King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  “Oh, yes.” Fang drew a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. “That’s it, then. We’ve done it.” His brow furrowed as he tried to recollect something. “What was that you said?”

  “Get your pants on?”

  “No, before that. Wait a moment.” He riffled back through his perfect memory. “You said, ‘After all, now that I’m preg—’ Then the Baron started shouting.”

  The Princess flushed. Though her genes often betrayed her, her upbringing had been normal for a gnome. “We’re going to have a baby, Fang.”

  “We are?” He stared at her for a moment. “Are we really?”

  “I’m sure we are, darling.”

  “How long have you been, uh, preg?”

  “Probably since that first time in my old burrow. You were a very virile gnome that night, Fang.”

  Fang felt tears of joy stinging his eyes, so he grabbed the Princess and held her close, burying his face in her hair. A leader must not betray weakness. They stood like that for a long time, while the sounds of human presence drifted away from the Stone.

  “What the hell is going on here?” rasped an unpleasant voice. “Why are you standing up against each other like that?”

  “Hello, Miggot,” said Fang. “We were just coming.”

  “It bloody well looks like it. We were wondering where the hell you were. Nyneve is waiting to thank you.”

  “Have the rest of the giants gone?”

  “Yes, thank God. They’re a noisy lot of buggers. And that tournament was a bloody nightmare. I tell you, Fang, we’re going to have to keep clear of those giants. You’ve never seen anything like the fighting. And the blood.” He shuddered. “Great cascades of it, pouring out of them. Oh, and Merlin put doodads on one of their people!”

  “Why did he do that? Was it some kind of an enemy?”

  “No, it was a friend, so far as I could see. But they were fighting their friends, anyway, so I suppose it makes sense. They’re queer people, Fang!”

  Fang and the Princess followed the Miggot down the long, twisting tunnel. Here and there they came across the remains of insects, still bloody. “The moles are obeying their instincts,” observed the Miggot with satisfaction. “I think we can say they’re successful. We’ll have gnomedom rebuilt in no time.”

  The tunnel rose sharply, and soon they were crawling out of a hole in a fern-clad bank. There was a ragged cheer. “Fang!” somebody cried. “Fang, Slayer of the Dagger-tooth, Deliverer of the gnomes from evil!”

  “Fang! Fang!”

  “Fang, Wallower in the Bed of Filth!” cried someone else.

  “Who was that?” asked the Miggot sharply, staring at the twilit figures.

  Spector spoke quickly. “A balance. Somebody is providing a balance. In fairness, all points of view must be heard. It is the gnomish way.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The Miggot scampered across the glade and seized the Thinking Gnome by his jacket. “You’ve said some stupid things in your time, Spector, but by Agni, that was the stupidest! This is a joyous occasion, you fool! It’s a time for gnomes to rejoice together! Arthur, our protector, will take his place as king of the giants, all because of Fang here!”

  “And Nyneve,” said Elmera. “It was Nyneve’s idea. Fang was merely the instrument. And by the way, what were he and that princess doing in there all this time? Ask yourselves that, gnomes!”

  “Is it anybody’s business what they were doing?” snapped the Miggot, letting go of Spector and swiveling to face his wife. He directed upon her a stare of potent venom, but she was accustomed to this and bounced it back at him.

  “I thought so,” she said smugly.

  A thoughtful silence followed, during which the gnomes tried not to imagine what had been going on in the cavern. Finally there was a welcome diversion.

  “Fang” came a voice from the sky. Nyneve knelt carefully, avoiding scuttling gnomes. “Thank you very much,” she said simply. She held out her hand, and Fang stepped on it and was carried to her lips. She tipped his cap back and kissed him gently on the forehead. “Thank you,” she murmured again, and put him down.

  “You see?” hissed Elmera to Lady Duck. “Even with giants!”

  Nyneve said, “I’d like to thank you all. You too, Scowl, for bringing your people to build the Stone. If there’s any way I can help you anytime, just let me know. And Arthur will protect you against your enemies.”

  “Is Arthur King of England now?” asked Fang.

