The Warble

by Victoria Simcox

  Queen Sentiz had banished her husband, Prince Raspue, to a horrible prison on the remote Treachery Island, located south of Bernovem.

  “Our plan failed, Mama,” Ramon said, “when Zitrot tried to snatch the Warble from the girl−he was shot with an arrow through his back.”

  The queen’s blood seemed to boil inside her. “Who shot him?” She stuck her nose in her son’s face.

  Ramon put his arms up, as if to defend himself from being hit. “I’m sorry to say, but it was that troublesome boy, Werrien.” He cowered away from his irate mother.

  In a furious rage, the queen marched to the door and swung it open. Ugan was standing at attention right outside. “Get Rupert right now!” she yelled.

  “Yes, right away, my sweet queen,” Ugan answered. Then he bowed many times while moving backwards toward the long, winding staircase. As he descended, the bells on his clothing could be heard jingling. A short while later, he returned with Sir Rupert, given his title by the queen, due to his ability to perform magic. Sir Rupert, the queen’s advisor, was an old man, very tall, with small, dark eyes, and a thin, long nose that pointed downward over a pair of tense, thin lips. His skin was almost transparent, due to his ill disposition.

  Ugan knocked on the large, ornate door.

  “Enter!” the queen yelled.

  Ugan bowed to Rupert and then summoned him into the queen’s quarters. Hunched over and carrying a black leather suitcase, the old man entered the large meeting room.

  “Ah, Rupert; please come in and sit down.” The queen had an unusually soft tone.

  Very slowly, Rupert walked into the room, stopped, bowed to the queen, and then headed to a large meeting table. However, before he could sit down, he started to cough. The queen’s eyes grew wide as she waited for him to stop, and she impatiently drummed her long red nails on her chin. When he didn’t stop, she couldn’t stand it any longer, so she yelled for Ugan to come back into the room. Ugan, being right outside the door, came quickly back into the room. He then took one of the chairs from the large meeting table and slid it over beside Rupert. He crawled up on it, made his hand into a fist, and proceeded to hit Rupert on his back to stop him from coughing. Finally, the old man indicated with a hand gesture for Ugan to stop. Ugan crawled down off the chair and pushed it behind Rupert. As the chair hit the back of the old man’s knees, he fell into it in a sitting position. Using all his strength, Ugan pushed the chair up to the meeting table. “Will that be all, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes, be on your way.” The queen impatiently waved her hand for him to leave.

  Ugan bowed humbly and once again left the room.

  The queen brought her attention back to her son, Ramon, who was staring out the window with a dazed look on his face. She cleared her throat to get his attention. When he finally looked over to her, she said, “Sit down, you idiot, and this time take better note of what’s going on.”

  Ramon blew his nose loudly with a silk handkerchief that had the queen’s face embroidered on it−a present from his father, Prince Raspue, when he’d still lived at the palace. Then he went to the meeting table and sat down.

  Once again the queen shouted for Ugan to come. Ugan entered at once, and seeing the queen standing, waiting for him, he pulled out her plush chair from the head of the table. He walked over to the tall queen, who towered over him, took her by the hand and led her to the chair to sit down. After she was seated, she held out her ring-clustered hand toward him. Ugan bowed and kissed it. The queen smiled slyly, patted him on the head, and with one of her long red fingernails, flicked one of the bells that hung from his court jester’s hat. “You’re such a well-behaved little dwarf,” she said calmly. Then as if she had a change in personality, she said angrily, “Now get out of here!”

  Rupert was sitting across from the queen; he bent over and almost fell out of his chair while trying to pick up his suitcase. Queen Sentiz pretended not to notice and didn’t even think to lend a hand to help. It took all of Rupert’s strength, but he somehow managed to lift the case and place it on the table. As he opened it, the queen looked like she might start drooling with anticipation. As for Ramon, he sat slumped on his seat, seeming quite bored with the whole situation.

