by Jon Etter
“No, don’t!” Shade jumped in between the two.
“And why should I stay my hand?”
“First, it’s unchivalrous to strike a defenseless foe,” Shade pointed out. Justinian looked aghast and immediately lowered his hand. “More important, I think he’s telling the truth. Or at least what he thinks is the truth. Come on, help me find the Seelie camp.”
As the Sluagh hurled insults at them, Shade, Justinian, Ginch, and the Professor made their way through the trees. Eventually, they came upon a familiar scene: finely dressed nobles and bronze-armored soldiers bound and grumpy. Upon seeing Justinian, a dark-skinned, curly-haired elf bared his teeth and struggled violently to free himself. “What, did you grow enough of a spine to come back and finish us off proper, you miserable Sluagh toady?” he hissed.
“Sir Crispus? My brother-in-arms?” Justinian looked surprised and hurt. “But you know me! You—”
“I know you now, traitor! And we heard you bragging all about Prince Beow’s plan to kidnap the princess. But if you think the Seelie Court will do anything other than slay every last Sluagh soldier and red-capped thug, you’re even dumber than I thought.”
“And it’s coming fast, villain!” one of the other soldiers declared. “As we speak, Private Pulo rides to Dinas Ffaraon to bring the combined might of the Seelie crashing down upon the vile Sluagh Horde!”
“I still don’t know why he didn’t free the rest of us before he left,” an old, green-haired nobleman complained. “It would have taken about one minute. One minute! When this is all over, I may have him brought up on charges.”
Shade slapped Justinian on the leg. “Don’t you see what’s going on here? Lady Perchta, Julius’s advisors, and who knows who else got fake you and some crooked soldiers from both courts to kidnap the prince and princess and make each side believe the other one did it to end the truce and cause a war!”
“And what was all that business with all those fairies calling us … What was it? ‘Privileged gits’? ‘Royal parasites’? And shouting about ‘fair representation’ and ‘workers’ rights’—whatever those are—when we rode through those towns?” A noblewoman covered in gold and emerald jewelry asked. “I don’t see how that really helped your plot to kidnap Princess Vi, and, what’s more, I found it very hurtful to be denied the public adoration that I deserve.”
“That wasn’t part of any plot,” Shade replied.
“Yeah, the people, they really no can stand you,” Ginch explained.
“I refuse to believe that and can only conclude that you say it out of horrible envy over my beauty and wealth,” the noblewoman huffed, giving her hair a toss and turning away from them.
“C’mon! We gotta get to the King Juicylus and Queen Modthistle and let ’em know it’s all the big, big scam!” Ginch and the Professor grabbed Justinian’s arms and started to run, but their feet flew up in the air when the knight didn’t move. “Whatta you do? We gotta go make sure we no have-a the war!”
“No.” Justinian looked heavenward. “I am the sworn protector and servant of Princess Viola. I must see to her safety above all else.”
“He’s right,” Shade agreed. “The guys who escaped us are going to make it back to Dinas Ffaraon and Ande-Dubnos before we could, and after that, I don’t think anyone’s going to believe anything a junior librarian, a couple of crooks, and a known traitor have to say. No offense, anybody.”
“Some is taken, actually,” Justinian grumbled.
“Not us. We take the great pride in being crooks.” Ginch puffed out his chest as the Professor handed Shade a small white card that read:
Rigoletto Ginch & the Professor
Professional Crooks
Proudly Serving Elfame’s Crooking Needs for Over 80
Seasons!
Shade tossed the card over her shoulder. “We’ve got to go save Beow and Viola. Their lives may be in danger, and even if they aren’t, bringing them home is the only way anyone will believe us. But what do we do about the Seelie and Sluagh from the rade?”
“We free the Seelie, of course.” Justinian knelt down next to the nearest noble and reached for her ropes.
“Yes, free my hands and we’ll see if you can win in a fair fight, you jumped-up nephew of a cheesemonger,” Sir Crispus sneered.
“Yeah, you no can-a let these guys go,” Ginch said. “The Professor and I are kind of the experts on knowing when you gotta skeedeedle because somebody’s so ticked off that they wanna kill you, and in my expert opinion, these guys are so ticked off you probably can’t skeedeedle fast enough to get away from ’em.”
