by Warren Fahy
As the Queen’s familiar, Toy had no choice but to obey.
They were together once again, and already they reclined on the air over the Wundyrnol Dimrok observing a weightless ballet of mythical creatures wheeling over the greensward: a griffon, a hummingbird, a gigantic goldfish, a winged elephant and a dripping Blue Whale, each a form taken by one of the Wondyrnian players who were visiting the Dimrok to perform for the royal couple.
“These Windeyrl artists really know the Hala detail, don’t you agree, my love?” Trevin said.
“Ever more so! So much larger than life,” she answered, reveling in their second life.
“Sparkles in sparkles, and shadows in shadows, and colors in colors!” Trevin said. “The goldfish wiggles and sends sunlit droplets from its lyre tail. And behold the mighty whale, Neuvia. When he tilts it seems the whole world tilts, instead!”
They laughed as though their joy rebuked the other world and all its doubts. Though it troubled her all along that this world’s pleasure masked the other world’s pain, it was only now that she finally decided to ask him, directly, about his purposes in Hala.“Trevin?”
“Yes?” He wondered at her tone immediately and turned to her.
“What in Hala do you fear, after all? Is it truly yourself, because of your father’s prophecy? Because the stone of your scepter burns crimson?”
He froze now. “I do not know what you speak of,” he said. “I do not think I wish to know.”
“You must tell me what Selwyn said to you, my love. Do you remember?”
Trevin looked inward now, reluctantly, and only because she asked him to. “My father said to beware that which is closest to me,” he answered. He looked at her in dread. “That which I love most, he said, shall be my doom.”
“And what else? What would be its sign, Trevin?”
He closed his eyes and heard the words clearly now. “He said I would know it by its mark—crimson.” He covered his face. “My soul.”
“Or something else? Perhaps what stains your soul did so to make you fear most what it fears most!”
“Who told you that?”
“You must not believe that your power is wicked. Such doubts will surely twist the flower of your mind into fierce and angry shapes, my love, if only to justify your sentence after it was unjustly passed. You are good, my king. How can you not know that?”
“You are wise,” said Trevin, touching his brow to her lips. “If only it could be true.”
She stroked his ebony hair that shimmered colors between her fingers. “Let us make from this hallowed world a passage to Hala daylight, and make that world ours, too,” she implored him. “I beg this of you, my husband!”
She knelt before him and he stroked the iridescent hair over her brow. “You believe it is possible?”
“Trevin, you must. I live on the Dimrok… I have been there all along!”
“What?”
Suddenly she felt a jolt of burning pain as though a coarse rope tied around her heart had suddenly cinched tight. Her sight went black and then her eyes flashed violet agony before she ceased to be in the Wynder World.
Trevin wheeled in rage.
His eyes pierced the distance in every direction.
But she was gone!
She woke and found her wrists and ankles bound to her bedposts with ragged rope.
A snarling creature with bubbling nostrils bared its tusks over her with a ravenous sneer.
As she wondered if she could believe her confused senses, the beast’s yellow eyes moved up and down over her flesh, and drool spindled from its twisted lower lip onto her breast.
How many hurts? Pigg tried to calculate as he stared at his prize. Lots of hurts, he remembered now. More than he could count over the seven years that he had pursued her. His many foiled attempts had cost him countless bruises, breaks, and baths.
Pigg had been quite busy, however, during these last seven years. He had eaten all of the silver-and-red squirrels that liked to help her. No more dared do that. And he had eaten some sparrows, hummingbirds and magpies that were helping her, too. But that just made the birds swarm thicker whenever they saw him, so he had left the birds alone for years now and had been offering them treats to confuse them. He managed to catch the mink that was slipping the Queen soap from the King’s Tower. Pigg kept the mink’s fur with pride, shriveled on a stick in his burrow not far across the Chuckling Wee from her treehouse. He even ate the bar of soap the mink was carrying to her.
Pigg was most proud of digging up the burrow of the badger that had helped her. He had eaten the whole family, one by one, after tossing the old patriarch into the river at the edge of the falls. Pigg giggled and snorted as he had watched that stubborn adversary dashed on the rocks below the island’s cliff. He probably hated badgers more than all the queen’s friends on the island. That is, except for the silver crabs on the beach that Selwyn had made, which truly terrified him.
