The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Havler, remaining calm despite the queen’s frantic urgings for greater haste, thumbed through the pages of the Emerald Bible, a book written entirely on swatches of silk (reputedly from the original worm), by a malcontented high priest of the temple who had decided – before he was captured and destroyed – that people might as well know that obedience to the priest-sorcerors of the Emerald Temple was not necessary if you knew the counterspells. Havler paged idly through – the book’s slithery pages gave him a certain sybaritic delight – the Emerald Bible, and finally, when the queen was nearing the verge of nervous collapse, opened the book wide to a certain passage inscribed in glittering golden ink. It dealt with “Celery, Sacred, Removal of”.

  The queen tore the book from his hands when he announced he’d located the countermeasures against encroaching celery, and read it carefully, and with fluttering heart.

  The method was simplicity itself. All one had to do was to get – in writing – a request from any other person in the kingdom for a transference of celery, and, on the burning of the parchment (necromantic protocol called for parchment; paper or silk wouldn’t do) the bargain became finalized, and the celery would transport itself instantaneously to the cranium of the person who had asked for it. The queen having read it twice over began to grow pale. More than the people of the kingdom suspected, she knew of their less-than-enthusiastic checkups at their morning mirrors, and the chances of finding a person stupid enough to be amenable to signing the request (or of finding a person literate enough to write their own name) were few and far between. And there was the further danger that if the person refused, they would (since they’d been approached by the turbaned queen) know of her possession of celery, and know further of the fact that she’d consulted the forbidden books. And the still further danger that even if they accepted the celery, they would somehow let slip the awful truth that the queen had been chosen by the gods and had fudged on the deal.

  With a small Royal Sigh, the queen sank down into a chair and let the book close with a silken slam. How could she possibly go about losing that celery? Havler, sensing her dilemma, suggested, almost casually, that a person could possibly be made to sign something without knowing what it was that they signed. The queen started to emerge from her blue funk. Havler further insinuated that if the person knew not that there were any connection between the signing and the appearance of the celery, they would have to assume that the celery had – since this was the period of the thousandth apex – appeared of its own volition, and that they were naturally the chosen one. The queen brightened even further. And, Havler pointed out, the queen had in her possession at that very moment a large volume entitled “Expendable Subjects” (which included all the populace but the queen and Havler) from which she might select a name at random.

  The queen, moving so fast that Havler could barely keep pace with her, flashed down the corridor and back to her room, where she threw open the aforementioned volume and espied, at the head of the list of expendables, the name Leejee Lahl. And what made her task even simpler, Leejee was employed in the palace kitchen, a few short flights away from the Royal Bedroom. The queen closed the book and smiled a smile that even turned Havler’s blood cold . . .

  Leejee Lahl, unaware of her date with fate, was at that very moment down in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for the Royal Dinner Party that night, in honor of the Queen’s Birthday Celebration. She peeled automatically, not watching her hands at all, and the peels, nearly a half-inch thick, thudded gently to the flagstoned floor of the immense kitchen, arising into a pile that hid her rather large bare feet. Leejee’s eyes were focused on some middle distance, and to look upon her vapidly pretty face, one would think that she had not a thought in her head. And one would have only been off by one thought.

  For Leejee thought solely of Garnel Ross. Garnel the Handsome, Garnel the Bold, who that very night was to meet her back of the Royal Garden Gate, and take her away with him (riding tandem on one of the swiftest desert frogs in the land) to the Camps of the Carrot-Eaters, to the south. Garnel was a warrior, tall and strong, and his rank amongst the Carrot-Eaters was nearly that of prince. Someday, if he could live longer than the other aspirants to the Teakwood Chair, he would be King of the Carrot-Eaters, and Leejee, as his wife, would be queen. She sighed, thinking of her lover, thinking of her future queenship, thinking of ruling over all those people, eating all those carrots. It was quite a step upward, socially, for the humble, beautiful and stupid daughter of a toeclip-maker. And as she was lost in her introspective reveries, dreaming always of Garnel, his muscular arms, his soft, creamy-blue hair, and wide-set pink eyes, she heard not the approaching toeclip-clacks of the queen herself, until the fuzzy shadow of a tall orange turban fell upon her pile of peels.

