by Guy Bass
General Kurg raised an eyebrow, his hand hovering over his holster.
“Are you all set to give the order, my prince?” he said, looking down at Frog. “The Army of a Thousand Sons awaits your—Uh, are you aware that you’re naked?”
“Yep,” replied Frog. “What did you say just then? All that ‘Royal Majesty, Lords of all Kingdoms’ and such. That’s just what Buttercup—”
“Aha! Told you he was a gobbin!” cried Oldasdust. “He’s speaking their language!”
“Stop being rude, Greeny,” interrupted the princess. “You’re not allowed to talk gibby-gobby-goo. I’m the Princess of Everything and I say speak proper English.”
“Proper— What are you talking about?” asked Frog, turning to the princess. “Wait, you can’t understand him?”
“I can’t understand you,” the princess replied. “I mean, I did then, but not then … not when you’re talking gobbin gibby-gobby-goo. Half the time you’re speaking their speak.”
Frog turned slowly back to General Kurg and examined him carefully. “Am I speaking gobbin? I didn’t even know I was – I mean, I didn’t even know I could… How do I know gobbin speak?”
General Kurg tilted his head. “What’s a gobbin? How are you communicating with the natives? Where is your Keeper?” he replied.
Frog answered the general’s questions with more questions of his own. “Who are you? Why were you living at the bottom of the lake? What was that red light that ka-sploded my brain? And why do you keep calling me ‘Prince’?”
“I have woken from farsleep with a splitting headache,” replied the general. “If this is all a joke, forgive me if I don’t see the funny side.”
“The funny side of what?” asked Frog.
“By the Void … is your brain in a stink?” gasped General Kurg. “Have these natives been messing with your mind-business?”
“Huh?” Frog said.
“By Kroakas! They have! You’re stunk-up something chronic!” grunted General Kurg. “This is bad.”
“Gibby-gobby-goo!” protested Princess Rainbow. “Speak English, gobbins!”
“You’d better come inside, the doctor will check you over,” concluded the general. He pointed up at the great, tendril-legged monolith above them.
“Up in that thing? Yoiks!” replied an excited Frog.
The general led him up the narrow tongue of a stairwell and inside the giant clamshell machine.
“I want to go inside!” protested the princess immediately. “I want to see the treasure first. I’m the princess…”
“Serves you right for locking me in a cage,” tutted Frog.
The general guided him inside the clamshell. “Welcome to the command bipod, my Prince!” he declared.
“Great! What’s a bipod?” said Frog, as they made their way through a curved, metal corridor into a large chamber, much like the one Frog had found on the bottom of the lake – but lit red and with an impressive-looking seat in the middle of the room, almost like a throne. Round the walls Frog saw half a dozen smaller but almost-as-impressive-looking versions of General Kurg. They were all busily staring into what looked like mirrors made of light, which seemed to be answering their stares with pictures of the palace … the gardens … the gathered crowds…
“Behold his Royal Majesty, Lord of all Kingdoms, Rightful Ruler of this World, Prince … Frog!” barked General Kurg.
The green-skinned giants immediately turned to face Frog and lifted their fists to their chests. “Hail, Kroak! Hail, Prince Frog!” they cried.
“They’re all calling me ‘Prince’…” said Frog, a cautious smile spreading across his face.
“Kull! Doctor Kull!” barked General Kurg.
A thin, green-skinned giant with a surprisingly large head appeared over Frog’s shoulder. She peered at Frog through wide, orange-yellow eyes.
“Ah, yes, I see,” she hissed. “This confirms it.”
“Confirms what?” the general barked. “What’s his prognosis? Is he stunk up in his brain end? In the name of the Universal Strangulation, tell me, Doctor!”
“Calm yourself, General,” the doctor replied. She opened her spindly fingers to reveal a ball of glowing red light. “I have already communed with the lexicron.”
“That’s the light from the bottom of the lake!” declared Frog. “What’s a lexicron?”
“‘What’s a lexicron?’!” By the slurms of Urm! This is what I’m talking about!” howled the general. “All stunk up!”