  Rupert reached into his suitcase and removed a purple, silk cloth. Underneath it, cushioned in a bed of purple velvet, was a shimmering crystal, about the size of a small foam football. With his long, bony fingers, he took it out of its bed and lifted it high above his head. He closed his eyes and mumbled something. Sitting beside him, Ramon bit his fingernails and narrowed his eyes impatiently. The queen was so entranced with the crystal that she didn’t notice her son’s behavior.

  “Please remove the suitcase from the table,” Rupert said.

  Queen Sentiz looked to Ramon, who was not paying attention, and she slapped the table hard in front of him. The prince, startled, jumped and knocked against the underside of the table with his large knobby knees. Rupert jumped as well and almost dropped the crystal on his own head. He gave Ramon a look of disgust that encouraged him to quickly take the suitcase off the table.

  Once again, Rupert proceeded to lift the crystal above his head and chanted something again. When he was finished, he slowly brought the crystal down in front of him and carefully balanced it on the table. Then he waved his bony fingers around it and as he did so, it started to glow with a bright, multicolored light, which reflected off the walls. The crystal began to spin around in circles, flashing its colors on the walls. Suddenly, it stopped spinning and all the bright colors were sucked back inside it. Ramon eagerly leaned forward to look inside the crystal. He could see the rushing Indra River with all its splashes, curves, and drop-offs. “There they are!” he blurted out, hitting the crystal with his large nose, almost knocking it over.

  “If you’d move your enormous head, we could see also,” the queen snapped.

  “Oh, sorry, Mama,” Ramon said sheepishly. He moved his head out of the way, and Queen Sentiz and Rupert leaned forward to look into the crystal.

  “Where are they? I can’t see them,” the queen said tersely.

  “Look closely to the right side of the river, my lady,” Rupert said.

  “Ah ha! Yes! There’s the little human scum,” the queen said excitedly.

  While they were glaring into the crystal, the Indra River suddenly disappeared, and the crystal lit up once more. Its kaleidoscope of colors started to spin around the room again. “What is the meaning of this?” the queen asked Rupert.

  “The crystal has found something else important to show us,” Rupert answered.

  The colors funneled back into the crystal, and it stopped spinning. The three huddled around it. This time it was not the Indra River that was brought into view but the inside of Rumalock’s house.

  “More humans?” Ramon said, surprised as well as disgusted.

  They could see Davina, Hester, and Graham in Rumalock’s cottage, standing around the chocolate cake, gobbling it down like it was their last meal.

  “They’re popping up like a bad skin rash, the wretched, little gluttons,” Ramon went on.

  Just as he finished speaking, the crystal went dark and tipped over. The queen turned to Ramon. “Saddle your horse at once, and this time take at least one hundred zelbocks with you. We can’t afford to let them slip away again.” She marched over to the door and swung it open. On the other side sat Ugan, leaning against the wall, sleeping. She stomped her foot loudly, and he jumped up to stand at attention. “You pathetic little dwarf! Get up! I’ve got a chore for you.”

  “What is it, Your Majesty?” Ugan asked, groggily.

  The queen grabbed him by his beard and lifted him up. “You will go to the house of that good-for-nothing brother of yours, Rumalock, and lead the humans back here into my trap.”

  Although Ugan didn’t like the idea, his only choices were either to obey the wicked queen and keep his servants life, or to disobey and be banished to Treachery Island forever. He chose to obey.
>
  10

  After jumping into the Indra River, Kristina and Werrien were separated, and the raging water swiftly dragged Kristina down its course. Barely staying afloat, she managed to grab hold of a tree branch that was dangling over the river’s edge, but the limb was almost completely broken off from the tree. As she bobbed up and down in the ice-cold water, gasping for air, her hands grew numb, and she could barely hold on to the branch. The chilly water made her body weak, and she grew weary. One of her hands slipped off the branch, and then the branch snapped and floated away from the tree. She was so exhausted and cold that she could only allow the river to pull her along its course. Many thoughts began to pass through her mind: Will I ever see my family again? Who will look after Raymond? Is this how my life is going to end?

