Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

The Lacewing King smiled from behind the silken folds of his moths’-wing cloak.

“Come closer,” said the Harlequin.

The Lacewing King moved closer, though not quite enough to be caught. “How did you lose your kingdom?” he said.

“I lost it,” said the Harlequin, “to a very handsome young man—though perhaps not quite as handsome as you—who came to me from World Above. His mission, he told me, was to plead for the return of a soul that Death had delivered to me. She was his wife; his one true love; the mother of his infant son, and he would rather die, he said, than live a day without her.”

The Harlequin paused. “Come closer,” it said.

Once more, the King came closer, though still not quite enough to be caught. Under his cloak, his coat of bees hummed and buzzed with anxiety.

“And so I gave the man his wish,” went on the Harlequin softly. “I told him I would release his wife, as long as he swore to take her place.”

“And did he?” said the Lacewing King.

The Harlequin gave a wistful smile, revealing those restless mandibles. “He did,” it said. “I freed his wife and led him to his place by my side. But as I was about to take the life that he had promised me—” It paused to glance at the Lacewing King, still just a little too far out of reach. “He pulled something out of his pocket, and showed it to me in his hand. It was a vial of cut glass. He said:

“ ‘This nectar comes from the Honeycomb Queen, long ago; far away. This is what you hungered for, when you touched the flower that grew on the banks of the River Dream. A single taste will unlock your mind; a single droplet on your tongue holds the key to a million stories.’

“I looked at the man. I was curious. More than that; I was hungry. ‘Why do you tell me this?’ I said.

“ ‘Because you know only Nine Worlds,’ he said. ‘But there are so many worlds out there; a world for every story. Stories wield enormous power; greater even than yours, my Queen. A story can change the course of Time; a story can even raise the dead. A story can take you anywhere; into any world you choose. And the Honeycomb Queen sees into them all, as you will see, when I give you this.’ ”

And at that, he held up the tiny cut-glass vial to my face, and I saw myself reflected there in all its mirrored facets. And as it shone into my eyes, that reflect the gates to all Worlds, all Time, I fell from my throne in the Kingdom of Death and into the world of the living.”

The Lacewing King was curious. “Could you not return?” he said.

The Harlequin raised its claws, deadly in their long black gloves, and took a single step closer. “The ruler of Death never leaves their realm,” it said. “The young man had already taken my place. You see, he had sworn an oath to me, and his word was binding. And so he rules the Land of the Dead, never to return to this world, and his son is the King of the Silken Folk, and now—” The Harlequin sprang forward and seized the King in its terrible claws, and said: “And now, for my revenge—”

The Lacewing King struggled, averted his eyes, but could not break free of the Harlequin. It held him fast between its claws, its mandibles working hungrily, slashing at his shoulders and arms and digging its knives into his back, and as it spoke, it forced him to look into its black and merciless eyes.…

But the bees had not been idle. During the struggle, they had crept over the eyes of the Lacewing King, so that when the Harlequin came close and gazed into its victim’s face, it saw only the eyes of the bees, and its own eyes, mirrored in the abyss—

The creature gave a cry of rage and released the Lacewing King. Too late. It had already looked too long, and now the abyss was calling. The Harlequin broke into a cloud of red-and-scarlet ladybirds—thousands—tens of thousands of them—rising into the air like smoke. For a moment, the sound of their wings was like the sound of an avalanche. And then they were gone—every one of them—into the space between the Worlds, through the honeycomb of Time, never to be seen again in the realm of the Silken Folk.

The Lacewing King returned that night, bleeding and torn from the creature’s claws, but told no one of his encounter. He summoned a team of leafcutter ants to stitch up his wounds, and nurse bees to anoint him in honey and bandage him in silk. Of course, the Glow-Worm Chancellor saw the scars on his master’s skin, but if he guessed what had happened, he wisely kept his thoughts to himself.

As for the bees, they did not reveal what happened to the Harlequin. Perhaps they never knew for sure. But the Lacewing King never forgot the tale of his mother and father, and he gave orders that, henceforth, he would tolerate no ladybird of any kind anywhere in his kingdom; and that none of his people should ever wear its livery of scarlet and black, so that if the Harlequin ever returned, he would know it immediately. For he knew that its tale was not over, nor its appetite for vengeance slaked; and that one day they would meet again; in this world, or another.

9

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UPPETEER

Once, there was an artist, whose genius lay in the making of puppets. He could make them from anything: rags; ceramic; gloves; socks; feathers; clockwork; leather. He used them to act out his stories, for he was a storyteller, and all the children loved his tales, and followed him wherever he went.

But as time passed, and his fame