I have a Facebook author page. I’m gunning for 100 Likes, which would help me get the word out more about the cool stuff all of you are doing, and the new stuff I’m doing. If you want, I’ll friend you back and post the thing I find most interesting about you.
Would you do me a favor?
19 07 2014Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: death is only skin deep.anthology. horror. writing, epic fantasy, Facebook, fantasy novels, horror, horror fiction, humor, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, speculative fiction
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“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 25
16 07 2014In the pale, windy dawn, before the excited throng in Lanthornmount Square, a great cloud above the Citadel descended. The citizens sang and roared and crowed their delight. General Allotrope Greatsergeant had returned.
The tale cascaded through Harmonium: General Greatsergeant had flown in the mouth of the Army of Invitation’s Cumulid, this Cumulid who now glided above, taking a craggy altonimbus’ guise. The General had ridden the Army of Invitation’s Cumulid all the way from the Ijkallas, three days in the swiftest being of the air, flying as fast as a hurricane’s wind. But not riding atop that fleet’s Cumulid, as earthbound beings were able to do for a few hours at a time.
The General had flown nestled in the Cumulid’s mouth. High in the atmosphere for thousands of thin-breathing miles. It had been done before; magicians were bourn so by the Consortium of Aerial Beings, but to do so for days was a test of endurance that proved the greatness of the kingdom and those who defended it.
Within the crowd, Calzjha wore a dress she snatched from their luggage as she dashed from the keep. Under her arm was the basket containing Warren, the wicker basket being common to the city. Around them, the crowd shared astonishment:
“Did you hear? His wife was caught betraying her marriage.”
“Betrayed her husband with a foreign guest she was sponsoring.”
“My sister-in-law hauled that Foofaloof in her rickshaw. She said the fellow was so charming.”
“That Ijkallan did not enter into it. My brother said it was some lackey who claims to be the Earl of Weiquant.”
“The Mad Earl! Nonsense. But what a tragedy for the Greatsergeants. Again.”
“What a terrible blow for the Foofaloof.”
“The poor, dear Foofaloof.”
Calzjha’s heart panged at their sympathy.
Above the city, the descending cloud gathered and rounded to avoid touching the rooftops. Citizens popped their curious heads from windows to gawp at the huge, billowing white underbelly.
That is how Cumulids traveled unnoticed; adapting their skins to seem like their surrounding meteorological dependants.
At the edge of Lanthornmount Square, above the Temple of Public Works, the cloud cascaded toward the flagstones. At the Cumulid’s front, the semblance of pudgy cheeks and bulbous nose unfurled. In an orderly, Harmoniad fashion, the crowd itself eased back to allow entrance.
Long tentacles extended to the surrounding buildings. Plate-like eyes, larger than gate arches, gave an expression of chagrin at so much attention.
The tentacles drew back. Revealed was a great cavern of mouth, arched and glowing like the anteroom of the Amusatorium.
Within that glow, a shadow stood. It took two, three steps. The man swayed as if exhausted, then steadied himself and hopped upon the brick of the square. The high forehead, the firm jaw unmistakable from his ancestor upon the ever-battling mural. The General had arrived.
The Cumulid swept its lower lip back and swept back up, wind pulling clothes, tugging hair, tearing papers from some awe-slackened clerk and sent flapping into a whirlwind. The great shy face blended with the illusion of cloudbanks. The Cumulid undulated away, casting its huge, diffuse shadow along the Arterial, to join that white quasi-nimbus of Royal Cumulid above the Citadel. The two clouds eased to each other, and stilled.
General Greatsergeant eased his attention to the Citadel. He looked upon it, the sunset gleaming in rose from the walls, that same russet sun striking his brown, chisled profile and edging his hair with gold. The wind ebbed and eased. The crowd settled from their excitement, and seeing the General so stilled and preoccupied, gathered their attention upon him. They drew closer.
He looked upon Harmonium, seeming lost in thought. Then Greatsergeant turned to the crowd. His voice was mellow yet strong, and carried over the breathless square:
“So long I have waited. Near two years away, seeing the marvels of exotic shores and the glories of peoples newly found. Yet…”
The General looked again upon the Citadel.
“…all are faint shadows compared to the sight of Harmonium,” he said.
A ripple of delight swept through the crowd. A woman standing beside Calzjha gasped with pride.
Calzjha muttered in Adanikarese. “Splendid. That entrance was so…poxied…splendid.”
At her elbow, Warren peeked from the basket. [Calzjha, please. We must get to the Birqmuir embassy.]
She thought, [We have time. I am in a new disguise. I am double-guised as they are looking for a man. I want to see the General. Fazgood always says that to gain an enemy’s measure, you must survey him yourself.]
“I have come in such an expedient conveyance,” The soldier drew out the word wryly to emphasize that it was not his lot to be comfortable. “To relate the admiration of the Ijkallan people as I presented myself to our Royal Family. Another splendid race of beings wish to join our Kingdom and Concord. I have come to bring the tidings of their people for your approval.”
Warren had slipped his head from the basket. [What is this. Do I understand this? He traveled from halfway across the world in that Cumulid’s mouth, presented himself to the Royal Family where he undoubtedly warmed and fed himself, then climbed back in the mouth to present himself here as freshly weary? What pomposity.]
Calzjha snorted. [I…yes. Yes. That is what he has done. I told you this would be invaluable.]
“There has been,” spoke the General toward the Keep, “much sadness in my family. This is but another difficulty in a family that has survived greater woes. I am committed to my love, my family and my kingdom. Through the help of my people…”
He opened his hands to beseech the crowd.
“…and the Concord, all will be made well.”
The crowd, over three thousand strong spilling along the Arterial and side streets, was moved by his pious devotion and nodded, hushed.
Warren peered. [Assailing a crowd this large requires great confidence.]
[But he is so simple! He plucks at the words “love” and “kingdom” and “family” and “Concord” again and again without any artfulness.]
The weasel chided, [They seem to like him.]
Calzjha made to shove Warren’s head down. Warren ducked back into the basket.
The General opened his hands to the crowd in a plea. “I have come bearing sad tidings for the Ijkallan delegation, for the son given the title the Grand Foofaloof.”
Warren popped back out of the basket and looked at Calzjha.
“He must be told of the grave illness of his father. I came in the noble Cumulid of the Invitation Army to bring the loving son back to his father’s side. I fear that the poor man may not last the night. But I have been told the Foofaloof has disappeared. Perhaps he is grieving or ashamed of the events of last night. But his father is dying and I bear no ill will. I wish to fly him back to his home, before it is too late.”
Dismay swept the crowd.
A woman near them: “The Foofaloof is such a merry being. I hope he is not distraught.”
To their left, a man: “A splendid fellow. He had the whole textile market roaring with laughter.”
Warren squeaked, [That…that tricky bastard. The entire city now looks for us.]
Calzjha could barely suppress her smile. [They love me so. And I love them.]
[Dolt! If the General gets hold of us, we may go up in that Cumulid, but we will come down without it, and over an ocean.]
Backing out of the crowd, she thought, [I must go to the Terhane Residences.]
The black eyes widened, [It is too late for the embassies. They will be watching. You still resemble the Foofaloof too closely. You must come up with a better disguise, or a distraction, or a ruse.]
She froze, aghast. [Why me? You are the playwrite. A play which, I should say, was absolutely horrible. How could you write such lines for me?]
[Ah!] Warren pounded the basket. [So you did roll your eyes at your lines. Art is a curative. Sometimes medicines make ill before they cure.]
[You make ill with your presence!]
[You wish you had one tenth of my intelligence. You are ashamed of your awe.]
Calzjha groaned and hunched through the remainder of the crowd. [I am awed of your dreariness. If you are so intelligent, think up a ruse then.]
[So I will.]
[Then do it.]
[Stop twittering at me; I’m trying to think.] Warren banged the basket shut.
Meanwhile, Warren thought, [My liege, I know you are preoccupied. But….may I disturb you?]
* * *
The Eximus Quayfort was mushroom shaped and squat from the outside. Fazgood was familiar with the design; the Xhnar had been royalty in the Kingdom before divesting themselves of the Compact, and founding their own land. They used the Eximus as a basis for their keeps in the Three Cities.
The common room on the third and highest level in the fortress was a design that balanced security with social grace. Walls were of thick brick covered with smooth, white plaster. A latticework of ablewood allowed guards to walk atop the ceilings and look in upon their charges. On the latticework stood three guards, whose expressions revealed nothing, but whose staring eyes alternated from hard determination at the importance of their task, to twinkling wonder at the charge’s identity.
Below on a stool, the Earl stared at the whiteness, ignoring the bitter smell of plaster, seeing only his thoughts.
Public Works will be here to determine me, that is well and good. The General will get nothing from Respiration, and he dare not have her determined. Obdurate is probably at the General’s side, or soon will be. His nerve will be a problem; but will it? He gave up nothing to the scouts. How I underestimated him.
His arm still tingled where it had pushed against Respiration’s breast.
Now. Now, the General doesn’t know where the Foofaloof is, and that must be making him frantic. Calzjha must be in the embassy by now. Where in the several dozen hells is Public Works?
[My liege, I know you are preoccupied. But…may I disturb you?]
The Earl considered, Warren is not panicking. That is good. Everything must be going smoothly.
[Squire, I am well. What have you?]
[My liege. We are doomed. The General just asked the entire city to look for us.]
The Earl suppressed a groan. [You are in the embassy, I hope?]
[We are surrounded in Lanthornmount Square. Calzjha wanted to see the General. It was rumored that the man would speak this morning.]
The weasel conveyed the events, and the Earl’s groan ran free.
The Earl scrubbed his forehead. [It is too late to get to the embassy. By this time, the General will have it under watch, saying the Foofaloof is panicking or some such. But you discovered the General wants to keep up the pretense. We can use that.]
[We could drive a group of people to the gates of the embassy to confuse the watchers, as you did with the Adanikarese Trade House.]
Fazgood sucked his lip. [The palace guards will be too smart, and the streets there are too narrow. The police would just cordon and interrogate one at a time. They would also stop and search all messengers.]
[Perhaps something to draw the police away?]
[Lose the basket and hide yourself within a bundle of clothes. Contact the captain, and have him escort Calzjha to the embassy in best dress. The captain is Greatsergeant’s voice; no one will bother him today.]
[Yes. I hope he is well enough.]
[He will be.]
The Earl’s face turned grim. [I would have liked him at my side back at the Earldom. Tell Calzjha she may flirt with the soldiers. That will keep her calm.]
The door latch clacked and the white painted door slid open. A maroon coated soldier escorted two old, dark-skinned humans in brown. The Earl brightened.
[Ah. Here comes Public Works. Go to your task.]
[Yes, my liege.]
The Earl looked to the men with anticipation.
They unrolled a square of black velvet, upon which was embroidered a large red square. The first gray-haired man rattled and rolled between his hands a set of lotsticks. He hummed and cast.
The sign of the Great Monstrous Broom lay, its staff pointing at the Earl.
Fazgood eyed it glumly. “Ah. That.”
Silence smothered the room. Shocked stares locked upon the Earl and their breathing stopped. The men backed away, thumped into the wall behind them, reached over their shoulders and knocked upon the door in tiny, sharp strokes. The door opened and they slipped out. The door slammed shut.
Fazgood looked up from the red sticks at the guard standing on the lattice above. “I have the foulest time with that…”
The guard was gone. Running footsteps clattered the latticework, receding, gone. Sharp rattling tapped Fazgood’s eardrums. From the top of the wall with the door, darkness raced across to the top of the wall behind him, and stopped its progress with a solid boom. The diffused light turned to sharp bands of light and dark. Outside the door, a similar boom.
Counter-weighted and tracked concrete blocks on the ceiling and door.
Ah. I forgot. Those are part of the design here as well.
The Earl grimaced in the stark light.
Will the Temporary God be disassembled? If so, that lotcaster in the scout brigades will be sent back to the Inspector.
He sighed and thought: What state are Mehzadapt’s deputies in? I fed two of them enough of that relish.
He cast his mind back to the keep, to the very spot among the glass bottles where he left the Lava-God-Vengeance Relish: Hope it doesn’t ignite the perfumes.
What had I just considered? Ah. Feeding relish to sow dissension, and dropping enough hints to my identity to that Tlezjoy. Those deputies must be quite excitable about being kept ignorant by Mehzadapt. Now when is that cursed General going to come?
* * *
Mehzadapt sat pressing his fingers tight against his teacup so tight, his fingernails were white. His heart pounded. It is true, or true enough. The General is not here for any Ijkallan lie. He is here to protect his graft. His being in Harmonium makes everything much easier. Today I will have exposed a conspiracy and be seated firmly upon a paragon.
The vote is tomorrow. I must have him today to sway Inspector Akekek and be elected Magnate.
He glared at the maid at the door, who moved to fill the half-emptied cup. The Inspector had taken a liking to the Bellflowers after having twisted the Earl here that night. Outside the window, and below, this side alley of the Foreign Due swept and swirled in the lively dance of commerce. Emissaries from the scout captains of the city scurried in and out of the meeting room all morning.
Petitions and promises were sent by messenger to the captains. The notes that returned were polite and perfunctory.
No support. Not one captain will back me. I have to get the General now, and get Inspector Akekek’s support, before I am destroyed.
From the open window of the warehouse, just under the sill, the crowns of three plughats shifted and tilted hats; by height he knew the highest hat was Deputy Varalam’s, there was the top half of Varalam’s gray head beneath. At least Varalam could keep them in some propriety.
Even now the Adactoid growled. “Keep quiet, you.”
One deputy’s deep vibrato, almost subsonic as a tremblar. “The whole city talks about it. We cannot?”
“I told you: I knew so.” whined another, which he recognized as Tlezjoy.
“You knew nothing,” said Varalam.
“I saw him throw beannuts and strike a policeman fifty strides away. He told me of his traveling in mountains is his youth; he was supposed to be from islands. I knew there was more to him.”
“That first day of searching,” said the deep voiced one, “that animal we were looking for must have been Warren. But what was his play at living in the Greatsergeant Keep?”
“Perhaps he was spying,” suggested Tlezjoy.
Varalam’s head shook. “He is willful as a demon. He lives for things precious like a pirate king. Perhaps he sails from city to city, pillaging rich homes but with the owners’ cooperation. Human women admire excitement.”
“Imagine having a play like that.” Tlezjoy said. “You would bed rich, beautiful women, live high, and leave when you are bored.”
“I would never be bored,” said Growly.
“What a prize. And the Inspector could not keep him.”
Mehzadapt rose and leaned out the window.
The three turned and looked up. The Inspector noted two fleeting looks; the narrow eyes and tilted heads of resentments from the Humans, and the Adactoid’s eyes twinkled of amused doubt, though that faded quick to cold. In normal circumstances, the Inspector would have played that he had heard nothing of their conversation. But with the desperate wrangling with captains, the strange anger among his crew, his own frustration, the loss of the Earl’s obligation, and now the dearth of comforting deference; all made his temper short.
The Inspector sneered: “I knew that he was the Earl of Weiquant. You know one spit of it. There is more to him still. But if my deputies insist on speaking free –“
The three looked around the empty sidewalk.
“ — and losing their demeanor. All of you go walk the Triumph and contemplate keeping your mouths shut until I say otherwise. When anyone asks, tell them ‘I walk to improve my discipline’. I will not have your willfulness known and ruin my candidacy. Go to your task.”
The Inspector immediately regretted mentioning his candidacy. He held his composure.
The Adactoid opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. The mens’ expressions did not even harden. They merely turned and walked down out of the yard to find a rickshaw to headquarters. Varalam straightened and strode after them.
Enthus, can I not trust anyone? I must go to the General today, before my deputies or my nerves unravel.
* * *
His stomach said it was past noonday, the room felt warmer and the smell of plaster was sharper. Fazgood was about to check with Warren on the progress, when the bracing behind the door gave a sharp bang.
The white door slid open, and stepped through a tall dark man in maroon. His strong block chin was tilted high, and beneath a tall forehead, brown eyes narrowed in flat appraisal.
The man’s voice was deep and melodic: “Fazgood. The mad Earl of Weiquant. I read your biography. I would not have assumed such things to look at you.”
Fazgood shrugged. “General Allotropic Greatsergeant. All of my disappointment in you comes from direct testimony.”
Greatsergeant nodded, quick smiling nods.
“Ha, yes. That amuses,” Greatsergeant spoke, but his eyes were piercing. “Considering your situation, I accept my disappointments.”
He waved at the room. “We can speak freely, if we speak soft. I ordered for no one to listen. There are lotcasters in the hall. They cast to determine your actions every few seconds. One shout from me, or one poor cast, and this room fills with something brutal. One shout.”
“If we can speak freely, I had wondered.”
“What do you wonder?”
“How long did you expect to roam the seas, and leave your wife with your family secret.”
The General smiled and folded his hands, relaxing. “What secret is that?”
“Ah. So we must still be circumspect for the casters. Then I ask: Why leave your wife with that object in the black trunk?”
A chuckle, more arrogance than mirth. “My wife is the cleverest, most splendid woman in the kingdom.”
“I would think you would want her as ignorant as the household staff.”
“You reveal your own ignorance. My staff knows about the secret passage. They suspect some sort of treachery, but swore to their ancestors who served my family that nothing would be told.”
“That is loyalty,” the Earl remarked.
“You may have noticed how grim they are. I think of them as an educational artwork. Like a sculpture of a dissected body. Their devotion to duty has sucked the joy from their lives. That is what loyalty to a lie wreaks.”
“Respiration would be no one’s fool.”
Greatsergeant’s eyes became sharp. “My wife is exemplary; I thought she of all would understand it, and understand me. I came to understand…the item…while very young, when I sneaked into that room every chance I got, and lay outside, knowing what it could do. I wanted to give her the same opportunity.”
Looking above at the latticework, Fazgood shrugged. “About that, I could shout about it to the guards just now.”
Greatsergeant waved a hand to the white door. “Speak clearly. If they do find what is in the trunk, what of the Concord? If you felt that revelation was an option, then you already would have done so.”
Fazgood made to look defiant, but did make to shift his eyes with uncertainty from the General’s gloating, flat gaze. He grumbled, pretending half-warning, half in boast:
“Indeed. You have me. I would not reveal. But there is a citizen who insists on knowing your business.”
“Who would this citizen be?”
“The man I was under obligation to. Scout Brigade Inspector Mehzadapt.”
“My family has a great many friends in the Scout Brigades.”
Then why did no scout mention this? Does the General seek to deceive me, or is he deluded?
“That,” the Earl enunciated, “would not be of any interest to Mehzadapt. There is a vote on for the new magnate, and the Inspector is ambitious. He wishes to know your secret and have you under his rump.”
“You have misguided him. I will set that right.”
“He had your captain beaten and tortured to get information about your wife. He wishes to leverage your household.”
The General’s smile faded. Many questions swam behind his eyes.
“My captain will account for his attackers.”
“If you go to the Inspector, the Inspector will believe you afraid and believe he has you.”
“I am a paragon. I already have him.”
He deludes himself. He turns from being friends with the Scouts to domineering his supposed chums. Let him delude himself more.
“Why do you think I was caught in the affair?” the Earl asked.
“Affections makes one careless.”
“To save the kingdom.”
Greatsergeant’s head was tilted a little, a pose of interest. “Our hero.”
Fazgood added, “Do not mistake me. I did not do it to save you.”
“That would be odd, to cuckold for the sake of the husband.”
“Indeed. Your wife and I would have had our dalliance, and I would have been away and all would be pleasant memory. Then I found out about your secret, then became under obligation to the Inspector, and I was compelled to stay.”
“You were under obligation because you were poor at cards or dice.”
“I was set up. The Inspector wanted to know any secrets lying around your home.”
“When you were arrested,” the General noted, “that was when Public Works dispelled any obligations you were under.”
“Out from under one rump, and under another.”
The General laughed, an open and honest laugh of relief. “My wife must have been so disappointed in you. She did let you see it.”
“She hoped I could destroy it, or render it useless. I opened the secret room, and the chest.”
“I am glad you did. Specifically you. A leader of experience and standing like myself. So you saw it?”
“Yes.”
Greatsergeant’s smile widened, gloating, self-possessed. “It is so beautiful.”
Carefully, to coax the man along. “How so?”
“Power declares beauty. It is the most beautiful object in the kingdom. In the world.”
“She hoped that I could find a way to destroy it. It cannot be burned or mashed, but I did keep the secret hidden for the kingdom’s sake. I was trying to figure out how to solve the problem. Then you arrived. How did you discern me? The sympathy doll held to the end.”
“What you did with the doll was quite clever. You are a tricky one. To answer your question: I have many resources. I have close supporters and spies everywhere.”
The Earl made to be ignorant. “Did the judicial fellow clue you? Was it that captain who told you? That wretched little bloodpuddle.”
“It was foolish to go against me.”
Holding a retort, Fazgood thought, That should cover the captain’s betrayal for the moment.
So he replied, “I believe that now. But you’ve another problem with the Scout Inspector. He told me you are callow and stupid. I was foolish to believe him.”
“He said that?”
“The Scout Inspector believes your inherited title means you can shirk challenge.”
“I cannot help his ignorance.”
“All has been handed to you in the easiest manner. Those are the sort of things –”
Greatsergeant’s face darkened. “I have survived the most difficult life in the history of this Kingdom. And he believes there is challenge to being a Scout Inspector? To being a herder of vermin-herds?”
“You must be accustomed to such jealousies.”
The General puffed. “I will set the Inspector to the proper tack. As for you? I have heard the Public Works speak of this Broom nature. You will not be sweeping away anything in this city, mad Earl. Doubtless they know a suitable means of removing you from the Kingdom. I will keep my wife, and resume my place and family.”
“Why keep her? She seems miserable.”
The soldier laughed and whispered, “She loathes me. I keep her because she is the finest of the kingdom, and because she is mine to keep.”
“But she will not have a child by you.”
“She will.”
Fazgood sneered. “Or the most-beautiful-powerful comes out of hiding.”
“She is practical.”
“Abomination is quite an aphrodesiac.”
“She will accept the truth.”
“Because of that item, the Kingdom survives only through your tolerance.”
The General’s eyes came alive. “Yes.”
“You and Respiration will control the fate of the most powerful city in the world.”
“Yes.”
“Rather than fight you, even the Royal Family will surrender, and give you and she immortality so that you may rule for all time.”
“Yes.” the General chortled. “There is only one other fate possible for my wife. Perhaps you would like to know what it is.”
The Earl made to listen.
“If it is as you say,” Greatsergeant said. “and I am surrounded, then my little secret will be revealed. My wife has known of it for over six years. She told no one. If the Kingdom survives the revelation, for her not to have told would be called ‘high treason’.”
Fazgood felt his sneer slip. “She had no choice. You put her in that circumstance.”
“Yes, I did.”
“They would determine her sincerity. That would be taken into account.”
The General’s smile returned. “Ten years ago, Prince Meteoric Prudence rearranged the entire officer staff of the Eleventh Naval Squadron. He even had two admirals imprisoned, and not even their family knows if they are still alive. No explanation was given. No one knows why. The Royal Family just does things. No one will ask, no one will question, no appeal will be heard by mortal ears.
“So,” said Greatsergeant, his brow creasing in mock concern. “If I am caught and revealed, she shares a great uncertainty. We had best insure that doesn’t happen.”
The Earl had the urge to leap off the stool and head butt the bridge of the man’s nose.
Fazgood gathered his composure enough to ask. “What would you want?”
“I want to move it to a safer place.”
And there it is. In the end, no matter how much anyone professes to despise me, they always have a favor to ask.
“I know a way …to transport your secret out of the keep. The same method can secure another place so it can be safe.”
The General leaned close. “How? The impercept vault is built too large for the doors. You are lying.”
“And fidelity braids are infallible.”
“Indeed. You are full of tricks. Yet why should I trust you? Why didn’t you move the secret already?”
“And put it where?” Fazgood spat. “There is no place safe enough from spirits, weather and prying. I don’t want it. Respiration was right to be concerned about future generations. I may hate this city, but I have met some useful distilleries here.”
“Tell me what you would do.”
“Creating an impercept is not difficult.”
The Earl shaped the dimensions of a box. “You need three identical boxes of proper size. You bring the boxes in the vault. You place the secret in one. The trick is the proper handling of the boxes. And some other items.”
The Earl stopped and pointedly placed his hands in his lap.
“This is when,” the General said, “you should remember the futility of crossing me.”
“You are going to try to do this yourself. You cannot. The handling must be done as a ritual. One misstep and the spirits notify Public Works.”
“That brings me to my last demand: where is your conspirator?”
“In the greatest honesty, I do not know where the Foofaloof is.”
Greatsergeant pointed to the door. “I will have those lotcasters determine you. It will take time, but I will have your Foofaloof.”
The General turned and walked toward the door. It opened without a knock.
Conscious of the audience, the General declaimed, “I will negotiate a release for you to make amends to my wife. As an act of civility. There will be guards involved. After that, that is for the Kingdom to decide.”
Fazgood bit back a mocking tone. “Ah. Bless you. Oh, and here is an incidental question: where are we taking the object in question?”
The door banged shut. The Earl listened, and he thought that very faintly, lotsticks and lotcoins rattled and rang.
He thinks he is going to kill me before he has to reveal the destination.
The Earl cast his mind to his familiar.
Warren seemed to be peering from within a roll of cloth. A swell of olive-dark hip and firm, dimpled rump eased into view. From the angle of the view, the front of her hip could not been seen.
Calzjha’s voice. “Citizen Dressmaker, is the purple is more flattering to my skin?”
Transfixed, Fazgood hesitated in asking: [Buying a dress, Warren?]
[Ah. My liege. It was considered that Calzjha ought to spend time naked before witnesses, in case we are followed and they are asked.]
[Yes. Prudent. I need you to turn away so I can concentrate.]
[Yes, my liege. She is such a strumpet.]
[I just had a lesson from General Greatsergeant.]
[The General was with you? What did he say?]
[In a great grouping of words, General Allotrope Greatsergeant told me that he is insane.]
[He could destroy the city and the Kingdom! How can you know he is insane and be calm?]
[Squire, I find having only one worry very soothing, despite its size. Have you notified the captain yet?]
[Obdurate sent word to us to meet outside of the Terhane Residences.]
[Keep to that plan. Find a pen and ink and I will dictate two messages. Be quick. We have to do this quick.]
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Tags: comedy, comedy writing, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, speculative fiction, writing
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 23 (AFTERGLOW LEADING TO THE GRAVEST CRISIS)
2 07 2014That morning at the appointed time, Obdurate waited at the gate of the Terhane Residences. Even more than the previous morning, his nerves hummed, the sunlight seemed even brighter. The smell of the earth now seemed richer, fuller, even sweet. Passing the bramblerose bushes, he noticed the sparrows singing. He listened. He had heard sparrows all his life, his uncles’ garden was regularly pillaged by them, but was there an additional high peep at the end of their song? How was it that he never heard that tone before?
