Quen Nim (4 page)

“The snapjaw Missst, so it be. And the merry hollowite. How many bars has it been? Months? A year? Such a flood of unexpected happiness. How be my Rin? My stubborn Rin,” prattled Riffle Sike, descending.

“She's fine,” flatly stated Nimby.

“And ye? How be ye? Have I not heard that there be a bubble of change in the wind for ye?” he asked with a grin and a wink.

“A bubble of change, a bubble of change, a bubble of change, how very strange,” sang Motty, clasping her hands and rolling her froggy eyes.

“Settle, Motty!” snapped Nimble Missst. “Ye know, Uncle. Ye know more than enough. Why have ye helped the cowardly Prince escape to Sadlar's?”

“What say ye? Ah, there be an unexpected wave topple. The Blossom Prince? That meek attachment to the Quing? Escaped? Why escaped? How escaped?” said Riffle Sike, oozing innocence.

“Zootch is afraid of Nimby. He wrote it on a note and fled,” sang Motty, looping her tongue in amazing ways.

“SETTLE, MOTTY!” screamed Nimble Missst, bringing out to bulge some few veins in her smoke ash green neck. “It's true. That is what it is. Ridiculous. Afraid of me. Ridiculous. Ye helped him flee to Sadlar's, didn't ye, Uncle?”

“I? No. Not. How me? Why Sadlar's?” sputtered Riffle Sike.

“I am not simple. I possess a snapjaw mind. I have read the clues. I want to know why ye helped him. That is all. It does no good. I will find him. I will drag him to the Castle of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. I will wed him, leave him there as Kinnng or Kinnnnnng or however many ridiculous ‘n's he wants, go off on my own as Quen, visit the Castle once, no, twice a year. Twice is better. Two days. Two days only! Celebrations. I will solve any and all problems brought forth by any and all citizens. Quen Problem Solving Days! They will be called The Most Royal AND Regal Quen Problem Solving Days! Then away I'll go, free on my own! There it is! There it is! The plan!”

While Nimble Missst's thoughts unspooled, she paced faster and faster until she raised her fists to the sky in triumph. Her startling violet eyes flashed with confidence. She turned her gaze once more to Riffle Sike.

“I am curious, not angry,” she said evenly. “Why did ye help him?”

“How like Rindle ye be, stubborn as a glacier,” sighed Riffle Sike. “Rest at ease. I will tell ye how I have no time for meddling with Princes, Blossom or other. I will tell ye about the hidden eddy I have been searching for to discover.”

“Oh, happy, a story, a story of glory,” sang Motty, and she plumped herself down, crossing three legs over three knees and resting her froggy head in the palms of her hands.

“Ridiculous,” said Nimby. “Speak, Uncle.”

“Here be the way that it became how,” began Riffle Sike, sitting cross-legged in the air above the pool. “Ever since the day your grandfather, my brother Runner Rill, successfully changed himself into a river, I have nurtured a secret envy. I, too, had a dream. I have it yet. It be my desire to change myself into a laughing breeze. Oh, yes, roll your eyes, daughter of Rin. Nevertheless, so said, it be my dream. Ah, the spells and potions I have concocted. The amulets and chants I have tried. More attempts it seems than the drops of water that plunge in a day down a thundering falls. I scarcely have time to notice the moons, whether they be slivers or fat. Blossom Prince? I have seen him some few times. Times when I visited the Castle terraces to pluck a petal, a leaf, or a stem for my project. I noted his sad eyes, trodden as he was beneath the Quing. Never, I tell ye, have I spoken to him. When a nester troubadour passed by here some days ago and told to me the news that the prince was to marry ye, my thought was ‘Good, better to be trodden on by Rin's daughter than by the Quing'. That be all. If the prince be in Clover at Sadlar's, it be not done with aid from me.”

“So ye say,” snorted Nimby, unconvinced. “I'll know soon enough. Come, Motty. To Sadlar's Gardens. And Uncle, may ye have success changing yourself into wind.”

“Laughing breeze,” corrected Riffle Sike as Nimble Missst and Motty flew off.

“Whatever it is, there's one word for it,” muttered Nimble Missst, heading south for the Greenwilla River and Clover. “Ridiculous.”

Chapter Eleven

Sadlar and Gorge

Nimble Missst tucked her wits to business, no more delays, no more meaningless chats with ridiculous relatives. South to the Greenwilla River flew Nimby and fluttering Motty. Once there, they made a hard veer turn west to follow the river's flow. By mountainous Skrabble on the left, then by Danken Wood on the right, they winged smartly until in the distance a patchwork of colors along the Greenwilla's southern bank appeared among the rolling green hills of Clover. Such was the how that Sadlar's Gardens announced ‘emselves to viewers in the sky.

