The Disposable

by Katherine Vick

  Although unsettled by the gentle, unspoken retort, the princess nonetheless ploughed on. “The point I am trying to make is that everyone in this Realm is born to be what they are. Generations have bred every one of us to fit the needed niche. Too much interbreeding amongst the wrong people could turn out all sorts of strange, pointless combinations.” She paused a moment, gauging herself, the smirk that poked at the corners of her lips implying that she was gearing herself up for an insult. Her lips parted—

  “As with me?” Dullard suggested mildly.

  Pleasance’s lips smacked shut. She glared the glare that can only be glared by someone whose thunder has just been stolen.

  Dullard shrugged again. He was still smiling. Fodder honestly didn’t know how he did it. “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” he offered up thoughtfully. “But you could also say that how do we know what better possibilities we might be missing without mingling more?”

  “Or the generations of carefully planned heritage we might be losing!”

  “It’s possible.” Dullard gazed absently off into the middle distance. “But wouldn’t it be good to shake away those dusty expectations? Take the leading families, all so constrained by their conventions. To use a random example, how about the fact that the Heroine must always marry her Narrative Hero, regardless of how they get along? A marriage is for life, not just for The Narrative. Don’t you think it would be much fairer to give everyone a choice in the matter?”

  Hunched at the tiller, Fodder waited for the retort. It didn’t come.

  Instead, there was silence.

  Rowlocks creaked. Oars splashed gently. Somewhere along the bank, a blackbird gave a noisy chatter.

  Pleasance’s mouth opened. It closed. Her eyes hardened harshly.

  But Fodder hadn’t missed the look that had lingered briefly on her face. Impossible as it seemed, Dullard had struck a nerve.

  Aha. Someone’s not that keen on Bumpkin, then.…

  “It is a duty.” The words that eventually escaped from Pleasance’s lips were a vicious hiss. “In the name of the bloodline! Not that you would know anything about either of those things. You’re a traitor to the half of you that shares my noble heritage! You’re nothing more than a mixed-up, ill-bred, ugly, treacherous freak!”

  Ah. Insults. Any minute now, the screaming would begin again, and they’d have to put back the gag. It had already happened twice since they’d set out that morning.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Dullard’s expression was sincerely contrite. “But never mind. Are you hungry? I think we have some berries left from breakfast.”

  He leaned forwards, rummaging in Flirt’s pack as Pleasance stared at him open-mouthed, the wind sucked from her abusive sails once more.

  “Why do you keep doing that?” she exclaimed with genuine perplexity. “I insulted you! I called you a freak! And then you offer me berries?”

  Dullard settled back again, a small pouch cradled in his palm. “I am a freak,” he stated with cheerful frankness. “There’s no point in denying it. And I already told you, it’s all sticks and stones to me. But you got pulled into this through no fault of your own, so I’m certainly not going to do anything to make things more unpleasant for you. Besides”—the look that crossed his face for an instant was distinctly on the shrewd side—“call me presumptuous if you like, but…I don’t think many people have ever been that nice to you before, have they? Polite perhaps, deferent and of equal condescension, but not, I’d venture, nice in the sense of nice. That’s not how life in the Palace works. So I thought, well, if I show you what it’s all about, you might just come to like it.” He rummaged in the pouch before extending one hand carefully towards her. “Blackberry? It’s a little lopsided, but I doubt that’ll damage the taste.…”

  Pleasance was staring at him. Her mouth was open once more, and her expression was one of such frank, daunted bewilderment that, for a brief, passing instant, Fodder almost felt sorry for her. There were many things, he was sure, that life as a princess prepared a girl for, but an assault of raw, unfiltered kindness was apparently not one of them.

  Her stare flickered to the lopsided blackberry. She eyed it as though it were a live snake. “No, thank you,” she said stiffly. “In fact…I think I’d like my gag back, please.”

  The gentle splash of the oars came to an abrupt halt. As one, Flirt and Shoulders exchanged an astonished glance with Fodder before swivelling to stare over their respective shoulders.