What miracles does Calzjha perform that my senses improve?
He turned back to the gate and was met by a messenger girl.
She walked to him, her gaze fixed and confident. His heart chilled.
“Are you Captain Childteacher?” she asked.
“I am.”
She offered a note with a flourish and trotted back down the Arterial.
The note was sealed with a College of Lotcasters glue-stamp. Obdurate opened it:
An emergency with the Ijkallan assembly has taken the General’s attention. The General is not available for sympatile for the remainder of this week.
It was signed by the Army lotcaster.
The captain slumped at the gate, staring at the letter.
He fought back a wave of relief at not having to confront the General, What does this mean? The General would go into hiding now? He would flee from negotiating when we have threatened everything?
This was not like the General; the Greatsergeant of yesterday’s communication wheedled and bullied as expected.
What does this mean?
Shoulders weighted with preoccupation, Obdurate trudged to the Arterial.
A rickshaw driver hailed him, but Obdurate shook his head, feeling quite unsettled.
* * *
After customary, the Earl hurried to the Plaza and his morning interrogation.
“Inspector, yesterday morning,” the Earl settled onto a stool. “began with a light knock on the door from the maid. A very light rapping. It woke me and the Foofaloof. I lay in bed for a moment, quietly cursing my life and begging the gods not to strike me ill, which is how I like to start my day. I got out of bed and chose my clothing. That would be a blue business suit, white muslin shirt and black cotton stockings. The water was especially cold in the shower, so much so that vital parts of my body drew close for warmth. I cursed once again for a decent heated Birqmuir bath. For breakfast, we ate gummy toast, yet again, and –“
“Get to the moments,” the Inspector said with a pronounced and fierce evenness, “where the Goodwife and that adjutant are near.”
The Earl soothed. “It was after my class. During the contemplations. I noticed their presence. The adjutant was on the side of the room with the outside wall, beside the window. The goodwife was across from him, at the inside wall. Both watched as we made our presenta –.”
The Inspector snapped. “Did you see them do anything of use?”
“Ah! Indeed!” Fazgood made to nod nervously. “The captain fidgeted from his left foot to his right foot. Then his left. Then he leaned upon the wall. Ah! Then I noted: the captain did scratch. He made to be sneaky about it but –“
The Inspector slammed the table. He pointed a finger in Fazgood’s face. “Do not trifle with me.”
“What do you want to know?” the Earl asked, eyes wide with exasperation. “I thought you a man for details.”
“The crime. The damned crime. What do you think I want to know?”
The Earl related the scene from the previous night in the Goodwife’s bedchamber, all that he saw and heard.
Merhiazadapt leaned back on his stool and considered. His fingers rubbed.
“Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, I told you every word. Check my skin this afternoon. I will be clear of pox.”
“Why do they conspire in the bedchamber at night?”
“The goodwife has very little privacy.”
“Is she having an affair?”
“Yes,” Fazgood kept his gaze up.
“With which one?”
He said conclusively, “She is sharing passions with the captain.”
The Inspector said, “How kind of you to tell me.”
“You were interested in the money. What else they did was of little interest to you.”
“It interests me now.”
“Which is why,” whispered the Earl again. “I was giving you details before. I am not certain what detail interests you.”
“Relate to me any information about the conspiracy to extort of the General. That is my interest solely.” The Inspector spoke the syllables to seal the obligation.
“I will provide new information on the subject as it comes to me.”
The Inspector sighed and adjusted his hat on the table just so. “Does she let him out at the end of the night, or is the help in on this too?”
“The goodwife lets him out.”
“That Goodwife Greatsergeant seems a vicious sort. Squashing that wretch banker.”
Fazgood shrugged again, but held comment.
Asked the Inspector, “Does anyone else know about this conspiracy?”
“My reputation can take only so much ridicule. No.”
“You will not accept any specie delivered from them without my permission. You are obligated so.”
“I will be late for contemplations. The goodwife will be upset again.”
The Inspector laughed. “You are an insult to extortion. Go.”
Fazgood slipped out the curtain. The scout who was at the square yesterday, Bookwright, one who had eaten the relish, sprang away from the wall upon which he was leaning. His expression was sullen.
The Inspector snarled at the deputy. “Combative and lazy, are you? Have any more sharp words for me? What is with you surly wretches lately!”
Another scout surged up the stairs past the Earl, the huge adactoid. The scarred blue face was blank with enduring patience.
The Earl smiled to himself as he trotted down the stairs.
Hrikinik, you have made me a better bastard.
He slipped through the crowd of mourners and into the Plaza. Upon leaving the Headquarters, the Earl continued trotting to the far corner of the Plaza to a messenger booth.
He told the Exult hen dispatcher, “I would write a note to be delivered.”
She gestured to a standing table with pen, paper and inkstone. The Earl regretted that Warren was not available to help phrase a proper message, but there was not time. He wrote a message in the square Birqmuirish script:
To the Ambassador representing his Imperial Majesty:
From the Earl of Bywater, Fazgood:
I have found a method of locating valued persons even if the persons are concealed by incantations. Also, I know how to flam this method. I may be found at the Greatsergeant Keep under the name Er-humf-knert. Please make all visits secret.
Please remind the Emperor that I shot out like a flaming bullet of liberate phosphorus
The last was an observation that Blounbirq spoke about the Earl’s encounter with the Abomination, and was a comment only a handful in the world would know.
He sealed the message with a glue-stamp and handed it to a stern Exult fledgling. The progeny hopped and leapt through the crowd to the Arterial. Earl followed for two crowded, bustling streets to insure that no one followed the messenger. The sunlight deepened and all looked up. The pearly, filigreed face of the Cumulid slipped over the Arterial, heading north toward the Mercymortar neighborhood. More figures dangled banners from its snowy back.
The Earl turned back through the Plaza and continued down the Arterial to the Greatsergeant Keep. The contemplation had just begun. Fazgood found the Foofaloof, bade a good afternoon, and took the offered Brumpfbasket.
Warren peeked. [Obdurate says that the General was not present for the sympatile. He was told the General would not be available until late this week.]
Fazgood’s eyes widened.
[My liege, I am sure this is but an insig…. Why are you smiling?]
Indeed the Earl smiled. Despite their circumstances close to curious citizens, the Earl had to stretch his mouth and tilt his head back so as to feign a yawn. He took a breath and brought his head back down, and all trace of the smile was gone.
The Earl’s eyes still twinkled with mirth. [There is something in the air at a Rashic contemplation! I have just had an idea! The General has very limited options. I would tell you, but I wish assurances. Tell Respiration to tell Obdurate to gather all the important information on the General.]
[Information? Like what?]
[Like his birthdate, important moments in his life, names and the like. Obdurate is to perform his little numerical trick with it.]
[Ah! But, my liege, how will knowing the general’s location help us? We know he is in the Ijkallas.]
[It is of greatest importance. Obdurate must present the result of his sums when we meet this evening.]
[This evening? That will not leave him much time.]
[Please extend the Earl’s apologies.]
I will harness this young, lucky dolt and have him work to my favor for once.
He looked to the fidgeting young man. Despite his unease, in the presence of Respiration, exchanging taps on the forearm with the Foofaloof, he did have a glow about him.
Fazgood grumbled and amended, Young, lucky, tuned-true, satisfied dolt.
* * *
Varalam the grim deputy looked ridiculous on a stool. The Inspector insisted that all sat as they reported; it was time-honored tradition.
The Adactoid squirmed in discomfort. “It is as you said: in the morning, the captain went to the Terhane Residences. He met with a messenger, and received some sort of note at the gate. I stayed within sight of him.”
The captain sympatiles with General Greatsergeant. Is it a betrayal?
“How did our captain seem as he read?”
“He was dumbfounded enough for ten pathetics.”
General Greatsergeant is not taking extortion well. He is probably squawking like the mighty usually do: “I will not pay a dahbe to you, vermin-herd!” In the end, they all beg to pay every dahbe they have.
But the note could not have been explicit: a lotcaster could not aid Greatsergeant in low treason and keep the spirits’ trust.
He wondered at many permutations.
Does the General know this captain and his wife are lovers? I doubt it.
The Inspector tapped his fingertips together.
That captain is in a bit of a pinch. He would know the banker, and the accounts, and the remaining details. It would pay just to put a scare in him. But if he tells what he knows, what good is he? He would make a suitable warning for the others.
“You have skulkers following all of them?”
The deputy said, “Since you told me to this morning, Inspector. The Goodwife does her civic errands to hospitals and the like in the morning, then has administrators come for contemplation. The Foofaloof partner goes to customary, and shops enough for five people. The captain is at the Army Headquarters at this moment, and he lives in the barracks. He is an odd one, so they say.”
“Keep a watch on the barracks. I want to meet the captain, and he will be too suspicious and too smart to trick. When you see a chance, seize him. When you have him, bring him to the bathhouse.”
The Inspector rotated his hat on the table just so. “Have Cornpudding accompany you. After our captain testifies to the Inspector’s satisfaction, Cornpudding may see the captain home.”
* * *
Greennight seeped between the curtains. Across the bedroom, the dark was broken by the glows of yellow candylanterns; Respirations latest idea was to have the glowing, gemlike confections in dishes as light. Obdurate sat upon the bed, downcast. Respiration sat beside him, hugging his arm to console him.
The adjutant said, “I cannot find a useful solution. Any location I determine is not in the Ijakllas at all. It is along a swath of the south Blaphanic Ocean. It is nothing but sea; there are no islands anywhere in that area.”
The Earl walked to the window. “Where in the Blaphanic?”
So nice to be able to stretch out and conspire freely again!
“Just north of the equator. The swath begins just east of the Isthmus of Aiomb. It is twelve-hundred ri east of the Ijkallas, with empty ocean between there and the Kingdom. Twelve-hundred ri off target! And I have no idea where the equations are wrong!”
“That would be another two-thousands away as well,” Fazgood muttered.
“Yes.”
Respiration said, “Perhaps not enough information was gathered. I can search for documents.”
“That would account for unplottable results. But all of these sums are convertible into demarcations. I used the Grand Demarked Meridians map at the lotcaster’s desk work to do the calculations. But they are consistently several hundred ri east of the Ijkallas.”
The Earl peered out the heavy drapes into greennight. “When did you perform these equations?”
“I tried the latest at twentieth hour.”
“Four hours ago. Do you have any sort of map?”
“I have my notes.”
They spread these papers upon the mattress. On one brown paper, Obdurate had sketched a small map of the hemisphere along with meridians. In the upper right of the map, the nipple of the Quand Peninsula poked west from the chest of the Ksam continent.
At center of the map, a reasonable approximation of the squished duck shape of the Naltna continents. At the far side of the squish, which was the Aiombian Isthmus, were the archipelagos of Ijkalla. To the east of that Aiombian squish were many tiny marks of differing shapes: crosses, dots, converging crescents, various shaped squares. The marks became more unusual (was that last a crab-shape?) the farther east they lay.
“I was more frustrated with every new set of coordinates,” explained the captain. “Here is the legend.”
On this scrap of paper was a list of his attempts in sequence, noted by time with its corresponding mark-shape on the map.
The Earl asked, “That is a crab at half-past-seventeen.”
“I was becoming giddy with desperation.”
The goodwife pointed. “And this one at eighteen-fifty is to the east of it? By how many ri?”
“Over one-hundred ri. Not that it matters! How could he travel over twelve-hundred ri in a day?”
Calzjha scratched an itch on her breast, which itched from being bound. “The Adanikarese would dreamwalk.”
“This method should determine his physical location,” said Obdurate, “and the Concord prohibits the living from dreamwalking. I am sorry, Fazgood. I do not know what is wrong.”
The Earl continued peering out of the window. The green light glittered in his unblinking eyes. “Do not fret about it. Tomorrow I will tell you about the next step in the plan.”
Warren and he took their leave.
Later, in his chamber, as Warren dozed on his bundle, Calzjha slipped in. The Earl was throwing a set of grooming tools. Rattle, shake, fling! A cuticle knife thumped into the rolled center of a cloth bundle.
The Earl looked up. “You are back much too soon. Do they need anything?”
Calzjha smiled. “They felt they would do better without me this evening.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes. Their posture and breathing are so much improved, have you seen? Obdurate says he can hear and smell more clearly. Respiration says food tastes better, and that she feels more vital. The dialogue in contemplations has been much more lively.”
She looked to the Earl. “Would you care for –“
“No. I prefer my nerves jumbled.”
Rattle, shake, fling. A blade to pare bunions.
“But,” she said, shaking her head, “Respiration and Obdurate have gained bliss –“
“We are surrounded by all four flavors of enemy. How would ‘bliss’ work for me? If you have some disquiet you could give me, I am stockpiling it.”
Calzjha weighed his words. “Is everything going to your plan?”
“It becomes interesting tomorrow.”
Thump went a silver skin file.
* * *
Obdurate eased the secret door closed. Through the memory of his senses, he stepped around the black lacquered box without touching it. The thought flitted through his mind another uncounted time: take the box and sink it, sink it in the ocean. But that would only delay the inevitable of it rotting open, the Ocean Mother taking note of it and recoiling in horror as the mask declaimed its pedigree and ownership.
How was the Earl to relieve us of this? How would he save the Kingdom? He must be lying. But to what advantage? He is a decent man in the book, that is written most assuredly, but he’s also fond of betrayal.
The captain slipped within the ladrail and placed his feet and hands within its holds. He climbed down to the bottom of the shaft. He stepped onto the floor and shifted his weight to his toes. The counterweighted floor eased open.
The smell of water swept up, then a sulphurous stink.
Obdurate grimaced. This is much worse use than normal, and he began to climb down.
Eight holds then a drop. One-two-three-four-five –
“– deeper in.”
Adrenaline jolted the captain’s limbs. He fumbled to keep a grip.
The voice came from the darkness below him. Below him! There was perhaps a man’s height between the drop and the sewer floor. The captain tried to look down, but the narrowness of the shaft kept him from seeing below. He listened.
He knew the shaft’s opening to the sewer was hidden in plain sight: the edge of the sewer ceilings had square openings for drains every thirty-paces. The counterweighted floor opened to a storm drain, which had further rungs to climb down.
From his reading of ‘The Nimblest Man’, and through conversations with the Earl, Obdurate knew to keep quiet and be very patient.
He held the cool gritty stone, smelled his sour sweat in his cotton jacket, and counted to one hundred. Nothing.
I know I heard something. I know I heard a male human voice say something. Would Public Works be checking drainage this time of night?
That could be; when he had first been shown this secret by Respiration, he had done some subtle asking of his acquaintances at Public Works. The drains here were reliable, and only needed cleaning twice yearly. Educated streams of water flushed away clogs, which meant no people were necessary. Perhaps there was an accident or emergency.
He could climb back up to the secret room and wait. But it was becoming early morning, and he had to get back to the barracks.
He hung in darkness.
The sewer stank, especially in the summer. But the stench was especially raw this evening.
He held his breath and counted again. Nothing.
Perhaps they are gone. If I hadn’t imagined it after all.
He climbed down, slowly down the remaining holds until his right foot hanged from beyond the last. He dropped with a splish!
He turned and walked to the canal. A huge being stood in the opening, all in shadow. A plughat was on its head.
From behind the captain echoed a labored breath, then: “Where did he come from?”
“Consider the color of his coat,” remarked a second voice. “Perhaps someone’s got a bleeding pile.”
The shadow turned around. The gray face shone in the dark.
“Citizen Captain,” the figure rumbled. “If you are scat, then we are your Public Works.”
The three converged. The stench smothered.
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Tags: comedy writing, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor, spec fic, speculative fiction, writing
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 22 (THE WEASEL’S WORLD PREMIER STAGEPLAY)
25 06 2014Standing beside his seat in the back of the classroom, Fazgood continued the recitation. “Sagacious, expository, infusive, crystalline, asexual and sexual. Those are the six forms of reproduction found within the Kingdom, Citizen Customary.”
Kitpoktik’s eyes were narrow, grim slits. His jaw clenched. “Did you recite all six, Pehzpersist? Yes, you did recite all six.”
The Earl sat back down, and received the puzzled amazement of his fellow aspirants with a gentle smile. Kitpoktik whirled to the blackboard and returned to the review of biologies.
Fazgood thought, [Your biology studies have given you great advantage, squire.]
[Thank you, my liege.]
Calzjha glanced over, her look of haughty Foofaloof affirmation, followed by an annoyed, knowing Calzjha frown. The Earl suppressed a smile.
[This is the third time the customary has called upon me this morning. Has our customary decided to find reason to have me evicted?]
[Perhaps if you hadn’t dozed through all the classes, my liege.]
[I doubt I’ll be sleeping this morning. Kitpoktik was never this interesting before.]
“Pehzpersist!”
“Yes, customary?” he blinked innocently.
The customary’s face pinched from concentration. The Earl knew Kitpoktik was looking for any sign of note-glancing or Foofaloof-prompting.
“What,” said the customary, “ is the school leaving age of the eight races?”
Fazgood kept his gaze even and unblinking, straight into the eyes of the inquisitor.
[Have at it! I can handle any customary’s task.]
The Earl rose to his feet, [Do not get full of yourself, Warren. Keep your mind on the subject.]
[Yes, my liege. For Exult fledglings, it is twelve years. For Adactoid offspring, it is after the answering of their Second Question. For Booloob squeaks: the successful recitation of the Plasticising Warble.]
“Customary, for Exult fledglings, it is… (he made to grasp for the answer)…twelve years. For Adactoid offspring: after the answering of their Third Question. For Booloob squeaks: it –”
Kitpoktik pounced!
“Is it the Third Question for Adactoid offspring? It is not! Such an Adactoid should have graduated from guild apprenticeship! Who can answer this question? Khuoro can answer this question!”
Fazgood bowed his head and sat. He did note that his classmates looked upon him with curt nods, satisfied and impressed with his efforts.
[But I knew that!] sulked the weasel.
[If we look too clever, we stand out. We must allow the occasional mistake so to save the esteem of the other students, and avoid the customary’s curiosity.]
[The octopus’s lament, my liege.]
[Indeed,] thought the Earl, not knowing entirely what was meant.
The basket rustled, [To be clever enough to hide so well, yet not have anyone know of the cleverness. From the old Adanikarese poem.]
[Ah! But I knew that.]
[I am sure you did, my liege.]
Fazgood glared at the basket and kept his thought to himself:
One of these days, I really ought to study books.
Then with a snort: But “school leaving age”? Those are not useful questions! How do you pick members of a rival Birqmuir clan from a crowd? What is the best bribe for an Adanikarese petty noble? What salutation will keep any assassin from killing you? What the average citizen learns is a bucket of mud!
After the class was dismissed, the aspirants gathered on the still, sun-bright porch for lunch of cold barley and fish sauce. They squeezed into the shadows along the purple brick wall as best they could and chatted.
Khuro dipped a corner of roots into river water. “Did you see the Cumulid decked for jezr-ji? What fun it was!”
Interjected the husband, “We ran up the Arterial to catch it!”
Both Calzjha and Fazgood’s breath stopped.
Khuoro said, “Last night, we watched it sweep over the Amusatorium. We ran to catch up with it, but it had drifted north and along the canals.”
Others chimed in:
“We saw people playing in the streamers, like they were under a great flower!”
“Do you think it will come out again tonight?”
“We were sad that you were not with us!”
Both Calzjha and Fazgood shrugged off and made half-promises to join them that evening. In the chatter, the Earl started mumbling many imprecations and pleadings to very many gods.
* * *
As Fazgood had been answering questions at the customary, at that same time, Obdurate was watching the army lotcaster assemble the sympatile. As she did so, Obdurate remembered what the Earl had told him last night, between smacking lips from the bitter tziembroask:
“The General has confirmed all he can through his lotcaster, without raising suspicion. But he cannot dare ask the lotcaster how much we know. The General has no immediate means of communicating other than through the army.
“It is your responsibility that the General know what we want him to, and no more.”
The symaptile was assembled. Obdurate noted that the leaves in the trees appeared to glow in the sun. He had not noted this the day before, nor how loud the sparrows seemed. He sat upon the chair, his chest tight, and rapped the red wood frame. He moved the hoop to spell his name.
The response: “Greatsergeant. Where is my wife?”
“I have told her you must speak with her. She will not.”
“What did she say?”
Last night, Obdurate had imagined the response to this question from the General. Fazgood thought the response splendid, and Respiration tweaked the words to her style:
“She said, ‘Surely he has greater concerns, or soon will, when the curse is lifted.’”
The hoop thrashed. “What does she mean? Tell!”
“I do not know.”
“You are lying! I can tell you are lying!”
“She said those exact words.”
Which was the truth; Fazgood was very helpful in explaining how a conscience works. Did she speak that actual phrase? Yes, she did. Therefore, it was not a lie.
Obdurate swallowed, his mouth sticky.
But the General would not allow that easy glibness. “You know more than you tell.”
“I do not. I have told all.”
A pause, then: “You do not have to protect her. She is my wife. I love her, and disregard her mistakes.”
“I do not know what you mean.”
“What she has risked, I will ignore.”
“I do not know what you mean.”
Another pause. Heat seemed to pour from the board. The letters seemed like cinders, so much that he expected scorching to spread and set the wood alight.
Obdurate grasped the hoop. “Are you still there?”
The hoop jumped. It slid precisely. “Yes.”
The wind stirred, brushing tiny things past his eyelashes. Was the air above the board wavering with the heat?
The hoop moved in sweeps to land upon each letter, then adjusted upon it infinitesimally:
“I have work to attend to. Let them do what they may. I will be in negotiations tomorrow with the Ijakallans.”
The red frame rapped so hard it shook. The General had ended the conversation.
Obdurate rapped lightly. He looked up from the sympatile. The sunlit courtyard was already warm. Across, along the wall, bramblerose trees stood in the shadows.
The adjutant tried to distract himself, Back home, the diaphenes would be blooming now. Such a touching transluscent purple, one would think that spirits would weep such things.
The lotcaster got up from her seat and unsnapped the sympatile partition with smooth, practiced movements. She glanced at Obdurate, then quickly back to her work. Obdurate realized that though she did not know the dialogue that had taken place, his expression must be very unsettled.
He thought of saying something casual to dispel that impression, but he knew that his effort would make him seem even more nervous.
Certainly, if it weren’t for Respiration, and yes Calzjha, I would be quaking with fear.
* * *
Walking into the headquarters of the Scout Brigades, the Earl’s stomach grumbled and seared, as it usually did lately. It was best for many reasons to eat light when he had a plan in play. It was also best to avoid tea, syrups, powdered condiments, any cooked legume, any herbal remedies, inhaled substances of any kind, the wearing of colognes, dangling jewelry, blue eyeglasses, snug-fitting suits, passing any glass without checking reflections, and cursing the many gods who took an interest in him.
Fazgood trotted up the stairs, following Tlezjoy, whose expression was sullen and seething.
“Is your mood well?” asked the Earl.
Tlezjoy said nothing.
“Did you have a quarrel with the Inspector?”
The deputy spat. “Shut up.”
The Earl smiled to himself as he was shown down the hallway of draped alcoves. They walked to a different niche, the one at the end of the hallway. The Inspector waited, alone, his rubbing fingertips revealing his anticipation. He dismissed the deputy with a glare.
“Did you enjoy yesterday’s walk?” the Inspector asked Fazgood.
“It was very educational.”
“Good. See that you learn.”
The Inspector’s voice was sharp, and Fazgood found himself twitching to avoid an anticipated slap.
“I think,” said Mehzadapt, “ that we ought to discuss General Greatsergeant.”
“Indeed,” said the Earl.
“Tell me about how he swindled the Army.”
“He did not swindle the Army. He promised undue influence to a group of Ijkallan magicians.”
“Then tell me.”
Fazgood told the Adanikarese’s favorite method of subverting a new trade partner, but inserted “The General.” He placed General Greatsergeant in the role of the subversive, and invented the Ijkallan government as a contemplative republic (“a bunch of slow-moving dupes”).
“Secret gifts of gold and silver jewelry were made to the General. Well-made stuff. Good value. We, the Foofaloof and I, had the precious metals sold and deposited in an account for the General, who told his wife. But the adjutant found the account, and wanted in.”
The Inspector crossed his arms: “Greatsergeant could have took the money and told the magicians to scram, then had them arrested. The General would have gotten around easier if he had told the Scout Brigades. We would have protected him from magicians for the right price.”
Looking to his shoes, the Earl replied, “He…ah…he has low opinion of the brigades. He is one of those who feel you should be disbanded.”
“Then the General has spent too many years away and has lost his traditions. Let him spend more.”
“He is a paragon.”
Mehzadapt sneered. “Born into such influence! Trusted with a mission to expand the kingdom! He could become Marshall of the Army! Prime Minister!”
“His family,” said the Earl, “is such a sad tale.”
“Who knows what that is about? A melancholy in his blood. His rewards more than compensate for sad sap.”
“But further prying will enrage him more. He’s a general! And a paragon! You shouldn’t treat him so lightly!”
“He has such a low opinion of my kind, perhaps we should get acquainted.”
The Earl puffed. “You would write a letter to him? Speak with him? That would be such a mistake.”
“Are you always so nervous? My deputies tell me that you were a spymaster in the Three Cities.”
“The Xhnar family press-ganged me! I was almost murdered, more than a few times! I got out at the first opportunity.”
“The book tells that you found the Satirist’s spy network and captured his assassins.”
“Ha!” Fazgood leaned close. “Grandfar Xhnar would have you think that. He surrounded me with excellent people, then waved me aloft in public for the assassins to slay. Whoever wrote that book took Grandfar’s word.”
Mehzadapt looked at the Earl in disbelief. The Earl focused his gaze just above the Inspector’s eyes, to give the impression of directly gazed sincerity. Both men knew that the Print Guild did not publish lies. The Print Guilds received carefully-vetted approval for every book offered, from the Public Works and the Royal Family. But the Royal Family were also inscrutable, and made allowances that made no sense until years, even decades later.
The Inspector shrugged and looked Fazgood over. “Leave home and Compact, and that’s what sort of rule you get.”
Fazgood bit his tongue and waited for his words to work on the Inspector.
Mehzadapt asked questions to trip the Earl up, and so locate a lie. But having accepted the premise of the General’s corruption, and being greedy for it to be true, the Inspector had stopped examining the foundation of the tale. The Earl purposefully made mistakes in re-telling the tale, so to make the Inspector feel valuable; the inconsistencies were explained away with other lies that the Inspector found more acceptable. By the end, the Inspector was fuming and distracted.
“Would he let crime run loose?” Mehzadapt muttered. “Would he let generations of our ancestors be devoted, then say ‘Get off our doorstep. You mean nothing to us.’ Ingrate.”
Warned the Earl, “If he was ever to return and assume a role in civil society, he could –”
“If that were to happen, expect the scout brigades to be more organized, with greater respect for tradition.”
“Ah.”
“You have shown use today. Go back to your den of traitors and wait for instructions. Return tomorrow and tell me all that you hear or see. Continue checking in with whichever deputy is posted every six hours.”
