Kill the Farm Boy

by Kevin Hearne

  “Oh,” Grinda said, looking surprised. “That wasn’t a bad idea.”

  “Begging your pardon, Lady Sand Witch,” Poltro said, “I’d like to make sure I understand. If you revive your nephew somehow, he’s going to wind up killing King Benedick because of being the Chosen One? Do I have that right?”

  Grinda blew a raspberry. “I don’t think he was the Chosen One at all. Getting crushed by a falling woman is not the sort of thing that enchantment would allow to happen, but it does sound like the sort of thing that would happen to my nephew.”

  “Well, then, who’s the Chosen One if it’s not him?” Gustave wondered aloud. “It was only the two of us there.” All the human eyes swung around to look at him, and quite a few of the crab eyes on stalks did as well.

  “You weren’t a talking billy goat before Staph arrived, right?” Grinda said.

  Lord Toby chuckled. “Of course! Now it makes sense!”

  The truth clicked in Gustave’s head: the drunken pixie hadn’t used any magic at all on Worstley but had used plenty on him. “Oh, dang,” he said, and took a few steps back. “Look, y’all, I don’t want to kill any kings or upset any natural orders. I’m not cut out for civics. I can eat the heck out of your ugly old sweaters if you want and turn them into neat little brown pellets a few hours later, but managing a kingdom? No way.”

  “Well,” Fia said, “normally I’d seek a way to hug it out, but it would seem to me that the thing to do is kill this Løcher guy and maybe Staph the pixie for good measure. That way the Chosen One enchantment dies with her and we have no more shenanigans out of Løcher. I mean, that’s assuming that the enchantment dies with the caster.”

  The sand witch nodded. “Yes, darling, that’s how it works.”

  “No, no, wait a second,” Gustave said. “If you take me to the capital where Løcher is, that’s going to put me in close proximity to the king, right? And this enchantment is trying to get me to kill him. So I’d accidentally poop in his soup or cause his carriage to flip over. This is a bad idea for everybody.”

  Fia waved away his objections. “It’ll be fine, Gustave. We kill Staph first, and it’ll all work out.”

  “Or I’ll accidentally step on the king’s necklace and strangle him. No thank you. I’ll stay right here, and y’all can go have at it.”

  “Ah, but we need your aura,” Grinda explained. “Things just seem to happen around Chosen Ones. Guards turn their heads, torches go out at convenient times, the right key just so happens to fall out of the right pocket. It will be tremendously easier to take out Staph if you’re with us. You’ll definitely need to come along.”

  “Gadzooks!” Gustave’s goat lips spluttered and spat as he sighed in frustration. “You stupid humans never listen to me.”

  Once Gustave had wanted only to eat and poo and make Worstley’s life miserable. Then he’d wanted to escape the farm boy’s mother’s stew pot and perhaps see what the world was like outside of his muddy paddock. But now? He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted, but he felt like it included not killing the king and plunging the country into war or whatever happened when people were dying all over the place. When soldiers roamed the land unpaid, the goat figured, lots of innocent four-legged animals ended up roasted over fires. He had a…dang it. A responsibility now. Stupid Chosen Oneness.

  Grinda stood up. “Well, that’s it, then. If we’re going to the capital, I have much to do. We’ll leave in the morning and stop at the Goblin Market to pick up some necessities. But you must be tired, my darlings. Relax and enjoy yourselves tonight. Have fun in the Garden of Pellish Delights if you wish. Milieu Goobersnootch will see that you are well taken care of and that you have comfortable rooms, won’t you, Milieu?”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  “Fantastic. Well, then—”

  “Wait.” Argabella’s voice cut Grinda’s jolly farewell short. “You need to tell me why you did this to me. To the sleeping Lady Harkovrita. To the whole castle.”

  Grinda sighed as if the whole thing was simply exhausting, even for people who had previously been swanning about on a private beach with drink-bearing sparklecrabs. “You see, I had to, my dear. It was Løcher working through Staph again. He had a grudge against the Earl of Borix and assigned Staph to lay an enchantment on the Lady Harkovrita that would have been tremendously embarrassing to the earl while, not coincidentally, inconveniencing me.”

  Argabella, for one, did not seem to buy it. “What sort of enchantment?”

