The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  “Yes. I remember very clearly,” said the queen, and the prince nodded in agreement.

  “Nothing missing? No rings, amulets, brooch, torque, or other bit of jewellery?”

  “Tarpash didn’t like such things. The only jewellery he wore was a gold ring that had been handed down in his family for generations,” said the queen.

  “And his crown, mother,” Middry pointed out. “Father liked to wear a crown. He said it made him feel kingly.”

  Pointing to the display, Kedrigern said, “The ring and the crown are not here.”

  “The ring is on his finger. Hasn’t been off it since before we were married. The crown . . .” Yulda paused, scowling fiercely in the effort to remember.

  Cautiously, Middry said, “He was wearing it at breakfast that morning. I’m sure he was.”

  “Yes! Yes, he was,” said the queen. “The little openwork crown he always wore around the castle. I remember now.”

  “But when you saw His Majesty, Your Majesty, he had a boot on his head. Was the crown lying nearby?”

  “No. In fact . . . I don’t believe I’ve seen that crown since. I’m sure I haven’t.”

  “As I suspected,” Kedrigern murmured, nodding and stroking his chin. “Your Majesty, we must visit the countinghouse.”

  “You shall have free access, wizard.”

  “Both of us, Your Majesty.”

  Yulda’s formidable jaw set firmly. Her nostrils dilated. After a pause, she said, “Very well. Both of you.”

  “All we require is access to the room where the wedding presents are kept. There is a list of items, with the names of the senders, is there not?”

  “The Treasurer will provide it,” said the queen. She turned to a servant and commanded, “Summon the Lord Treasurer!”

  Once they were inside the room of gifts, with torches burning brightly in all the sockets on the wall, the Lord Treasurer dismissed the servants and excused himself. Word had somehow spread that the king’s affliction was now definitely known to be the result of magic, and a degree of uneasiness was perceptible in everyone about the castle. Kedrigern and Princess were left to themselves: exactly the working conditions they preferred.

  Kedrigern surveyed the jumble of ornate objects and said, “This could take some time.”

  “Why don’t we just go down the list?” Princess suggested.

  “No need, my dear. I know exactly what I’m looking for: a crown, coronet, or diadem, with a certain jewel set in a certain position.”

  “There’s a crown! See it, right there, hanging from the trunk of the silver elephant with the emerald tusks?!” Princess cried excitedly, pointing to a figure standing on a chest before them.

  Kedrigern took up the crown and examined it. He shook his head. “Wrong type. This is probably the one Tarpash was wearing when he entered. He took it off when he tried on the other.”

  “What other? Why the sudden interest in crowns?” Princess asked.

  “Because Tarpash wasn’t wearing one when he was found, and that’s completely out of character for him. I haven’t seen Tarpash for over thirty years, but even as a young king, he was a great believer in wearing a crown. He had summer and winter crowns, indoor and outdoor crowns, crowns for hunting, dancing, affairs of state, hawking, riding – anything and everything Tarpash did, he had a special crown to go with it. Even his nightcap was embroidered to resemble a crown.”

  “Kings do have their eccentricities,” Princess said.

  “Indeed they do. And his was well known. Anyone nursing an old grudge against Tarpash would know that crowns were his weakness. He couldn’t see one without wanting to try it on.“

  “But wouldn’t an enemy be more likely to employ a poisoned crown?”

  Kedrigern shook his head. “Too obvious. Also easily traced. There’d be war in no time. No, we’re dealing with a subtle enemy. A man might lose his wits for any number of reasons. Who would suspect a crown sent as a wedding present? And if the wedding has to be called off—”

  “The present would be returned, and no one would ever know! That’s absolutely brilliant!” Princess exclaimed.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Kedrigern said humbly.

  “I meant the plot. But it was also a nice piece of deduction on your part.”

  “I like it myself. But unless we find the crown, it’s all hot air.”

  “Let’s get to work, then. I’ll take the right side of the room; you take the left,” said Princess, rolling back her sleeves.