Fazgood made quick scuttle from the alcove and out of the somber headquarters, lest the inspector add to his new hardship.
“Tell me all that you hear or see.”
Merhiazadapt is changing the phrasing of his instructions to catch me in a lie. Looks like I will be sleeping early tonight. I cannot go upstairs tonight, nor can I discuss plans with the others.
His heart dipped that he would not see Respiration in the dark. In her dim-lit chamber, against the white nightdress, her skin shone like polished onyx. But, then again, Fazgood found it increasingly wearisome to leave the chamber to that young dolt soldier (a well-intending fellow, yes, but all dolts mean well).
How doltish could he be? That method of gathering numbers from the achievements of one’s life, and determining from that information…that is so simple it is gifted. Knowing that could come in very useful; it could be used to bargain with the Cacaphoness or the Xhnar, or even the Emperor, if I needed to buy my way from under a rump.
Fazgood remembered from a few nights ago, from Warren’s perspective, the quick glance of the soldier with both Respiration and Calzjha. The Earl snorted ruefully.
Something for the soldier to remember when he is ignoring his grandchildren.
No. It was no lustful tryst. Calzjha’s race didn’t countenance rampant rutting. All physical touch was meant to be soothing, harmonious and enlightening; Khuoro’s studies were still focused and confident, thanks to the ingestion of Calzjha’s blood and sweat and seed that first night.
Calzjha’s skin is always flawless. Not voluptuous either, but always of kind proportion and this is *why* I always have Calzjha stay male. I do not need that distraction!
It has been so long since I have rutted, I really do not miss it. Not that I did it well when married.
He entered Lanthornmount Square, and decided to find a beannut vendor. He made to sip at a fountain, looked around at the people and the sky, then turned his mind back to the problem at hand:
Mehzadapt has five days until the Magnateship vote. He must win that vote or he will be ruined. What can I give him? I have to tell him everything I hear or see. There needs to be a conspiracy discussed for me to see.
Then the Earl was struck with an idea.
“Gods,” laughed the Earl softly. “That solves a problem. This calls for beannuts and some soup.”
He hastened to vendors and bought lunch.
At the vendor, he noted the scout on duty that day was the one who had deftly picked the toolbag at the Malabar Flats Ferry. The Earl took great joy in forgiving the man, inviting him to chat, and challenging his fortitude to a taste of relish. After a few questions about the Inspector, the man bade the Earl well and went back to his post across the square, his mood much more hateful toward Mehzadapt.
The Earl sat at a bench and brought out his bottle of relish. It was still half-full. He tapped a drop into the soup and stirred, and quickly ate. The heat stabbed his stomach, yet filled him with resolve. The pain also made him angry, which heightened his resolve further. He contacted his familiar.
[Warren,] thought the Earl, [I am under obligation. Note me very carefully, for I must report all I hear or see to the Inspector.]
That worthy’s pity was palpable. [You poor man. What now?]
Fazgood used his pinky fingernail to pick a beannut seed from between his teeth, [I will be at the keep soon. Please tell all not to speak about the conspiracy; I cannot even risk overhearing whispers. I will help Calzjha with the afternoon speech to the contemplators.]
Warren thought, [I will draw Calzjha’s attention at once and convey your messages. Obdurate took a moment and told me of his sympatile with the general this morning. According to the captain, it went very well.]
[Was the captain telling the truth?]
[He truly believes he did well, and concealed nothing. He is nervous, though.]
The Earl chuckled, [It is good for him. Squire, do you still like playwriting?]
[Why…I suppose. We have been rather busy.]
[Sir, I need for you to imagine a scenario with dialogue.]
The Earl provided the particulars of the desired scene and released Warren until late that evening so to craft his wordwork.
Fazgood returned the soupbowl to the vendor and strolled across the square to Greatsergeant Keep. The first of the contemplators had arrived and, as usual, chatted in a noisy knot around the Foofaloof, each looking for an opportunity to step into conversation. No one noted Fazgood’s entrance into the room.
He approached Respiration. “I would like to set the Brumpf up in our room. And I would need paper, water and an inkstone.”
All were provided, and the grateful playwright was set next to the window on a flat trunk. The weasel immediately set his paw into the dish of water, flicked the excess, daubed a finger in the inkstone and set to scratching in tiny print.
Fazgood noted Warren’s thoughts, [Ah! If she says…. No! Then he would say, yes!]
From in front of the closed door, Respiration shook her head. “Such a talented retinue. What does he write?”
“You will know soon enough. Do you have the reports on the Ijkallas?”
“They are beside the bed. Still unopened.”
She sounded as annoyed as he was at Calzjha’s lack of initiative.
“Fret not, I shall help with the presentation today. How fares your morning?”
“Better now that your schedule has opened up. Contemplation is like swimming in deep-water lately.”
“Shall we?”
The Earl tucked the folio of reports under his arm. They walked to contemplations.
After a brief introduction and a chorus to show appreciation, the Foofaloof and Pehzpersist presented themselves before the crowd. Pehzpersist stepped forward and spoke:
“With your indulgence, I grant that I will speak on the economy of the Ijkallas. This subject is more to my knowledge, as the Foofaloof is educated more in matters of the spirit. He had not said as much before, because he is a kind man and did not wish to disappoint his new friends.”
The Earl opened the folio of reports and set them upon a table. He looked directly at the frowning Mezzo-Barritone of the Royal Judiciary and smiled. “I would like to elaborate on this splendid documentation.”
* * *
That evening, after the most relaxed dinner since their arrival, the Earl retired early, after the anthem. He brought a small dish of legume stew up to the bedroom for Warren, and mixed some of the favored sauce that came with the box from Adanikar. He entered to find the weasel surrounded by inky papers, and staring intently out the window, oblivious to his liege’s entrance. Fazgood kept quiet, and set the plate beside Warren quietly to avoid disturbing his work. The Earl lay upon the bed and slept.
Later, Calzjha entered. At the appointed time, they roused the Earl, then Calzjha and Warren sneaked upstairs with a sheaf of papers writ upon by Warren. The Earl waited a count of two hundred, then proceeded upstairs.
He opened the door and slipped into Respiration’s bedroom. Around the room, in the conspirators sat in their usual locations, Respiration at the desk, Obdurate on the bed, Calzjha beside him, Warren near the door jamb.
Respiration spoke, as if repeating words from a voice only she could hear, “There…there you are, you wretch.”
‘Yes!” said Obdurate stiffly, staring at the weasel. “We have much undue suspicion direct upon us already. Where do you go in the afternoons?”
The Earl waited for his prompt from Warren, who was playwright, director and stage manager for the production.
[“I was wandering past abodes and a-worksplaces, as is my wont. For I learn more through a-watching than do all the sages through consterned studies thereby.”]
The Earl was then reminded the degree of Warren’s love of language. He suppressed an annoyed mutter and spoke his line.
The other three conspirators looked upon him, stunned by the florid statement. Respiration sucked in her cheeks to avoid laughing.
Said Obdurate, “’I suspect vile treachery!’”
“’I think that as well,’” said Calzjha, primly yet with tense annoyance, “’for I am silly and easily swayed.’”
Respiration took a breath, which shuddered with clenched laughter. “’Out with your truth, you lousy fence. Are you to determine us to the police as your patsies? That’s a magic you will regret and regret hard.’”
“’I’m a soldier. His blood will sluice over my blade with ease.’”
Prompted Warren, [Your threats bore me, as my blade would bore through you.]
Fazgood spoke his line, and actually thought it had a good turn.
“Enough of the prattling,” said the goodwife. “Where do you go? We hired a tail, and he saw you skulking into the scout headquarters!”
The Earl followed the prompts: “I owe grevious indebtedness from fell gambling, as I have told you before. I forestall their action with assurances and small payments. Money would propel us from your society.”
Respiration glanced at Obdurate. “’What of that? Where lies his payoff?’”
From the door jamb, Warren rustled through his ink-scratched papers.
Obdurate translated the thoughts Warren projected. “’Wait…wrong pa –‘“
The soldier smartly bit his tongue to keep from speaking words which would spoil the illusion being created for the Inspector. The performers waited in the dark; Obdurate and Calzjha looked restless and concerned, but the Earl gave them a tiny wave to encourage patience. The goodwife choked down another fit of giggles.
Obdurate looked to Warren and said finally. “’Ah! Let me kill him. Who is going to miss him?’”
“’I would not,’” said Calzjha. “’For I lack any…any depth of character?! Beyond my sensual studies?!’”
The last was added with exasperation.
Respiration took another shuddering breath. “’Shut both your noise-holes! The time has past for any saline-spilling. Where is their payoff?’”
The captain said. “’The banker is giving me grief. He will not give the amount in specie.’”
“’A lowly banker? I will see to him,’” said the goodwife. “’I will crush that little weed for crossing me.’”
The Earl said, “’So I must await another evening? This is not an inconvenience. Your board and larder is more than adequate. But another day in our clutches is another day where all may be discovered, determined, or deduced.’”
Respiration mustered an authentic sneer. “’Go scuff some flagstones, thief. We have business to discuss.’”
“’Why can’t I stay?’”
“’Start scuffing, I said.’”
The Earl gathered Warren and, leaving his rustling documents for Obdurate to dispose of when he departed later, slipped out the door.
In the hallway, the weasel looked up with black marble eyes filled with hope.
[Did it satisfy, my liege?]
[It filled the requirements splendidly, squire. I can go to the Inspector and tell him all I heard and saw, and he will have to believe.]
Wareen nodded happily. [I tried to make Respiration more the boss of the conspiracy, as you instructed before I wrote.]
[Noted and noticed, squire.]
[Ah! Good! I tried to capture the essence of the other characters otherwise. I didn’t have much time.]
[It was splendid. I believe Goodwife Greatsergeant enjoyed her role.]
The Earl peered down the stairs. He began skulking down.
Warren thought, [I thought I saw Calzjha making faces.]
[Dyspepsia.]
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Tags: comedy, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy novels, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, writing
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 21 (A PAINFUL TASK)
18 06 2014[The Inspector is having you what?] thought Warren.
From a rickshaw, the Earl watched the bustling Meridian Bulwark Route pass.
[I have to walk the ten miles of the Secure by twenty-hour tonight. I am riding down to the Enthus Gate now to begin. Inform all that I am safe, but that I shall eat dinner as I walk.]
[I am glad of your safety, my liege. The walk will be inconvenient for this afternoon.]
[Eh?]
[The contemplators are pressing Calzjha for details of the Ijkallas.]
The Earl grimaced. [You would think that he – she! — she would take just a moment from rubbing people to read a god-poxied army report!]
[Indeed!]
[Tell her that I will try to communicate some various hints to her as needed. Remind her to stay on what is already known about the islands. Tell her that the Ijkallans are excited about joining the Kingdom, and try to turn it into a conversation about the Kingdom.]
Before the trotting rickshaw driver, the dark brown Enthus Gate loomed. The Earl gritted his teeth and sighed.
[And tell Calzjha to read the god-poxied army reports!]
[Yes, my liege.]
The rickshaw pulled out of the wheelgrooves and onto the sidewalk. The Earl paid the man, who eyed Fazgood’s gritty, blotched hands with distaste and took the coins delicately. Ignoring the contempt, Fazgood looked to his right at Eximus Quayfort, a keep shaped like a mushroom rising from a jetty in the Quand. Before him was Enthus Gate, and to his left, with another sigh, he confronted Meridian Bulwark Route, the direction from which he came. The Route was a paved upward slope the width of four rickshaws. The entire of it was busy with carts, rickshaws and pedestrians, but would soon it would be thick with people.
The Earl trotted to the corner where the Secure ended and the entrance to the Quayfort began. He tapped it and began his walk at his usual brisk pace.
The Route’s course took it along the base of the Secure for most of its length. Every two hundred paces, a food vendor would be positioned to selling to crowds; pickleballs or shimmercake for humans and Exult, or a page of sonnets for the hungry Adactoid. The colors of the city were of the sort found in nature, or at least a very muddy nature found along a river; the people wore duns or browns or yellows or dark blue. The police wore the same maroon as maple trees in autumn. The wall itself was a glittering, granular copper.
Hrikinik had bored Fazgood with details regarding the stone which comprised the Secure . The Adanikarese were greatly jealous of the unique stone. The stone withstood strikes from catapult and Booloob screams without so much as a scratch. Yet if one managed to chip a piece, it felt light in your hand like pumice. It would stay like that for years, decades. But if one attempted to deduce the qualities of that piece through experiment or magic, even closely examining that piece, that chipped stone would collapse into dust. Examinations through proxy, such as having pathetics test and describe that sample, left them with dust.
The Adanikarese were vexed by what they considered a divine practical joke; they called the stone “God-clot.”
That brought Fazgood’s mind to his conversation with Hrikinik, and to the Temporary God seeking the Earl.
He swore to himself in several languages.
The Secure terminated at the Citadel, and beside that was the Terhane Residences. Inside the Residences was the game of jezr-ji, the soul of the Temporary God, and every poxied lotcaster in the province.
Keep alert for those banners, he thought.
The keeps along the Secure were spaced one at every quarter ri. The Earl’s knee started aching again. An ambulatory rumbled and whined past, which made the Earl scowl with jealousy at the gentility, the smartness of such travel.
[My liege, I hate to disturb you at your labor.]
[What does Calzjha want?]
[Calzjha is about to give her presentation. She is quite nervous.]
That is quite satisfying! But no, no, I have to help her! But why? It was being distracted by her testicles that got me – Blast I should have worked alone!
The Earl edged along the sidewalk around a sonorous crowd at a sonnet-stand, [Did she read?]
[She did, but she preferred that I contact you, and convey promptings.]
He bumped into a burping, reciting Adactoid and apologized. Jingling metal rang from somewhere.
[So she didn’t read very much,] Fazgood thought.
[I would doubt it, my liege. Still, I consider her caution to be sensible.]
[Very well. Tell her she should make begin with a recitation and speak slowly. Fluxion! I have to dodge!]
[What?]
Along the wall, directly toward the Earl, came a throng of clamoring brown jezr-ji players. The red and yellow streamers fluttered in the breeze, caressing all around the banners as they passed.
The Earl noted the good cheer that the players instilled and, with a smile, picked his way across the rickshaw lanes to the other sidewalk. The players passed safely by.
[My liege! She has taken a question!]
The Earl choked, then gritted his teeth and walked faster. [What was her god-poxied reason for doing that?]
[Calzjha is too ready to please others: the question is “Tell us about courtship and marriage in your land.”]
[Tell her to use her own traditions as an answer. Leave out the sex changing!]
Fazgood bumped into an Exult, who squawked a protest.
“Humblest apologies!” the Earl said, and received a ruffled flap in reply.
[She is answering well,] reported Warren.
[Tell her to ask about Rahsic traditions! Then get back on her talk!]
[Yes, my liege.]
Another keep passed. Other ambulatories prompted more scowls. The Earl’s stomach growled. He considered calling out to a distant vendor and passing money and food as he walked by, but all the vendors were crowded. In his blazer pocket was his bottle of relish; he knew from experience that a little Lava-God’s-Revenge would give more life to his step and make him forget his pains.
A crowd knotted in a side courtyard. Unseen, a declaimer’s cadence rose above the crowd. A woman with steely voice cried:
“From the parapet of his besieged manse,
surrounded by the Imperial Army,
surrounded tighter by the Earl’s treacherous subjects,
so shouted the Earl:
‘Do you think you have me? Go slap yourselves!
‘’Twas your treachery brought the army to besiege!
I committed felonies within my Emperor’s tolerance!
You stole without regard!
No jail…”
Voices in the crowd joined the declaimers:
“‘…was built for me, especially not the jail meant for you!’”
The voices cheered and laughed at the Earl’s hubris.
Of course I was clever! Damn it all! I was broke and betrayed! I lost my home! What did I have left except to curse them!
More people stepped from the tight buildings onto the sidewalk, making the Earl stop suddenly and jar his knee. The sidewalk was now bustling.
Fazgood muttered, “She must be getting along well. I haven’t heard from War –“
Then he clenched his mouth shut. Zhazh will notice —
[My liege!]
Fazgood suppressed a curse to that wretched god. [Tell me.]
[“What is the history of your government?” It’s from the Mezzo-Barritone!]
[Monarchy! People understand monarchy!]
[The reports say the Ijkallas are a sort of republic!]
[Fluxion! Convey this to Calzhja! She is to say. “Enlightened thinkers set up laws to live by.”]
[Done! Next!]
The crowd was quickening, and Fazgood limped to keep pace. [“In a time beyond reckoning…”]
[Yes?]
[“…the thinkers looked to create a society of peace and understanding. But they knew that dream…”]
The Earl struggled, his pace slowing to tiny steps. [“…required the continued striving of the populace to become closer to the perfection of the all-knowing gods.”]
[Yes!]
[“Our Ijkallas grew in peace and plenty, and did not need the desperate intervention of our gods. Our gods have seen fit to guide you to our shores to aid us in this quest for enlightenment.”]
Fazgood waved a hand in declamation, which drew agitated glances from the maids beside him.
[All are very pleased, my liege.]
[Now! Tell Calzjha to suggest that she dance!]
[They accept the invitation!]
The Earl nodded in satisfaction, imagining the murmurings of a contented crowd. Gods, I miss politics!
The crisis in the keep passed. Calzjha performed “The Wooing of The Doe Princess”, which was always pleased an audience. Fazgood found that dance sweet and sopping and too long to finish; he was glad to avoid its performance.
He considered glumly, It is the gummy toast of Calzjha’s dances! How can persons of any accomplishment enjoy it?
Despite his knee, he reflected upon his comparison and enjoyed it.
The Earl passed keep number nineteen-or-twenty, which began the third tier of Harmonium. The route crested and flattened, and his legs were thankful. He began his walk to the Plaza of the Superb.
His stomach tweaked from hunger. The Earl made arrangements with Warren to have some beannuts and bread ready to seize when he passed by Greatsergeant Keep; the nuts would be good to eat while walking, and the bread he had plans for.
He walked past guildhouses and memoriums, noting the guildhall of the masons, whose brick latticed walls resembled a river from one angle, then as one walked, the brickpattern resembled faces of resilient and noble anonymous citizens. He sighted the keep, the twenty-fourth-or-fifth along the Secure.
Outside the keep stood Obdurate. The Earl slowed his pace enough for the adjutant to give a bag of beannuts and a large chunk of dark bread.
Obdurate confirmed that Calzjha’s performance was splendid.
“Would you permit me to walk with you?” the captain asked.
“I would enjoy the company,” said the Earl, “but it is best we were not seen chatting as friends. The lies we’ve told depend upon your public hostility towards me. We will talk tonight.”
Obdurate nodded and bade the Earl an affected, gruff farewell. The timing of such curtness was well. Fazgood spied across the square a short, vulpine deputy, the one who mocked him after being Obligated, watching the soldier’s departure with interest.
The Earl remembered the Inspector’s instructions to register with whichever deputy was observing the square. He proceeded at a diagonal path through the crowd toward the brigade scout. Fazgood waved to the deputy.
The deputy turned his back to Fazgood, as if noting a detail in a demon’s face within Lanthornmount mosaic. Suspecting some mischief, the Earl rummaged in the bag and found a good, flat beannut the size of his thumb-knuckle.
Called the Earl, “Scout Deputy! Hello!”
The deputy was very plainly ignoring him. The Earl rolled the beannut around in his right palm. Fazgood had to keep walking or violate his obligation to Merhiazadapt, and decay even more. He edged one foot ahead of the other, taking the tiniest steps.
“Deputy…Tlezjoy! Is that not your name?”
The deputy turned and walked away to the east wall of the Square, from where Fazgood had come. Fazgood could not reverse direction without breaking his obligation; the deputy doubtless knew this, for he had mocked the Earl as those commands had been made.
The Earl snarled at the cruelty. He sought an opening in the crowd. His hand whipped. The beannut flew through the crowd and struck Tlezjoy on the base of his neck.
Forgetting himself, the deputy wheeled around. His hand fished within his collar. It found the beannut and he looked around in rage.
He saw the Earl through the crowd, thirty paces away.
Fazgood put on an affable smile and waved the bag of beannuts. “I register!”
The deputy pressed through the genteel crowd with apologies muttered through his teeth. He stood in the Earl’s path. Fazgood made his steps even smaller.
“I register,” The Earl slumped into Pehzpersist’s meekness again. “Would you like a beannut?”
The deputy made to smack the bag from Fazgood’s hand. Fazgood snatched it out of his reach. Fazgood continued tiny steps to within Tlezjoy’s breath. They stood, Fazgood’s nose to Tlezjoy’s chin. Fazgood stopped walking.
Said the Earl, “To impede someone who is obligated from fulfilling that obligation is considered unregulated torture. For a scout, that is low treason. Will you call the policeman on the corner, or will I?”
“You have that wrong, aspirant. I do what I may.”
“Ah! I believe you have that wrong, deputy. Please step aside.”
“You would call the policeman? I know enough of your situation that you would want to stay out of the light, bunglerpox.”
“Know enough”. The Inspector keeps his deputies ignorant. Of course he does.
Said the Earl, “I believe your boss would become very upset about any attention drawn to me.”
They stood button against button. Fazgood looked past Tlezjoy’s shoulder. Both of them saw a policeman waving through pedestrians some twenty paces away. The Earl opened his mouth and took a breath. The deputy knew a forthcoming cry of distress when he saw it, and stepped aside.
“It is well!” Tlezjoy grinned. “I meant only to joke!”
Such as it is with bullies. But if there were no crowd, he would have tried to thrash me.
Said the Earl, “One would not think you as a man of humor. You are dead of expression, and I must confess, intimidating. If you will excuse me, I must continue.”
Fazgood proceeded to walk slowly, chin held high, at a slow pace. The deputy joined his walk.
“Did you throw that beannut?”
“Yes.”
Tlezjoy looked back to where he had stood when the nut had struck him. “That was a sharp throw. Through that crowd!”
“Watch.”
He waited for a gap, then whipped a nut. It arced through the pedestrians and struck the policeman’s hat.
The policeman turned around. With practiced chicanery, both the Earl and the deputy began walking and feigning a conversation. Seeing nobody through the crowd, and not seeing the projectile on the ground, the policeman continued on his way.
Tlezjoy’s eyes narrowed to a brute jealousy. “How can you throw so well?”
“A knack from when I was little. I spent my youth in the wilderness.”
“Ah,” said the deputy. He became thoughtful, as if reminded of something.
“It is in the wrist,” Fazgood showed how his wrist whipped. “Like this. It is not difficult.”
The deputy looked at the hand, but did not emulate. The Earl knew the deputy would try later, when there was no one to see his mistakes.
“Would you walk?” the Earl asked.
“No. I stay here. Off with you, bunglerpox.”
“Then hold to the wall, good deputy. I was about to spread some relish on some bread. But if you’ve no interest in it, that is well.”
“That ghastly stuff!” the deputy walked alongside. “It’s still in my nose from last night!”
The Earl was struck with an idea.
Back in Adanikar, Hrikinik used soul distillations as a party trick. The distillations from maniacs would be slipped into the food of those attending sophisticates, and those who ate would be inflamed with passions or rages. Hrikinik’s parties sometimes ended with the marble floors covered with bodies; whether those bodies were rutting or bleeding made no difference to that eternally bored and callous Prince.
The Earl tucked the bag under his arm, and broke the bread. He gave half to the deputy, then brought out the bottle. He tapped a tiny amount of the viscid yellow stuff on each of their pieces.
Fazgood gestured to a nearby fountain, which they approached. “Note this: the trick is to let your mouth and throat dry through deep breaths, then let it slide down quick.”
The Earl chewed and swallowed. The scorching and scalding scraped down to his stomach. He felt a flush of heat, and the pain in his knee ebbed. He puffed and panted, and the heat ebbed.
The deputy hesitated. “I am not eating that.”
Do I remember how Hrikinik prompted? Yes!
“Your Inspector did so. He said he was the only scout tough enough to do so.”
“How did he do?”
“Gasped and choked, but he took it.”
Tlezjoy grunted at that challenge. He took the proffered bread, took some breaths, then popped it into his mouth. His eyes bulged. He ducked to the fountain.
“Do not drink! You will make it worse! Just let it ebb!”
The deputy choked. “Ugh! But…I…believe it…not as bad…as expecte-e-ed.”
This last came out as such a strangled squeak, the Earl almost laughed.
The man began sniffing, as his nose had started running freely. Sweat popped upon his brow. He grasped his stomach as the bread struck it, but made that he was adjusting the waist of his pants.
Now what would Hrikinik say? “You learn well!”
The Earl slapped the man’s shoulder. “The Inspector underestimated you! But there must be so few times that he is so rude.”
The deputy started, and his face reddened. Fazgood knew what stirred him: the man was under the influence of Fazgood’s hatred of Mehzadapt. At Fazgood’s mentioning the Inspector, the slights Mehzadapt had inflicted upon Tlezjoy from months gone by were now racing through the deputy’s mind.
But his effect would only stay for a few days, with a dose so small. Only I would be permanently affected by a small dose.
The deputy’s eyes narrowed. “People in charge sneer. That is how things are.”
“Does he sneer?”
“He yowls and glares like a wet cat! ‘Keep your council.’ ‘Mind your behavior.’ He gives you a favor and never lets you forget.”
Fazgood nodded with sympathy. “I am sorry I mentioned the tyrant. But do tell him I send my regards.”
Deputy Tlezjoy snapped. “ Send him your own regards! He is in the Headquarters back in the plaza!”
“I am sorry,” said the Earl meekly. “May all be well.”
Fazgood walked away. The deputy stood with grim face and clenched knuckles, casting glowers back to the east, where the Inspector stayed at headquarters.
Ah. It would seem I owe Hrikinik for more than just the ability to smuggle myself.
He quickly considered what had transpired with the deputy:
Did he see the captain waiting with the refreshments? That would not do. The timing was too perfect, and no messenger went into the keep to tell the captain of my impending arrival in the square. The deputies strike me as cruel wretches, but not as fools.
If Mehzadapt asks, I hired a messenger to meet the captain at the keep. That may satisfy.
He walked from the square along the Route, the fire in his stomach causing the pain in his thighs to withdraw. He walked over the breambridges, bridges of infinite sturdiness yet balanced that a single tug on a chain would withdraw them, and he contemplated the pools beneath as he passed over. The shadows drew long across the open lawns. The traffic dwindled to few pedestrians and rickshaws. His thighs and knee began aching again, his aches causing a slow recitation of profanity, but in all he was proud he could still walk such a distance with little warning. The Earl finished the beannuts and licked coarse sea-salt from sweaty fingers.
Ahead was the rose-colored wall of the Terhane Residences.
Should I drop by the Birqmuir embassy and present myself?
He chuckled at that. He had not rejected the nobility, the touch of godliness, that the Emperor had bestowed upon him. However, a nobleman who a decade ago had tried to start criminal organizations, almost helped start a civil war, then run off without appointing a steward would probably not be welcome.
