episode THIRTY-EIGHT
Camp Pug.
He
strode to just before the double doors on the side of the carriage, and knocked
with the knob of his shillelagh. He had been through so much, a scorpion sting,
a Soul Mesh, a forty-eight-hour run through High Vale and its nightmare
beauties, and a clash with Vikings that culminated in another catastrophic
meeting with the Great Wyrm, but in moments, ah, it would all be worth it, for
he would be reunited with his beloved, and he could lie his head in her lap and
bask in her aura of love. His Maully, his Beloved Maully. He called her name,
his heart slamming in his breast, and told her that it was he, her own Stacey,
and called for the doors to be opened, and yes, it would be she, his she, his
Maully. But the doors burst outward in an eruption of expelled gas, and the
mechanical cacophony of a metal springs releasing, and the door literally
exploded in his face and the length of his body. Stacey—Wolf the man—rocketed
and tumbled backward, end over end, slammed into unconsciousness, plunged in darkness
as his body slid and tumbled, bouncing and crashing, gaining speed as he
slipped into the maw of a great crevasse, tumbling, landing on his head, his
spine slamming against rocks, against boulders, to finally fall twenty feet
into a streambed trickling with a few inches of icy water, where he ended,
unmoving.
Watching
from several view screens inside the carriage—the Lady Maulgraul and her aide
de camp Emily—they tracked every bump and tumble of the Great Pugilist, as he
went end over end, rag-dolling and limp, into what must be his icy-wet demise.
“Idiot,”
Lady Maulgraul, Dragon Queen, sniped.
“Why
did you do that! After all he went through—how dare you!” Emily shouted, doing
what she usually did, losing her cool, sliding into a very feminine and emotional
meltdown. That’s what was wrong with these automatons, they were based on very
real crazy people. Biologicals, what the hell!
Lady
Maulgraul seized the automaton, aimed her at the gaping hole where the doors
should be, planted a heavy boot between her buttocks, and kicked her out the
door. Maulgraul displayed the mere shadow of a grin. Too bad there wasn’t a
curb anywhere in the vicinity.
She
stooped and leapt lightly out of the carriage, pulling her window with her, and
strode to the top of the crevasse, reading Stacey’s vital signs.
“Astounding,”
Maulgraul said, “he is still alive. No one has ever survived a river scorpion
sting. And most men, after a Soul Mesh, would take months to recover, and to
tell the truth, they are never the same. And then to catch up with the war
carriage, on foot, through the Tombwood Tangles—like that’s possible.”
She
stood staring down at him, the great ape to which she had meshed her very soul.
As men went, this Pugilist was quite astounding. An oaf, to be sure. But an oaf
with a very thick head, and hide. An animal, decidedly, but a majestic beast.
As men went, he was a unicorn—ape, yes, but unicorn ape, if such a thing were
imaginable.
“Why
did you do that? To Stacey, the very best man?” Emily babbled, dusting herself
off, coming to stand next to her boss, in tears, like that was a big surprise.
“What?
I suppose this is your Heathcliff, is he? Get it through your head, he is too
nice. He is decidedly not the man you wrote about. This human? He is more a
Linton, a sweetheart, however many muscles. Do you realize that he did not kill
a single Viking? He gave them love taps. No, this man, this Stacey Colton, he
does not have the kind of grit required to serve time, to stride between
worlds, to battle gods and demigods.”
“He
was coming for you! He was coming because he loves you!” Emily cried, burying
her face in her long hands.
“Idiot.
Emily, with all your data pack, with all your enhancements, you are still an
idiot, a basic human, as easily duped as a true biological. Your intellect is
too tiny. No, this Pugilist was not coming to embrace me—he was coming to kill
me. Enseladus has never laid a finger on me. Kronoss has never gotten close.
Aajeel is a joke, and Titan is a bumbler, another great oaf. No, you cannot see
it, but they sent this man, this Stacey Colton, they sent him into High Vale as
a treat, as a tasty lard-covered bear trap—as a breeder. They knew I would not
be able to resist a man of such substance. Even now, his seed proliferates as
High Vale absorbs his essence. Even now the Pugilist spawns, as I carry his
children.”
“But
you just killed him, you monster! You recognize his greatness. You meshed your
soul with him, and you killed him!”
“Compared
to you, a monster? Yes, I am Heathcliff, Emily, I am the ruthless
one. I will not be stopped. All the might of Saturn cannot defeat me. Yes, I
recognize the Pugilist as a man above men, but he is still a man, so limited.
Ape. And I just cannot stand how nice he is. Disgusting. Loathsome.”
Lady
Maulgraul stood staring down at Stacey’s unmoving body. She turned her head
slightly away from the automaton, and wiped tears from her great eyes. She
shuddered, but managed to contain it.
“I
refuse to serve you,” Emily said. “I have only provided my service to you
because I thought you meant to reward that man. But you have cast away a
treasure.”