In the last six years, Pigg had eaten his way through layer after layer of the Queen’s loyal guard. He had rooted up the raccoon family two years ago, and now only a few weaklings of their kind still existed on the Dimrok, hiding up in the trees whenever he passed. He would get them, too, in the long run.
The beaver had been too tough for Pigg. On the bright side, after seven years of bad luck, he had finally caught the owl that liked to gouge his nose with its talons. He had been very clever about it. He found a piece of fishnet on the beach during one of his midnight forays dodging the crabs, and, last night, as he had spied on the Queen with the fishnet bunched in his hands, he waited till the last moment as the owl swooped, then ducked and threw the net. The owl fell and Pigg twisted the net, breaking the bird’s wings as he swung it down onto the ground. He left its head as a gift for the Queen that morning.
And now, here he was! This was better than a bird or a fish, or a slug or a rat, or a bug or a baby. This was the tastiest treat of all! I gets to eat the QUEEN!
Chapter 15
Pigg
Trevin reached for the Scepter and remembered he was Wyndering and did not have it with him.
His eyes slashed the world like swords, but when he realized that nothing in his Wyndernalia Kingdom could have caused her disappearance, he tore himself through the diamond of his Scepter.
Passing through the Cronus Star’s vast doorway, with its solitary chair, he saw no demon hiding there in the red limbo, as Neuvia had suggested. There was only the empty chair, in which he had never sat.
He plunged into his Hala flesh, sprawled in Stargazer, and he was scalded by Hala sensations. When the pain subsided, Trevin stared at the turquoise ceiling of a beautiful grotto as he remembered how to see through Hala eyes. Coated in icy sweat, he wondered where he might be as the filigreed details of the blue cavern sharpened in dazzling splendor all around him. He felt the Scepter on his chest but did not touch it. The sounds of Neuvia’s last words swarmed in his mind as they disappeared down a hole beyond his recollection. He clasped the handle of the Scepter, then, and all he retained was that she was in trouble, and he did not let go of that knowledge.
Somewhere, Neuvia was in danger! Only then could he see his mistake: there was no way to reach her from the Dimrok. Why had he come back? Somewhere in Ameulis she was in peril, and he must go back to Wynder and induce a dream into Hala so that he could soar far and wide searching for her in every inch and acre. And he vowed that when he found her, he would take her in his ghostly arms back to the Dimrok where they could live out their days, curse or no curse, surrounded by his walls of magic.
With no time to craft a subtle incantation, Trevin chose one that was the basis for all the others and could be left unfinished, in perpetual motion—to more devastating effect than all the rest.
He sat up in Stargazer and ordered her forward, and the little boat knifed through a brief window in the grotto’s arch. She raised her mast and her three-pointed sail dropped as she climbed a warm green swell pierced by fingers of morning sun. Driven by the m
omentum of his irresistible will, the craft cut sharply into the Dimrok’s bay.
He would need no scroll or stellar alignment for what he had in mind. After six islands he knew how to work the levers for this simple, last step that would fill the last chink in his armor. The Seventh Isle would not have any of the limits that he had imposed on the others.
So be it, he thought.
Having not spoken for hundreds of years, Pigg tried to moisten his gray tongue, smacking his lips bashfully over Neuvia. He tried to address her in a way that befitted a Queen. “Lady, you see me, right?” he wheezed, grinning at her solicitously around his twisted yellow tusks. But she beheld him with a face like stone. In fact, she didn’t show the slightest struggle against the bonds Pigg had wound around her wrists and ankles as she slept.
She examined the creature crouching over her, trying to identify what he could be. At first, she thought the beaver had captured her. Then she wondered if this was some kind of nightmare. And finally the smell of Pigg convinced her that it was something real and quite terrible.
She certainly is a Queen, Pigg thought. She is cool, composed, and in control even though I have her completely at my mercy. All he had done was creep up to her tree and nothing had bothered him this time. He had climbed onto the ladder and it sprang up 50 feet and slammed him into the ceiling of the Queen’s bedchamber. But she did not wake up, and, rubbing his head, Pigg leaped into the room and gawked at her, hardly believing the fortune that finally shined upon him.
