The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Sixth Annual Collection

RUBY LAUGHTER, TEARS OF PEARL James Powell

On the day Princess Nicolodia was born the King ordered his brother-in-law to stand in the town square, blowing his bugle and handing out slices of bread and butter to the population. The King regretted that he couldn’t do more but his was a poor kingdom. In fact, his subjects were slightly better off than he was. At least they could till their fields or tend their shops. But the King was expected to do nothing all day except practice good posture and solemnity. On top of that, he had to live in a drafty palace with a thatched roof and supply his own throne. The King often thought of throwing the whole thing over. But small and poor though the Kingdom was, it had been in his family for a long time. So he stayed, rather hoping the people liked it that way. And they rather did. It was nice having a king of their own, particularly one who never taxed them or sent them off to war. Besides, they knew that if this king went away another people’s king would come and rule over them.

The people turned out for Princess Nicolodia’s christening party armed with covered dishes, for they took pride in the fact that they never put the King out of pocket for ruling over them. For his part, the King smiled proudly at the baby, kissed his wife, the Queen, drank his share of cider, and danced in his wooden way with any woman who asked him. But all the while he kept an eye peeled for the fairy godmother who serviced the royal families locally. She liked to make her entrance in a flash of blue light, gift in hand. The King prayed it would be a silver christening mug that he could sell on the sly and have indoor plumbing installed in the palace. He feared it would be matching luggage.

But when the last of the fireworks had echoed from the hills, the fairy godmother still hadn’t appeared. Hiding his disappointment, the King shook hands with the departing guests. Then he and his wife finished off what remained of the desserts and retired. Sometime after midnight they were awakened by a flash of blue light. There stood the fairy godmother, her pointed hat and the hoops of her hoopskirt askew, waving a leather, three-ring pocket organizer. “I had you people down for next week,” she admitted sheepishly. “To make amends I guess I’ll have to give Nicolodia the Biggie.”

The King nodded, as if that was the most natural thing in the world. The Queen asked, “What’s the Biggie?”

“You’ll find out come her twelfth birthday,” replied the fairy godmother. “Let’s just say it’s a gift so precious we only get one to give away.” She waved the pocket organizer over the baby’s crib. “There,” she sighed. “Now I’m a lame-duck fairy godmother. When word gets out people will be taking their business elsewhere in droves. ”

“Suppose we just keep this our little secret?” suggested the King.

The fairy godmother flashed him a grateful smile, waved the pocket organizer again, and disappeared.

When Princess Nicolodia’s twelfth birthday finally came around the kingdom had fallen on hard times. First a fungus called tapioca slime destroyed the turnip crop. Then a disease called turnip foot struck the tapioca trees. The tired, careworn faces of the people as they arrived for her birthday party touched the Princess’s heart and she began to cry. To everyone’s astonishment, her tears turned to pearls as they hit the ground. Now the people’s gift was a house sparrow they had painted scarlet and edged its wings in gold, hoping the Princess would believe it was a Carpathian nightingale. The bird made Nicolodia laugh with delight, and when she did, rubies fell from her lips.

The amazed King assigned his brother-in-law the job of following the Princess about with a basket and picking up the pearls and rubies. Then he sat down with the royal councilors to decide what was to be done. The Sticks, as the conservative councilors came to be called, advised filling the royal coffers by giving the Princess daily beatings. The Feathers, or liberals, suggested regular tickling. But the King refused, saying, “Let her live a normal life, laughing when she’s happy, crying when she’s sad. Surely there’s enough joy and sorrow in this life for our little kingdom’s needs.”

In fact, when news of the phenomenal Princess spread abroad Moody’s rating service classified the kingdom Triple A, allowing the King to embark on an ambitious program of public works by borrowing money on anticipated joy and sorrow. He cobbled the streets and established an agricultural college with a special mandate to find a cure for tapioca slime and turnip foot.