  Nyneve laughed. “No. That comes later. First he has to win all the nobles over. There’s a lot of battles to be fought before Arthur will be king.”

  “Why don’t they just vote on it?”

  “That’s not the way we do things. A king isn’t king because he’s the most popular man in the country. It’s because he’s the strongest.”

  “An excellent philosophy,” said the Miggot approvingly. “So Arthur will be staying around here for a while?”

  “He’s going to live in the village. The Mara Zion people have accepted him as their leader, and even the Baron’s impressed with him. Oh, and he’s said that if you gnomes would like to come and live in the village, there’ll be a place for you. He thought you might be in danger, with no homes and a lot of strange creatures abroad in the forest. ”

  There was a murmur of interest from the gnomes, then Fang said diffidently, “Thank Arthur very much, Nyneve, but we’re really very happy where we are.”

  Nyneve smiled. “I told him you’d say that.” She stood. “Well, think about it. If you change your minds, let me know.” She waved and was gone, leaving behind the scent of roses and an ominous silence.

  At last Lady Duck said, “Of course, it would save us the trouble of building new burrows.”

  “We have the moles to do that,” said the Miggot.

  “What do you think, Bison?” asked Lady Duck.

  “It’s not Bison’s place to think,” said the Miggot quickly. “He is no longer our leader.”

  “Well, I think—” began Bison.

  “What do you think, Bison?” The question came from more than one gnome.

  Bison seemed to gain in stature, looking around him in gratification. “Well, I think—”

  “Fang,” muttered the Miggot urgently, “you’re losing them. Now’s the time for an inspirational speech!”

  “Well, I think—”

  “What do you think, Bison? What do you think?” The gnomes assumed—incorrectly—that Bison’s hesitancy was a pregnant pause prior to the revelation of a master plan.

  “I think,” said Bison desperately, eyes darting here and there and finally making an emergency landing on Bart o’ Bodmin. “I think we need have no fear, for the Gnome from the North will be with us. In our blackest hour he will ride in on a rabbit white as snow, gnomes.”

  “The Gnome from the North!” echoed the gnomes reverently.

  “What the bloody hell are you all talking about?” shouted the Miggot. “The Gnome from the North is just some story of Bart’s!”

  “The Gnome from the North is as real as you or I, Miggot,” responded Bart somberly, eyebrows bristling.

  “And what’s black about the hour? Things are looking pretty good!”

  “… and lead us to a land where the rivers flow with honey, and yet nevertheless it is possible to keep oneself clean,” concluded Bison.

  “In times of trouble,” said Spector slowly, “the Gnome from the North is necessary.”

  “But we’re not in trouble.” Fang spoke at last, and to his relief he saw signs that the others were listening. Heads turned in his direction—although in the twilight it seemed to him that the eyes bore a blank and fervent look. “We’ve been offered a simple choice by Nyneve: Rebuild gnomedom, or go to live in the village with the giants. Either way we’ll be protected. For myself, I think we should rebuild gnomedom and continue what we were put on Earth for. So really, I’m with Bison. But I don’t see what the Gnome from the North has to do with anything.�
��

  “True, Fang,” said Bison eagerly, “True. But it’s nice to know he’s watching over us, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t need him, Bison.”

  “Well, I bloody well need him!” cried Lady Duck. “And any gnome with a grain of common sense needs him too. We live in dangerous times! The forest is alive with predators we can’t even guess at! The Gnome from the North is our guardian and savior.”

  “It seems to me Arthur is our guardian and savior!” said Fang.

  “And what do you mean, continue what we were put on Earth for?” asked Elmera hotly. “How can we be kind and good, and create life where it’s needed, and all that stuff, when the forest is bursting at the seams with savage beasts hungry for the taste of gnome?”

  “And then there’s the lopster,” put in Pong.

  “Perhaps we should take up Nyneve’s offer, after all,” Old Crotchet said in a quavering voice. “I’m not as spry as I was.”

  “Bugger the lopster,” snapped the Miggot.

