The Howlies Might not Like Herio’s Talking with Rocks

Not being let out of the cave by the great silvery blue eyed howlie was startling enough for Herio and Philpott, but being held captive by the giants for well over a week was an ordeal. At first it was just the pair whose tracks they had followed, who squatted outside in the pouring rain, keeping them from running away, but in the moonlight of the following nights, they heard eerie howls echoing away over the rocky countryside, and each morning they would see giants which they had not seen before, milling about or squatted on the rocks, just outside.

This morning, when Herio awoke to the calls of a sunset thrasher, he realized that they were awfully close to the mouth of cave and sat up at once. When he saw that no big creature was sitting just outside, he sprang to his feet and peered out to find the biggest collection of howlies he had yet seen. “Damn!” he muttered quietly as he began counting.

“How many this time?” said Philpott, sitting up on his pallet.

“I’m not sure whether I see fifteen or sixteen. One of them is half grown and three or four of them are carrying babies. I’m not counting the babies.”

“Any sign of the unicorns?”

Herio stepped back inside, shaking his head as he squatted to pick up his leather water bottle before flinging it aside.

“After eight days, I’m surprised you even picked it up.”

“Yea? Well after eight days, I don’t see how a fellow could keep from it.”

“So how far away from the cave are they?” said Philpott. “Any chance that we could make a run for it?”

“They’d get us. There are just too many, and they’ve got us blocked every direction you want to look. Besides, this is pretty open country, even with all of the rocks. We’d have to know our unicorns were waiting for us or they’d just run us down. They’ve probably eaten them by now, anyway.”

“I doubt it, truth to tell,” said Philpott, picking up the bottle for a look of his own. “I mean, if they were going to eat them, don’t you reckon they’d just sit out there where they could keep an eye on us and champ away?”

“All right. So why did they bother to run off our unicorns, and why are they keeping us here in the first place?”

“To teach us a lesson, maybe. They’ve already made it clear as a bell that they don’t want us grazing that pasture.”

“You reckon they’re actually enough like us to try teaching us by holding us captive?”

“They just might be, Herio. I swear that they spend as much time shaking their hands at each other as people do a-talking. They just might have something in mind for us.”

“Starvation, I’d say. Do you have any idea about what they’re saying with their hands?”

“You can go a good while without victuals. Forty days or better. But they’re going to have to let us drink. It won’t take too many days to kill us. And no, I don’t understand a bit of it. I notice when they repeat some things, but I don’t understand any of it. However, we understood their drawings ‘way back at the sheep shed. What are you doing?”

“Smoothing out a place to draw a picture.”

“Very well…”

Herio waited until one of the giants looked their way and waved his arms. “Hey!” he hollered.

The giant shook his fist.

“That doesn’t look good at all,” said Philpott. “You might want to try something else.”

“This ought to do it,” said Herio, picking up a rock.

“Whoa! I wouldn’t risk a lesson in manners from one of those curses. They might not like our talking with rocks. Why not do it their way? If they’re too far away for pictures and fingers, they howl, don’t they?”

Herio put down his rock and thought about it for a moment. Suddenly cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth, drew a great breath and bellowed out a tenor version of the howlies’ moonlit night wail. It sounded much more like a wolf than a howlie, but by the time he had put down his hands, all sixteen giants had converged on him, huffing and stinking of sulphury musk. “Aah!” he said, patting his stomach and pointing into his mouth as he made gulping noises. But before he could drop to his knees with his stick to draw, they had Philpott and him by the arms, ushering them down the hillside at a jog, hiking them up and over rocks as if they were toddlers. And a long way it was, too, stumbling to keep up with their great hairy-legged strides.

Far down the slope was a wooded ravine. When they came to the bank of a fast stream, the howlies let go of them at the water’s edge, where they fell to their hands and knees at once and drank. The moment Herio sat up on his haunches and wiped his mouth on his arm, the blue eyed howlie threw down their water bottles with a grunt. “Philpott, look!” said Herio. “I’d never dream that old Blue Eye would know what those are for.”

“Yea,” said Philpott. “Makes ye wonder what else they’ve figured out.”

“I hope they figure out that we’re hungry.”

“Well you’re good at this. Tell them.”

Blue eye squatted behind Herio and studied him.

“Well Blue Eye,” said Herio as he carefully turned about to face the giant. “I wish I knew how to thank you for the water, but maybe I can show you that we’re hungry.” He gave a moan and rubbed his belly.

“Hmmmp,” rumbled Blue Eye as he waddled closer to look him up and down.

“Mmm!” said Herio as he pantomimed grabbing up something and chewing on it with lots of exaggerated champing.

