The Princess Beard Read online

  “Not all elves fit your stereotype, madam, just as not all humans fit the legends told of your people.” He eyed the man who’d called out first. “Are not all humans noble, broad-chested, and ever ready to help a friend?” The man deflated over his ale belly, and Alobartalus faced down the woman. “Kind, graceful, and birthing strong sons who don’t pick their nose and wipe it on priceless artifacts?” The woman wrenched her beloved Dordley away from where he was smearing slime on the Umbrella Rack of Rattlesack the Relevant.

  “So, now that we’re all clear on the evil of stereotypes, let us continue the tour. As the Morningwood is currently off-limits to humans, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and anyone not sporting naturally pointed ears and a lineage of seers and sages, Proudwood Lighthouse is your only source of true elven knowledge, artifacts, and souvenirs. Please deposit your fickel in the Enchanted Fickelbox of Fair Fianamalla the Fleet-Footed or be cursed forever.”

  A granny stepped forward, her mouth bracketed and actively scrunched. “Thought you elves accepted cheese as payment? I brought me a bit of cheese, see.” She held up a few crumbles of what appeared to be a very sad Styffy, and Alobartalus thought some rather rude thoughts about his uncle, the king.

  “Yes, my fair lady, we elves are, for the most part, quite fond of cheese—complete cheeses, mind, still wrapped in wax and untouched by human hands. But the trading of cheeses in the Morningwood proper is by the king’s own command and does not extend to the Proudwood Lighthouse, I’m afraid.” He waved a hand at the box. “And, as you can see, the slot is made to fit only fickels, not cheese and pickles.”

  “Pickles?” the old lady perked up and began pawing through her grimy reticule.

  “Alas, madam, we do not accept pickles as payment, and I’m not jerkin’ your gherkin.”

  She stopped pawing and squinted up at him through rheumy eyes. “Yeah, he’s a real elf. I met one, once, when I was young and traipsing through a glade. They talk like that, you know. In riddles.”

  “Euphemisms,” Alobartalus corrected.

  “Bless you.”

  Alobartalus closed his eyes and struggled to find his character.

  Tall. Imposing. Superior. Otherworldly. Magical. Kind of a prig.

  He opened his eyes and spun, tossing out a bit of glitter to rain down behind him. “I trust you will render your fickels and follow me for the official tour of elven wonder,” he intoned. “This way to the Room of Erudite Enlightenment!”

  When he’d heard the proper number of clanks in the fickel box, he threw open the doors to the room and watched the humans file in one by one, their jaws slack with wonder. A large part of his job, honestly, was about throwing doors open with proper drama and flair. And the Room of Erudite Enlightenment was actually called the Room of Messing with Stupid Humans, and it was just chock-full of enchanted mirrors that made humans get lost for ten minutes, sink into existential fear, confront their greatest weakness, break down crying, and leave feeling as if they’d touched true magic, because they had felt genuine emotions. Alobartalus loved it because he never had to go inside; he could merely wait in the antechamber beyond, listening to the confusion, weeping, and sighs of awe within. And they were so much more pliable afterward.

  All this You’re not an elf! business would be replaced with Who am I and why am I here, in Pell? That, in turn, was really good for sales of the Enchanted Elven T-shirts he sold in the gift shop, which were emblazoned with the slogan WELL, WHY NOT?

  He sat down on the Tufted Ottoman of Pleased Podiatry and felt the blisters from his high heels fade. But, much to his surprise, someone tapped him on the shoulder. Alobartalus gasped, jumped, and nearly fell off the stool.

  “I thought elves were masters of their environment,” the boy, Dordley, said, all sullen and suspicious. “Some ranger you are.”

  Alobartalus looked around to be sure they were alone and leaned in close. “I’ll tell you a secret, Dordley. Would you like that?” The boy nodded eagerly, his forelock flapping. “You see, the elves have some ongoing fertility problems. In part because our women are very demanding in bed and our men mostly like to look at themselves admiringly, but also because so many of the women have fled to the west to escape the creeping squalor of the non-elves.”

  “What’s to the west?” Dordley asked, and Alobartalus knew then with complete surety that the boy was one of the worst things the human race had ever invented: a chronic interrupter.