The Professor nodded and took out a pencil and notepad. On the top sheet, he scribbled “Skeedeedle Threat Level 10,” tore it off, and dropped it in Crispus’s lap.
“But we can’t just leave them here.” Shade looked at the tied-up elves and frowned. “Who knows when or if anyone would find them before we get back. Or if we ever get back … ”
The Professor tapped her on the shoulder, held up his index finger, and gave her a self-satisfied smile. Out of one coat pocket he pulled a small, cork-stoppered bottle; from another he took out a little hand-pump sprayer with a small round tank at the end. He pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth, poured its contents into the sprayer tank, and dropped the bottle to the ground. Screwing the tank cap back on, the Professor walked over to Crispus and pointed it at him.
“Do you honestly expect me to be afraid of a silly little spray gun?” Crispus growled at the pixie, who pumped the gun a couple times. A fine pink mist sprayed into Crispus’s face. He sputtered then said, “It’ll take a lot more than … than … ”
But it did not take more, for Crispus’s body went slack and his head lolled forward. The Professor leaned in. Instantly, Crispus began to snore. The Professor turned and gave the others a thumbs-up and then bounced from Sluagh to Sluagh, spraying them in the face and putting them to sleep.
“What is that stuff?” Shade picked up the bottle from the grass and read the label: MORPHEUS GAIMAN’S SLEEPYTIME POTION, 6 TO 8 HOURS OF FIRST-RATE DREAMING GUARANTEED! “I’m really not sure he should have this.”
“That’s-a the road we no wanna go down,” Ginch said as he and Justinian began untying the now unconscious, snoring elves. “If we talk about alla the things he probably shouldn’t have inna his pants and his coat and wherever else he keeps-a the things—” The Professor waggled his eyebrows at that. “—we’d probably be here until tomorrow.”
“Come. I suppose fairness dictates we extend the same courtesy to the captured Sluagh, but let us make quick work of it.” Justinian strode off into the trees. “We have a princess to save.”
“And a prince!” Shade added, rushing after him. “And a war to prevent!”
“And we wouldn’t mind getting in a game or two of Tickle the Troll or Lasso the Leprechaun,” Ginch said, shuffling a deck of cards as he and the Professor trudged after them. The Professor rubbed his tummy. “And the breakfast! We’d like-a the breakfast! It’s one of the six most important meals of the day!”
In which the “heebledy-jeebledies” are gotten …
Once the Sluagh nobles and their guards were asleep and untied, Justinian led the others to the Sluagh’s ponies and mounted the largest of them. “Come, my friends. Choose a steed and do it fast. There’s no time to lose. We head south on the King’s Highway and pray we find Viola’s captors.”
“And Beow’s,” Shade added as she climbed onto the back of a gentle-looking roan pony. “We do have two kidnapped kids, you know.”
“Yes, well, I suppose,” Justinian muttered, then spurred his pony onward. The other three galloped behind and tried to keep up. A half day’s ride took them past bluffs and through forests under a blazing hot sun in a harsh, cloudless sky. Shade wished that she weren’t still in her Sluagh dress armor, but as she had nothing to change into, she had to be content—which she most definitely was not—with removing her bronze arm and leg guards in attempt to be slightly less broiling.
In the early afternoon, however, she began to regret her now bare arms and legs as cold winds blew down the trail. On the horizon, dark clouds loomed and lightning flashed. “Looks like a storm’s coming,” Shade observed.
“No, but we go to it,” Justinian replied. “The King’s Highway here skirts the edge of Stormfield. You’ve heard about Stormfield, have you not, my lady Shade?”
Shade nodded. Of course she had. Every fairy of Elfame knew of Stormfield, though few ever visited it. “We had a branch of the library there before that dingle-dangle bugbear Drabbury burned it and all the other libraries to the ground a few months ago when that no-good honeysucker tried to take over Elfame. It’s the only branch we didn’t bother to grow back. The only person who ever used it was the fairy who planted it, a weird, reclusive rabbit-headed goblin scholar named Pynchon, and nobody’s seen him for eight or nine seasons. You’ve fought in Stormfield, right?”
