Who is Queen Spitemorta?

Queen Spitemorta of Goll is the beautiful raven haired daughter of the witch known as Ugleeuh, the granddaughter of the evil sorceress Demonica and the mother of Abaddon. She is secretly given by Ugleeuh to King Brutelee and Queen Bee of Goll to raise. As soon as she is grown, she poisons Brutlee and Bee, assumes the throne of Goll and marries King James of Loxmere.

When the news reaches Pennvro on the Dark Continent that Spitemorta is on the throne and has the First Wizard’s Great Staff, in Stone Heart, Demonica kills and replaces Abaddon’s nanny and begins plying Spitemorta with a strategy of world conquest, which requires finding the Crystal Heart of the Staff in order to have the needed power. In time they do find the Heart and set out to conquer Niarg and the rest of the world, thereby fulfilling the first part of the Elven Prophecy.

Discovering that Spitemorta is a dangerous sorceress when she destroys her own nation’s main cash crop and begins addressing her subjects with crystal skinwelerioù to incite them to go to war with their peaceful neighbors, in The Burgeoning, James hides Abaddon from her and tries to flee Castle Goll. She captures and tortures him and throws him into the dungeon.

Years before, when Spitemorta is still a princess in The Collector Witch, it is she whose vicious rumor sends Rose into the perils of the Chokewoods in search of her identity, and she who takes away the Staff from Ugleeuh’s frantic grasp. And in spite of her lifelong reputation for cold bloodedness, she is assumed to be the granddaughter of the benevolent wizard Razzmorten, until far away in the volcanic cauldron of Mount Bed, the great oak tree Longbark touches Abaddon and determines that he is actually the great-grandson of the evil sorcerer Razzorbauch.

As her power grows, Spitemorta’s fits of wanton destruction and murder soon have the Jutland Elves calling her Baineor Buile Cailli, The Reaper Witch, as they, James, Abaddon and the diatrymas flee her for their very lives into the Wilderlands.

With the murder of her husband, King Artamus of Gwael, Queen Spitemorta at last rules the known world. She declares herself Omnipotent Empress and moves into her monstrous new castle in Niarg. And with her tools of power, the Great Staff and Crystal Heart, she believes she is invincible in Doom, the final book in the series.

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

Wizard Razzmorten takes Hubba Hubba to See the King and Queen

Razzmorten cleared his throat. Hubba Hubba straightened up at once, giving himself a feather fluffing shake. “Well Queen, how could you possibly have known it was me?”

“Oh, Hubba Hubba! I’d know you anywhere.”

Hubba Hubba drew back his head and thrust it forth in a gawk of bewilderment at Razzmorten. Razmorten gave a wide-eyed shrug. “I hate to dampen this merry reunion, but time may be pressing,” he said. “Hubba Hubba has a message from your sister, regarding Rose and Lukus.”

“Ugleeuh!” cried King Hebraun, springing to his feet. “She hasn’t harmed them, has she?”

“No, no. I wouldn’t think so,” said Razzmorten, handing Ugleeuh’s note to Hebraun. “She has decided to blackmail you. She plans to be set free from the Chokewood Forest. It seems she has Rose and Lukus at her cottage and plans to give their freedom for hers. See for yourself.”

King Hebraun quickly read the missive and handed it to Minuet. “Father!” she choked. “You said Ugleeuh could cause no more harm once she was exiled.”

“Not outside of her part of the Chokewoods,” said Razzmorten, as he gently picked up her hand. “I can’t imagine that she had any way of abducting them. They had to have gone there on their own, and most likely to answer some of the questions which Rose was asking all around, right prior to their disappearance. No, Ugleeuh has not been any sort of hazard outside her boundaries from the time we sent her there until this very minute, but this extortion of hers is her design to change all that. Meanwhile, the children must be safe. Stop and think. Ugleeuh is evil, but she’s no fool. She’d hardly destroy the one and only chance she’s had to end her exile. She’ll not harm Rose and Lukus as long as there’s any chance she can use them to get free.”

“He’s right,” cawed Hubba Hubba. “In all the years I’ve spent with her, she never suggested harming a feather on my body until I refused to come here. Then she threatened
to cook me. And I have an idea. When I left, Ugleeuh gave me this scrying crystal so I’d
be able to see her and the forest any time I wanted. Here. Try it to check on Rose and
Lukus. I’ll bet that will make you feel better.”

Minuet suddenly looked hopeful but Razzmorten sadly shook his head. “Your offer is grand, Hubba Hubba, but I’m afraid your crystal is useless. She’s managed to divine an astonishing barrier around her part of the forest to prevent being watched by any sort of crystal gazing. I certainly have tried to often enough.”

Hubba Hubba was stunned. “So!” he squawked with a shake of his feathers. “She lied again. She said she’d drop the protections and keep them down until I returned. Fool
that I am, I told her not to because she’d leave herself vulnerable. She told me that her
protections had been in place so long that no one would bother to spy on her. No wonder
she wasn’t worried. She’d no intention of dropping her protections all along.”