He walked to where the brown wall joined the rose-colored wall and without flourish touched that corner. He walked back to the route and looked around for a rickshaw.
[Warren,] thought the Earl, [I am done and it is early still. I come home to nap.]
[My liege, find a rickshaw. I imagine you could not walk another step.]
[I would if I have to, squire. Thankfully, I do not.]
Metal jangled. He looked up.
The Royal Cumulid loomed overhead, half-as-large as a keep, casting a deep shadow over the wall. From the huge, fluffy body cascaded long streamers. Shadows of men spiked the top of the great, floating citizen; all of the men jangled metal bells. Around the gliding mass, the Cumulid’s attendant breezes squirmed and flitted, lofting a flock of cackling, flapping Exults.
The streamers writhed down in a path as wide as Lanthornmount Square. They slowly bore down the Route toward him.
Fluxion.
He swore viciously all the way back down the Route, the Cumulid drifting happily behind.
Then came the thunder for the sixteenth-hour rain.
* * *
From the doorway of Greatsergeant Keep, the conspirators watched the Cumulid drift overhead. In the sheets of rain, the waving streamers waved beneath like a moving copse of young ablewood trees, filling an eighth of the square. Children dashed in and out of the rain and cloth, cheering the lotcasters high above who were huddled under parasols on the Cumulid’s back.
In the foyer on the stairs, Fazgood sat drenched and gasping for breath. Beside him sat Calzjha, who cooed with sympathy over the Earl’s horrid durance. Such was Fazgood’s exhaustion that he had could only wheeze angrily and thrash a wet hand at that show of pity.
“Let me adjust your knee,” said the helpful associate.
“That would sting,” the Earl panted.
“What is that on your cheek?” asked Calzjha.
“Nothing! You would distract me so you can wrench my knee!”
Obdurate turned to them, mindful of the servants. “They are quite determined to have everyone in jezr-ji. The longer they go without finding someone who knows answers, the more demanding they will be.”
Staring out the door, Respiration said, “Soon they would want organized events, where all will be required. They may well just have the city line up and touch the ribbons and interrogate that way.”
A maid watched from the top of the stairs. Fazgood looked to her, and saw tight anger and suspicion. Calzjha wrenched the knee with a loud crack! The Earl yowled.
Calzjha said, “Does it not feel better?”
“But for the sharp pain, it would!”
“Get out of that wet blazer!”
Past the figure of Respiration in the doorway, the cascade was lit by the purpling dusk. She was still and silent. Obdurate walked to her side. Their postures were stiff and straight, like those of the condemned on the dock awaiting the pyre.
The Earl said to them, “Another day has ended just as it should end. All one can do is feed and rest and prepare for the next.”
None seemed consoled by the obvious, though.
“I would clean up and go upstairs to rest.”
With a groan, the Earl rose and trudged upstairs. He passed the grim maid, and went to his room for fresh clothing. Warren snored on the bundle of cloth he had come to use as a bed. Fazgood stepped lightly around his dozing compatriot and gathered his goods. He walked back down the stairs. The maid had left to prepare the public room for the next morning. The Earl shuffled to the washroom and past the desultory group.
She followed the Earl.
“How fare your legs?” she asked tersely.
“A bit achy, but still attached.”
“Your complexion clears, I think.”
“Does it?” He looked at his hands. “Splendid!”
She whispered close. “You would have more to tell us, I think.”
“No, you think wrong,” said he.
“That inspector knew you at the door day-before-yesterday. And you said last night that he had been a smug ape as a child. You say his name as if it scalds your tongue.”
“How much camle-zre did you drink?”
“It is good that I drank as much as I did,” she growled, “otherwise I would think you had foul history with him.”
“I swear that I do not know what you speak of. Tired, tainted ears hear wrong.”
“There is nothing wrong with my ears,” Respiration declared.
Fazgood looked into her eyes, and saw she would not be dissuaded. He looked around the dark hallway, behind her to the bedchamber. “How did you of all people end in this situation?”
“Men with bottles of spirits just seem to complete an evening.”
“No. How did you end in this situation? With the Greatsergeants.”
“I thought I could save a man from his family’s fate. Imagine my surprise. How did you? There was the whole world from which to choose. How did you end here?”
He shrugged. “Fled the city, went upon a quest, helped kill an Abomination, tried to start criminal brotherhoods, was duped into a civil war, tricked a family of wizards into ransoming their castle, angered some gods –“
“I’ll read the book,” Respiration interrupted. “Your shrug is performed as well as a citizen. But I assume you refer to gods in grace with Enthus?”
“Indeed. My customarian would allow me no other.”
“That is good. I have enough risk of profaning my ears by speaking with you.”
The Earl swallowed a laugh. “Perhaps I should carry myself away then.”
“You should. You are gritty, and need a good wash.”
“Good lady,” the Earl smiled. “You have described my essence.”
Down the stairs, laughter echoed against the stone. It separated and trailed into Calzjha’s musical notes and a guffaw barely recognizable as Obdurate. Both Fazgood and Respiration turned to the sound with curiosity.
Fazgood noted the good lady’s expression. “Has Calzjha’s…assistance gone well?”
She was distracted. “Yes. Your associate is so disarming and…candid. It puts one at ease. But you must know that intimately.”
“No. Truly.”
“That is surprising. In your associate’s current…guise, it is supposed men would adore someone so exotic.”
“My associate knows very little of the world, and has very little sense.”
Said Respiration, “Most men would find that appealing as well.”
“What of your captain? He is enthusiastic.”
She noted that change of subject, then her expression warmed. “Yes. He is.”
The Earl laughed.
Respiration’s mouth opened in amused shock. She struck Fazgood’s arm. “He is enthusiastic in all things. He is curious about the world, and loves much.”
“He seems awkward.”
“The army does not tolerate awkwardness. He simply is curious about the world and cannot wait –“
More laughter. Both Fazgood and Respiration turned, their expressions pinched.
“I shall speak with you later,” Respiration walked to the stairs.
“Yes,” Fazgood stepped to follow, then seeing the situation would be well modulated by the good lady’s presence, he turned back to his room. He did take a glance back to watch Respiration’s back as she descended the stairs. She was strong and handsome.
It was much later that evening, when all had gone to bed and risen again, and all had set aside their deceptions of the day, that they whispered freely in the hot, close dark of Respiration’s bedroom. All events of the day were shared, except Fazgood’s conversation with the deputy. Calzjha was congratulated for her deft performance, though all suspected the Mezzo-Barritone seemed dissatisfied with the answer he received. Fazgood swore to Calzjha his aid in developing more convincing lies for the next contemplation.
No one needed to speak of the jezr-ji. It would need only a few of the contemplators, or a few of the customary class to be touched by those streamers, and the Temporary God would know of two strangers with a animal of unusually conscious demeanor.
All sipped their drinks. They found that a sip of caml-zre made a following sip of tziembroask more palatable.
“I do wonder,” said Calzjha, “what the general is thinking.”
Said the Earl, “It does not matter what he thinks. It only matters what options we leave him. For example: tomorrow’s sympatile.”
Respiration sighed with dread. “Yes.”
“You will not go.”
All were surprised.
The Earl elaborated, “Obdurate will tell the General that Respiration refuses the General’s request.”
The adjutant laughed with disbelief. “No one says ‘no’ to General Greatsergeant.”
“I must have powerful confidence to disabuse him so,” the goodwife said.
The Earl smiled at her deduction and nodded. “The adjutant will have overheard the Foofaloof saying that the lifting of the curse is at hand.”
Even Warren at the door turned at that raising of the stakes.
Calzjha gaped. “What would he do?”
Obdurate put his arm around Respiration. The weight of that dusk’s jezr-ji bore upon them more.
Fazgood found cold in the pit of his stomach and swallowed the remainder of his tziembroask. “Are we certain that the General has no means of communicating secretly to another in the city?”
Obdurate shook his head. “There is no means of communicating other than through official dispatch, and those take days to be carried by instructed breeze. Weeks by ship.”
“He has no other sympatile at hand? No spirits at his call?”
Respiration looked to the Earl closely. “If he had such means, he would have boasted to me long ago.”
“Then we begin. Remember: you will be free, Respiration. Obdurate, you will have your lady. The kingdom will be safe.”
The referenced lady thought aloud. “We must all improvise as Calzjha had.”
“Before a greater audience,” said the adjutant. “but for how long?”
Not much longer, thought the Earl.
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Tags: comedy, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 20 (A FATAL ASSUMPTION)
11 06 2014In the morning at the barracks, Obdurate awoke early in a wonderful languor. His exercise in the yard was sharp yet relaxed. The adjutant charged to work. His first task was to thrust a note to a messenger and commanded it go to the Terhane Residences.
The note:
- A confidential message must be sent to General Greatsergeant immediately. I am sole entrusted with its conveyance. Also, are lotcasters now allowed to leave the residences for job-related tasks? I would not ask, but I have from a reliable source that the Scout Brigade lotcaster was seen last night in the Foreign Due.
He knew response would be swift. Obdurate knew his reputation: Even-tempered, so serious Army Adjutant-Captain Obdurate Childteacher never asked for help and never turned away someone in need. A pleasant, quiet, serious sort with his head always over his desk, but always forgiving of honest error. The army representatives in the College would believe him without question, and scramble to inquire.
The answer returned by the same messenger child; the girl told him an appointment time for a sympatile session at mid-day, and a polite statement that the lotcasters were still restricted.
He stepped from his office and caught a rickshaw to the Plaza. The jingle of a jezr-ji banner caused him to peer, but the lotcaster ran on the far side of the street in the opposite direction, red ribbons streaming far away. Obdurate’s mind wandered to the night before. His newly-tuned nerves kept doubt far from his heart.
At a quarter-hour before the session, he arrived at the courtyard in front of the Terhane Residences. The first scattering of tiny leaves gusted across the small, rose-quartz plaza. Over the wall to his left the bowl of the great Royal Citadel, to his right the simple, rippled roofs of the quarters housing foreign ambassadors; Birqmuir’s ambassador resided in the large ivy-covered one in the center. Beyond those, fat in the striated sky, the cumuloid glode, pearly fins open and sphincter-funnels barely visible in the billows of cloud-like disguise.
Within the courtyard, the army lotcaster stood waiting, her eyes distant and breathing deep, already preparing the trance to facilitate communication. The thin, lacquered case of a portable sympatile table slung over her right shoulder. Obdurate and the lotcaster nodded to each other, and they waited until the proper moment, when the lotcaster felt moved to begin.
In smooth, sharp movements, the sides of the case detached lengthwise and legs dropped into place to create seats. The middle of the case was turned sideways, and legs dropped to form a central table.
A frame as for a puppet theater was folded up at mid-table and snapped into dovetailed slots. One side of the partitioned table-top slid away to reveal the layer of white inscribed in black with letters of the Rahsic Unified alphabet and simple words; this was common to all sympatile. This table had a sympathetic twin; the same tree supplied the wood for both, the same vein of copper supplied the metal, the shape and arrangement of the letters and words was unique to the two sets. The twin table accompanied the General wherever he shipped, and behind which the General sat at that moment.
The table cover slipped upright into the mid-table frame to form a partition, leaving a thin gap at its bottom. Obdurate sat at the side with the white tiles. The lotcaster sat at the opposite side, her gaze hidden from the messages to be conveyed in the tray of tiles.
The two sat. She pushed a thin copper rod under the partition. The rod was tipped with a hoop of red glass. The hoop stopped in the blank space at the center of the words and letters. Obdurate heard the lotcaster humming a deep and sonorous tune, the tone descending lower and lower, until her voice began to croak.
Obdurate’s seat tingled, as if someone else was infringing upon him to move over.
The lotcaster rapped the tray.
Obdurate drew his finger upon the hoop and guided it to the letters to spell. The tiny hexagons and triangles flipped along his finger’s path, leaving a trail of red. He knew at that moment, weeks away by sail, the General sat at the twin of this sympatile device, and watched as letters traced across the twin’s face.
Obdurate spelled “Childteacher.” He tapped the frame to signify his completion.
The hoop slid across and spelled in bold, strong strokes. “Greatsergeant.”
The adjutant gritted his teeth. A chill drifted up his veins. He wrote:
“Wife cuckolds.”
He waited.
The hoop shifted, and within the slow, steady red hoop. “Impossible.”
His heart pounded. “It is certain.”
The conversation proceeded:
“Who?”
“Man says to be from Ijkalla. Heard man say he is magician.”
Cold panic sluice through Obdurate’s stomach.
“Perhaps I am wrong,” the adjutant wrote, aware of his weakening, wanting all of this to be over, to be in his office coordinating numbers, wiser and wiling to live a life of routine lunches and shrugs.
The hoop remained still. The General’s presence burned in the air, as if he stood over Obdurate’s shoulder. When Obdurate blinked, he saw Greatsergeant’s thick-browed and piercing eyes, his engraved smile. The adjutant felt the slamming of the General’s shoulder claps. These impressions were part of working with the sympatile; some eight weeks voyage away, approximately south-by-southwest, the General could sense Obdurate’s presence.
In slow and deliberate letters, came this: “There is more. Tell.”
What am I to do? What did the Earl say to do?
“Admit truth to hide a lie.” How?
He remembered the night before, watching naked, newly-breasted Calzjha kneading Respiration’s feet.
The lie seized him, and Obdurate wrote. “Man is not from Ijkalla. Mysterious. Claims to be magician. There is affection.”
Oddly, relief spilled over him. Respiration and Calzjha were fond of each other, even when a man Calzjha chatted with Respiration as if they were fellow students of a esoteric science. And he did know that Calzjha was as not from Ijkalla, to say nothing of having ri of exotica within.
“Who of all thinks as you?” wrote the General.
“All admire your wife. I could tell none.”
“Sensible boy.”
Anger flashed at the familiar contempt. His finger jabbed the hoop:
“More. Heard stranger tell wife he will break curse on keep.”
As soon as he wrote the words, he felt sweat prickle like hot needles on his brow and limbs.
Steady sliding: “What does he mean?”
Throw ignorance and questions.
“I do not know.”
The heat became a boiling. Obdurate suspected, strangely, that the heat was not his own.
Is the General…afraid?
The adjutant felt a shift in the General; a withdrawing into contemplation. Obdurate resisted a rising hope.
A lighter touch to the hoop now: “Tell her of my regard. Bring her tomorrow so that we may speak. The same time. Done.”
It took all of Obdurate’s will to keep his fear at bay. “I will. Done.”
Obdurate made arrangement with the lotcaster for another session the next day. He bade good-to-all and departed, heavy with worry.
How am I to have Respiration subjected to this? What are we going to do?
What spying could the General receive to determine my lies? Messages by ship would take weeks to be received. A magician or Cumuloid could compel a breeze to take a message, but that would take days to get to the Ijkallas. Would the General trust a magician to send a risky message through the spirits?
At the end of the hall, before the sunlit glass of the door, he paused and took a breath. He walked through the courtyard, still bent with thought.
Obdurate considered. No. I do not think the General would delegate the most vital task of his life. Nor would he risk exposure by entrusting himself under the scrutiny of a lotcaster or magician. They could uncover the deeper secret, and he knows that.
He looks to worm the truth from his wife! Find inconsistencies in our stories!
He walked out the rosebrick and quartz gate and down the latticed brickwork walk to the Aortid Boulevard.
A thought! The General could send a dispatch from the Ijkallas for public consumption, in seeming innocence, that would put to a lie all of the Earl’s fancies of Ijkalla (the Foofaloof? What sort of name is that?).
But…an exposed and imprisoned Foofaloof might tell of the Greatsergeant curse to any who would listen.
The General is stalemated.
This realization gave cause for a moment’s relief. At least the next few days were safe. His insides still felt like ice.
Is this how the Mad Earl spends his life? Delays and respites? The constant spinning of confusions? A few days’ safety per effort? The book says as much.
He felt a fool for even thinking it, but he had to: The book said nothing about being nauseous.
* * *
The thick velvet drape pulled back and Deputy Tlezjoy leaned his head into the alcove. “Inspector, someone managed to drag their gritty skin in to see you.”
The Inspector looked up from his dictation, and glared at the familiarity. “Bring him.”
Mehzadapt waved the clerk out of the alcove. The man scurried out as Fazgood slipped in, holding his hat and shoulders hunched. The Earl’s neck and cheeks had the slightest gray dinge; the beginning of Bungler Pox, the physical ruin resulting from disobeying an Obligation.
“Sit,” said the Inspector. “Let’s see your hands.”
Fazgood put his hat on the table and held out his hands palm down. Red blemishes spidered under his skin, two on the back of his right hand, one on the back of his left.
Mehzadapt slapped Fazgood across the face.
The Earl cried out and held his cheek.
A being who is struck shows many things; dismay, then whatever rage or fear is in his heart. The Inspector saw surprise, then a white-hot rage, which was quickly – expertly – caught. The Earl’s eyes showed a whipped dog biding his time, the lesser in life’s circumstance, waiting for a back to turn.
Mehzadapt pointed. “That is going to bruise more than a little, because you decided to have will.”
“What was I to do?” the Earl muttered. “The paragon was there! Am I to refuse a paragon in the middle of the Malibar Ferry?”
“You would sneak from the keep, and stay to my demand, Fazgood.”
Then the Inspector took out a handkerchief and made a show of wiping his hand. “You have dissembled from the Ijkallas to Harmonium. According to some book, you steal entire castles or some such. Yet your nerves go cold on that dock. Perhaps I should just throw you to the police.”
“You said we had struck a deal!”
“Deal? I can cancel the terms anytime I see fit.”
“That would repay you poorly. At this moment, all the paragon and the captain thinks is that I went whoring. If I have deputies around me, Goodwife Greatsergeant will know something is happening. They may do something hasty. That is why I went with them.”
“Now you answer that you look after my interests!” Mehzadapt sneered. “Where could the goodwife and captain hide?”
Fazgood leaned close. “They could themselves go to the police and hope for mercy. That would leave me and that fool I am teamed with on the Royal Road.”
And me with nothing, and ill-will for not turning them in last night. No magnateship, and an investigation from the inspectors.
He put away his handkerchief, his brow tight with contemplation. “So where lay their natures?”
“I spent half the night soothing them, so that they did not think you were on to them.”
“So you did not tell them anything of our meeting.”
“I told the Goodwife that scouts do not like citizen aspirants to gamble in the Foreign Due. She knows I am hard up for money, so she believed me. It was all I could do to assure her. She and the adjutant are gathering money to send us on our way.”
“Did you say anything of the deputies you saw in the Bellflowers? Did you describe any of them to the paragon?”
The Earl looked confused. “I told her that your deputies cornered me and you much abused me. Was I wrong?”
The Inspector’s brow tightened again, He probably let slip about Reedtickle.
“How much money?”
Fazgood told him a figure.
“That is cheap.”
“If you make it too dear, they go looking for help.”
Mehzadapt shook his head. “You have such leverage on them. Why not tell Goodwife Greatsergeant ‘shut up’ and ‘I’m for whores?’”
“I’m going to stand on a public dock and refuse a paragon? She hosts contemplations, and I have to go to customary. I can’t run about doing anything I like. I have to play it out within my role.”
“Yes, your role. What of your ‘foofaloof’?”
“The Foofaloof is enjoying being in charge. I do not trust the Foofaloof.”
The Inspector chuckled. “You always did follow heedlessly as a child. Do you remember?”
The Earl stilled, and became watchful.
“I remember faces,” Fazgood said. “Some names and streets. Beyond that, I lived a life.”
“What a life you have lived that you forget how your mentors died, Earl Fazgood.”
“I remember this city killed them over some quarrel. I remember that I am forever an exile… That is memory enough.”
Mehzadapt examined the bitterness in Fazgood’s voice, and how the Earl caught himself before he became too talkative. Better change the subject.
The Inspector clapped his meaty hands together. “You met our lotcaster. The Booloob who gave your lungs fits? I had a long session with Reedtickle last night. Not one aspect of your tale could be confirmed by lotcasting.”
Tlezjoy parted the drape. Fazgood became wary, the Inspector noted.
Mehzadapt said, “Tell Inspector Akekek that I have our visitor.”
After Tlezjoy departed, Mehzadapt instructed the Earl: “You will relate to Inspector Akekek everything you have told me. You will not tell any scout the names of your conspirators.”
The Inspector spoke the few words necessary to seal the commands and bind them to Fazgood’s fate.
Tlezjoy pushed aside the drape to allow Inspector Akekek her entrance. No introductions were made.
Akekek kept her plughat on her sleek brown crest. “Inform me.”
Mehzadapt set aside her deliberate rudeness. “I referred to an investigation last night. This investigation is delicate. The subject of the investigation concerns embezzlement in the military. Its conspiracy reaches to the highest ranks. I will not discuss the details until all parties are leveraged, and this man is obligated to me not to reveal details. When the conspirators are under control of the Brigades, you will know all.”
Fazgood related the tale told of the previous evening, omitting names, keeping details vague. He omitted Calzjha completely.
Akekek clucked deep in her throat. “The military, you say?”
“Yes, Inspector,” said Fazgood.
Mehzadapt flicked a finger. “Wait down the hall at the corner.”
Fazgood stepped backward out of the alcove and dropped the velvet back into place.
Akekek looked to Mehzadapt. Her hackles rose.
“What is this theater?” she sneered. “I saw his skin: this man is grit and spots. He will say anything you demand.”
Mehzadapt shrugged. “Believe him or do not believe him. All I ask is the full ten days. I will honor all who supported my investigation.”
“The ten days are now six days, Mehzadapt.”
“Six days, yes. Stop any hasty vote that Inspector Mikdoktik demands, and I will insure that you share in the bounty of this haul.”
“What would you with this ‘haul’? It is high treason to extort the army exchequer for a percentage of their embezzlement.”
“I would leverage any minor conspirators for favor in the future; I would insure they were kept from being revealed. The more impressive conspirators I would give the courts.”
The Exult nodded. “How impressive would those ones be?”
“Inspector, your fledglings have heard of them.”
Akekek assessed Mehzadapt’s confident demeanor.
She giggled. “I agree. I invest six days’ patience into this ‘haul’ of yours.”
“There is a haul. It will be had.”
The Exult took her leave. Deputy Tlezjoy peeked in and Merhizadapt crooked a finger to have Fazgood sent in.
The Earl entered and sat. The cramped alcove forced him close to Mehzadapt; there was a tension in Fazgood’s seating as he expected another slap. The purpling bruise was rising on his cheek in front of his left ear. The Inspector slapped his arm around the Earl’s shoulders.
Mehzadapt growled. “There is some discord in Greatsergeant Keep. Last night, the lotcaster discerned that much. And that you and the goodwife and the soldier are conspiring. You have something very important over the General. But no money has changed hands.
“And you have never, ever stepped foot on the Ijkallas. You should explain why the lotcaster found this to be so.”
The Earl’s countenance became grim. He wiped a hand before his face, and gazed at the gray flakes.
He said, “The General leveraged his Army magician to conceal my partner and I from discernment. You know they conceal the movements of whole fleets from magical discernment. To conceal two people is nothing.”
“Ah,” said the Inspector. “But why?”
“We are on the run from the Adanikarese. As long as we stayed by the General, the Adanikarese couldn’t find us.”
The Inspector raised an eyebrow. “So you are aiding high treason, for leveraging the magician.”
“Yes-s-s-s,” Fazgood stared at the table.
Mehzadapt sneered. “You are no longer required to stay with the deputies. Check in with me every six hours. At night, do so by reporting to whoever of my deputies is in Lanthornmount Square.
“Two more items,” said the Inspector. “First: walk the length of the Triumph. Complete the task before tonight’s twentieth hour. Do so without interruption or pause for rest. Do so without aid from any person or device. When your legs ache, remember I can have you do worse. Go.”
He drove home the point by speaking the enchantment into the Earl’s ear. Fazgood gritted his teeth, but said nothing.
The Inspector shoved. “Get out of here. You smell like ashes.”
Tlezjoy had heard, and parted the drape with a vulpine smile. “There is not enough water to wash the Bungler away. Off with you.”
The Earl rose, so angry that he panted. “The second item. What is the second item?”
“You would do best to avoid those fellows charging around with those red and yellow banners. Tell your co-conspirators the same.”
“What?” Fazgood’s eyes seemed to search for reason. “Why?”
“Just do so. That is an order, and you are obligated.”
The Inspector spoke the few words necessary to seal the commands upon Fazgood.
Under his Obligation, Fazgood stalked away.
The deputy jibed. “Rattle those bones quick! You’ll be pink again by sun-up!”
The Inspector shook his head. The Fiery Comet! The Mad Earl! Could he be truly this pathetic? If he falls so easily to me, why should I need Reedtickle!
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Tags: comedy, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, speculative fiction
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 19 (THE CONNIVANCE BEGINS)
4 06 2014That night as the Malabar Flats Ferry crossed the Quand, three velveteened courtesans with retinues all gaped in surprise. The moonlight showed some few plug-hatted Scout aspirants who were frozen and staring. The moonlight showed throngs of blue-jacketed merchants clutching treasured permits for an evening’s loache, all of whom fidgeted as if under their mother’s gaze.
In the middle of the foredeck, Respiration Greatsergeant stood, her braids swept back from her face, the sheen cast upon her dark, flawless skin. Her black knitted shawl pulled back from the simple black smock, pulled back to show its blue-green sigil “Greatsergeant”, which was oyster-shell-embroidered in the thick-footed zhe-fherem lettering style allowed only to authority.
Her presence pressed all talk on the boat to murmurs.
Two steps behind Respiration, respectfully, stood Obdurate, who managed to stay at attention well in the slightly rocking boat. Beside the officer stood Calzjha, haggard in the blue suit of the Foofaloof, the Brumpf basket under her right arm.
Within that basket, frantic Warren received this: [Squire, it seems I have talked my way out of it.]
The weasel shrieked and banged open the lid.
[Calzjha, our liege lives! He says he has talked his way out!]
Calzjha whispered to the soldier and the goodwife, “The Earl is well. He has communicated so.”
Both sighed, but more so Obdurate, for he could not find in the Greatsergeant Keep a portable weapon more menacing than an old, oiled dagger tucked in his tunic. He had been in a panic that they would run into a jezr-ji team, but was relaxed a little on the ferry.
“Where is he?” asked Respiration.
Warren conveyed to Calzjha, [At the Wetward Gate.]
They looked to the dock and saw at the dock, at the head of the crowd between two figures in plughats, stood a smaller man. The lanterns of the ferry brought white light upon the dock. The Earl’s suit was battered from the day’s exertions. He grasped the scuffed toolbag and a jug. He favored his right leg from his earlier sprain. A welt dulled his left cheek. But gone from his eyes was the vaguedespair of that afternoon. Unseen by the deputies beside him, his dark eyes glittered with a barely-suppressed enervation.
[My liege!] Warren queried, [Are you well?]
[Do you mean these two? They are to keep me under lock somewhere.]
[They seem formidable. Are you certain you are well?]