“The lexicron is suffering some water damage,” continued the doctor, “but from what I can glean, our farship was caught in a lightning storm upon entering the planet’s atmosphere. We crashed.”
“Moons of Moonos!” boomed the general. “Where’s the prince’s Keeper? Blasted scheming mystic! If the farship was in trouble, why didn’t she wake us?”
“We’ll probably never know – it appears the keeper was extinguished in the crash,” the doctor replied with a shrug. “The prince – the un-hatched royal spawn – somehow floated up to the planet’s surface. He hatched outside the farship.”
“Great suns of Kroakas! Then who kept him alive, if not the Keeper?” the general bellowed.
“Who knows? Only one thing is certain – the prince did not return here until today, when he made contact with the lexicron and woke us from farsleep.”
The general clenched both his fists until they made an unpleasant cracking sound.
“How long…?” he said through gritted teeth. “How long have we been asleep?”
“Five kronons,” came the doctor’s reply. “At least.”
“Five kronons?” cried General Kurg. “By the Crush! We’re behind schedule! We must look like a bunch of untrained skirns!”
“It is quite possible King Kroak hasn’t yet checked on our progress,” mused the doctor. “After all, he does have nine hundred and ninety-nine other planets to worry about…”
“By the Turmoil! We can’t take that risk – if the King does find out, we’ll be turned into protein bars! Or worse … we’ll be the laughing stock of the empire!” roared the general. “Well, fix it, Doctor! We can’t have a brain-stunk prince!”
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as ‘fixing’ him, General,” the doctor replied. “The lexicron has transferred our language to him – but little else. He has not been trained. He doesn’t even know who he is. To all intents and purposes, our prince is not a prince.”
“Would you please stop talking about me like I’m not here?” interrupted Frog. “I so am a prince! I’ve been waiting to be a prince for my whole life! I’m ready. I’m readier than ready!”
The general rubbed the top of his bald, green head, blinking his eyes in two directions as he peered at Frog.
“Perhaps the lexicron did get through to you, after all,” he said hopefully. “All right then – pay attention!”
The Five-hundred-and-thirteenth Son
As Frog looked on in confused awe, a dark green world appeared on one of the bipod’s picture-mirrors.
“Hey, I’ve seen that,” cried Frog. “That’s what I saw when I touched the red light in the lake and my mind went Bwooooooo! Fwaaaah! Stuuufff!”
“That is Kroakas, our home planet,” the General began. “It is—”
“What’s a planet?” asked Frog.
“What’s a—? By the Clenched Fist!” growled the general. “It’s … a big place. So, we set off from this big place and travelled through space to—”
“What’s space?” asked Frog.
“It’s far away,” the general huffed. “We have travelled from a big place far away to reach this big place so that—”
“I fell down a waterfall in the sky,” interrupted Frog. “Now that was far.”
“Can I finish?” the general blurted. “So, we went from that big place to this big place to play our part in King Kroak’s grand scheme for the universe.”
“What’s a universe?”
“Kroak’s teeth!” huffed the gene
ral. “Look … King Kroak is our supreme leader, the rightful ruler of the birds in the sky, the beasts of the land and the entire universe. He has sworn to conquer a thousand worlds.”
“Yoiks…” said Frog, even though he wasn’t altogether sure what the general meant.
“As tradition dictates, you were transported here as an egg, to hatch upon this planet,” interjected Doctor Kull.
“I knew princes hatched from eggs!” Frog exclaimed.
General Kurg reached down to the handle at his side. He drew it out of the holster on his leg – it looked almost like the hilt of a bright red sword, but without a blade. He handed it to Frog.
“Your sunder-gun,” he said. “A weapon fit for a prince.”
“Shined-up just the way I like! What does it do?” said Frog, examining the strange weapon with delight. He used it to scratch his head (causing every Kroakan in the room to shriek in horror) and added, “I still don’t think I understand how I fit into this.”