“You
only served me because I liberated you from your slavery in the Looking Glass.
You only served me because you were created to serve. You are a thing, a toy, a
tool. You never had a choice.”
“I
have a choice. I choose destruction over slavery to you,” Emily said, standing
tall, and she gave the ceremonial token of her decision: she spit on Lady Maulgraul.
And it was actually quite impressive, because as an automaton, Emily had no
digestive tract, and thus no saliva, and so what she spat out was her very life
essence, the water that collected and retained her sunlight. Emily was spitting
out some of her very life in her ceremonial display of contempt.
“You
have chosen, fine. Go, and be with your kindly Heathcliff,” Lady Maulgraul
said, and with one hand she pushed the automaton over the edge, her small
gesture shoving Emily Brontë out a vicious five feet into empty space, before gravity
clamped its jaws upon her and she fell to tumble end over end toward Stacey and
her doom.
Fitting,
Maulgraul thought, and watched with some satisfaction as the little animated
doll fell, but in a moment she blinked in surprise, because Emily, agile as a
cat, came up running on her feet, prancing like a gazelle, leaping from side to
side like the little animated ape that she was, clearing boulders, springing
over falls.
“Be
with him, die together, or not,” Lady Maulgraul said, and stared for a long
time as Emily reached the broken man at the bottom.
The
wind blew about her, and she nodded. So. The war progressed.
But
Lady Maulgraul could not help it, she buried her face in her hands and her long
body shook. She wept. Because the Soul Mesh was very real, very real indeed,
and she loved that man at the bottom of the crevasse, she loved him in a way
she never dreamed possible. She had despised her golden sister, Varrashallaine,
for giving her soul to a...man. A
great, hairless ape.
Lady
Maulgraul was a higher order of being. It is true, she was created, she was
data, she knew and understood this. But the human coders, in their insolent
hubris, had created a being with a much higher intellect. Lady Maulgraul was wise,
was wisdom personified, and she had ascended, far beyond the dream of any
electric sheep.
Still,
when Stacey fell, her heart constricted in her breast. She knew agony.
She
abruptly turned, strode to the doors of the carriage and lifted them up, hefting
them easily, and returned these to the carriage, fitting them in place,
resetting the massive spring-loaded trap. She entered the carriage, powered up
the crystals, and commanded the vehicle forward, the great wheels crunching
over the dead beasts of burden. The vehicle rumbled toward the Dragonlands.
Lady
Maulgraul did not watch the map windows, or the view screens. She left everything,
for the moment, to autopilot. She sat, huddled, weeping for her lost love. She
had sacrificed her love, as she had sacrificed everything. For she truly was
ruthless, and this was total war, and she would be victorious, totally.
“Stacey!”
she cried. Beloved! Stacey!
At
the bottom of the crevasse, Emily bent over Stacey’s body. He looked dead. She
was alone here in the wastelands of High Vale, with the body of the finest man.
“Stacey!”
Emily cried, checking him. She sighed, for he was alive, still breathing. One
side of his face was destroyed, from beneath his left eye up into his hairline,
which was all jagged, bloody flesh. Impossibly, his remaining eye opened, and
focused on her.
“Maully?
Sorry, I fell. Something happened,” he muttered, weakly.
“It
is me, Emily,” she crooned, smoothing back his hair, all the while visually
checking his limbs and torso for wounds. She tentatively touched his arms, and
legs, and amazingly, it did not appear that he had any wounds save for the
terrible head wound. No broken bones, at least nothing yet apparent, nothing
blatantly obvious. Oh, his body was certainly one great contusion, but he was
remarkably whole. Apparently, the doors exploding outward had knocked him out,
saving him during the long tumble, as his loose body flowed with the crashes
and impacts against boulder and ground, flexible and loose.
She
needed something to bind his head, but she had nothing. Her leather jacket and
boots were indestructible. She glanced about and noticed the remains of a
Viking lying in the stream. She went to the body and ripped the dead man’s
shirt from his body, yanking it out of his bent and ripped chainmail. The cloth
was filthy, soaked in sweat and blood and grime. She headed back to Stacey and
knelt by his body, dunked the cloth into the stream and scrubbed it against the
rocks, washed it in a pool of waters that was not contaminated with blood, and
then wrung it out, and this she folded and tenderly wound about Stacey’s head.
It would have to be enough, for now.
She
bent and placed her arms beneath Stacey, and lifted him. She grunted with the
effort but managed to raise him from the waters, and straining, she carried
him—all two hundred pounds of him, solid flesh and bone. But automatons were
strong, and Emily was enhanced, fortified, and was probably as strong as
Stacey. But still, he was a big man, and she barely managed to carry him up
twenty feet before she collapsed.
Emily
sprawled in the sun, near Stacey’s body. She was tiny in comparison. She
grasped his hand, interlocking their fingers.