“Whoa Hubba Hubba,” said Razzorten, as he shared raised eyebrows with Hebraun and Minuet. “There was talk of dropping her protections?”

“Talk. Yea.”

“Where’s this scrying crystal Ugleeuh gave you?”

“Right here, actually,” he said, looking down at his breast. “The crystal is the brooch fixed on my flight harness. But what difference does that make if it’s useless?”

Razzmorten was already unbuckling the harness, shaking his head to be silent while he slipped it off him. The king and queen anxiously crowded around. Hubba Hubba peered at the stone from Razzmorten’s shoulder, and nearly lost his balance when the old man whooped with glee. “It works! I see the forest. And look at this. There’s Ugleeuh flying above the trees on a broom. That’s a right novel talent. She certainly never did that before her exile. I suppose it’s no surprise that she’d develop her powers to while away the time there.”

“I despise the idea of her having any powers,” said Minuet. “Where do you suppose Rose and Lukus are?”

“I’d bet in her cottage,” said Hubba Hubba. “They haven’t been much for going outdoors, all summer. Mostly they stayed around the house and you know, ate, slept, those kinds o’ things…” He trailed off uncomfortably, seeing everyone looking straight at him. “Well when I was there, they joked around with me and we talked and stuff, don’t you know,” he stammered, glancing from one person to the next as he resumed. “Sometimes they did go outside and take me for my exercise flights. And once Lukus and I even went for a hike. Now that was really fun, except when the log rolled over on me and broke my toe, of course.” He fluffed up and ran his beak along several flight feathers, letting each go with a snap before he continued. “Anyway, try the cottage.”

Razzmorten was scarcely listening as he brought his concentration to bear upon scrying with the crystal. At last, Rose and Lukus appeared, wearing their stripped cloaks, hurrying to keep up with Fuzz.

“Wow!” said Hubba Hubba. “Ugleeuh and Fuzz are definitely not on friendly terms. I can’t imagine her letting them talk to him, let alone run off with him somewhere.”

“Looks like those stripped cloaks are camouflage,” said Razzmorten with a grave nod, “at least I’d say so from the appearance of the surrounding trees. They certainly don’t appear to be out for a hunt, and if they’ve gone to this kind of trouble to hide, they very
likely are attempting to flee, rather than waiting for us to respond to her extortion demands. So this bear ‘Fuzz,’ Ugleeuh doesn’t like him, you say?”

“Not much…”

“Speaks well of him.”

“Oh Hebraun!” said Minuet. “Their faces are so pale and pasty. They don’t look well. What has she done to them?”

“Remember that I can’t scry,” said Hebraun, as he shared a look with Razzmorten, “but it sounds like they’ve been eating your sister’s food. They’ll surely snap out of it as soon as we get them home.”

“And remember that they’re young and strong, Minuet,” said Razzmorten. “Neither one has ever been sick. They’re going to be just fine.”

“But how are we going to get them home, now?” said Minuet. “And what if Ugleeuh catches them? They’ve defied her and escaped. I can’t imagine her fury. No one who thwarts her is ever safe. You can count on her saying that they owe her for having been at her cottage, even though they were her prisoners. She’d make them pay mercilessly for that. But stand in the way of her freedom? I can’t picture her controlling herself.”

Razzmorten sucked in a deep breath between his teeth. “I’m sure Ugleeuh is mortally angry,” he said, “but it still behooves her to handle Rose and Lukus with care. I can’t imagine her forgetting that they are her only chance to leave the forest, short of dying. I’d say that if she does catch them, it’s this Fuzz, whoever he is, who won’t survive her vengeance.”

“You got it.” said Hubba Hubba. “She wants out and Fuzz is a goner. Oh, absolutely.” He hesitated, seeing that he was being taken very seriously by everyone. “She
threatened to slaughter and eat me, just because I told her I wouldn’t deliver her ransom
note. And she claims she loves me. She doesn’t even like Fuzz.”

“Pray that they’re not caught,” said Minuet, looking pale and drawn, as she sat down on her throne. “I grew up struggling with her getting even with everyone under the sun.”

“How do you suppose this Fuzz plans to help Rose and Lukus escape?” said Hebraun.

“Until some clue turns up,” said Razzmorten, rubbing his temples gingerly before gazing back into the crystal, “I have utterly no idea at all, except that they most likely are indeed attempting some sort of escape, right now.”

“What happens if Ugleeuh intercepts them, Father?” said Minuet. “What then?”

“Then I shall have to face her myself.” said Razzmorten calmly enough to cause Hubba Hubba to gape in astonishment. “Please don’t be afraid, Minuet. I swear that no harm shall come to my grandchildren. I swear it on my life.”

Ch. 20, The Collector Witch

Carol Marrs Phipps & 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

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

Spitemorta’s Troll Baby has the Strongest Magical Aura She’s Ever Seen

After her address, Spitemorta tied up her skinweler in its pouch and dropped it into her bag. She missed the awed multitudes beyond the balcony of her throne room at Castle Goll. “A little trollish supplication might be just the thing,” she said as she picked up the Staff. She stepped into the hall, trotted downstairs and out into the glory of dandelions, wren chatter and bright sunshine. Bethan was on her knees, picking strawberries and didn’t see her set the Staff in the air, mount it and lean forward to shoot away into the deep blue sky.