  Smiling placidly, Kedrigern reached into his tunic and drew out his medallion. “There’s a much easier way,” he said, raising it to his eye. He surveyed the chamber, moving his gaze slowly across the piles of gaudy, the heaps of ostentatious, the isolated beautiful, pausing now and then to lower the medallion and rub his eye. “A lot of interference in here,” he explained. “Some of these objects were once enchanted, spelled, or cursed, and the residual magic fogs up my reception.”

  “Can I do anything to help?” Princess asked.

  Kedrigern resumed his slow search, his gaze ascending a great mound of baubles in a corner of the room. “Ah,” he said softly. “Yes, my dear, you can be a great help. At the top of that heap – flung there by Tarpash in his frenzy – is a golden crown with a cloudy stone on top. Would you mind . . .?

  Princess lifted off with a soft hum of wings. She hovered over the pile for a moment, searching, then snatched up the crown and flourished it overhead before returning to Kedrigern’s side.

  “Is this the fiendish device?” she asked.

  “It is,” he said, studying the milky stone through the Aperture of True Vision. “Subtle, indeed. Diabolically so.”

  “But lovely. That’s a magnificent opal.”

  “Enchanted crystal,” he corrected her.

  “Oh, surely an opal,” she protested. “Look at that vague, fuzzy, clouded interior.”

  “A perceptive description, my dear. You’re looking at the king’s wits.”

  The process of reversal was simple, but not without an element of risk. Kedrigern pried the cloudy crystal free, turned it upside down, and reinserted it in its setting. He then recited a long and complicated spell over it. This done, he held it out to Tarpash, shaking it gently to attract the king’s attention.

  The monarch, who had been roused from his nap, hurriedly dressed, and plopped down in his throne, was in a cranky state. But at the sight of the crown, his face lit up. He screamed, “I want! I want!”, and made a grab for it. With Yulda assisting, and Middry close at hand, under Kedrigern’s watchful eye – it would have been disastrous to put it on upside down – the king settled the crown on his head.

  A wink of bright light flickered through the room, like lightning from nowhere. Tarpash twitched and blinked his eyes. He reached up to remove the crown, and studied the clear crystal stone at its centre. “A pretty thing, but uncomfortable,” he said. “Where is my regular Wednesday crown?” Noticing Kedrigern, he cried, “Who are you? I know you, don’t I? And who is that lovely lady with the wings? How did you get in here? Am I enchanted?”

  “Not any more, Your Majesty,” Kedrigern said.

  “But I have been, haven’t I? My head feels as if it’s been squeezed,” said the king, rubbing his temples.

  “In a sense, that’s exactly what happened. Your Majesty’s wits were stolen and locked in that crystal on the crown,” Kedrigern explained.

  “They were? For how long? What of my son’s wedding?”

  Middry, beaming, said, “It’s still four days off, father. Kedrigern hurried here and removed the spell.”

  “Kedrigern! Of course. I didn’t recognize you at first. It’s been a long time. And this lovely lady – a fairy princess?”

  “A very human princess, Your Majesty. This is my wife and fellow wizard, Princess.”

  “My thanks to you both. All our thanks. You will be generously rewarded,” said the king, signalling to the Treasurer. “But would you mind telling me what happened? I remember going to
the countinghouse and looking over the wedding gifts, and then . . .” Tarpash gestured in a manner expressive of bewilderment.

  “Your eye fell on that crown, a gift from Zilfric of the Long Hand,” said Kedrigern. “You liked it. You took off the crown you were wearing, hung it on the trunk of the elephant figure given by Inuri the Footloose, and put on the new crown. The crystal, an object of great potency and heavily enchanted, drew forth your wits in a single dazzling instant. In distraction, you ran from the countinghouse and collapsed under the oak tree, where you were found soon after with nothing to indicate the cause of your affliction. You had the symptoms of a man struck by lightning. In the purely magical sense, that’s what happened. But there was no lightning from the sky that day. Your condition was a profound mystery.”

  Tarpash smiled benignly on Kedrigern and Princess. “But you solved it. And you will be rewarded. And Zilfric will be punished, as soon as I can think of something nasty enough.”

  “If I may make a suggestion . . .” Kedrigern said.

