by JL Bryan
Chapter Two
Hokealussiplatytorpinquarnartnuppy Melaerasmussanatolinkarrutorpicus Darnathiopockettlenocbiliotroporiqqua Bellefrost trudged through the marsh, leaning heavily on his sugarcane walking stick. He’d barely made it home from man-world, sneaking back into Faerie through a door whose dullahan guard must have been slacking on the job.
He touched the scorched pink unicorn horn tied to his belt. Buttercake had gone down in flames, burned until only the horn remained. He felt terrible for her. Just now, after walking all day through the swamplands, slapping away the swarms of booger-bugs that tried to burrow up his nose, Hoke missed having Buttercake as a mount, too. His old elven feet ached inside his cracked leather boots.
Hoke took a shortcut through Depressed Cypress Swamp, which he usually avoided because of all the deadly quicksand. He was just too tired to go the long way around. It was almost nightfall, anyway. He didn’t want to get caught outside when the giant saber-toothed swamp ducks emerged into the moonlight, looking for small animals to eat.
He trudged through the soft, heavy mud sucking at his feet. He approached some of the ancient Depressed Cypresses for whom this part of the marshland were named. Their dark trunks flared at the waterline of the swamp water, and there they had faces made of knotty bark. All of them looked like sour old men with mossy beards. Some of the faces were half-submerged in the black water.
“Happy sunset,” Hoke greeted the stand of trees as he walked through them.
“There’s nothing happy about this sunset,” one of the trees grumbled.
“Or any other,” a second tree added.
“It looks like the season’s been well to all of you,” Hoke said.
“Horrible season,” a Depressed Cypress replied.
“I think I’ve got a limb infection,” another added.
“An alligator pooped on me the other day,” a third tree complained.
“My mouf fills weh water whenever I talk,” another tree burbled, his mouth right at the surface of the dark water.
“No one wants to hear you talk, anyway,” a tree said.
Hoke tried to pick up the pace. He wanted to get through the Depressed Cypresses as quickly as possible, but they were easily offended and quite touchy. Besides, he had to step carefully while he watched out for quicksand.
“What awful things have you been doing?” another tree asked Hoke.
“I’m sure it’s depressing,” a tree commented.
“Actually, it is rather sad.” Hoke stopped to show the unicorn horn to the tree’s sour-old-man face. “My poor unicorn was burned to a nub by a wicked young man-whelp.”
“That kind of thing always happens,” a tree said.
“Life just gets worse and worse as you go,” said another.
“It’s not so bad,” Hoke said. “Unicorns can regrow from their horns.”
“But doesn’t it take a long time?”
“I bet it’s hard. It sounds like too much trouble.”
“Why would anyone bother growing back, anyway?”
“You’ll be missing your unicorn for a long time. A long, sad time.”
“It can take quite a while,” Hoke said. “Days, for some. For others, years...”
“Yours will probably take a long time.”
“Why even bother?”
Now Hoke was feeling down. In fact, he was down about six inches. His boots were sinking deep into dark quicksand.
“Oh, you did it to me again!” Hoke said. The Depressed Cypresses were known for engaging travelers in depressing conversation until they sank away into the quicksand, where they became Depressed Cypress fertilizer. “I don’t appreciate you trying to eat me.”
“We’re sorry.”
“We’re just hungry.”
“And depressed.”
“We eat when we’re depressed. Do you ever get like that?”
“Stop it!” Hoke snapped. “My cornhorse, Buttercake, will be perfectly fine. And I’m going to go home, take off my boots, and have a lovely meal of sugar beets and Sweetish fish. And everything will be fine!”
As he spoke, he rose from the quicksand. When his feet were free, he jogged the rest of the way through the Depressed Cypresses.
“He doesn’t like us,” one tree moaned.
“Nobody does,” groaned another.
Soon, the sour-faced cypresses gave way to huge primordial sugarcanes that towered overhead, reaching toward the sky and filling the swamp with shadows. The ancient canes were shaggy with leaves and marshmallow moss. The smell of the swamp turned from bitter to sweet. Hoke trudged onward.
Finally, he reached his little hillock, which was mostly walled in by dense stands of sugarcane. He passed through the gap in the cane that served as his front gate. Inside the cane walls, everything looked normal—his little house made of cane and brambles, his beet garden, his row of caramel cornstalks.
Hoke approached one of the scattered sugar pools and removed the pink unicorn horn from his belt. He whistled, but his two remaining unicorns, Berrymuffin and Cinnamon, didn’t emerge from the stands of cane.
Hoke stiffened up. If the unicorns were hiding, that meant danger was nearby. Hoke could guess what the danger looked like, too—fairies in black armor, with iron swords at their hips.