She didn’t know exactly where Oilean Gairdin was beyond its being somewhere in the Jut of Niarg. But after some time, hurtling along the length of the Jut, she spied the remains of stone walls standing in a tumble of pink quartz rubble, surrounded by abandoned orchards and formal gardens on an island in the middle of Jutland Lake. “This has to be it,” she said as she settled her feet into the knee-deep grass and sat on her hovering stick, looking about. Grackles scolded, mobbing something in the crown of an apple tree. She dismounted and waded through the grass toward the ruins, pausing at an arbor to eat grapes. She saw no sure signs of trolls at all, but there were getting to be paths tramped flat in the grass as she neared the rubble. A striped blue lizard as big around as a pitchfork handle, vanished into the cracks of a stone fence. She stood, looking all about from under her hand. Over near a wall she saw bones. “Ha!” She hurried up her wallow through the grass to find a collapsed bedroom, overflowing the window sills with bones. Outside the broken walls, she now saw a good score of stone circles for campfires, most of them with live coals, scattered randomly about a courtyard littered with gnawed pieces of animal carcass and barefoot prints in the ankle deep dust. Presently she was hearing deep rumbling snores coming from every hole and recess that might protect from rain.

“Oh yes,” she said, stopping short. “I very nearly forgot. I’ll have to change to Fnadiyaphn’s throat. At least Fnadi-phnig-nyd and Dyr-jinyr-yy will know who I am as a human. It’s still hard to swallow from the last time.” She held the Heart to her throat. It began glowing at once. “Gaah-hoof!” she bellowed, jerking the Heart away. “Aah-hoof-aah-hoof!”

She could hear trolls mumbling and stirring as she stood there with pains shooting through her head, working her jaw. She began quietly peering into holes, wincing each time she bent over for a look. By the time she was wondering if she could bear any more bending over, she found Dyr-jinyr-yy sound asleep on his back not far away from a huge breasted sow, asleep against a wall under her snarled bush of fiery red hair, snoring away like a giant bullfrog with a grimy toddler in her arms. “Maybe I’m getting lucky,” she thought as she tiptoed close to peer at the baby. “He actually looks like James, except he’s a troll. Well we’ll see.” She went back to stand over Dyr-jinyr-yy. “Jy-oyf-ny-oyd-fif, Dyr- jinyr-yy,” she rumbled as she gave him a sharp poke with the Staff. “Ni!”

“Zawk-skok…” he smacked, suddenly sitting up with wide-eyed urgency.

“Jyrp-dyoy-dyn-yoy-oyr,” said Spitemorta with a phosphorescent flicker in her eyes. “You’ll live.”

With a squeal, he pitched forward and flattened himself at her feet. “Fnadiyaphn!” he whimpered into the foul dirt. “Goddess come-give Veyfnaryr big-head-nod looky-look?”

“And you’re going to show me,” she said with a cherubic nod.

Dyr-jinyr-yy was on his feet at once, dashing over to Fnayooph to give her hair a good yank.

Fnayooph gave an explosive swing of her fist, barely missing Dyr-jinyr-yy, who sat backwards with a bounce in the dirt. She gasped in shock at the sudden sight of Spitemorta and grabbed up a club, giving it a furious fling right by her ear.

Spitemorta gave a crackling jab with the Staff, setting aglow a patch of earth in front of Fnayooph which immediately exploded, blinding everyone with dirt and making Veyfnaryr howl.

“Fnayooph!” cried Dyr-jinyr-yy. “She-be Goddess Fnadiyaphn! Fnadiyaphn play human queen.”

Veyfnaryr wiggled out of her arms and stood up with his fists in his eyes, wailing at the top of his lungs. Fnayooph grabbed him into her lap and silenced him with a teat as she ground at her eyes with the heel of her other hand.

“Good job that you took care of my baby before you even tried to see,” said Spitemorta, “otherwise, you would be dead right now. Does he bite?”

Fnayooph looked up with one confused eye, shook her head and held out Veyfnaryr for Spitemorta to take.

Spitemorta got a whiff of him and held up a pious hand. “I don’t need to take him,” she said. “I can see that he is getting the best of care.” She pursed her lips as a look of awe flickered across her face. “My word!” she thought. “He simply glows with magical power.”

She turned to Dyr-jinyr-yy. “I shall not keep you awake any longer,” she said. “You all are doing quite well indeed. I’ll simply be back from time to time to see how he’s doing.” And with that, she took to the air on her staff and vanished over the trees.

Well beyond Jutland lake, she landed and used the Heart to return her human throat and end her pounding headache. “My word!” she said as she climbed into the sky once more. “Nobody I’ve ever been around has that strong an aura…”

“See?” came a voice in her ear. “What did I try to tell you?”

“Shut up!” she screamed as she shook the Staff. “Shut up! Shut up Demonica!”

“Well I’m glad to see that you didn’t completely lose control of the Staff this time, dear,” came the voice again.