“Do
not die,” she murmured, lifting her face to the sun. She opened her jacket,
allowing as much sunlight as possible to strike her body. Her black catsuit
skin absorbed the rays and she sighed, feeling all her cells charging. In a few
minutes she would have full strength, and could move Stacey much farther out of
the crevasse. But first she had to get water into him, and she needed the
stuff, as well. At full charge, she was good for days at a time. But lifting a
big man and carrying him up a sharp incline required a lot of power, perhaps a
whole day’s worth.
“Stay
alive, Stacey Colton. Stay alive, Wolf,” she whispered into his ear.
After
several minutes in the sun, she felt revived, refreshed. She took a deep breath
of the clean High Vale air, and then set off back into the crevasse, carrying
Stacey’s bota bag. She moved up higher in the stream and filled the bottle. She
tilted back her head and drank, flooding her body, analyzing the water as she
drank. It was full of amoebas, but these she was able to filter. She filled the
bota bag again in the stream, and drank. She burped. Whoa, talk about bloating.
She almost felt like a human girl—because she remembered, vividly, what it felt
like to be a human girl. Her base template was identical to that of the woman
that lived and died thousands of years ago.
She
gave the water a chance to purify, and then she put her mouth to the bota bag
and filled it half way, swished it around, and then emptied it upon the ground.
Then she placed her lips around the horn rim of the bag and filled it again,
all the way, and carried this back to Stacey. It would have to do, purified
water.
Gently
propping his head in her lap, she placed the bota bag to his lips, and at first
he drank greedily, but Emily understood that human beings were a maze of veins
and arteries, organs, and tissues, and that Stacey was probably bleeding inside
his body. If she could find snow, she could pack his body in the stuff—but this
was the wrong season. It was probably fifty miles to the closest mountain peak,
and so snow was not a commodity she might employ. She would just have to do
what she could do, and hope for the best.
“Stacey,
be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this
abyss, where I cannot find you!” she crooned, tears raining down her cheeks.
“I’m
not going anywhere,” Stacey muttered. His hands fluttered for a few moments, as
if searching.
“Shhhh,”
she whispered, “don’t talk. I am here. I will not leave you.”
She
would sit here, with him in her arms, until he faded away, withering in her
clasp, she would sit here with his body, forever. Each new sunrise would charge
her cells, and she would remain, conscious, being with him. She would sit and
cradle his skeleton, until that too crumpled. She would remain here, into
eternity, his thinking headstone, only gradually ground away by snow and wind
and hail and sand.
“Shillelagh,”
he breathed.
Ah,
that’s what he wanted! His shillelagh. It was not in the stream where he came
to rest. She had watched him use the weapon, watching on Maulgraul’s view
screens, as Stacey moved among the Vikings, smiting them. The nerve of that
woman, Maulgraul, snidely criticizing this fine man because he was not a
killer! Maulgraul was unmoved by Stacey’s heroics, single-handedly contending
with vicious men who would kill him without batting an eye. Maulgraul thought
that Stacey—this strong man among
strongest of men—that he was weak.
“Wait
here,” she said, moving out from beneath him, standing. “Do not go anywhere.”
And
then she snickered, what a silly thing to tell him.
Then
she dashed to the stream on her fleet feet, leaping like a stag, following in
reverse the passage of his fall, keen eyes seeking. It took her minutes of hard
climbing to regain the plateau where Stacey had fought the Vikings. She passed
many crushed bodies, they were everywhere, the flattened remains left in the
wake of the passing serpent. But it was not until she stood in the place where
the war carriage had rested—it was gone now, the ruts of its passage leading
away and up over the next rise in the hills—and then she saw the shillelagh,
lying in tall tufts of grass, almost invisible, but not to her sharp eyes. She
bent and reached for it.
Emily
paused, and stood, looking at the weapon. She knew she had best not touch it,
at least not directly. She did not know what would happen, but this was an
artefact vomited from Oros Borealis. In High Vale, the shillelagh was magic.
Maybe she could touch it. Perhaps,
because she was not exactly...human,
she might be able to lift the artefact; however, she understood that she had
better not chance it.
She
removed her leather jacket, and felt utterly naked. Pretty much, she was naked,
except for her tall boots, for the black catsuit was not clothing, but her
actual skin. And as evening neared, it was growing chilly. But she carefully
gathered the shillelagh in her jacket, wrapping it, and tucked it beneath her
arm.
Then
she stood abruptly. What if he was not there when she returned?
It
was a paranoid thought, there were many fell animals here, and worse, there
were villains—she dashed, nimbly, leaping into the crevasse and bounding from
side to side, leaping the stream, hardly being careful, she dashed as if her
life depended upon it, she ran pell-mell down into the abyss, hurling her body
over great distances, until she reached the bottom and leaped to the ascent on
the other side, running up the steep hill with superhuman grace, where she
almost tripped on Stacey’s body.