  “Please do.”

  “Hoist him with his own petard.”

  “We’ll hoist him any way we can,” snapped Yulda, her large jaw jutting forward.

  “Tell us your recommendation, Kedrigern, and if it likes us well, we will leave the details in your hands,” said Tarpash.

  “It will take no more than a day to arrange – two at the most – if I may enlist the royal goldsmith.”

  “He is at your service,” said the king with a wave of his hand. “Tell us your plan.”

  With a smile of anticipation, Kedrigern said, “First we will remove all traces of enchantment from the crystal and the crown.”

  “The crown is enchanted, too! Oh, villainy!” cried the queen.

  “This was a very thorough piece of work, Your Majesties. It is the doing of one Gargumfius, an exceptionally malicious sorcerer known to be in the employ of Zilfric. The Gargumfius touch is unmistakable.”

  “Get the sorcerer, too!” said the king with a grim scowl.

  “I plan to, Your Majesty. Once everything is completely disenchanted, I will have the goldsmith replace the stone in its original position. It will then be returned to Zilfric, accompanied by a letter.”

  “A letter? Is that all? I thought you were going to string the blackguard up!” said Tarpash angrily.

  “I will, Your Majesty, but I will do it with subtlety,” Kedrigern assured him. “Your Majesty will inform him that the entire royal family has worn the crown for lengthy periods of time, and has benefited in innumerable ways, mental and physical: deeper understanding of affairs of state, mastery of economic theories, improved memory, keener eyesight, better digestion, and greater sympathy for fellow rulers, which latter quality has moved you to return the crown, which you consider too precious to keep to yourselves. I leave it to Your Majesties to imagine the effect this communication will have on Zilfric, and his stratagems of revenge, and his dealings with Gargumfius.”

  Tarpash considered the proposal for a time, then laughed aloud and clapped his hands. “Capital! Much better than a punitive expedition. Those things are always such a bother. And so expensive, too.”

  “But will they suffer enough? We want them to suffer!” Yulda said fiercely. “Why don’t we just go after them and string them up?”

  “Because I don’t feel like going to war. Besides, this will keep Zilfric so busy, suspecting and accusing and fighting with his sorcerer, that he won’t have time to bother us or anyone else. Get to it at once, Kedrigern. But first,” said the king, summoning the Treasurer to his side, bearing a small carven ebony casket, “your reward.”

  Opening the casket, Tarpash withdrew a delicate necklace of gold-set rubies, which he placed around Princess’s neck. To Kedrigern, he gave the black casket, saying, “Since we know of your dislike for personal adornment of any kind, we will reward you simply.” The wizard smiled when he heard the clink of coins within, and felt the unmistakable weight of gold in his hands.

  “And we invite you to be honoured guests at our son’s wedding,” Tarpash concluded, beaming.

  “We accept with deep gratitude, Your Majesty,” said Princess before Kedrigern could come up with a reason to duck out of the invitation and hurry home to Silent Thunder Mountain.

  “We are honoured indeed,” said Kedrigern, with a deep bow and a sigh of resignation.

  The wedding of Belserena and Middry was a splendid spectacle. The feasting was elaborate, the tournament a great butchery, the entertainment elegant, the revelry ebullient. When the wizards set out for home after a ten days’ stay, even Princess had to admit to satiety as far as her social needs were concerned. Kedrigern was desperate for peace, quiet, and solitude; so much so that he spoke scarcely a word until they had travelled half a day. Only when they stopped by a brook for a midday rest and a light snack did he relax a bit.

  “It’s wonderful to be going home at last,” he said, sprawling on the cool grass.

  “The past two weeks have been quite eventful,” said Princess wistfully.

  “Horribly so. All those people, and the noise . . . not a minute to ourselves . . . always something going on.” He shuddered at the memory.

  “It was grand,” she sighed.

  “It was a vision of Hell,” he murmured.

  They reclined on the grass in silence for a time, until Kedrigern propped himself on his elbows, gazed up at the sky, and, apropos of nothing, observed, “The best part is that I solved the problem without using magic.”