“Shut up!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”

“Now just what kind of respect for the dead is that, Rouanez Bras?”

“Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Believe me,” said the voice, “I most certainly would if it weren’t for your endless need of guidance. But since you clearly resent even the slightest inclination which I might have to help…”

“All right!” cried Spitemorta. “If I let you help me, will you go away?”

“Mission accomplished, dear.”

“Very well, what do I need help with then, Grandmother?”

“Didn’t I tell you that your troll baby was going to be more powerful than the great Razzmorten himself?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course not,” said the voice. “I couldn’t get you to hold off your demands to have him killed long enough to notice what I was saying, as I recall.”

“And I can see that you’re just as tedious to listen to as ever.”

“Well let’s try again, dear. Did you notice what I said this time?”

“What?”

“Veyfnaryr. Razzmorten…”

“What? Being stronger? Get out of here, Demonica! I know very well what all that means.”

“Do you then? What does all this mean? This should be good.”

“Why go through telling you?” said Spitemorta. “You already have all the answers. But if you must, it means that even if the Elves do manage to raise some dangerously powerful wizard, your ugly little troll monster just might destroy him. Right?”

“Bravo!” cheered the voice with the sound of clapping. “But the ‘ugly little troll monster’ as you put it, is yours, dear.”

“My monster? It was your turning me into Fnadiyaphn, Grandmother.”

There did not seem to be an answer.

“Grandmother?” said Spitemorta, frantically looking all about. “Demonica? Damn you! Where’d you go? Hey Demonica!”

Ch. 12, The Reaper Witch, book five of Heart of the Staff: The Complete Series

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Spitemorta takes over her Mother’s House

Spitemorta lay in Demonica’s bed, listening to the cries of gulls out her window as the first rays of sunlight lit the wall behind her. She threw back her covers, sat on the side of the bed and nearly fell when she tried to stand up. She hobbled to the tea table and ate some of the cheese and corned beef she had found in one of the larders while hunting skinwelerioù. She had forgotten all about eating for some time and discovered that she was quite hungry. At last she decided to get dressed. The broadening daylight made her want to hurry.

“Well, it’s back west to Niarg before rejoining Coel and Cunneda,” she said as she stepped into her black kirtle, “but I’ll never be able to straddle the Staff for the entire way across the Orin Ocean. I’ll just have to pick a place where I can vomit when I get there.”

She laced up her bodice, grabbed up the Staff and turned her dress deep vermilion. She put the strap of her bag across her shoulder and sat on the bed with her skinweler. “Now just where is it?” she said as the swirling colors in the skinweler gave way to images. “Show me the manor house at Peach Knob. So that’s where Mother grew up with Auntie Min and Grandfather Razzmorten. Why would it be so dark? Very well, let’s find some place out of the way, around back.”

Suddenly she was on her hands and knees in a pandemonium of terrified chickens, squawking and flapping dust and old feathers all about her in the dim light of dawn as she retched and heaved her breakfast onto the floor between her hands. “Aangh!” she cried, catching her breath and sitting back on her heels as the chickens crowded round to snap up tidbits of her cheese and corned beef.

She grabbed up the Staff and sprang to her feet to pound with her fist along the chicken house wall until she found the door and threw it open. “My dress!” she wailed, waltzing into the pigweed with her arms held wide. Just then it occurred to her that she was holding the Staff and she quickly used it to make herself as clean as she was when she was first dressed. Suddenly she stopped short with a scald of alarm at the sight of her second sunrise in one day. “No!” She shook her head. “No way it’s Demonica. It can’t be anything but the traveling spell.

“There’s the house,” she said, looking uphill beyond the big orchard. “And that was my very last traveling spell ever, ever, ever, I swear.” She started walking up the grassy lane between the rows of peach trees. An oriole gave a bawdy whistle. Up the lane, a kingbird chased away a pair of grackles. She could hear a tinkling of bells as sheep came running.

“Hoy!” she thought she heard someone holler. She looked back beyond the sheep to see a stooped old man wave. She turned away and made for the house. The summer kitchen reared up before her as she came out of the trees. She got a whiff of steak and eggs as she heard someone bang a skillet. She stopped and looked up at the manor house behind the kitchen. “Good for gentry,” she said. “At lest it’s temporary.”

A heavy set woman appeared in the doorway of the summer kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Good morning to you, mistress,” she called out with a smile. “You look bewildered, a-coming up on us out o’ the orchard, that a-way. I’ve just fixed breakfast and I already set out an extra…”

“Oh I know exactly where I am.”

“Well now I’m Bethan, but should I know who you be?”

“It makes no difference who you are. But it’s always best to know your new queen, particularly when you work on her manor.”

“Peredur,” said Bethan as the old man appeared behind Spitemorta. “did you hear what she just said to me?”

“No, but I can’t begin to imagine what she was doing in the chicken house.”

Bethan folded her arms and looked Spitemorta in the eye. “Well since I can’t begin to believe what you just told me, dear, why don’t you be so kind as to tell him what it was?”

“It’s quite simple. I’m queen and you’re in my house.”