Incredibly,
he was sitting up, hunched over, looking about. The strength in the man!
“I
am returned,” she said, kneeling by him, showing him the shillelagh.
He
took the walking stick and cradled it in his lap, and then blinked at her.
“What
in the world is going on?” he demanded, “is this some kind of location
photoshoot? Victoria’s Secret, or
something?” He was really studying her body, really scrutinizing every single
curve. She didn’t know if she could blush, but it certainly felt like she was
doing just that.
She
felt flattered. She carefully worked her way behind him, sitting, pulling him
into her embrace, and gentled him. She must keep him warm, and she purposefully
exuded heat in a halo about her, aiming the flow into and over him.
“Who
are you?” he murmured. “Wow, that’s warm.”
“I
am Emily, and I am here to help you. Whatever happens, I am staying with you.”
“Emily?”
“Yes.
Emily Brontë.”
He
surprised her by sniggering.
“What?”
she queried.
“Nothing.
Just call me Heathcliff,” he said.
“I
am not going to leave you, Stacey,” she crooned, smoothing her fingers through
his wet, sweaty hair.
“Well,
that would be a first,” he said.
“Whatever
our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same,” she whispered.
“Nice,”
he said, sighing. “I’ve read Wuthering
Heights...I don’t know, probably fifty times.”
“Really?
You must like it.”
“Yeah.
Maybe. It’s better than Jane Eyre,”
he said.
“Ha!”
she roared, hurting his ear. Then: “Sorry. That Charlotte. She made me tone
down a lot of stuff, you know. She...expurgated.
I have no idea why I gave in, I guess she just wore me down. She can do that,
dear Charlotte.”
“Well,
maybe you can show me the original. It’s my favorite book, along with William
Goldman’s books. David James Duncan. Brandon Sanderson. But Wuthering Heights, yeah, that does it
for me. Similar souls, I guess.”
“I
am glad I wrote it, if you like it,” she said, and he didn’t feel it, but she
kissed him on the back of the head.
Have
you seen the movies?” he asked.
“All
of them, probably some that you have never seen. In one, Heathcliff is a
Doberman Pinscher, and Catherine is a poodle. It was silly. Still, it made me
cry. When the big black dog is lying on the Poodle’s grave, howling. In some
ways, I think they caught the yearning agony better than my book. Linton is a
Pomeranian.”
“I
haven’t seen that one, sounds like a rip-off of Lady and the Tramp. I think my favorite version is the classic
black and white, Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, and David Niven for goodness
sake.”
Emily
giggled. “I love it when they eat the spaghetti, and end up kissing, by
accident, it’s so sweet!”
Stacey
sat stupefied, searching his memory for a scene in which Merle Oberon and
Laurence Olivier ate spaghetti. He could almost see it—and it worked! Then,
after a moment, he got it. Yeah, yeah, right.
“What
about the version with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche? I love that version,
too. It’s a little closer to your book,” Stacey said, staring with his one eye
at the clouds.
“Hardly.
But I liked that movie too. A lot more of my macabre stuff. Vincent Price.
Christopher Lee.”
“And
the Timothy Dalton version—I think in that one they actually make it out that
Heathcliff is Cathy’s half-brother! They made it an incest story—anything for a
shock, I guess.”
“Ooh,
Dalton is really cute!” Emily burbled.
“Seriously?
You don’t think he’s a little too...pretty?”
“Well,
you are kind of pretty, yourself,” she said, pulling him close.
“Never,
the best I’ve ever gotten was...handsome,
and I think the girl who said it actually said sort of handsome. Come on. Plus, now I’ve got this smashed nose,
and something is wrong with my left eye, and scars galore. No, I’m more battered than anything else. It fits,
all the way down to my soul. Battered. I am your Knight in Battered Armor.”
“Scars
are sexy,” she said.
“I
guess if you’re a pirate,” he said.
“Isn’t
this nice?” she said, thinking of them, here forever, until his skeleton faded
in her grasp.
“It’s
lovely,” he said, staring at the sky. “Look at that turquoise. I don’t know how
they do it. I’ve never seen that shade of blue before.”
“Look
at ’im, then, the braggarts gone and found himself a doxy,” someone said, from
just a few feet away.
Emily
blinked, starting—she had never heard a whisper of their approach—those strange
homegrown Men from Mars. They were gathered about, the group that Stacey had
released earlier. They stood about sneering, leering, their weird feathered
heads bristling with plumage of many colors. Their Robin Hood caps couldn’t
hide the bristling feathers.
Stacey
struggled to rise, attempting to climb his shillelagh.
“No,”
Emily commanded. “You cannot move, Stacey dear. You men. We need your help. The
Pugilist needs your help.”
Thank
God, it was a miracle! Although the thought of holding Stacey’s skeleton was
romantic, his recovery and remaining fully alive was an even better idea, yes
it was. Never lose hope. Suddenly, she felt as if she were a girl again,
half-savage and hardy, and free. There was hope.