Blue Eye knitted his brow and sat back on his rump as he thought this over. “Hmmmp,” he rumbled as he picked his nose and resumed looking Herio over with studious consideration.

Herio rubbed his belly again and champed his teeth.

Suddenly, Blue Eye was on his feet, jostling a couple of other howlies and making signs with his hands.

“Did you see that?” said Philpott with a nod at the howlies as he bunged his water bag.

“What?” said Herio as he watched Blue Eye and the other giants wade into the water.

“Oh never mind.”

The howlies waded slowly about in the water for some time, pausing here and there to grab at things along the bottom. By now, Herio and Philpott and all of the howlies not fishing were sitting on the bank, watching Blue Eye and listening to a water thrush singing in the willows. A grebe surfaced just beyond the bank, saw that it had an audience and ducked back under water.

“He was!” said Philpott, the moment he saw for certain that the howlies were fishing. “I’d have sworn Blue Eye was making hand signs for ‘fish’ before they waded in. They just got one. That is what they’re doing.”

Presently Blue Eye stepped out of the water with a wriggling catfish in each hand, giving one to Herio and the other one to Philpott. They were trying figure out how to show that they were properly pleased when the other two howlies climbed out and shared a fish with Blue Eye. The howlies each bit the heads of their respective fish to kill them, and then wolfed down hungry bites, watching to see how Herio and Philpott liked theirs.

“You said you were hungry,” said Philpott, “but are you ready for raw fish, innards and all?”

“I’ve got my flint and striker,” said Herio. “What do you reckon they’ll do if I try to use them?”

“Try it.”

Herio handed his fish to Philpott and scraped up a little pile of dry cottonwood leaves, crumbled up some of them and began striking his flint. At once all sixteen howlies crowded in close to watch every single move he made. He blew a faint stream of his breath where his sparks were landing.

Suddenly the howlies gasped and backed away wide eyed at the first curl of smoke. Herio kept striking and huffing as they crept back close to see. Directly he was feeding twigs into the first wee flame. Philpot took his knife and cleaned the fish. He paused at the sight of a female with a toddler on her hip, eyeing where the fish head and entrails had just dropped into the leaves. When he held them out to her, she snatched them away at once, shared them with her child and hunkered back to the fire, licking her fingers. Herio impaled the first fish and held it into the flames. Blue Eye waddled in close, craning to behold in wonder the fish in the flames and then Herio’s face, then his hands and then the sizzling fish again.

“Mmm!” said Herio, sampling the fish. He held out a pinch of it to Blue Eye.

Blue Eye gaped in awe and put the fish into his mouth for a thoughtful moment. “Vooove!” he boomed. “Oooooh!”

Herio and Philpott had no sooner divvied out all their catfish than they found themselves being plied with more wriggling fish. After an unexpectedly long meal, Herio and Philpott caught each other’s eye, rose without a word and made their way back to their cave with all sixteen howlies following reverently on their heels.

Ch. 9, Doom in Heart of the Staff: the complete series

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Next Time the Howlies Come for a Sheep, They’ll Bring a Skillet

The howlies certainly loved their breakfast of roasted fish. After they followed Herio and Philpott back to the cave, they sat crowded around the entrance, staring inside as if the pair of them were about to hatch. The prospects of escaping looked more dismal than ever. And it was most difficult to fall asleep that night in the heavy closeness of the musky reek with all of those eyes watching them.

They were awakened not long before daylight by being hauled to their feet and marched to the river, where they found several of the giants already up to their waists in the water, grabbing at catfish. Blue Eye even found their water bags and followed. This time breakfast lasted into the early afternoon, since the fish were harder to catch and five more howlies had appeared.

The next morning, Herio was awakened by a busy commotion outside to find the giants on their haunches, patiently peering in at him with wriggling fish in their fists. “Philpott,” he said. “Do you see what’s out here?”

Philpott rolled off his dusty pallet onto his knees. “Say,” he said, giving his greasy head a good scratch, “we’ve got that little box of lard which we were starting to get hungry enough to nibble at. I’ve got it and my skillet.” He began finding stones to set it on over the flames of a fire as Blue Eye waddled over with a fish in each hand to look him up and down with the silvery rings of his eyes. As he set to the task of making the fire, Herio began cutting up the fish. When the first piece went into the sizzling fat, a chorus of gasps broke out and the howlies crowded in to see. This breakfast lasted until evening, with the giants traipsing back and forth to the river all day.

“Damn!” said Herio as he lay down on his pallet after dark. “What are we going to do tomorrow? Aren’t we running out of lard?”

“Yeap,” said Philpott.

Herio might have heard, but he was already snoring.

