“Are you happy to see how your brothers and sisters and cousins and great aunt and a whole bunch of others have come to your support? It looks like you have convening power, hey?”
“I suppose I should be happy, uncle. But the truth is I’m scared. Not for myself. Scared of having drawn so many people into a quarrel.”
Uncle Gentlerain laughed.
“You can’t imagine how many people are secretly spoiling for a fight. They seethe on the inside and all it takes is for someone to give a battlecry of any kind and out bursts the belligerency within.”
“I don’t like belligerence,” I said glumly.
“But you like to please people. That’s what got you into this, no?”
“But is it justified? What I’ve done, I mean.”
“Oh, yes. Those dorks deserve this and more. I mean Pepperpot and Viruta, of course. Not your spontaneous followers. Justified, very. What this isn’t is convenient. For you, at least.”
“I don’t enjoy fights.”
“Which is one more reason why this one is justified. If you had been looking for trouble it might be different. But trouble came to you. And who would have thought the Bluebells would have raised such a ruckus when overhearing us, eh? It’s not like you printed flyers. Still, it’s best that the girls took charge. Now you have something to defend yourself with. Well, just how are you going to use this antidote?”
The birds of the fields of Sherbanania had fallen dead because of the vile air there. The birds of our forests were indignant. They had offered to transport the antidote anywhere and anytime we asked them to. So had the bats and the bees and the butterflies, the dragonflies and other winged creatures.
“So you have an air force. But will you need to have someone spray the stuff in the air or directly at the pipnoshers or will you just spill it randomly or what?”
My brothers and sisters were willing to ride the flying creatures and spray at anything that moved.
“I don’ t want them to, though. I don’t want to put them in danger. I don’t want-”
“That’s up to them! They are free agents. You are not conscripting anyone, are you? Just make sure they start spraying at the right distance. The antidote has to get to the poison before the poison gets to your army if we don’t want a messy operation. Will you do it at night?”
“So the bats can participate?”
“Because that should make it tougher for Viruta to spot you. We, instead, can see very well in the dark.”
“Would it really make it tougher for Dr. Meagrebrain?”
“I’ll check first. It’s what preventers are for. The Pocuscocus woman may have spotlights roving against the night sky. And the palace might have a lot of illumination. Not so the fields. They’re darker than the unlit spots in Erebus.”
“There is light in parts of Erebus?”
“Oh, there is a band of nymphs in charge of lighting paths there with torches. Nothing much. Far from enough to spoil the horror.”
“Do you think we will be able to do this without any casualties?”
“One never knows. Absolutely none is always difficult. There is always someone who does something foolhardy and ends up hospitalized. But you might just be able to walk in and clean up the place. Then again, she might surprise you. Your meddling little one-eyed friend should spy the doctor a bit and tell you what she has to defend herself with.”
“Alpin? Why, yes. He will do that if I ask him to, of course.”
“Ask him how many pipnoshers she has created. She may be manufacturing more. The important thing here is that you have more antidote than she has poison.”
“Will it work? The antidote, I mean.”
“Thymian says yes.”
“I don’t want to know, but I have to ask. What happened to the pipnoshers he experimented with?”
“They didn’t writhe and curl and do all sorts of horrible things if that is what you are worried about. They fell flat on their backs without knowing what hit them. That was it. And Thymian has taken the trouble to embalm them, so maybe they can be resurrected one day.”
“How can that be a good idea?”
“Probably in no way, but I thought it might console you to hear this. Now back to business. We must warn all your warriors about the perils they might meet. The moat with the piranhas, for example. Nobody had better stop for a drink there. And we must know of any other booby trap the apple’s roving eye can detect.”
Aside from the piranhas, Alpin, once consulted, informed us there was nothing in our way but Viruta’s pipnoshers. She was so lazy she hadn’t even bothered to create more. Lazy and confident. The most she had done was file her nails. Ah, she had also painted them black, so the dirt that clung to them wouldn't be so obvious, Alpin heard her say. When asked if she had dressed to kill, Alpin said she hadn’t even bothered to change her stained, sinister white coat. She did keep an eye on the ticking clocks, though. Perhaps, said Alpin, that was because I had given her seventy two hours to do away with the venom. Would she do it? I hardly dared to wish she would. Would she give me this satisfaction?
And just when there were a little more than twenty four hours left before I could make my move against her, Don Alonso appeared at our camp.
“Who made you a knight?” he whispered.
I responded I had never been knighted.
“You can’t accept a challenge against villians of the calibre of this vile king and evil mistress without being knighted first,” he said. “Being knighted does a lot for one’s morale. And it puts you in contact with the higher powers, those of Heaven, so they can protect you. One knight can make another. I know I’m held to be a ridiculous example of one, but still I am a knight. I could knight you, if you can’t find anyone better to do it. But of course you will find someone better, even at such short notice.”
I had never thought of being knighted. Not being interested in fighting, it had never ocurred to me I might want to be a knight. But what was happening here made me see things differently.
“I could never, ever find anyone more appropriate to knight me than you, sir,” I said. “Even if I had all the time in the world. In fact, I would never allow anyone else to knight me. Not even the grand Du Lac himself. Only you.”
Ah, he was pleased! And I was pleased he was pleased.
“We have to start at once, for you must spend the night veiling your arms. And now that you mention Lancelot, the knight of the Lake or the White Knight, well, I am known as the Knight of the Woeful Countenance. Who shall you be?”
“I…I don’t know,” I said. I had never given the matter any thought, but I remembered that the last time I had put up a fight I had been dubbed Mr. Two Shadows. “Will it do for me to be the Knight of the Two Shadows?”
“No. There is also a lot of light in you.”
And I became Sir Arley, the Knight of Light and Shadows.
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