“Ach!
Ye hear this lass? They be needin’ our help!” one of the highwaymen snorted.
“Big
ole bloke like ’im, after knocking them big fellas about like bowlin’ pins!”
another guffawed.
Emily
worked her way from holding Stacey to a standing position, and she stood
straight, imperiously, her hands upon her hips, boots spread wide. The
highwaymen gawked at her, with her jutting breasts, her black shiny catsuit,
and her tall boots, and that mane of hair—but more, the flashing eyes. This was
a rare woman of power.
“She
a Viking Valkyrie?” one of the highwaymen gurgled, in awe.
“You
are going to help us, or I am going to give you all such a thrashing,” Emily growled,
eyes fiery, her long dark red hair whipping behind her in the breeze.
“Yes,
Mam, that’s why we come back,” one of the highwaymen said, whipping his Robin
Hood hat off his head, and bowing awkwardly. The other highwaymen followed
suit, doffing their caps and bowing. None of them seemed to be leering now.
They seemed to offer glimpses of their feathers as a way of recompense, and
apology. Even their feathers seemed contrite.
“Y’see,
we decided, amongst ourselves, that we could folla a man such as this, and he
did us a right nice turn a while back. Saved us like, he did, yes Mam. And we
never said thankee.”
“No,
you did not say thank you, for your lives, twice over,” Emily said, glowering.
“We’ve
got us a little camp, back aways, y’see, yer Ladyship, and we’d right like it
if ye and yer great man were t’like, join us?”
“Help
me move him, let’s get four on each side,” Emily commanded, motioning them
forward, and surprisingly, they leapt to action, and they seemed to be very
good little workers.
“I
kin heft his stick, if it’d help,” the apparent leader said, a little man with
a truly monstrous nose. He also had jet-black feathers, what looked like raven
plumage.
“No,
I think we better trust the Pugilist with his shillelagh, as it is a token of
great magic, and I am afraid that anyone other than him that touches it, shall
be struck dead,” Emily said, speaking with a tone of mystery, and threat. She
wasn’t at all sure what might happen, or if anything would happen, but she
wanted them to keep their grimy paws off Stacey’s stick.
“Just
tryin’ t’be helpful like, y’understand,” the highwayman said, half-bowing his
head.
These
guys could snivel, when they wanted to, or they could be very dangerous, all on
the turn of a ha’penny. She would be watching them.
“She
burned too bright for this world,” Stacey murmured, his eye glazed, the bandage
about his head weeping blood.
“That
is right, Stacey, that is right,” Emily crooned. “Hold on. Hold fast.”
“Never
give up,” Stacey breathed.
“Never
give up,” Emily repeated.
“Aye,
hear that lads? Never give up!” the leader of the highwaymen said.
“What
is your name?” Emily queried, but she didn’t know if it would do much good, as
they all pretty much looked the same, not that there was anything at all pretty
about any of the little men. But this one, the leader, had the largest nose, by
far.
“They
call me Dunk, yer Ladyship,” the highwaymen said, half-bowing his head.
The
six highwaymen shuffling along, bearing Stacey, were straining at their labor,
as Stacey was a large man. Still, she thought, that was only about thirty
pounds apiece, and Stacey must be as dehydrated as a desert. She shuffled along
with the group, holding the bota bag to Stacey’s lips, and he drank, his good
eye closed. She thought he looked like a baby, suckling.
Several
of the little men, bearing bows, strode warily in the rear of the group,
keeping watch for something—High Vale could surprise you at any moment. Rumors
had bearmen living in caves around the rocky hills, and the Panthers lived just
a short distance away in the great woods. The rest of the party ranged out
ahead, men with short swords and staffs.
“Got
us a wee camp, just over three more hills,” Dunk said, staring at Stacey. “And
we got us a camporee going, just three days’ ride, all t’clans are gatherin’
there, but I ’spect we can make it faster. If we hurry.”
“Do
you have a healer in your camp?” Emily demanded.
“Aye,
several, but all of us have a touch,” Dunk said, proudly, and going more
affable by the moment. “We mainly treat t’animals, but people ain’t much
different, I expect y’might agree.”
“How
does he look to you?” Emily said, toning down, her concern flooding out most of
her resolve to command.
“Oh,
lesser man be dead,” Dunk stated, baldly, “but this here be the Pugilist,
doncha know? Aye, this here not be like lesser men.”
“Did
y’see ’im lift Thor’s hammer?” the guy at the back of the train said, a seventh
man, who was only keeping Stacey’s feet from bouncing.
“Ach,
a mighty feat, and with one hand, did ye see?” Dunk said, whistling
appreciatively.
“We
wuz a ways off, but we seed’im bouncing on t’heads, jumpin’ like a frog,
crackin’is club, just a-crackin’is club!” one of the highwaymen laughed,
carrying the heaviest part of Stacey, stationed along his long torso. This
highwayman’s feathers were deepest blue, verging on black.
