The Warble (5 page)

Queen Sentiz was nervously pacing the
floor when the large ornate door cracked open. Her head servant, a dwarf named
Ugan, dressed like a court jester, sheepishly poked his head into the elaborate
meeting room. “Your son has arrived, Your Majesty. Do you wish for me to send
for him now?” Ugan said.

The queen walked
briskly toward the door, grabbed the doorknob, and flung the door wide open.
Ugan scurried backwards like a dog cowering with its tail between its legs.

“Send him here at
once!” the queen barked.

“Right away, my lady.”
Ugan headed down a long winding staircase, almost tripping over his own feet.

Queen Sentiz slammed
the door shut and started to pace the floor again. Not long after, the sound of
a horse’s hooves on the cobblestones below the window caught her attention so
she went to look outside. As she approached the window, a brisk wind blew her
long black hair about her sharp-featured face. One of her zelbocks was leading
her son’s horse away to its stable and steam was coming off the exhausted
animal’s body.

The rainstorm had
arrived and a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a loud clap
of thunder. It frightened the horse, causing it to rear up on its hind legs.
The zelbock took its whip and snapped it on the tired animal’s back. This
brought a smile to the queen’s face. While she was still glaring out the
window, a knock came at the door. “Enter!” she yelled, irritated.

Her son Ramon, a big,
awkward young man with a large nose and squinty eyes, walked into the room. His
jet-black hair hung like a wet mop over his face, and it dripped all over his
already rain-soaked clothing.

“Well, don’t just stand
there like an idiot. Give me the Warble,” the queen commanded.

“I…I didn’t get it,
Mama,” the prince stammered, looking worried.

“What?” The queen’s
thin lips almost disappeared around her clenched teeth. “You’re an imbecile,
just like your father. I tell you, if you weren’t from my blood, I would have
already imprisoned you as well.”

Queen Sentiz had
banished her husband, Prince Raspue, to a horrible prison on the remote
Treachery Island, located south of Bernovem.

“Our plan failed,
Mama,” Ramon said, “when Zitrot tried to snatch the Warble from the
girl−he was shot with an arrow through his back.”

The queen’s blood
seemed to boil inside her. “Who shot him?” She stuck her nose in her son’s
face.

Ramon put his arms up,
as if to defend himself from being hit. “I’m sorry to say, but it was that
troublesome boy, Werrien.” He cowered away from his irate mother.

In a furious rage, the
queen marched to the door and swung it open. Ugan was standing at attention
right outside. “Get Rupert right now!” she yelled.

“Yes, right away, my
sweet queen,” Ugan answered. Then he bowed many times while moving backwards
toward the long, winding staircase. As he descended, the bells on his clothing
could be heard jingling. A short while later, he returned with Sir Rupert,
given his title by the queen, due to his ability to perform magic. Sir Rupert,
the queen’s advisor, was an old man, very tall, with small, dark eyes, and a
thin, long nose that pointed downward over a pair of tense, thin lips. His skin
was almost transparent, due to his ill disposition.

Ugan knocked on the
large, ornate door.

“Enter!” the queen
yelled.

Ugan bowed to Rupert
and then summoned him into the queen’s quarters. Hunched over and carrying a
black leather suitcase, the old man entered the large meeting room.

“Ah, Rupert; please
come in and sit down.” The queen had an unusually soft tone.

Very slowly, Rupert
walked into the room, stopped, bowed to the queen, and then headed to a large
meeting table. However, before he could sit down, he started to cough. The
queen’s eyes grew wide as she waited for him to stop, and she impatiently
drummed her long red nails on her chin. When he didn’t stop, she couldn’t stand
it any longer, so she yelled for Ugan to come back into the room. Ugan, being
right outside the door, came quickly back into the room. He then took one of
the chairs from the large meeting table and slid it over beside Rupert. He
crawled up on it, made his hand into a fist, and proceeded to hit Rupert on his
back to stop him from coughing. Finally, the old man indicated with a hand
gesture for Ugan to stop. Ugan crawled down off the chair and pushed it behind
Rupert. As the chair hit the back of the old man’s knees, he fell into it in a
sitting position. Using all his strength, Ugan pushed the chair up to the
meeting table. “Will that be all, Your Highness?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, be on your
way.” The queen impatiently waved her hand for him to leave.