  Leejee broke from her thoughts of Garnel and looked upward, into the smiling (and tense, though she didn’t notice) face of the queen. She felt a bit less than subservient at the moment, since she, too, was in line for the throne, but she acted democratically polite when the queen spoke to her, and accepted the Seat of Honor at that evening’s celebration without even asking herself why the queen of the land should choose the humble, beautiful and stupid daughter of a toeclip-maker as the Honor Guest of a Royal Party. And, after the queen – and the trailing, whispering, expostulating form of Havler Grem – had left the kitchen, Leejee reasoned that it was only right that she, a future queen, should have her first taste of Royal Living before she eloped with Garnel Ross. It would undoubtedly put her in good stead with the Carrot-Eaters if she had a little experience at Royal Living before she got to the Teakwood Chair.

  Leejee sighed again, and returned to her labors, her mind dreaming of the night, when, after the party, she would be racing across the Crystal Desert with her lover, astride the sleek gray-green flanks of a bounding frog. It was an event not many girls had a chance to consider. A small frown creased her brow as she realized that the party would run beyond the hour at which she was to meet Garnel at the gate, but Garnel, if he truly loved her, would understand that she was doing it for him: that he might have a queen of whom he could be proud. He could certainly wait a few more hours for her. What did it matter that every moment he spent in the Land of the Green Sun was fraught with danger? What did it matter that there was a substantial price on his head . . . his creamy-blue curly-haired head? Was his love for her not strong enough to brave the additional risk? And what did it matter that the Royal Guard would be doubled on the rough log wall about the Royal Courtyard that night, to assure the merrymakers that no peasantry crept near enough to even hear the sounds of the fun? Garnel was brave, was he not? He would surely understand that she, even though a bit later than promised, would certainly be coming to him. Leejee sighed yet again, and kept on with her flaying of the hapless potatoes. Tonight, she thought to herself, will be a night to remember always . . .

  The smoky green sun, having reached the center of the overhead dome of pallid gray sky, the point of its apex, began to reverse its direction and spiral in increasing circles toward the jagged circle of mountains that comprised the horizon of the Land of the Green Sun. One time it would circle completely about the kingdom, seemingly rolling along the uppermost peaks of those mountains, then it would dip out of sight behind the tallest – Mahogany Mountain – and a gray-green twilight would come upon the land. Then would the party begin. The rim of the smoky green fireball was just coming in contact with that very mountaintop when, from the tanglewood behind the palace, Garnel Ross, astride his slack-jawed, sleepy-eyed desert frog came riding stealthily up to the back gate of the palace. He let his soft pink eyes rove over the vicinity of that gate, giving them leave to seek out the object of his heart’s desire: Leejee Lahl, the beautiful, the humble, the daughter of the toeclip-maker. His pink eyes roved in vain; no such object did they encounter. Garnel, shivering a bit (for the low-circumference period of the green sun was chill), dismounted from his steed, gave it a large rubber bug to chew upon, and crept carefully toward the distant wall
of logs . . .

  As he crept ever nearer, his heart thudding against his ribs when he espied the doubled guards upon the upper part of the wall, the sound of music came to his ears. He recalled then that this was the night of the queen’s birthday celebration, and that all the palace residents would be on hand to indulge in the festivities. From the far side of the wall came the roaring lilt of drunken laughter, and Garnel smiled within himself, knowing that, thus occupied, none of them would think to guard the Garden Gate. Soon, whether or not they knew it, they would be short a potato-peeler in the palace kitchen. It was a cruel trick to play upon them, but Garnel steeled himself against any thoughts of mercy toward the hated royalty of the Land of the Green Sun. Let them seek out and find and train a new potato-peeler, he said to himself. It would serve them right. From his vantage point beyond a small scrub pine, he saw that the guards, rather than keeping an eye upon goings-on outside the wall, were concentrating their attention upon the doings in the courtyard itself. It wasn’t every day they got to see such a splendid show. Garnel, more than confident that he wouldn’t be observed, was prepared to skirt the courtyard proper and head for the garden gate when he heard another sound, somewhere between a whinny and a cackle, mingled with a fresh surge of Royal Laughter beyond the wall. The sound made his heart leap, his hackles rise, and his tongue go dry. He would know that voice anywhere: it was that of Leejee Lahl, his betrothed.