As Princess Nicolodia approached marriageable age the sons of the neighboring kings began mooning around. Soon you couldn’t throw a rock at the palace porch without drawing royal blood. For her part, the Princess found all this princely attention unsettling and couldn’t look out the front window without getting the hiccups.

One day some sharp-eyed strangers calling themselves aluminum-siding salesmen rode into town. That night, while the King’s brother-in-law slept curled up around his blunderbuss on the floor outside the Princess’s bedroom door, the strangers slipped in by the window and kidnaped her.

The next morning the frantic King tracked the kidnapers’ hoofprints out to the great crossroads on the edge of town where they took the turning that led to Bad Wolfstein. That walled city atop a peak in the Slag Mountains was home to the most rapacious people in all creation. City ordinances forbade street signs and public clocks so the natives could sell visitors directions and the time of day. It was the kind of place where people were supposed to be paying you a compliment if they stole your hat. And the sticky-fingered leader of this grasping community was Mr. Many-Pockets himself, His Honor Mayor Avaricious O’Greedy.

When the King told his people where the Princess had been taken they vowed to storm the city and rescue her. But he advised against it. Bad Wolfstein thrived on besieging armies. During the day, secure behind their walls, they would bundle up the arrows shot into the city for resale back to the enemy. At night, particularly just after the besiegers had a payday or received parcels from home, the Bad Wolfsteiners would slip out on crepe soles and steal anything in the enemy camp that wasn’t nailed down. When winter came they prospered by selling the besiegers blankets and firewood. By spring the same army that had advanced up the mountain with bright battle flags and shining armor would creep back down again barefoot, bankrupt, and in burlap rags. “No,” said the King, “I must put on the royal thinking cap and find some clever plan to rescue the Princess.” To devote himself entirely to this purpose he appointed his brother-in-law king pro tem.

For the next few days the people watched the King walking about scratching his head. Then one afternoon they saw him stop in his tracks and pound a fist in the palm of his hand. After that he could only be seen early mornings coming back from the newsstand studying the Wall Street ]oumal. For the rest of the day he locked himself up in the music conservatory, an old armory whose walls the Queen had decorated with musical instruments. Soon the most ear-splitting caterwaul was coming from that end of the palace, as if every musical instrument had been rolled into one and then tormented with a sharp stick to the accompaniment of an interminable metallic clatter. This was followed by several weeks of screams and terrible noises like someone retching on a large tongue depressor.

Meanwhile the kingdom had fallen on hard financial times. The cobblestone supplier, faced with a long overdue account, came around with a crew to dig up the streets. The King might have soft-soaped the man out of it. But all his brother-in-law could think to do was bob and weave and challenge him to a fistfight, which he lost. The kingdom felt the humiliation deeply and stayed indoors until the cobbles had been carted away.

Finally the King announced he was ready to go to Bad Wolfstein and rescue his daughter. And he sent word to the porch crowd offering to put in a good word for any prince who joined him. But they declined, citing rude cabbies, the crosstown traffic, parking, and the high prices of everything. Only a young student named Swineherd stepped forward. Swineherd had fallen in love with the Princess, who’d been in his animal psychology class. But he’d never declared his love. How could a penniless commoner aspire to the hand of a princess with tears of pearl and ruby laughter?

So the King kissed the Queen goodbye. Then he and Swineherd loaded up the palace handcart with mysterious boxes and packages and set off. They hadn’t gone far when they met a young boy named Jack leading a cow. Jack was on his way to be swindled at the Bad Wolfstein cattle market. Now the King happened to be carrying some magic beans dreamed up by the research and development boys at the agricultural college. When he suggested trading the magic beans for Jack’s cow, the young boy agreed and turned homeward, delighted to save the shoe leather.