Ugan bowed humbly and
once again left the room.

The queen brought her
attention back to her son, Ramon, who was staring out the window with a dazed
look on his face. She cleared her throat to get his attention. When he finally
looked over to her, she said, “Sit down, you idiot, and this time take better
note of what’s going on.”

Ramon blew his nose
loudly with a silk handkerchief that had the queen’s face embroidered on
it−a present from his father, Prince Raspue, when he’d still lived at the
palace. Then he went to the meeting table and sat down.

Once again the queen
shouted for Ugan to come. Ugan entered at once, and seeing the queen standing,
waiting for him, he pulled out her plush chair from the head of the table. He
walked over to the tall queen, who towered over him, took her by the hand and
led her to the chair to sit down. After she was seated, she held out her
ring-clustered hand toward him. Ugan bowed and kissed it. The queen smiled
slyly, patted him on the head, and with one of her long red fingernails,
flicked one of the bells that hung from his court jester’s hat.
“You’re
such a well-behaved little dwarf,” she said calmly. Then as if she had a change
in personality, she said angrily, “Now get out of here!”

Rupert was sitting
across from the queen; he bent over and almost fell out of his chair while
trying to pick up his suitcase. Queen Sentiz pretended not to notice and didn’t
even think to lend a hand to help. It took all of Rupert’s strength, but he
somehow managed to lift the case and place it on the table. As he opened it,
the queen looked like she might start drooling with anticipation. As for Ramon,
he sat slumped on his seat, seeming quite bored with the whole situation.

Rupert reached into his
suitcase and removed a purple, silk cloth. Underneath it, cushioned in a bed of
purple velvet, was a shimmering crystal, about the size of a small foam
football. With his long, bony fingers, he took it out of its bed and lifted it
high above his head. He closed his eyes and mumbled something. Sitting beside
him, Ramon bit his fingernails and narrowed his eyes impatiently. The queen was
so entranced with the crystal that she didn’t notice her son’s behavior.

“Please remove the
suitcase from the table,” Rupert said.

Queen Sentiz looked to
Ramon, who was not paying attention, and she slapped the table hard in front of
him. The prince, startled, jumped and knocked against the underside of the
table with his large knobby knees. Rupert jumped as well and almost dropped the
crystal on his own head. He gave Ramon a look of disgust that encouraged him to
quickly take the suitcase off the table.

Once again, Rupert
proceeded to lift the crystal above his head and chanted something again. When
he was finished, he slowly brought the crystal down in front of him and
carefully balanced it on the table. Then he waved his bony fingers around it
and as he did so, it started to glow with a bright, multicolored light, which
reflected off the walls. The crystal began to spin around in circles, flashing
its colors on the walls. Suddenly, it stopped spinning and all the bright colors
were sucked back inside it. Ramon eagerly leaned forward to look inside the
crystal. He could see the rushing Indra River with all its splashes, curves,
and drop-offs. “There they are!” he blurted out, hitting the crystal with his
large nose, almost knocking it over.

“If you’d move your
enormous head, we could see also,” the queen snapped.

“Oh, sorry, Mama,”
Ramon said sheepishly. He moved his head out of the way, and Queen Sentiz and
Rupert leaned forward to look into the crystal.

“Where are they? I can’t
see them,” the queen said tersely.

“Look closely to the
right side of the river, my lady,” Rupert said.

“Ah ha! Yes! There’s
the little human scum,” the queen said excitedly.

While they were glaring
into the crystal, the Indra River suddenly disappeared, and the crystal lit up
once more. Its kaleidoscope of colors started to spin around the room again.
“What is the meaning of this?” the queen asked Rupert.

“The crystal has found
something else important to show us,” Rupert answered.

