The Princess Beard Read online

  The Princess Beard is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by D. S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Del Rey and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Map by Kevin Hearne was originally published in Kill the Farm Boy by D. S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne (New York: Del Rey, 2018)

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Dawson, Delilah S., author. | Hearne, Kevin, author.

  Title: The princess beard : the tales of Pell / Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Del Rey, 2019. | Series: The tales of Pell ; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019014253 (print) | LCCN 2019018351 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524797805 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781524797812 (ebook)

  Subjects: BISAC: FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3604.A97858 P75 2019 (print) | LCC PS3604.A97858 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019014253

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019018351

  Ebook ISBN 9781524797812

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook

  Frontispiece otter illustration: iStock/Andrii-Oliinyk

  Title page border: iStock/jcrosemann

  Title page and chapter opener ornament: Vecteezy.com

  Space break ornament: iStock/mxtama

  Cover design: Scott Biel

  Cover art: Craig Phillips

  v5.4

  ep

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Chapter 1: Atop an Ivory Tower Crammed Perilously Close with Foine Books

  Chapter 2: Surrounded by Lush Locks of Hair Not Entirely Unlike Spun Silk

  Chapter 3: Flooded with Gallons of Steaming Failure and Pistachio Macarons

  Chapter 4: Flabbergasted in a Smoke-Filled Tent

  Chapter 5: High Above the Raging Sea in a Turgid Edifice of Great Renown

  Chapter 6: Gripped in the Talons of an Unclean Avian

  Chapter 7: Scrunched in by the Most Misogynistic of Hindquarters

  Chapter 8: Under Doubtful Sail in Dorf Bay

  Chapter 9: Awash in the Sludgy Slosh of the Sanguine Seas

  Chapter 10: Upon the Coming of Many Expert Seamen

  Chapter 11: Surrounded on All Sides by Oscillating Mustelids

  Chapter 12: Within Earshot of a Most Alluring Song

  Chapter 13: Ensconced in a Tower of Broken Dreams and Cracker Crumbs

  Chapter 14: Wrapped in a Malodorous and Annoyingly Insistent Scarf

  Chapter 15: Amidst a Hail of Glutinous Artillery

  Chapter 16: In an Oleaginous Office Harboring Secrets Moste Foule

  Chapter 17: Discovering the Martial Applications of Red Velvet Cake

  Chapter 18: Pell Hath No Fury Like a Parrot Scorned

  Chapter 19: In a Tureen and Deeply Discomfited by Floating Turnip Chunks

  Chapter 20: Surrounded by Buttocks Moste Moist and Meaty

  Chapter 21: Out of the Frying Pan and into the Cake Mold

  Chapter 22: Lured into the Velvety Dark by a Voice Most Cloying and Mendacious

  Chapter 23: Of Ghosts and Bargains and the Joys of Musubi

  Chapter 24: Stained with the Repugnant Juice of Sticky, Hairy Berries

  Chapter 25: Up to the Fetlocks in the Viscous Muck of Self-Knowledge

  Chapter 26: Sticky with Failure Grog and Discomfiting Realizations

  Chapter 27: On the Dock Where It Happens

  Chapter 28: In the Enemy’s Lair and Confronted by a Bevy of Blunderbusses

  Chapter 29: On a Rooftop and Weaker Than Milky Tea

  Chapter 30: Under the Chapeau Perilous

  Chapter 31: In Which the Real Treasure Is the Actual Treasure They Found Along the Way

  Epilogue: Atop a Shoulder Most Supple and Welcoming

  Epilogue 2: Pellectric Boogaloo

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Titles

  About the Authors

  Call me Itchmael.

  But do not call me late to brunch.

  For I am the mouthpiece of the god Pellanus, and it is a tiring job, and I am an old elf in possession of dodgy knees and a distaste for mimosas. I was once a carefree elfling sprig, enjoying the heady pleasures of the Morningwood, but then I received the Call. It was as if the double-headed god spoke directly to me with both mouths.

  “Itchie,” the god boomed, a male and female tone merging.

  “Yes, hello?” I said, because that is called conversation.

  “You are to be the next Sn’archivist,” the god continued.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Ah.”

  And then there was a long and awkward pause, and I suppose Pellanus felt as confused about the whole thing as I did, because every time I tried to speak, so did they.

  “You—”

  “I really think—”

  “Itchmael, shut up.”

  And thus I did shut up, because Pellanus is a capricious god, and spontaneous combustion is real.

  “Itchmael, you are to go to the Siren Sn’archipelago. There you will find a tower, and within, you will find a very dead skeleton.”

  “Aren’t all skeletons dead?”

  The god paused. “Sure. If you say so. You see, the last Sn’archivist is but a ghost, and you will replace her.”

  “As a ghost?”

  “No, Itchmael. As the next Sn’archivist.”

  I took a moment to consider it.

  “Forgive me, O Pellanus, but that does not sound like a good job offer,” said I.

