7

They gathered in the candlelit kitchen of the Herbist's cottage. The Herbist had prepared a non-alcoholic beverage that had been and always would be known as "The Cure for Being Drunk," the one and only effect of which on the drunken human being was to make him feel a good deal worse than drunk. This put no one in a good mood (with the possible exception of the Herbist), and even made An's speeches noticeably short of her usual italics.

Tristan made some perfunctory introductions. "An, this is everybody. Everybody, this is An," he said, motioning at the angry, freckled redhead.

"An what?" asked Nil.

"Just 'An'."

"What?" said Nil.

"No, just 'An'," Tristan repeated emphatically.

"Androdameia!" she announced with feeling, striking a pose that really brought out the similarity with her brother.

"Just An, then," Ruella cut in. "Enough. What's all this about stopping the war, now?"

"I've already tried," Nil said dismally. "They don't listen to reason, none of them… stupid humans."

"Stupid human men, you mean," Ruella corrected him. "They don't listen to reason because they can't understand it – it's not their language."

"We'll find a way," Tristan said.

"You can't just march into Trox, wave around your big shiny sword, and tell everybody it's all over," Ruella said.

Nil looked at her and seemed to be thinking. "Couldn't you?" he asked Ruella. "Couldn't you do… you know… what you did in the bar, and make everyone cut it out and see reason?" An looked mystified, but Tristan watched the Fiddler curiously.

Ruella's hand was clamped around the neck of the fiddle she had carried home. She shook her head. "I tried that once, when I was ten. I went out between two armies right before a battle… I thought it was working, but an hour after I stopped they just went at it again, like always. I don't know why it works, but whatever the reason, it won't work long term, except for Mare Stop, maybe."

"Would someone care to inform me," An interjected, "What in the gods' nameswe all are talking about here? What is this war about, anyhow? A fight over a throne? Did someone accidentally trample someone else's brother and start a feud? Is there money involved? Taxes? A more corrupt government than usual?"

"Do we have to get into this?" Nil asked dismally.

"I'll explain," Ruella said. "See, there's this chalice. It's very mystical, and it has all these extraordinary powers."

"Just the one power, really," Nil said.

"Okay, fine. The one power," Ruella conceded. "But it's a really strong power, that one. And the chalice really is fabulous – I saw it the last time I was in the palace, and it's just amazing. It's made of gold and platinum and set with a thousand studs of ruby, pocked with little garnets, so that you can hardly stare directly at the thing…"

"It's all right," Nil interrupted again. "I mean, we have dog dishes back home that are ten times as beautiful and made with much more skill and attention to detail…"

"I'm sure it's lovely," An said curtly. "What's this 'one power' that it has?"

"The chalice's magical property is that the first side to conquer all of Trox and claim the chalice will win the war," Nil blurted out. "And win every other war after it, of course. Guaranteed."

Ruella looked slightly annoyed and embarrassed, as if an old family secret had been dug up and aired in front of the general public. An's blank expression mirrored Tristan's. Tristan's forehead was creased with intense concentration. "But there's no other country around these parts to war with," he said with certainty.

"Yes," Nil said.

"So they're fighting a war over the chalice," An stated blandly.

"Yes."

"So that the winning side will be able to… win?"

There was pressing stillness in the room while they all contemplated this with horror.

Finally the elf cried out, "I tried to tell them! I did! But they're all such humans… They said they knew already, of course! 'Why do you think we're fighting this war in the first place?' they said to me… Humans!"

"Men!" Ruella shrieked.

"Idiots," An murmured softly.

"I don't get it," Tristan said. "So there's no throne involved or anything?"

"Of course there's a throne!" Ruella grumbled. "No one's in it right now, or else this whole mess might have been sorted out. The whole ceremony was interrupted and the King disappeared. I don't know how it happened, exactly – it was years before I was born, but they say there was a bolt of lightening…"

"I could tell you!" a squeaky voice cut in. Heads swung towards the corner of the room where Repp Sprinkle had been hiding. His skinny body unfolded slowly as he stood up, giving the impression that his limbs were growing straight out of his beard.

Ruella jumped up from her seat. "What are you doing here?"

"I, er… I just followed you all home."

Blank stares.

"Well," he said with much reluctance, "if there's one thing that's clear, it's that wherever the battle is currently happening, this little lady" – he nodded at Ruella – "will be far from it. So if you don't mind, I'd like to offer my services as a…"

"I do, in fact, mind!" she shouted, her face red with embarrassment.

"Shut up and let him tell about the chalice!" An piped up. "Go on, you old cretin, what happened?"

Ruella raised her eyebrows, Tristan looked confused, and Nil seemed idly curious. The ragged old man gradually stepped out of the corner and into the light, stood in his usual half-crouch, and spoke. "I was there myself, ye see, with my Dad, who was a representative… one of the ones who elects the King, you know! And they had all finished their electing, and the King was all elected, and we were all gathered in the Great Big Hall to see the ceremony – and suddenly there was a noise and a flash of red light, and 'pop,' just like that, there goes the King. It was pretty aggravating for the representatives, let me tell you – it takes a lot of arguing to get a King elected, and they weren't bright on the idea of going through it all again."

"What about the chalice?" An asked.

"Oh… right. That came a bit later, when the representatives were all arguing over what to do. The chalice popped into place in just the way the King had popped out of place, if you get me: blink and you missed it. We were all very quiet when they read the words engraved at the bottom:

"Dark is the prospect before you;

War looms like a hovering giant;

Wrath is on the wind.

Stay not, but go to your weapons!