  Dullard’s expression was one of genuine regret. “Are you sure? Don’t let the way it looks fool you. Honestly, I’m sure it will be delicious if you give it a chance.”

  “No!” The retort was sharp but surprisingly, the princess’s voice winnowed down from snappishness to a more moderate, if strained, tone. “No…thank you. Just…put the gag back, please. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  “Very well.” Dullard looked sincerely disappointed by this turn of events, a stark contrast to Fodder’s usual sense of relief when the time came for the replacing of the gag. “Please hold still, then.”

  With gentle fingers, Dullard eased the handkerchief gag back into place. Pleasance stared at him blankly as he did so. She didn’t even take a snap at him. It was really quite disconcerting.

  He smiled at her, quiet and friendly as she settled back into the bow of the boat. She turned sharply away. Her eyes fixed determinedly on the rippling waters of the river and did not rise again.

  Dullard frowned briefly at her hunched shoulders for a moment. And then he shook himself and turned back to meet the stares of his new friends.

  “Are you two all right?” he said suddenly, glancing to the unmoving oars of Flirt and Shoulders. “Are your arms tired? Fodder and I can swap with you if—”

  “Nah, I’m still good.” Flirt snapped immediately back to business. “I just got distracted, didn’t I? Shoulders?”

  “I can keep going for a bit.” Shoulders shrugged his namesakes awkwardly as he turned and settled back to his oar. “Just so long as you aren’t expecting us to row this little thing all the way out into the ocean. I have no desire to try and get reconstituted from a sea monster’s doings, thank you very much!”

  “Nah.” Fodder settled back against the tiller once more. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of…Flirt?”

  The Barmaid eyed him slightly. “You’re not floating out to sea on me, mate. Do I look that buoyant to you?”

  Fodder grinned. “Is there any way to answer that safely?”

  “Nope.” Flirt grinned back.

  “Then I won’t try it. But I was thinking… Doesn’t your uncle live in Salty Port?”

  Flirt nodded. “Uncle Reel. He’s a professional Grizzled Seadog.”

  “Would he be able to get us a boat?”

  Flirt tilted one hand as best she could whilst heaving on an oar. “No idea. I haven’t seen him for five or six Quests. But even if he could—do you know how to sail one?”

  And there was the sticking point. Fodder was a rural boy, born and bred. He’d never been near a seagoing ship in his life. But he was hoping…

  “No, but…Dullard?” he queried, more in expectation than hope. But he was in for a disappointment. The prince was already shaking his head.

  “I’m afraid I’ve never had cause to learn,” he admitted. “I know it was my idea, but I’ve never had any reason to come down to this ocean before, let alone learn how to sail. I’ve always thought it would be a fascinating pursuit, though, and it would of course enable me to investigate all manner of plant and animal life residing within our waters, but…”

  “You haven’t done it yet.” Fodder cursed himself in the silence of his mind. Why had he assumed that Dullard would know? Admittedly, in the few days they’d known him, Dullard had managed to pop up with all sorts of useful and unexpected talents, but relying on him to automatically bail them out was a dangerous path indeed. “So we’ll need to persuade some sailors to help us.”

&nb
sp; Shoulders gave a snort as he heaved on his oar. “Well, that’ll be nice and easy,” he drawled with a distinct degree of sarcasm. “Given that our converts this far number one and a half. An entire ship’s crew will be a breeze.”

  “A half?” Fodder queried tentatively.

  “Cringe,” Shoulders retorted. “Though ‘a half’ is generous. More like a third of a conversion, really.”

  “I think you may have made more of a difference than you realise,” Dullard dropped in with, in Fodder’s view, unwarranted optimism. “After all, I was converted before I even met you. How many other converts are waiting out there to be found?”

  “Maybe,” Fodder conceded with reluctance. “But it’d be a seriously unlikely piece of luck if…”

  “Fodder.”

  “…those hidden converts turned out to be the crew of a ship…”

  “Fodder.”