“You, Prince Frog? By the Right to Smite! You are the spawn of King Kroak – his five-hundred-and-thirteenth son,” replied the general. “You have been chosen to rule this world.”
“Chosen…?” whispered Frog.
General Kurg waited expectantly for more of a response, but none came. He glanced at Doctor Kull, who shrugged and crossed her long fingers. They watched Frog look slowly around the room, as the strange, green-skinned giants peered back at him. Then…
“I knew it! I knew I was a prince! I told them!” he cried, fist-punching the air. “This is the best, most excellent day ever – by a million!”
The general breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wait till I tell Buttercup! Wait till I tell Sheriff Explosion! Wait till I tell … the princess.” Frog narrowed his eyes. “General Kurg! Here is my first royal command: open the clamshell whatsit and extend the tongue-stairs! I’m going to have a word with Princess Rainbow…” He looked down. “Oh, and could someone get me some clothes?”
The Return of Prince Frog
“I’m bored,” said Princess Rainbow from atop the wizard’s shoulders. Nothing had happened for a whole five minutes – not since Frog had climbed inside the bipod with General Kurg. “Are my newnicorns fully grown yet? I want to go riding.”
“Perhaps we should retreat to the palace, Your Majesty,” suggested Oldasdust. “I have a bad feeling about these giant gobbins and their—”
“Dun-dun-duuuuh!” came a cry, as the bipod suddenly reopened. The gathered crowds watched aghast as a troupe of green-skinned, black-clad giants made their way down the stairs one after the other, until a dozen of them towered over the princess and her subjects.
“I said, dun-dun-duuuuh!”
The giants parted to reveal Frog, walking slowly down the stairs. He was dressed in his own suit of sleek, oil-black armour, with his new sunder-gun holstered at his side. Round his shoulders he wore a long, crimson cape – and upon his head, an ornate black crown with long, curved horns.
“Behold … me!” he added, swishing his cape dramatically. “How do you like my cutting-edge princely fashion?”
“You look like you’re going to a gobbin funeral,” giggled Princess Rainbow.
“You’d better watch it, Princess. I had to tell my number-one general here not to give you a proper telling-off for locking me in a cage,” sneered Frog, pointing up at General Kurg.
“Princess – my omen hat is getting awfully tight…” warned Oldasdust.
“So, it turns out I am a prince after all!” Frog continued, putting his hands on his hips. “And I’m a much better prince than you are a princess because I come from a far-away plant called Kroak. That’s in outer place at the other end of very far away, which means I’m destined to rule over this whole world. In your face, Princess Brain-slow.”
“Saying you’re a prince doesn’t make you a prince,” huffed Princess Rainbow. “And it doesn’t stop you being a silly frog.”
“Princess!” coughed Oldasdust. “Do not forget most of our royal army is far from the palace. Perhaps it’s better if we do not antagonize the gobbins…”
“OK, here are my first royal decrees …” continued Frog, adjusting his crown. “One! Find Sheriff Explosion so he can be my trusty steed again. Two! Let’s have a tour of the palace! A proper tour – not just the chamber of farty-smelling pets. Three! Polished sandwiches for everyone! Your prince is starving!”
The princess glared at Oldasdust, who gave a nervous shrug. “It couldn’t hurt now, could it…?” he simpered.
The tour of the palace could not have been more awkward – for everyone except a giddy Prince Frog. While he squealed with delight at every new room, statue and feature, the enormous Kroakans had to duck continually to avoid hitting their heads on low beams, and made a point of barging the servants out of the way wherever possible.
“By the Flames of Conquest, this is taking forever!” grunted the general. “We have work to do!”
“Agreed – the more we linger, the closer we get to being turned into snack food,” whispered Doctor Kull. “If the prince is not capable of fulfilling his destiny, there are … alternatives.”
Princess Rainbow, meanwhile, refused to say a word, huffing and puffing as an increasingly nervous Oldasdust did his best to maintain decorum.