“Minuet is queen, and I’m queen mother. I raised the queen and her two children. This is my house. Razzmorten and the crown gave it to me.”

Spitemorta let out a whoop of laughter and stopped. “Minuet is dead, dead, dead and you may be lucky enough to be the hired help in my house, if you don’t get carried away,” she said with a satiny rustle as she stepped into the doorway and pushed past Bethan.

“Now look ‘ee here, child! Queen Minuet and Razzmorten saw us just days ago, and she certainly was queen then…”

“Yea? My soldiers found them dead of the plague when we destroyed Castle Niarg, what, yesterday? And my mother grew up in this house, so it’s mine.”

Bethan went apoplectically wide eyed. “You’re Queen Spitemorta!” she gasped.

“It is Bethan’s house,” said Peredur as he steadied himself, stepping inside, “and I’m to live out my days here, too.”

“Which could be up any moment from what I see,” said Spitemorta as she picked up a piece of steak and took a bite.

“That won’t hold up before the Bench,” said Peredur.

“Queen’s Bench,” said Spitemorta with a cherubic smile and another bite.

Bethan caught his eye and shook her head.

“If you’re a willing part of my loyal service, you’ll be alive to wait on me when I come back to stay.”

“At your service, Your Majesty,” said Bethan with a heavy curtsey.

“At your service,” said Peredur with a bow.

Spitemorta stepped out into the grass and mounted the Staff. “Ta-Ta,” she said and flew away into the morning sky.

“My word!” said Peredur as they watched from the doorway. “That witch! What have we got into?”

“Something you and I are going to live through, that’s what.”

Ch. 5, The Reaper Witch, book five of Heart of the Staff: The Complete Series

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Razzorbauch Shows Ugleeuh his New Plantation in the Chokewoods

Ugleeuh looked down at her ash blackened shoes and at the greyed skirts of her black silk kirtle. Ash and the smell of fire were everywhere, particularly with it having not rained since Razzorbauch set fire to the forest on his plantation land. “I should have worn a wimple,” she thought as she held her hair away from her face in the breeze. “I hate wimples. The only one I have goes with that awful dress back at Peach Knob.” She gazed
out at the burnt off land, rolling away in gentle swags and swells, practically as far as the
eye could see in all directions. There were no insects, frogs nor birds to be heard at all
except for some ravens in the air, a good distance off, croaking before circling down to a
charred and bloated deer.

“So Leeuh,” said Razzorbauch as he took in a grand breath of air. “What do you think of our little venture, so far?”

“It’s so vast,” she said, turning to him with a bounce. “Thousands upon thousands of acres, hidden entirely in these forbidding woods.”

“Yes. I’ve put out quite a bit of effort on the forbidding part. I want this plantation to be protected. The most common tree here now has an irresistibly attractive fruit that should cause certain death. And I’ve transformed the great indigo lyoth of the jungles of the Dark Continent into a tribe of beings who hunt people. In time, no one will ever blunder onto our land. But my dear, what do you make of the project?”

“Well…if there’s really a market, how would we not make a fortune?”

“You have doubts about a market?”

“Arguments rage in Niarg, Uncle Razzorbauch. Some amongst the young and well to do think it’s marvelous, but there are a lot who call it the sweet of the very Pitmaster himself. I’m not sure that merchants there will even consider buying it.”

“Fools. Honey trader lies. They call sukere a swindle in place of honey because it threatens their trade. They tell everyone that those eating it become obsessed with the
Pitmaster’s wiles because they fear for their purses.”

“It causes no obsessions, then? Those who eat it don’t become thralls?”

“There’s not a shred of proof that it’s harmful in any way, dear. In fact, sukere gives one a sense of well-being. The more you use, the better you feel. Why, you’ve only to stop eating it to be reminded of how unhealthy you must have been before you first used it.”

“More of Father’s being an old fool. I’ve never tasted it.”

“Oh, but you have. Remember the cherry tarts at supper?”

“They were wonderful, Uncle Razzorbauch. It sounds like people need to give sukere a fair trial before making up their minds.”

“Absolutely, dear.”

“Well why couldn’t you, or we, just give them some to try? Just at first, don’t you know.”

Razzorbauch went wide eyed. “My dear, you’re a thundering prodigy. I believe you’ve just launched our little business venture. I knew having you along was going to work well.”

“Thank you, Uncle Razzorbauch,” she said with another bounce.

It’s wonderful having someone who actually likes my ideas for once.”

“I know what you mean, dear. I’ve always been the bane of the family, just as you seem to be, don’t you know.”

“We do have that in common, don’t we?”

“Without a doubt, dear,” said Razzorbauch, suddenly looking about. “But just now, if you don’t mind, we need to return to my keep so that I can be off for a spell to attend to a thing or two.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, I usually don’t get up so early in the mornings and I’d like to catch a nap.”

