Funny Fantasy Page 9

  "Why do you call him a half-a-dryad?" asked Jack.

  "Because he is," said Phil. "Mom was a dryad; Dad was a man who didn't mind splinters. Cross a tree and a man, and you get a hedge. He's a bit sensitive."

  "Oh," said Jack. "Are you sensitive about being a cow?"

  "No," said Phil. "It's not that much different from life as a princess. Men still drool at the sight of you. On the plus side, it's in the fresh air, and if they do catch you, it's a quicker and less painful way to go."

  "Oh, good," said Jack.

  "Irony is just the taste of nails in your mouth to you, isn't it, Jack?" asked Phil. "Anyway, we don't know why Bulganova was meeting her contact, but he's sure to figure out that I'm not her once we're alone. That'll be the dangerous part. Hopefully, you'll be away with the beans by then; you won't get hurt."

  Until I bring Mum home five beans in trade for the cow, Jack thought.

  "Oh, hell," said Phil. They were rounding the corner and the village lay before them. "I'm not sure it matters anyway. The giants may invade no matter what we do. Sure as hell we'd invade them if we thought we had a chance."

  "Why?"

  "Jack," Phil sighed. "You know those mountains in the sky we were discussing?"

  "Yes?"

  "When the sun sets, what color do they turn?"

  "Gold," said Jack. "Oh."

  "Just as well we can't get up there. It would be easier for the giants to get down than for us to get up."

  "But you can get there, can't you?" Jack said. "Mum told me how a cow jumped over the moon!"

  Phil gave him a withering look. "No, Jack."

  "No?"

  "That was a prototype model, and she burned up on re-entry anyway."

  "Where were you princess of, then?" asked Jack.

  Phil looked up at him. "You know, Jack, just when I think you're going to forget how to breathe and topple over in the road, you say something that makes me suspect there's a brain in there." She sighed. "It was an enchantment a long time ago and it makes an even longer story. Besides, the witch is dead. And we don't have the time. We have a mission, which means trading me for these beans: that's the only thing we know about this man Bulganova was meeting. He has beans. Unless…?" she looked up at Jack.

  "Unless what?" he asked.

  "Jack," Phil said in a low tone. "You're standing in the lane with an princess who's been bewitched into the form of a cow. She likes strong young guys with a lot of learning potential, and doesn't particularly want to finish a mission that could result in her being turned into prime rib." Phil paused. "Princess. Enchantment. Transformation. Happily Ever After." She stuck her muzzle up into his face and whispered, "Does that suggest a course of action to you?"

  Jack leaned down, his lips moving towards hers.

  "Like what?" he whispered back.

  I knew that kissing her would have broken the enchantment right then, of course. Had I known Phil then as I know her now—the half-elf assassin acrobat with nerves of mithril and skin of alabaster, whose sheer sexual magnetism reveals her in a city simply from the way the statues of the local fertility gods are pointing—I might have done it. But only as a cow could she impersonate Bulganova and fool the Bean Man.

  -From Chapter 5: "Cow of the Wild." A Man Called Jack

  "IF YOU DON'T MIND," said Jack, "I'd like to have a few words with my cow."

  "Sssure, kid," said the man. His face was completely obscured by the hood of his cloak, his voice born of the darkness within. The large beans he'd handed Jack gave off a heady green smell; he kept feeling they ought to move when he touched them. Jack led Phil a slight distance away and knelt down.

  "Good work, Jack. Now slip one of those beans inside my collar. We'll get the Technical Section to work on it after I've escaped."

  Jack did. "Will you be all right?"

  "Oh," Phil tossed off lightly, "sure, Jack. I've been in lots of worse places than this. Well, at least once."

  "What do I do with the rest of the beans?"

  Phil shrugged, insofar as that was possible for a cow. "Just hide them where no one will find them," she said. "Whatever they are, they're dangerous."

  "Are you sure you'll be all right?" Jack asked. "I don't like the Bean Man. Are you sure he isn't one of those Things That Man Was Not Meant To Know?"