  In an instant, Princess, too, was sitting up. “What about the reversing spell on the crystal?”

  “That was an afterthought. The important things were achieved by sheer intelligence and reasoning,” he said, tapping his forehead meaningfully.

  “Isn’t magic the reason people summon a wizard? Isn’t it what they pay for?”

  Irritably, Kedrigern said, “They pay me for what I know, not what I do. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a wizard.”

  “And wizards do magic,” Princess said, as if that settled everything.

  “When they must,” Kedrigern added.

  Princess moved closer and patted him on the hand. When he remained silent, she kissed him sweetly and said, “Never mind. It was a very impressive piece of reasoning. I don’t believe there’s another wizard who could have worked it out without resorting to magic.”

  Mollified, Kedrigern sought a way to respond to her gracious gesture. Taking her hand, he said, “It was truly regal of you, my dear, to treat Yulda so well. You were downright friendly. I know she’s a difficult woman, but—”

  “Difficult? I’ve known trolls with better manners! And that voice of hers . . .” Princess shook her head and made a little moue of distaste.

  “All the more credit to you for treating her so nicely.”

  “I was thinking of Belserena. Sweet child. I didn’t want to do anything to spoil her wedding.”

  “You were extremely generous to Belserena. That was a lovely pendant you gave her.”

  “Well, we were honoured guests. That sort of thing is expected of us.”

  “It is? I’m never sure about those things.”

  “I know,” said Princess resignedly.

  “It all seems so unnecessary. All this passing back and forth of gaudy baubles and trinkets. Like that necklace Tarpash gave you. It’s a beautiful thing, and exquisitely made, but when will you actually wear it?”

  “It’s the thought that counts.”

  He cast a dubious glance at her. “Then why don’t kings and princes and that lot just think well of each other, and stop exchanging plundered jewellery? It’s all plunder, in one way or another, you know.”

  “It has its practical uses,” Princess said with a sly, knowing smile.

  “Oh?”

  “You don’t think I’d give that dear girl a mere trinket. Surely you know I placed a spell on it for her.”

  “My dear—”

  “A simple spell for tenacity in disputation.” Princess stood a
nd made a gay and graceful pirouette on the grass, fairly glowing with the satisfaction of work well done. “Just what Belserena needs – and Yulda deserves.”

  A Pair of Oddities

  THE BYRDS

  Michael Coney

  Michael Coney, who died in 2005, was better known for his science fiction novels, which began with Mirror Image (1972) and have included Syzygy (1973), Friends Come in Boxes (1973) and The Hero of Downways (1973). In his later years, however, he turned to fantasy, and often humorous fantasy at that, such as Fang the Gnome (1988), A Tomcat Called Sabrina (1992) and No Place for a Sealion (1992), the last two at present published only in Canada, where Coney lived from 1972. The following is a real off-the-wall item.

  Gran started it all.

  Late one afternoon in the hottest summer in living memory, she took off all her clothes, carefully painted red around her eyes, cheeks, chin and throat, painted the rest of her body a contrasting black with the exception of her armpits and the inside of her wrists, which she painted white, strapped on her new antigravity belt, flapped her arms and rose into the nearest tree, a garry oak, where she perched.

  She informed us that, as of now, she was Rufous-necked Hornbill, of India. And that was all she said, for the logical reason that Hornbills are not talking birds.

  “Come down, Gran!” called Mother. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  Gran remained silent. She stretched her neck and gazed at the horizon.

  “She’s crazy,” said Father. “She’s crazy. I always said she was. I’ll call the asylum.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Mother was always very sensitive about Gran’s occasional peculiarities. “She’ll be down soon. The evenings are drawing in. She’ll get cold.”

  “What’s an old fool her age doing with an antigravity unit anyway, that’s what I want to know,” said Father.

  The Water Department was restricting supply and the weatherman was predicting floods. The Energy Department was warning of depleted stocks, the Department of Rest had announced that the population must fall by one-point-eight per cent by November or else, the Mailgift was spewing out a deluge of application forms, tax forms and final reminders, the Tidy Mice were malfunctioning so that the house stank . . .