As the King and Swineherd continued on their way, the young man told his tragic story. One year his father, a forward-looking pig farmer, decided to get top dollar for his animals by herding them fifty miles to the railhead for shipment out East. The morning of the pig drive he’d opened the farmyard gate and, standing in his stirrups, he’d waved his broad-brimmed hat and called out, “Pigs yo-o!” In a shot, two thousand pigs were off and running every which way. Many reached the forest where the giant swill-berries grew. Enough found their way into neighborhood cook pots to make the air smell of pork and sauerkraut for weeks. Swineherd had come to agricultural college seeking the answer to the question his father, now a broken man, kept muttering to himself: “If we can’t herd them, why in hell do they call us swineherds?” As Swineherd’s story ended, the turrets of Bad Wolfstein were rising in the distance.

At the city gate the King and his young companion found that admission cost one chicken per person. The tollbooth man took the cow and gave them three chickens change. They were soon pushing the handcart down narrow, crooked streets through surly, jostling crowds.

“We’ll never find her in a place like this,” despaired Swineherd.

“Sure we will,” said the King. “Trust me. I’ve thought this whole thing out.”

Soon a hard rain began to fall. At the next tavern the King went inside and spoke to the owner. Then he and Swineherd pushed the handcart around to the back. “Figuring they’d be short on entertainers by now, I offered to be tonight’s floor show,” explained the King. “It’ll get us our supper and a dry place to sleep.” Then he took a concertina, a ukulele, two tambourines, a set of cymbals, and a harmonica out of the handcart, attaching them about his person with ingenious straps, harnesses, and rigs. The concertina, for example, he buckled between his knees. The cymbals he wore like a hat and clashed by means of springs and a pull chain.

“Can I be your assistant?” asked Swineherd, who was anxious to see the show.

“One-man bands don’t have assistants,” replied the King, strapping on a pair of roller skates. “Your job will come soon enough. For now just guard the chickens.”

The King glided through the back door and into the smoky spotlight. The halfempty barroom greeted him with that particular groan reserved for one-man bands who tap dance on roller skates. But the King, knowing cutthroats and brigands were a sentimental lot, had tailored his act accordingly, ending with a sing-along including numbers like “Bad Wolfstein Must Be Heaven For My Mother Came From There” and “Carry Me Back to Old Bad Wolfstein (That’s Where the Rotters and the Cons and Traitors Go)” that left the crying barflies clapping for more. As he skated from the floor it occurred to the King that he was probably the first of his line to sweat. Supper was thin soup and sour beer. But the next night a packed house and thunderous applause earned a thicker soup and a modest chablis.

Just as the food arrived, a short man in a shiny suit slid into the booth with the King and Swineherd and introduced himself as Max, a theatrical agent. “Caught your act,” he said. “Not bad. Too good for this dump. Sign with me and I’ll get you two weeks at the Plaza.” When the King agreed, Max called for another spoon, ate ten percent of their soup, and hurried off about his business.

So the act opened at the Plaza. The next day, as the King read the sterling review in the Morning Bugle’s “Man About Bad Wolfstein” column, Swineherd sighed and said, “I wonder what Nicolodia’s doing right now.”

“Crying, I should think,” said the King, turning the paper to the financial section. “Pearl values started on the skids about the time she was kidnaped. Now they’re in a real tailspin. You can’t even give pearls away.” He gave the young man a comforting look. “I know all this waiting around’s hard to take. But my plan’s working. Didn’t you see who caught the act last night? The big guy in the fake beard at the corner table.”

“The one who stole the ashtray when he left?”

The King nodded. “O’Greedy himself.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I said entertainers were in short supply,” the King reminded him. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Just then Max hurried in and asked the King, “Hey, can you do funny?”

“Can I ever,” said the King.

“So here’s the deal,” said Max. “A certain party needs to be cheered up and kept that way. It’s big bucks if we can do the job. On the down side, if we fail, I lose a client.” To make his meaning clear Max chopped off an invisible head with the edge of his hand.

