Constant landed on the Queen of Dreams. The black hole above the dais sucked in on itself and disappeared with a small pop.

‘Constant!’ cried the Queen, ‘must you always return right here?’

‘My queen,’ said Constant, removing himself from her lap, ‘I apologize. I will speak to Death.’

‘I can’t have my subjects dropping into my lap every few weeks or months. It’s un-befitting for a queen.’

‘Maybe a day planner, Queen,’ Jester Dave piped up, ‘whenever the seeker dies, we know fourteen days later he will drop over the dais.’

‘We don’t always know when he dies, you ridiculous clown.’

Jester Dave was crestfallen. ‘A clown?’ he said, dropping the cats he was juggling. The Queen of Dreams blew him a kiss, which he caught and put in his treasure box. A smile back on his face, he chased after the six cats, sending courtiers and guards leaping out of the way.

The Queen turned away from the spectacle. ‘How many lives left, Constant?’

‘Oh, a good many, My Queen. A good many.’ Constant straightened his clothes and turned to appraise the snob gathering. He froze.

‘You!’ he said.

Duke Slickeye stepped forward, twirling his mustache. ‘Indeed. I.’

Jester Dave groaned. Awful memories of a heart broken Honeycomb marched into his mind. And of a livid Constant. Slickeye had stolen his sister’s heart and hidden it away for years before Constant had finally retrieved it from under a dragons Jacuzzi. That had been no easy feat either. And then Slickeye had tricked them out of their little plot of land beside Fire Heart Forest. Jester Dave fretted. This was not good.

Constant drew his saber and hopped off the dais. ‘En Guarde!’

‘With pleasure, peasant!’ said the Duke, drawing his own saber out in a rasp. They circled each other around the throne room. The Queen of Dreams leaned forward eagerly. Jester Dave leaped and somersaulted round the oval room, taking bets. As always, the odds were against Constant, Slickeye being the better duelist by far. But the Queen, she placed her money on Constant. As always.

Steel rang and sparks flashed. The crowd gasped and cheered.

Constant fought hard, determined to best the duke this time. Slickeye was gonna get it.

‘Your grass is ass, Spit-eye!’

A sharp riposte from Slickeye sent him reeling back.

‘The peasant,’ Slickeye said, ‘has his phrases backward and his attacks are reduced to insult.’

The crowd tittered and Jester Dave dropped a drum roll. Constant sent him a quick glare. Abashed, feeling traitorous, the jester began beating a hip-hop beat.

Constant leapt in with a severe stab. ‘Holler ‘nuff, you pompous fool!’

Slickeye batted the stab aside  and drew blood with a slash to the shoulder. Constant bit his tongue and circled away in defense, gathering himself for another attack.

Just as the duelists were about to re-engage the Queen of Dreams raised a hand. ‘Hold it!’ she cried. The duelists halted, managed to pull their hateful eyes away from each other and look at their queen. ‘I said hold it, clown!’ Jester Dave abruptly stopped beating the drums, and cast his eyes down.

‘It wasn’t decided whether this was a duel to the death or first blood drawn.’

Together the swordsmen shouted: ‘To the Death!’ The crowd roared in response, then looked surprised at themselves, before deciding to cheer instead.

‘Jester, back to that beat,’ the Queen commanded, ‘it was fitting.’ Jester Dave’s face lit up with pride and dropped that beat down full on gusto.

Constant danced and weaved, fancy footwork drawing gasps of approval from the colorfully dressed crowd.

Slickeye shimmied and slithered, saber licking and flicking.

Constant spun in sharp. Feinted with a stab and when Slickeye took the bait he slammed his fist into the Duke’s jaw. A mean left hook. The crowd booed.

The Duke dropped to the floor. Constant strutted around the room waving his weapon in a circle, trying to get the crowd to cheer.

‘No fair.’ They cried.

‘No fair?’ said Constant, ‘ye buncha bleeding snobs. I’m giving you lot a goddamn show, and ye’s crying about no bloody fair.’

He waved his saber again. ‘Now bloody cheer!’

They roared. Constant smiled. ‘There, that’s more –

Instinctively he ducked and spun. Slickeye’s blade murdered the space where his neck had been.

‘No fair!’ cried Constant, running in a circle, the Duke after him with the meanest of grins on his powdered cheeks.

A sudden intensity in the breaking beat gave his guts some mettle and he stopped running to face the Duke.

‘Come on then, ye slimy fecker!’

Slickeye slithered up. Sinuous and deadly, his blade again licking, tasting.

‘You going down, fool!’ said Falter. He went in hard. He went in fast.

Duke Slickeye sidestepped an angry thrust and ran Constant through the heart.

‘Tell me peasant, does it hurt, every time you die?’

Constant grimaced. ‘Nooo…’

‘Liar.’

Far, far away, where turtles never make it, that annoying voice had Constant looking around.

‘Tsk, tsk, tsk.’

‘I can hardly see you, Father Death. What wiv all ‘em clouds over there.’

‘Aye, Constant,’ said Father Death, ‘tis hard to see through clouds of hatred.’

Constant laughed. ‘Clouds of hatred?’  He said. ‘What evil lettuce have you been smoking, eh?’

Father Death reached over to slap him.

But he missed, them clouds were everywhere.

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