  Suddenly, the worrisome thoughts stopped and she began to feel very peaceful—so peaceful in fact, that she was just about to close her eyes and let the river have its way. But then she glanced up to see something fluttering above the surface of the water. She felt a surge of adrenaline flow through her body, and it gave her the strength to pull herself up. When she surfaced, the rain pounded on her head. She gasped for air and then opened her eyes to see Looper hovering in front of her. Then she saw a tree branch in front of her.

  “Grab on!” Looper shouted.

  Kristina looked toward the river bank and saw that it was Werrien who was holding the tree branch out to her. She grabbed hold of it, and he pulled her to safety.

  Once on dry land, she tried to stand up but couldn’t; she fell over from exhaustion. Werrien placed a blanket around her, and then carried her to his home in the forest. It wasn’t until the next day that she finally roused herself, and as she was slowly waking up, she could hear a conversation.

  “She seems okay to me. What do you think?”

  “Well, if she’s not, it’s probably because she grabbed onto the broken tree branch. You’d think she’d have had enough sense to grab hold of a branch that was still connected to the tree.”

  Kristina opened her eyes to see Clover looking at her reflection in the window and fixing her hair. “I thought it might be you guys,” Kristina said, weakly.

  The sound of footsteps could be heard approaching the bedroom. When the door swung open, there stood a short, plump, strange-looking elderly woman. In one hand she carried a steaming cup, and in the other hand she had a dish towel. Seeing the fairies sitting on the bedpost, she took the dish towel and flicked it at them. “Shoo! Shoo! You pesky little critters,” she said, as though they were nothing more than common houseflies.

  Looper and Clover flew toward the open window, but Clover, being the feisty fairy she was, quickly flew behind the old woman and yanked as hard as she could on a couple of her hairs.

  “Ouch!” the old woman screeched, almost spilling the hot substance in the cup. She turned around quickly and glanced about the room. “I’ll lay tree sap out where you least expect it. That’ll fix you little pests!” As she spoke, Clover was just outside the window, mimicking her.

  The old woman turned her attention back to Kristina and, in a more soothing tone, said, “My dear child, you’re finally awake.” She sat down on the bedside. “My name is Leacha. I am Werrien’s mother,” she added, proudly.

  Kristina found it hard to believe that Werrien could have such a strange-looking mother—she looked nothing at all like him. Her ears were pointy, like Rumalock’s, but she didn’t look like a dwarf. Her face and nose were much rounder and she had a few gray whiskers sticking out of her double chin.

  “You’ll be as good as new after a cup of hot, nourishing soup.” Leacha’s warm smile revealed an almost toothless mouth.

  Kristina sat up, and Leacha handed her the steaming cup.

  “All I remember is being pulled out of the river by Werrien,” Kristina said, after taking a sip of the hot broth, which she thought tasted quite nasty.

  “You fainted,” Leacha said. “You were starting to worry us, sleeping as long as you did.”

  “My name is Kristina.” Kristina smiled at Leacha.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Are you a dwarf?”

  Leacha giggled a little, and her eyes seemed to disappear into the folds of her fat cheeks. “Oh, no, child―I’m a gnome.”

  Kristina handed the soup back to Leacha. She started to reach into her pocket, but to her surprise, she had no pockets. Then she looked down at herself. “These are not my clothes, and the Warble—it’s gone! I must have lost it in that raging river.”

  “Don’t fret, child. I had to give you dry clothes.” Leacha pointed her chubby finger to a chair in the corner of the room. “Yours are now clean and dry, hanging over there, and as for the Warble, well, it’s safe with Werrien.”

  A knock came at the front door, and Leacha left the bedroom to go answer it. Kristina could see from the bed that it was Werrien. He entered the house and embraced Leacha. “How is she, Leacha? Is she awake yet?” he asked.

  “Yes, she is, and she’s doing just fine,” Leacha said.

  “That’s good to hear; I’ve been really worried.”

  Kristina felt strange after hearing Werrien say those words.

  “She should be as good as new after a cup of my turnip-root, fairy-blossom soup,” Leacha said.

  “Thank you, Leacha, for all your help,” Werrien said.