[I haven’t felt better in months.]
The grimace was almost palpable. [You ate that poor crab’s body.]
[I did not, Warren. A taste was all that was necessary. The remainder, and even that bite was disposed of by a maid. My crab-madness is gone, thank poxied gods! But after the meal, I have taken a new obsession.]
[Ah. Should I pretend gladness, my liege?]
[I will understand if you do not.]
The ferry drew close. The crowds on the boat and the dock drew toward each other. The two scouts Varalam and Tlezjoy kept close. The Earl fidgeted.
Fazgood thought, [Quickly! We must create a performance to ease me away from these deputies.]
The ferry touched the rope bumpers around the dock. The rail was raised, and all on the boat made way as the paragon’s party stepped forward.
[Ah!] the Earl considered, [Calzjha must chastise me. Quickly! Tell her she is angry for my wandering away to gamble. She is to hustle me onto the ferry, and the –]
Respiration stepped forward and said to the deputies. “We shall accept him. You have my thanks.”
Fazgood blinked in surprise at her improvisation, then gave an abashed look and mumbled. “I thank you, Paragon.”
“You must be ashamed, aspirant!”
The command broke the air like a slap. Among those witnessing, some three dozen people on dock and boat, all of their breath stopped.
The Earl suppressed a glare, then cast his gaze down contritely. He whimpered. “Yes, paragon. I am! Indeed!”
“Indulgences are earned through honor and effort. That includes whoring.”
Fazgood snorted in umbrage at the chosen offense, but held his objection.
The deputies sneered.
Respiration swept a graceful hand. “Let us step away to allow the others to pass.”
She stood aside to allow the ferry throng to exit.
Fazgood nudged a deputy with his toolbag and cried. “What do you wait for? Step away! Step away!”
The scouts pressed themselves aside as the bauds and merchants left the ferry. Those accustomed to the Goodwife’s presence cast bemused looks at those freshly surprised. All grimaced at the presumptuous aspirant. Fazgood kept his face down in shame.
The Goodwife Greatsergeant looked to the deputies. “I thank you for your assistance. Your task is ended.”
Tlezjoy replied, “Our Inspector said that we are to keep him under our watchful eye.”
His right foot stepped onto the ferry.
“You may tell your Inspector that your task is ended.”
The foot, however, did not withdraw.
Said Tlezjoy, “Pehzpersist understands that he is to accompany us.”
Among the ferry, and among those lingering at the dock, all breath stopped again.
Respiration offered a hand to her left. “Then this good soldier…”
Obdurate stepped up. His uniform glowed in the lanternlight, the image of polite and efficient society. He looked upon the deputies with disdain.
The goodwife continued. “…will help insure that all have a greater understanding.”
Obdurate snatched the tziembroask bottle from Fazgood’s grasp. “This one will be no problem at all, paragon.”
[This is getting to be quite enough!] thought the Earl.
[Steady, my liege.]
Varalam pressed. “Paragon, is there a service we could provide? Our service could be to accompany you home as a show of our faith and support.”
“Your faith and support are taken close to my bosom and do warm my soul, good scout. Tell your inspector that his respect is a firm, dry stone upon which all can surely stand. I thank you. Your task is ended.”
Visibly moved by the praise, the Adactoid bowed. Tlezjoy pouted at losing an opportunity to torment Pehzpersist. He stepped back onto the dock and bowed.
A final ease of her hand and the ferrymen closed the rail and blew the note for the riverwhales to swim for the bank. The ferry moved away.
[She did play that well, Earl,] noted Warren.
[Respiration has strong nerve,] Fazgood agreed. [She flattered that Adactoid just so.]
The ferry ride back seemed very long. At the dock, two rickshaws were procured. Tense and exhausted, none exchanged a word or thought until the Greatsergeant Keep. The youngest cousin maid opened the door, eyes severe and mouth pinched with consternation.
In front of the maid, the Goodwife wheeled upon the Earl. “As your patron, I command you go to your room and rest for studies tomorrow.”
The Earl withdrew, with a last sidelong glance at the bottle Obdurate still held. He passed Calzjha. He thrust the toolbag into
Calzjha’s hands. Within its pitch-canvas, water sloshed.
Calzjha flushed and took the bag in her free hand.
To Obdurate, Respiration said, “Again, I am under some obligation to you, adjutant.”
She presented her hands. He held them in a polite acknowledgement.
“It is my duty, and my honor to help you, paragon.”
Calzjha and Warren watched, knowing the sublimity of that couple’s feelings. As Fazgood took the stairs, he made mocking faces of the subtle lovers.
The soldier departed. The Foofaloof declared a need for a contemplative walk by the river, where all understood it was to dispose of the unfortunate burden in the toolbag. The Brumpf accompanied the Foofaloof as a means of communicating in case of emergency. Obdurate noted the need for safety, and so swallowed his nausea at the task at hand, and also accompanied Calzjha on her task.
Respiration ascended to the contemplations room, where under the maid’s presence, they sipped tea, and stole glances at the waterclock. The Foofaloof returned at half-past the twentieth hour, set the Brumpf to return to their room, and declared the walk satisfactory, though Obdurate did gurgle a bit.
At the twenty-first hour, the women retired for the night. Calzjha withdrew down the hall to the room she shared with the Earl.
Calzjha found him sitting upon the bed; metal clacked in his jiggling left hand. He raised his right hand and dropped it toward a roll of fine blue wool cloth in the corner of the room. The center of the roll twitched. The end of a knitting needle joined others buried deep. In an open cask across from the door came a rasping snore; Warren was taking the opportunity to nap.
The Earl glanced at the bag in Calzjha’s hands and said nothing. He flung another needle deep into the cloth.
“Warren told me all,” Calzjha said. “You did not have to go get that crab.”
“Indeed? I did. It was part of my plan.”
They spoke in the pidgin that was familiar to them both, mixing Rahsic and Adanikarese.
She said, “You could have waited a day. You placed yourself at risk.”
The Earl rose to the bolt of cloth, and slipped eight needles from within the center of the roll.
“You act as if you are a bodyguard,” he said. “I thought I was traveling with a pilgrim.”
“You endured your cravings for months as we traveled here. One more day would have been nothing.”
Fazgood sat back down. “Why should I have waited?”
“You rushed and were captured. You always counsel patience.”
“My plan required swiftness. The Inspector had been seeking me. One day later, and that Inspector would have had me dead.”
Rattle, fling with his left hand this time, thump.
“Not with me beside you.”
“Ah! You would have been with me. If only I could share that certainty.”
“You always counsel patience! Why did you rush?”
“I have patience with my plans, not yours.”
“There is more to the world than just your fleeing it.”
“I have seen much of the world. It often requires fleeing.”
Rattle, flick, thump.
Calzjha sat on the edge of the bed. “I had to become a woman. This is an indescribable opportunity. This household has such influence. I have to help heal it, and Obdurate and Respiration are more receptive to me as a woman.”
Rattle, flick, thump.
“I know you don’t like me as a woman. But you are not attracted me when I am a man. You notice other women. Am I repellant?”
The rattling stopped.
Said the Earl, who shook his head. “You meant that question as a joke, am I correct? It takes me effort to get a door unlocked. When you tuck your chin and take a deep breath, entire castles open.”
Flick, thump.
“Are you jealous? Is that why you are angry when I am a woman?”
The Earl gave an aggrieved sigh. “What did you do with your testes?”
Calzjha sagged and accepted the change in conversation. “I buried them by a large tree just within Cliffside-Bastlements. Obdurate disposed of the toolbag. I note there are few animals in the city which may dig up my testes.”
“No animals who dig may live in the cities. That is part of the Concord. If Warren was even on set his feet on earth, there would be much scrutiny.”
Within his thick velvet, Warren raised his head and yawned.
“It is good that you have awakened, for –“
Warren fell forwards into the cloth, and back down into sleep.
The Earl sighed, [Chief Litigator.]
The weasel sprang up, eyes glassy, [Yes, my liege!]
“Before we meet with the others this evening, I must tell you of a change in plan.”
[You…you have changed plans? ]
“I am taking the curative of planning a betrayal and murder. No, not either of you.”
“A murder!” Calzjha said. “But you are no assassin!”
[You say that ‘death only brings more death, and brings mercy to those who deserve worse.’]
The Earl set the needles on the bed. “Warren, Calzjha, he lives. He flourishes. I will throttle him.”
Both were baffled.
“The youth who betrayed and murdered my mentors and set me upon my path. It is that very Inspector.”
Warren sagged into the cloth. [Fluxion.]
Calzjha hissed in astonishment.
“I knew the two of you would appreciate the circumstance. But the adjutant and the lady of this keep must not know. They would slip and find themselves on the Royal Road for keeping my secret. And Hrikinik sends his regards.”
[Of course he is behind this!]
“Hrikinik!” Calzjha spat. “You spoke with him!”
“Yes, and he sends his regards.”
“He did so merely to aid his masturbation. How did you speak with Hrikinik?”
The Earl related his discovery of Mehzadapt’s success, the cunning distillation of Fazgood’s murderous desire, and its placement in the relish. Warren was greatly relieved that tasting the moosecrab’s flavor was all that was needed to bring the plot to completion.
Fazgood laughed. “That is the best part: Mehzadapt believes my memory of him is gone.”
Calzjha’s face went dark with rage. “You wretch!”
Fazgood grimaced with exasperation. “Again, I fail to impress.”
“You dragged Warren and I across an ocean to risk our skins on a lie!”
“Steady your nerve, young lady.”
Warren affixed the Earl. [My liege, isn’t revenge a game for fools?]
“What are you about?”
[You had said “Revenge is a chump’s game for chumps who deserve lives of chumpery.”]
“I must have been drinking.”
[Wine, my liege. Wine always makes you philosophical.]
“Indeed. Take note of this legal precedent, squire: from this day forward, it is the law of the Earldom that I will take revenge to much applause.”
If thoughts could groan: [My Earl, I thought you had matured beyond despotism.]
“These are base times, squire. But…a moment!”
The Earl stood and made to be confused. “You…you find this motive of revenge more offensive than being dragged here so I may eat moosecrab?”
[We accompanied you so that you would stay safe. We thought you were going senile.]
“Which would you prefer, Chief Litigator, my foolishness or my health?”
[Of the two, it would be your health. But I would more prefer –]
“Only those two options!”
The Earl rounded upon Calzjha. “Warren prefers my health. What say you?”
“Yes, I prefer you healthy. In life there exists possibility. Such as: your reconsidering the murder.”
“Splendid! We are agreed that I am far better restored.”
“We knew nothing of murder.”
“You are not doing it.”
“You are no assassin.”
Midnight’s arrival was appreciated by all of the conspirators. Through stealth and familiar routes, all of the parties assembled under dark in the master bedroom. A white lanternette had been retrieved from the hidden room, was lit and placed upon the floor. The
Earl brought a length of blue cloth, which he placed at the bottom of the door to keep light from showing under it. Wrapped within it was the second bottle of caml-zre. Through the secret door crept Obdurate, who brought with him the tziembroask jug and the remainder of the first bottle of caml-zre, and for this was roundly commended by a certain other party. Warren was posted at the door hinge, and beside a gap in the placed blanket, to listen for the maids. Respiration opened and unfolded an ablewood vanity, and set five porcelain tumblers upon its counter. The Earl’s surprise caught her notice.
She explained. “Obdurate bought these this afternoon.”
Obdurate’s expression was restless and nauseated. “Yes! About that! Fazgood, you must leave Harmonium. Every lotcaster in the city is searching for you, and they already know so much. Please escape.”
“Eh?”
Obdurate described his infiltration of the Terhane Residences, and his eavesdropping upon the lotcasters.
A curt nod from Fazgood. “Sharp work. You told me something that will preserve us all; tomorrow we avoid these lotcasters running around.”
Surprise lit the adjutant’s face.
“But,” added the Earl, and rubbed his aching knee. “in all things there is a time to flee. We have not reached that time. You are still bound to that fiend General. I am bound to the Inspector. There is a way out for both you and I.”
He continued. “You suggest that I am here through selfishness. I disagree.”
His expression tightened at the memory. “The scouts had cornered me over my dinner at a conference house. Before me was a porcelain plate, a bottle, even the sharp edge of the crab shell at hand. I could have used any to aid an escape.”
A glance at Calzjha. “I could even have killed one of them.”
Calzjha and Warren both noted the remark and stiffened.
The Earl continued. “I might have escaped the room, perhaps have escaped the Due and even Harmonium.”
Calzjha muttered. “That would have left me captured and interrogated.”
Realization seeped into Respiration, and her lover also cast his eyes down.
She opened the bottle of tziembroask. “No amount of resolve from Calzjha would withstand that scrutiny. We would be found out.”
“Indeed,” said the soldier. “All would have been lost.”
She poured cups of tziembroask. She offered them. “I have tried this before, many years ago.”
Calzjha snorted. “It is not to my taste. I will enjoy a little caml-zre.”
“Would…your litigator care for one?”
“Warren?”
[I thank you, Goodwife. I would appreciate some caml-zre with water.]
Obdurate gave a hopeful look and accepted his tziembroask. “Tziembroask is so bitter, but in ‘The Nimblest Man’, it is written you make concoctions with this liquor. I had thought that must brighten its taste, for you drank so many of them.”
The Earl took his cup with a sharp laugh, then realized Obdurate was serious. Still smiling, Fazgood looked to Calzjha. “Are any of your perfumes worth mixing for flavor?”
“You will not.”
Respiration waved a hand to distract the argument. “Fazgood, what did you tell the Inspector?”
“I had to tell Scout Inspector Mehzadapt that the testicles in my toolbag were not mine. He took that for granted.”
“He saw my testicles?” Calzjha was affronted.
The Earl said, “I had to prioritize. He knew from sight that they were fresh. I was tempted to say I had collected a debt, but he would have asked confirmation from the garnishee. So I told him of you, Calzjha, and of your race. I told him that you were not from the Ijkallas. You should have seen his smugness! A smug ape even as a child!”
“How did he react?” asked Obdurate.
Fazgood scratched his shin. “He had discovered a ruse that had fooled a Mezzo-Barritone of the highest judiciary. Even that knowledge did not satisfy him.
“I let him threaten and bluster and so bought myself time for a very good lie: I told him that Calzjha and I had served as guides for the general in the Ijkallas. We had been partners with the general in some diplomatic irregularities, like extorting cooperation from the Ijkallan leaders, and using Ijkallan enchantments to cover out activity. Then Calzjha and I found some more of the general’s irregularities in the quartermaster accounting. With that knowledge, we decided to play our ruse in Harmonium to leverage both the general’s shamed wife and his accomplice, the adjutant.”
The soldier groaned. “A Scout Inspector believes I am an embezzler?”
Calzjha gasped and marveled. “You invented that at that moment! Surrounded! Did he believe it?”
“The opportunity to gain advantage on a General and a paragon is so heady, he dare not believe it.”
Respiration sipped her tziembroask. She did not make a face, but did look down into the cup, perturbed at the flavor.
“Something puzzles me,” she said.
“Perhaps it could wait,” said the Earl. “Obdurate, what if the tziembroask were mixed with the caml-zre?”
Obdurate was still stunned.
The Earl reached for the caml-zre and peeled the wax seal.
“How is it that the Inspector took interest in you?” asked Calzjha. “Does he know you?”
Fazgood considered, then nodded. “I had a portion of my soul distilled, to obscure my memory of my home, and thus my identity.You’ll never imagine where my identity was secured!”
The adjutant looked up with an expression of unease. “In your relish.”
Fazgood deflated.
The soldier told of his numerical discernments, and his conclusion that the Earl had distilled himself. Both Calzjha and Respiration gave the young man flattering admiration.
Despite his jealousy at the attention, the Earl nodded. “That is a remarkable method.”
A thought took Respiration. “Something else does not seem right.”
“Would you like some caml-zre in your tziembroask, Respiration?” asked Fazgood.
“Why would the Inspector see you off into public? What assurance did he have that you were not telling a profound lie about everything, and that you were ready to ‘disappear into the night?’”
“My superior convincing.”
“What other than that?”
The Earl nodded with appreciation. “Ah. You have me.”
He set his cup upon the floor along the outside wall and asked, “Have you seen an obligationist’s work?”
All were dismayed. Obdurate and Respiration shook their heads. Calzjha clenched her fists to her temples. At the door, Warren wailed.
[My liege! No!]
The Earl said, “one’s word and nature, become bound to the obligationist. If the one so obligated were to disobey the obligationist, that one’s word loses value. As does my material. You may see.”
The Earl stepped to the lanternette and pulled up the cuffs of his pants. Three small, raw ulcers had bloomed upon each white shin.
Fine gray dust cascaded upon his shoes.
He raised his eyebrows. “Already, I become undone. Because I disobeyed and left the company of his deputies.”
Shocked, they drew close, even Warren, and examined his legs. Respiration put her hand on the Earl’s arm.
Respiration rose and stood beside him. She whispered, “What do you mean?”
“Remember at the ferry, that the deputy spoke of my ‘understanding?’”
“I…I thought he was merely imposing upon you.”
“No, I had been ordered by the Inspector to stay with those deputies. That big Adactoid was waiting for me to insist ‘I must go with the deputies, goodwife. It will be quite alright.’ I found those two boring and possibly brutal. I prefer this.”
Obdurate touched the ulcers. “But you must renegotiate his command! You will crumble into dust within a week!”
Warren added: [The only ways out of an obligation is to fulfill it, for you to be imprisoned, or for you to die!]
Fazgood let down his pantlegs and retrieved his cup.
The Earl sipped and swirled his cup casually. “True. Tomorrow, I will be only a little gray and spotty. I will seek out that ape Inspector and renegotiate my behavior. This will heal.”
Calzjha said, “But if you plan to kill him –“
“I could think whatever I wished without consequence. It is the action that causes the undoing.”
“What have you done?” Calzjha’s eyes were wet.
“Will you keep quiet!” hissed the Earl. “What did I do? I ensured the Inspector’s trust. All he needed was to confirm that there was something to my story. I assure you he would have killed me to frighten all of you, then had all of you likewise obligated.”
The Earl pointed at the hidden door. “With that little charm, Mehzadapt could obligate the Royal Family.”
In that close, humid room, all chilled.
“He had doubts when I left him,” said the Earl. “Doubtless he is belaboring his lotcaster to confirm the conspiracy I created.”
[So he is chasing his own shadow.]
“He is a crime boss. He lives by lies and threats. You should meet the fellows he has made his deputies. I remember that Scout
Deputies are supposed to be chosen as stalwarts and examples. Mehzadapt’s deputies are worse citizens than my subjects back at the earldom.”
[Did the deputies try to kill you?]
“All they needed was the command, squire.”
[Then they are not worse than your subjects: your subjects tried killing you many times on their own.]
“Yes, true.”
Said Respiration, “At the dock, that skinny Therihe had a smile like a wild dog. And that Adactoid looked like doom.”
“There was at the consultory this one fat, crafty fellow who stank like eggs, and went terrified around alcohol. He got me to wondering …”
Warren turned from the door. [A rotten egg smell? A terror of alcohol?]
“They sound like pitiful associates,” remarked Calzjha.
“They are a bunch on their last chance, and Mehzadapt makes them his deputies. He had to fight them a little too. Give me a splash of that caml-zre.”
“Poor discipline,” remarked Obdurate as he poured.
“Of all, a soldier would note that.”
Warren quickly turned back to his duty at the door.
The adjutant said, “Poor commanders promote beings they can control. Good commanders promote those who inspire the best.”
The Earl swirled the liquors in the cup and sighed, remembering his own personnel problems over his many careers. “Indeed. But now comes your moment to inspire, adjutant.”
“Truly? What would I do?”
“I will tell you, but you must have faith in me.”
He sipped and puzzled over the taste. “I had faith in you until I drank this.”
“Ignore the drink. The only way out of this is for you to sympatile the General in confidence. Make the message as secret as possible, but he must receive it quickly, hence the sympatile. You are to tell him that you suspect his wife has made him a cuckold.”
“What?” said the young man.
“Mind your cup.”
Respiration whispered, “You are joking.”
The Earl took the tziembroask and added another splash.
He sipped, and his face hardened with anger. “This has boiled my blood for the last two days, and I have kept my mouth shut. Now listen: You have brought me in to resolve this problem. You have read that god-poxied book –” he slipped into Adanikarese at that word “ – and know all I have done. There is a path out of this situation. At the end of that path, you will have each other, and the kingdom will be safe. I cannot tell you the path because the fewer who know, the easier to keep secret. The circumstance is going to get ugly. If you heed me, you will survive. If you do not heed me, all of us are doomed.”
Respiration nodded. Obdurate took a breath, then held her hand.
Fazgood insisted. “If I lack your cooperation, I might as well go to the Citadel and tell them everything, for that is what will happen anyway. Do you understand?”
“Do you have a plan?” asked Calzjha.
“Yes. This is the first step…”
The Earl told the adjutant. “You will sympatile the General. You will tell him that you suspect she is taken with the new guest from Ijkalla. Say that you overheard the guest boasting to her of being a magician. That he knows of a curse and knows how it can be destroyed and the Kingdom saved. You are puzzled by what he meant by that. Understand me?”
“Yes,” he said with resignation. “I must play a fool.”
The Earl said with annoyance. “Which as Calzjha will tell you, is the most challenging role.”
“Just dither. You dither well,” Calzjha smiled.
“It will not come to lying face-to-face, not yet. If the General believes you know any details of that curse, we are all doomed. And if he corners you and he gets something out of you, say you know nothing else and ask questions. If you have to, admit to a small lie to hide the truth. He will have some barking left, but your questions will bind him up.”
“But my husband is suspicious of everyone.”
Said the Earl, “Give him only the information he asks for.”
“This is like in the book,” the soldier took a breath. “When you were instructing the new spies for the Three Cities.”
The Earl pondered at the mention of the book, then: “Also, you can do some open duty for your country, and send the lotcaster college this message: the Scout Brigade lotcaster was in the Foreign Due. The lotcaster was a Booloob named Reedtickle. I doubt he had valid permission.”
“I’m certain he did not.”
“That will bind up our Inspector. When you are finished, tomorrow tell me everything. Remember all details.”
“I can do it.”
“Then, our regards to the Kingdom,” Fazgood sipped. “And to dead friends.”
All held their cups in both hands and nodded. The mood grown reflective, they drank in silence for another round. Warren lapped at his serving only twice, methodically, five licks each.
Her second tziembroask finished, the lovers looked to each other. With the speed of youth and ardor, without anyone’s notice,
Obdurate had already taken off his coat.
Noted the Earl. “I take my leave.”
All bade him farewell.
He added, “Tonight should be pleasant. Blood heats when pressed by a sword.”
Calzjha gave a smile, and waved farewell again.
The tziembroask had warmed Respiration so that sweat sheened her dark neck and brow.
[Are we safe to exit, squire?]
[Yes, my liege.]
They opened the door just wide enough to allow their passage.
[This has been an exhausting day, squire.]
[Will you sleep, my liege.]
The Earl scratched. [By the time I fell asleep, they would be finished.]
[That is doubtful, my liege. Last night, they went well past the third hour!]
[Past the third hour? Such is youth.]
[Actually, it was Respiration. Obdurate was enthused, but the lady was –]
[Warren, I do not need to know this.]
[Ah! Yes! My apologies! That was –]
[You are tipsy, squire. I will keep the confidence.]
At the top of the stair, Warren looked back at him. [My liege, are you well?]
[I am well. I am not so tired as I thought. Why don’t you sleep? I’ll sit here with my tziembroask.]
[If that is allowed, perhaps I will just stretch out.]
The Earl graciously set his blazer upon the floor. Warren lay upon his side and drowsed.
Fazgood sat at the top of the stair, forearms atop his knees, cup beside him to his left. He looked down the dark hall, looked up at the bricks on the ceiling, and began improvising upon his plan.
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Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 18 (THE TRAP IS SPRUNG)
28 05 2014On the lush green playing field of the Terhane Residences, Obdurate watched beings in yellow robes ran through a gamut of beings in red robes. A small yellow ball skipped along the grass, clacked along by strange-curved sticks held by the robed players. At intervals, all would stop, then ignore the yellow ball to walk purposefully in seemingly random directions.
Throughout, more robed figures holding banners ran through the pearly-pink arches and onto the playing field beyond these, the guest residences of the Royal Family. The banners ran in circles, the ribbons swirling around each other into a red and yellow eddy. They broke away to the four corners of the room. A shout from every throat began the play. A wicker ball ablaze with red ribbons flew from one end of the room. The standards began running around the borders of the room as another yellow ball broke into play.
Obdurate struggled with a basket of the personal property from the army lotcaster’s work-alcove. He could have sent an aide or a messenger to deliver the belongings. But the night before at dinner, Fazgood’s suspicions had aggravated Obdurate’s guilt. His anxiety over Respiration’s fate was so heavy that he could hardly breathe; he had to come here to prove the Earl’s suspicion was baseless.
From up the near sideline, a young woman trotted, flushed and sweaty in a yellow robe, and confronted the officer. Obdurate explained his business and proffered the basket.
The young woman nodded. “I’ll see that she gets her property, Captain. Set it down, sir.”
“Do not trouble. I can give it to her myself.”
“You are not allowed to enter further, captain. The Masters of Lots have closed this. Members of the Great College only.”
Looking for a clue, Obdurate turned his attention to a rousing yell from the court. “I have heard this is a complicated game.”
The woman’s attention had been drawn to the yell, and was cheered by the obscure event.
She laughed excitedly. “Yes! It is the first time many of us have played it since school days at the Great College.”
Obdurate considered the army lotcaster’s puzzlement from the previous morning.
He ventured. “This is unusual to be playing such an elaborate game above all other responsibilities.”
“It is a Therihe tradition that creates good fortune and helps banish evil and discord. We are playing to keep the tradition.”
“Pardon my question, but I seek to understand. Why do you play now?”
Her enthusiasm collapsed. His eyes actually focused on Obdurate’s, then glanced away. “It was…mandated…”
“And you play to keep the traditions.”
“Yes, captain. Indeed. It is as you say, to the keep the traditions. You really must go, Captain. Please excuse my abruptness, but I must get back.”
“Ah! Yes! Indeed! I thank you!” Obdurate said from reflex, angry that he could not find a way to press his advantage and learn more. He turned and walked back up the lawn to the empty, narrow stands.
Empty stands. Banishing evil and discord. The only one who could mandate every lotcaster would be the Masters of Lots. Above them is only the Royal Family.
He remembered Hakek-Akakel from two days before, the Exult giggling over the navy’s lotcasters being brought to find violators of the royal custom at the Eldest Daughter’s Gate.
He glanced back and saw the young man trotting away down a side of the field. A man in a yellow robe was hobbling toward him waving for help. Obdurate looked around the field; perhaps there was some sort of clue to calm the rising panic in him?
Obdurate noted an alcove on the other side of the entrance, where a group of lotcasters had gathered.
His reflexes screamed, Be obliging! Do not snoop!