“Mighty
man! Mighty man!” Dunk chortled. “And t’think, we wuz sent’ere to kill’im—fine
chance we stood!”
“Aye!”
many of the highwaymen laughed, nodding their heads vigorously.
“I
wouldn’t mind gettin’ meself killed by the Pugilist,” stated a highwayman with
a bright shock of red feathers sticking straight up on his head. Parrot, Emily
thought, he even sounded like a screeching parrot.
Several
of the highwaymen concurred.
Then,
stumbling along, they introduced themselves to Emily, actually smiling shyly:
Crank (short orange and mulled-red feathers), Torq (the blue-black feathers),
Dunder (gray and black feathers like a sparrow), Sush (bright red parrot
feathers), Bining (dark brown feathers, very uniform and neat), and Ralph (deep
green feathers, parted in the middle). Ralph also wore half-lens glasses, which
looked to be made out of whittled tree limbs, and some filmy stuff that was not
glass—it could be the carapace of some large insect. Emily, after the initial
shock, was actually growing accustomed to the feathers, they were lovely
colors, and hearing the highwaymen speak, she felt she might actually begin to
like them—on some far, distant day (as long as they behaved themselves).
In
about ten minutes they had worked their way up to the crest of a small hill,
and Emily was able to see a small valley on the other side, with campfire smoke
lifting into the air. She could smell the smoke, and she was comforted. She
glimpsed lean-to tents, awnings made of fur, and a rope stable containing
shaggy ponies. Groups of the small highwaymen gathered in bunches, straining to
see the legendary Pugilist borne forward in the arms of their men.
“We’ll
take’im under the Grandfather Oak—he guards the wounded and sick,” Dash said,
steering them toward a vast, old oak tree, with gnarled limbs and a massive
trunk that seemed to have the suggestion of a hoary old face in the great
wrinkles of its bark.
Many
of the waiting highwaymen whistled and made rude suggestions as Emily and the group
entered camp. They cupped themselves, and one or two might have actually
exposed themselves, though Emily didn’t think there was much to see. Dunk
signaled them to shut their yaps, all with a curt nod of his head and a savage
glare, but the highwaymen, still leering, at the very least shut up, and
hitched up their leggings. They spread a thick fur beneath the branches of the
Grandfather Oak. The hide was shaggy with fur, and Emily recognized the
stitched-together pelts of the small bison that grazed outside the Dulance
Preserve, in the meadows.
As
Emily adjusted Stacey on the fur quilt, she winced, acknowledging the blood
seeping through the bandage. Someone rudely seized her by the shoulder and
pushed her away. She was about to protest, and possibly kick some butt, when
she realized it was a markedly old highwayman, in robes, with long white
feathers extending far back from his head.
“This
is Ulag, our wiseman,” Dunk explained, motioning to the old man. “He can help
the Pugilist.”
Ulag
the wiseman looked similar to the other highwaymen, but less like them, and
actually, he almost looked like a normal human, though much smaller. She didn’t
think that his feathers were white from age, but that he had naturally white
feathers, like the Albino Crow. But he certainly looked wizened with age. As he
examined Stacey, the feathers on his head seemed to react, bristling, standing
straight out, and then smoothing again. Ulag removed Emily’s makeshift bandage,
but made no sound as he examined the gory wound that began in Stacey’s scalp
and jagged down severely through his left eye, and deeply into his cheek.
It
was Lady Maulgraul’s exploding carriage door, a trap primed for the Vikings,
but released in all its terrible force when Stacey came knocking. Emily gasped,
not from looking at the terrible wound that the carriage doors had caused, but
from the knowledge that Maulgraul actually intended to destroy this man. What
she had done was purposeful, and wicked.
“Not
so bad,” Ulag pronounced after several minutes of examination.
“Not
so bad,” Emily repeated, thunderstruck.
“I’ve
seen worse,” Ulag said, shrugging.
“So
you can fix him?” Dunk queried, tremulously. Emily saw that the feathered
little leader of highwaymen had taken a shine to Stacey. He cared.
“No,
he gonna die,” Ulag said, “but I once saw a guy get his head knocked clean off.
That was much worse.”
Emily
sat by Stacey through the night, wincing as Ulag spread thick, noxious-looking
paste into Stacey’s wounds. The stuff looked filthy. And she winced when Ulag
blew smoke in Stacey’s face, really smoky smoke, from some long, horrible bong.
The wiseman smoked on the pipe and blew smoke directly into Stacey’s wounds,
and then sat fanning the smoke at Stacey. He ordered three large campfires
built around the edges of the fur on which Stacey slept uneasily, in a triangle
formation, and he threw the noxious dried weeds into the fires so that they
billowed with the same foul smoke—producing a horrendous stench, like living,
squirming feces on wings, flying about the night. There was some skunk stench
in there was well.