  “You know I would do anything to help. You are like my own son.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “I still have some soup left on the fire. Sit down, and I will serve you.”

  “I’d love to have some, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to. There’s news that Queen Sentiz has sent out more of her zelbocks to find Kristina and me, so we must be out of here within the hour.”

  Tears welled up in Leacha’s eyes, and she used her apron to wipe them. “I’ve always known that this day would come, but now that it’s here, it’s hard to take.”

  Kristina got out of bed and stood near the door to better hear the conversation. She was surprised by Werrien’s concern for her wellbeing, and it made her feel good that someone near her age cared about her. She certainly hadn’t experienced that with the majority of the kids at home.

  A mirror hung on the wall across the room, and when she viewed her reflection, she took notice of the clothes that Leacha had dressed her in. They were made of soft suede-leather and looked very similar to the clothes that Werrien wore. They were very comfortable, and she liked how they looked on her. She looked once again at her clothes hanging on the chair and decided not to change back into them. A hairbrush was on a nearby table, so she took it and brushed her hair. When she was finished, she walked into the living room.

  Werrien noticed her and his eyes lit up. “Wow! You look great!”

  “I do?” Kristina said.

  “Yeah! You kind of look like you could be my little brother—I mean, except for your long hair.”

  Kristina looked damply at Werrien. “Thanks! My dream has always been to look like someone’s little brother.”

  Werrien walked over to her, and in a chummy way, gave her a light punch on her shoulder. “Now that you’re all better, we’d best be on our way.”

  Leacha hurried off to the kitchen to pack food for their journey.

  “I’ll be outside with Taysha while you’re getting ready,” Werrien said.

  Kristina wondered who Taysha was and kind of hoped that it wasn’t another nasty fairy like Clover. She went into the kitchen and saw that Leacha was busy filling a sack with food. Leacha took a large wooden canister off the counter and tried to untwist the lid. Kristina could see that she was having trouble getting it off. “Could I help you with that?” Kristina asked.

  “Would you be so kind?” Leacha handed her the wooden canister. Kristina gave it a good twist, and off the lid came. “Such a strong girl!”

  “I think you must have loosened it for me.” Kristina handed it back to Leacha. Leacha looked inside the jar and a sad expression came across her face.
/>   “Is there something wrong?” Kristina asked.

  Leacha pointed to a small leather pouch hanging from a hook on the wall. “Would you hand me that little pouch, dear?” she asked. Kristina took the little pouch off the hook and handed it to Leacha. Leacha poured the contents of the wooden canister into it. “I hope that nothing will happen, but just in case, you will need this if you or Werrien get injured on your journey.” She handed the pouch to Kristina. “I know it’s not much, but it’s all that I have left.”

  Kristina stared into the canister containing brownish-red, dried petals. “What is it?”

  “It’s dried fairy blossom. Please don’t tell Werrien that I gave it to you,” Leacha whispered.

  “Won’t you need this to keep up your own strength?”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I’m an old lady and I have lived a poor yet very blessed life. If my days are shortened, then at least I will know that I did my best to help the true prince of Bernovem.” She smiled and took Kristina’s hands in her own. “Please take it.”

  “But will you be able to get more for yourself?”

  “I’ll be just fine, child. Now no more questions. We need to get you two on your way.”

  Kristina accepted the little pouch and was about to put it in with the sack of food, but Leacha stopped her. “No, child, you must keep it with you, just in case you two get separated from these other things.”

  The door at the back of the kitchen opened and Werrien walked in. “We need to leave now. There’s zelbocks looking for us. A dwarf passing by told me the zelbocks are less than two hours away.”

  Kristina followed Werrien out of Leacha’s house, and once outside, Kristina was surprised to see that the house was in the bottom of a large tree. Not far off, under another tree, stood a horse. Werrien walked up to it and threw a saddle onto its back. Kristina had never seen such a beautiful horse. It was so elegant, with a snow-white coat and a shimmering silver mane. She wondered if she was going to ride on it. She went up to it and stroked its nose.