Chapter 29

The little blighter named Brother Clem seemed determined to report Kip to the queen. He scuttled through a doorway too small for Kip. If Clem used the castle’s hidden passages, every guard could be after him within minutes. He charged up the staircase to the main level, careful to avoid any guards tramping through the corridors.

He managed to zip through the main hall and into the royal kitchen unseen. According to rumor, Queen Bogen despised the smell of raw food being prepared. He hoped she wouldn’t think to send the guards there. A passage from the kitchen led to a staircase that reached his lab.

A lone mel-yew cook flattened dough on a kitchen countertop. He winked at Kip. “If I saw you, I’d say greetings.”

Kip sidled next to him. “The Brothers Ky think I blasphemed. One of them has gone off to tell the queen I’m visible again.”

The cook slapped the rolled dough into a pie tin. “Nobody pays much heed to the Brothers Ky, least of all the queen.”

“I’m all right, then.”

“That would be my guess.” The cook moved to a boiling pot on the stove. He ladled steaming meat and vegetables into the piecrust.

With the threat lessened, Kip munched contentedly on a raw carrot.

“I’d still keep out of sight if I were you, though,” said the cook. He slid the raw pie into the oven and pulled out two cooked ones. “I’ll let you know when the danger’s past.”

“Thanks. I’ll wait it out in me lab.”

“Care for a meat pie to take with you, Master Wizard?”

The words had barely left the cook’s mouth when Willum swooped in through an open window. He lit on the counter. “Did someone say meat pie?”

The cook chuckled. “Nothing’s wrong with your hearing, is there, Willum?”

Kip carried a tray of food and fruit drinks up the back stairs to his tower laboratory. Willum flew next to him, chattering, “Mind the pies,” the whole way despite Kip’s efforts to shush him.

After dinner, he carried a history book to his stuffed chair by the fireplace. Since he didn’t dare be seen out and about, now seemed a good time to read up on the wizard who had almost led him astray.

According to the table of contents, Krell had an entire chapter dedicated to him titled “The Anomaly of the Wizard, Thaddeus Krell.” Kip thumbed ahead to that chapter, hoping for an artistic rendering of the “otherworlder” as he was called. Instead, the author gave a written description of Krell.

During the reign of King Borge, when first he appeared, the passage read, the Otherworlder, whose height nearly matched that of a voga, bore the body of a mel-yew with bloat and the mane of a palum. During the reign of King Borge IV, ninety years later, his head was covered in black fur. The intensity of his piercing eyes, pale as a blue summer sky, however, never altered.

“What an odd fellow,” Kip said. On second thought, maybe not. Plenty of athletes on Earth stood over six feet. Couldn’t “the mane of a palum” simply mean long blond hair? He’d seen that at home as well. And anyone who ate properly would look bloated when compared to a mel-yew’s emaciated little body.

He added it up. “Blimey! Krell’s from Earth!”

“Earth,” Willum spat and went back to pecking at the leftover crumbs in the pie tins. “I know that wizard’s story. Popping in long enough to stir up trouble, then vanishing for generations at a time.”

“He must have figured out where the time tears are.”

“And how to open them,” said the bird.

Kip returned his attention to the history book, eager to learn more. The Otherworlder, or “Other” for short, had arrived during a pandemic that nearly wiped out the entire mel-yew population. In a speech, Krell had told the mel-yew people they were being punished for using their Maker’s water without permission. If they stopped drinking the sacred water, Krell had promised they would survive. He’d further described rituals that made it acceptable, on special occasions, to drink purified water. Kip’s eyes widened. Was that how the Ky Brotherhood had come into being? He’d probably even written the symbols on the wall. If Krell believed the water was polluted, why hadn’t he simply suggested a cleanup the way Winnie had?

According to the text, the first King Borge had bestowed upon Krell the title High Priest of the Brothers Ky. Krell had vanished the next day, along with one Frama-scope and two bags of gold. The people had believed he died trying to jump into an unstable time tear. He’d returned ninety years later and become that king’s royal wizard. The “black fur” on his head—or haircut and dye job, Kip presumed—must have fooled them into thinking he was a different bloke. Kip wondered how long it had taken before someone realized it was Krell.

He looked up at Willum. “Wish you were interested in more than just meat pies. We could discuss this Krell business.”

“He ruined it for the good wizards, is what he did,” said Willum.

A rustling sound came from across the room. A white chef’s hat, with the chef attached, poked through the hole in Kip’s wall. The mel-yew cook crawled into the room.

“Is it safe for me to come out?” asked Kip.

The mel-yew glanced nervously around the lab. “I apologize for the intrusion, Wizard.”

Kip closed his book. “Everything all right?”

The cook sidled toward Kip’s desk where his wand and more books lay. “That, I suppose, depends on who you might ask.” In a lightning motion, the cook grabbed the wand and pointed it at Kip. It wavered in his trembling hand.

Kip’s muscles tensed. His wand packed a wallop if it got waved the wrong way. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”

“Sorry, Master Wizard. The oracle’s been making prophecies again.”

Feet trampled up the stone steps to his tower. Not the hollow clacks of mel-yew boots, but the heavy slap of giant frog feet treading on the stair. The door crashed open.

“Stay where you are, Wizard,” Zyke commanded, “or suffer the consequences.”

A battalion of vogan—Kip never even knew they had such a thing—sprang into his room.

“Where is the wand?”

The cook gingerly offered it to the queen’s head advisor. In one sweeping motion Zyke cracked it over his knee, snapping it in two. “You’ll tyrannize us no more!”

Hands grabbed Kip and hustled him out. They took him to the interrogation room and tied him to a wooden chair.

“It has come to our attention,” Queen Bogen said from her side of the table, “that you’ve been lying to us.”

Kip pressed his lips together. Until he knew which particular lie she meant, it was best to say nothing.

“Did General Takka send you from the other world?” Queen Bogen thumped the table with her fist. “Answer truthfully!”

“Yes.”

The queen appraised him with one pink eye. “You unleashed the power of Krell and turned it against us. Takka would never sanction such behavior.”

He glared. “And what would he say about you tossing his sister off a cliff?”

The queen sat back. “That was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Same as me. I only froze your advisers because I thought you killed Winnie.”

“We’re beyond that anyway. It has been brought to our attention that you might sabotage the good general’s work.”

“I wouldn’t.” He tugged at the restraints. “I promised to help.”

Queen Bogen rose. “Guards, take him to the dungeon.”

“You can’t do that.”

The queen and entourage whisked from the room.

“You need me!” His claim earned him a cuff on the side of the head by a guard’s staff. Two began hauled him to the dungeon. They locked him in a damp cell and stomped away, leaving him alone in the dark.

“Do not despair, young wizard,” said a disembodied female voice.

He lifted his head toward the ceiling. He recognized that voice. “Maggenta, I’m glad you’re here. Could you please let me out? Winnie needs my magic.”

“She has all she needs.” Her voice faded into the dank walls.

“Wait. Come back! You can’t just leave me.”

Kip sighed. Perhaps she could. He slumped onto the bench at the back of the cell, folded his arms, and waited. And waited.