Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  Soon they repeated their farewells. “This will work,” said Razzmorten. “Just you be careful and return safely to this window, my friend.”

  “I will,” cawed Hubba Hubba. And with that, he dove out into the air, sparrows in tow.

  Chapter 52

  Lipperella got everyone moving in the middle of the night to get them out of the catacombs and into the Grog Meadow before the clan could capture them. The meadow was enormous. It took them from the moment they were blinded by the sunrise until well into the afternoon to reach the pond which lay beyond it. Lukus was the first one in the water, as everyone came running. He was happily splashing about as they arrived. “It's perfect!” he hollered.

  “More than tempting, Lukus,” whinnied Fuzz. “We've had a right sweaty trek across an ungodly meadow. If everyone keeps an eye on the sky, I don't see what it would hurt for us to take a short dip.”

  Lipperella and Spark wallowed through the cattails and plunged in at once. Rose sat on the ground to remove her half-boots, while Fuzz waited politely before walking her to the shore. He'd decided to stay nearby in case her ankle caused her to need a quick rescue. She dipped in her toes, then dove in without a saying a word. He waded after, bubbles coming up his legs.

  They cavorted and splashed and had a rousing game of water tag under the cloudless sky for a good long spell. Without warning, Rose screamed out at Lukus, who yowled with pain from a long black quill sticking in his shoulder. Everyone froze wide eyed then furiously lunged and paddled to his side, as a spiny black creature gave a malevolent glare and wheeled aside with a snort to bound off into the meadow.

  Lukus was white and trembling. His breathing was labored and wheezing. Spark and Lipperella gently bore him up to take him ashore. Fuzz put a calming paw on Rose's shoulder. She stiffened and flung it off. “You lied!” she shouted. “You said frill drakes were only out after dark! Why did you do that Fuzz? We were nearly out of the meadow. Had we only known, this never would've happened. Now Lukus is going to die! Its all your fault!” Fuzz stepped back, wide eyed. Lipperella handed Lukus to Spark and came back to help Rose to shore. Fuzz trailed along behind, mouth agape.

  Lukus was already out cold when Spark laid him in the grass. Rose dropped to her knees beside him, wailing and shaking with grief. She took his hand in hers and rocked back and forth, softly calling out his name. Lipperella narrowed her eyes, studying the quill where it stuck from his shoulder. She motioned Spark over with her head. He studied the quill for a moment and nodded.

  “Rose,” whispered Lipperella, “Lukus is not going to die. He'll be fine.”

  “But frill drakes are always fatal without mandrake and frill drake saliva?” she cried.

  “No Rose. The creature which attacked Lukus was not a frill drake. Didn't think so when I saw it...”

  “No, Lipperella,” cried Rose, returning to her sobs. “You didn't see what I saw. It raised that big ruff around its neck and the quill shot from it.”

  “Shh! Shh! Rose!” she said. “It's fine. Lukus will be fine. It was a quill drake.” She turned back to Lukus.

  “What?” said Rose, getting hold of herself.

  “Quill drake,” said Spark. “They're a lesser sort of frill drake. They're probably meaner, and they run around in the daytime, but their quills don't have eggs in them and not nearly the barbs, and their poison probably has never ever killed a human. Lukus should be coming around directly, with the father of all headaches for the next day or two. Oh, and he's going to have huge purple welts all over, which will drive him mad if he ever scratches the things.”

  Lipperella pulled the glistening black spine from Lukus's shoulder. Not long thereafter he began to stir. He held fast his throbbing head between his elbows even before he opened his eyes. “Great steaming wagon loads of dung,” he moaned. “Being dead hurts. I've gone straight to the Pit, after all.”

  “Don't be ridiculous, Lukus,” said Rose. “You aren't dead. Not even close.”

  “I was afraid you'd say that,” he said between clenched teeth, as he used his hands to turn his head toward her. “But why aren't I dead, and how long do I have to wish I was?”

  “A quill drake got you, not a frill drake,” she said. Quill drakes won't kill you, but you get to have a terrible headache and huge purple welts for a day or so. I suppose it depends on how long it was before Lipperella pulled out the quill.” She looked aside for a nod from Lipperella. “So there you have it.”