“I have. Many times. Whenever the Seelie and Sluagh take up arms against each other, a battle, usually each war’s bloodiest battle, is fought here. This is where the final battle of the last great war was waged.”
“The battle where my mom …” Shade stopped and fought back tears, thinking of her mother, the warrior known as “the Great Owl,” who had gone off to fight when Shade was a child and never returned, missing and presumed dead after the Battle of Stormfield. Shade was silent for a moment, then asked, “Is it really true that the sun never shines there and that the storms never cease?”
“Aye, and yet the clouds never fully loose their store of rain except after the blood of battle soaks the ground. It’s as if the land, having gorged itself on carnage, wishes to drink a celebratory toast in honor of those it has feasted up.” Justinian gazed at the dark, distant clouds. “I have heard some ancient battle involving great magic and even greater slaughter made it thus. I know not if it be true, but I do know that in these dire fields, you can see Death herself come to harvest her bloody crops.”
“You know, Justinian, you give us enough of the heebledy-jeebledies without the stuff about seeing the death coming,” Ginch objected. The Professor nodded and pulled out a white flower, the tips of whose petals had been covered in shiny gold. “See, paisan? The Professor also thinks you gild the lily with the death stuff.”
“I speak literally, my friends, not poetically,” Justinian replied grimly. “One can truly see Death on these dread plains. Every time I have seen a soldier fall, she has swooped in, clad in tattered black robes, to collect the soul, severing it from the body with a swift slash of her shining silver scythe.”
Shade could feel her tummy tying itself in knots. Ginch and the Professor looked at each other and gulped. “Well, you make the good pitch, but I no think the Professor and I are gonna build the little vacation cottage there. Maybe we head north and—”
“No,” Shade said. “If this is where they took Beow and Viola, then this is the way we have to go.”
“True, but worry not, friends.” Justinian gave them a reassuring smile. “The King’s Highway does not go through Stormfield but around it.”
And so they rode south for hours, cloudless blue skies above grassy fields that stretched out to a placid sea to their left, dark clouds looming above a dismal, misty plain to their right. Shade found the sharp contrast between the scenes on either side of the road unnerving and almost wished the road would take them through Stormfield for consistency’s sake if nothing else. Almost. Every howl of wind that made the hairs on her arms stand on end and every sudden boom of thunder that made her heart pound in terror convinced her that the last thing she wanted to do was to venture into the eerie depths of Stormfield.
“Hold!” Justinian reined his pony to a stop. He dismounted and took a couple steps into the wild grasses and weeds growing at the edge of Stormfield and crouched down. Without turning, he held up a book bound in emerald green whose cover read, Dorothy’s Adventures Over the Rainbow by B. F. Lyman. “A sign left by the most-clever Princess Viola. And there are fresh tracks in the ground nearby. Come, my friends, it would appear that to save the princess—”
“And Prince Beow,” Shade noted.
“—we must venture to the very heart of Stormfield,” Justinian finished.
The Professor whistled and pulled out a handful of leaflets printed on shiny paper. “Are you sure?” Ginch asked. “Because my partner and I, we gotta the great, great deals on many other vacation destinations that probably would no get us killed. Why, just look at this—a week in sunny El Dooradeedoo, the city of the gold! Or maybe you no like the sun and the fun, so how’s about we get away to one of the outer isles. Here’s a nice deal on a trip to Lilliput. The rooms are on the small side, but the locals are guaranteed to treat you like the big, big man. Or maybe—”
“We have no time for idle banter, good Signore Ginch,” Sir Justian interrupted as he got back in the saddle. “We must move if we are to save the princess.”
“And prince,” Shade added.
“Let us ride, friends.” Justinian gave his reins a shake and his pony trotted off into the sickly weeds that grew under the gray skies of Stormfield.
“You heard him, brownie-butt and pixie-pants. ‘Let us ride, friends,’” Shade echoed, following the good knight into the gloom.
Ginch and the Professor sat on their ponies for a minute, watching the others go. “You know, I’m-a no so sure about this friendship,” Ginch grumbled as he urged his pony into the grass. “Always we save-a her or we save-a him or we save-a this or we save-a that. Why we spend so much time doing the saving, we no have time for the stealing or the cheating at cards. Partner, I think the little Sprootshade and Justinian are the bad influences on us.”