  “An aura of potential similar to the Chosen One’s, except with a nautical focus. The Lady Harkovrita was destined to become the world’s most feared pirate, the Bosun One. Her father would have lost his earldom, and my shipping interests, which are not insignificant, would have suffered greatly. I tried to dispel the enchantment but failed. So rather than let it work, I set up an itsy-bitsy little plan to put the whole castle to sleep until I could find a solution. That way no one would suffer.”

  Argabella was quivering with anger instead of fear this time. “Except for me.”

  “Yes. But I had good reason for that, too, and I’ll tell you—if you could just wait one more day.” Her old eyes flicked among the rest of the party. “I think it best we keep that matter between ourselves. So let’s talk tomorrow in the Goblin Market, shall we?”

  Silence fell among them, filled only by the susurrus of the surf, the clicking of crab claws, and palpable tension. Gustave unloaded a pound of pellets on the beach just in case he had to run in the next few seconds.

  “Fine,” Argabella snapped.

  They all exhaled the breaths they’d been holding. Angry rabbits are in fact quite fearsome, and nobody wanted to see one off the chain.

  “Sounds like getting rid of Staph will solve a lot of problems,” Fia said.

  “It will,” Grinda said, nodding and smiling.

  “Mine, too?” Argabella asked.

  The sand witch’s face fell. “We’ll talk tomorrow, darling.”

  Gustave was very glad he wasn’t an enchanted rabbit lady just then.

  The sand witch’s hospitality was indeed gracious and boundless, at least according to Toby. He had originally intended to use his time to snoop through the castle, find Grinda’s inner sanctum, and plunder her grimoires and potions for a magical object that would allow his full powers to blossom. But the Goobersnootch possessed an aggravating ability to show up any time Toby found himself alone in a promising sort of hall, and there were so many invigorating activities listed on an agenda swirled with the most beautiful calligraphy that he never got around to a proper ransacking. He instead found himself some hours later enjoying a vast banquet that could’ve filled even Ol’ Faktri’s capacious gut.

  The courtiers at the feast were witty and clever and seemed fascinated with Toby, a lord in his own right. Borix sounds just precious, they cooed, Do tell us about your rampant tower. In between fragrant nibbles of gourmet cheeses, goblet after goblet of fine wine and mead, and the batted eyelashes of two young duchesses with a dozing chaperone, Toby all but forgot his original plan. When the duchess on the left mentioned that the Garden of Pellish Delights was lit beautifully at night by swans outfitted with softly glowing lantern hats, he couldn’t think of a single reason not to join her on the lawn. For research, he told himself. As she led him outside, complimenting the tender down of his beard, he realized he’d forgotten all about his traveling companions and hadn’t seen them in hours.

  The next morning, Toby woke up nude and halfway tumbled into a topiary shaped like a giraffe. He was missing one sock, and his mouth tasted like he’d licked a swamp ferret. As he looked around, trying to remember the last twelve hours, he saw no sign of the naughty duchesses—or of Gustave, thank goodness. Chosen Ones tended to get in the way of dastardly deeds, even by accident. The Dark Lord hurried inside clutching an irate swan over his frontbum, only to find Milieu, somehow still awa
ke and in perfect form, ready to return him to his well-appointed room. There Toby gladly dumped the swan out the window and availed himself of a wardrobe filled with wizardly garments in just his size and a bureau full of warm woolen socks and pointy hats. The exact moment that he completed his toilette, noting with alarm that several of his beard hairs were missing, a knock sounded on his door.

  The Dark Lord smoothed down his eyebrows, checked the mirror, and tried to look urbane should yet another acrobatic duchess be standing in the hall with intriguing promises about swans. Alas, all he found was his party. Fia, for once, looked relaxed and cheerful, possibly owing to the new breastplate and greaves that complemented her chain-mail bikini, although he did find it peculiar that the beautifully molded metal featured a very wide window of cleavage right over her heart, which seemed like a major design flaw for a warrior. Poltro looked sleepy and well fed, and Toby had a vague memory of seeing her in the gardens the previous night, yelling at swans and accusing them of being vanilla geese. Gustave looked about the same as ever, although he had leather shoelaces dangling from his lips and almost seemed to be smiling. Argabella, however, looked like she hadn’t slept a bit and had instead paced her room all night without pause, quivering in that way that she had.