This chalice now within your reach

shall only the victorious claim.

These conquerors of Trox,

Though they labor through much woe,

Never again shall be defeated!

"It was a funny moment, you know? There was some fear of an invasion, but soon the men started thinking on their own, and then, all at once, everyone started picking sides. There were a few dozen sides at first, before things really got going, but the weaker ones were picked off pretty quickly. That was before we even left Trox. As far as I know, there's still a battle going on in the city. No one can ever conquer the whole thing though, like the chalice says – so no one's won the chalice so far."

There was silence in the room for a while. Tristan bit his lips. He'd conquered cities before, but this didn't sound like it was going to be your average rape-and-pillage situation.

"I'm sorry," An said, "I've heard of some pitiful excuses for war, but this has got to be the absolute stupidest."

"Well, excuse us for not having had any practice!" snapped Ruella.

"How does this country normally get its Kings?" Nil asked.

"Well, it's actually a fairly simple process, hypothetically," Ruella said. "We just elect them. A congressional body made up of one representative from each township or village, or two representatives from each city with more than five thousand inhabitants – for larger cities, two representatives for the first five thousand citizens plus subsequent representatives for every two thousand citizens thereafter – but they must be district leaders in order to participate – with a limit of ten representatives from each city total, should ever a city get big enough to have ten, plus representatives from each major religious denomination, with "major" referring to religious denominations consisting of more than five thousand members plus four leaders from the four territories with no power of voting but with primary authority over the whole lot, convenes every time we need to elect a new King, traditionally on the Thursday after New Year's, by which time most of them are over their hangovers, in the Great Big Hall of Trox – speaking of which, I forgot to mention, Trox gets its own special body of five representatives, but three of them sit out the voting and just try to figure out how to feed everybody. Anyway, ten candidates are chosen from random out of a pool of candidates to which every representative must submit at least three but no more than seventy names of men and women over the age of fifteen but under the age of senility, to be picked out of a big tub at the end of the hall – not the candidates, just their names – where each name is written on a piece of paper no more than three knuckles long and one wide, of no distinct color, and the names must be picked by a nonparticipating junior congressional hopeful who will not fuss around during the ceremony or whine or complain about the food – and the congress votes on those names. It takes three votes altogether – the first vote eliminates three of the aforementioned random candidates, the third vote eliminates another four, and of the remaining three, one must achieve at least a three-fifths majority in order to become King. Oh, and the congress has to argue about it for at least thirty but no more than sixty days beforehand. If the arguments come to a standstill, the…"

"ALL RIGHT. Thank you, Ruella, that's immensely helpful," said Tristan, whose head was starting to hurt again.

"… but if the standstill occurs on a Saturday before the tenth day, the Debate Committee, which is comprised of…"

"So," An interrupted, "you get a new one every year?"

"Not every year, only when the old one retires or is metaphorically beheaded."

"Metaphorically?"

Ruella smiled. "If it's a terrible King, we all get roused up and storm the castle walls, completely nonviolently of course, with metaphorical pitchforks and everything, and then he or she has to come out and declare his or herself publicly retired to some remote corner of the north."

"What ever happened," Tristan mused, "to good old genetic monarchy?"

"We used to have it in olden days," Ruella replied, "but the historians say it got too complicated."

Nil raised his hand. "Hey. Look at me. I'm an elf. I know about these things. It's magic, see? It's a trick of the gods. The King gets zapped away, and then you get this magical chalice in his place. It was put there by some god or other for the sole purpose of stirring things up, probably because the gods have very little appreciation for democracy, which, I might add, is completely understandable in some cases."

"So you're saying it's better to name someone ruler of the land, the one who decides which laws to enforce and what taxes to inflict and what war to fight, just because his dad was? And no one else has any say in it?" Ruella asked, crossing her arms over her breasts, a movement that momentarily distracted Nil from making a reply.

In the pause that followed, Tristan decided to Make A Decision. "We should go to Trox and destroy the demon-possessed chalice, thus restoring peace and democracy to the land!"

This did not elicit the exact response he was looking for, although the brass theme was playing somewhere in his head. An had a marvelous talent for killing his moments. "That's very nice dear. You do that," she said.

"Well…" said Nil, "maybe he's actually right. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to, you know, go have a look."

Ruella rolled her eyes. "Men always need to have a look, don't they?"

"Ahem, I happen to be an elf," Nil said.

"Okay, fine… I'll go. I'm the hero around here, anyway," said Tristan the Knight.

"You're not going anywhere without me," An reminded him with a warning look in her eyes.

"Fine," he said. "You can tag along. Just don't get under my feet, okay? And… and put something sensible on, for goodness' sakes! Would you want our mother to see you in that… that… um…"

"I happen to like my breastplate!" she growled. "Anyway, I wouldn't be one to talk, Mr. Metal-and-Leather."

"The girl's got a point," Ruella said. "And I suppose you'll need me to come along."

"Actually, I wasn't even going to suggest…"

"Please," she said, flourishing the fiddle. "How else are you going to get through the city if there's a battle going on?"

"The usual way?" he said.

"Which would be…"

"For Tristan," An answered, "the usual way involves a sword, and a technique we call 'cutting off their heads before they know what's coming.'"

"So this will be better," Ruella said decidedly. "It's settled. We'll start out tomorrow."

Alone in the corner, Repp Sprinkle slapped his forehead. And all along, Trox was the one battle he'd really been trying to avoid…

Author's Note.

School is making me lose my touch… don't blame me, blame my homework!

-Waltraute