Herio jerked wide awake in the first broad light of day to the hearty medley of calls from a sunset thrasher in the gnarled twist of scrub oak, growing out of the rocks at the mouth of the cave. He was on his knees at once. “That mockingbird wouldn’t be there with a crowd of howlies,” he said, getting to his feet. “Philpott! I don’t see a single giant out here.”

“Hey!” cried Philpott as he stepped outside. “Where the ding-dong blazes is my skillet? And my lard box. Those stinkers are thieves!”

“No time,” said Herio.

“No there’s not,” said Philpott. And with that, they grabbed up their things and were out in the chilly mountain air at once, jogging as they buttoned and tied their clothes.

It was a long way down the length of the mountain ridge without the unicorns. Even so, they found themselves covering ground nearly as quickly as they had managed while mounted, following the howlie tracks uphill. By sunset, they reached the upper end of the great meadow above the dry wash where they had found signs in the sand made by the giants, the morning they set out. A mountain burrowing owl rasped and cackled from the rocks of the divide as they made their way out into the thin dry grass under the vault of deepening blue sky.

“Well we certainly had our adventure,” said Philpott, walking backward for a step or two. “And we ended up with one of the wildest tales we’ll ever have to tell, but we might not even have found out where they live, let alone doing anything to discourage them. We didn’t change a thing. They’ll just keep getting into our sheep.”

“Oh yes we did,” said Herio.

“My word, what?”

“And it’s mainly what you did.”

“I’d like to know what that was.”

“Next time they come for a sheep, they’ll bring a skillet.”

“I can see that I’ve talked to you longer than any sane fellow would’ve.”

“That’s it!” said Hero, stopping short and setting down his panniers. “We can butcher hit for them…” He squatted to stretch his back.

“I knew it was too late when you commenced to howling like one of them.”

“No, wait,” said Herio. “Look ‘ee here. Weren’t we starting to talk and trade? Really. I mean, we told them we were thirsty and they took us to water. We said we were hungry and they gave us fish. Then we cooked the fish and they let us go. Right?”

“Yea. For my bloomin’ skillet.”

“Let’s say that we want to graze this pasture for a week,” he said, standing up with his bags and starting to walk again. “We pay them a sheep first.”

“What?”

“We take a wether up there…”

“You mean right back up to that stinking hole in the rocks?”

“Yea. We take a sheep up there and butcher and cook hit for them, and tell them hit’s for a week’s worth of pasture. They’d love it.”

“I’ll bet,” said Philpott with a wide-eyed nod. “And how in the ever loving blue eyed world are you going to get the notion of a week’s worth of future grazing across to those wooly bellied wizards?”

“I haven’t figured out that one yet. But you’d have to take them the sheep first, at least.”

“Well you kept wanting to draw pictures…”

“That’s it!” cried Herio, whirling about, mid stride. “What if we figured out what sort of picture, and put it on a parchment and took it with us?”

“We?” said Philpott. “Well, I reckon I can help butcher a sheep. But you’d better have one damned good picture with you, is all I can say.”

Ch. 10, Doom, The Heart of the Staff

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Abaddon Thinks Ariel is the Prettiest Little Girl He has Ever Seen

The sudden cry of an infant across the camp caught Abaddon’s attention. “That must be one of Lukus and Soraya’s twins,” he said, turning to James. “Have you seen them, yet? Ariel, the little girl is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a good job that Momma and Nanna Demonica don’t know about them, don’t you know?”

“Why’s that?”

“You really don’t know?” said Abaddon with a flicker of his old scorn. “They think Lukus and Soraya are dead. The last thing they want is for them to live and have a baby ’cause of the proper scene. You know, the proper scene. It’s real important, but what is it?”

For a moment he had everyone.

“Prophecy?” said Owain with a respectfully knitted brow as he stepped forth to spit in the fire.

“Oh,” said James. “Well. It’s when some great seer predicts that something is going to happen in the future. The prophesy that I think you must have heard your momma and nana talking about was made years ago by the Elves.”

“So, what is it?”

“It says that the child born of a Human and an Elf will destroy the Heart and the Staff and the evil foe who tried to wield them.”

Abaddon stared away in awe at Soraya soothing Ariel. “No wonder,” he murmured.

Ch 34, The Burgeoning

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Daniel and Ariel’s Dirty Little Tummies

Lukus strapped the last of their gear onto Shimmer’s panniers and turned to Soraya as she finished burying the coals with sand. “You reckon it would be too much trouble to send a message globe to Mother and Grandfather to let them know that we’re safe?” he said over the giggles of Daniel and Ariel as they each grabbed one of his ankles. “It’s been a very long time since we fled Oilean Gairdin.”

