father groan and followed his gaze down and ahead to the dock and the city streets. The crew of one lone ship flying a skull and crossbones tried vainly to fend off the attack of six Ablemarlonian vessels, most of which had already landed, and were belching forth enemy troops into the streets of the capital. The citizens of the city seemed to have wisely chosen to evacuate, for the landing parties met with no resistance.
None, at least, until the vanguard of the attack reached the walls of Queenston Palace, where on the battlements Aunt Maggie Brown had gathered every magician, courtier, palace guard, cook, and chambermaid to defend the townspeople crammed tightly within the walls and armed with their spindles, shovels, shepherd’s crooks, and whatever other homely protection they had been able to invest themselves with.
The first assault hit the wall at about the same time the swift flying horses overtook them. Carole’s horse was immediately unburdened as the King and his niece jumped down onto the wall. The first Ablemarlonian sailor who scaled the walls on his siege ladder died at the hands of King Roari, who was scrambling down it.
Carole whistled as she had never whistled before, though she would have sworn at the beginning of the day that all the music had been wrung out of her. Her mother flung her one surprised grin and resumed magically hurtling at the enemy pots, pans, crockery, paving materials, and any other household items she could muster. She also started small spontaneous fires among them.
Between her magic and Carole’s, the plunder-bent attackers seemed to be having a harvest eve party, dancing spritely, purposeless steps around several cozy little campfires while missiles considerably larger than confetti were hurled at their heads, and flying horses swooped among the stars above them.
Much as Carole enjoyed watching, she hoped the slaughter would be quick, because her lips were trembling with tiredness. Suddenly, a pair of strong hands lay upon her shoulders and a rich tenor voice took up her tune. She tilted her head back and her father’s beard brushed her crown. At the phrase-break, he kissed her forehead before redoubling his efforts to aid her own.
Bronwyn fought back to back with her own father, but found she had to close her eyes at crucial times and she winced every time she felt her sword slice through someone. It hardly seemed sporting at all, fighting dancers.
Another foe high-kicked and slashed in front of her and she answered with a blind swipe of her own. The man ducked and she opened her eyes defensively when she realized she had missed. She could have cut him down on the spot for he was glaring over her head to the wall upon which Jack’s grandfather and father fought.
“What’s ’is Worthless ’ighness doin’ fighting for your side, girlie?” The enemy demanded, pointing. “‘E was supposed to be on the wizard’s ship, keepin’ that big fella behind you busy whilst we sacks the city for ’im. Lookit this, mates! The bloody King’s turned coat!”
The man’s angry voice carried over the songs of Carole and her father, and for a moment activity halted, while every head turned to the curly-headed old gypsy. “Why ain’t you back on the wizard’s ship, where you belong, Majesty?” the soldier demanded.
The gypsy gave him a broad smile, remarkably good-natured under the circumstances. “Fellow countrymen,” he said, “I fear if my brother, King Worthyman, called the Worthless, was aboard that ship, he is dead.”
“Don’t try to fool us! If you ain’t the King you’re—”
“His elder, if not twin, brrother?” the gypsy roared back. “Aye! And I’ll end this battle here and now, if ye all agree and my good friend King Rrroari stops bashin’ you.”
Carole and Colin had stopped singing and Maggie had stopped flinging. None of that was necessary at the moment, for the battle stilled as the foreign foe gazed awestricken at the gypsy on the walls.
“What the ’ell do ye mean by that?” the soldier demanded, followed by grumbling agreement from his colleagues.
“I mean I’m your rrightful King, ye bozo! I’m the long lost Crown Prince of Ablemarle, H. David Worthyman, eldest son of King Worthyman the Worthy and legitimate heir! Do any dare contest my claim?”
“Don’t look at me!” the soldier said. “Just get us out of this daft country and I’ll plump the cushion on your throne meself.”
Most of the Ablemarlonian nobles were on the ship lost to the mermaids and Ollie, and were presumed to have perished at sea. Those who remained rapidly acquiesced to the popular demand of their troops and waved their handkerchiefs to call a truce.