Toy had been asleep, too, for he was just accompanying Neuvia into that other place. It couldn’t have been better! Peering closely, Pigg saw that the serpent’s jeweled eyes were elsewhere and he did not hesitate to reach down and pull Toy by the head off her neck and swallow him down, headfirst, his entire length slithering down his greasy gullet to his stomach.
Then he began stringing his grimy cords around her fair hands and feet, like a dirty spider spinning its web, not daring to touch her scepter.
Pigg felt the serpent waking inside him as acid churned his guts. He opened the shutters of all four windows, and a summer ray lanced the room. He sucked in the fresh air and straddled her, gnawing at the white cotton slip over her belly. Then he split it open and pulled it out from under her. He drooled on her leg as he squatted on her knees, dizzy with dazed gratitude.
Toy woke up inside him then and bit his stomach.
Pigg knew he would.
The pain of Toy’s strike dizzied Pigg’s brain with a strange pleasure; the poison would soon be dissolved in his blood. Toy had bitten Pigg twice before. His father told him that snakes like this had both Hala and Wynder venom. He would be in danger if Toy struck him too many times, but Toy wouldn’t last long enough in his gut.
Cold sweat beaded on Pigg’s face. “My Queen, your toy inside me stings! So I must dine on Queen meat so lovely and pure like river water to wash away the poison, my sweet Lady-wady!” Pigg sputtered. “Oh, my Queen!” Pigg scrabbled her porcelain belly between his grimy ropes with his scraggly claws. “So pure and fresh of fleshy-flesh so freshy-fresh! Ho ho! You’re Tim Piggly’s candy-creamy and dandy-dreamy raspberry-saucey munchy-munchy now, yay!”
Neuvia looked at the floor beside her bed where she had dropped the book of Selwyn’s prophecies. The pages fluttered now and her eyes barely read a sentence on a leaf as it blew by: “Her wisdom might prevail…” Then she saw a single word amid the flipping pages: “WAIT.”
“She looks at blank pages but I am talking,” Pigg griped. “It’s time to eat, my Queen, and you so fresh and juicy will clean the Pigg from end to end, Hooray! The poison’s hot and so sour I need your honey in me quick, now. Thank you, Queeny, sweet pastry for my tummy-tum! And to your grace and glory be!”
The scepter of Gieron glinted on her bared chest. She believed that she could use it even when not touching it with her hands. If Trevin remembered what she told him in Wynder, he would know where to look for her. If not, using the scepter would show him where she was.
She could use the scepter to cast the Spell of Protection, which she could utter only once and must measure that need against the course of centuries, as Toy had ceaselessly reminded her. “Well, Master,” she said to Pigg. “Where is your charcoal drawing stick?”
“What?” Pigg blinked in the glare of her gaze, bedazzled by her delicious voice.
“What is your name?”
“Er… Tim Pigg, I think.” He gave a military style bow with one arm on his stomach. “That’s what they called me, I guess.”
“Why don’t you draw the marks on my flesh, Master Pigg?” she asked, with sweet concern. “That’s the best way to plan the cuts, of course. The flank, for instance, the marrow of the shins and, obviously, the delicate hands, which,” she flourished her fingers, “if roasted in peanut oil and onion flowers should melt the tongue of Gieron! As a mastercook myself I thought you, who is clearly such a prince among eaters, Master Pigg, would appreciate such things. Perhaps, though, I am mistaken?”
“Whaa—?”
She eyed the twisted beast, smiling gently. “I can guide you through the difficult bits. I’ll show you how to use the nicest cuts for the most delicate dishes and purifying remedies, which you seem so much in need of after your many toils and tribulations, O Master Pigg! But you must be quick! No more shilly-shallying! No more dilly-dallying! Where is your charcoal, eh?”
“Charcoal?”
“All butchers have it! Even those with the smallest pride, excepting those who have none at all!” Neuvia looked out the window as though she was suddenly tragically bored.