Soraya stood up and brushed the dirt from her skirts. “I’m sure they could do with one less worry,” she said, looking about. “Since it’ll be a while before we’re ready to leave here, why don’t we go find Great-Grandfather right now? I’d bet he has time.

Lukus scooped up a squirming and giggling Daniel and Ariel in each arm, blew a raspberry on each dirty little tummy and fell into stride behind the prettiest young lady in the whole wide world, off to find Neron. By the time Lukus was swinging his leg over Starfire’s saddle whistling Pigeon on the Gate, the message globe was hurtling over the Great Barrier Mountains like a shot.

Ch 40, The Burgeoning

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Is Abaddon Putting Ariel in Peril?

Daniel and Ariel were brought up to have the most circumspect virtue and modesty. Even if they were to become the most powerful in the world amongst the magically endowed, they were never allowed to show it. It is not at all surprising then, that they kept many games and amusements to themselves. They routinely played a kind of invisible tag as they traveled by spell back and forth across the broad basin of obsidian sands between Spring ‘n’ Drain and Razzmorten’s great sink-hole “tower” at the Vaults of Niarg. Today, they arrived outside the Vaults playing a rough game of “spell jousting,” with Ariel getting there in time to knock Daniel a good fifty rods wide of where he meant to appear.

“Damn!” he cried, tumbling out of the air onto his hands and knees in the sand. “How’d you get here first?” He was on his feet at once, swatting his hat against his leg as he hurried over to where she stood. Suddenly he stopped short to watch a streak of lightning branch out across the heavens before a black shelf of lowering clouds. “What did you do to the sky?”

“Nothing!”

“Fiddlesticks!” he cried. “Here it comes!” And with that, they raced uphill for a gaping lava tube in time to be overtaken and thoroughly soaked by the arrival of a pelting wall of rain before they managed to get inside.

“How long’s it been?” she said, catching her breath as she squeezed water from her hair.

“Since the last rain?” he said, studying the deluge which was already tumbling in torrents down the folds in the hillside. “I was just thinking. I’d allow it’s been every bit of the seven years they say it’s supposed to be between rains, even if you did cause it…”

“I did not! And you know it. But I could sure feel the spirit of it in the air, right when we were spell jousting. I wondered why on earth it was so bloomin’ hard to heave you off to one side.”

“Maybe you thought so, but you sure sent me a-sprawling. You command a right smart amount of power these days, sister dear,” he said, pausing to squint at her face. “All right. What’s the matter?”

Ariel shook her head.

“Oh yes there is. I know my dear sister. What is it? Abaddon’s poisoning your well again? What’s he saying this time? The Prophecy’s just an old wives’ tale, or what?”

“He is not!” she said, biting her thumbnail as she looked out into the rain.

Daniel folded his arms and rolled his eyes.

“Very well. He found out that the Prophecy actually came from the Fire Sprites of the Eastern Continent and not the Elves at all, so he’s begun using that.”

“He’s crazy.”

“Yea…” she said as a crash of thunder made both of them jump. “About me, he is. The thought of losing me is starting to tear him up.”

“Damn him!”

“He doesn’t want anything to happen to you either, while you’re being all hard on him…”

“Hard on him?” he said, flinging a rock out into the storm. “Shit fire! I don’t care if you do have a heart bond. You keep listening to his drivel and you’ll lose what it takes at the last minute and get both of us killed.”

“I will not! No way! Not with everything Grandfather’s taught us over the years…”

“Now that’s giving me credit…” said Razzmorten from right behind them.

“Grandfather!” she gasped. “How long have you been there?”

“You mean how much did I hear?” he said, lunging out with a proper brown spit for the storm. “I heard enough to know that your taking this particular time to worry about your heart bond may be putting you in peril. I mean, if you’re daring to think of anything but the task ahead, then I may well have been remiss in my teaching…”

“Peril! What earthly peril could there be when neither witch has so much as flown across the desert within our lifetimes?”

Razzmorten stepped into her gaze and gently patted her cheek. “Then I have indeed been remiss,” he said, “And Neron will return any day now.”

Ch. 13, Doom

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Spitemorta Has Another Tantrum

When Spitemorta returned to her bower in Castle Niarg just before midnight, she changed back her throat with the Heart and sent orders to the kitchen for roast duck with sour cabbage, dripping pudding and cider, even if she had to stay up until nearly sunrise to eat it. She did not mind. She could use the time to get rid of that offensive quart of sukee which reminded her of Coel, left over from her coronation. She had begun to find it odd that Demonica had not gotten in her way with her comments as she sauntered about, dangling her bottle, gloating about what she had set in motion.