  “It is not an offer!” the god boomed, both voices ripe with fury. “It is a holy order! This is the Call. Not like a regular call, but the Call, with a capital C!”

  “Ah,” I said again, because I was quite determined to become a door-to-door sales elf. “Are the benefits good?”

  “Er, yes?” the god said. “Super good.”

  And with that, I told King Glosstangle of my sacred duty, was roundly laughed out of the Morningwood, and found the fastest ship to the Siren Sn’archipelago. There, just as Pellanus promised, I found a tower. Within that tower, I found a corpse, which was very dead, as Pellanus had also promised. I also found a fleet of helpful monks dedicated to my care; the benefits were indeed good. The first thing I did was to ask the monks to remove the skeleton as well as the ruined rug beneath it. The next thing I did was to request a new rug, plus a citrus salad, a journal, and a quill.

  For Pellanus had just begun to speak to me, and I had much to record.

  Now I have a purpose.

  And that purpose is driven by schedule.

  Oh? Yes? What?

  Pellanus has just informed me that proper Fant
asy books are always written in third person past tense, and so I will switch. Are you ready? Because, you see, I will no longer speak as I, Itchmael, but will begin telling a different story about other people, mostly. Still, when you see the Sn’archivist, that’s me. I mean him. I mean, I am him.

  Bother.

  Ahem.

  * * *

  The Sn’archivist, a most wise and clever fellow, lived according to the schedule given him by the even wiser and cleverer god, Pellanus.

  * * *

  The schedule was simple but sacrosanct. The schedule, at this point, was as much of a biological imperative for the Sn’archivist as eating, sleeping, or visiting the boom-boom room. And after waking, and blatting a sonorous blort on the tower boghorn, and quaffing three cups of kuffee and a rasher of boar bacon, it was time for him to write, without fail—and generally without variation.

  For uncounted years he had written tirelessly about the same subject. A vital subject, to be sure, for it was the secret source of joy throughout Pell, but he’d begun to wonder in recent months about whether he was accomplishing anything, since he’d filled floors of bookshelves with volumes on the subject but no one ever came to read them. What was the point of possessing such knowledge if it was never shared? He often read aloud to his shining gnomeric construct, Reginald the Affirmation Gecko, but that didn’t count. Reginald never retained anything he heard. He only spouted one of his many thousands of affirmations whenever the Sn’archivist required a response and, when lacking the proper affirmation, congratulated the Sn’archivist on continuing to exist. Your wit is a shining beacon of hope in a dark world! the gecko might say, or simply, Wow! Nice elbows, pal!

  The location of his tower might have had something to do with the poor distribution of his work, the Sn’archivist mused. Perched on the eastern precipice of an island in the Sn’archipelago, his home was hardly convenient to the populace of Pell, and he was not entirely sure they knew of his existence. He was supplied and fortified by the Sn’archdruid and a handful of monkish Sn’acolytes who looked after gardens of produce and herds of livestock, but they never asked to read his tomes. They sat around their campfire at night and listened to the Sn’archdruid tell them stories and sing them bawdy ballads about the early, earthier days, when Pellanus had been but a young and gawky god, but whenever the Sn’archivist tried to join them and sing songs of his knowledge, they fell silent and looked at their shoes and soon made excuses to go back to their holy hovels.

  Ah, well. No matter. He’d always known that following the Call would isolate him socially as well as geographically. He had his work and his gecko, and that would have to be enough. The Sn’archivist had just finished another volume yesterday and shelved it lovingly on the tenth-floor anteroom. This morning he would start a new book, putting quill to paper and letting the knowledge of years and the enlightenment of Pellanus pour out of him. But after his first cup of kuffee he didn’t feel like frying up the usual rasher of boar bacon. Instead, he wanted something different. He wanted…oatmeal! With fresh fruit! Fiber, by Pellanus! And vitamins! He rummaged in his pantry, searching for the oats, already feeling that something extraordinary was about to happen. He was about to deviate from the schedule. Indeed, he already had! Whether this would prove to be the beginning of something remarkably fine or remarkably tragic he did not know, but the prospect of variety was like a siren’s call, irresistible and alluring.

  Soon enough he sat before a bowl of oats topped with raspberries, blueberries, slivered almonds, and brown sugar. And when he sampled his first spoonful—oh, what splendid magnificence! An explosion of taste with a muted subtext of circulatory health benefits!

  “Reginald,” he declared, “this oatmeal is delicious.”

  The gold-and-silver affirmation gecko blinked and cocked his head, tiny gears turning audibly in his skull as he considered a reply. “Think of how happy you’re making your colon right now!” Reginald said. “You’re just a super dude!”

  The Sn’archivist grunted happily and continued eating. And then, halfway through his breakfast, after his second cup of kuffee but before his third, a voice spoke into either ear, except it was two voices: A woman’s in his left ear and a man’s on his right. Identical tones and inflections, but octaves apart.