  “…just waiting for us in Salty Port…”

  “Fodder!”

  The boat gave an ungainly lurch as Shoulders’s oar dipped into the water and pulled without the aid of its compatriot. For Flirt had frozen halfway through the motion, her eyes fixed with sudden alarm on the horizon behind Fodder’s head.

  “Look!” she exclaimed. “There!”

  Fodder turned. And his heart sank.

  For, glowing with unreal brightness against the horizon perhaps a couple of miles upstream, was the too-familiar light of The Narrative.

  “Oh, my.” Dullard sat up straighter as he stared back at the ominous gleam. “I should have thought of that.”

  “Thought of what?” Shoulders snapped, his face pale as he stared alongside his friends.

  “That the Merry Band would have to follow the road on the other side of the river.” Dullard looked slightly embarrassed. “It’s in the instructions, you see. They must be on their way to the big fight at Salty Port. And if they are looking for us and someone reported this boat going missing…”

  “We could drown the princess.” Flirt’s lips were tight as Pleasance’s head shot up sharply. “Here and now, when it sees us. Get it over with.”

  But Fodder was shaking his head. “The conditions are too unpredictable. There are too many things The Narrative could use against us. We aren’t ready.”

  “Then we have to get ashore and out of sight.” Dullard was leaning forwards, his expression unusually intense. “Now.”

  Flirt grabbed her oar at once. But Shoulders was still staring at the glowing horizon.

  “Wait!” he exclaimed. “What’s that?”

  It was there and then gone in a second, a vivid streak of emerald green that rocketed over their heads along the course of the Vast River. Even as they swivelled as one, hypnotised by its progress, a curtain of sparkling green enveloped the river perhaps one hundred yards in front of them. Something echoed with a terrible crack, the water frothed and surged, and then came a deafening roar and a surge of spray that rose to tumble tumultuously towards the heavens. The boat tossed and weaved and then, with a sudden jerk, almost like a rope had been yanked, it swirled and, unaided by human hand, began to travel far too hurriedly downstream.

  And ahead, in a cloud of rainbows, the horizon vanished.

  “Higgle,” Dullard breathed, staring at the bright speck of the Duty Pixie in charge of Landscape and Architecture as he turned and vanished in a flash. “He’s made a waterfall.”

  Shoulders gaped at the mass of spray as their boat began to accelerate. “But that’s cheating!”

  “That’s the Taskmaster!” Flirt grabbed her oar frantically. “Stop moaning and row!”

  Fodder jammed the tiller desperately over as two oars floundered awkwardly in the suddenly turbulent river, his eyes fixed upon the imposing mass of dancing water that rocketed into the sky ahead of them. It would be an impossibly long drop, he knew that. There would be sharp rocks at the bottom and a suitably placed pebble beach for the washing up of the bedraggled but lucky survivor. Some truths were simply self-evident.

  And if they went over under Narrative control, he knew just who the lone survivor would be.

  “Dullard!” he bellowed over the swelling crescendo of tumbling water. “Whatever you do, keep hold of the princess! If we go over, keep her out of The Narrative!”

  Dullard, who had been rummaging frantically in his pack, glanced up and nodded. He caught the trailing end of Pleasance’s restraints and curled it around his belt, knotting it securely before diving back into the pack to continue his search for who-knew-what. There were fifty yards to go now, maybe less, and the current was accelerating far more intensely than the shore was nearing.

  “Not more water!” Shoulders groaned. “I’m sick of bloody water!”

  “If it’s too bloody, we’ll be in trouble when The Narrative comes!” Flirt continued to yank at her oar, although the quick glance she exchanged with Fodder was enough to tell him that she could see as well as he could that they weren’t going to make it. “Try not to get hurt, will you?”

  “Tell the bloody waterfall that!”

  Behind them, The Narrative was closing fast, a threatening glow of vividness outlining the last lumps and bumps of the landscape behind them. Just one more outcrop and curl of the river and the Merry Band would see them. And the moment they did, Fodder knew their fate would no longer be in their own hands. Defying The Narrative on dry land was one thing. Defying it whilst at the complete mercy of natural elements was another.