She soon discovered that cider on top of the sukee nearly had her vomiting on her steaming plate of duck and pudding, so she daubed at the corners of her mouth, threw herself across the bed and slept until the middle of the afternoon. She rose, had half of a toad in the hole and a pinch of cold duck breast and sour cabbage and went back to bed until the following morning. She spent the next two days in her quarters, very busy with ordering about pages and hired help as she oversaw the clearing away of Minuet’s sheep shed and apple orchard for a jousting field and hand gonne range. She was beginning to think that she might have managed to leave Demonica behind at Oilean Gairdin. “Good! If that be the case,” she said, but she felt oddly anxious.

When she caught herself wishing that she had her grandmother to talk to, she grabbed up the empty sukee flagon and hurled it at the wall with a grating squeal. Instead, the contrary bottle went whirling out over the balcony to go bouncing end over end along the paving stones, six storeys down. When she heard no breaking glass, the rushed to the balustrade hoping to find that she had hit someone on the head. “Damn you Grandmother!” she shouted when she saw no one about. “You won’t let me have any fun…”

“Well it is nice to see you giving me the credit, dear,” said Demonica from right beside her, peering down at the bottle.

“Why did you have to show up, Grandmother? It was a relief having you gone for three days.”

“Odd that you kept seeming anxious for someone to talk to, or am I mistaken?”

“Yes you are.”

“Or am I merely the wrong party? Perhaps you were hoping for your handsome general…”

“No!” shouted Spitemorta. Suddenly she smiled. “But I do have a thing or two he needs to find out,” she said quietly. “I mean, I think my trolls are going to be right useful, ‘way more than the stupid heathens from Gwael. Don’t you?”

Mindful of how Spitemorta’s voice carried, Demonica meandered back inside and sat on the bed. “It may have been unwise to leave Oilean Gairdin without appearing before the Dyrney as you agreed, dear,“ she said. “And you probably don’t want General Coel knowing what you make of his army, either.”

Spitemorta cast her a slit-eyed stare. “Poop!” she said, taking a chair by the bed that faced away from her. “The stupid trolls won’t even notice once they’ve had an Elf roast or two. And you know as well as I do that the Gwaels have been nothing but inferior. Let’s see how they like having my brute son and his trolls wipe out both the Elves and the Beaks when they’ve utterly failed to do so after all this time. I think I’ll quite enjoy rubbing Veyfnaryr’s victories in the good general’s arrogant face.”

“If you say so.”

“I certainly do say so. Coel needs to be put in his place. A bit of humiliation is just the thing for him.”

“That does sound like fun,” said Demonica with a deep and speculative nod. “But are you quite sure that you want to risk the father of your child losing face in front of all who might enjoy his lesson?”

“What utter nonsense are you going on about?” cried Spitemorta, springing to her feet at once to begin pacing. “You know very well that Coel’s not related in any way at all to my children.”

“Well certainly not to any of your grown children…”

“Nor to any future children, believe me…”

“Too late,” said Demonica. And with that she vanished.

“Damn you!” shrieked Spitemorta, grabbing up and flinging a vase of hyacinths, soaking the corner of the bed where Demonica had been sitting.

A peal of Demonica’s laughter rose and died away in the air across the room.

Spitemorta grabbed a footstool and hove it after the sound, only to have it fly as wide as the bottle had, knocking her new marble bust of herself off its pedestal and breaking off its head. With a rasping sob, she fell to her knees and covered her face. A mourning dove called from somewhere just beyond her balcony as she rocked and shuddered.

Running footsteps tramped to a halt outside her door and threw it open. “Your Omnipotence!” cried her page when he saw her on the floor. “Are you in peril?”

“Why not at all, Pissant,” she said with all the smiling radiance of a lady getting to her feet in a sunny garden of daffodils. “Go to the kitchen, if you would, and tell old hefty

Bethan that I want hot cinnamon rolls with today’s churned butter and a nice hot pot o’ tea. And when you’re done with that, go find General Coel and send him here immediately. Then, return to the kitchen and see that my tea gets to me hot.

“And now…” she said soothingly as she unfastened the Heart from the Staff and gently passed it over his lips, erasing his mouth from his face. “This is for daring to walk in on the very empress of all the known world. You’ll have to think about it as you run your errand.” She turned him to face the mirror with his eyes of horror. “Now. If General Coel comes at once and the tea arrives hot, you may earn back the mouth you need to eat your next meal. Understood? Now go.”

Ch. 10, Doom, book six of Heart of the Staff: The Complete Series

Carol Marrrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

It will Take Daniel and Ariel to Save the World from Spitemorta and Demonica

“Grandfather?” said Rose.

“Yes?”

“Do you and King Neron think war is unavoidable?”