  Instead of answering, Alobartalus fetched a fetching hat from a peg on the wall and dropped it on the boy’s head. Dordley’s mouth popped open, but he said nothing, and he looked very surprised at that occurrence.

  “Cliteria’s Cap of Censorship,” Alobartalus said. “Touch it with those filthy hands, and I’ll toss you out of the lighthouse to be eaten by orcas. Now, listen like a good lesser life-form. Ahem.”

  Dordley utterly failed to interrupt, so Alobartalus continued.

  “Every elvish birth is celebrated, for all that it’s a messy, violent affair. We’ve ensorceled chipmunks to scrub the blood off the birches, you know. And one day, a little elf boy was born, and he was so strange that all the elves gathered around to look upon him. He should’ve been handsome, with a halo of golden hair and clear blue eyes like a summer day. He should’ve cooed so musically that birds sang back to him and flew in figure eights around his head in blessing. And when his father tossed glitter upon him for the first time, he should’ve sneezed a perfect, delicate sneeze.

  “But this elf child was ugly, red-haired, his skin all blotchy and freckled. His angry cries scared off all the moose they were trying to milk for moose cheese. His eyes were mud brown, his hands were in fists, and when his father threw glitter on him, he shat so hard that it shot out of his silk diaper, up his back, and all over his mother and the king of the elves, who happened to be her brother. And instead of giving the child a name and welcoming him to the Morningwood, the king said, ‘This one’s going to be a pain in my royal rump.’ ”

  Dordley continued to not interrupt.

  “And he was right. I was the least-elvish elf ever born. I was so unelvish that my parents divorced, as my father was quite sure I was half human and my mother had been stepping out with some hideous farmer she’d found shoveling manure. And when I came of age and had done my required service with the Sylvan Rangers, I knelt before my uncle, the king, to be given the gift of a calling and my birthright, and do you know what he did? He exiled me here, to Proudwood Lighthouse, a laughingstock among my own kind.”

  Alobartalus leaned forward, and Dordley did too.

  “I’ll tell you another secret, little Dordley: I’m not sorry a bit. I like it here better than I did back home. I like humans—at least, when they’re not trying to ruin my day or act like they’re better than me. I like the sea better than the Morningwood, and I like seagulls better than enchanted sparrows that crap glitter, and I am allergic to cheese. So, yes, I am an elf, through and through. But, no, I am not like other elves. And I don’t care.”

  Dordley made a face that suggested that not caring was a very audacious move.

  “Most elves crave knowledge and power and cheese and really high cheekbones, but do you know what I want?”

  Dordley shrugged.

  “I want to sail away from here. Cruise down the Sn’archipelago and meet the Sn’archivist, who resides in his own tower, not unlike this lighthouse. But instead of escorting fools through a tourist trap, do you know what he gets to do? No, you do not. Your tiny human brain can’t comprehend it. He writes. Legends say the very god Pellanus speaks to him, that birds come to him from all over Pell and tell him stories, and he writes them down. His tower is full of books, all the Tales of Pell, every history ever written. So not only would I be there, nearly alone with plenty of reading material, but I would find out for certain if my father really was a human farmer. Wouldn’t that be lovely? To know if I actually share
blood ties with someone like you?”

  Dordley looked at him, chewing his lip as if he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. With a small sigh of frustration, Alobartalus removed the Cap, and the moment it was off Dordley’s head, the boy started yammering.

  “So you think yer mam was lyin’, and yer da was—”

  The cap dropped right back down, and the lad’s lips stopped flapping.

  “I’m curious, but, honestly, it doesn’t matter. I’ll never fit in among my kind in the Morningwood, and I’ve just about had it with standing out from the crowds here. Luckily, even if I was born with less magic than most elves, I still know how to use elven-made magical goods, which means that all I need to do is this…”

  Reaching into his cloak, Alobartalus withdrew a small drawstring pouch. He took some of the fine, ashy powder inside and blew it into Dordley’s face, right before he removed Cliteria’s Cap and replaced it on its peg.

  “Oi, who’re you?” the boy said, backing up until he’d nearly stumbled over the Terribly Taxidermied Tortoise of Tantalos Tippytoes. “Where’m I? Where’s me folks?”

