Harpy Thyme (23 page)

Trent frowned. “I think the Curse Fiends are about due for a reckoning.”

“Yet it is no worse than what dragons or goblins do to those they catch,” Graeboe pointed out. He glanced at Gloha. “Present company excepted.”

Trent nodded again. “Your tolerance becomes you. Yet if we are unable to put on a play that satisfies them, given what I deem to be unfairly short notice. I shall not sit still for a curse. I shall have to take action.”

“Such as turning one of them into a sphinx who will then tromp the rest of them to pulp,” Metria said enthusiastically.

“”Oh, no, that would not be kind," Graeboe protested.

“We must simply avoid the issue by putting on a suitable play.”

“I never saw a giant as peaceful as you,” the demoness said, not meaning it as a compliment.

“That is because the other giants are invisible; you have seen none of them,” he pointed out reasonably enough. “Most of us do not wish to cause small folk any inconvenience. That is why we do not tread on their villages or fields. We wish only to exist in mutual harmony.”

The more Gloha learned about the giants, the more respect she had for them. However, there was no time for incidental dialogue. “What kind of play can we do in a hurry? That puts all five of us into significant roles? I have no idea.”

“Something simple, I think,” Trent said. “Perhaps we should adapt a well-known fable or story. There should be one that provides suitable roles for all of us.”

“For a giant?” Graeboe asked, interested. “Jack and the Beanstalk!” Gloha cried. “Except that it's a mean giant.”

“Well, perhaps I could portray such a giant, as long as it is only in a play.”

“But there's no demoness in that story,” Metria protested.

“Then maybe Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,” Gloha said. “You could be the genie. Trent could play Aladdin.”

“Or the Genie in the Bottle,” the demoness agreed with relish. “With a female genie. Every time he uncorks the bottle, she smokes out and kisses him.” She formed into smoke with a huge pair of lips.

“But there's no giant in those ones,” Graeboe said.

“And no goblin girls in any of them,” Gloha added.

“And no walking skeletons,” Marrow said.

Trent scratched his head. “Can anyone think of a tale that includes a giant, a demon, a man, a skeleton, and a winged goblin?”

None of them could. “I suppose I could be some other kind of girl,” Gloha said. “A fairy, perhaps, or even a human girl, if I pretended my wings were a white cloak.”

“Or a princess,” Graeboe said. “Many tales have princesses. And the demoness could assume some other form, such as a frog, for the Frog Prince.”

“Say, yes,” Metria agreed. “Maybe the Frog Princess, who marries the Little Prince.” She looked at Trent again.

“But what form can I assume?” Marrow asked somewhat plaintively.

“Death,” Graeboe suggested.

“Say, yes,” Gloha agreed. “The same role your kind plays in dreams.”

“To the Frog Prince?”

“We keep running into that problem,” Gloha said. “No single tale works.”

“But a medley might,” Graeboe said.

“A medley?”

“A mixture of tales,” Trent explained. “We can put them together, so as to have all the characters we need.”

“But what about the scenery?” Gloha asked. “The costumes and things?”

“We'll just have to play ourselves, as it were,” Graeboe said. “I'm dressed as a giant, you're dressed as a girl, Marrow's a skeleton, and Trent is a man. Metria can assume any form. We'd better concentrate on the story line.”

“And the scenery,” Marrow said. “That will be difficult to make in the small time remaining.”

“I can transform local bugs into things like wallflowers and paintbrush flowers,” Trent said. “We can make scenes from them.”

Contumelo approached. “You have five minutes to curtain call,” he said with evident satisfaction.

“We had better get organized,” Trent said. “I suggest that we separate into committees. Metria and I can devise scenery, and Gloha and Graeboe can organize the plot.”

“But what of me?” Marrow asked.

“You are perhaps our most objective member. You can coordinate the two committees, and make the announcements.”

“But they won't pay attention to a skeleton!”

“Yes they will, if you're in costume.” Trent spied a bug on the ground, and reached toward it. Suddenly it was hat tree. “Pick a suitable hat and wear it for announcements.” Marrow selected a tall stovepipe hat and donned it. Suddenly he looked very official.

Gloha flew up to perch on Graeboe's lifted hand, so she could talk to him conveniently. “We must assemble several tales into one in a hurry,” she said. “I hope your imagination is bigger than mine right now.”