Razzmorten sighed and looked at her with a grave face. “Without a miracle, yes indeed,” he answered.

“Thank you for being straight with me, Grandfather,” she said as she cast a worried look at Fuzz. “We’d feared it would be so, but we were hoping that, you know, with the Elves being Elves…”

“Sure. You’d hoped they’d have some magical and quick solution.”

“Yes.”

“Rose, I’m afraid that even though the solution will indeed be magical, it will not be at all quick.”

“Grandfather! It sounds as if you know how to stop this war.”

“Yes I do, Rose, but it is neither in my power nor that of the Elves.”

“Then, who can possibly do it?” she said, as Mystique traded places walking in the path with Abracadabra.

“Oh, Daniel or possibly Ariel, or perhaps both of them together…”

“But they’re babies!” she said with a gasp. “It’ll be years before they’re old enough to do such a thing. What’ll be left of the world?”

“Not much as we now know it, I fear,” he said, bearing the most haunted look she had ever seen come from his kindly and steadfastly optimistic old eyes, “not much at all.”

Ch 31, Stone Heart

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Spitemorta Nurses a Hangover

The thicket of roses in the pasture that once crowned the gentle hill overlooking all of the town of Niarg was enclosed for the first time by the circular stockade of the old wooden Castell Niarg. In time, it became the rose garden in the back ward of the great stone castle which followed, where Prince Hebraun courted Minuet under a late summer moon and where Princess Rose played with her kitten in the warm June sun.

Spitemorta cleared away all of that for her amphitheatre which faced across its broad and barren arena to the great stage for her public presentations which made up a corner of the back ward of her massive black castle. Here was the focus of her week long celebration. She raised her chalice to the drunken crowd as she sat back on her throne to watch her soldiers set alight the final wicker man, packed squirming tight with the very last survivors of Bernard’s Bane at Jut Ford. Pissant scurried over with his jug to top up her vessel. As screams and yodeling wails of agony burst out from the flames, she shot to her feet with cheer after cheer of triumph for the roaring multitude. As glowing cinders began to tumble, orderlies scurried into the arena and onto the streets surrounding the castle to set up trestles and boards for the feasting that was to last all night.

When daylight came, Spitemorta banged into the doorpost on her way into the bedroom of her bower and bounced when she found that the seat of the stool before her dressing table was a bit lower than it should have been. She ballooned her cheeks with a huff as she found her face in the looking-glass. She picked up a brush. “My,” she said as she tugged at her whirling head with her brush strokes. “I’m not up for much of that…” She looked up to see Demonica standing behind her in the mirror and tossed down her brush with a clatter. “And none of you, Grandmother. I’m going to bed right now.”

“Well,” said Demonica. “Fine celebration, I thought. Just wanted to tell you. And dear, you really want to see to your trolls, don’t you think?”

“Did you see how the Niarg townies joined in? They were having such a good time, I know I’ve got them. I’ve really got them. Lots of them even danced and cheered when Minuet’s soldiers were burning…”

“At least when the cider and sukee are flowing. We brought in three shiploads of sukee from Gwael for this. Stout stuff. You do need to keep that in mind. Some of them can actually count their own fingers when they’re sober. And your trolls, dear…”

“Fine, Grandmother. After I’ve slept, come back and we shall both go.”

“I’ll do that dear. Just don’t delay our departure with your handsome general. It would be best to appear just when they’re waking for the night, before they’re already doing other things, don’t you know. And it doesn’t hurt for us to still have enough light to see by.”

“And just how would I let him delay us?”

“Well,” she said, as she sat on the bed and gave the coverlet a knowing pat. “You did have a rather more, shall we say, sustained and amorous meeting during the celebration than typical…”

“No, damn it! There was nothing amorous about it…”

“Well I certainly find that easy to agree with, having been there, but does the general?”

“That’s his problem, not mine.”

“If you say so dear. Well then. To bed with you and I’ll see you before sunset.”

***

The evening sun was just lighting the far wall of Spitemorta’s chamber when she was awakened by voices below her window. “Damn you!” she cried, explosively ripping aside her covers. She grabbed up the full water pitcher from her night stand and heaved it out the window to land with a distant pop six storeys down. The talking stopped short. No one was there when she propped her arms on the sill and peered out. The bell in Argentowre rang. When she couldn’t sort out whether it was four or five o’clock, she covered her ears and turned away from the window.