But, oddly to him, he remembered ‘The Nimblest Man’, where Spymaster Fazgood walked along the streets of the Prevaricate’s capital, surrounded at every turn by twisted foes.
The Earl had related:
“All is a walk in the glade,
from demon castle to Unnamed crypt.
Nonchalance is the order, for you are caught
Only when
you are imprisoned,
And not even then if you convince them otherwise.”
This emboldened the officer to pretend to note a detail upon the lawn.
He practiced his alibi: I noted a flower and wondered about it. It wasn’t there at all! What is wrong with my eyes! So sorry!
It was so that he walked up to the enclave.
All the backs, yellow and red were turned toward him. There was an older woman, another flushed Therihe of about sixty graying years, who was presiding over the discussion. A sheave of brown foolscap trembled in her thin fingers. If Obdurate stepped forward just so, he could use a tall Human in yellow and a Booloob draped with red ribbon to block the older man from seeing the officer’s eavesdropping.
Said a woman, “I tell you! The problem is with the interpretations! The players are properly prepared! All fouls and infringements are declared and translated!”
The yellow back giving Obdurate cover shifted, and an arm waved. “The problem is with the gaming! The signs and behaviors are holding true to the participants! Every fumble, stumble, cheer, shout, every variable is considered in the definitions and twice-confirmed! Some player or proctor has not been properly cleansed!”
“If the participants are tainted, then we would have no syntax at all!”
The older woman said testily, “But what of the syntax?”
Paper rustled. “‘The Comet is throughout every neighborhood!’ ‘The Comet is known by every citizen!’ We are back to the days of oracle vaguery.”
A younger voice protested. “The police told us that three beings gained entry, one appearing as a widow, another as her daughter, and another as an animal. We deduced that The Comet is a soulful mortal, as anything without a soul or immortal would have turned up during the customs casting.”
“Indeed!” said the yellow back. “That rat is –“
“Yesterday’s castings confirm that The Comet has two associates: one is a soulful mortal who is of a race not from the Kingdom, and who can appear as a beautiful young woman.”
Obdurate’s mind cast to Calzjha, who claimed some startling abilities the night before. The officer’s stomach sank.
“The second associate is a soulful creature of great intelligence, who can appear as a rat.”
All of Obdurate’s reservations broke into a flood of anxiety.
Oh Exhus. Exhus, what have I done?
The yellow back declared. “I tell you it is this Rat who we should be concentrating upon. I am certain that creature is the leader.”
“The Comet is The Comet,” said the older woman. “That being is the one the spirits say is the most dreadful of the three! The Lotcasters in the Principality cast The Comet thirty years ago, and what appears?”
All hissed. “The Marvelmeme.”
A whimper escaped Obdurate’s throat, The Marvelmeme!
Thirty years before, that terrible creature had awoke from some sort of dormancy, oozed through fissures in the mountain rock, and slowly convinced two thousand ri’s worth of land to become a living wall of rocks, trees and embedded beings. Radiant Semantic, the third Royal Prince, fought and transformed the creature into basalt, saving the day, but unable to save the hundreds it had absorbed.
I have placed Respiration in the same house with the Marvelmeme!
But the older woman had been speaking!
“– not asking the correct questions. If we cannot deduce this, we will waste time trying to get the Jezr-Ji to agree to new vocabulary.”
The Jezr-Ji?
A Booloob’s quaver. “What can be mortal, yet permeates all places and soulful beings?”
Obdurate sucked his lips to keep from exclaiming, A dusk thicket tale! Through that story, everyone knows the Earl! Because of that story, the Earl is everywhere! The Earl’s exact location is lost in the fog of familiarity!
The older Therihe thumped a shoulder and pointed at the game. “We will change the players at the rising of Minque. Summon the senior students from the academy to aid us.”
“If we do not know what the nature of The Comet, what use is the game?”
“Perhaps we will be lucky and the banners will touch one who knows –-“
Obdurate staggered away, reining the blind run that seized his feet.
The Earl was right! He must be gone tonight! He must be gone now!
* * *
Around the Earl, the inn bustled with patrons eating their dinner. Tables were crowded with a heartening babble of languages. The air was thick with smokes and the smell of spilled liquors.
He tried to summon a thirst for tziembroask, but failed. The innkeep of the Three Bellflowers slipped through between the tables to greet the new arrival.
Peering at Fazgood’s burden, she asked, “What have you in the cask?”
“A favor for which I will pay! I know you are busy, but have you a tight steaming pot and a corner of an oven I may use?”
Her head cocked with puzzlement. “Our cook would find it difficult to work with another at her elbow. We are serving dinner. Would you like to know what she cooks tonight?”
Fazgood set the cask on the table. “I am sure it is delicious. All I ask is for a pot of water, an oven, and an hour’s time. I would feast on all that is offered, as long as I can try my hand at cooking these.”
The cask was opened and crabs revealed.
“Good sir! We are serving oyster stew this evening!”
From up the kitchen steps a waiter struggled past with a blue porcelain pot.
Damn all of this! I will have my meal!
Fazgood resisted snarling, and picked the chest up.
“Let us ask the cook!” he crowed, and he hobbled down the stairs with the goodlady close behind voicing protests.
At the bottom of the stairs was a brick room with blazing fireplace and ferocious heat. Two young humans, bald-pated and arms shaven, shucked and chopped oysters and peeled crayfish.
Behind a long stove of red porcelain and enamel, a woman banged a ladle on the side of a bubbling pot. She looked to the intrusion.
“The residences are upstairs!” she roared.
Fazgood slammed the cask upon the floor. “Cook! You have earned a blessing! For yours is the only kitchen in the entire of Harmonium trusted by the pallet of the Great Foofaloof of the Ijkalla Islands! Tonight, you shall cook for the Foofaloof and that respected paragon, the Goodwife Greatsergeant! The Foofaloof insists that I provide all due assistance to aid your artistry!”
The cook goosed into amazement.
Always flatter artists, noted the Earl.
It was this way that the corner of a stove procured, and a true cook swayed to the cause. The cook procured a pot as he unpacked the crabs. He tucked the antler away within his jacket.
The cook examined the crabs and deemed them passable. She sniffed the spices and found them wanting, to which the Earl demurred humbly to superior knowledge. The relish bottle! The cook picked it up in her huge, calloused hands.
The proprietress cooed. “Such skillful glasswork!”
The cook held it to the cookfire’s light and squinted. “What is in it?”
Fazgood forced a smile through his trepedation at the bottle’s handling. “It is a rare relish the Foofaloof enjoys!”
The cook asked, “May I taste some?”
“I will ask the Foofaloof.”
The Earl kept the written recipe from the shopkeep well hid in his blazer. The pot was set to boil. The cook set to a simple mixture of her own herbs, sea salt, and vinegar. The Earl slipped the five crabs into the pot, and the antler within the five crabs. The cook poured her mixture atop of all and the lid to the shiny blue pot tightly sealed.
She said, “Crabs boil in one half an hour. The Foofaloof and the paragon will not wait long.”
The Earl blessed the goodlady proprietress and the cook, and the cook blessed the Fooflaloof, and all swept away a tear of joy.
“Let us retire to the dining room,” said the proprietress.
“I would be here when you –- what would be the word? Decant?”
“Ha!” laughed the cook. “Decant crab like a liquor! All the crabs will do is steam and steep in a pot! There is no need to fret! I will call when the pot is opened!”
The Earl and the innkeep stepped into the noisy dining room. A maid called the goodlady away, and Fazgood was left on a stool to rest his aching knee.
Indeed, he mused. What a day of activities.
He let his mind to wander for a moment, feeling comfortable with the slackness.
I wonder what my life would have been like if I had not had to look over every crowd I found?
That was a bad question, for it set his mind to wandering more to spite him. He noted a group of five merchants slurping soup, laughing, with no need to guard. There was a time he would have picked their pockets for spite.
He assessed his situation.
I still have the knife, he considered. I have money. I left the skullwarmer at the keep, but there are weapons at hand all over in a dining area.
I tossed the false toolbag. That was a mistake, but it would have been more foolish to keep it. Should have hidden it. I was followed. They stole the toolbag. Calzjha can be traced in a heartbeat with his bodyparts to guide whoever has the bag.
It would take them at least a half-hour to arrive if I called Warren now. Calzjha is gelded and not yet healed. The goodwife and that captain would be useless. Whoever has that toolbag will roll them all up rather tidily.
The Earl kept close to the wall. He hunched away from the front door. He glanced around. The rafters. The brick walls. The good-natured babbling creatures in civilized clothing. Their voices crashed his ears. All squeezed upon him.
The door. Was there someone at the door? Someone who just ducked out?
The proprietress, near the door. She was staring across the room at the Earl then set to chatting with a sudden wide smile with a table of diners, a grevious look in her eyes, the unmistakable sullen guilt of an informant.
If anyone asked for me, she would have to tell or suffer.
The crab is in the pot. Capture is outside the door.
A moosecrab. I’ll be killed in my home, a home I long ago foreswore, over a moosecrab.
He considered, weary, Be killed over that as over a pile of money. With money, you die hungry.
The Earl felt a nudge at his shoulder. He spun.
The cook said, “Your crabs are done. I was about to put them out.”
“I am sorry. I was startled.”
He motioned for the innkeeper. “Did someone ask for me?”
Her face was all blank innocence and eyes unblinking. “Were you expecting someone to ask?”
I thank you alumni, thought the Earl. She reveals The Tells of Treachery Numbers One, Three, and Eight.
“I’ll need a room upstairs to eat. Away from the others.”
The goodwife remembered to smile. “Shouldn’t you be taking the food to the Foofaloof?”
“I will be taking the pot to them,” he replied. “After I eat.”
“You should go quickly then! The pot will cool, and the flavor will dim!”
Said the Earl. “I am famished. I would like to take the pot and eat my crab upstairs.”
“You should eat your meal with your master.”
“He is a forgiving soul. I note that no waiters have gone upstairs.”
He pulled out all of the money remaining in his pocket. The sheaf of specie was still thick enough.
“I would still be on my way quickly.”
The goodwife’s smile ceased its painful stretching.
Added the Earl. “If I have visitors I can receive them there.”
She shook her head, protesting visitors are best received at home, but her eyes were still fixed like a doll’s, demonstrating Tell Number Four.
He stuffed the money into her hands and followed the cook into the kitchen. She drained the water from the pot into a sink. When she turned to a serving bowl, Fazgood seized a wood spoon and tumbled the crabs in, and set the bowl’s lid on. He picked up the bowl and slipped by the cook before she could ask of the odd object.
Fazgood pressed by the goodwife and slipped through the crowd and up the stairs. His right knee stabbed in pain from his past exertions.
A lantern cast dim light onto the walls and window, and reflected a moony sheen against the stacks of plates and bowels on a hutch at the far end of the table.
He set the serving bowel upon the table and plucked up a plate. The goodwife and a maid was at the door.
“Please get me a pitcher of water. And a bottle of tziembroask,” he said to the maid.
Even if I don’t drink the tziembroask, he thought, It will good to have a friendly face in the room.
Seeing Fazgood preparing to dine, the goodwife flipped one of her wringing hands and sent the maid running.
Should I wait for the water? Ask for some fruit or cream?
There was a scuffing at the door, and Fazgood noted the goodwife had gone.
He cast his mind down the tunnel to contact Warren. The light at the tunnel grew, and he saw through Warren’s eyes. In the shared bedroom, Calzjha sat up on the mattress. On the far side of Calzjha, Respiration sat.
The goodwife was speaking, “—- Obdurate sent word that he would join us for dinner and that everyone must be in attendance. There is no –-“
[Warren, I believe I am about to be murdered.]
[What! What is this! Calzjha, the Earl communicates –]
[I became hasty, and I became sloppy. I am followed and betrayed to the Brigades. I am at the Three Bellflowers in the Foreign Due. I suspect you may find the body there. Now I will eat moosecrab.]
[My Earl, please –]
Fazgood pulled himself out of the tunnel. He sensed Warren’s mind pattering after him, but suppressing Warren’s insight required minimal will, doing so left only a nagging feeling of something creeping under his chair.
A bitter thing to do, but there is no need for an audience.
He raised the lid and was enveloped in steam. Within the crabs was the antler, gleaming with sweat, specked with herbs.
I lost my will. I went mad finally, and enchanted myself on a suicide errand. That must be what happened.
He flicked the still-hot antler onto a plate and slipped the knife from his pocket. He pulled the dull blade and laid the sheath to the side.
Crack! The knife went into the shell as a delicious, salty steam curled.
The relish! He pulled the bottle from his inside pocket.
He admonished himself from before the journey (the Hrikinik-employed, still-sharp self of just months prior), Let’s what all this is about.
He cut and unraveled the gold seal into a length of pretty gold ribbon. No metallic tapping.
He untwisted the stopper. His nostril hairs felt the fire of the relish first. His nose stung as if swarmed by tiny, biting ants.
Tap tap tap the bottlemouth onto his plate. No relish came out. He growled then the knife fished up the bottleneck to goad the relish. A flow of yellow fluid, chunky and moist, spilled out, accented by tiny black flecks and tinier red seeds.
A scuff at the door brought his attention up to the maid with a pitcher of water and a brown bottle of –- the dim light gleamed upon the elaborate porcelain work, the leaves of the stylized rosebush gleaming umber as it reached up and around to the blue-waxed stopper at the top. He recognized the bottle’s style.
Maktmerkt Eicht Bonded Tzeimbroask.
The pitcher of water he ignored.
The Earl took the knife and dug out a steaming, juicy alabaster piece of moosecrab.
He stabbed the knife tip into the chunk. He swirled it into the relish and –-
“Aspirant Pehzpersist, though I remember different,” said the Inspector at the door, behind the frightened maid. “You have come up in the gods’ favor.”
The knife stopped halfway to Fazgood’s mouth.
“You can go,” the Inspector said to the maid. “We will not be disturbed.”
The maid slipped away. The Inspector stepped into the room. The lamplight caught his copper curls and made them gleam red. Beyond the maid’s skipping steps, the Earl noted that the conversation downstairs had gotten noticeably hushed and breathy, whispers of anticipation echoing up to the place of interest. Other slow, methodical clacks of steps followed the Inspector’s, more companions coming up the brick stairs stealthily.
Fazgood considered the moosecrab just inches from his mouth.
What will this do if I eat it? What would I be capable of putting in this relish, and what would happen if I ate it now? How much mayhem could I have imagined to mix in these spices?
The Inspector stepped to the table and pulled up a stool. “Your meal is interrupted, and for that I apologize.”
He sat down with an affable sigh, not asking permission to sit. Behind him, a huge Adactoid filled the doorway.
The Earl’s heart fluttered in panic. He took a breath. He scraped the knife against the plate edge, easing the crab morsel back onto the plate. He turned behind him. He held a plate, which he showed to Mehzadapt. He turned the plate over and covered his food to keep it from going cold.
Another deputy took up position at the door, a wide-eyed and grinning Therihe.
Mehzadapt chose his words. “You…have found advantage since last you were in our city.”
“I…have never…never visited Harmonium.”
A thick pink hand rose in protest. “You were born here, and lived here a time. I remember you. Do you remember me?”
Fazgood gave shrug. His heart pounded.
The Inspector leaned, his fingertips upon the table. “Do you remember the name Mehzadapt?”
“No…honestly, no.”
“We were friends as children! Surely you remember me? I have changed, but my name has not.”
The Earl shook his head, his lip formed a protest that would not come.
The Brigadesman tapped the pot. “What have you here?”
Fazgood, frozen, surrounded by sneers, did not reply.
“What is it?” snapped the Inspector.
“Crabs.”
“No moosecrabs?”
Refelxively, Fazgood said, “They’re fallow.”
Mehzadapt picked up the lid of the tureen with the remaining crabs, peeked and poked at them, then dropped the lid back with a clatter. Fazgood jumped.
The Inspector threw his hands up in a mockery of gossip. “I have something far more interesting than crabs.”
He snapped a knuckle and the toolbag was passed forward. The Inspector dropped the toolbag onto the Earl’s covered plate. Fazgood’s hands flew to keep the plates properly set, covering the antler.
“A concerned citizen found this bag. Imagine how awkward it would have been if some child had opened the bag.”
The Inspector reached. With his left hand he seized Fazgood’s clenched fingers. The Inspector’s right hand pinched Fazgood’s cheek. “Why in Exhus’ name do you have human testicles in this bag?”
Fazgood endured the pinch. The Inspector let go and clapped his shoulder.
“I know not what this bag is about. If you are collecting a debt, or enacting a vengeance, then you have found woe. The Scout Brigades are the only ones licensed to those tasks. This bag would have been very awkward for you if it had been found by the police. So, you are obliged to me. Speak your obligation.”
“I, Pehzpersist, am obliged to you –“
“But you are not Pehzpersist!” yelled the Inspector in Fazgood’s ear.
The deputies chuckled.
“You are named Fazgood. You were exiled. You have returned for mischief and you are obligated to me.”
The Earl’s chin was tucked against his chest, heart curling into a child’s fear.
“Speak your obligation. There is our way or the way we treat strangers. You are home. So speak your obligation.”
A whisper. “My name is Pehzpersist.”
The Inspector snarled and waved a hand. “Has Reedtickle arrived?”
“Is Reedtickle arrived?” said Varalam. “Just arrived, he has.”
Another wave. The Adactoid made way and the Booloob floated through the doorway, brown sphere shimmering in the lamplight, plughat planted firm. The lotcaster drifted over the Inspector’s shoulder.
Reedtickle warbled. “The wind over the river buffeted one, but here I am. What do you wish?”
Mehzadapt leaned back upon his stool. “I want his lies sent flying back down his throat.”
“A tone to squash lies. Should he know that it will be very painful?”
“Let us show him. Commence the tone.”
The Booloob vibrated, and a sound filled the room. It tickled deep within the ear, and cause all hold hands to their heads. On the table, the plates vibrated in slow, regular rhythms.
Impatient, Mehzadapt spat. “What is your name?”
“My name is Pehzper –- ugh!”
The Earl whooped and gagged on the lie as it was forced back down his throat and back into his lungs. He coughed and held fingers up to his mouth. He coughed again and they spattered with blood.
“A few more like that,” the Inspector grinned, “and you will be drowning in your own juices. Let us try this again. What is your name?”
Fazgood coughed. He stared at more blood and paled. “What is your business? I do not know you!”
The Inspector leaned forward, realizing what was said. He looked to the lotcaster.
The bubble-being dipped and bobbed, in a manner like a shrug. “He does not know you, Inspector. Either his memory is poor, or he had no past with you.”
“I know different,” Mehzadapt whispered. “What is your name?”
Fazgood’s lips tightened.
“I am hungry,” he said.
Fazgood pushed the plate the plate from over the antler. In one move, Fazgood seized the cracked antler in one hand and smeared it through the large pile of relish upon the plate. He bit.
Once past the crack of the shell, the sweet, buttery, long-dreamed and yearned for crab-meat squished into his maw. The relish mixed with the meat and fell upon the exposed flesh of his mouth and tongue.
The first taste of that relish is sweet, near the tip of the tongue. The tongue was baffled by this honeyed bath, and in a misguided joy tossed the mouthful over its back.
That is the fatal error with Lava-God-Vengenace Relish.
As the mouthful slides upon the crest of the tongue, the taste buds burn. The burn then seems a coal of white-hot iron. The throat closes from the fumes from the red ntotlo pepper, a pepper specially bred to season the sedimentary meals of the stone-palleted Molaks.
This activates the subtlest ingredient of all: the slightest hints of magnesium liberate, the spiritual quality of magnesium liberated from its physical form. Sages have never found a practical application for this liberate, a liberate so fiery that ghosts flinch at its touch, except as the secret ingredient of Lava-God-Vengenace Relish.
* * *
Fazgood felt a yelp echoing in his head. All of his tension, the stink of the room and of the deputy, the very pressure of the humid air, all vanished.
He knew this feeling. He looked down. Beyond his feet, which were limned with a slight port-colored haze, he saw himself on the stool at the Inn.
The Earl’s body leaned back very slowly into a ghastly choke. Beside the body, the Inspector slowly rose from his stool.
The deputies also had dropped their poses of menace and had leaned forward in alarm. All were frozen, no, moving very, very slowly.
Had Fazgood lungs, he would have sighed with annoyance.
He looked about his mauved form to mists rising to the unseen firmament.
[Hrikinik!]
The mist revealed nothing.
[Hrikinik, you grasping noisemaker!]
Came tickling through the supernatural surroundings an irritation, a grating metallic rattle.
Through that rattle came a trilling, [My Comet! Too long! Too long! Too long it has been!]
The mist parted and two figures approached.
The one to the left was a great viscid column, green, dripping and gruelent.
Drifting before that was a pile of blue fleshy folds, enrobed in a scintillating crystal fabric. Its chest and thorax rattled and sucked with valves, reeds, and bladders. Atop its blue head sat a set of black pipes cut with mouths, a living pipe-organ.
[My Comet!] said H’rikinik, [So bored! I have missed your antics so! You are days late in your call!]
The Earl looked to the pillar of mucous. [Greetings, Kri-Tzh.]
Fangs opened in the slime. [Greetings, Fazgood.]
Fazgood looked to his former employer with a sneer. [Why did I do all of this?]
The Half-Prince opened his hands in supplication. [You asked humbly for a favor! I am always willing to indulge my thralls, particularly my most amusing ones.]
The Earl looked down to the room. Deputies slipped forward, the Booloob eased back, and the Inspector dodged, his face crushed with an odd disappointment.
Hrikinik drifted close to block Fazgood’s view.
[I see our bottle of relish! And you have tasted your Harmonium Moosecrab! Ugh! What did that poor crab do to you?]
[It wasted my time. Why am I here?]
[Revenge, dear Comet! You are here in Harmonium for an act of vengeance! Thirty years ago, someone betrayed your mentors to their fiery death! It was your dearest wish for thirty years to enter Harmonium and murder the traitor!]
Fazgood snorted. [You can not fool me! The Eleven Circles died but…but…]
H’rikinik’s orifices opened for a roaring laugh. [But you do not remember how they came to be in the fire! A trusted messenger brought them all together in a secret hideout, after telling the Brigade captains the time and location!]
Below, a deputy had reached the antler in Fazgood’s grasp. The Inspector had retreated to the far corner of the room.
[You were that messenger! Betrayed by one who told you a lie.]
Fazgood chilled. I killed them? It is my fault they are dead?
[You escaped,] the Timpanate fluttered his hands, [and lived your life exiled. You buried your guilt and rage deep! Its fire propelled you for decades!]
The Inspector’s grimace of disappointment grew, grotesque in its slow blooming.
[And thirty years later! Ah-ha-ha! Idle chat with a merchant informed you that your betrayer was now exalted! Exalted in the home that denied you! Exalted over the lonely graves of your friends!]
The Earl racked his mind. [Why can’t I remember any of this?]
[That is the genius! That is your genius! You are no murderer, but you have cunning almost beyond mine! You had to get into Harmonium, past their admittedly skilled lotcasters. Those customs-casters would find an ambitious murderer with no exertion! How do you get past the lotcasters? Tell me!]
A deputy had picked up the sparkling glass bottle. It was up to his nose, and his entire face inched away from the proximity.
Prompted Hrikinik, [When working with the Emperor, you told me you had encountered a marvelous poison gas! Two inert ingredients. By themselves they attract no notice.]
Quashing the hateful memory of that poison, the Earl saw the sparkling bottle anew.
[That party trick of yours of putting your loathing into a bottle and serving it to guests…]
[Yes! The relish! Contains your memory of your friends’ betrayal! Contains the motive for the murder! Bereft of motive, we replaced your need to be in Harmonium with an obsession with…ah-ha-ha…what passes for unique cuisine! In the home of…ha-ha…of gummy toast!]
Hrikinik was lost in laughter: the sound of sacks of metal beaten against a herd of sheep.
[And the motive was placed in a substance no sane person would swallow,] Fazgood considered.
Hrikinik nodded.
The Earl said, [Gods, that is a good idea.]
[I would have thought of it.]
[But did you, oh great Timpanate?]
The Adanikarese seethed. He gathered his composure, [I did mean to tell you something very important to your brilliant plan…]
He leaned close.
[Moosecrab is fallow this year.]
[You knew?!]
Enraged, the Earl lunged to throttle the Half-Prince. The tower of mucus pressed.
[This is our land, Faz,] warned the horror. [He says the word and I will make you a cyst on my ass, and you know that.]
Fazgood swore many profanities, then: [What of the book, this “Nimblest Man” book? Did you know of that?]
The Sorcerer sobered. [What book?]
The Earl told of “The Nimblest Man.”
Said Hrikinik, [The spirits said it was best you undertook your endeavor immediately. This is to your advantage, and it explains much. Look as I teach.]
Long fingers strummed at the mist. The clouds parted from above the slow franticism of the Bellflower. In the distance was a glowing mountain of light.
The Earl gasped at such beauty.
[What is that?]
[It is the spirit of Harmonium, such as it is. Adanikar has such aura and subtlety that an army of gods would willingly –]
[Then you bored me again. Did you have purpose in showing me?]
Above the mountain, through the wine-lit glow, a giant spirit in flowing red and yellow robes. Its hands, larger than ships, waving through the purple mist.
Hrikinik chuckled. [The Temporary God searches for you. It should have made short work of you. But it seems you are everywhere in the city, as the book has made you so. Gossip is a ruse the Adanikarese know well for baffling simple spirits. Limit your physical touch with others and you will keep safe.]
The Earl shook his head. [Another god to avoid.]
[My little snorting havoc-wright, I have fulfilled my part of our bargain. I have but one question: How is the nerve toy you stole from me?]
[Calzjha is well. And I won a bet, if you remember.]
[You cheated.]
It was Fazgood’s turn to laugh. It felt good.
[Have you experienced my nerve toy yet?]
[Calzjha does what Calzjha wants to do.]
[You shall in time. The temptation is too great, even for one who dreads comfort.]
[So spoke the one who dreads everything.]
The Sorcerer made to retort, but with a smile and a wave of dismissal, the Timpanate said, [Dread? Your life-long enemy sits before you. You are too mild to kill him. That is something to dread!]
* * *
A wheezing roar filled his head. Cold water poured into his mouth and overflowed over his face and shirt. Hands pounded his back.
“Drink this! Drink this!”
“Ugh! What whim took him to even taste this stuff!”
“Should I get a physic? Perhaps I should get a physic?”
Fazgood swallowed and pushed the pitcher away. He held up a hand and took a breath. His throat felt shriveled. Tentatively, his tongue wiggled, dazed yet rejoicing to have survived. Numbly, it felt the morsel of crab, was prodded by bits of shell. Fazgood realized his face was locked, squinted and clenched. With effort, he swallowed.
Then rage swept over him.
He’s here! The man who ruined my life! I’d be happy if it weren’t for him!