  “Great,” he said, speaking from under an armpit. “I sure hope our wicked Auntie Ugleeuh stays out of the sky until then.”

  “Zounds!” said Fuzz, looking up wide eyed. “He's right. Now would be a very bad time to have to deal with Ugleeuh. Once we leave here, there's nothing but sand dunes all the way to the broad open beach which lies all along the shore. It's a good number of leagues, yet. There's no place to hide. She could get us anywhere along the way. I suggest we take a dogleg north and camp in the edge of Chokewoods until Lukus has had time to recover.”

  “Chokewoods?” gasped Rose. “But smallies and dorchadas are there.”

  “They are indeed,” he said with a long faced nod, still avoiding her eyes, “though they rarely haunt the south part. Even they fear the drakes. At any rate, I urge the Chokewoods.”

  “He's right, Rose,” said Spark. “No doom is more foul than Ugleeuh, neither drake nor smallies and dorchadas together.”

  “How far is the Chokewood Forest?” said Rose.

  “Two league, maybe two and a half at most, over countryside much like this,” said Fuzz. “Gastro's beach might be seven or eight from here, and maybe nine or ten league in a straight line from Chokewoods. If Lukus rides on Spark and you ride on my back, we'll camp right before sunset, I expect. And if we start from there, first thing in the morning, we ought to reach Gastro by late afternoon. If we try to reach Gastro from here, we'll be stumbling around in the dunes after nightfall. Do frill drakes get down to the beach?”

  Spark and Lipperella both nodded.

  “Well I hate to say it Rose,” said Fuzz, “But I don't think there is a choice.”

  Rose shuddered at the thought of Chokewoods, especially Chokewoods after dark. “Very well, Chokewoods it is,” she said.

  Lipperella carefully hoisted Lukus astride Spark, giving him a gentle pat, as she placed a sly kiss on Spark's jaw.

  Rose climbed aboard Fuzz and they were off. “Fuzz,” she whispered, patting his shoulder. “I'm horribly ashamed of what I said to you. I was out of my mind over Lukus, but I had no right to treat you so abominably. I do indeed know that you are honest and forthright. No one outside my family has ever made the sacrifices for me that you have. I do so hope that you'll be able to forgive me, someday.”

  Fuzz said nothing, keeping up his massive rocking canter through the sandy grass, and it wrenched Rose's heart. Surely she'd pushed him too far with her cruel outburst. She gave a tight dry swallow at the thought of having lost the best friend she'd ever had.

  “Rose,” said Fuzz in a thick voice, just as she was about to break into sobs. “Of course you're forgiven. I daresay I wasn't beyond being hurt by your words, but I didn't have to consider long to understand your situation. I'm just relieved that you know I didn't deceive you. And I want more than anything for you to know that I never would. You and Lukus have been a great joy to this old bear. I'd never jeopardize something so precious to me.”

  “Oh Fuzz!” she said, bursting into the sobs she'd struggled to keep back. She laid her head against the back of his neck. “You're just as precious to Lukus and me. We want you for our friend, always.”

  “Then,” he declared, “so be it.”

  ***

  They arrived at the edge of Chokewoods just after sunset, feeling relief and dread at the sight of the looming trees. Everyone hesitated, not wanting to enter. Lukus slid off Spark, grabbing his head with a grimace when he landed. Rose dismounted and stood by his side, saying nothing. Lukus turned wide eyes to meet Rose's barely perceptible nod. This w
as like it was the first time they arrived, in spite of it being a different part of the woods and a different time of day. “Well,” she said, jostling everyone by speaking. “Let's get on with it, shall we?” She gave Lukus an abrupt shove and followed him through an opening in the tangle of brush and matted vines. Fuzz, Spark, and Lipperella came immediately behind.

  In they went, straining from side to side in hopes of spying some sort of clearing or cave for a place to camp. “If you listen, it's almost as if you can hear the trees scream,” said Lipperella, in an awed whisper.

  “We thought so the first time,” said Lukus. “It's so eerie.”

  “Indeed,” said Fuzz, “But the trees are in fact not screaming, and when their trunks look so grotesque, one's imagination would understandably be thrall to suggestion.”

  “So you don't hear anything then?” said Spark.