  “It’s good that you’ve come to me,” he began. “As a wise and powerful wizard, I—”

  “Time to go,” Argabella said, interrupting him. “Er, now. Please.”

  “I wasn’t done.”

  “We don’t care.” Gustave slurped down his shoelace. “Grinda’s ready to take us to the Goblin Market, and I hear they have some really disgusting edibles there, so let’s get on with it.”

  “Disgusting? No no no!” Toby scoffed. “My dear goat, the Goblin Market is one of those oxymoronic misnomers where you expect it to be revolting but it’s actually magical and wonderful. You can’t have a horrible name and horrible wares and expect anyone to come. The goblins, though a strange people, are marvelous makers.”

  “Are you sure?” Poltro asked. “Because I met a goblin once, and I still feel like I can’t wash my hands enough, because it was a bit sticky, I must say.”

  “Positive.” Toby smiled patronizingly. “My dear children, many wonders await you.”

  “But have you ever been there?” Fia pressed.

  “Well, no,” Toby admitted. “But wizards talk.”

  “What other wizards have you talked to?” This again from Poltro, from whom he would’ve expected more loyalty. “Because as I grew up in your general farmyard area and watched very few folk come and go from your doorstep, I don’t recall seeing anyone properly mysterious or uncanny besides the postman and yourself, of course, m’Dark Lord, sir.”

  At his wit’s end, Toby waggled his fingers at the ceiling and ducked a falling pain au chocolat. “We wizards are an epistolary people!”

  “Cor,” Poltro said. “Sorry to hear that. Hope the doctor can help.”

  Toby shook his head sadly. “Let me pack my bags, and soon you will all see.” Then, under his breath, “Honestly, the state of education in Pell today.”

  “But you taught me everything I know, sir.”

  Toby disappeared into his room, shutting the door in Poltro’s face. It wasn’t true, of course. He’d been the one responsible for neglecting her education, then later tried to make it right by sending her to Cutter, which had clearly been a mistake. What the lower classes didn’t understand about Dark Lords was that their concerns were part of a larger sort of sphere. One couldn’t get any magic done or make a mint off hedgehog hybrids if one was thinking about educating the young or healing the old. The nice thing about the top of Toby’s tower was that he didn’t generally have to see everything happening on the ground, especially if he left off his spectacles. That was the point of being wise and having untold knowledge: you knew well enough when to leave things alone.

  And you also knew well enough when to become deeply involved, as was Toby’s current role. For all that he didn’t like Grinda as a person, he knew that the keys to her power were hidden somewhere in this palace—or on her person. A wand, a secret beard, someone’s unbeating heart—it was nearby, and if Grinda would just stay occupied with the journey, he could find it and…well, steal was such a dirty word. Share? Borrow her powers? Siphon off a little? If he was clever enough, she wouldn’t even notice. Although Poltro was correct that Toby had never actually left his tower, he had done quite a bit of reading and was anxious to build his knowledge as he slowly began to consolidate occult power. He knew that several Dark Lords nurtured plans to take over the world, but that sounded like a colossal bother. A turtlehog empire and unfettered access to fine cheeses: that was Toby’s dark desire.

  When he reemerged in the hall, nothing had changed except that Gustave had begun to nibble on the edge of a tapestry and Argabella was somehow even more anxious. The rabbit woman couldn’t stop shaking, and her already buggy eyes were wide and twitching frantically. Toby worried that if she were to see a hawk outside, she’d stamp and start digging a hole. But Grinda had promised to reveal the truth of Argabella’s transformation today, hadn’t she? Toby needed to stay close in hopes that he might learn some nifty magic.

  Not that he wanted to turn anyone into half a rabbit, but it would be nice to know that he could. If he needed to.

  Milieu appeared in that silent, sneaky, disapproving way that he had and led them down several labyrinthine halls, depositing them in the foyer. “My Lady Grinda will meet you shortly,” he said. “Please do refrain from masticating the draperies.”

  Poltro grimaced. “Oh, gross.”

  “If you don’t want people to eat things, you shouldn’t hang them at mouth level,” Gustave grumbled.

  Apparently, the halfling butler’s idea of “shortly” didn’t strictly agree with the dictionary’s definition. After fifteen very uncomfortable minutes in the elegant but smallish vestibule, Toby could no longer make polite humming noises every time he accidentally made eye contact with someone.