The colors funneled
back into the crystal, and it stopped spinning. The three huddled around it.
This time it was not the Indra River that was brought into view but the inside
of Rumalock’s house.

“More humans?” Ramon
said, surprised as well as disgusted.

They could see Davina,
Hester, and Graham in Rumalock’s cottage, standing around the chocolate cake,
gobbling it down like it was their last meal.

“They’re popping up
like a bad skin rash, the wretched, little gluttons,” Ramon went on.

Just as he finished
speaking, the crystal went dark and tipped over. The queen turned to Ramon.
“Saddle your horse at once, and this time take at least one hundred zelbocks
with you. We can’t afford to let them slip away again.” She marched over to the
door and swung it open. On the other side sat Ugan, leaning against the wall,
sleeping. She stomped her foot loudly, and he jumped up to stand at attention.
“You pathetic little dwarf! Get up! I’ve got a chore for you.”

“What is it, Your
Majesty?” Ugan asked, groggily.

The queen grabbed him by
his beard and lifted him up. “You will go to the house of that good-for-nothing
brother of yours, Rumalock, and lead the humans back here into my trap.”

Although Ugan didn’t
like the idea, his only choices were either to obey the wicked queen and keep his
servants life, or to disobey and be banished to Treachery Island forever. He
chose to obey.

After jumping into the Indra River,
Kristina and Werrien were separated, and the raging water swiftly dragged
Kristina down its course. Barely staying afloat, she managed to grab hold of a
tree branch that was dangling over the river’s edge, but the limb was almost
completely broken off from the tree. As she bobbed up and down in the ice-cold
water, gasping for air, her hands grew numb, and she could barely hold on to
the branch. The chilly water made her body weak, and she grew weary. One of her
hands slipped off the branch, and then the branch snapped and floated away from
the tree. She was so exhausted and cold that she could only allow the river to
pull her along its course. Many thoughts began to pass through her mind:
Will
I ever see my family again? Who will look after Raymond? Is this how my life is
going to end?

Suddenly, the worrisome
thoughts stopped and she began to feel very peaceful—so peaceful in fact, that
she was just about to close her eyes and let the river have its way. But then
she glanced up to see something fluttering above the surface of the water. She
felt a surge of adrenaline flow through her body, and it gave her the strength to
pull herself up. When she surfaced, the rain pounded on her head. She gasped
for air and then opened her eyes to see Looper hovering in front of her. Then
she saw a tree branch in front of her.

“Grab on!” Looper
shouted.

Kristina looked toward
the river bank and saw that it was Werrien who was holding the tree branch out
to her. She grabbed hold of it, and he pulled her to safety.

Once on dry land, she
tried to stand up but couldn’t; she fell over from exhaustion. Werrien placed a
blanket around her, and then carried her to his home in the forest. It wasn’t
until the next day that she finally roused herself, and as she was slowly
waking up, she could hear a conversation.

“She seems okay to me.
What do you think?”

“Well, if she’s not,
it’s probably because she grabbed onto the broken tree branch. You’d think
she’d have had enough sense to grab hold of a branch that was still connected
to the tree.”

Kristina opened her
eyes to see Clover looking at her reflection in the window and fixing her hair.
“I thought it might be you guys,” Kristina said, weakly.

The sound of footsteps
could be heard approaching the bedroom. When the door swung open, there stood a
short, plump, strange-looking elderly woman. In one hand she carried a steaming
cup, and in the other hand she had a dish towel. Seeing the fairies sitting on
the bedpost, she took the dish towel and flicked it at them. “Shoo! Shoo! You
pesky little critters,” she said, as though they were nothing more than common
houseflies.

Looper and Clover flew
toward the open window, but Clover, being the feisty fairy she was, quickly
flew behind the old woman and yanked as hard as she could on a couple of her
hairs.

“Ouch!” the old woman
screeched, almost spilling the hot substance in the cup. She turned around
quickly and glanced about the room. “I’ll lay tree sap out where you least
expect it. That’ll fix you little pests!” As she spoke, Clover was just outside
the window, mimicking her.