  The Taskmaster was very clever.

  They were perhaps ten yards from the shore. Twenty yards in front of them, a wall of spray roared, an irresistible force drawing them closer and closer to the long plunge down. Flirt was rowing frantically, loath to give up even in the face of such hopelessness, her cheeks flushed with effort as she dragged at her oar. Shoulders was matching her blindly, his eyes fixed with a vague hint of horror on the approaching glow just over Fodder’s shoulder. The princess’s eyes were more concerned with what lay ahead, staring with a blank, resigned horror at the vanishing water, her porcelain cheeks white. And Dullard…

  “Aha!”

  The exclamation was so unexpected that four sets of eyes snapped in his direction. With an air of spray-sodden triumph, Dullard was dragging a strangely angled metal spike out of his pack. Grabbing it firmly by the shaft, he shook it sharply; with a clunk, three curled metal protrusions unfurled themselves and jolted into place.

  A grappling hook. It was a grappling hook.…

  Of course. Dullard’s a climber.

  “The rope! Quickly!”

  Shoulders could not shove the curl of rope into the prince’s hands quickly enough. Dullard snatched up the end, threading it with disconcerting deftness through the round loop in the butt of the hook and knotting it tightly. Hurriedly, he thrust it into the air, bracing his legs under the seat as he gritted his teeth.

  “Heads down!” he cried out over the deafening roar.

  Fodder obeyed instantly. The black hook whirled overhead in a rapid rotation—one, two, three, gathering speed until it was nothing more than a spinning blur. Ahead, the horizon vanished beyond the prow of their boat, the drag of the rushing water all the more frantic now that rowing had been abandoned. Five yards, four, three, two…

  The boat was tipping.…

  With a whistling whoosh, Dullard let go.

  There was a violent jerk as, with a woody thunk, the grappling hook buried itself into the twisted mass of a distinctly unsturdy-looking willow tree that jutted out from the bank. Fodder saw Dullard’s knees lurch as he tried to take the strain, saw his backside leave the planking as the inexorable pull conquered his leg strength and sought to catapult him out of the boat…

  And then, to his utter astonishment, he saw Princess Pleasance hurl herself forwards and land with the full force of her weight into his lap.

  Dullard’s eyes crossed. Pleasance had landed elbows first.

  Fodder had to admire his fortitude, though. He kept hold of the rope. And, forced down by the weight of a whole princess
, his backside returned to the planking with a thud.

  But the Disposable could still feel the boat slipping sideways, teetering along the spray-riddled drop as the current and the angle of the rope began to drag them inevitably shorewards and downwards.…

  “Grab it!” Flirt’s sodden curls plastered her face as she dived forwards. Fingers grasping the rope, she helped to take the strain. Fodder’s hands whipped out to join hers, scrabbling at the slippery hemp, and Shoulders quickly followed their lead.

  The boat swung and danced along the brink of the abyss for several agonising, hour-long seconds before it thudded against the side of a jutting and highly clingable rock. Fodder could feel his fingers screaming as he dug them into the damp rope, hooking one leg under the wooden plank that formed his seat to prevent being rocketed out into the water just as Dullard had almost been. He doubted the princess would come to his rescue.

  He caught a glimpse of Shoulders, his legs locked around his seat as he clung on. Flirt had rammed herself against her oar, her arms wrapped around the rope in an almost fervent embrace. Dullard’s lower lip was jammed between his teeth, and there was a distinctly misty quality to his eyes, but the princess’s weight in his lap was keeping him in place for now. His arms were thrust out before him, straining under the pull.

  Beyond him, beyond the prow, the world fell away. There was a haze of white water and rolling clouds of spray, punctuated, inevitably, with a beautifully crafted selection of sharp rocks down at the bottom. They were carefully positioned to ensure it would be very difficult to escape their grasp without a severe battering.