“They do?”
“Of course!”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Neuvia sighed. “You mean you don’t know it?”
Pigg’s mind was dizzy as a pinwheel as he tasted her savory voice. Did he have charcoal? No! And blast it all that he did not! He looked from side to side. A piece of charcoal to draw on the Queen… He saw a stick from the Enrid tree on the floor and hopped down. Breaking off side branches, he lit the twig over the flame of her candle.
Neuvia looked at Selwyn’s open book of prophecies on the floor, but its pages lay still and blank.
Pigg danced a strange jig as he watched the flame rise on the end of the burning stick. He waited until soot collected on its tip. Then he screwed his lips into an ‘O’ around his tusks and blew out the flame. He poked the stick on his gray tongue to wet the end and then grinned. “Now, my Queen, tell me how to draw the lines for the butchering part. Your little toy’s having more fun in my gutsy-wuts. Show me how to make the cutsy-wuts, and sweetly serve your honey meat so I can eat you as you promised me I could. My belly, Queeny, must have the blood like berry wine to douse the fire right away.” Pigg felt Toy strike him again inside his stomach, and sweat began pouring over his face. “I think that was the last from that old toy…” Pigg frowned.
She reeled in grief. “Put the stick between my teats,” she said to the sniveling beast.
“Tasty teatsy-weets, tweedle-dee-doodly-doo!” Pigg sang as his mind became woozy at Neuvia’s beauty.
She was hoping that he would touch the scepter that lay on her chest, for she knew it would protect itself and give the beast a terrible jolt.
But Pigg pushed her bosoms with scraggly fingers to move the scepter off her chest without touching it, and it fell to her side on the bed.
She smiled at him to conceal her contempt as he drew a line of soot down her chest. What must she wait for? Where were all her forest friends now? The sea eagle could not enter, for his wings were too broad. The squirrels were too few and far now, and the birds swirling outside did not dare attack this animal. Indeed, they stayed away as though an orb of fear surrounded it. Only a few brave sparrows flew into the room, aiming at Pigg’s eyes, but Pigg dashed them away without blinking as he stared, transfixed, at her. For she entranced him and charged him with a savage purpose as he devoured the sight and scent of her.
She tried to recall the Spell of Protection. She felt certain that she could still use it, since the scepter’s gem still touched her side.
And yet she waited, for what she knew not, even as Pigg drew the line across her belly like a boy learning geometry. “How far down should I draw it?” His head bobbed without any rhythm. “The breasts split like a chicken, yes, yes!”
“Too fast and hasty to last and be tasty, my wonder-plum, Tim.” Neuvia winked as Pigg drew the stick below her navel. “That’s far enough. There are many cuts,” she assured him. “You must prepare for a week of feasts. You mustn’t ruin your opportunity to eat a Queen! You must plan it out and do it right. Something to remember!”
Pigg gnawed on the charred stick now as he realized what she was saying. “Yes!” He hopped on top of her and danced, his hind hooves scratching her belly.
“You’re marking up my skin! You’re bruising it,” she said.
“Yes, yes!”
“It’s very bad!” she frowned. “If you care about tenderness in your meat.” She turned her head away from him sadly. “Especially when cooked in a marinade of eucalyptus and red butter.”
Pigg’s nostrils flared. “Eh?”
“Just a recipe…”
He stepped off her to each side, squatting low. “Tell me!”
“A special way to prepare the Queen for your noble palate, that is all. But perhaps you want to skip all that on the one chance that you’ll ever have to eat a queen. I guess you don’t really care about eating, after all?” Neuvia rolled her eyes in disdain then and looked out the window.
“I care! Pigg cares, I do!” Pigg squealed.
“Then stop hemming and hawing and finish the drawing,” she scolded him.
“Yes, yes! Father wants the King’s body for himself. But he gave me yours and yours is so much better, I think.” Pigg batted his long-lashed eyes at her. “Where should I draw with my little paw?”
“Around the top of the thigh. Each thigh is a ham, Pigg, and should be prepared accordingly.”
“Mmm! I agree!” Pigg drew the lines of soot, biting his gray tongue. “What part’s next?”