The old woman turned
her attention back to Kristina and, in a more soothing tone, said, “My dear
child, you’re finally awake.” She sat down on the bedside. “My name is Leacha.
I am Werrien’s mother,” she added, proudly.

Kristina found it hard
to believe that Werrien could have such a strange-looking mother—she looked
nothing at all like him. Her ears were pointy, like Rumalock’s, but she didn’t
look like a dwarf. Her face and nose were much rounder and she had a few gray
whiskers sticking out of her double chin.

“You’ll be as good as
new after a cup of hot, nourishing soup.” Leacha’s warm smile revealed an
almost toothless mouth.

Kristina sat up, and
Leacha handed her the steaming cup.

“All I remember is
being pulled out of the river by Werrien,” Kristina said, after taking a sip of
the hot broth, which she thought tasted quite nasty.

“You fainted,” Leacha
said. “You were starting to worry us, sleeping as long as you did.”

“My name is Kristina.”
Kristina smiled at Leacha.

“Yes, I know.”

“Are you a dwarf?”

Leacha giggled a
little, and her eyes seemed to disappear into the folds of her fat cheeks. “Oh,
no, child―I’m a gnome.”

Kristina handed the
soup back to Leacha. She started to reach into her pocket, but to her surprise,
she had no pockets. Then she looked down at herself. “These are not my clothes,
and the Warble—it’s gone! I must have lost it in that raging river.”

“Don’t fret, child. I
had to give you dry clothes.” Leacha pointed her chubby finger to a chair in
the corner of the room. “Yours are now clean and dry, hanging over there, and
as for the Warble, well, it’s safe with Werrien.”

A knock came at the
front door, and Leacha left the bedroom to go answer it. Kristina could see
from the bed that it was Werrien. He entered the house and embraced Leacha.
“How is she, Leacha? Is she awake yet?” he asked.

“Yes, she is, and she’s
doing just fine,” Leacha said.

“That’s good to hear;
I’ve been really worried.”

Kristina felt strange
after hearing Werrien say those words.

“She should be as good
as new after a cup of my turnip-root, fairy-blossom soup,” Leacha said.

“Thank you, Leacha, for
all your help,” Werrien said.

“You know I would do
anything to help. You are like my own son.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I still have some soup
left on the fire. Sit down, and I will serve you.”

“I’d love to have some,
but I’m afraid I won’t be able to. There’s news that Queen Sentiz has sent out
more of her zelbocks to find Kristina and me, so we must be out of here within
the hour.”

Tears welled up in
Leacha’s eyes, and she used her apron to wipe them. “I’ve always known that
this day would come, but now that it’s here, it’s hard to take.”

Kristina got out of bed
and stood near the door to better hear the conversation. She was surprised by
Werrien’s concern for her wellbeing, and it made her feel good that someone
near her age cared about her. She certainly hadn’t experienced that with the
majority of the kids at home.

A mirror hung on the
wall across the room, and when she viewed her reflection, she took notice of
the clothes that Leacha had dressed her in. They were made of soft
suede-leather and looked very similar to the clothes that Werrien wore. They
were very comfortable, and she liked how they looked on her. She looked once
again at her clothes hanging on the chair and decided not to change back into
them. A hairbrush was on a nearby table, so she took it and brushed her hair.
When she was finished, she walked into the living room.

Werrien noticed her and
his eyes lit up. “Wow! You look great!”

“I do?” Kristina said.

“Yeah! You kind of look
like you could be my little brother—I mean, except for your long hair.”

Kristina looked damply
at Werrien. “Thanks! My dream has always been to look like someone’s little
brother.”

Werrien walked over to
her, and in a chummy way, gave her a light punch on her shoulder. “Now that
you’re all better, we’d best be on our way.”

Leacha hurried off to
the kitchen to pack food for their journey.

“I’ll be outside with
Taysha while you’re getting ready,” Werrien said.