A carriage was waiting for them after the midnight show. The King rode in silence, sitting there in his one-man band outfit, staring into the darkness. Earlier he had instructed Swineherd to do all the talking. He had also ordered him to wear roller skates, too, and not to forget the chickens. The trip took them up and up many a steep street until they reached one that dead-ended at an old abandoned coopers’ warehouse where wooden barrels had once been stored. At their knock the warehouse door opened and the King stepped through. But when Swineherd tried to follow he was grabbed by the shirt and lifted off his feet. A giant of a man with a battered head and ears and nose to match examined him by torchlight. “Now just who the hell are you?” he demanded in a cutthroat voice.

“I’m his assistant,” gasped Swineherd.

The man tightened his grip a couple of turns and hissed, “One-man bands don’t have assistants.”

“He’s been sick.”

The man’s mouth moved as though chewing over Swineherd’s words. Then he demanded, “Why the chickens?”

“For the big finale,” said Swineherd.

The man hurled Swineherd into the arms of the four burly ruffians guarding the King. Decked out in knives, swords, peg legs, eye-patches, and an occasional hook for a hand, this sinister crew frisked the new arrivals for weapons, then seized them by the elbows and rolled them up a series of ramps until they reached the fifth floor. More armed men joined them along the way, until their escort grew to twenty. The King smiled reassurances at his worried young companion as they were pushed into a large, windowless, high-ceilinged room lit and warmed by a small brazier in the middle of the floor. There, tied to a chair next to the fire, was the King’s weeping daughter. As his eyes adapted to the gloom he saw the floor lay thick with pearls. In one corner, beside a burlap sack half filled with pearls, stood a broom and a dustpan, as if someone had tired of sweeping them up. In fact, the walls were stacked ceiling high with sacks of unmarketable pearls.

“If there’s no profit in sorrow, we must try laughter,” said the Mayor of Bad Wolfstein, who was sitting over to one side with an executioner’s axe across his knees. O’Greedy was still wearing the full black beard of the night before, perhaps as protection against the chill in the air. “Of course, it’s a no-lose situation for me,” he continued. “Make the young lady laugh and I grow richer. Fail and I get to chop off your head. No big thrill, you say. True, but a damn cheap one. And I’m fond of cheap. ” O’Greedy signaled for more torches for the performance.

As the room filled with light, the Princess recognized her father and laughed with joy, adding rubies to the pearls at her feet. An amazed O’Greedy looked from the precious stones to the King and Swineherd and his jaw fell even more. The two unarmed men who stood before him a moment ago were now holding swords.

The King cocked his head apologetically while he gave his chest a dyspeptic rap with his fist. Yes, the one-man band who tap danced on roller skates had also mastered the ancient art of sword swallowing. Before the Mayor could sound the alarm, the King placed four roller-skate wheels in the middle of the man’s chest and toppled him over backwards. O’Greedy’s men laughed from the doorway, thinking it part of the act. They grinned as the King skated backwards in a circle around the room playing “Happy Days Are Here Again” on tambourine, harmonica, cymbals, and concertina, while behind his back he beat out the rhythm with his sharp sword on the bags of pearls along the walls. But when they saw Swineherd cut Nicolodia’s bonds, O’Greedy’s men rushed into the room just in time to be upended by the gush of pearls across the floor.

As the Mayor and his henchmen struggled to regain their footing and pearls hissed out onto the floor, the lower sacks sagged, setting those above to teetering. The King and Swineherd quickly skated the Princess out of the room and bolted the door behind them. At the top of the ramp the King introduced his daughter to Swineherd and explained why the young man had come. Then the King ordered her to hold the chickens and, turning his back, he tucked her knees under his arms while the young man grabbed her around the waist from behind. Then, bending at the knees like skiers, the two men went rolling downward with the Princess between them, picking up speed as each floor flashed by. But when they hit the top of the final ramp the King saw the doorkeeper. The man must have heard them coming. There he was planted sideways in the open doorway with a large club on his shoulder and his hindquarters wagging like Mudville’s Casey, daring the human contraption on wheels to try to get by him. Suddenly the man’s smile vanished, he dropped the club and vanished out the door. The King glanced back over his shoulder and uttered a royal curse. Rushing down the ramp close behind them was a three-foot-high wall of pearls. On top of it, riding the door to the fifth-floor room like a surfboard, was O’Greedy, his beard flowing out behind him, waving the executioner’s axe.