“My head is larger, at any rate.” He considered briefly. “Perhaps if we start with Jack and the Beanstalk, to get the man and giant, and then bring in a captive princess-”

“Yes! He wants to eat her-”

Graeboe winced. “Oh, I hope not. That wouldn't be nice.”

“But this is only a play. The giant has to be mean, or it won't be exciting.”

“But in the real tale, the giant valued precious things, like a hen to lay golden eggs, and a magic harp-”

“How about a magic harpy?” she asked, laughing. “And the giant doesn't want to kill her, he wants to marry her, but of course she'd rather be eaten, so-”

Marrow approached. “What scenery and props will be needed?”

“A magic bean to grow into a beanstalk,” Gloha said. “A land up on a cloud. A castle for the giant-”

“That's enough to start,” the skeleton said, and went to the other committee.

In a moment he was back. “Perhaps if I knew the story, I could narrate the interstices.”

“Wonderful idea,” she agreed. She described what they were working out.

Two more minutes of hectic coordination brought them to curtain time. Trent had transformed bugs to various things: several large wallflowers, a giant bedbug, pillow and blanket bushes, a big box elder tree with red, black, and yellow slats, and assorted other things stored within that box. They were perched around Graeboe's curled body, which actually took up most of the stage. Gloha's confused little cranium was spinning. Could they possibly make this work?

“Are you ready to perform?” Contumelo inquired with grim relish.

Marrow stepped up, donning his tall hat. “Indeed. Please get out of our way, functionary.”

Gloha would have laughed at the expression on the Curse Fiend's face, if she hadn't been so nervous about whether their scatterbrained assemblage would work. She retreated to hide in the box elder until her turn came to be onstage. In a round theater like this there really was no way to go offstage, but the box served well enough.

A hush descended across the audience, which now pretty well filled the theater. Gloha was surprised by the number of Curse Fiends there were. Then she saw that a number of faces were black; the Black Wavers were attending too. They looked more friendly.

Marrow Bones stepped to the center of the arena. “Greetings, or should I say, curses to you,” he said grandly, doffing his impressive hat for a moment. There was a murmur; Gloha wasn't sure whether it was of approval, mystery, or outrage. “We, the Haphazard Players, are pleased to present The Princess and the Giant.”

He turned, making a grand sweep of one bony arm. “Once upon a thyme-” And a thyme plant appeared beside him. Gloha was startled, until she realized that it wasn't real; Metria had assumed the form. She saw with satisfaction that the audience was surprised too.

Marrow waited for the reaction to fade out. Then he resumed. “There was a handsome young man named Jack.” Trent walked out from the box and stood in the center of the stage, which was defined by the giant's curled body. He looked exactly as described.

“Jack was poor but honest,” Marrow said. “His family had fallen on hard thymes-” Here “Jack” tripped over the thyme plant. There was a squeak from the depths of the audience; someone almost thought the joke was funny, but had managed to stifle the laugh.

“So Jack had to take the family bovine to town to sell for coins to live on,” Marrow continued. Suddenly the thyme plant was a holy cow, seemingly none the worse for the huge holes through her body. Metria had changed form again.

Jack took hold of the cow's ear and led her in a circle around the field, which was that portion of the arena outside the giant's body. “Mooooo!” she complained loudly.

“But on the way to town Jack encountered a suspicious character,” Marrow continued. He removed his announcer hat, put on a sleazy hat, and stepped up to meet Jack. This time there was a laugh; it was from Contumelo, who just couldn't resist the description of Marrow as suspicious.

“And where are you going, my fine innocent young mark?” the sleaze inquired.

“I am taking our family cow to town to sell for coins so we can eat,” Jack replied innocently.

“Ah, I have something better than coins,” the sleaze said. “I have this magic bean, which I will sell you for your holy cow, because I like your attitude.”

“Gee, that's nice of you,” Jack said naively.

The play took them through the exchange, and Jack went home to the box carrying the bean, which had appeared when the cow disappeared. He entered the box. “Mother, dearest, see what a good bargain I have made,” he called from the box.