The Professor merely shook his head sadly as they too were swallowed up by the mists of Stormfield.
In which there are story problems (be sure to show all your work) …
Let us be honest, good Reader: there are many things in life we dread. Trips to the dentist. Getting our annual vaccinations. Visits from our exceptionally sweaty, heavily perfumed, and unpleasantly huggy Aunt Hortensia. Being contractually obligated to meet with Mr. Etter about horribly juvenile and in no way morally improving fairy books. Some of those things, like the dentist and the shots, in the end turn out to be perfectly fine. Others, like being around Aunt Hortensia or Mr. Etter, are utterly awful. But regardless of the eventual outcome, anticipation of them all causes our palms to sweat, our stomachs to churn, and our blood to run cold. Sometimes, dear Reader, the world we live in is truly, truly dreadful.
Now, take all of the dread you feel in all of the aforementioned situations, add to it the dread you feel from the next seventeen most dreadful things you can think of, multiply that by 28.7357, and maybe that dread arithmetic will yield a result that is approximately 61/2 percent of the dread that Shade and her friends felt when they left the relative safety of the King’s Highway and ventured forth into the wilds of Stormfield. Stormfield, where the sun never shines through the black, lightning-filled clouds. Stormfield, where the only sounds to be heard are the roaring of harsh winds and the howling of dire wolves and the sharp caws of carrion crows. Stormfield, inspiration for a thousand legends and countless nightmares. It was through this land of storm and shadow that Justinian leaped them.
They rode cautiously through the blighted land so that the good knight could scan for any more clues left by the prince or princess or tracks left by their abductors. This turned out to be the exact perfect pace to allow Shade, Ginch, and the Professor to be thoroughly spooked by their environment. There wasn’t a snap of a twig, a flutter of a leaf, or a swirl of mist that didn’t make them jump, gasp, swear, or some combination of the three.
At one point a gaunt, surprisingly vicious-looking rabbit poked its head up from behind a rock and gave an eerie hiss, causing the Professor to vault from his horse, whip out a slingshot, and launch a volley of pebbles at it as he flipped through the air. The rabbit bounded away as the Professor snapped a couple
more shots off at it before firing pebbles randomly into the dark lands surrounding them.
“Excellent battle instincts, esteemed Professor!” Justinian gushed. “Why, I do believe the heart of a fierce warrior may beat in that skinny, sunken academic chest of yours.”
The Professor nodded, gave him a precise military salute, then popped a lollipop in his mouth and skipped gaily back to his pony, which he gave a kiss on the head.
“You know only the first part of that was a compliment, right?” Shade pointed out. “The second half was actually—”
“Wait!” Justinian pointed to a patch of blue amongst some prickly weeds nearby. “Again, the princess leads us on.”
Shade dismounted to retrieve what looked like a perfectly good copy of Frances Misselthwaite’s The Clandestine Orchard. While the book was perfectly good, what Shade found next to it was not at all good. It was a skull, yellow and cracked and peering up at her from amongst the weeds. Perhaps Shade could have held in the shocked yelp that escaped from her lips if it had not been for the albino snake that darted out the skull’s mouth.
Shade leaped back. Before she knew it, a green blur plummeted in front of her. It was the Professor, slingshot in hand. He fired into the weeds. The clang of a pebble striking metal sounded.
“Once again you prove that academia’s gain was the battlefield’s loss, Professor,” Justinian leaped from his horse to join them. The good knight pushed aside the weeds to reveal a skeleton clad in tarnished armor, a short bronze sword, green with age, clutched in its hand. Justinian pried the sword loose from skeletal fingers. “I know not if in life you were valiant Seelie or vile Sluagh, but I ask your pardon regardless. My need is greater than yours now, and may any good I do with your arms light upon your sped soul, my fallen brother or sister.”
Justinian stood and slid the sword into the empty sheath hanging from his belt, which it filled just over half of. “Back on your horses, my friends. The longer we dawdle, the greater the chance that our foes will slip through our grasp.”