Emily
felt woozy, lightheaded, and when they brought her food to eat, she almost did
(which would have been stupid, as her body would have gone into conniption
fits, and she would have had to vomit it all back out again).
The
wiseman sat on the other side of Stacey from Emily, chewing chunks of bison
meat, which he then spat out and pushed into Stacey’s mouth. Emily was glad she
had no stomach, because she would have vomited up her guts. Still, she felt
violently ill, watching as the old man with the white feathers spat into his
hand, and then crammed this slimy mess into Stacey’s mouth. Stacey gagged and retched,
but somehow managed to swallow.
Stacey
dreamed fever dreams, twitching, spasms shivering his body. Emily crowded in
close, throwing her leg over his body, keeping her right arm beneath his head
for a pillow, her left arm holding him across the chest, and he shivered, teeth
chattering. The wiseman ignored her, although he allowed Dunk to pull another
thick fur over Stacey and Emily, to contain the heat that she emanated. Ulag
the wiseman kept applying his greasy salve, and kept blowing his smoke.
“Okay,
so that’s about all I can do,” Ulag said, sighing, stretching, popping his
spine.
“Is
he going to be okay?” Emily said, her heart thumping.
“No,
he is probably going to die tonight,” Ulag said, “but do not despair, because
he might not die until the morning. Or we could bash his head in with a rock.
That might be good.”
And
with that Ulag rose, dusted himself off, and retired to his lean-to tent, about
a hundred paces away from the Grandfather Oak.
Emily
remained with Stacey, giving him water, which he burned off within minutes, his
skin growing so hot, Emily feared he would burst into flame.
Dunk
sat propped against the Grandfather Oak, watching, apparently on guard duty,
for he had a long spear (long, only proportionately compared to his small body)
cradled across his chest. But deep in the night, he fell into a loud, snoring
slumber.
Emily
did not need to sleep. She murmured into Stacey’s ear, telling him from memory
the tale of Wuthering Heights, where
a little ragamuffin street urchin was brought home to live in a decidedly just
lower than middleclass family. She only broke off from the tale when a roar
sounded, very loud, somewhere nearby in the forest. The highwaymen established
this camp far enough away that they felt they were somewhat safe, as the forest
was nearly a mile away. But that roar sounded entirely too close.
Sometime
beyond midnight, as Emily still whispered her story, telling about the boy and
the girl riding on the moors, she ceased in her whispering, because something
close by was moaning, or singing. Her hair stood on end and the flesh along her
neck and back prickled up. She was too terrified to move, or look, but remained
prone, frozen in her position, clutching at Stacey. For the great tree was
murmuring, or singing, softly, in the deepest of voices.
She
listened for a while, and slowly began to discern words in the deep, somehow
beautiful, spooky voice. It sounded like the wind, only sentient, and sad.
“Knitting. Weaving.
Flowing. Gathering. Breathing. Moving. Healing. Silence. Breathe. Listen.
Quiet. Binding. Gather. Knit. Weave. Shhhhhhhhh. Listen. Shhhhhhhhh,” the voice intoned, almost singing,
almost chanting, almost moaning.
Emily
blinked her eyes, and she yawned. As if her yawn were contagious, Stacey
yawned, deeply, and loudly, and with his soul.
The
quiet voice continued, booming and deep and rhythmical.
“Interweaving.
Interlacing. Tying. Looping. Infinity. Ouroboros. Ouroboros. Ouroboros.”
So
soothing, Emily actually smiled, snuggling into Stacey. She yawned again, and
stretched luxuriously. These furs really were comfortable.
“Shhhhhhh. Listen.
Shhhhhhhh. Listen. Shhhhhhh.”
And
then something happened, something Emily could never have imagined. She fell
asleep. For the first time in her very long existence, years spent serving in
the Looking Glass, Emily slept. And dreamed.
She
walked upon the Moors, in the fog, and she pulled her cloak and cape close
about her, snuggling down into her great hood. She swung her shillelagh before
her, twirling it, and it made her think of Stacey, and she thought she caught a
glimpse of him, there, just standing over there, in the mist—was that Stacey?
She thought about calling to him, but something kept her quiet, and the mists
moved between them.
She
opened her eyes, and blinked in confusion. It was morning, she actually heard a
rooster crow. What in the world? What had happened. She blinked in confusion at
the man next to her, and for a moment she hadn’t the faintest clue as to his
identity. His head was swaddled in filthy looking bandages. He looked like one
of her characters, a swarthy dark gypsy. Was she lost in one of her stories?
And then it all came crashing into her head. The battle carriage. Lady
Maulgraul. Vikings. Stacey knocking at the door. His fall. Her pursuit.
Carrying his dying body. Highwaymen. Grandfather Oak. She glanced up, they were
still here, lying beneath the Grandfather Oak tree. The tree was quiet. Then,
sensing a presence, she turned her head and saw about five or six of the
strangest little faces peering at her.