“A magic bean?” Gloha screeched in her best emulation of harpy mode, speaking for the unseen mother. “You %#0*H idiot!” She was rather proud of that word; it wasn't of full harpy cuss-quality, but it was within hailing distance of nasty. She took the bean and threw it back out onto the main stage.

“Jack's mother was not entirely pleased,” the narrator said with fine understatement. “She threw the seed out the window, and Jack had to go to bed without his supper. However, it really was a magic bean, and in the night it sprouted and grew somewhat.”

The bean sprouted on the stage, and grew rapidly into a giant green vine. That was Metria again, changing her shape. The vine grew up high, becoming as large as a tree, though somewhat more diffuse.

“In fact it grew right up to the clouds,” Marrow said. The vine fogged, becoming a cloud that obscured the stage, giant and all. “And in the morning, when Jack saw that, he decided to see what he might find up in that cloud. So he climbed the beanstalk, and emerged on top of the cloud.” The cloud onstage cleared in one section, and there was Jack, just standing up, as if he had come up from below. He put up his hand to shade his eyes, as if looking around.

“And there on the cloud was a giant castle,” Marrow narrated. More of the cloud thinned, to reveal an impromptu castle with walls made from wallflowers and a main turret formed by the box elder. Most of the structure was perched on Graeboe, as if he were the foundation. It was really fairly impressive, considering.

“So Jack went to the castle to see what he could find,” Marrow said. Jack walked to it and pulled open a swinging wallflower to show the interior. “Fortunately the giant was sleeping at the moment.” And there was Graeboe's face before him, stretched out across several bedbug beds, snoring hugely.

Jack tiptoed around the sleeping face, and there on a pile of twenty feather quilts on the giant's hand sat Gloha, looking despondent.

“There in the giant castle he found the giant's captive, a princess,” the narrator continued. “She was tied to her bed, and not at all happy about it.”

“Who are you?” Jack asked.

“I am a captive princess,” Gloha replied. “As you can tell by my fancy feather robe.” She moved her wings a trifle.

“What's a nice princess like you doing in a place like this?”

“The giant wants to marry me, and of course I would rather be chopped up into little quivering pieces,“ she replied. ”So he has tied me to this fiendishly uncomfortable bed." She gestured at the pile of quilts.

“But those look very soft,” Jack protested.

“They are. But under them he put a bean. I might have tolerated half a pea, with an effort, but a whole magic bean was just too much. See, I'm all black-and-blue.”

There was a snigger from the audience, because of course Gloha's natural body was goblin dark.

“But I outsmarted him, I think,” she continued. “I managed to bounce around enough so that the bean rolled out, and fell to the ground below this cloud. So now I can sleep more comfortably. But of course I still groan every so often, so that the mean giant will think I'm still being tortured.”

“So that was the bean I traded my holy cow for!” Jack exclaimed.

“Shhh! You'll wake the giant.”

Indeed, the giant's face stirred and snorted. Both Jack and Princess were desperately quiet, and after a moment the snoring resumed.

“I must rescue you from this face, uh, fate,” Jack said gallantly. “Let me untie you and take you home with me.”

“Oh, you can't untie me,” the princess said. “This is a magic cord.” She lifted her wrist, showing the cord looped loosely around it. “Only the giant can untie it, and of course he won't, unless I agree to marry him.”

“Then how can I rescue you?” Jack asked, perplexed.

“You must get the frog to help you.”

“The frog?”

“The frog can fetch out a precious golden bottle that contains the only thing that the giant fears,” she explained. “That's why he threw it in the cistern, thinking that nobody would ever find it there. But the frog knows.”

Marrow stepped out again. “So Jack went to the rear of the castle,” he announced while Jack did that, walking around to Graeboe's rear. “Where the frog lived in a deep cistern.”

And there was a huge green frog: Metria in another role. “Croak?” the frog inquired.

“I need a precious golden bottle that lies in the bottom of the cistern,” Jack said. “Because it contains the only thing that the giant fears. Can you fetch it out for me?”

“Certainly I can, manface,” the frog agreed.

There was a pause. “Well?” Jack asked after a bit.

“Well, what?”

“Will you fetch out the bottle for me?”

“Oh, you asked only whether I could, not whether I would. Certainly I will, peasant man.”

There was another pause. “Well?”

“You asked whether I would. You did not say whether you wished this.”