Quen Nim (8 page)

“Ye see, I took it to the left when I should have taken it to the right all along,” explained Nimble Missst, ignoring Motty's comments. “That was the misstep. I thought ‘witch's cottage' led to ‘Swump of Greedge', a natural conclusion if ever there was one. But no, those ridiculous sloobular swumpogglers made it plain enough that ‘Falls of Horn' was a seemingly better fit. Oh, true, I was miffed and angered and ireful all the way up to a fierceness. Truth to truth, let it be said. Mistakes are ugly blemishes. They're ridiculous! Here, plain enough, the Falls are no better than the Swump! Left, left, I went left when right was right. Clear now. Let's go!”

Motty felt tempted to ask where they were going, but decided she really didn't need to hear any more snapjaw gibberish so early in the day. So such, she merely nodded and followed the revitalized Princess up out of the grotto and onto the tusk. The pair launched into the sky. Motty hadn't had sufficient time to smooth her black trousers or to tug her yellow gloves. She hoped the flight would not be a long one.

North above the Villcom Wood they soared. A few Chalky Gray Elves, gathering sudplums in the crowns of trees, saw ‘em go streaking by.

“What were that?” called one to another in a neighboring tree.

“The red one with the blue wings were some kind of Royal, if my eyes am trustworthy,” came the answer.

“The black and yellow plump one, too?” asked the first.

“Who can say what am known? A servant, mayhap? It are none of our mind to be bothered about,” said the other, resuming her sudplum collecting.

Nimble Missst arrived far ahead of Motty at the Well of Shells next to the bramble border hedge of the bendo dreen. She strode to the Chronicler's hut, which stood a short span from the Well. She interrupted the work of the famous Chronicler Harpo, aged blind roamer, and his scribe, Lace, a younger maiden roamer.

“I am here to collect the prince,” boldly announced Nimble Missst.

“Who is it there, Lace?” asked Harpo with a kindly smile while feeling his way out of the hut.

“Snapjaw mind,” said the calmly unruffled Lace, emerging in Harpo's wake from the hut with beeket quill pen in hand, “and a hollowite.”

Motty had of course fluttered into view. She saw her little Nimby pacing below and gesturing in front of a pair of roamers, one ancient, one young. She landed, legs, legs, legs, two at a time in quick succession, and hoped for a pleasant chat. She'd never visited the Well of Shells. She'd never met the Chronicler, though she knew him at a glance. His fame was so such that widely well known. She danced forward, preparing a tune of introduction. Howsoever, before she could open her mouth, Nimby turned, flashing the fiercest of glares from her startling violet eyes.

“‘Witch's cottage' means ‘Chack Tree Forest'. Fly!” she blurted shortly, leaping to the sky with a powerful pull of her powder blue wings.

Motty merely shrugged her regret and took off after her once again angry little Nim. She was so such ashamed to hope the princess was angry enough to change herself into a cloud. Therefore, she was both satisfied and guilt-ridden when her hope became truth. She easily kept pace with the angry boiling green cloud writhing its way to the Chack Tree Forest. When Nimble Missst jelled on the green grass carpet floor of the Forest surrounded by halls of fire white pillar tree trunks, Motty came in low under the dense dark green ceiling of branches and overlapping leaves to join her.

“He HAS to be here,” said Nimby with more than a shade of desperation.

“He has to be somewhere, that's certainly true. The blue chacks are ripe. Won't you have one?” sang Motty in a so such attempt to soothe her little Nimby.

“Ridiculous. Yes,” said Nimble Missst, and she snatched the offered chack from Motty's yellow-gloved hand and flung it with all of her frustration and rage at a fire white pillar tree trunk, where it splattered and dribbled blue.

“I have a suggestion,” sang Motty, and she dared to touch the left wing of her Nimby and give it a little caress.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Motty's Suggestion

Nimble Missst whirled away from Motty and snapped, “No time to waste!”

She jerked her head this way and that, took a false step here, a false step there. She flew off to the left, returned, flew off to the right, returned. She mumbled something about the underground river Motty couldn't quite hear. She transformed with a shimmer to cloud and disappeared into the ground. All during this while of Nimby's frantic activity, Motty sat waiting, calling out that she had a suggestion each and every time Nimby flitted by. A full and complete day passed in this manner. Finally, a defeated Nimble Missst oozed up from the green grass carpet and jelled into a forlorn Princess.