“Oh!” she cried when the stool at her dressing table turned out to be just as unexpectedly low as before. With a squeal, she threw her brush across the room to smack the back of a chair and spin away somewhere on the floor. She labored to her feet and went hunting for it. When stooping to look under a wardrobe sent pains through her head, she went back to her table without the brush and peered into the mirror with the slits of her swollen eyes to find her hair hopelessly matted on one side, “As if I’d spent the month sleeping alongside a dead mouse.” And with that, she cast a glamourie on herself to look radiantly rested and groomed. After a spell of jerking dresses from side to side in one wardrobe after another, she gave up and cast another glamourie to make the kirtle she was wearing appear as though she had not slept all day in it. “And where’s my duck?” she shouted.

“And here you led me to believe that there was not one thing amorous going on between the two of you,” said Demonica with a gasp of surprise as she appeared.

“Damn you! Not him. My breakfast!”

“Now did you indeed tell anyone before you went to bed?”

“What are you doing with that childish halo and wings, Grandmother? You’ve been telling me all these years that no one but me sees you.”

“Who knows? Veyfnaryr has enough power that he just might.”

“Do you seriously believe he’s more powerful than Razzmorten?”

“Believe? Dear, he was every bit as powerful as Razzmorten the moment I put him in the arms of Fnayooph, the bathless fmoo who raised him. If you didn’t have the Heart and the Staff, he’d make a grease spot of you if you vexed him enough.”

“Ha!” said Spitemorta, feeling for her stool before sitting, this time. “Good medicine for the Beaks. And those four Elves. He could make grease spots out of them, too. Pooh on breakfast, Grandmother. Let’s go.”

“Good for you, dear…” said Demonica, looking up suddenly at the knock on the door of the parlour of the bower.

Spitemorta tramped to the door. “What!” she shouted as she grabbed the latch. She threw it open to find Coel. “Familiar enough all at once to wave aside proper deferential announcements by the help, are we?”

“Because of our indiscretion?” said Coel calmly, as he stepped in without the slightest bob of a bow.

“Ah!” said Demonica. “Here’s your duck after all…”

“Shut up!”

“You don’t like it referred to that way?” said Coel.

“You ought to be able recognize Grandmother by now…”

“I don’t see a soul.”

“And you bet it was indiscrete! You ought to be in the dungeon.”

“Because you invited me…?”

“I did not!”

“Well, sukee’s like that,” he said, drawing in a breath. “And had I not had some of it myself, I’d have easily deflected your tugging at me.”

Spitemorta sucked in a furious breath.

“And I reckon it’s having to recover from it that has me doing the knocking on your door instead of your service, in order to speed the delivery of the tidings you demanded I convey immediately…”

Ch. 7, Doom, book six of Heart of the Staff: The Complete Series

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Ariel says she Could Die

“We’re done Grandfather,” said Daniel.

“So I see.” he said, fitting his spectacles onto his face.

“How did we do?” said Ariel as she and Daniel sat beside him.

“A question like that has been nothing but a respectful formality for some time, my dear,” he said.

“Perfect then?” said Daniel.

“Absolutely,” he said with a deep nod. “And this completes anything which I might contribute until Neron has worked with you for a time and we get you ready to go study with Meri Greenwood. And it is he who will prepare you for your staves and take you to see Longbark in Mount Bed.”

“And then?” said Ariel. “Are we…?”

“Oh,” he said with a smile. “I expect we’ll have you back here again for one final inspection and a little practice.”

“And then we get her…” said Daniel.

“When the moment falls exactly right,” said Razzmorten as everyone went silent, listening to the swallows and the trickling water and the river pounding in the deep reaches, drawing away the echoes from the sink.

Daniel dug at the rocks with a twig.

“Abaddon ought to be back with Toast, directly,” said Razzmorten, looking at Ariel with sudden innocence.

“Great-Grandfather Razzmorten is naught but a matchmaker,” said Arial, giving him a peck on his cheek.

“Not at all. You’ve had your heart bond for all these years.”

“Are we done?” said Daniel.

“With magic, anyway. Go enjoy the day.”

“Thanks Grandfather,” he said, tossing aside his twig.

“Father keeps saying that in spite of the bond, I might eventually be safer away from Abby,” said Ariel.

“Yea? Is that what you want?”

“Maybe it’s best for Abby. I mean I could die…”

“No you’re not. And worse than that, you’re guessing. How’s that fit for a young and powerful sorceress? What do you want to do with your guesses, anyway, break his heart and then go die? Maybe you’d better do what your heart wants.”

“You’re right as usual,” she said as she stood and brushed the seat of her skirt. “I shall indeed follow my heart.”

“And you’re not going to say another word about dieing,” he called out after her as she stepped into the lava tube. “Ye hear?”