  Alobartalus smiled his most wise and elven smile. “Why, you’re in Proudwood Lighthouse, my dear human, and you’ve seen such wondrous things!”

  “I ’ave?”

  “You have! And your parents are in that room, so why don’t you scoot along and find them?”

  Before Dordley could protest or ask any more grammatically painful questions, Alobartalus opened the door to the Room of Erudite Enlightenment and shoved the boy in, slamming the door behind him.

  “Tough crowd,” he murmured to himself, pulling a packet of dwarvelish butter biscuits out of his pocket and popping one in his mouth, relishing how it tasted safely of flour and sugar and vanilla and didn’t magically expand in his mouth like elven croutons, which he’d always hated.

  By the time the humans stumbled back out of the Room of Enlightenment, looking dazed and, in a few cases, embarrassed, he’d changed into his next costume, a copy of King Thorndwall’s favorite party cloak and his golden crown with rampant antlers.

  “My good humans, did you find enlightenment?” he asked in his most kingish voice.

  “Ungh” was all most of them could manage, including Dordley, who’d had a bit of a sick all over his shirt.

  “Wonderful! Next we’ll marvel at the Portrait Gallery of Very Important Elves, partake in a ceremonial elven-crouton tasting, and walk through the Hall of Most Resplendent and Rampant Rods. After that, I’m sure you’ll delight at the chance to purchase your own wand of Morningwood in the souvenir shop, along with a tin of rod grease handcrafted by elf maidens at dawn. Please keep in mind that all purchases support the care of abandoned baby rabbits and elven widows and veterans of the Giant Wars.”

  The glomp of addlepated humans followed him up the lighthouse stairs to the portrait gallery, as docile as deer who’d wandered into a patch of smoking weed. Young Dordley and his parents seemed especially gobsmacked, but that’s how it took terrible people when they looked into those magicked mirrors and saw their true selves. The humans considered it a great gift, a small peek at the sage wisdom elves collected as they lived hundreds and thousands of years in a beautiful forest of peace and harmony.

  Little did the humans know it was just another practical joke. Everything in the lighthouse was. If the humans knew what was in that rod grease, they’d all have upchuck on their shirts.

  Alobartalus felt a bit bad about it sometimes; he didn’t think it was fair to take someone’s money and then spend two hours playing jokes on them. The portraits were ensorceled to stare back and whisper rude things that sounded like one’s inner critic, and the rampant rods were just sticks of pine covered with so much grease that you could barely hold on to one without bonking yourself in the head. And he had to perform the Hurghblurgh Maneuver on at least one choking person during every crouton ceremony, as he was forbidden to tell them beforehand that anything more than a nibble would cause an entire muffin or even loaf to spontaneously spring to life in one’s mouth. And the proceeds did not go to benefit anything adorably needy; it simply put more cheese in King Thorndwall’s coffers.

  But this was Alobartalus’s punishment for being who he was: the worst elf, out here on the edge of the world, spreading the worst parts of elven society to gullible tourists.

  He was trying to be as elfly as possible for their benefit, and even they didn’t believe it.

  “ ’Scuse me, sir.”

  He looked down to find the old granny tugging gently on his sleeve. A normal elf, a good elf, would’ve done something terrible and hilarious to punish her for daring to touch his cobweb cloak, but Alobartalus looked into her lined face and felt a wash of sympathy. These humans had such short lives in such broken bodies.

  “Yes, my lady?” He bowed gallantly and was rewarded by a giggle and a blush on her withered old cheeks.

  “I have this son, see.” She gave him a secretive smile and pulled a locket out of the deep recesses of her bosom. “I was traipsing in this forest a long time ago, and I came across this elf fellow, and, well, you know.” She giggled again as she recalled some golden moment in the Morningwood forest, and Alobartalus did his best not to roll his eyes and congratulate her. “So my son, Lancelong, is forty but he looks twenty, ’n’ he’s so handsome ’n’ musical that he just can’t get along in our little hamlet. I was wondering if you was hiring?”