  “So, how was everyone’s night?” he asked, supposing that if he was going to be uncomfortable, they should very well do the polite thing and join him.

  “Lovely,” Poltro piped up. “Fine picnic among a stealthy pod of rogues in a shadowy bit of garden. No chickens or crabs, plenty of cloaks and masks and whispering. Played an excellent game of Hide and Goose, although the geese weren’t really fond of it.”

  “Poltro, those were swans.”

  “A honk is a honk, my lord. And my, what honkers!”

  “How about you, Fia? Good night?”

  Fia breathed in a sigh of happiness. “Milieu took me to a rough stone hall in the keep where the warriors meet to heft tankards of sturdy ale. They also had a lovely Chenin Blanc, excellent nose with an oaky afterbirth and light tonguing of pear and peach. I played the best game of dice in my life and won this beautiful armor from the blacksmith himself. Feels so good to get some coverage.” She exhaled, and Toby had trouble not ogling, as the chestplate was mirror bright with elegant curlicues pointing right at the giant cleft exposed by the armor’s unsafe and unnecessary window.

  “Finished up with marbled tofu soufflé, fried okra blossoms with debauched guava au jus, and some arm wrestling.” She tapped her new greaves. “Which I won.”

  “And I was led out to a barnyard filled with goats, cows, sheep, and a very arrogant alpaca,” Gustave said, “since you were about to ask, I’m sure.”

  “Could any of them talk?” Toby asked.

  Gustave shook his head, and little bits of hay flew out. “No, thank goodness. Can you imagine anything more boring than listening to an alpaca talk? Oh, I’m just so tall and floofy, and everyone loves me. Look at my long neck and freaky teeth. Alpaca this, alpaca that. Disgusting.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Gustave gave a caprine shrug. “Ate some trash, peed on things, ejected pellets in
areas bereft of pellets. Found a pooboy and harangued him, but he just took the abuse stoically. This Grinda trains her servants well. Oh, and Moxie and Doxy won’t want to ever leave here, I don’t think. She has dwarvelish cattle masseuses from Åftpümpf, and they gave our old oxen a prod and tickle they won’t soon forget.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t imagine we’ll need them from here on. And how was your night, Argabella?”

  In response, the rabbit woman wailed and yanked down a tapestry before kicking it with a fluffy foot. “Wretched! It was wretched! That awful butler dumped me in a room with perfect acoustics and a wide variety of lutes, harpsichords, sousaphones, and bodhrans. There was a lovely lectern with a stack of creamy paper already scored with music staffs and a variety of quills and erasable inks. Magical windows showed scenes of great inspiration, and a giant book called Ye Olde Rhyme Zone sat, waiting. And I had bard’s block! I couldn’t even get one line of a song! So I smashed a few lutes and went outside to get drunk, but all I could find were massive amounts of freshly pressed vegetable juices. It was torture. Torture, I say! That nasty woman wants nothing more than to see me suffer.”

  This was the most the rabbit girl had ever said as well as the most emotion she’d shown. When she dissolved in hiccupping sobs, spouting tears that matted down her already patchy face fur, Fia gathered her up into an awkward hug and Toby was spared the dangerous responsibility of saying something sympathetic like “Oh?” or “You poor dear” or “How terrible of that monster to give you everything you should require to be happy.”

  Just then, the front door was opened again by Milieu, and Toby began to wonder if perhaps the Cask-snooper Goober-snitches were a very large clan of identical spy clones. A grand carriage waited outside, and Milieu unfolded a tidy set of steps and held out his hand to help their party aboard. Toby couldn’t help noticing that the carriage wasn’t shaped like a pumpkin, which was currently all the rage among the witchy elite. No, Grinda’s carriage was shaped like an octopus, four of the arms curling to hold the wheels, two arcing toward the team of six dappled gray horses, and two twisting to support the liveried dwarf guards positioned around back and bristling with weapons. Fia was the first to accept Milieu’s aid into the carriage, and Toby noted her hand on her shears as she stepped within, giving him a competent nod. Next came Poltro, who somehow managed to trip on a rogue crab, then Gustave, who raised an eyebrow at Milieu and leapt in without help. Argabella looked at Toby, and Toby looked at Argabella, for they were the last two people not inside the wheeled cephalopod.