  “I didn't say that, “said Fuzz. “It sounds like far away moans and murmurs in some giant hall, but that must be the wind 'way up in the trees, rather than the trees themselves.”

  “Are you sure?” said Spark. “I'm not.”

  “Well no, but it's the simplest explanation, isn't it?”

  “Perhaps, but 'simple' doesn't take Razzorbauch's perversion of the place into account.”

  “Good point,” said Fuzz, as everyone fell into a nervous silence.

  “Hey,” said Lipperella. “Look up ahead. That could be a clearing.” It was. They made a hasty camp by doing little more than spreading out their blankets and deciding how they would keep watch. Rose heard no owls at all, only the ghostly murmur and sighs echoing from unimaginable reaches, off in the timber.

  ***

  Lukus woke up stiff enough from the ground that he swore he was dead. But when he found that he could move his eyes in their sockets without shooting pains, he was elated. He sat up and scratched purple places that weren't quite so purple now, before gently shaking Rose.

  “Guess what?” he said with a grin. “It's morning and we're still alive.”

  “You realize don't you, O Foulest One, that you look like one of those mottled mole rats from the Archepileges Isles?” said Rose.

  Their banter woke the others, who immediately set to packing up their things. “Say, you look like something that's thinking about growing a normal looking head, Lukus,” said Fuzz. “Want to ride Spark today, or can you bear to travel?”

  “You're baiting me,” said Lukus. “You either want me to walk, or you want to swat my tender head for bruising your 'ursine dignity.' Right? Well if I walk, I won't have time to scratch all these purple things.”

  “Very well. How is your head, then?”

  “I actually do have one.”

  “Well then,” said Fuzz, “shall we set out and see if we can find Gastro?”

  There was no dissent, and no one wanted to eat breakfast in Chokewood Forest. In a very short while, they were relieved to find themselves out where they could watch the sun rise. They made straight for the part of the coast where Fuzz had always found Gastro, across several miles of rolling sand dunes.

  Much of the sand was firm and easy to walk on as they wended between the grassy ridges of the dunes. They made good time. But for every furlong of this, they found themselves in places where the sand was continually shifting and was deep and fluffy and even difficult to stand up on. In these places they often had to climb and cross over the tops of dune after dune, endlessly toppling and tumbling into tussocks of vicious sand burrs. By mid afternoon, the white sand had grown blinding and blistering hot in the sun, and they were quite out of water. Rose was trying to muster the strength to ask Fuzz how much further he thought it would be, when she spied the blue-green horizon across the top of the huge dune they were struggling to climb. As they mounted the crest of the hill of sand and the rest of the ocean came into view, she saw a glistening green and red scaled leviathan, much larger than three or four dragons put together, placidly undulating through the waves, patrolling the shoreline.

  The fresh salty scent of the sea was wonderful. As they loped and slid down the last dune to the beach, they heard and saw white hovering terns and gulls vigilantly combing the beach for fish and other tidbits left behind by the tide. Pelicans flew in formation over the waves. Crabs scuttled sideways into holes beyond the reach of high tide, darting over a vast array of seashell windrows that had washed ashore over an aeon. At last they reached the water. Rose and Lukus pulled off their boots and waded in with their torrid feet to sit in the water, allowing the gentle waves to soothe. Spark, Lipperella and Fuzz thundered in and sat. Lukus looked away from the bright westering sun and gazed out across the waves to where the sea monster could still be seen, swimming on his endless patrol. “What now, Fuzz?” he said. “Will Gastro be able to come in close enough to the shore for us to talk to, or must we go out to him somehow?”

  “Do you think he even knows we're here, Fuzz?” said Rose.

  “Gastro knows we're here, you can be sure of that,” he said, scowling from the sun. “Nothing slips his notice.” Then he pointed to a narrow jut of land running out into the sea, disappearing beyond sight. “If we walk out on that finger of land, 'way out there where that dead tree is, all by itself, Gastro will come up and talk. That was the main reason that jetty, that strip of sand, was put there. Ugleeuh did it. You see, when she first came here, she was lonely enough to take the trouble to talk to him. He, of course, still loved her and welcomed her unconditionally, though as you might imagine, she spent her time out there deriding and tormenting him.”

  “Nasty old witch,” said Lukus. “She did that to us.”

