Quest II: the Skull of the Mad God

The next morning’s p-mail brought increasingly worrying news about the time-twister. It was growing; it was spawning smaller time-whirlwinds that were picking up small animals, odd socks, vital documents, keys... Only a few were found again – or returned from – other planes, unharmed except for being inexplicably older, or younger, than when they had left.

Bunnysweet’s nose was pinker than usual as she served breakfast, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Please excuse me that I’m not cheerful this morning, Ma’am, m’lords, m’ladies. Cousin Mist-ears was out early this morning, gathering fragrant herbs with the dew still on them for her aromatherapy clients, and – and – she hasn’t come back! Roland Raven went to look for her, and he found – found signs that the time-storm had taken her! Oh please, if there’s anything you can do! The ravens can’t fight the storm – their Nevermore spells are time based spells too, and they say that the time-storm would eat the spell and the caster and all his tribe! Please help us!”

“Is complicated,” said Minsky, “not quick to fix. Heroes have to get ducks to line up first. First duck already sung – got Water of Youth. Second duck is skull of mad god. Today heroes go get skull.”

Toby’s own skull felt odd, as though it were pulling her neck around in a complicated dance that the rest of her body couldn’t quite manage.

Minsky looked up at her. “Dragon still drunk some,” he said, “that good. Nyet dragon take heroes to Thunderhall; time-storm too much like to chase dragon. Dragon go play kid-dragon game, play hide-and-find in border of multi-plane. Time-storm chase, time-storm get confused, time-storm bite own tail, Toby come safe home, meet heroes with skull.”

And so it was decided. Toby watched the time-twister with her third eye, until it drifted down-river. Then she sprang up, with all the lightness of the spirits she had consumed, up, up and finally through to the glorious region where the intersecting boundaries of planes, possible and actual and almost forgotten, come together in multidimensional fractal auroras. She soared and dived, she tobogganed down spirals of joy into lakes of laughter, she played tag with meteors, flicked comets out of orbit with her tail, danced on waves of light, and sprawled in sleepy content on yielding banks of memory. Then, thoroughly restored, she flashed like a jewel past the tattered and bewildered remnants of the time-storm, down, down, to alight, light as a feather, in the main courtyard of Bupleurum Spa. She was enjoying a hogshead of sparkling spring water when the others returned.

“Oh my aching wings,” Polly sighed. “Broad runs so fast in his bigfoot form that it’s all I can do to keep up with him. But we didn’t have any trouble with the time-storm – you must have kept it busy, Toby. When we arrived there was some trouble in the village, something to do with the royals, it seemed. So we left again quickly, took the path around the crag and climbed up to the Thunderhall ruins from the western wood.

“The ruins are picturesque – I always enjoy flying over them. But they are a real tangle to go into – ghosts are dreadful housekeepers. It’s also very difficult to get them to pay attention, or to find anyone that knows anything useful. Minsky kept repeating: ‘Hero need cup made from skull. Where you keep cups made from skull?’ Finally they must have tired of listening, although when they started to respond it didn’t immediately improve matters.

“At first they denied knowing about such a thing; then they denied having any. Then they agreed that they had, but they had been lost. But perhaps not, or they had been found again, and stored carefully away in a safe place – if only they could remember where. They sent us in one direction, a difficult climb for Broad, and then back in another. Through it all they kept appearing and disappearing, with loud howls and shrill laughter and dank clanging sounds – it quite set my feathers on end.

“Finally we met several older shades that seemed more responsible. They agreed that there had been a collection of such cups in the old days – one of their colleagues had been fond of the things. But he had faded out decades ago. They called a relatively new ghost, of a village boy who had been crushed by a falling stone when he and his mates had set out to rob that very room. He knew where it was. He groaned and moaned and carried on, even trying new ectoplasmic forms to scare us, but finally he led us to it. The only problem was that the roof had fallen in. There was no corridor, no room, just a jumble of fallen rocks.