“Ridiculous. My mind is broken. It doesn't work,” said Nimble Missst with a strange quivery wobble in her voice.

“I have a suggestion. May I now make it?” repeated Motty in her singing way for perhaps the fortieth time.

“The Chack Tree Forest means nothing. The golden underground river Sharumin flowing beneath us right here now means nothing. I thought … useless. Nothing means nothing. Ridiculous. My mind is broken,” mumbled Nimble Missst, a single glistening tear tracing its way down her ash green cheek.

“Nimby Nim, my own little Nim, listen to old Motty. Do you remember the cool compress? I do have a silly suggestion,” crooned Motty.

The cool compress was Motty's yellow-gloved hand resting on Nimble Missst's forehead. Such had always been the one and only single how that Nimble Missst's snapjaw headaches could be made to lift away. The princess suffered from ‘em frequently when she was quite a small youngling. Now Motty's yellow-gloved hand reached to rest on Nimble Missst's forehead. Nimble Missst made no move of protest. Motty's hand rested. The two, Princess and hollowite, stood there thusly on the green grass carpet in the halls of fire white pillar tree trunks and under the dense green branching overgrowth of the Chack Tree Forest. Nimby was silent. She closed her eyes.

“Motty is a simple thing. Simple things are simple,” sang Motty in a lullaby manner. “Simple is simply simple. Is ‘witch's cottage' simply witch's cottage?”

Nimble Missst thought about muttering “Ridiculous”, but instead, she stiffened and slapped Motty's hand from her forehead.

“Of course! Of course! True true truth! Why didn't I? I should have …,” crowed Nimble Missst, and she took Motty's hands and danced her around on the carpet of grass.

Motty delighted to see Nimby reignited, and she continued dancing on even after Nimble Missst suddenly ceased.

“Stop that ridiculous dancing!” shouted Nimble Missst. “We'll fly all night. No other way. Treacherous waterwizard. I'll deal him a lash of snapjaw tongue!”

“Flying all night to the witch's cottage?” sang the grinning proud Motty.

“What? Witch's cottage? Of course not! Ridiculous!” scoffed Nimble Missst. “The cape! The cape! Take it out! Give it to me! How could I have forgotten the cape? I forgot the cape.”

Nimble Missst was fairly giddy as she drew the silver cape about her and fastened it. Why? Whenever she wore the silver cape she felt her snapjaw powers boosted. Whether or not this was truth is unknown. However, she felt it so such. The cape snugly secured around her, she melted to brightly green sparkling cloud and began to drift in curling wisps out of the Chack Tree Forest and into the descending night. She drifted up the Falls of Horn as mist, the better to think. She drifted low creeping through the Villcom Wood, low through the oat fields, low through the Danken Wood. In the Woods Beyond the Wood, she churned in a great sparkling ball, roiling, to greet the dawn at Riffle Sike's beckoning pond. She jelled to stand wrapped in the silver cape at the edge of the glassy smooth pond. Motty fluttered to a clumsy landing nearby and sagged exhausted, unable to keep her eyes open. She rolled her tongue, long and limp, across the ground. She snored. She dreamed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

A Snapjaw Summary

“Step out, my mother's uncle!” demanded Nimble Missst. “I have solved ye pure!”

The hem of the silver cape fluttered slightly.

“Hah! Breeze! Let me hear ye laugh!” shouted Nimble Missst, triumphant.

A whooshing chuckle swept by the Cloud Castle Princess and rippled the pond to spell, “My stubborn Rin's daughter, ye seem saucy this morning. Have ye then captured that Blossom Prince ye've been seeking?”

“As if ye didn't know all and everything,” snorted the princess. “A fine plot ye built to baffle my mind. Well, I tell ye, it did not work! Not by a grain pebble! I will be Quen before sunsink tomorrow. Then I will be gone onto new adventures in different places where it won't be so easy to find me. Ripple me this, Riffle Sike, how long ago did ye hatch the plot?”

“Plot? What plot? I be free of magic now. I be a breeze,” rippled the pond in all innocence.

“Ridiculous! So ye would have ME spell it out then, would ye? Very well,” said Nimble Missst, and she began to pace back and then forth as she so such DID spell it out with snapjaw precision. “Zilp, the Ridiculous, announced that she and Kinng Forr would retire. She decreed that the Blossom Prince Zootch would be wed to me and that we would rule the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. Ridiculous Zootch thinks that he has a snapjaw mind to match mine. Hah! He thought to lead me a chase. How to do it? A simple Blossom Prince with no magical abilities, he had nothing but a primitive snapjaw intellect to build on.