By midnight a treaty was signed, guaranteeing peace among the three countries, an indemnity to be paid in foodstuffs and magical foreign aid to help the stricken Frostingdungians through the winter and spring planting, and an alliance between Argonia and Ablemarle. Ablemarle was to be under the rule of King H. David Worthyman with guaranteed succession granted his son Davey and grandson Jacopo. Also, international traveling rights were granted in perpetuity to the tribe of gypsies known as the Xenobians, since their Queen Xenobia was now also Queen of Ablemarle.
* * *
When the treaty had been signed and the dead and wounded of both sides were removed to the care of Argonian healers, who, with certain secret medicines, were renowned for their ability to effect an astonishing recovery rate, Maggie Brown turned her talents to their more conventional uses. After retrieving her pots and pans and persuading her militia draftees to resume their original positions as maids, table servers, cooks and scullery personnel, she whipped up a great victory feast from what was left in the royal pantry. Her husband, Colin, turned his voice from politically persuasive ditties to celebratory ones. They were all having a very pleasant time of it indeed, particularly the Frostingdungian troops, who hardly knew how to chew, so long had they been gumming gruel. At one point King Roari followed Maggie Brown from the hall and returned with Queen Amberwine in his arms. In her arms were Bronwyn’s twin baby brothers, both as red-haired as she, and both screaming their heads off.
She was bounding across the hall to admire them and hug her mother when the front doors swung open and Mashkent and Mirza drifted impressively into the hall on a flying carpet.
Mirza bowed to her and rolled up the rug, ignoring the rest of the crowd. “Greetings, high-born. I trust you consider you have received good value for your credit?” Bronwyn nodded, and slipped on her charm. “Then may I also take the liberty of assuming you are ready to pay your bill?”
A hush fell over the hall and King Roari strode up beside her, his presence dwarfing the merchants. Jack, Carole, and Anastasia also left the table to join their friend. “See here, Bronwyn, who are these rogues and what’s this about a bill?”
“I must handle this myself, Father,” she said, and turned to the merchants. “Your steeds did indeed win the day for my country. Oh—Oh Prosperous ones, may your Profit increase.”
“Good, good,” Mashkent said, rubbing his hands together. “And we know you have the pomegranate. If you will be kind enough to turn it over, we will in turn be gracious enough to allow you a small bite of it, which will relieve you of your curse. Since this is such a festive occasion, at no extra cost we will be happy to join you and provide dancing girls. And that’s not all! We will also allow your allies,” he said and bowed to Prince Loefwin, who saluted him with his meat-tipped dagger, and scowled at Loefric, who avoided his gaze, “to return home on our swift and beautiful steeds.”
Jack handed her the hope chest, which had been sitting besi
de her. She clutched it tightly and replied, “A very generous offer. But I find that though still possessed of my curse, I am no longer bothered by it. I have grown used to it, having met so many others who seem to be similarly, if more selectively afflicted, and having also learned that it is powerless to pervert my meaning when I speak to the understanding hearts of my good friends. Seeing what the fruit did to the folk of Frostingdung, I prefer to continue struggling with being governed by my imagination rather than to be deprived of it entirely. If my family deems me unworthy to rule because of the curse, so be it.”
“You are being unreasonable, Princess,” Mirza said soothingly. “Surely one little bite, and then you can turn it over to us.”
“I—I don’t think so,” Bronwyn answered as calmly as possible, her chin tremblingly undermining her attempt at dignity when she thought of the ruin of Frostingdung and the sense of loss and sadness she had felt when the fruit lay in her hand, before it was enclosed in the hope chest, “Forgive me, please, but to entrust the fruit to any private interest seems to me to be extremely—er—unwise. The fruit is just far too dangerous to continue to exist. Your country is a marvel of magic. What if the pomegranate was—uh—misused again while within your borders?” Without naming names, that was a close as she could come to telling the merchants she suspected them of wanting the pomegranate to turn the Anarchy of Miragenia into a conglomerate under the control of one firm—theirs. “No. I trust you will concur with me that the best thing to do with this fruit is to throw it into the deepest crevasse of the highest, coldest glacier in the world. Fortunately, that’s not far.”
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