Introducing Chapter DCCXIX (“How do you pronounce that, anyway?”), Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, explains her decision to bring the evil medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, back into the story.
“I know, I know–the critics are all saying he can’t possibly come back, he must be some 600 years old or more,” she pullulates. “But they have failed to reckon with time-travel spells!”
It has been, however, a long, long time since Rodney used any of those spells; and this time, something has gone wrong.
Black Rodney has come back as a very large stick insect.
“Now that he’s a stick insect,” she explains, “he has no vocal organs. He can’t talk. He can’t pronounce the counter-spell which might restore him to human form. Then again, it might not. These things are very tricky!”
What was the purpose of bringing back Black Rodney after all this time?
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” she cries out loud. “There’s just no pleasing certain people, is there? Just last night my neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, spat out one of my toothpaste brownies! He said it tasted like something from Pnath! I don’t know where that is. But I’ll betcha whoever lives there has healthy teeth!”
We will leave it here, for the moment.The critics are getting restless.