He needed the help of magic. Where to find it? Oh, I don't know, what about right here at this beckoning pool! He knew ye. Ye knew him. Ye were vague, oh yes, ye were vague when I questioned ye the other day. Flash clear I could see that ye were lying, but I had no time to waste. I followed the clues. They got simpler, then too simple. One question nagged at me. How was Zootch traveling hither and yon, powerless Blossom Prince that he is? It was something ye supplied, of course. But what? What would a ridiculous waterwizard who was about to turn himself into a breeze give to a Blossom Prince? I'll tell ye when I knew. I knew flash clear when my hollowite Motty rested her cool compress hand on my forehead in the Chack Tree Forest. Cap of Cloak!”

The pond shivered ripples, “How did ye ..? No one knew …”

“Those without snapjaw minds didn't know,” said Nimble Missst, raising her chin to a pose of superiority. “It had to be. The magicless Prince disguises himself as a hutter. How? Some sort of a cloaking device of disguise. What other possibilities? None. All rejected by my snapjaw mind. A cloaking device of disguise for certain. What sort of device? A device of travel as well. A cloaking device of travel, a cloaking device of disguise, all in one combined together. What form would this clever device take? Cape? Robe? Hooded cloak? Talisman? Amulet? I think not. I know all about ye, my Mother's uncle. Ye have ever been jealous of my ridiculous grandfather, your brother, since the day he succeeded in transforming himself into a river. How often has my Mother told me about your boasts and complaints? I have a snapjaw mind. I remember all. Didn't ye boast on one of her visits about having a secret that your headless brother could never use? Headless brother. Strange way to put it. Logically then, if he had a head, he could use it. Simple deduction. What goes on heads? Caps! Of cloak!”

The pond rippled, “SNAPJAW!”, and the wind whooshed off laughing.

Nimble Missst allowed herself a rare satisfied smile before turning, stern visage reestablished, to Motty. Motty still dreamed, slumped in slumber, her tongue rolling in and out with each breath she breathed.

“Motty! Up!” ordered Nimble Missst. “To the Castle Boad, where the ridiculous Blossom Prince is waiting disguised as a hutter!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

At The Castles

The ridiculous Blossom Prince, tell true, slept in an oat field. So such, he was unaware of the bustling frenzy taking place a short distance away in the two Castles, one floating, one grounded.

The grounded Castle, the Castle Boad, teemed with cartjaggers testing loadstraps or rubbing oil on vedling cart axles or pushing and pulling carts into line. Hutters milled about, gossiping about the news and awaiting the appearances of the Kinng and the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. What news? The startling announcement flew about that the Royal Pair would leave for retirement that very morning. No extra words. Just those. They were leaving. A few nester musicians, who'd traveled all the way from Blossom Castle to play at the expected wedding, hastily assembled to perform a proper farewell concert. Two lesser Fools juggling breadboards cartwheeled back and then forth across the courtyard while the lead Fool judged their efforts and took notes. A wild flock of fleece staggered in confusion while herd miffens flitted over and around ‘em in effort to keep ‘em together. Thus and so was the Castle courtyard a boiling noisy hive of activity. The door to the Great Hall swung open. All hubbub ceased. Even the stupidest flooce fell on its side and blinked its eight eyes and waved its feelers in silence.

“The Highest Most Royal Serenities Possible!” roared the Grand Herald, stepping forth clad in splendid purple and silver with a white cravat centered by a flashing brilliant fat amethyst pin.

The Kinng appeared, carrying the limp form of the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. The hushed hum of respectful murmurs passed from the front to the back of the crowd. Haughtily the Kinng marched in slow time, pace, pause, pace, pause. He placed his Royal burden in the gilded cart at the head of the line and arranged the coverlet tenderly and smoothed it. He climbed to the velvet bench. He did all of this with great and commendable and Kinng-worthy dignity. He nodded to the formally assembled cartjaggers, all of ‘em bending low. The Kinng cleared his throat, so such inadvertently making clear how silent was the silence. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of his comforting shout, Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen Zilp's droning voice was heard. The Kinng looked stunned, like as if the sound had emerged from him, and a moment later he looked relieved, when he realized it hadn't.