The King, the Princess, and Swineherd passed through the open door and went careening down the steep cobblestone street in the moonlight. Behind them they heard the roar as the pearly mass burst through the warehouse door and came rolling after them, O’Greedy, door, and all. The King had anticipated the possibility of pursuit but nothing like this. All he could do was crouch more to reduce the drag. Down, down they went at a dizzying clip with the nacreous death at their heels until, at last, they reached the lower town on whose leveler streets the rushing tide of pearls started to lose momentum. So did the roller skates. But not O’Greedy. He shot ahead of the ebbing pearls, riding the door across the slick cobbles and coming on fast. Ahead the King could see the torches marking the city gate. Would they reach it in time? And even if they did, would that be enough to save them? “Skate, man! Skate like hell!” he shouted back at Swineherd. But they couldn’t outrace O’Greedy. The man was breathing down Swineherd’s neck. As they reached the gate the Mayor raised the executioner’s axe.

“Quick, the chickens!” ordered the King as they entered the tollbooth’s exact-change lane. His daughter tossed the chickens into the toll hopper. O’Greedy was right behind and halfway into his downswing with the axe when the tolltaker, not recognizing who was behind the fake beard, reached out an arm that stopped the Mayor dead in his tracks to demand another chicken.

A moment later something woke the children in the lower town and drew them to their bedroom windows. When they saw the streets shining with pearls in the moonlight, they rubbed their eyes in wonderment and called their parents. The parents came grumpily and, being up-to-date on such matters, went back to bed, scoffing, “Pearls, only pearls. There’s no profit in pearls.” But the children stayed at the window with their cheeks in their hands until the sun rose and the street cleaners came to wash the pearls away. But the children would never forget those pearls in the moonlight nor cease to marvel that something with no profit in it could be so beautiful.

As for Princess Nicolodia and Swineherd, they married, built a home, and started to raise a family. Happiness was the general state of affairs and the rubies fell thick and fast. They kept enough for their own modest needs and gave the rest to the King. Soon the town had been recobbled, the agricultural college expanded, and thanks to Moody’s reinstated Triple A rating, an irrigation system constructed that brought water to every field in the kingdom. The King had just started drawing up plans for a convention center when oversupply kicked the bottom out of the ruby market.

One night at the dinner table as she passed her preoccupied husband the turnips, the Queen said, “A penny for your thoughts. ”

“I was just wondering what I’m going to tell the cobblestone man this time,” said the King.

As he spoke his brother-in-law came in and, apologizing for being late, sat down and said, “Hey, leave the cobblestone man to me.”

“How so?” asked the King.

“Remember back there when Nicolodia was having all those hiccups?” said his brother-in-law as he unfolded his napkin. “Didn’t I ever show you those weird little things that popped out with every hie? The tiny rectangles with connected dots and lines on them? Well, I looked those little buggers up one way and down the other. Damned if I could figure out what they were for. So I said to myself, Brother-inlaw, you’re just going to have to build a machine these doohickeys’ll fit into. And I did. It turned out to be a computer. They’re computer chips.”

“Ah,” said the King, as though that was the most natural thing in the world.

“What’s a computer?” asked the Queen.

“Damned if I know,” said the brother-in-law. “Nobody’d ever built one before. But our worries are over. 1 got some Japanese businessmen talking big bucks. ”

The King smiled and cocked his head. Life was certainly strange. There was no profit in pearls or rubies or in joy or sorrow, for that matter. But hiccups, it looked like hiccups were a different story.