“But Minsky wasn’t discouraged. He found a crevice beneath a fallen pillar, and pushed his way through it. He was gone a half hour, and we were wondering if he had gotten lost, or trapped in there under the stones. Then we heard him call – he had the cup, but he couldn’t get it out. So Broad turned into a bear, and dug a bit under the pillar, to enlarge the passageway. I have another bird form I don’t use much, a little burrowing owl. I switched to that, and went in to meet Minsky. It was tight, even for me, and I was beginning to contemplate full blown claustrophobia before I reached Minsky. Once we were together, things seemed to open up a bit. It was still difficult, but we got the cup out. And here we are, and here’s Minsky with the skull-cup!”

Minsky produced it from Broad’s knapsack. The cup was almost taller than Minsky as he sat on his haunches looking at it. The bone bowl was apparently intact, though discoloured and filled with dusty webs. A large spider crawled up onto the rim, chittering angrily. Sergeant Thorn reached a leafy limb towards it, and rustled soothingly. It hesitated, them climbed onto the offered bridge. What metal had been used in mounting the bone was impossible to tell under the grime. That it had been elaborately, even extravagantly made was obvious, as was the fact that it had seen better days. The twisted stem might have been part of the original design; the missing leg on one corner of the base and the strange cant of the bowl probably were not.

They looked at it in silence. Finally Bunnysweet said, “We can clean it for you.”

“I know you’ll be gentle,” the Queen said with a smile.

Bunnysweet scurried off with the cup, sending one of her relatives back with refreshments for the rest of the group while they waited. “Polly,” asked Uncle Ernie, “please excuse an old man’s curiosity. We didn’t have were-people in the old days, or those we had were so deep in the closet that we didn’t know they were among us. But I often wondered when I heard the stories of transforming – what happens to your extra human mass when you change into a bird?”

Polly smiled at him. “It’s a good question; most beings don’t think to ask. I change into several birds – five macaws, or lots of burrowing owls. But I materialize only one fully, so that’s all people see. The others are there, though, and can help with what’s needed. It took seven little owls to help Minsky drag that ridiculous cup out from under the rocks.”

“Thank you,” said Uncle Ernie. “And I suppose Broad does something similar from bear to human too. This new world is a wonderful place. I am glad I lived to see it.”

They heard the Countess before they saw her. “Get out of my way! Of course I can go in! I don’t need permission from any of you lot; this is my palace.”

Sergeant Thorn apologised for the disturbance. “We’ll keep her away, of course. But wouldn’t it be better to have a Nevermore spell set on her? She isn’t improving, she’ll need one eventually, for the peace of the Spa. Why not now?”

“Give her a day or two longer to come to her senses,” said the Queen. “She probably wants to hear the news from Briar. Good evening, Countess.”

“I have nothing to say to you! You should be home nursing your poor husband, who did so much for you! My heart aches for him, there on his sick-bed alone – while you sit here taking your ease and talking to rabbits! They are rabbits, Madget, rabbits and dirty carrion birds and vegetation – don’t you understand?”

“I understand,” said the Queen, “they are really lovely people, so caring, and they are doing wonderful things with the Spa. And you needn’t worry about his poor Majesty being alone much longer, alone with his physician and courtiers and all the staff at Briar Castle. He’ll be brought here as soon as it is safe to travel. I’ve been talking to Windleaper – they have a wing devoted to poor creatures who can’t help themselves, and need help with everything. He showed me through it – everything is provided, and the staff are so good with them, keeping them clean and cheerful. You’ll be able to visit him every day. I’m sure you will both enjoy that.”

“I will not take over your duties, Madget! If nobody ever visits him again it would serve him right! Finally he’ll understand what he brought among us when he married you. What could he have been thinking? Marrying a scheming ungrateful peasant wench, who has turned the world upside down – destroyed kingdoms, and ruined her betters. If our world is never safe for Royals again, it will be your wretched fault, yours alone!”

“Thank you, Countess,” the Queen said, “I enjoy hearing your point of view, though perhaps you give me too much credit. But I’m sure you have other claims on your attention, as have I. Sergeant Thorn, perhaps you would escort the Countess to her room?”

Sergeant Thorn and her squad hustled the protesting Countess away.