Ch 2, Doom

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Heart of the Staff: Complete Series NOW Just $0.99 on Amazon

Spitemorta Has a Tantrum

Spitemorta sat forward and grabbed up a hot cinnamon bun from the tea table just set before her, tore it open and dropped it onto a saucer to steam as she found the fresh butter and honey. “Oh,” she said, licking her fingers and leaning aside to give the bell pull a yank. She went right back to her bun and took a huge bite, closing her eyes with a delirious moan.

A young page came and stood at quiet attention beyond the table.

“Hey Piffant,” she said through her mouthful of flying crumbs, when she finally noticed him.

“Your Omnipotence,” he said with a deep and gracious bow.

Spitemorta took an eye-rolling moment to chew. “Listen Pissant,” she said with a strained swallow, “go find General Coel and have him here this very hour.”

“Anything else, Your Omnipotence?”

Spitemorta dug at the wad of bread in her cheek with her tongue and shook her head.

“I live to serve you, Your Omnipotence,” he said with a parting bow.

“As long as you see that you do,” she said. She wanted to see Coel at once, but it made no difference to her in the least whether or not Pissant managed to live. All that really mattered was her coming coronation and public executions of Queen Minuet’s army.

“Your Omnipotence…?” said her skinweler in a wee voice from it’s hollow on the arm of her throne.

She put milk into her cup, slipped off the cozy and picked up the teapot. “Damn you, Pissant!” she bellowed into the echoes, hurling it across the room to smash on the marble floor. “Thanks to you, it’s gone stone cold. Or maybe I need to boil somebody’s stinking head in the kitchen…”

“Uh, Your Omnipotence…?” said the skinweler as a hired woman peeked in from a side door.

“Hey!” cried Spitemorta, “Get me a fresh pot!”

“This looks exciting and all, dear, but shouldn’t you be showing some interest in the rest of your empire?” said Demonica, appearing with her fists on her hips by the shattered teapot.

“Now!” hollered Spitemorta.

“My word!” said Demonica, walking right up to her. “Your first steward is waiting for an audience as we speak.”

“So? Send him in.”

“It is indeed nice to find you taking me seriously for once, dear,” she said, cocking her head to look her over closely, “but you seem to be forgetting that you’re the only one who sees me. Besides it’s your skinweler. Your steward in Gwael…”

“Oh poop! How would I have time for those heathens with my coronation almost upon us? What would be as important as that? After all, I am the first one in history to rule the entire world.”

Demonica drew a wide-eyed breath. “It might not hurt to ask him,” she said with a nod at the skinweler. “I mean, he’s no further away than the arm of your chair, and convenient as it is, it would be an act of actually ruling the world, don’t you think?”

“You do it. I’m busy. And Coel will be here directly.”

“Well I would, dear,” she said with another nod at the skinweler,” but you’re forgetting that I’m dead.”

“Your Omnipotence?”

“What!” said Spitemorta, thrusting her face at the skinweler.

“Aah!” said the steward, jerking back from his ball. “Forgive me Your Omnipotence, I wasn’t quite…”

“Well? What is it? I’m right busy here, and you’re not likely to have anything important.”

“I beg your pardon for my asking you to indulge me over this trifle,” he said, pausing for a breath as he thrust out his chin, “but we’ve a situation here that’s plainly on it’s way out of control.”

“What are you talking about, Irmen? What is going on there?”

“King Vortigern had a brother, Catigern, Prince of Pow Jyantylesk, who had a son before he died…”

“Osulf. So?”

“Well, Osulf claims the throne.”

“What?”

“Now that sounds like something I remember talking about,” said Demonica. “Or weren’t you listening when I was…?”

“Shut up!” screeched Spitemorta.

“I beg your pardon, Your Omnipotence. I’m not sure I heard right…”

“What’s he thinking?” she said, grabbing up the skinweler and pressing her face into it. “He can’t do that. Artie died, which made me queen. I’m still queen. I may be empress of the world, but I’m still queen. And I left you on the throne.”

“Yea. But he says that you never ruled Gwael before you became empress. According to him, you never once sat on the throne, and that left him next in line to rule after Artamus. In fact, he’s sitting on the throne right now. And his coronation is tomorrow…”

“Horse shit!” she shouted, flinging the skinweler well beyond the tea table to hit the carpet with a muffled crack and go rolling away toward the entrance.

Irmen jerked back from his skinweler and rubbed his temples.

Spitemorta heaved herself to her feet, ran after her ball and grabbed it up. “So what kind of steward allows someone to come in and take the throne?” she said, catching her breath.

“One who’s in his chamber, free to use his skinweler to reach you, if you don’t mind my putting it that a-way. They took me by surprise. Had I not cooperated, I’d be dead or sitting in the dungeon and you’d not know a thing about it.”

“I’ll be right there…”

Ch 6, Doom, book six of Heart of the Staff: The Complete Series

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

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