Low they swept to land on a neatly groomed path in the midst of the blooms. White fences and trellises separated the riots of colored flowers. Though spread on a single level, Sadlar's Gardens were not unlike the Blossom Castle terraces. Such was so and not a great surprise. Sadlar himself as a youngling had been a Blossom Castle jesterbeast until he finally fled to design and build his own gardens. Motty twirled her tongue out to pluck a pink blossom and eat it. Nimby's severe frown and narrowed eyes forced Motty to change her mind.

“One blossom no? One blossom no? The pinks are fresh, row on row,” she sang, shrugging.

“They'll still be fresh AFTER we find the prince,” said Nimble Missst. “Over there. That tall hedgerow next to the tool shed.”

So saying, Nimby trod the path toward the single opening in a giant hedgerow which curved away left and right. Truth, the hedgerow grew in a great circle. Nimble Missst called out warning as she walked.

“Be not afraid, Blossom Prince. I will not harm ye,” she announced loudly before muttering, “Ridiculous.”

“Sad?!” boomed a voice from inside the hedgerow circle.

“Who is it?” boomed another growl of a voice.

“I am Nimble Missst, Princess of Cloud Castle City. I am here to collect the Blossom Prince Zootch,” called Nimby confidently. She entered the hedgerow opening.

“She's the princess, she's the princess, may I eat a pink?” sang Motty while dancing a six-legged stumble around and about the exasperated Nimby. The two emerged so such on the inner of the circle.

“Settle!” Nimby hissed.

Seated on two immense woven cane chairs were the famous huge and monstrous monsters, Sadlar and Gorge. Between the two of ‘em, they had more than enough horns and tusks and claws and talons and yellow goggle eyes and massive muscles and rusty red hair and night blue hair and scales and rows of pointy teeth. Sadlar, a jesterbeast long absent from his Woods Beyond the Wood home, and Gorge, the 3-toed troll, neighbor of the lavender witch of the Danken Wood, were the best of friends. So such, Gorge often visited and stayed at Sadlar's. So such, here he was.

“Sad sadness is so very sad,” rumbled Sadlar.

“You're the one who changes into clouds, aren't you?” asked Gorge. “And something else. Wait. A broken jaw mind, is it?”

“Broken jaw, broken jaw, broken jaw, ha ha ha,” sang and laughed Motty.

“Snap. Snapjaw mind,” corrected Nimby. “Show me where the prince is and we'll leave.”

“Sadly sad? Sad sad,” said Sadlar.

“I don't know either,” said the troll, nodding in agreement with Sadlar.

“The clues say he's here. I have a snapjaw mind,” Nimby informed and reminded ‘em.

“Sadness is very sad. Sadly, sad can be sadder than sad. So sad,” said Sadlar. “Sometimes sudden.”

Motty blinked her froggy eyes and gaped. Nimby did not gape, but she did begin to feel somewhat so such uneasy. The two great beasts looked at her quizzically.

“No one or thing has been here in bars of weeks. You're the first,” said Gorge. “Sadlar's been up and down the gardens, tending. I've been reweaving and fortifying these chairs. No Prince. No nothing. You're on the wrong trail, Nimble Missst.”

“Sadly,” added Sadlar.

Nimby felt weak in the knees. Wrong? Was it even possible?

Chapter Twelve

The Rage of Zilp

While Nimby doubted her snapjaw mind in the face of the widely known proverbial honesty of the beasts Sadlar and Gorge, Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen Zilp demonstrated her rage at the Castle of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. Cloud Castle City hovered not directly above the Castle, but close by over a field of oats. The dismaying news of Zootch's flight had arrived with the flying city. In the Boad Castle courtyard vedling carts stacked high with Royal retirement goods and possessions were lined up in stalled procession, the expected journey unexpectedly delayed. Cartjaggers and hutters lounged in clumps, gossiping. In the Great Hall, Zilp was a Blossom stone statue. Gathered around her were Lady May, Old Dabber, Jay Dot, Rindle Mer, and Kinng Forr. All attendants and officials had been sent away so as not to witness the rage of Zilp.

“Nimby will fetch the wayward Prince. No doubt. All will be as so it should,” said Old Dabber, ever confident in his granddaughter's snapjaw mind.

