The Ratman & Stoat queen sauntered through

The Ratman & Stoat queen sauntered through the renaissance fare. They were giving each other the glad eye, but above their shoulders, her stoat was leering at his hairless rat.

The rat glared daggers back at the stoat perched on the queen's shoulders. Ratman ignored his familiar and offered the Stoat queen a turkey leg in front of the leather mug pavilion

's top dwarf. The Stoat Queen would not be so easily swayed by Ratman. She laughed, low throated and cynically, "Your knight "mind" tricks won't work so easily on me boy."

Ratman glared at the Stoat Queens hairy chest, grinning, and slurping on his two slimy green teeth. "I successfully used my knight "mind" tricks on a hungry viper named Vic, " he

drawled as he began to enter the final code into the ship's self-destruct sequence. "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right..." He paused. What came after that? Was it

"puncture the fabric of time/space" or was it "tincture of Flambéd mime/spice". If he chose wrong the whole project would NOT self-destruct. That would be bad. So would choosing ri

ight was an absolute must. He held his breath and the clown's left shoe. "Pink!" He shouted hoping that it would be right and the who thing would explode. Instead the

clown exclaimed "Correct!" and hundreds of pairs of pink pants fell from the ceiling as the audience cheered and the band blared. He escaped by wrapping himself in pink pants and

wriggling off the stage. He ran out the back door, glancing fearfully behind him. Three clowns were chasing him, grinning. The band played on, but he didn't listen. He ran as