Blind, he reached his right hand at the table. He pushed past a deputy’s shoulder. Unerringly, fingers seized a bumpy, round, hard object. With one stroke of his thumbnail, he scraped the wax seal from the tziembroask bottle.
He opened his eyes. His first sight was the Adactoid’s scarred, craggy face.
The deputy laughed. “We thought you had poisoned yourself!”
Fazgood’s mouth opened into a cry of anguish at the relish. It suppressed his desire to cry:
Mehzadapt! Here in front of me! Murderer! Traitor!
The Earl pressed his left hand past the massive shoulder and grabbed a cup from the corner of the table. The thumb eased the flat porcelain stop from the bottle. He poured himself a cup and drank. That fire warmed like a baked loaf of bread in autumn.
Fazgood picked up a napkin, wiped the water and sweat from his face, and blew his nose.
From the doorway, the russet-haired Inspector said, “What are you trying to do? You need to behave better!”
It’s him!
He poured and drank another cup. The warmth spread. He choked out a roar of hate. Covered his nose and blew again.
The warmth eased into his neck. His breath came slower.
Behave better? Oh Mehzadapt, you haven’t seen the first of how I will behave.
The Earl balled up the napkin and dabbed his brow to hide his recognition.
He coughed. “That, good citizens, was the Lava-God’s-Revenge.”
“Sniff this!” said the flushing man. “It could melt barnacles!”
The Adactoid took the bottle, tiny in his plate-wide hand, sniffed, then yelped.
The Earl slapped the cup onto the table. Behind the Earl, the heavy scout gave an odd squeak and backed away.
“Cornpudding,” warned the Inspector.
Fearful, a round, stinking deputy edged away.
Fazgood quickly poured another cup and offered to all. “Would you like a drink? Pardon my rudeness.”
The deputy shook his head, cheeks quivering.
“He don’t drink!” smirked the skinny one. “Gets all scared about it.”
The Inspector Mehzadapt pressed to the table and clapped the Adactoid on the shoulder. “I will take it from here, deputy. I will have that drink, Fazgood.”
The Earl wiped his eyes again and took another deep breath. “Bring a cup. Is there a cup?”
Another drink was poured. Mehzadapt’s mouth pulled as the tziembroask bit his stomach.
“Not bad,” he said. “But I prefer caml-zre.”
The Inspector noted the bottle, and saw the Birqmuir seal.
“Spend much time in the Empire, Fazgood?”
“Years ago, I did. Inspector.”
The Inspector noted the bold tone of voice and said, “Are you certain you do not recognize me?”
Careful, thought the Earl.
“If I seem changed, Inspector, try some relish and discover why.”
Mehzadapt looked back to the Booloob in the doorway. The hat rotated a little, another shrug.
The Inspector regarded the glittering bottle with a twitch of apprehension, then noted his surrounding deputies. “I will. Later.”
The deputies all snorted, but regarded the bottle with curiosity.
Fazgood said, “Pardon my taking food. I was famished, and I become faint in such times. Bread would serve me better. Would you like some bread?”
Without waiting for an answer, the Earl pulled a piece of bread and picked up the dull knife. In the ruckus, no one had noted it between the plate and the crab tureen. All started, but the Earl dipped the knife into the relish bottle and dabbed some small chunks. He exhaled through puffed lips, bit and chewed. He set the knife down.
“You will eat when I tell you to eat,” said the Inspector.
“Ah. Indeed. I’ll not be much help faint. And the bread helps much.”
“Set the bread down.”
The Earl took one more bite. Then, he pointedly set the bread on the plate.
Mehzadapt snarled. “Spit that out on the floor. Aim well.”
“No need to menace, Inspector,” Fazgood swallowed, with no more wince than when he drank the tziembroask. “I will tell you everything you want to know. You’re going to want this to be a secret, though. You know where I’ve been living.”
The Inspector noted that swallow. His face reddened. But his eyes betrayed his weighing of those last words.
“I do,” added Fazgood, “prefer the easy way. However, I run full gallop at the moneyed way. This is your city, and any such trails belong to you.”
The Earl waved and indicated all in the room.
“I say: this moneyed trail has room for many.”
Mehzadapt stared full into Fazgood’s eyes. The Earl looked back at him, hands folded.
“Tlezjoy, clear this end of the table. Then you and Cornpudding leave. Varalam and Reedtickle, sit at the far end of the table.”
The table was cleared, as it kept all sharp or potentially sharp objects from Fazgood’s grasp; but not the tziembroask bottle as the Earl made a point to seize it. The deputies redistributed.
The toolbag was placed on the floor.
“You have my attention,” said Mehzadapt.
The Earl poured another cup. “You wouldn’t believe the fluxion flowing in that keep, Inspector.”
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Tags: epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, speculative fiction
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 17 (CONTAINS CASTRATION, BUT IN A GOOD WAY)
21 05 2014The dusk through the latticed windows lit Deputy Tlezjoy’s face a dim gold.
With his head titled so, considered the Inspector, that sharp chin and nose of his looks handsome. But then deputy spoke, and his smile turned wicked, and the effect was petty and harsh.
“My first stalker heard a terrible crash! My stalker runs outside and found that the tremblar had run straight into that glass house with the birds and the vineflits.”
“A tremblar ran?” asked the Inspector. Tlezjoy’s enthusiasm for destruction was tiresome, and so Mehzadapt tried to quash that foul joy whenever it presented itself.
“The tremblar shook into the glass house.”
“What happened?”
The grin revived. “Ah! The tremblar escaped from his house! He shook into the glass house and the foundations all jiggled and the glass all shattered.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“A couple of citizens were cut up. All that broken glass just angered the tremblar more. They’ve got thick skins.”
The Inspector prompted. “Your first stalker lost the suspect back at the tremblar cage.”
“The rain was so thick, the stalker didn’t even bother to look.”
“Beat your young sleuth. Make comprehensive use of his exposed skin. The young need an example so that they will remember the basics.”
“Gladly, Inspector. Our second stalker was waiting at the entrance, just to be safe. The bag the suspect carried made the both of the stalkers suspicious. She’s getting soaked waiting in the rain when someone goes running by.”
Mehzadapt glared at the attempt at dramatic tension. “Tell and be done!”
Tlezjoy swallowed. “Turns out it’s the suspect! Wearing a Pathetic’s robe! She wouldn’t have known it was him but for seeing his basket. And he’s running down the middle of the road! He’s carrying a basket with a huge moosecrab inside!”
“Deputy, did you say a moosecrab?”
The deputy bit back a grin. “Yes, Inspector! She glimpsed a large moosecrab. She thought she saw some other animal, but the moosecrab seized her attention.”
“A moosecrab!”
“The second stalker’s worth her salt, that one! Tried to whistle the other stalker, but the rain and thunder was too loud. Then when the rain stopped, he caught a rickshaw holding only the toolbag.”
“The same bag that he carried this morning?”
“It looked like it, she said.”
“He walked from the river without the basket.”
“He left the basket. We have it for you to look at. It seems just a pitch basket. There was no sign of the crab.”
Mehzadapt considered.
“She watched him ride off in a rickshaw all wet hunched in his coat again. He was carrying the old brown toolbag. The suspect was headed back into the city.”
Sagging back onto his cushion, Mehzadapt sipped his tea.
The deputy summarized. “Someone had opened the locked door, then nailed a canvas to the floor. The police are blowing a squall about the tremblar being let loose and the crab swiped.”
“Did you check the zoo yourself?”
“I confirm it. The keepers are all weepy. The moosecrab is gone.”
It is obvious that Fazgood loosed that tremblar and destroyed that exhibit! But to loose a moosecrab? What insane whim took him?
“Maintain the watch on Greatsergeant Keep,” the Inspector sucked his lip. “You go to the Amusatorium with that stalker girl. She shows you exactly what path that servant took, and you examine every inch of that trail for hiding spaces.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s up to, Inspector?”
“I can surmise. Indeed I can suppose.”
Behind his calm and meditative face, the Inspector wrung his brain. Destroying a zoo to free a moosecrab?
The Inspector waved his hand. “Tell Bookwright to come here. You are dismissed.”
The deputy stepped out the door and yawped for Bookwright. Alone, the Inspector contemplated in earnest, his fingers templed in front of his mouth, sucking at the fingertips. He had a sudden insight:
Ah! What of the zoo? Are any of the animals of value? Perhaps. He has worked for the Emperor and the Xhnar Family in the Three Cities. Magicians need esoterica, and many of those animals are rare.
He grunted and shook his head. But those creatures could be procured more readily in their native lands! He could have traveled direct to those lands to gain the obscure animal.
The moosecrab is found only in the shoals near Harmonium, he realized.
They are fallow this year.
Mehzadapt liked a good moosecrab, and he endured fallow years glumly.
But Fazgood took the crab to the river. If he wanted to eat it, he could have packed the whole creature off into a trunk of ice and headed to the city.
He blinked and shook his head again. And Fazgood is an exile. He risks being branded and maimed, yet he destroys a zoo to free a moosecrab?
And at the door last night, he made not to recognize my face or name! One can forget many things, but not almost being burned alive!
Mehzadapt muttered to the empty room. “He must have known he was followed, and performed this nonsense to keep me from knowing his true task.”
Fazgood kept the toolbag. There may be the secret.
Footsteps, Bookwright’s light scuffling steps, then that deputy entered. “Yes, Inspector?”
The Inspector looked up at the tall, slim man. “You are a splendid pickpocket. You got in trouble about that, I recall. Stealing from your captain.”
The smile weakened with the sudden, refreshed shame.
“I got you out of that difficulty. Now you can put that wondrous skill to use.”
“Yes, Inspector?”
“Listen well, Bookwright: Go to Greatsergeant’s keep. Look to all who exit there. There is an old brown toolbag that a Therihe carries. It interests me. If he leaves that keep with that bag, I want you to filch it and bring it to me. This is the subtlest matter. Use your greatest guile, as the one who you would filch is wily and on his guard. Do not disappoint.”
The scout scuffled down the hall. The Inspector rose and slipped on his blazer.
I should bring Fazgood in. But over a stolen crab? I could use that to obligate him, and find out his intentions, maybe turn him in, or get leverage on his accomplices.
Mehzadapt slid aside a hidden panel in the ablewood wall to reveal a large mirror. He checked his shoulders, and fixed his ascot. His heart pounded at the possibilities.
A Paragon being obliged to me; that would be of great use. And an army adjutant under obligation would be a luxurious reward. Perhaps this Ijkalla fellow –- the Foofaloof? — is honest; if so, then an authority from a new territory would be my new associate. If this Foofaloof is a connivance, I have exposed a fraud who has duped the civil elite.
He crushed mint drops into his handkerchief and rubbed the kerchief over his teeth. He nodded and took a breath.
Fazgood is here for some grand theft. He couldn’t possibly imagine he could sneak into Harmonium under a new identity, become a new citizen, and go undetected.
Seizing Fazgood outright would cause an uproar. The Foofaloof may prove authentic. Inquiring of the Greatsergeants is out of the question.
Any suspicion of an army officer should be reported to the police. But I am not certain of what the man might have done, am I? It would not be proper to subject the officer to investigation without at least one detail, would it?
Satisfied that his rationalization would withstand official scrutiny, he put aside all thought of contacting the police. He stepped out the door into the hallway.
That some found ambiguity comfortable, was justification enough for the Inspector to stall notifying the police.
Down the hall, a group of deputies turned the corner. They parted and kept respectful distance around a Exult.
“Inspector Mehzadapt,” crowed Inspector Akekek. She waved her underlings to stay as she walked down the hall.
Mehzadapt folded his hands solemnly and nodded.
The Exult pointed. “I have been missing your voice at the prayers for the Magnate.”
Mehzadapt resisted glancing at the listening congregants. “A matter of terrible low treason has appeared, Inspector.”
A low, clucking chuckle escaped from the feathered throat. “Treason? It must be terrible indeed, to seize the attention of the most pious Mehzadapt. You should tell me of it.”.
She would doubtless tell Mikdoktik the most useful parts of this conversation.
The man shrugged. “Would tomorrow morning suffice?”
Akekek’s eyes gave a glimmer of wariness. “That would be splendid! Intrigues over tea.”
Relief washed through Mehzadapt. His smile remained unmoved.
Akekek drew close. “Mikdoktik presses for the brigade captain’s vote at the beginning of next week. Mikdoktik wants the transition to the new regime to be smooth, with a minimum of solicitation.”
Mehzadapt’s breath stilled. A quick vote would keep Mehzadapt from bargaining with captains to support him. The Adactoid knew that. If Mikdoktik became Magnate, the Adactoid would press for a review of Mehzadapt’s competency.
He managed to snort. “Has Mikdoktik no respect for tradition? The vote is mandated to occur ten days after the magnate’s passing.”
“I agree. But the scouts need steady leadership. The ten-day rule has been set aside before in the history of the Scouts. We must show we are well-disciplined, or else the Royal Family may intervene.”
Akekek waited a rebuttal, a raptor’s gleam in her eye.
Nobody wanted the Royal Family’s attention. The Royal Family were three generations from god-head, and spoke with spirits as easily as one spoke with an accountant over tea. And the dead kept their jealousies. He was not ready for the petty dead to ruin his career of service, not when he was so close to a glorious prize like the Mad Earl.
The Inspector smiled. “When we meet tomorrow, I would like to discuss any ideas you may have about the future of the brigades.”
“’Discuss?’”
The Exult giggled. “Tomorrow, I would like to hear more than discuss. To hear about low treasons discovered. Now, I must take my leave to rest. I suspect tomorrow morning to be quite challenging.”
Akekek turned and laughed louder. She walked to her underlings, who all cast sly looks to Mehzadapt as they joined Akekek’s departure. Fear and anger swept chills through the Inspector.
She did not even entertain a negotiation! Are she and Mikdoktik so securely cemented?
He waited and listened for the fading steps of Akekek’s retinue as they descended the stairs.
Satisfied that he was alone, the Inspector strode down the stairs. He pressed through the crowded gallery with the historic fresco; he shook his hands and lamented the Magnate as he walked through the mourners. He walked out the door. Under the purpling dusk, grim Varalam waited.
Mehzadapt turned his attention to the Plaza. In the brighter north-west corner sparkled the trickling walls of the Merhiaz Nurturance. He wondered if –- yes! He did pay his tithe. The mourners began singing “The Star-Lit Path Toward Home”.
There was the jangling of chimes from the west end of the Plaza. Through the delighted crowd dashed a brown-clad member of Public Works, followed by citizens in blue and maroon and yellow. He held aloft a standard with bells of iron and brass. Long ribbons of red played from the standard and lapped and licked along the delighted bystanders.
“’Jezr-Ji!’” they cried. “They’re playing ‘Jezr-Ji!’”
“What is that strange joy?” asked Varalam.
“It is the most potent form of discernment known. The Therihe invented it,” said the Inspector. “I haven’t known a game to be played in many years.”
Their path took them straight toward the Inspector. The ribbons flitted and touched all around them.
The ribbons!
“Get in the rickshaw, deputy! Get in!”
Mehzadapt cuffed the Adactoid into the rickshaw. The Inspector dove after him. He pulled his arm away from the open side. Red ribbons slipped along the ablewood, over the driver’s back, then away through the crowd ahead of them.
He shouted at the deputy. “Did a ribbon touch you?”
Varalam cringed, despite his size. “No! But it is just a game!”
Another set of runners trotted across the far side of the Plaza. He sneered at the deputy’s ignorance.
They are assembling a Temporary God! Having a ribbon touch means that Temporary God will know what is in your heart! Your identity and desires made plain to all of Public Works!
Mehzadapt watched them disappear into the laughing throng of the Plaza.
He told the driver. “Go to the docks! Run!”
* * *
The door opened and a maid squinted at the drenched Earl. Through his pains, Fazgood attempted Pehzpersist’s vague expression. The maid gave a sigh of aggravation and stepped to allow the Earl enter.
He limped upstairs. Voices echoed around the hallway and down the stairs; he paused.
[Listen, Warren.]
The weasel wrestled within the jacket, fur dark with wet. The Earl tried to listen as well.
“Why don’t the merchants ever share their reports…”
“…some illness! Sometimes a new location will cause…”
“Let us pray not! He is such a splendid…”
Reported the weasel, [Calzjha feigned an illness today to get out of contemplations. It has left the congregants hungry for information.]
The Earl nodded. That would be effective, and it would make them sympathetic.
Fluxion! They will have me in there speaking about the Ijkallas!
The Earl sneaked up the last few steps. Slipping around the top of the stairs, he stepped down the hall away from the crowd, keeping close to the ablewood latticement. He ducked under the chain securing the hinged metal gatework in place.
He came to the bedroom door. He listened outside the bedroom. Hearing nothing, slipped inside and shut the door.
Calzjha lay upon the bed, asleep, dressed from the morning, hands upon her chest. The windows were shut tight, and the fan was unlit. Clouds of incense created strata in the air, the smell deeply floral and earthy. The Earl set Warren on the floor. He placed the toolbag at the foot of the bed. Quietly he slipped out of his wet blazer, shoes and pants. He found a towel and dried his clammy feet and legs.
He found a fresh set of clothes and changed as quickly as he could, considering his bruises and sprained knee. The dry clothes brought the blood back to his skin, and his spirits rallied somewhat. Still, coming back for the relish put him back in the Scout Brigade view.
If I was the brigades, I would put new stalkers on my trail, and double their number. I need another way out of the home.
On the floor, Warren rolled in the towel. He cast inscrutable looks at the Earl, but kept his council. Could weasels grimace? Even if they could, Warren would be too politic.
Distracted, the Earl considered the figure recumbent upon the bed. For an unguarded flitting of thought,
The skin of her stomach is so smooth.
Vexed with himself, he growled and walked to the window.
We had an agreement!
Behind him the sheet rustled. “You have returned.”
Newly annoyed, he said, “Yes, I know. I was here when it happened.”
Calzjha said nothing, which gave satisfaction.
[My liege, I must restate my misgivings. What you are about to do is distasteful.]
[I am on personal terms with distaste, squire. If I do not relieve this moosecrab madness, we shall all be sitting branded on the Royal Road.]
The Earl spat. “And I find that distasteful.”
“I am sorry to disturb you when you are in such a mood,” whispered Calzjha.
“What is it?”
“That you should find me distasteful…”
Sputtering, Fazgood turned and reddened. “I was speaking to Warren.”
“Ah,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “You are busy, but I need a great favor.”
“What favor?”
“I would do it myself, but I can barely walk.”
“Did I not just ask ‘What is the favor?’”
“I need for you to find a tree and bury me.”
Fazgood gasped. “What? Did something go wrong? Are you dying?”
“No. It is how my people…. It is not important. I need you to bury my testes.”
Fazgood’s concern turned to relief, and turned to self-recrimination for his concern. Then as he remembered the request, he felt his eyes bulge.
“You want me to do what?”
Calzjha unfolded her hands. In her grasp was a bundle of thick white cloth the size of two human fists.
She said, “It is important that they be interred. You know from Adanikar how important it is to my traditions that they be buried at the root of a tree. That must happen the day of they drop off.”
The words struck Fazgood as if he had bitten onto metal very hard.
Calzjha sat up, clutching the bundle close. “I would take my leave this evening and do it myself, but these last few days have been exhausting.”
The Earl replied, “I am in the middle of a job!”
Calzjha sighed. “Would this also be evidence? Please! The room is warm and close, and they would be easily noted tomorrow.”
“Put them in spices overnight! I am in a job!”
“They must be whole and untainted when buried.”
“Can’t I do it this evening when I return?”
“When will you return? It must be done before the moons rise.”
Like I need more gods angry at me if I do not.
He bit back a vicious profanity. “Yes. I will inter them. Yes.”
“Please, they must be under a tree, so that it may give new life.”
“Yes, yes. New life, yes.”
Calzjha smiled weakly, which made the Earl blink as if he had glanced at the sun. She offered the bundle. The Earl cringed.
“Wait! Wait! I must get the ice and crabs into another container! Ah! That ablewood cask looks proper!”
“It holds lotions. What smells? Crabs?”
Calzjha puzzled over the crabs and ice as Fazgood opened the cask and removed the custom-fitted bottles. Calzjha sighed at the loss of the cask, but said nothing.
The Earl scooped ice into the cask. He crouched over his task to hide it from Calzjha, and delicately placed the antler into the ice. He placed the crabs on top with another layer of ice.
“What are those crabs? Did you find a moosecrab?”
“These are no moosecrabs,” said Fazgood.
Warren began, [But –]
[And you keep our mission secret, squire.]
[I do so under strong protest.]
[Just that you do so.]
Fazgood held out the toolbag at fingertip length and shook it to indicate Calzjha place his bundle within. Saddened by the Earl’s disgust, Calzjha placed his testes into the ice. The Earl closed it firmly.
He looked around the room and found a small satchel of handkerchiefs. He shook them out onto the bed and stuck the wet bags of spice and moalflakes within. This he crammed into the cask, which latched closed with a push.
“I thank you,” said Calzjha.
Her voice was weak and it struck pity in the Earl, at which feeling he cursed and ground into powder, which he then imagined stomping upon.
Fazgood turned to the windowsill and found the gold-topped bottle of relish. The seal was intact. He removed the alarming note and stuck the bottle inside a blazer pocket.
“I am away. I shall return by dinnertime. Warren shall stay.”
“Where do you go?”
“I have an appointment in the Foreign Due.”
Puzzled, Calzjha remarked, “The crabs should enjoy the tour.”
“I promise to return.”
Warren scurried to the door jam. [My liege, please do not eat that crab’s flesh! The gods will curse you!]
[They’ve cursed me before. I will make amends.]
[The Inspector will have someone following you! You won’t be safe!]
[Squire, then your presence is best served here to tell of my troubles.]
Relieved to have bested Warren, he made quick escape before the weasel could rally a new argument. The Earl eased up the latch, picked up the toolbag by the handles, picked up the cask in both hands. He clenched his eyebrows and jaw and nudged the door open with his foot.
Goodwife Greatsergeant stood with the judge, the Mezzo-Barritone. Behind them stood Goodwife Carper, a smile twitching her face. There was no sign of Obdurate.
Respiration’s eyes narrowed. “How is the Foofaloof? His friends are concerned.”
Ah! And how she sings that word with just enough of a point, like a mosquito’s whine, noted the Earl.
“The Foofaloof will take a few visitors,” said the Earl, not feeling charitable with Calzjha’s energies. “Please let me by. I thank you.”
The judge rumbled. “Do you believe we should call a physician?”
Fazgood gazed somberly. “The exalted Foofaloof has a generous soul. It is always his way to commit more than his delicate nature can allow. Now I must pass. I thank you.”
Goodwife Carper and the judge looked to each other with guilt and alarm.
Whispered that nervous woman. “We had no idea!”
“But,” said Fazgood, “given a day of rest and prayer, the Foofaloof does recover to full health. A physician will not be necessary, though the offer is appreciated.”
Their collective alarm eased.
The judge’s finger fidgeted at his cuff. “May we speak with him?”
Fazgood stepped aside. “He would be glad for a few words.”
The Earl stepped down the hall and down the stairs. He had expected some veiled inquiry from the clever Respiration, but none came.
Perhaps she means to interrogate Warren; after I have secured a kitchen and eaten the antler, it will matter not Fabri’s follicle.
He took a rickshaw down to the Malabar Flats. The Earl did not bother looking around for stalkers, as he was certain they were in pursuit.
Fazgood paid with a coin still chilled from the rain. Sitting upon the cask with a groan, he held the cold toolbag against his knee, and listened to the water slap against the quay. There was a crowd of merchants waiting around the dock, eating from vendors, drinking from fountains, conversing.
He contemplated the toolbag with a mirthless chuckle.
I am in Harmonium. I remember swearing I would never come back unless it was to pillage. I do remember that.
If I could eat brick and wood to be done with this craving, then call me a termite. But moosecrab it must be.
And according to the note I left for myself on the relish, I had myself enchanted to have this craving, to eat a crab found only here in Harmonium, and forget the enchantment.
Why would I madden myself?
The Ferry arrived. The Earl gritted his teeth through the crowd, anxious at every surge and push. The boat filled to near capacity. Because he had a burden, the citizens around him allowed his a seat. It was too near the middle of the boat to be truly safe, but it was that or struggle with the cask and hi knee was aching again. He scrutinized his neighbors and found them acceptable.
Sunlight rippled pink upon the river and reminded him of the moosecrab still growing at the bottom. He was tired and the waves and heat made his body heavy. A strong breeze from the sea wafted over the boat. The salty sting reminded him of moosecrab, and the craving pulled at him like a hot tide and he clutched the cask tighter.
At the front of the boat, a musician played a restful air on a reed flute, which was thin like the legs of a moosecrab.
The ferry’s passage began getting choppy, and Fazgood realized he had been dozing. The Foreign Due dock approached. All stood, and he did as well. He looked around, but all he could see were blue-clad shoulders. The ferry struck the dock.
Fazgood seized the cask, but momentum tugged the bag from his grip.
An errand boy sprawled on the deck, then skittered between complaining passengers and was gone.
Fazgood straightened in his seat.
A tall, dark-complected man in a merchant coat helped the Earl up. “Someone should take these errand children to task!”
The Earl felt handles in his grip, and luggage bump his hip. “I thank you, citizen!”
He tried to look at the bag, but the crowd was too tight.
“A good day to all, stranger.” A hale smile, and the man stepped into the passing crowd.
I have to fix this accent, Fazgood considered.
The Earl rose from his seat and walked from the dock. He adjusted the cask in his hands and felt the toolbag was lighter.
Fazgood gritted his teeth to suppress a shriek. His mind flashed with an anatomy lesson spilled onto the concrete. He looked down. There was no white bundle behind him, no trail of viscera up the path. The bag still felt odd.
In his right hand, instead of the toolbag handles were two lengths of tarred rope. They were attached to a ragged carpetbag.
Filched! Someone switched the bag!
He looked around while walking. Shoulders bobbed around him, faces passed. The boy was gone.
It wouldn’t have been him. The merchant! It was a two-person bump! Such a simple maneuver! How could I be fooled by a two-person bump? I haven’t been filched in years, and the best have tried! By a two-person bump!
He looked, but knew it would do no good. Even if he caught the man, who could Fazgood complain to?
The relish!
He felt his pocket, then sneaked a peek and saw the gold stopper. His heart settled.
He could just as easily have stabbed me. Losing my edge! The only thing that may have kept me alive is that the Scouts are too thin-blooded for daylight murder.
He bit back his despair. The craving burned through him again. Then he remembered the bundle in Calzjha’s hands.
Fluxion.
He set down the cask and opened the bag, finding only a few stones and some rags to fill out the bag’s sides. Fazgood looked back at the city, the shadows deepening over the deep gray and tan buildings. He grunted and nodded.
Now they are disposed. Yes. I will tell Calzjha there are trees on the Due. She won’t know. No, she knows me too well: she will ask for details. I shall tell her that I buried them on the riverbank. Within view of the Amusatorium.