The others nodded in agreement, Lady May unusually subdued, Jay Dot hopeful, Rindle Mer once again clad in the comfort of her badly stitched tunic and craftpants. Zilp's little finger on her left hand quivered. Save so such, she was motionless. Kinng Forr smiled weakly and placed a chalky turquoise hand on the battered silver puffed sleeve of Zilp's gown.

“My dear, it am as it are, true. The maiden has a snapjaw mind. We will be gone and away to retirement and rest in our modest Northern Foothills thirty-seven adjoining newly carved residences before we know it. This will all be a moderate memory,” soothed Kinng Forr.

On the pale blue left hand of the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen, the finger next to the little finger commenced to shake. Two fingers now quivered! Never before had Zilp been in so such a rage. Her pale blue lips almost moved as she spoke.

“Never has desperation destroyed me so utterly completely all at once and at the same time, root and stem, stem and root,” she droned in her bland Blossom Royal monotone. “My own and only nephew, my deeply emotional and mentally challenged sister's son, has betrayed a dream of a simple country life in thirty-seven residences, shattered the dream on my broken and twisted body. Never again will I lift my eyes to the light, turn my face to the sun, never again sing merrily or dance trippingly over tender grasses, never scream out joy in the morning, never slake my thirst for thrilling delights. It is over and done for once and truly all. Rudeness in one's own family. It cannot be borne by such a fragile blossom as I. It will not be borne. Hopes drained, life all but ebbed, I must somehow someway drag my pitiful self to my chamber. Please forgive this wild and physical outburst. The rudeness of Zootch, no doubt seeded early and tended faithfully by my dearly loved sister, has destroyed my soul. Forr, attend this shell of the simple joyfully larking maiden you once knew and escort me from this scene of devastation.”

“Yes, my dear,” said the Kinng, taking the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen's elbow.

“It is of no use. You will have to pluck me and carry me. I am rooted in despair. My wild exertions have exhausted me to uselessness,” blandly announced Zilp.

“Yes, my dear,” said Kinng Forr, and he lifted his stricken to uselessness wife to carry her off while mouthing over his shoulder to the others ‘She'll be fine'.

After the Kinng disappeared with his wifely burden up the steps at the far end of the Great Hall, Rindle Mer threw herself to sit on one of the carven thrones. Lady May launched herself in mad flight around the room before settling in a high niche above a row of green and gold pennants. Old Dabber seated himself at one of the long oaken tables. Jay Dot stayed where he was and blinked his startling violet eyes.

“How do you think that went? Well? Or unwell? What about the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined if …?” he said.

“Do ye know your own daughter?” interrupted Rindle Mer. “Have ye not seen her snapjaw mind at work? Be ye not in awe of her? Well, be ye?!”

“I be … I mean I am, but … what about …?”

“No more what abouts,” said Old Dabber. “Son, practice patience, sabeek orrun. We all of us know and agree that there has never before been such a one as our Nimble Missst. She solved the rune riddle of the Lemonlime Dragon. Her round blue room is filled with completed puzzles and constructs, the most dazzlingly difficult known. She has accepted her duty. You all saw with your own eyes this very morning. She'll be here with the reluctant Prince by tomorrow, I have no doubt. May, come down. Let us attempt to make a dignified and Royal return to Cloud Castle City. Let us reassure all those gathered outside.”

So such they left the Great Hall, bowing and smiling except for Rindle Mer, who went scowling and upright. Before Jay Dot caught up Rindle Mer in his arms to make the short flight to Cloud Castle City, Old Dabber raised a hand and addressed the crowd in the courtyard.

“No worry,” he said. “My granddaughter has a snapjaw mind. She will be here tomorrow with the Blossom Prince, and all of the proceedings will then proceed.”

The Royal party lifted away and up to the spires of Cloud Castle City.

“Snapjaw mind? She's not the only bud that's blossomed with a snapjaw mind,” muttered a softly smiling hutter who leaned against a well-laden vedling cart.

Chapter Thirteen

Another Snapjaw Mind

The softly smiling hutter seemed so such to be like as any random typical youthful hutter. Cropped straight black hair, brown eyes, blue skin, brown sturdy tunic and tannerbritches, rugged scuffed fieldboots, he had ‘em all. He worked a sudgeburr straw from one corner of his soft blue smile to the other.

“Say there, hutter,” called a cartjagger approaching from the rear of the vedling cart against which the smiler leaned. “Could you lend me a span of assistance? I've got rope twist problems here.”