He heard something plop into the mud behind him. Plop, plop, plop. Three somethings. He didn’t turn to face them, but kept his hand near the flint knife and pouches of combat herbs on his belt.
“Hokealussiplatytorpinquarnartnuppy Melaerasmussanatolinkarrutorpicus Darnathiopockettlenocbiliotroporiqqua,” said a stern male voice.
“You forgot ‘Bellefrost,’” Hoke said. He turned slowly to face them.
The three male fairies were dressed in black armor with the Queen’s golden crest on the breastplate. The one in front, the one who’d spoken, was Icarus, the Queensguard fairy who had hired Hoke to go into man-world and search for the stolen instruments.
“I do not see a lute in your hands,” Icarus said. “Nor a harp, a drum, or pan pipes. Did you fail to find them?”
“Oh, I found them,” Hoke said. “In the hands of four man-whelps. But I couldn’t take them.”
“You were bested by man-children?” Icarus sneered.
“They knew how to use the instruments. Frighteningly well, in fact,” Hoke said. “It makes me wonder if there might be a fairy among them. Buttercake had to turn into a dragon, and that trick is hard on a cornhorse. And even when she was a dragon, they still smoked her.” Hoke held up her horn.
“The thieves slew a dragon?” Icarus gaped at the smoke-smudged unicorn horn.
“It won’t be easy to take those instruments back,” Hoke said. “Anyhow, I’ve done my part. I tried. I lost my best cornhorse. There’s nothing else I can do for you.”
“Then we’ll expect a full refund of the payment we made. The pearl, the ruby, and the emerald.”
“I ought to keep something for the loss of my cornhorse.”
“You failed to accomplish anything, Hoke, and your treasonous attitude toward the Queen has been noted,” Icarus said. “You will return the payment, and if you tell us what you have discovered about the thieves, you will receive the Queen’s mercy.”
Hoke nodded. He reached into one of the sugar pools, dug through the soft muck at the bottom, and came up with a small burlap pouch dripping chocolatey mud.
“I’ll return your stones, if that will convince you to leave me alone,” Hoke said. He opened the pouch and handed over the three gems that Aoide the Lutist had paid him, at the insistence of Icarus. “You’ll give them back to those nice young fairy ladies, I’m sure.”
“Tell of these human thieves you saw,” Icarus said. “How many were they?”
“Four. One for each instrument.” Hoke had also spotted a goblin with the group, but he didn’t want to volunteer extra information. Icarus had only asked about the human thieves.
“What were their names?”
&nb
sp; “Couldn’t tell you.”
“Where can we find them?”
“Not sure,” Hoke said. “Buttercake tracked them to a music festival. No idea where they’re from.” Hoke had also noticed the band was called the Assorted Zebras, but still, he didn’t see any reason to help the Queensguard.
“What did they look like?” another of the Queensguard fairies asked.
Hoke gave the vaguest possible description of the four band members, the two man-boys and two man-girls. “All humans look alike to me, to be honest,” Hoke said. “Big, ugly, gangly.”
“Thanks so much, elf.” Icarus jangled the three stones in his hand. “You’ve been almost no help at all.”
“I’ve done my best,” Hoke said.
“You’d best stay here in the swamp,” Icarus advised. “Keep your treasonous mutterings to yourself. Don’t come near Sidhe City.”
“I wouldn’t set a shoe inside Sidhe City even if it was Free Lollipop Day,” Hoke said.
“Good. We wouldn’t want you stinking up the place.” Icarus jumped into the air and flared out his bright, multi-hued butterfly-style wings. He climbed toward the sky, and the two other Queensguard fairies followed him without a word.
“All fairies are looney-nuts,” Hoke mumbled when they’d flown out of sight.
He heard a tiny splash.
Cinnamon and Berrymuffin emerged from a patch of pink cane, their heads low and their ears flattened. Cinnamon’s reddish-brown eyes, and Berrymuffin’s blueberry-colored eyes, were both huge and full of tears. Both unicorns had their lower lips pooched out and quivering .
“I’m sorry, girls,” Hoke said. “Your sister didn’t make it.”
Both unicorns ran toward him, wailing and whimpering. He hugged them close.
“There, there, everything will be well.” Hoke held out Buttercake’s pink horn over a narrow but deep pool of sugar water. “She’ll be back. You’ll see.”
He dropped the horn into the water and watched it sink down to the thick, sweet silt at the bottom. Buttercake would regrow, and one day emerge from the pool as a clumsy little foal again, but there was no telling how long it would take. It might be days, or years, or centuries.