  “Today, you will write a different book,” the voice intoned, and the Sn’archivist froze, not wanting to miss a single word. It was the voice of the great two-faced god Pellanus, gracing him with divine inspiration, as it once had so long ago, when he’d received the Call. He was to write a single book on a new subject, display it in a place of honor, and then point it out to whoever next came to call on him in the tower.

  And then the double voice told him the subject of the new book.

  The Sn’archivist dropped his spoon, oatmeal forgotten, and gulped down his last cup of kuffee. He rushed downstairs to the third floor, where his writing desk was, and ran his thin fingers over the stack of blank books waiting in a crate beside it. He pulled them all out and inspected them, wishing to choose the most flawless specimen for what was to be a truly special work. Several had small tears on the corners of the pages. Others had tiny scuffs on the cover. But eventually he picked one that seemed closest to perfection, with crisp ivory sheets and a rich ruby cover, and he placed it reverently on his desk.

  Today was different because today he would write something different. Something important! The oatmeal had been a herald of the divine! He was a conduit for powers far beyond those of most mortals! He dabbed his quill in the inkpot, paused briefly over the paper to savor the moment, and then he scratched out two words, pregnant with meaning, on the first page:

  Otter balls.

  Yes. That was it! That was it exactly. He didn’t know exactly what it was, only that those two words were most definitely, exactly, it. He could feel that he had written something vital. Something crucial. Words with the power to save lives.

  But he rather hoped no one asked him to explain how.

  Elsewhere, a hirsute lady slept in a tower covered in thorns.

  And then, quite suddenly, she didn’t.

  The Lady Harkovrita blinked and coughed. It was fusty in this room. Or musty. Moldy? Rusty. Roadkilly? Something unpleasant to her nose, anyway, even if she couldn’t pin down the precise word for it. She was groggy, which she felt was intensely unfair since she did not remember consuming any grog. In fact, she did not remember going to sleep at all. The last thing she remembered was being given a rose by a sweet little slip of a girl shortly after her father, the Earl of Borix, had decreed that roses should be entirely eliminated from Tennebruss. Something about preventing a curse.

  A gift of contraband, she’d thought as she took the rose from the girl’s hand—what was her name? Argabella! That was it. The girl was going to bard school or something boring like that, but her willingness to defy the earl’s decree regarding roses forced Harkovrita to admit she might need to reevaluate whether or not Argabella herself was boring. “How thoughtful,” she’d said to the girl. “And exciting.” And then nothing after that, until now.

  The blinking did little to clear her vision. She was gummed up pretty well with a remarkable case of eye boogers, so she raised a hand to knuckle them away and discovered that someone had done something horrifying to her fingers. They were heavy and unwieldy and most of all nightmarish, because the fingernails were perhaps a foot long and curled in yellow loops and twined together.

  Harkovrita nearly screamed, especially when she realized it was the same with her other hand: Her fingertips had all decided to nail one another. But she choked it back because she realized someone must be pranking her. She would not give them the satisfaction of a reaction. She would just quietly get up, remove these horrors from her hands, and go about her business, which was the business of being a supremely bored and sheltered lady of Borix at the dubious mercy of her noble father. At least this prank was a change in routin
e, and she did appreciate that. A little shivering body horror was occasionally a good thing. She didn’t feel groggy anymore.

  Rising to a sitting position took greater effort than it should have. As with her hands, her head weighed far more than it was supposed to, especially at the base of her skull. Looking down to either side, she saw thick braids of hair coiled like massive yellow snakes with a lustrous coat of fur instead of scaly skin. The braids disappeared behind her, and as there was no one else in the room, she had to assume that this massive amount of hair was actually hers. Or, rather, not hers but surely fakes attached to her as part of the same prank as the fingernails. But then there was the fine downy hair that draped down her front and tickled the top of her chest: How had the prankster passed up the opportunity of braiding that? And why wasn’t it in her eyes?

  She started to raise a hand to brush it away but realized her fingernails would make pretty much everything but walking impossible until she got rid of them. Those had to go first. She should have some clippers in her bureau, if she could get it open. Or handle the clippers. This was such a strange prank to pull on her. Why would anyone go to such trouble?

  Punishment. It had to be. She’d refused to accept the marriage her father had arranged with some lord’s brat in Taynt, a kid named Vendel Vas Deference, and in response the earl had decreed that next month Harkovrita would go to the Lovely Ladies Ultimate Finisher School in Songlen and then marry Vendel anyway, by Pellanus.

  Well, by Pellanus, she would exit the stage before that particular play ever began.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled, examining her room. It was a bit different. No tapestry on the wall, which was strange. She’d loved that woven vision of unicorns disemboweling young squires while maids giggled into their hands. And no mirror on her bureau. None of her model ships were in evidence either. Was this even her room? Yes, the shape of it was the same, the light from the window behind her bed the same, and this was indeed her bed, and that was her wardrobe and bureau made from well-polished Morningwood. There were simply some things missing and some…extra things in their place. The hair brushing against her chest and neck was very strange, though, and had only become more so as she turned her head from side to side. It shouldn’t be down there without passing in front of her eyes first. Unless…