  Phil glanced at him. "I doubt it," she finally said. "Probably just an engineer selling company secrets. They don't get out much. Now, Jack, you're well clear of this. Go home and Forget That Any Of This Ever Happened." Those last words took on a special resonance, as if they'd been spoken in a large, invisible cave enclosing just the two of them. Jack nodded, handed Phil's lead over to the Bean Man, and then went home. He felt uneasy at leaving Phil with the Bean Man. But even if he was a Thing Man Was Not Meant To Know, Phil wasn't a man, and there probably weren't many Things Cow Was Not Meant To Know, so Phil was unlikely to come to harm.

  The walk home was a blur, as if the morning had been a dream. There was something very important he had to remember, and he did eventually remember it. This was because being beaten systematically by an enraged farmwife who has just discovered that you have traded her only cow for four really odd-looking beans focused even Jack's attention.

  He did remember that he was supposed to hide the beans where no one would ever find them. So, reasoning that only an idiot would plant crops slap up against the side of the house, he buried them there. Sore and aching, his mind even blurrier than usual, Jack went to sleep.

  I can truly say that the planting of the Beanstalk is the foundation on which my entire character as an operative rests. Those who accuse me of rashness or (poor fools) being under the influence of some enchantment, have simply failed to think the matter through. An agent like Bulganova would never put her masters' invasion route in proximity to her lair. She must have reckoned with the chance, however small, that some sharp K.N.A.V.E. would recognize her; she could be compromised, the Beanstalk could not. Therefore, this was the one spot in which no Giant would ever expect the Beanstalk to be raised. As Bulganova's absence might at any time be noticed, I could not contact my superiors; only my bold action would save the day. And though I would be called many things during the course of my career, I would never be called a coward.

  -From Chapter 7: "Jack of All Raids." A Man Called Jack

  "JACK, WHAT IN the name of St. Ignatz' blessed balls did you do?" The cow's head leaned in through the window as far as it would go.

  Jack awoke and knew he was dreaming, because he'd sold Milky-White the day before, or at least he must have, because he'd been going to. Things after that were a bit fuzzy. But at any rate, cows didn't talk.

  "Hello, Milky-White. Are you in cow heaven yet?"

  "Cow heaven?" cried Milky-White. "Cow heaven? I'm in Special Agent Ninth Circle of Bloody Hell! The one with the Parliamentary Inquiry of Eternity and The Expense Auditor With A Thousand Briefcases! What have you done, Jack?"

  Jack looked around. Yes, he was still in bed, and it was still dark. "Sleeping, Milky-White."

  "Don't start that again! I'm Phil, remember?"

  "No, Phil," said Jack.

  "What did you do before you went to sleep?"

  Jack remembered that, a feat he thought he could be quite proud of, considering that he was being awakened by an angry talking cow in the middle of the night. "I hid the beans, Phil."

  Jack couldn't see very well, but it occurred to him that sunlight had never streamed through holes in the roof while it was pitch dark out before.

  "You hid the..?" Phil broke off in a splutter. "Oh, gods. You didn't. You did. This is all your fault. It's all my fault! And you don't even remember because of my spell. You planted the beans right in their top agent's safe house! I should have told you to swallow the bloody things! You'd be dead, but I'd feel better!"

  Slowly, Jack arose and walked to where Phil's head poked through the window. The rest of the window was opaque blackness. He had heard of 'darkness so thick you could cut it,' but he never had
pictured the darkness as being green. Nor with little veins running up the side.

  "Jack," said Phil, in tones of dead calm. "Come outside." She withdrew her head, and sunlight burst through the space she had been. The green surface curved away outside.

  The snores from the other room of the house told him his mother was still asleep as he went out, which Jack considered all for the best.

  The Beanstalk obscured a great portion of Jack's personal sky before it disappeared into the clouds. Half the house's roof was missing, pushed aside by the lowest leaves. Jack stared in, mouth hanging open.

  "There's a bean sitting in the dungeons of the Emperor," said Phil in a dead voice. "It's being studied by archmages, alchemists, and the wisest of the wise. It could have been planted in secret, where the giants would never have known. Better still, we could have learned how to kill it, just in case they ever planted one."

