Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

Chapter 5

At first Azzie thought his spells weren't working because Hermes didn't appear no matter what he did. He tried again, with the big candles made from dead-man's wax that he saved for really difficult occasions. This time he could feel the spell working. He projected power into it and felt it racing through the aether, spinning through the crack between the worlds, nosing around like a questing bird dog. Then Azzie heard a grumpy voice saying, "All right, I'm awake now." And a few moments after that, the heroic marble-white body of Hermes appeared before him. The god was still combing his long brown hair, and he seemed more than a little annoyed.

"My dear Azzie, you should know better than to use a peremptory spell to call me like that. We spirit-advisers have our personal lives, too, you know. It's not nice to have to drop everything and get conjured up by some young demon like yourself."

"I am sorry," Azzie said. "But you've been so generous to me in the past... and my problem now is very dire."

"Well, let's hear it," Hermes said. "I don't suppose you have a glass of ichor around."

"Of course I do," Azzie said. He poured the ichor into a goblet carved from a single amethyst. While Hermes sipped at it Azzie explained his difficulty with Prince Charming.

"Let me see... ." Hermes said. "Yes, I remember some old writings on the subject. What your Prince Charming is doing is known classically as the Hero Refusing the Quest."

"I didn't know heroes could do that," Azzie said.

"Oh, yes. It's quite common. Do you know anything about your hero's family?"

"He doesn't have any family!" Azzie said. "I created him all by myself!"

"Yes, I know you did," Hermes said. "But recall what we learned of his legs. All his body parts have remembrances, especially the heart."

"He has a coward's heart," Azzie admitted. "I never looked into the rest of the family."

"I'll check it out for you," Hermes said. He vanished, not in a cloud of smoke as common demons vanish, but in a great flash of fire. Azzie admired the exit. It was something he would really like to learn.

Soon Hermes returned. "It is as I suspected. Your cadaver with the coward's heart was the middle of three sons."

"So? What does that mean?"

"In the Old Lore, the middle son is usually the worthless one. The eldest son inherits the kingdom. In the ordinary course of things, the youngest son goes out on the quest and wins a kingdom. The middle son just hangs around and never does much. It's nature's way of balancing the qualities."

"Hellfire!" Azzie said. "I'm stuck with a middle son who's a coward! What am I to do?"

"Since he is still unformed, there's hope of changing his mind. Perhaps you could convince him that he's a younger son. Then he will be more fit for the quest."

"Will that stop him from being a coward?"

"I'm afraid not," Hermes said. "It will help, of course, especially if you tell him stories of how fierce his ancestors were. But his cowardice is an innate tendency not to be cured by exhortation."

"What do you suggest, then?" Azzie asked.

"The only known cure for cowardice," Hermes said, "is an herb known as gutsia sempervirens."

"Where does it grow?" Azzie asked. "And does it really work?"

"Its efficacy is unquestioned. Gutsia, or the nerve plant, as it is also known, imbues a man with rashness and blind­sightedness. You must administer it in small doses, otherwise courage turns into foolhardiness and the hero is killed before he ever gets properly started."

"It's hard to imagine Charming being foolhardy."

"Give him a dose of gutsia about the size of his smallest fingernail, and you will see results that will surprise you. But remember, it's always best to balance it off with something else, like coolandria, the herb of careful forethought."

"I'll remember that," Azzie said. "Now, where am I to find this gutsia?"

"That is the real problem," Hermes confessed. "Back in the Golden Age there was a lot of it about, and no one bothered to eat it, since courage wasn't needed in those days, only ca­pacity for enjoyment. Then came the Age of Bronze, when men fought each other, and the Age of Iron, when they fought not only each other but all other things as well. In those days, men consumed the herb in great quantities. That is one of the reasons why the men of old had such prowess. But the race of humans almost died away from too much warfare pursued too coura­geously. With the climate change that the new age brought, the gutsia plant died off. And now it is to be found in only one place."

"Tell me where that is," Azzie said.

"It is on the back shelves of Supply," Hermes said, "where the remaining plants were dried and then put into tinctures of ichor for eternal preservation."

"But I already asked Supply for something of that sort! They said they had never heard of such a thing!"

"That's very like them," Hermes said. "You must find some way to get them to make a really exhaustive search. I'm sorry, Azzie, but there's nothing else I can think of that will suffice."

This was a problem, because Supply was acting less and less cooperative. In fact, Azzie had the impression they had written off his quest and were now taking long naps and waiting until something else came up. Azzie knew he was in trouble. He talked to the Prince, recounting to him the heroic deeds of his imaginary ancestors and urging him to copy them in all respects. The Prince wasn't interested, however. Even when Azzie brought him small portraits of Scarlet, done by demon artists who could be counted on not to leave out any pulchri­tudinous feature, the young man still seemed uninterested, and talked about opening up a dress shop when he was a little older.