  What might she be doing in the midst of a Royal Party? Garnel wondered this, and also wondered why she was doing anything other than waiting for him at the appointed place. Perhaps, he told himself, she was a prisoner? Mayhap the queen – plague upon her – had discovered their upcoming tryst and had taken steps to assure Leejee’s remaining in humble servitude.

  Garnel, throwing caution to the winds, felt a fierce anger rising within him. Rising along with it, from his crouch behind the scrub pine, he vaulted to the log wall, scrambled up its rough bark side, slid over the brink of it on his stomach, and plunged headlong into the waving fronds of unmown grass on the far side. Had he been unobserved? He hoped so, as he lay there, his face in the dirt, his body criss-crossed by the long pencil-shadows of the grass. The guards at the wall top made no outcry, nor did the boisterous sounds of revelry abate. Garnel, deciding he was safe, began to crawl stealthily through the clinging weeds and grass on his stomach, until he drew near enough the perimeter of the cleared courtyard to see the festivities themselves. But Garnel looked beyond the courtyard proper to the simple gilt-speckled couch on which Leejee sat, her simple, cowlike eyes wide and watery, observing the festive performers that cavorted in the arena. Or so she seemed to his eye.

  Actually, Leejee’s mind was not even aware of the goings-on. This was due both to a natural aptitude for blankness and a great quantity of fermented tomato juice which she’d been imbibing like water since early afternoon. And there was a third reason. Leejee, so much enamored of her tall, handsome king-to-be, could think of nothing but Garnel, whose bride she would become that very night.

  The Royal Dancers bounded into the arena, and the band struck up a swiftly surging waltz as the lithe bodies of the men and women soared and spun and whirled to the fantastic rhythms of the dance. The women shrieked their delight aloud as their partners hurled them through the torch-lit night air, trailing a rainbow stream of gauzy finery behind them. Up, down, to and fro they wound, in an intricate pattern of insane color and fierce abandon, until, at the climax of the music, they all fell heavily prostrate upon the earth, some of the more dedicated ones never to rise again, being danced to death. But Leejee thought only of Garnel, his pink eyes glowing with love.

  As the remnants of the dancers carried the bodies of the dead and dying away, the Royal Clowns appeared, somersaulting over one another, whacking themselves over the heads with petrified hollyhocks, tearing the very clothes off their backs, beating gongs, drums and cymbals, setting fire to their shoes, and throwing mud at the nearby guests. But Leejee, lost in her thoughts of Garnel, did not so much as smile, merely coming out of her reverie long enough to take another sip of her fermented tomato juice.

  Why is she here? Garnel asked himself over and over. He knew that the couch on which she sat was the place of highest honor. How had Leejee, the Royal Potato-Peeler, daughter of a humble toeclip-maker, gotten herself into such an enviable situation? Garnel decided to wriggle closer and find out. At that moment, he heard a sound, and froze into immobility. Someone was walking through the tall grass and weeds, and coming his way. No, not just someone, two people. Garnel could hear their voices, a man’s and a woman’s, speaking in hoarse, nervous whispers. One of them sounded a bit like the queen, but Garnel, peering between stalks of grass, could see no crown, though he did get a glimpse of what seemed to be an orange turban. He’d almost turned his mind back to his loved one, when he heard them mention her by name. Listening much more closely, he realized, all at once, that this was the queen, after all. And she was going to— What did she say?!!