  With visible effort, she pulled herself together. "All right, Jack. Our only chance is surprise. You have to climb up there and see whether the Giants have assembled an invasion force."

  "How will I know it's an invasion force?"

  Phil frothed at the mouth. "Because they'll be forty feet tall and have swords the size of castle gatehouse towers! An invasion force of Giants is not a clan-bloody-destine operation!" Phil visibly calmed herself. "If they have, then just get back down here; you can't do anything. I'll run back to town and see if I can raise the local garrison. We may be able to delay them." She sighed.

  "But if they haven't, Jack, it's time for you to be a hero. Well, to try, at least. What makes the Giants really dangerous is that they…"

  "Are forty feet tall and have swords the size of gatehouse towers?"

  "Yes, besides that. They have the Golden Harp."

  "The Golden Harp?" Jack asked fearfully.

  "The Golden Harp unifies the Giants. Alone, they're dangerous brutes. Marching to the Harp, they're actually an effective army. We don't know why."

  Jack struggled to think. "But why do the Giants want to invade us? Don't they have all the gold?"

  "Food," Phil said, chillingly.

  "But couldn't we just trade them, say, beef for gold?"

  "Not if I have anything to say about it," said Phil. "Now climb up there."

  "Climb? To the land of the Giants?" Jack was not completely familiar with the territory of fear, as the entrance requirements generally included more imagination than he possessed, but this disturbed him. "I don't think that's a good idea. The roof will need fixing; Mum's dead set on roofs for houses…"

  Phil's horn struck so fast Jack wasn't really aware of pain. He simply found that he'd levitated ten feet in the air and was grasping a vine frantically with one hand and rubbing himself somewhat lower with the other.

  Further down, he saw Phil, horns pointed skyward and looking determined as only a cow can look. He considered what loomed above. He considered what waited below. He heard stirring from the house.

  One thing to be said for the Land of Giants, Jack considered as he climbed. Mum wasn't in it.

  The Giants were asleep, just as I had predicted they would be; beings that massive could never shed enough heat to function in daylight. It did not take long to spot their headquarters. The problem of navigating the land of the Giants lies not in the intellect, but in the sheer size. Pressing on toward the castle, any room of which could have housed a wing of the Imperial Palace, I stole through the day.

  -From Chapter 9: "Robbing the Giants' Kingdom: A Knight in their Fief." A Man Called Jack

  TO JACK'S SURPRISE, the only giants he saw outside the palace, the two doorwards, were asleep. Their spears, each fashioned from a redwood tree, leaned against the wall, their snoring muffling any sounds Jack might have made.

  Jack had been relieved not to find a Giantish invasion force ready to cook him in lieu of all the cows roaming the plains below. So relieved that he had almost slid down the vine to tell Phil. But the twinge in his left buttock told him this might be unwise. He now found himself wandering through the courtyard of the castle, asking himself, "If I were a Giant, where would I keep a Golden Harp?"

  Trembling with fear, he set his feet down as if they were made of glass, or cymbals, or both. It was almost a letdown when Jack, entering the smaller courtyard of the central keep and ready to be seized and eaten at any time by armed giants, found himself confronted by a large woman in a plaid dress.

  "Are you lost, little boy?" said the woman.

  Jack stared. She was hardly a Giant at all, no more than twice his size. Jack's rustic manners took over in the absence of conscious direction. "No, Ma'am," he said, though his fright made it come out more like, "Nuh, Mum."

  "Well, I'm hardly your Mum, little boy. But she must be worried. Why are you wandering about the palace at this hour of the day? Don't you know that the King has set a curfew? Are you lost?"

  "Yes, Mu…Ma'a… milady."

  "Oh, don't start that," said the woman. "It's bad enough going around all night hearing 'Your Majesty' this and 'Your Grace' that, as if we were those ant-folk down below with their kings and such. 'Mathilda' will do, and I'll just call you 'lad,' as is proper for young Giants whose parents haven't thought up a name for them yet, which yours can't have done, young as you are. Come along, and we'll have a midday snack together."