Rose turned to her mother. “I’ve two things to ask you, and I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll start with both. Why did you and Daddy get married? And why do you let the Countess talk to you like that? If I hadn’t heard what she was saying I’d have thought you were enjoying the conversation!”

“As to why we married,” said the Queen, “I’m sure you heard the stories – handsome young prince meets pretty peasant girl in the forest, he sweeps her off her feet, they decide to marry. They overcome the opposition of both their families, are married in a glittering ceremony, and settle down in marital bliss until the end of their long and happy lives.”

“Yes, they told me, and I used to think it was such a lovely romantic story. It still seems lovely and romantic, but now I’m not so sure the story has anything to do with the two of you. For starters, I don’t believe that Daddy was ever handsome.”

“Well then, try this. Prince with squingy eyes and big nose spies pretty peasant girl in the forest. He pursues her; she escapes. He pursues again; she manages to escape again (she has help from a wise old Auntie who know some simple concealment spells). Some busybody tells him her name. He asks who her father is, and buys her from him. The village priest performs the marriage ceremony forthwith; and, without warning the Prince, he adds some kind of spell to make the marriage irrevocable. So the Prince has to take her home to his parents and introduce her as his new bride. His family is naturally appalled, his court scornful. They go out of their way to make the new bride feel like a nobody.

“She feels she has lost everything. Her village friends are far away, shut out by castle walls. The boy that she intended to marry shouts insults as she is led out of the village, calling her a conniving slut. The prince’s men rush him, catch him and beat him unmercifully – she rides away from the only home she’d ever known to the sound of that beating. It is weeks before she finds out that he is dead. She despairs.

“But she gradually she learns that she has friends, even within the cold confining walls of the castle. The servants are from the village, they are kin of her family and friends. Some of them envy her, but some pity her and bring her news, on the quiet. Aunt Nellie comes, in the guise of a servant, and talks to her as she brushes her hair. She explores, she meets Uncle Ernie in the library, Aunt Lilly making cheeses in the dairy.

“Then she finds that she is pregnant. She hears the court fairies planning the spells they will use to contain and control her poor babe. She talks to Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ernie; together they try to work out how to counter the fairy curses. As the plan grows, over the weeks, they begin to understand that it contains a glimmer, a tiny chance of something larger. Could it possibly counter the larger curse from which the people suffer, the curse of royal parasites feeding on the life of the countryside?

“The day of the christening comes. The fairies deliver their curses. Aunt Nellie’s carefully woven counter-spell is cast.

“Aunt Nellie must of course disappear. The young Queen loses the daily contact with her that restored hope to her life. But she has other things to sustain her: love for her daughter, surreptitious meetings with family and friends among the staff, and determination to bring about the destruction of the royal families that surround her with evil wishes and evil deeds.

“What do you think of that story, Rose?”

“It sounds more likely than the other – poor Mamma!” Rose hugged her mother, and leaned down to drop a kiss on her hair.

“I don’t know if I ever quite believed it would work,” the Queen said, “but, against all odds, it seems that it has. You see why I love to listen to the Countess telling me that I’ve destroyed her kind and her world? I wanted it, I worked hard for it, I thought I must be mad even to dream it possible! And she tells me I have done it! She’s wrong about it being single-handed; of course I had help. But we’ve won! You are free of the fairy curses, and the land is free of the accursed royals. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn’t just a dream.”

“Ma’am, we did our best with the cup,” said Bunnysweet, “but it still looks strange. We are working on replacing the missing leg. Meanwhile we’ve carved a temporary one out of a piece of carrot, so it will stand up. I hope nobody plans to drink from it. We don’t know any way to make that old bone sanitary.”

“Thank you, Bunnysweet,” said the Queen, “you’ve cleaned it up wonderfully. I wonder what that metal is. Look there, there was some silver plating – and gold leaf around the rim?”

“So, second fat duck singing in row is,” said Minsky.

“How,” Rose asked him, “did you know that this bone on this cup is from the skull of a mad god?”

“Easy,” replied Minsky, “old gods all mad. Same like old royals all mad; in-bred too much.”