  Garnel’s stout heart turned quite cold as he heard the queen tell her confidante – who who just had to be Havler Grem, his voice was so oily and low and vile – how near her insidious plan was to its completion. He lost some of the words, but it became clear enough to him that the sooner he took Leejee away from this place, the safer she would be. He would wriggle around the courtyard, get behind the couch upon which Leejee sat, and then, drawing the fire-hardened oaken sword, he would hack the birthday guests to pieces, carry Leejee away on his shoulder, set fire to the log wall, and— No, that was no good; someone was sure to try and stop him. Maybe— Despite the dirt and grass-stains on his face, he found himself smiling as his plan entered, took hold, and grew in his brain. With scarcely a whisper of noise, Garnel humped himself quickly through the grass, carefully skirting the region where the queen and the Minister of Interstate Commerce were still talking – the queen was fishing for compliments on her birthday gown of the finest spun sand, and Havler seemed to be deliberately avoiding the bait – and wriggled determinedly toward Leejee, his love, the light of his life . . .

  Leejee, in the midst of a large swallow of juice, was startled to hear the voice of her lover quite close at hand. At first she thought it was coming from within her mind, but an irritated rustling in the grass that almost overhung the back of the gilt-speckled couch convinced her that he was truly with her. Garnel, crouched uncomfortably behind her, told her of the fate that lay in store for her should she sign the parchment the queen had already prepared. Leejee thought about it a minute and decided that he was right. What could she do? Garnel told her. And, as he spoke, her face curved into a vengeful smile of flinty-eyed anticipation. His message completed, Garnel hitched himself around, and crawled back the way he had come. Many minutes later, Leejee observed his tall, magnificent body as he stood up on the far side of the courtyard and climbed back over the wall. None of the other guests seemed to have noticed him, but that may have been either because of the cleverness of the entertainers, or the fact that they were all too decadent to really care. The queen, seeming to come from nowhere, suddenly seated herself beside Leejee on the couch, and Leejee pretended once more to be engrossed in the evening’s entertainment.

  A battle to the death started. The Royal Gladiators were now in the arena, bowing their final obeisances to the queen, and then proceeding to brain one another with clubs, until only one man was left standing, and he fell over during the applause. But so intense and all-absorbing was Leejee’s love for Garnel that she never even heard the plop as the gladiator fell from his victorious stance.

  The yellow-and-violet-striped moon was beginning to lose its grip on the center of the sky, and to slide in a long spiral toward the mountain rims surrounding the kingdom. The sun would soon start its climb around the sky toward the next apex. The guests were all looking kind of furry-eyed and droopy, and even the final act – a man who held corn kernels in his mouth until (after judicious application of a torch beneath his chin) they began to pop – was unable to
hold their attention. The queen yawned, stretched, and got up from the couch. Leejee followed the queen wearily toward the palace, not even looking back as the man, his feat accomplished, was rushed by a group of friends toward a waiting tub of butter, into which he plunged his head, valiantly forebearing shrieking.

  The queen, leading the way up the Royal Staircase toward the sleeping chambers – Leejee had been given one for the night – was unaware that Leejee was “on to” her scheme, as she produced, almost casually, a square of parchment from somewhere within her gown, and Havler Grem materialized a pen, its point freshly inked, for Leejee to use in signing the document. It was, the queen told Leejee rather carelessly, merely a sort of receipt acknowledging that Leejee had had a good time at the party. Leejee, without hesitation, signed it. Instantly, the queen tore it from her grasp, and dashed down the staircase, heading for the Royal Basement where the Royal Stokers were keeping the Royal Furnaces in white-hot headiness. Havler, as Leejee looked after the queen, yawned elaborately and vanished into his sleeping chamber. A sort of swoosh of air and a gentle thump, just before his door swung closed, told Leejee that he was safely ensconced in his feather-pit for the night, or what remained of the night. All at once, Leejee grew tense. This was the moment she and Garnel had planned for.

  For Garnel’s plan was hideously simple. Rather than sign her own name, Garnel had explained, all she had to do was to sign another name, and that person would be the next sprouter of the Sacred Celery. And what better name to employ other than that of Havler Grem? Leejee giggled to herself as she tiptoed to the door of Havler’s room. Hearing his rumbling snores from the depths of the feather-pit, Leejee crept silently but confidently across the room to the window, where Garnel was climbing a ladder, eager to claim his prize.