“And this is the Fourth Grand Ballroom,” he exclaimed, as they wandered through a grand, gilded hall. “So called because – well, because we have three other grand ballrooms…”
By the time they returned to the garden, the royal chefs had laid out a lavish banquet for the princess and her surprise “guests”. Amidst the majesty of the formal gardens (and in the shadow of the looming Kroakan bipods) was a long table, filled with a sumptuous royal feast of princely proportions – polished sandwiches, polished fruit, polished cakes and gallons of ruby-red roseberry wine (made with polished roseberries).
With the sun shining brightly and the now fully grown newnicorn herd grazing nearby, everyone sat down. At one end of the table sat the princess, Oldasdust and a host of anxious dignitaries, flanked by Man-Lor and a handful of royal guards. At the other end were General Kurg, Doctor Kull, a few confused Kroakan troops – and one very pleased-with-himself prince.
“Isn’t this great?” Frog exclaimed, stuffing three gleaming sandwiches into his mouth at once. “And not a turnip in sight!”
He washed down the sandwiches with an entire flagon of roseberry wine, and let out a satisfied BURRRP.
“Uh, Prince Frog?” began General Kurg, as a servant nervously offered him a cake. “Is this some sort of strategy to lull the natives into a false sense of security? It’s just – the clock is ticking. It is time to give the order.”
“What order?” said Frog, barely listening as he munched on three cakes at once.
Doctor Kull leaned in to the general. “He is lost to us, General – we must act,” she whispered. “Unless you want to explain to King Kroak why we are having tea with the natives?”
“What am I supposed to do?” replied the general, in a less-than-quiet whisper. “He’s the prince!”
“We should all go bipod racing after this!” cried Frog obliviously. “We could have a whole royal Olympics!”
At the other end of the table, Princess Rainbow’s cheeks were turning as red as the roseberry wine.
“This is stupid,” she snarled. “How come I’m not allowed any friends, but we have to sit here with gibby-gobby gobbins … and him?”
Oldasdust had been trying to prise his omen hat from his head for the last few minutes. “Gah! Can’t… get it … off!” he whispered. “These gobbins are all sorts of badness. We must be cautious, lest we enrage them! Would you care for some cake, Princess?”
“No,” huffed the princess, pushing her plate away. “And you just want to keep the gobbins around because they don’t speak – not proper, anyway.”
“You know the best thing about these sandwiches? Not even a hint of turnip,” continued Frog at the other end of the table. “Yoi
ks! I forgot Buttercup!”
“‘Buttercup’?” repeated the general.
“She was right about me all along! Well, sort of,” Frog went on. “Where was I up to in my royal decrees – three? No, four! Send my fastest bipod and fetch her – she’s at the top of a giant waterfall in the sky on a farty little island. Five! I’ll be needing my own newnicorn – uh, that one, with the blue mane. Six—!”
“No!” squeaked a voice, with such ferocity that everyone (even the newnicorns) stopped what they were doing. Princess Rainbow had clambered on to the table.
“Princess – wait!” whispered Oldasdust.
“You don’t get to make royal rules or anything, Greeny,” said Princess Rainbow. “You’re not a prince and you don’t get to decide things and you don’t – don’t – get one of my newnicorns!”
“Silence this … organism, Your Majesty – give the order,” repeated the general, his hand hovering over his sunder-gun.
“Look, Princess – I’m trying to be nice,” said Frog, “’cause we’re both full-on royalty and everything. But you can’t push me around or drag me about or lock me in a cage any more. I’m a prince.”
“You’re just a prince of stupid, gibby-gobby gobbins!” shouted Princess Rainbow. “And that’s not a prince at all.”
A hush fell about the table. Frog gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “For the last time, these are not gobbins, they’re Kroakans … and I am a prince!” protested Frog. “Look, I have a crown! Why would I have a crown if I wasn’t a prince? I have a bunch of goodly loyal outer place soldiers! I have giant royal machine steeds!”
“Shut up!” snarled Princess Rainbow, stamping her feet on the table and sending a flagon of roseberry wine crashing to the ground. “You’ll never, ever be a prince. You’re not anything but a frog … and Buttercup is a thief who should get her head cut off.”
