September/October 2023

Young triplet princes, the descendants of legendary King Corv the Twenty-First, set off on their first sea voyage Once upon a time, on a green, lush island in the middle of a raging blue sea sat a kingdom called Malvagor. It was a beautiful place. Sunbeams danced on the surface of its neighboring waters, and waves crashed on its pale, soft, sandy beaches. The sun above shone with a white, brilliant light which was marred by tall cliffsides that cast dark, fine shadows upon the rocky paths lined by thin woods of evergreens and apple trees; ivy curled around their tall, rough trunks like snakes coiling around the tips of boulders. White, fluffy clouds drifted lazily across the sky, such as water lilies would drift across a peaceful river, dancing slowly on the surface with no purpose or reason. Birds perched in the trees; frogs hopped in the ponds; deer danced in the meadows and through the forests. It was all a brilliant collage of color and nature and life. And yet, of course, every kingdom needs people, and here, in the glistening kingdom, atop the tallest hill on the whole island, in a towering medieval castle, is where our story begins. A great wall surrounded the castle. It was crafted completely from stone, and every hundred yards or so, there was a tower with several guards standing in the open room at the top of it. They would occasionally walk along the top of the wall, from tower to tower, in the rare instances when replacements became necessary, giving them a break from the stuffiness of their stations and a taste of the crisp breeze that always seemed to be blowing across the island, no matter the season. The chirp of the birds and the calls of the monkeys in the forest were amazing sounds to hear, and they, combined with the beautiful images of the island, made for a wonderful experience for all who set foot upon the sacred grounds of this mysterious and beautiful haven in the middle of nowhere. Back when people first discovered this wondrous place that I have described to you, of course they were excited. They saw endless opportunities of creation and expansion. And after many long years of debating and settling and farming and all the sorts of things that must be done to create the beginnings of a beautiful kingdom, there came the rise of the grand Kingdom of Malvagor, ruled by King Corv the Twenty-First, First King of Malvagor. And Malvagor became the Paradise of the Ocean. Dangers and escapes, victories and defeats were woven together as an intricate quilt of stories that had no resemblance to truth and, after years of exaggeration, lost all sense of logic. King Corv the Twenty-First became a legend to the people of the lands beyond. King Corv the Twenty-First had been a powerful adventurer until one day, all of his ships and warriors vanished, inspiring many searches. Travelers journeyed through raging seas, through two-story-tall waves emerging from the violent ocean like fangs jutting from a mouth, through thunderstorms that sent lightning racing through the air as if someone had cracked open the sky, with thunder booming so powerfully it would cause all the bravery of the bravest person in the world to vanish on the spot. Brave warriors, adventurers, voyagers, sailors, mapmakers, scholars, and plenty of others journeyed far and wide in search of King Corv the Twenty-First and his lost fleet. But finally, after much hunting and no finding, King Corv the Twenty-First was declared missing in action, and after a while, the searches and journeys and voyages and missions, and all that sort of thing, ended, and people seemed to accept that King Corv the Twenty-First was gone, lost forever. Of course, among the people of the empires in the outer world, many tales were told about what had happened to King Corv the Twenty-First. Hardly any of them were even close to being true. Dangers and escapes, victories and defeats were woven together as an intricate quilt of stories that had no resemblance to truth and, after years of exaggeration, lost all sense of logic. Telling one of these stories became about as wise as saying 2+2 equals 3. But as the days, years, decades, and centuries went by, soon the story of King Corv the Twenty-First was forgotten. This turned out to be a good thing for the descendants of King Corv the Twenty-First, because all those stories had made people much less likely to believe anything they were told about the Paradise of the Ocean and its current king. And of course, as the stories faded and vanished over time, his descendants had time to expand, settle, and renovate the island to make it better suited for the population, which was growing faster and faster. The Corv family was a good, kind one, one that respected nature and the animals they lived alongside. Soon the island came to be known as Corv Isle. King Corv the Twenty-First’s tenth descendant, King Edmund Corv the Third, was a kind, loyal, but incredibly determined man. Sometimes he was so determined that he became a little stubborn. He was, of course, an excellent king, and his wife, Queen June, was there to calm him down when he needed it. Their children, however—triplets named Mar, Tar, and Var—inherited all of their father’s stubborn attitude and little of their mother’s gentle behavior. They looked practically identical—brown, rich skin, pale green eyes, black hair. If it weren’t for their crowns (Mar’s having a blue jewel, Tar’s having a black jewel, and Var’s having a white jewel), the citizens of Corv Isle would have never figured out who was who. The brothers, known as the Corv Triplets, were loyal and kind people, of course, yet their temper caused many problems. It was like lava: it came out unpredictably, flowed in an unstoppable wave, and you never knew when it would cool. The triplets knew what