  “Shut up, all of you!” shouted Fang desperately. As the voices dwindled off into a reluctant silence, he cast around for inspiration and found it. “We have the Examples and we have our Duty. And I don’t see any savage beasts around. We must get used to the ways of this new forest and the creatures in it. We must go quietly about our lives, watching and noting. We must learn how the creatures and the plants fit together into the greater scheme of things. And when we’ve done this, we must identify the places where new creatures are needed, and we must create them. It may take generations of gnomes to make this new Earth a perfect place, but we can do it! It’s our duty! And speaking of duty, I have an announcement to make.” He gazed around at his people, carried away by his own oratory, elated by the occasion and his news. “The Princess is preg!” he shouted proudly. “I mean, pregnant!”

  If he’d expected a roar of congratulation and the pounding of gnomish hands on his back, he was disappointed. The gnomes stared at him with peculiar expressions, then glanced at each other unhappily.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said the Miggot quickly. “And speaking of creations, you all realize we’ll have to keep the Sharan hidden from the giants. We mustn’t even mention her name in front of them. If they get wind of the fact that we have an animal capable of creating any life-form we want, they’ll grab her and use her for building giantish armies.”

  “The Sharan is a beautiful, wild thing placed in our care by our ancestors,” objected his wife. “She has always roamed free as the wind.”

  “No, she bloody well hasn’t. I’ve had to watch her like a hawk day and night, as well you know. The only time she’s roamed free is when she’s escaped!”

  “Times have changed, Elmera,” said Fang placatingly.

  “And what about Pan?” asked Elmera, ignoring him.

  “Yes, what about Pan?” shouted Lady Duck.

  “Well, what about him?” asked the Miggot.

  “Well, all I can say is,” said Elmera, “that the whole situation is very unsatisfactory. There will have to be some changes around here, I can tell you!”

  “Gird your loins, Bison,” murmured Lady Duck. “Your time is coming!”

  Bison looked anxious. “Why should I guard my loins? What’s going to happen to me?”

  “I said ‘gird.’ It’s just an expression the giants use. It means get ready for the battle to come!”

  “Battle?”

  “For the leadership of gnomedom, Bison! The struggle for power!”

  “I’m not at my best in that kind of situation, my dear.”

  “Fang is a spent force, Bison,” whispered Lady Duck, nodding toward the current leader, who was trying to disentangle a misunderstanding between the Miggot and Clubfoot Trimble.

  “If you say so, my dear.”

  “To the blasted oak!” bellowed Lady Duck.

  This command so took the gnomes by surprise that conversation ceased abruptly. They looked at one another, then they looked at Lady Duck. They pondered the significance of the cry. “Why the blasted oak?” asked Pong eventually.

  “Our traditional meeting place, of course!” She faced them, eyes blazing, Bison cowering at her side. “Mount your rabbits, gnomes!”

  “Fang!” The Miggot bobbed up before Fang, narrow-eyed. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Fang regarded the glade. About thirty gnomes were clambering on their rabbits, uttering yells of enthusiasm. “To the blasted oak!” The cry echoed from many throats.

  “Quite honestly, Miggot, it seems to mean we’re going to the blasted oak. That’s near where you live, isn’t it? Why you live in such a gloomy place, I can’t imagine.”

  “Because Elmera hates it, if you must know. But that’s beside the point.” The Miggot, through force of habit, grasped Fang’s jacket and thrust his face close. “This is a coup, Fang. A coup!”

  “A coup,” repeated Fang, baffled. “A coup.”

  Jack o’ the Warren, overhearing, said, “That’s what the rabbits pulled on my father. A coup is a terrible thing.”

  Old Crotchet, who was too frail to ride, tottered near, grumbling. “The blasted oak is not our traditional meeting place. The hollow log is, but that’s gone away. I never even saw the blasted oak until recently. Talk about tradition! Tradition means age, and respect. Tradition means knowing exactly where your place is in the scheme of things. There’s no tradition about this place. It’s too new. Tradition is memories and changing seasons and falling leaves and things returning to the good earth, like that dead badger I found outside my dwelling once. I could tell you things about tradition that would turn your stomach!”