Razzorbauch already had out his scrying ball.
Ch. 8, Good Sister, Bad Sister

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Minuet is Beaten Senseless

The Yellow Rose Tavern was a huge three and a half storey wattle and daub house that had only been standing for three years, just down the street from Fates’ Hospital for the Sick and the Silver Dragon. Its upper storeys overhung the first floor nearly to the middle of the alleys on all sides. Minuet and Bethan rented a long room at the top under the roof in front, which opened onto a balcony far above the street between two great crucks under the gable, and which also peeped out from a tiny window under a thick blanket of thatch in the roof itself. They always ate breakfast and supper downstairs, but they usually ate their dinner at the Silver Dragon, since it was next to the hospital.

“So what was the reason Sergeant Bernard brought us down here to the inn?” said Bethan as she addressed her collards with bread and knife. “I didn’t quite catch what he was saying.”

“He didn’t say much,” said Minuet. “I guess that there was some sort of uproar at the Silver Dragon right after we left, yesterday. He thought we’d be safer down here.”

“Well, where’d he go?”

“He said he’d be right outside if we needed him,” said Minuet as she looked out across the tables under the low rows of timbers in the ceiling. “Is this all they’re bringing out for us to eat?”

“Probably. There do be pieces of ham in it. It’s just the taverner and his wife. Both cooks fled the plague, this morning.”

“I wondered why she was the one waiting on us,” said Minuet as she pressed a wad of collards onto her bread. “In here, you’d hardly think there was a plague. Everybody’s just eating peacefully.”

“They do be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the taverner’s wife is more talkative when things are normal. She hardly spoke. I’d allow that she’s a little afraid of every soul who walks in here. It’s a wonder they haven’t shooed us out and flown the coop.”

“No doubt…”

Across the room, the front door slammed shut. “There’s the witch!” shouted the woman who stepped inside, silencing everyone at the tables. Minuet dropped her bread onto her plate and turned about on her chair in alarm.

“Martha please!” said the man coming in on her heels. “You’ve had too much to drink. Please think! She’s been wonderful to the kids…”

“You doubt me, Sammy boy?” she cried, wheeling ’round and planting her feet. “I saw what I saw…”

“We all saw the pardoner and the flax haired wench…” he said as he grabbed her wrist.

Martha immediately yanked out of his grasp. “Then you’re blind as well as thick!” she shouted, nearly stumbling as she forced her way between the tables. “Had ye seen past your nose, you’d ‘ave seen it was that wizard in league with the very Elf devils who caused the plague in the first place. It was none other than Wizard Razzmorten himself
and his witch daughter, Ugleeuh!” She staggered back a step with a glance about at her
audience of wide-eyed diners. “No wonder he came to town as a pardoner. He knew
they’d be run out if people recognized him.” Suddenly she took a tramp toward Minuet.
“In fact, maybe it’s time something was done about that entire family. Everyone knows
they practice the dark arts.”

Minuet shot to her feet. “Shame on you!” she shouted. “If it weren’t for my father, the queen herself would be dead this minute! Scores of people have caught the plague and are alive right now because of him…!”

“Yea!” she barked, peppering Minuet’s face with flecks of spit. “Like all the pointy eared foreigners who caused it!”

“Foreigners! How can you say such a thing! They were here a thousand years ago, before there ever was a Niarg…”

“A threat to us the whole time , Missy!” cried Martha, smiling with her hateful piggy eyes as an angry drone stirred through the diners.

“A threat?” cried Minuet, turning to the crowd. “How many of you are alive today because you were healed by the Elves? How many of you would have died in childbirth
had it not been for them? How is it wrong to keep them alive alongside us?”

Bethan could see that the grumbling diners were not making kind replies. She saw her moment at once and quietly slipped out to summon Sergeant Bernard.

“And as for you, Martha Benton,” said Minuet, “how come you call me a witch when only yesterday you said I was like unto an angel?”

“I didn’t know the truth!” she shouted for all to hear. “You held me under an enchantment and used your dark magicks on my dear children. For all we know, you’ve left us changlings under your spell!”

“That’s a lie, Martha! I used no magicks! Your children are still your children. And they’re going to live a long life, too, thanks to my father’s drops which I’ve been giving them every four hours!”

“Yea? And we’d never have let you get away with that, had we only known!”

Minuet was stunned, standing there alone. “I’ve no time for this,” she stammered, turning to leave as diners began pushing back their chairs throughout the room. “We’ve got drops to give and bedpans to haul. Come on, Bethan…”

“So where’s your hired woman, witch?” shouted Martha, blocking Minuet’s escape as the entire dining room crowded around. “Could it be that we’re onto the truth and she didn’t want to hang alongside you for your sorceries?”

“If I were a witch,” cried Minuet, standing her ground before the huge woman, “why have I not struck you down with a curse by now?”

Martha dropped her jaw at this and grabbed herself by the throat to sit down on the floor with a heavy plump and topple onto her side like a sack of corn. The crowd stepped back with wide-eyed gasps.

“Good show Martha!” cried Minuet. “But the only thing wrong with you is your vicious demeanor!”

“You killed my wife!” shouted Sam, falling to his knees beside her as shouts of “Rope! Rope!” erupted from the crowd.

“She’s no more dead than I am!” cried Minuet.