  Alobartalus looked at the lad’s portrait and then gazed longingly out the window, yearning to toss the pretty elf’s painted image into the sea. This fellow Lancelong looked like he belonged here in the lighthouse, his painting hung on the walls. Slender, with eyes of blue and high, pointed ears poking out of his white-gold hair, his plush lips quirked up in that knowing elven smile that suggested a whoopee cushion was waiting nearby. Alobartalus instantly hated him.

  “An’ he’s accidentally doin’ magic all the time, see?” the old lady continued. “The chickens crap glitter, an’ the cow gives whipped cream, an’ the dog—”

  But Alobartalus had heard enough.

  “Oh, my fair lady. I am so sorry to inform you that appointments to the Proudwood Lighthouse are available only on a special commendation from King Thorndwall himself.” He offered her a sad smile of resignation.

  But that only firmed her up. She nodded once and said, “Aye, well, then. I’ll send him into the Morningwood to meet the king and see what he says. Foine boy like that, lookin’ that elfy, he should fit right in. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  “Because you’re human and an idiot,” Alobartalus accidentally muttered.

  “What! What? How dare you, you pudgy little dwarfling!” the old woman shrieked.

  Out came the drawstring bag of powder again, and then she was sneezing and staring at him in confusion.

  “Where am I? Who are you?” she asked.

  “You’re at the Proudwood Lighthouse, and you’ve just suggested that you’d like to buy our finest rampant rod,” Alobartalus said. “You also mentioned that you needed your son to stay home with you until you die and then visit your grave daily with flowers.”

  “Such a good boy, my Lancelong,” she murmured, following Alobartalus toward the souvenir shop. “So tall ’n’ pretty ’n’ noble, with such a foine voice and such lovely, pointed ears.”

  For a moment, Alobartalus let himself pretend the old woman was talking about him.

  Then he sold her the most expensive rod in the shop and decided that perhaps he’d told Dordley the truth: He didn’t want to work at the Proudwood Lighthouse anymore. Perhaps it was time to finally pursue his dream in the Sn’archipelago. Most bored elves went west, but Alobartalus wanted to go south.

  Morvin had heard of a decent place in Sullenne to rest their weary bones, and Harkovrita—no, Morgan; she had to remember her new name and use it or else her family would
find her—gladly accompanied him there. He wasn’t the least bit creepy and he was happy to share snacks, which were pretty big deals in a randomly selected traveling companion.

  “The Retchedde Hive ain’t fancy, but it ain’t full o’ cutthroats either,” Morvin assured her. “Not the sorta place where you’d run into all sorts of scum ’n’ villainy. It’s prolly ’cause the criminal element prefers places where they can get drunk and practice their skullduggery…or maybe they’re kinda scared of bees and cheerful breakfasts, I dunno. I tend to notice how things are, but I’ll be a heckin’ mess o’ giant giblets before I can tell you why they are that way.”

  Morgan didn’t understand Morvin’s rambling at first, but she soon discovered that the Retchedde Hive was a small chain of inns owned by an apiarist in Retchedde that served a breakfast of fresh raw honeycomb and “heckin’ good oats.”

  Morvin was able to secure them both a night’s lodging in exchange for a few jars of invigorated ham jam, which must’ve been uncommonly good stuff, judging by the crow of victory the manager let loose.

  “At least let me buy you supper,” Morgan said once they’d stowed their gear and seen the horse and wagon situated. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “Sure, I got me a void that needs fillin’,” Morvin allowed.

  “Shall we try a Dinny’s?”

  Morgan had never been to a Dinny’s before, but she’d heard exciting stories. As the Lady Harkovrita she’d been fed from the earl’s kitchen, where a team of chefs, sauciers, and puddingsmiths made sure she was given only the finest victuals for her body’s nourishment. An establishment slinging hash and grease and terrible kuffee was sure to confront her digestive system with new adventures in gastronomy and perhaps even acute distress. She couldn’t wait.

  Morvin’s lips twitched. “If that’s what floats your oats, I reckon.”

  There was a Dinny’s down by the docks, and Morgan smiled at the competing aromas of burnt toast, fish guts, and salty air as they approached. The night was filled with the susurrus of the tide and the screeching of seagulls, and she grinned and swung her arms in a way gowns did not allow. She had never felt so at home.