  Jack followed Mathilda, who looked enough like his mother that he found it hard not to flinch respectfully in her presence, through the castle's deserted corridors until they came to a great room. The ceiling was sixty feet high, hung with an iron chandelier that could have enclosed an arena. A pair of small bonfires roared in the lamps, and the table was a long trestle, made from sequoia halves sanded flat. The benches along it were as high as Jack could reach. Mathilda reached down and lifted Jack up to one of them. "Now run along to my seat on the end there, and I'll bring you some nice bread and cheese."

  It wasn't hard to find Mathilda's chair. It was set next to the biggest chair in the room, a great iron monstrosity that looked as though it had been made out of a thousand sword blades. Blunted, of course, because not even giants are that stupid. Mathilda's bronze chair was different. It was piled with cushions, and had steps leading up to it. Jack ascended the chair, and found it no great feat to stand on the table.

  In the center of the table was a great bowl of fruit, with grapes the size of watermelons and an apple Jack might have used as a closet. Flanking the bowl, apparently asleep, sat two golden shapes.

  The first was a great golden hen, with rose gold crest and yellow-gold feathers. She was about half the size of Phil.

  The other shape could only be the Golden Harp.

  Golden it was, a floor harp of the kind played at Imperial banquets. Jack would barely be able to lift it. To a Giant, it was a simple handharp. Or would have been had the Harp not already possessed hands. And feet. And the body between them.

  The woman was not chained to the harp. She flowed into it, her golden skin blending into the gold of the harp until it was impossible to tell the two apart. Only her hair was not golden; a mass of ebony that curled around her body. She, too, was asleep.

  Jack was not familiar with the term "exotic beauty," having been born and raised in country where heavy farm work meant that beards were the most reliable way of telling genders apart. But he was dimly aware that here was magic of a sort that sang in the blood. He felt a pounding in his chest.

  It took him a moment to realize he also felt the pounding in the soles of his feet, in the planks of the table, and the very air around him. He just had time to sprint the length of the table and glimpse the harp and the hen come awake before he dived into the fruit bowl.

  From his place under the grapes, Jack saw the Giant King. On his head was a crown of gold, crudely incised with Giant pictograms. His beard was long and black, and twice Jack's length.

  "Queen," roared the Giant King. "What's that I smell? Are you having a man for a snack without me?"

  "No, dear," answered Mathilda's voice. "It's jus
t my perfume. Go back to sleep; it's still daylight."

  "I must count my hen's golden eggs," declared the Giant King. The pounding footsteps came closer. Jack got a far more intimate experience with Giant morning breath than he ever wanted as the Giant King leaned over the hen and lifted her in one Jack-sized fist.

  "Three, four, five, one!" He counted the golden eggs, each the size of Jack's head. Then he sniffed.

  "I smell the blood of an Englishman!" he roared.

  "No you don't, dear," said Mathilda, reappearing with a plate of rolls and sliced cheese. "We don't do men the English way anymore; all that batter gives you heartburn."

  "There is only one egg from this lazy hen, my Queen," said the Giant King. He lifted a knife with a blade as long as Jack and fingered the edge, looking at the hen.

  "That's four eggs, dear," said Mathilda. "I explained counting before. You always mix up the numbers."

  The Giant King growled.

  "Would you care to join me for cheese?" asked Mathilda. "If not, please go to bed. And don't shout; you'll wake up the troops and they'll be all cross for tomorrow's invasion."

  The King scowled and stomped off to bed.

  "You can come out now, lad," said Mathilda.

  Jack climbed out of the bowl, and walked across the table to Mathilda's plate, where he picked up a cube of cheese half the size of his head.

  "The invasion makes him grumpy. I figure that cow really sold him a bill of goods when she promised a beanstalk that would let him climb down to the Land of Men below and have all the cows he wanted if he'd only let her go." She shook her head. "Between that and the Golden Harp there, it's been a madhouse. Once that thing started playing, all of a sudden caves in the hillsides weren't good enough. No, we had to have palaces and armies and a foreign policy."