“How do we know you’re alive?” shouted Sam.

“Yea!” hollered someone. “Hang her and burn her!”

“Rope! Rope! Rope!” chanted the crowd, as two huge men grabbed her and threw her against the wall to pummel her face and break her wrist, causing her to black out and fall to the floor, where they began kicking her at once.

“Stop!” bellowed Sergeant Bernard as he flung open the door, sword drawn.

Bethan came in right on his heels, elbowing her way through the crowd in a fury. “My baby girl!” she shrieked as she grabbed one of the kicking men by the hair on the back of his head, yanking him off balance onto the floor.

“Why you old sow!” cried the other man as he wheeled and kicked Bethan in the thigh, knocking her onto the floor.

“My baby!” she cried as she flew to her feet to rip open his belly with her dirk

The man on the floor rose to his knees, drawing his sword in time for Bernard to take off his head with a whistling swing of his saber.

By now the room had fallen to a hush as Minuet and Bethan’s other four bodyguards entered with swords drawn, followed by a dozen other royal guardsmen. Bethan knelt over Minuet, sobbing and smoothing her hair from her face.

“Seize that man trying to hide the rope!” shouted Bernard.

There was a brief scuffle as murmurs began stirring.

“Silence!” roared Bernard, punctuating the quiet which followed with the sound of his heels on the boards of the floor as he paced. “I am placing under arrest every one of you on this side of the room, from the man with the rope, clean to the wall, except for
Mistress Dewin and Bethan…”

“Why not the witch?” said Sam as he knelt by Martha. “If she’s not killed my wife, she at least has a spell on her.”

Bernard motioned to one of the guardsmen with a nod and whispered something in his ear. “We will hold you in the castle jail until you appear before the King’s Bench,” he said, continuing his speech as the guardsman slipped outside.

“What about the witch?” cried Sam as the guardsman returned with a hunting crop and handed it to Bernard.

Bernard made no reply as he took the crop and walked calmly over to Martha, smacking her rump with a furious whistling crack, causing her to jerk away with a yodeling shriek, tumbling up onto her knees wide eyed as she dearly held her behind. “I’m right glad to see that you’ll be awake for your hearing, dear,” he said as he handed the hunting crop back to the guardsman.

Ch. 11, Good Sister, Bad Sister

(Click on book title or book image to download from Amazon)

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Ugleeuh Loves her Bloated Hubba Hubba

Lukus swelled up with a rejoinder, but dropped it at the sight of ol’ Ma’am returning with an armload of blankets. On her shoulder perched a huge smug crow. “What a conceited fowl,” he thought.

“Here’s my dearest,” she said grandly. “His name is Hubba Hubba and he is such a darling, but I’m afraid he enjoys eating more than he does flying. He’s just a bit too plump to get off the ground these days…”

Ch. 10, The Collector Witch

***

“Yea,” said Hubba Hubba with pompous arrogance. “Time to eat.”

Rose bolted upright, wide eyed. “It talks!” she said, flinging back her covers. “I thought only parrots could do that, and not even all of them.”

Ugleeuh and Hubba Hubba turned to glare at her with one icy accord, reminding her so much of a pair of glaciers, that without thinking she pulled her blankets back over her legs.

“My name is Hubba Hubba,” he said with a flash of his eyes, as he straightened his heft beneath his bristling mantle of feathers. “I am not a thing. Do not refer to me as ‘It!’”

Ugleeuh swelled up with a hiss through her nose to glower down at Rose.

Rose shrank back into her bed roll.

“I don’t like parrots,” she snarled. “I would never have one, and I prefer not to discuss the vile creatures. Crows, particularly this one, have far greater command of language than any parrot. And from now on, if either of you talks about or speaks to my dearest, you’ll call him Hubba Hubba. Is that perfectly clear?”

Ch. 10, The Collector Witch

****

“So,” said Hubba Hubba with a rasp like a rusty hinge as he leveled a derisive squint. “Just how much of the time which you just spent outside was actually taken up by deciding if your unicorns were indeed gone? At this rate, I’ll be lucky to get into the air before Ugleeuh gets back. Why, she might not even see me up there and crash into me. Chaos and mayhem. I’d be dead and you two would be to blame. She’d never get over it. She’d never forgive you. Never let you go if she even let you live.”

“Don’t you dare threaten us with that old sow witch of yours, Lard Ball!” shouted Lukus, lunging at him with a stamp. “What I want to know is what the old bat’s done with our unicorns. She has no right to take them! She could hang for it, don’t you know. Where are they? She has no…”

“Careful there snot,” he said as he leant forward, following Lukus’s movements minutely. “You’re repeating yourself. And I’d also advise you to be cautious about how you speak to me and how you treat me, because Ugleeuh will hear of it. In fact, she’s told me to give her a complete report of your entire behavior upon her return, and I must say that it’s not very favorable, so far.”

Ch. 11, The Collector Witch

***

“Good,” she said. “Then I suppose we have no choice for our next step but to hitch up the sparrows.” She shuddered as she looked about and found them, shackled to their iron balls, pecking at crumbs on the floor. “So then, Hubba Hubba, just how does one wrangle venomous little birds into harnesses and make them do your bidding without getting poisoned in the process?”