Kristina wondered who
Taysha was and kind of hoped that it wasn’t another nasty fairy like Clover.
She went into the kitchen and saw that Leacha was busy filling a sack with
food. Leacha took a large wooden canister off the counter and tried to untwist
the lid. Kristina could see that she was having trouble getting it off.      “Could
I help you with that?” Kristina asked.

“Would you be so kind?”
Leacha handed her the wooden canister. Kristina gave it a good twist, and off
the lid came. “Such a strong girl!”

“I think you must have
loosened it for me.” Kristina handed it back to Leacha. Leacha looked inside
the jar and a sad expression came across her face.

“Is there something
wrong?” Kristina asked.

Leacha pointed to a
small leather pouch hanging from a hook on the wall. “Would you hand me that
little pouch, dear?” she asked. Kristina took the little pouch off the hook and
handed it to Leacha. Leacha poured the contents of the wooden canister into it.
“I hope that nothing will happen, but just in case, you will need this if you
or Werrien get injured on your journey.” She handed the pouch to Kristina. “I
know it’s not much, but it’s all that I have left.”

Kristina stared into
the canister containing brownish-red, dried petals. “What is it?”

“It’s dried fairy
blossom. Please don’t tell Werrien that I gave it to you,” Leacha whispered.

“Won’t you need this to
keep up your own strength?”

“Don’t you worry about
me. I’m an old lady and I have lived a poor yet very blessed life. If my days
are shortened, then at least I will know that I did my best to help the true
prince of Bernovem.” She smiled and took Kristina’s hands in her own. “Please
take it.”

“But will you be able
to get more for yourself?”

“I’ll be just fine,
child. Now no more questions. We need to get you two on your way.”

Kristina accepted the
little pouch and was about to put it in with the sack of food, but Leacha
stopped her. “No, child, you must keep it with you, just in case you two get
separated from these other things.”

The door at the back of
the kitchen opened and Werrien walked in. “We need to leave now. There’s
zelbocks looking for us. A dwarf passing by told me the zelbocks are less than
two hours away.”

Kristina followed
Werrien out of Leacha’s house, and once outside, Kristina was surprised to see
that the house was in the bottom of a large tree. Not far off, under another
tree, stood a horse. Werrien walked up to it and threw a saddle onto its back.
Kristina had never seen such a beautiful horse. It was so elegant, with a
snow-white coat and a shimmering silver mane. She wondered if she was going to
ride on it. She went up to it and stroked its nose.

“It’s not that bad.
Besides, it beats walking all the way.”

Kristina pulled her
hand away.
Was that the horse talking?

“What’s the matter?
Haven’t been around horses before?” Werrien asked her.

“I’m sure that I just
heard it talk.”

“What’s the big deal?
All animals talk.”

“Not where I come
from.”

“Well they do in
Bernovem. Come here; I’ll give you a lift up on Taysha.”

Kristina had never
ridden a horse, and she was a bit nervous to do so, but there was no way she
was going to let Werrien know—she’d had enough of his sarcasm as it was. She
calmly walked over to Taysha’s side, where Werrien was standing with his back
toward her. When she came close enough, he turned around to face her, holding a
knife in his hand. Kristina looked shocked.
“Don’t be afraid. I
just thought that this would go good with those old clothes of mine you’re
wearing. Besides, it might come in handy along our journey,” Werrien said.

Kristina wasn’t sure if
she should take the knife. Her mother and father would have never allowed her
to carry one around. Werrien sensed her apprehension and was about to put it
away.

“What are you doing?”
Kristina asked.

“By the look on your
face, I figured you didn’t want it.”

Kristina laughed
nervously. “I’d love to carry that knife.”

Looking a little
puzzled, Werrien handed it to her. “Now you look like a true warrior.”

Kristina blushed. Even
though it wasn’t a compliment she would have expected, she kind of liked it.

Werrien helped her onto
his horse, and then he jumped up onto the front of the saddle. They said good
bye to Leacha, and as they headed into the moss-laden forest, Leacha stood
outside her tree house door, sniffling and waving farewell with her
handkerchief.