  “Nasty, nasty witch,” said Spark with a huge nod. “I have absolutely no recollection of her being nice, ever.”

  “Maybe we'd better do what we came for,” said Fuzz. “I see that Gastro is swimming around in circles, waiting for us.”

  “Then, let's not disappoint him,” said Lukus, churning the water as he made for the jetty. Everyone followed at once.

  Gastro immediately swam for the jetty to await their arrival by the dead tree. He waited with patience borne from years of waiting.

  To his great joy, Gastro recognized Spark, Lipperella, and his old friend Fuzz, whom he knew as Karlton. “A long time,” thought Gastro. “How long has it been?”

  “Hoy! Gastro!” hollered Fuzz. “My companions and I have come to ask for your help!”

  “My help?” rumbled Gastro deeply. “Of course. I certainly will if there's any way. What is it?”

  “These fine young people here are Princess Rose and Prince Lukus from Niarg.”

  “Niarg!” thundered Gastro, in astonishment.

  “Yes,” said Fuzz. “They're the son and daughter of King Hebraun and Queen Minuet.”

  “Why have they come here? Certainly not to visit family.”

  “Actually they did,” said Fuzz. “It's a right long and tangled story, Gastro, but Rose here was deceived into wondering if Ugleeuh was her mother, rather than Minuet. She couldn't get a satisfactory answer in Niarg, so she came to find Ugleeuh. Ugleeuh, who as you know, is not one to miss an opportunity, chose to use the situation to blackmail Hebraun and Minuet into releasing her from the forest in exchange for the safe return of Rose and Lukus. Meanwhile, they managed to escape from her, and a number of us in the forest have been doing everything we can to help them escape to Niarg ever since.” he sighed and studied Gastro to see how all this was striking him.

  Gastro looked puzzled and swung his ponderous head aside to address Rose, his huge dark eyes practically looking right inside her mind. “But what possibly could have made you think you might be Ugleeuh's daughter? She was only married once, to me, and we weren't together at all long enough to have a child. Didn't your parents or grandfather at least tell you that?” he said, sounding suspicious.

  “They didn't think that Ugleeuh had ever been married,” she said with a quaver as she looked him in the eye. “Furthermore, I heard things from others which suggested that she had, indeed borne a child
, but I couldn't verify any of this either. I decided to learn the truth on my own, which I daresay I've indeed managed.”

  “That you aren't Ugleeuh's daughter because she in fact has none,” said Gastro with conviction.

  “No. I found that I'm only her niece and that her true daughter was adopted by the king and queen of Goll,” she said, just before realizing that she'd just been the first to tell him of his own child without discreet regard for his feelings. “Oh, my word! I'm so very sorry. You shouldn't have had to find out this way.” She looked at Fuzz for help as he put a paw on her shoulder.

  “Of course Rose,” said Fuzz. “But I'm afraid time presses. Even now, Ugleeuh is searching the skies for us. Good friends of ours have died keeping our destination a secret, but we all know it's only a matter of time until she finds us. Gastro, surely you would know what would happen if Ugleeuh were allowed unrestrained access to Niarg and, fates forbid, the continent at large. If you help us get Rose and Lukus back to Niarg before she catches us, this disaster can be prevented.”

  Gastro however, didn't appear to have heard any of what Fuzz had just said. He swam in several churning circles before addressing him. “I have a daughter? Did you know this, Karlton? How could this be? Why didn't Ugleeuh tell me?” he roared with the anguish of betrayal. “And how could she just give her away like that without even telling me?”

  “No my old friend, I did not know of your daughter until these two revealed that information to me,” said Fuzz, with a waver to his voice noticed by everyone. “Had I known, you can be assured, I would have told you. This I swear to you on our long years of friendship.”

  Gastro met Fuzz's eyes in a moment of silent resignation. At once he turned his mighty gaze back upon Rose. “And what do you know of my daughter then?”

  Rose was frightened. She didn't want to lie to this fearsome beast, who'd been lied to endlessly by Ugleeuh, but she nearly swooned at the pain she saw him in from her own revelation. Could she remember something comforting about Spitemorta to tell him? “Well, Wizard Gastro,” she said, glancing at Lukus, “I really don't know Spitemorta all that well...”