  “You mean coups,” said Jack. “It’s coups that turn your stomach, Crotchet. I never did find out what happened to my father.”

  “I wish I knew what you were all talking about,” said Fang plaintively.

  “In plain language,” said the Miggot, “Lady Duck intends to depose you from your leadership, and put her husband in your place.”

  “Depose me?”

  “Yes, depose you!” Now the Gooligog joined in, gloating. “Just like you deposed me from my post as Memorizer, you treacherous young fool. Now you’ll know what it feels like!”

  “Depose me? Why would she want to do that? Lady Duck is a friend of mine.”

  “She’s also the husband of King Bison, who you deposed a little while back.”

  “The young bugger’s drunk with power, that’s his problem,” muttered the Gooligog, wandering off in search of his rabbit.

  “Oh, I see.” Fang thought about this. “But surely the other gnomes wouldn’t want this to happen. It was they who made me leader. Any deposing was quite accidental. I got the impression Bison was glad, anyway.”

  “Things have changed, Fang. The crisis is over. Bison can handle things. And Bison has normal urges.”

  “Urges? What kind of urges?”

  Glancing over his shoulder, the Miggot whispered, “Normal sexual urges. Bison’s sexual urges are well under control.”

  The remaining gnomes, appalled and disgusted at the turn the conversation had taken, drifted away. “There’s nothing wrong with my urges,” said Fang hotly. “Has it ever occurred to you, Miggot, that there might be something wrong with your urges?”

  “Yes,” said the Miggot surprisingly. “But then I’m accustomed to dealing with the Sharan and the business of birth and so on. I ask myself questions. I might say, ‘What if …?’ And then I’ll say, ‘If that were so, then …’ And following that, ‘But supposing …?’ And then suddenly I’ll say, Aha!’ ”

  “My father began to talk to himself many years ago. It was the first sign.”

  The other gnomes had by now left, all except Lady Duck, who was advancing on them purposefully. “Fang! Miggot! It is essential that you attend the meeting!”

  “What I’m trying to say is,” muttered the Miggot urgently, “avoid giving the impression you’re a gnome of robust appetites. Don’t stand anywhere near the Princess. Don’t l
ook at her. It might be better to take a cold dip in the river before you appear before the meeting.”

  “You don’t understand, Miggot,” said Fang sadly. “But thank you for trying.” And he followed the Miggot and Lady Duck across the glade to the remaining rabbits.

  As he prepared to mount Thunderer, the Princess stepped out from the blackness of the undergrowth. “May I come with you, Fang?” she said in a small voice.

  “Of course you can.” He took her hand and pulled her up behind him. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him close. He was about to utter his famous cry that harked back to the Slaying of the Daggertooth but realized it was not appropriate. “Get going, Thunderer,” he muttered.

  The rabbit loped slowly along the dark path through the trees, as though affected by the gloom of its riders. After a while the Princess said, “Perhaps I should go away for a while. I never was a very popular gnome, and I’m afraid we both know why. I’m an embarrassment to you, Fang.”

  “We’re staying together, Princess.”

  “But they’re going to make Bison leader again! I know they are!”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Isn’t it? Are you sure, Fang?”

  He hauled on Thunderer’s ears, pulling the rabbit to a halt, and twisted around to face her. “The only reason I became our leader was because nobody else knew what to do in a crisis. I don’t know quite why it is, but I seem to think better when things are moving fast. Now we’re going to rebuild gnomedom, and it’ll be a slow business. Honestly, Princess, it would bore the pants off me to be in charge of all that, arguing with people, having to make all kinds of silly little rules and decisions, and having Elmera and the Miggot and my father complaining all the time.

  “But one day things will go wrong again and I’ll find myself in charge quite naturally, like the last time, without having to persuade people to vote for me or having to compete with someone I like, such as Bison.”

  “King Bison …” mused the Princess. “You’re the real king, Fang. Remember what Nyneve said about Arthur? ‘A king isn’t king because he’s the most popular man in the country. It’s because he’s the strongest.’ ” Unexpectedly she gave a little shriek of laughter. “King Fang,” she intoned. “The words were almost made for each other.”