He made no reply, but Rose’s comment stopped all three sparrows at once. They gazed up at her, keenly absorbed in what she was up to. He leant forward, clacked his beak and leered at them, but the grumpy gesture caused them to break out in a titter. He ruffled up with a heavy shake and hoisted himself into an aloof posture.

Rose turned to Lukus. He shrugged, making it quite clear that he knew no more about the matter than she.

“Well,” said Hubba Hubba from under a half opened eye, “they might not be quite as deadly as Ugleeuh led you to believe.”

“Just how much risk is there to handling them?” said Rose.

“Practically none,” he said, almost meekly.

“Practically!” yelped Lukus. “What does that mean? Either the birds are dangerous or they aren’t, Tubbo!”

“Name calling is very childish and rude,” said Hubba Hubba as he drew himself up on his perch, obviously stung by Lukus’s taunts about his corpulence. “It was not I, dear impetuous one, who told you that tale about the slaves, you know.”

“No, but you’re the one who’s refused to be clear about it, yet.”

“Lukus! None of this is getting us anywhere,” said Rose. “Hubba Hubba, are the sparrows poisonous or not?”

“Not in the least,” he sighed. “Chirp, Tweet and Squeak merely have small minds.”

Ch. 11, The Collector Witch

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

Who is Razzmorten?

Razzmorten Dewin, the good wizard who is an important player throughout our epic series Heart of the Staff, is born to the First Wizard and his mistress Gwenyth, three hundred and fifty years before his grandchildren, Rose and Lukus of the House of Niarg. The First Wizard wielded enormous magical power because his father was an Elf and his mother was a Human (a race of human in our use). Razzmorten’s twin brother is the evil wizard Razzorbauch, who turns the Forest Primeval into the Chokewoods and himself into a crop burning dragon in Good Sister, Bad Sister.

Razzmorten marries the good lady Blodeuwedd, who dies giving birth to his first daughter Minuet. He hires Demonica to be Minuet’s nanny. After a time, he marries her. She gives birth to Ugleeuh whilst he is away and vanishes with the crystal Heart from Castle Niarg, leaving him to raise his two daughters by himself.

When a great plague comes to Niarg in Good Sister, Bad Sister, he discovers and produces a cure. Ugleeuh has designs on Niarg’s Prince Hebraun. However, Hebraun takes an interest in Minuet. When King Henry announces their betrothal, he makes Razzmorten the Wizard to the Crown for his saving Niarg from the pestilence. Ugleeuh vanishes for a few years. When she returns to Niarg with her powers dangerously well developed to find Minuet and Hebraun married and attempts to murder them, Razzmorten creates powerful magical wards to protect Niarg from her, confining her to the Chokewoods.

When Minuet’s children, Rose and Lukus are in their teens in The Collector Witch, they stumble onto Ugleeuh in in her part of the Chokewoods, amusing herself by flying about on a broom. She holds them captive at once and tries to use them to buy her freedom by sending her crow to Razzmorten with an extortion note for the Crown. Razzmorten promises Minuet that he will do what ever it takes to protect them. When Ugleeuh catches them attempting to flee, her own daughter Spitemorta appears at the scene to make off with her broom.

Spitemorta murders her adoptive parents in order to assume the throne of Goll. The handle of her new broom turns out to be the Great Staff of Power which was taken from the great everwaking oak Longbark by the First Wizard. When word of the Staff in Spitemorta’s hands reaches Demonica, across the sea on Head in Stone Heart, she goes to Goll to be the new nanny of Spitemorta’s son. Soon she and Spitemorta are off on a hunt for the great crystal Heart of the Staff. Meanwhile Razzmorten, Rose and Lukus go back to the Chokewoods see just how much Ugleeuh’s magic has faded to find Fuzz the bear trying frantically to keep the Heart out of Spitemorta and Demonica’s hands. When Razzmorten’s party and Fuzz begin traveling together, they are waylaid by Spitemorta and Demonica who blow the head off of one of the party, put Razzmorten into a coma, crippling his powers, and grab up the Heart from the ground where it has fallen. With the Heart and the Staff, Spitemorta and Demonica at last have tools powerful enough to plan the conquest of the world.

When Razzmorten comes out of his coma, he believes that since Spitemorta and Demonica are likely to fear being stopped by another half Elf-half Human like the First Wizard, they will seek to destroy every Elf alive before turning on Niarg. He sets about searching for ways to stop them whilst his powers slowly return.

Demonica introduces to Spitemorta the skinweler, a sphere of catoptrolite crystal, so that she can control the minds of her subjects. She at once distributes Skinwelerioù far and wide. In The Burgeoning they destroy Oilean Gairdin, sending the Elves fleeing into the Wilderlands before bringing down Castle Niarg and sending Razzmorten and Minuet into the Pitmaster’s Kettles to seek refuge under the mountains with the three Fairy sisters.

Razzmorten continues to be instrumental in The Reaper Witch and Doom.

Tom Phipps

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