“Not true.” Naya showed us the time on her miraculously-still-working cell phone. “It took us a while to swim to the surface.”
“And he did disappear into that puff of green smoke,” I added. “He could have magically teleported to the palace!”
“It all happened so fast, Your Majesty!” Sir Gobbet was in tears now, and they dripped fatly from his tiny eyes all the way down into his long white beard. “One minute, the Raja was on his throne, and the next, he’d lost control of the kingdom!”
“That imposter, that fiend who took my job was in on it!” shrieked Tuni, flapping his yellow wings in agitation. “That bane of my existence, that worm-eater of a minister, Gupshup! He handed the kingdom right over to Sesha! That shutki-fish-eating stinker!”
I was about to tell Tuntuni to chill, but I didn’t. Because just then, there came from the ocean behind us a tremendous splashing. Tuntuni squawked and spit, and we all whirled around. When I saw what was rising out of the water, I felt anything but calm. I fumbled with my bow and arrow, fear shooting through my body.
“Rakkhosh!” I shouted. “It’s an attack!”
The crowd of demons rose out of the Honey-Gold Ocean of Souls. There were air rakkhosh with their wings unfurled, fire demons shooting flames out of their noses, water demons with webbed fingers and toes, and land demons who looked every-which-way weird, with horns sticking out of their foreheads and teeth for hair. Plus, all the rakkhosh looked bruised and battered, with banged-up noses and broken wing joints, like they’d just come from a fight. It was a surprise attack!
“Rakkhosh!” I shouted again. I looked over my shoulder and realized that while the ministers and other human courtiers from the palace looked nervous, and Tuntuni was flitting around in panic, no one had pulled out a weapon or anything. Naya looked seriously hurt, and the Pink-Sari Skateboarder girls—demonic and human—all seemed to be laughing at me.
“No kidding they’re rakkhosh!” Priya shot little flames out of her mouth with the words. “So are half of us. Or have you forgotten, Princess? And if I’m not wrong, you yourself freed these sad saps from the detention center when you destroyed dear old daddy’s underwater hotel.”
“I wasn’t the only rakkhosh in that detention center,” Neel reminded me. “There were a lot of others kept captive too.”
“But they’re not like you, Princie!” Tuni squawked. “You’re one of the good ones!”
“Stop being such an anti-demon bigot!” Mati scolded. Her words were aimed at the little yellow bird, but I could tell she meant them for me and the other frightened humans too. “I would think you would know by now that no one type of creature has the market on monstrosity. Rakkhosh can be good or bad, based on their choices—just like human beings!”
I felt a twinge of shame at my cousin’s words, but getting over my fear of rakkhosh was easier said than done. Based on my previous experiences with some of them, as well as all the monstrous stories I’d heard since I was a kid, it was hard to stop thinking of all rakkhosh as bad. But even as I relaxed my guard, the rakkhosh who had come up out of the waves made a tight circle around me. I gave a little yell and whirled, not sure where to aim my bow and arrow. “Some help, please!” I shouted.
But what the rakkhosh did next shocked me into lowering my weapon. Some knelt, some gave me a respectful namaskar, some salaamed, and some even touched my feet with their warty hands.
“From demonic detention you did us free,” rhymed one green-skinned and boil-covered fellow. “We are yours, if ever you need.”
“We won’t discriminate against your blood,” said another creature with crooked and bitten-up bat wings. “You may be half snake, but we know you’re good.”
That statement stopped me cold. They wouldn’t discriminate against me? My sweet rakkhoshi friend Naya gave me a little grin, but Priya gave a knowing laugh, like she could tell what I was thinking.
“My friends, all, please rise up. The resistance is happy to have your support,” said Mati. “We have much work to do to get the kingdom back from Sesha’s rule.”
“Our arms and wings and flames are yours,” said a water rakkhoshi with shells for hair. “Even those of us who walk on all fours!”
The courtiers and palace servants moved away a little as the rakkhosh joined them. Naya linked her arm through mine and said in a low whisper. “Isn’t it wonderful, Your Princess-ship, how our people are working together?”
I looked into her trusting face and felt my doubts about the rakkhosh easing away, at least a little. “Yeah, wonderful!”
“Everything is upside down! Monsters are good and humans are monstrous!” sobbed Sir Gobbet.
“No one said change was easy. And changing our ideas is sometimes the hardest thing of all.” Mati patted his turban as the little man kept blubbering. I noticed her and Priya exchange amused smiles.
“The people of the kingdom need a new Raja to rally behind!” Gobbet snorted, wiping his nose and eyes with a lacy handkerchief. “With your brother Lalkamal vanished, the kingdom needs you, Your Majesty, Prince Neelkamal! Your people need you!”
“Not necessarily. I mean, there’s something to be said for a parliamentary system, you know,” said Neel, chewing on a fingernail. “Or participatory democracy! I mean, monarchies are so last century, amirite?”
“Neel!” Mati and I shouted at the same time, as Naya sputtered, “Your Royalness!”
Priya, on the other hand, gave an approving snort.
Gobbet rounded on him with the fancy pillow and paper crown. “Come on, Your Majesty, just put it on. It won’t hurt a bit.”
“Stop calling me that! Majesty! That’s not me! I don’t want to be king!” Neel looked seriously freaked out. I knew his father had once convinced Neel he wasn’t good enough to rule, just because he was half rakkhosh. In fact, the Raja had stripped Neelkamal of the title of crown prince, even though he was the eldest, and given it to his younger brother Lalkamal. But I wondered if Neel was feeling nervous because of that, or because his confidence had been shattered from all those weeks in demon detention?
“You’re the only one who can do it. It’s not like your brothers Buddhu or Bhootoom are up for the job.” Mati was right on this score. Neel and Lal’s monkey and owl brothers were seriously on the silly side. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not crown prince, because we don’t even know where Lal is.” Mati’s voice tensed a little as she said these last words, so I jumped in quickly to fill her in on her childhood best friend being captured by a ghost, something Neel, Naya, and I had only just learned.
I opened my still-sodden backpack and held up my Lola Morgana thermos. “We’ve got him in here.”
“You shoved Prince Lalkamal into that cheap merch from the Star Travels TV show?” squawked Tuntuni.
“Not Lal!” I said. “The ghost who took over Lal’s identity after jamming the real Lal in a tree trunk!” I handed the thermos off to Mati, who looked at it wonderingly.
“Her Royalosity Princess Kiranmala tricked that nasty bhoot into entering the Lola Morgana thermos all on his own!” said Naya in her usual enthusiastic way.