He threw the bag down, and walked within the gates. The sun dipped behind the quays and the sky turned the color of boiled moosecrab.
* * *
The moosecrab pink deepened to purple as the Inspector and four deputies stood on the Malabar Flats Ferry dock; the crowd left them much space due to their glowering. The scouts left the Inspector his space, as his glowering had set them on edge.
Tall, dark Bookwright stepped from the ferry, his proud swagger a contrast to his grim associates. Within the crowd, he resorted to euphemisms:
“I found this bag,” he said of his theft. “When our guest stood, he did look terribly distracted. Some message child bumped him, the bags got confused, and my second intern slipped away easy.”
He was filched in a two-person bump? What simple work to steal from this “Mad Earl”!
The Inspector narrowed his eyes. “Where is our guest now?”
“He is at the Due! My interns seek him. One will meet us at the dock with his location.”
“Give me the bag,” said the Inspector.
With more swaggering before his peers, the deputy handed the bag to his superior.
Mehzadapt jerked the bag open. He shoved away icy slush and picked open the cloth.
The Inspector forgot to be angry. He grimaced, then shook his head as he was honestly and thoroughly dumbfounded:
What esoteric mayhem is this man up to?
Behind Mehzadapt’s shoulder, Tlezjoy and Varalam peeked inside.
“That crab must have put up quite a fight,” Tlezjoy remarked.
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Tags: epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy fiction, fantasy novels, humor, humor novels, humor writing, spec fic, speculative, speculative fiction
Categories : Fiction, Mad Earl Faz
“MAD EARL FAZ” CHAPTER 16 (THE FIRST CAPER)
14 05 2014When night still walled the window with black, the Earl’s door creaked slightly. A rustle at the door jam told Warren’s entrance. With that perceptive and rousable worthy with him, the Earl turned to sleep.
He dreamed he was back in the earldom, ten years ago. Fazgood was on his veranda gazing at the broad, sunlit lawn, the dirt-patches still showing where the traps had been laid. Beyond the lawn, beyond the wood-and-barbed wire barricade, laborers were building the brick wall higher. He looked down and discovered he was in a white muslin suit, sprawled in a cushioned wicker chair. His knuckles were smooth with youth.
He thrilled, I’m young again!
A glass tumbler of brown liquid was in his left hand. He sipped. Sharp and spicy Birqmuirish tziembroask smoldered down his throat. In his right hand, the brass hilt of Kekeltuk’s Protractor cooled his grip. The edges were in the scabbard of pebbly, unidetifiable skin.
He mocked the device, the Birqmuirish language a welcome surprise for his tongue. “Now I know your plans, eh? Trick me into giving my fortune away to charity?”
Gagged by the scabbard, the treacherous enchantment could say nothing.
The Earl took another fiery sip. “After I get my fill of this tziembroask, you will get your fill of the river! Ha!”
[My liege! My liege!]
Warren’s brown shape sprang and squiggled across the lawn, darting around the brown patches. The Earl felt his smile stretch little-used smile-muscle.
“Good Warren, what does the rabble say of their leader?”
[What do you mean, my Earl?]
“Did you visit the Imperial Blue Barrelhouse? How loudly do they sing my praises?”
[Oh, my liege! You are dreaming we are back in the Earldom! You are imagining I’m in the dream with you.]
Fazgood started, looked at his surroundings, then took a quick, greedy slurp.
He grumbled. “Or perhaps…I should go to the Barrelhouse myself and –-“
[My liege, it is Calzjha!]
Calzjha is not for many years…no, please.
Fazgood could feel his youth drain away.
[Calzjha has broken your agreement!]
There was only one agreement Calzjha ever honored.
Fazgood’s eyes snapped open.
The blessing-engraved wood rafters over his head reminded him where he lay. Instead of the feel of his light muslin suit, his skin was clammy from sweat-soaked clothes. His nose flared from his stink. He raised his head, heavy from feeling so many years slip away.
At the foot of the bed, Calzjha was turned toward the window. Only his head and shoulders were visible above the bedfoot. Fazgood realized that Calzjha had to be standing in a wide, deep stance in order to be so low to the ground. The shoulders quaked with deep, shuddering breaths.
Warren had crawled up the bedsheet and sat by the Earl’s right shoulder, [I returned before Calzjha. Calzjha began speaking about his people’s beliefs, and I’d heard that so many times that I excused myself.]
Calzjha’s hands were held beside the shaking shoulders, and positioned strangely. The thumb and middle finger were held together, and the fingers pointed down, making a graceful arc of the wrist.
Where have I seen that position?
Then Fazgood gasped, Fluxion! He is performing The Sacred Garden Landscaped By Moonlight!
[He entered before dawn and disrobed. He started one of his prayer-dances instead of going to sleep. That wasn’t unusual for him, so I took a nap. Something smelled strange, so I woke up and there Calzjha was! He made no mention! I would have told you immediately!]
The Earl rose upon his knees, his shirt and pants sticking to his skin. The bedboards creaked. Eyes squinted with denial, he stretched around. The Earl peered over the naked shoulder. Calzjha’s face streamed with sweat. Strings of black hair were plastered to Calzjha’s neck. The Earl peered farther.
Calzjha’s new breasts gleamed like round, dewy breadfruit.
“Fluxion!”
The Earl proceeded to curse in every language he knew. He shouted into his arm, then into his pillow.
Calzjha took a final breath, then reached a cup of water and drank deeply.
“A new day to all,” she said, and staggered to the bed.
The young woman wrapped a sheet of cloth around her shoulders.
The Earl swore into his arm and his pillow and a bolt of yellow fabric and into the sweaty bedsheet. Warren maintained a cold, indignant stare throughout.
After many minutes, the Earl took a breath. He picked his head up from the bedsheet. “You will change back.”
“You know from when I had done this in Adanikar: I cannot become male for a month.”
Fazgood felt his eyes would burst from their sockets, such was his rage. But he kept his voice soft.
“Why have you done this?”
“Will you listen to my reasons?”
Through clenched teeth: “It seems I have no choice.”
“Obdurate and Respiration are trapped. They are in distress. She is in a Paragon family. Whatever peace I can give her, she will convey through her associations and demeanor to the kingdom. There is no greater place I can exercise my ministry than in this house.”
“You agreed not to become a woman! You swore to me that you would not become a woman!”
“Because you are uncomfortable with my female aspect. I am sorry for breaking my word, but this is a higher calling. Two people in love and a kingdom all need healing.”
Calzjha stepped to the bedtable. She picked up the pitcher in two seemingly unchanged hands and drank.
Snarled the Earl, “Back in Adanikar I said I needed a bodyguard and you said, ‘That will be my vocation. I will be your bodyguard.’”
“And so?” she coughed.
“Bodyguards do what they are told! They honor their contracts!”
[You cannot hold two vocations! What is your priority?]
“I can minister and be a bodyguard. No one will know the difference in my appearance. My hips are always slim. I always wear my hair long. I will bind my breasts and fill my crotch. I had bought good muslin strips just for this purpose.”
“You planned for this!”
She jabbed a finger. “You say ‘Have the tools for any circumstance.’ I did not know that our host would have such a dire problem. And Obdurate has such an obstacle against a man ministering them.”
Fazgood swallowed the breath that would have told what he saw last night.
“My faith demands that when I see the All-That-Flows being imprisoned or even frustrated, I must help free it.”
[In Adanikar, you cared nothing for the enlightenment of others.]
Calzjha shook her head. “Who in that city could I have helped? Hrikinik alone would take hundreds of my people decades to enlighten.”
The Earl gave the weasel a stare. [Warren, we have a mission after the customary. You and I will decide this circumstance in a bold act.]
[Why…certainly, my liege. I will join you.]
The Earl turned his attention to the newly formed woman. “I will not be at contemplations again this afternoon. Warren will join me.”
Calzjha gasped and sagged. “What will I tell those attending? They have not heard a word about the Ijkallas. I cannot dance today; I am exhausted! You could at least leave Warren to convey help –”
“Ah! You discover that you need my guidance again! That is what I call ‘enlightenment’.”
Calzjha threw the cover off and made to dress. Fazgood suppressed a snarl and turned away.
He tired of contemplating the bolts of expensive cloth at the opposite wall. “What you shall do is request that Respiration gather the army reports on the Ijkallas while we are at customary. You shall take time reviewing them before contemplations. You shall then rearrange the information in your mind.”
She said nothing; Fazgood knew Calzjha feared improvisation.
“When they arrive,” he continued, “pretend to review the papers as if for the first time. That will steal time. Discuss with them your idea for the shared performance with the customary class –“
“Ah!” she gasped with relief. “Indeed!”
“—- and steal more time that way. If you are pressed, then use ornate language, and tell them precisely what is in the reports as if remembering your childhood days.”
“But shouldn’t I add –-“
“Do not add! If you do, you will say something that will contradict yourself or the reports, and those people are much, much smarter than both of us.”
“You can look,” Calzjha said.
She bound her breasts, brow creased with annoyance that Fazgood felt he had to turn in the first place. She had bound her crotch with a simple, clever pattern of white cloth to secure another roll of muslin. Her hands were pale and shaking from her transformation.
“Where are you going today?” she asked.
“I have a task at hand. I work toward its completion.”
“Have you a plan?”
“We shall speak more on this in the evening.”
She put her arms in the sleeves of her shirt, and stabbed her hands forward rudely to put the shirt on. The cuffs still fit well; Calzjha’s race did not grow or shrink in height when they changed sexes.
“How will you shower?”
“The bathhouse is unused in the evening, and the maids are busy with dinner. I will shower then. That is not unusual here. As for my testes, I will bury them.”
Both Warren and the Earl suppressed shudders, but said nothing, as all species have their own ways. There were water newts who could change their sex, without leaving remains. But Calzjha’s species, the Zhif, was created by their god to be a medium of spreading spiritual satisfaction throughout the world. The very blood and flesh of the regenerating Zhif was used as fertilizer, and those plants so fertilized would spread bliss through their newly-lovely fragrance, fruit and sturdy wood.
Fazgood whispered his morning beseeching with added insistence. Not daring to let Calzjha out of his sight, the Earl trotted to the bath, showered, relieved himself with grevious slaps to head and heart, dressed quickly in fresh clothes, and trotted back upstairs. Calzjha was still panting and fatigued, and was refreshing herself by smelling from the fragrance bottles. They walked together down the hall to the contemplation room for breakfast. The Brumpfbasket swayed under Calzjha’s arm.
Why don’t I have a true entourage, such as an army? I tell myself it is so to travel more lightly. But an army doesn’t cause this much aggravation.
They entered the room, and the Earl noted the goodwife’s rested nature.
“A new day for all,” they conceded and they sat.
Respiration gave a meaningful, inquiring look. When the younger maid turned her back, tired and sweating Calzjha managed a clownish face and pulled down the front of her shirt. Though taped, her refreshed endowments still swelled the fabric.
Respiration glanced to Fazgood, hoping for a confirmation. Fazgood glared at his gummytoast and gave a curt nod to be done with it. The goodwife’s eyes widened with amazement and she shook her head with giddiness.
Even the goodwife knows plans before I do. And fresh hells, I hate gummytoast.
* * *
After the meal, which was rife with too many meaningful glances and celebratory expressions, they prepared for their days commitments. The Earl acquired his toolbag, filled with the brown robe and a stout knife, the stretch of canvas and the long spikes, placed the skullwarmer in a pocket, and the slivers of metal and ablewood in his cuffs. He joined Calzjha at the foyer.
Outside, the square was already too busy and the sun glared too hard for the Earl to spy any suspicious behaviors. The three took a rickshaw to the customary, Calzjha in a fresh blue suit and carrying the Brumpfbasket, Fazgood likewise in a cotton business suit
As the driver trotted, Calzjha broke the silence that had descended between them:
“Where do you go this afternoon?”
“To further the plan,” said the Earl.
“May I know details?”
“No.”
Crestfallen, Calzjha whispered, “You may trust me with details of your new plan.”
Fazgood affected contemplation. “Or I may trust you with nothing. Ah! I have chosen!”
Calzjha waited until the point was made.
She protested. “I made my decision…”
The Earl affixed her with a dreadful stare and would have none of it. Calzjha slumped and wiped sweat from her brow.
Warren stayed in his basket and made no observations.
When the rickshaw pulled up to the customary, Fazgood rubbed his face and dispelled his foul mood as best he could. They stepped from the conveyance to the building, and the Earl looked about, noting many on the busy street: the neighbor Rahsic mother; a lanky Adactoid child with a parcel under his arm making to rap upon a door across the street; a Therihe bread vendor with a basket.
Pehzpersist and the Foofaloof met the class and greetings were exchanged. All sat as the customary entered.
Kitpoktik began the class. “What shall we discuss today? Let us begin by discussing the responsibilities placed by the Saline Concord. What of these responsibilities? Tell us, Khuoro.”
Khuoro, who had been flourishing as a student since Calzjha’s tuning, squeezed a finely turned set of notes. “The Saline Concord is a treaty between the Kingdom and the spirits of nature!”
The husband of the married couple, their names were something-something-whatever, gained permission: “It is for our mutual safety and nurturance.”
“What favor do the spirits grant? Nowhere else is there such calm sea. Nowhere else do the insects behave so agreeably. Nowhere else is the rain just.”
Kitpoktik’s wide eyes narrowed, and the Adactoid’s voice became sharp. “Why did the spirits grant us such favor?
“Tell us, Pehzpersist.”
The Earl resented the arch tone: it seemed Kitpoktik doubted Pehzpersist knew even the basics. Fazgood made to ponder, then:
“The Prevaricate destroyed forests and mountains. He fouled the headwaters of the Quand far beyond Alpia, so much that all the forty-seven plummets of the Gezgezlazr Falls flowed thick and stank of death. The spirits knew that the Concord was their best chance at surviving.”
The Earl could note the Adactoid’s small satisfied blink before it continued its lecture,
“What terms are presented by the kingdom? Our discipline. The rules of diet: from eliminating the herding of animals as it wastes land, to our rituals of preparation. The rules of manufacture, which restricts our metal only to mastercrafts and keeps all other materials to the Two Tepid Distillations. The rules of our behavior: from the pools the Booloob can use to foam, to the cremation of all beings at death.
“Who insures the Concord? All citizens insure its sanctity. Those who will not abide the Concord will not be allowed within our borders.”
With a smile, Kikpotik gestured. “The Foofaloof has made acquaintance with Goodwife Greatsergent. Who is her family? Her family is of the Paragons, like the Moakaks, the Hervz, the Yy-Algaedancers and the others. Why are they Paragon? The Paragon families volunteered themselves and their descendants to be living examples of the Kingdom’s sincerity. The Paragons’ examples encourage all in the kingdom to best behavior and sacrifice.”
All in the room bent their heads ruefully to contemplate this responsibility.
“They have a lonely honor,” said the Adactoid. “Theirs is to strive and inspire. It is theirs to prove an example for the soulful, and theirs to live as evidence to the spirits of the kingdom’s integrity.”
Fazgood kept his eyes fixed at the teacher. He would not give Calzjha the satisfaction of a glance.
* * *
After the customary, the Earl bade Calzjha well for the afternoon. Calzjha’s look of discomfort and anxiety struck Fazgood as most satisfying. He walked to the corner grocery. He had slept reasonably well, and the toolbag was light in his grip. Warren was within, perhaps dozing. This also struck the Earl as satisfying.
He walked to a vendor and took a leisurely lunch of caramel bean-nuts and tea. The gangly errand Adactoid came to another house and knocked, and found no one at home.
The same errand Adactoid as knocked on a neighbor’s door that morning, noted the Earl.
After an hour of fortification, the Earl relived himself in the proper nook behind the fountain. He walked to the corner grocer and entered.
“Could you tell me the proper way to prepare crab?” Fazgood asked.
From within the toolbag: [My liege! Do you mean to steal the moosecrab today?]
[We just may.]
Unaware of the dire conversation, the kind purveyor jotted down a note for the length of time to boil, and what herbs to season.
The Earl asked, “And so would such preparation work for all crab parts? For all crabs?”
The grocer declared it a splendid method for all seafood.
The Earl smiled and watched a basket lined with pitch filled with sawdust and ice. The grocer tucked six of the blue-shelled nippers within and buried each under a handful of ice. Vials of vinegar, paprika, met-met and nutmeg nestled inside.
“Have you moal flakes?” the Earl asked knowingly. “They take the bitterness from the vinegar.”
A small bag of moal flakes was added. Fazgood gave Pehzpersist’s flabby smile and gracious thanks.
[Good squire, I have changed the plans. I cannot cook in the keep. Too many uncertain behaviors there.]
[Where would you find a kitchen?]
[I will ponder that more.]
Warren was quiet, which Fazgood knew meant pensive.
He walked out of the grocery and closed the door. The street was busy and bustling. No plug hats. Another errand child knocking at a home two doors down. A Exult answered. The child, a thick-set coal-black Rahsic girl, and the Exult conversed, then the child turned and trotted up the street.
Fazgood hailed a rickshaw. The ice basket and bag were bundled beside the Earl and they sped off. Once in motion, the Earl nestled the folded canvas onto the ice to keep in the cold.
“God-pox!” he declared.
[What is that you say, my liege?]
[What I say is ‘god-pox!’ I say that to the customary about the lonely Paragons. Any attempt to escape a prison is better than enduring it. She has nerve and brains. She would do well in the world.]
Warren poked from the toolbag and turned his face full to the Earl.
[Respiration is determined, but not resourceful. She is trapped by their high esteem.]
Fazgood reflected upon last night’s dream. After being blessed with title and lands, it took less than a decade for the Earl to flee his holdings.
“Eh, resourcefulness. There is that.”
[And she does not want to see the city destroyed.]
[Come now! I’ve ruined a couple of cities and I’m still healthy. This is as treacherous a city as any other. Surely you cannot be revering the architecture!]
The Earl looked past the rolling bastlements of the Exhus gate and spied a perfectly edged garden. [There are many cities with juicy construction, squire! There is Birqmuir City with the Imperial Palace!]
[Birqmuir City has many impressive buildings, but the populace is full of brutes! Even the scholars and actors labor single-mindedly for war.]
[We were discussing buildings.]
[Forgive me, but we are discussing civilization: the betterment of souls, my liege.]
Smiled Fazgood, smug that Warren walked into his trap: [And the Three Cities are dedicated to the betterment of souls, squire. And there are three of ‘em!]
[The Three Cities are learned and the people are kind, but they barely have paved roads. In a century, the Three Cities will begin to make their mark in the arts and knowledge. Knowledge based upon the teaching of Harmonium.]
Along the arterial in Cliffside-Bastles were the buildings of commerce and trade. These were newer constructions faced with elaborate matrices of brick. Of one building, Fazgood counted nine floors. These were taller than any in Birqmuir and rivaled the huge dilapidations in Adanikar.
The Earl argued. [If it is accomplishment and teaching we discuss, then why not Adanikar? The City of Sounds has the most accomplished wizards. The colleges and plazas are as large as all of Harmonium.]
The weasel sniffed. [I believe the Earl jests. Even silly Calzjha assesses rightly about Adanikar; it has all the trappings of civilization, but its grand days are past. I believe you described it as “a fixed, pitched riot with sewerage.”]
Back at the Earldom, he had given Warren the job of Chief Litigator for very good reason.
The squire leaned from the basket and pressed further. [Harmonium is the apex of civil life! Could you imagine a dozen races living peacefully anywhere else? The Adanikarese do not even like each other, and the Emperor –- may his name be eternal –- would have exiled at least eight races or made war with them. Harmonium is the only true and enlightened city, with the possibility of those of the Abdurynes, and they are near civil war.]
The Earl tired of the argument. [The Kingdom allowed my mentors to burn to death.]
There was nothing thought. They passed under the gaily-painted, wide gate of Golden Utilities.
[You have told me many times, my liege. I am sorry for that. But for us to allow harm to this city…. My Earl, you wouldn’t take your revenge with the mask? Destroy the Kingdom by exposing the hypocrisy?]
The Earl started at Warren’s conclusion. Then around a turn was the Amusatorium, the glass reflecting the sun like a huge jewel.
He looked away from it, uncertain.
The rickshaw stopped. The Earl rose from the seat and paid the driver. He set his bag and basket down and watched the driver jog back toward the city. Through the summer haze, the red roofs tricked the eye and seemed to ripple like streams between banks of lush green. Beyond was the copper gleam of the Secure, unconquered and perhaps unconquerable. Beyond all, just peeking over the far right rise of the wall, was a sliver of pink from the Citadel.
“But why am I always the one to put my tongue out to see what’s been pissed on?”
[The world uses you poorly, my liege.]
Fazgood reached down and gave his accomplice a pat on his neck.
“I have a friend I’d like you to meet, squire.”
[Indeed?]
Within the park, the Earl noted that there were more beings that day than before. Also, he was puffing quite a bit from carrying the basket and the bag.
Damn Calzjha to most unfortunate hells! He was –- she was supposed to be carrying these!
He had an ache in his shoulders by the time he struggled to the pool with the moosecrab. The crustacean of note sat on a rock just beneath the wind-rippled surface. The tops of its swept-back antlers and its eyestalks barely emerged the water.
Then Fazgood noted the Adactoid errand child. Fazgood turned and walked into the park quickly.
[Keep an eye out during our work, squire. We are being followed.]
[Who?]
[Our inspector has errand children following us. That Adactoid was across the street this morning. The child must have gotten curious about the bag. That means someone else is around to follow while it poked around in the bag.]
He trotted through the gate.
The Earl walked straight past the Cathedral for the Skywards and into the home of the tremblar. The smell of rain was thick. The wind tossed his hair as he entered.
Behind the hornwood bars, the tremblar lay at the far corner. Otherwise, the room was empty.
I thank you, Zhazh! I thank you, exalted alumni!
He took Warren from his pocket and placed him inside the bag. “If anyone opens it, scream at them. I will return.”
[Where do you go? The rain is almost here!]
“I need a seedcone!”
He dashed back across the courtyard and found a seedcone vendor. He bought two and received his change as a wet wind made the vendor’s parasol spin. The Earl dashed through the visitors looking for shelter and made his way back to the tremblar house. Both weasel and bag were undisturbed.
The Earl paused. He took a deep breath, put his hands out to his sides with finger spread. He fished a comb from a pocket and carefully swept his hair back into place. He twirled the comb and tucked it away.
“Now,” he said.
Warren dashed to the open door and stood watch.
Fazgood plucked the hornwood picks from his pantcuff. With a deft, remembered twist, the lock clicked open. The door was unlatched. He pulled the roll of canvas from the toolbag, opened the door, and unfurled the roll into the pen with a pop!
The canvas opened still doubled-over lengthwise, and snapped out to cover the slope of sand. The Earl pulled the edge of the canvas past the doorway to the stone floor. With his left hand, he fished and scooped the spikes from the bag. With his right, he pulled the skullwarmer from his jacket pocket.
He found the seams between the floorstones, held a spike and hammered the spike through the edge of the canvas with about a handspan of the tough material to spare. Three more were hammered in short order. The tremblar turned his great gray head.
The Earl swung the door open and snatched up a seedcone. He broke off the tip and flipped it to the large beast. The sand around the tremblar trembled, and it glode forward on the vibrations to the morsel. The candy bounced into the animal’s maw.
Fazgood broke off large pieces and tossed them in a line progressively closer to the open door.
Outside, there was a crack! Rain rattled and sprayed across the doorjam.
[The rain lasts two-tenths-of-an-hour, my liege!]
“Come on! Have some tasties, you landslide!”
The tremblar’s appetite for the candy was well-whetted, for it followed the trail up to the canvas. At the material, it stopped and puzzled.
The Earl whistled. The tremblar looked up. Pieces of the other seedcone landed upon the canvas.
The creature lurched forward onto the slope. Instead of slipping back on unsteady sand, the tremblar gained purchase on the canvas and undulated up to the door.
The canvas began to rip around the spikes.
Almost within arm’s reach. The Earl dropped a piece outside the cage door, then another piece just behind Warren. A torrent buffeted his back.
The canvas ripped along a seam. The creature surged forward. The cloth ripped away from two spikes. The tremblar’s delicate lips reached to the piece of seedcone just outside the door.
The canvas ripped from another spike. The Earl swore and lunged to hold the cloth. But the tremblar lurched forward and its bulk landed in the doorway. The brickwalk thundered under it and rose as a cloud of brown dust.
He tossed the seedcone out the door. “Praise all bastard gods!”
Grabbing basket and bag, Fazgood stepped with Warren outside the house.
The Earl tucked Warren into the bag and dashed over wet, shining bricks to the courtyard. The tremblar’s head poked from the doorway, and it roared forlornly at the rain.
Fazgood splashed across the empty courtyard to the crab pool. The moosecrab stood upon the rock. The crab’s pincers were larger than Fazgood’s hands, and sharp. The Earl placed the bag upon the stone pool-edge.
Fazgood vaulted the edge and landed in the water. He swallowed some and choked upon the brine. He surfaced and found himself face-to-eyestalk.
The crab did not move. The Earl took a breath, then threw the blanket over it. He seized it the easiest way possible, around the sides. Clumsily, the crab dragged himself aside as Fazgood pulled himself from the water.
This is mad. This is mad. This is mad.
He tumbled over the edge and grabbed the brown Pathetics robe from the bag. A rush of mist struck his eyes, and the clouds lightened to gray.
Warren leapt back into the bag. The Earl tucked the toolbag under the crook of his arm. He took the basket and tilted it to the pool. He scooped out half of the ice in the basket, crabs and all. He placed the moosecrab atop the ice basket. Joints aching, the Earl shambled for the exit.
There was a burst of glass as loud as lightning, and another roar from the tremblar.
At the exit was a refuse cart. Placing his burden upon it, he scurried to the road.
Do not look over your shoulder. If you look over your shoulder, Zhazh will be there laughing…
[My liege! The sky is breaking!]
At that, there was one last puff of spit-like precipitation, and the rain was gone.
Fazgood quickly scraped ice from the basket and placed it into the toolbag. He buried the antler in the ice, then set two crabs atop it, alongside the kitchen knife and the spices. He shook the loose ice from his hands, grabbed his comb and combed his hair. He picked up Warren and the bag, then limped up the slope to the Amusatorium.
He was tempted to rest and have some tea, but knew he must be gone from Golden Utilities and quickly.
He opened his jacket and Warren crawled into the pocket. He walked through the hedge garden around the upriver side of the great construction, then exited near the Amusatorium entrance. A rickshaw arrived, and the driver looked at Fazgood’s drenched clothes. “Ah! Did you get caught in the rain?”
The Earl climbed inside. “Indeed! Terrible!”
“That happens so often to people!”
As they trundled off, the Earl thought, [Had I needed that basket all the way to the Amusatorium? Such a detail would not have passed me by.]
Then he cried out in despair!
[What is it, my liege?]
[The relish! The damned relish! All of that planning, and I left it in my room! How could I have forgotten? I am unraveling, Warren! I am unraveling!]
To that, the squire could give no comfort.
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