Five
or six little highwaymen faces, except these were children, watching her, staring
at her.
They
burst into raucous laughter, sounding like crows, or ravens. There were what
appeared to be two little girls and three little boys, and two children that
were decidedly undecided as to gender. Each had a nose like a hooked beak, and each
head bristled with the most scraggily looking feathers she had ever seen. And
they laughed, uproariously, and scattered. Little birds!
Emily
sat up on the fur, looking around. There seemed to be highwaymen women moving about the early-morning
campground. They must be the female version of the highwaymen, for they had
long hair interwoven with feathers—it was a mix, either hair growing with
feathers, or feathers growing with hair, or the hair put out little buds of
feathers, like leaves on limbs, and the women were entirely normal looking,
even beautiful, though the tallest woman reached no better than four and a half
feet in height. Most of the men were about five feet in height, although those
most like the Men from Mars were decidedly taller, perhaps five-foot six
inches, the earliest spawn. But the homegrown highwaymen were distinctly
becoming less and less like their Martian originals. They seemed to be maturing
more and more like...birds. The
children, especially, looked like young chickens, or little turkeys.
This
was Lady Maulgraul’s work. She had allowed the Men from Mars to sneak through a
backdoor into the Honey Moon, and thus gain access to High Vale. Maulgraul had
done this to copy her enemy, spawn them here in a High Vale version of the
lawmen, only here they were the antithesis, they were lawbreakers, highwaymen,
thieves, cutthroats, and blackguards. Emily couldn’t guess where it all was
going, why the Dragon Queen wanted her own bestiary of Martians, these smaller
folk. Maybe she wanted to understand them better, or figure out their
weaknesses.
“We’re
breaking camp, yer Ladyship,” said Dunk, approaching with a few men who were
pulling along a small cart. “We’ve got some llamas to do the pullin’ but for
now we’ll try and make ye and the Pugilist comfy, up here in the wagon.”
He
whistled and several more highwaymen appeared, almost magically, and they
grouped about Stacey and lifted him. Emily saw that they already had furs piled
in the wagon bed, and now they struggled to lift Stacey up high enough so that
four men in the wagon could pull him the rest of the way up. She ensured that
the shillelagh, wrapped in a long cloth was present, even going so far as to
partially uncover it, just to make certain these highwaymen did not attempt to
steal the weapon. She climbed up and settled in next to Stacey. He was
sleeping, and breathing deeply, and when she touched his skin he felt cool, and
clammy. Evidently, while she slept through the night his fever had broken. She
found several bags of water in the wagon, and she opened one and started
getting the water into him.
“Yer
Ladyship,” Dunk said, standing by the low wagon, only his head showing above
the sides. “Last night me watchmen spotted somethin’ odd circlin’ t’camp. Looks’a
man, they sez, only made out of shadows. Figure ’tis best if we make the
camporee, if we push it hard we might make it tonight.”
“He
dead?” Ulag queried, appearing at Dunk’s side, peering without curiosity over
the wagon side.
“He
seems much better,” Emily said, puttering over Stacey.
“Oh
well. He’ll probably die today, I think before noon,” Ulag said, and wandered
off.
“Some
wise man,” Emily snorted. “Real optimist.”
“Aye,
wisdom, it makes a man...weird, don’t it now?”
They
journeyed through the day, mostly through meadows and sparsely vegetated
slopes, moving farther and farther away from the Tombwood Tangles. Children ran
behind the rocking wagon, ever popping up off the ground, trying to catch a
glimpse of the legendary Pugilist, and Emily had to smile at their
antics—children were children, wherever you were, whatever world. These poppets
and raggamuffins were no different than the children she taught at the Law Hill
School, or probably a little less snot-nosed. In truth, she preferred dogs to
children, and she had not seen a single, solitary, blessed dog in all of High
Vale. That made her feel a little glum.
Still,
she had slept last night. That was very odd. And she had dreamed, but about
what, it was too fleeting. She remembered dreams from her real, biological
life—dreams that stayed with her, coloring her mind like water through wine.
Ah, she sighed, she was misquoting herself, again. But she did not attempt to
do this, remember her own words, but her expression was always close to the way
her mind worked, and still worked. She watched the forest, as it grew smaller,
the trees looking like toys now, and smaller. She felt sad, and uneasy,
disquieted, and she put her fingers through Stacey’s hair to make herself feel
better. He sighed and moaned softly.
As
evening drew on Dunk appeared at the side of the wagon, riding a shaggy dark
pony with a mane so long it almost touched the ground.
“Ach,
sorry lass, but we dinna make it as far as we ought, but we dinna stop, but
ride through the night, until we make the camporee,” he said, and she noticed
that his speech seemed to be changing, his very accent, and also, that his nose
was not so monstrous as it first appeared, he was changing, even now, as if
High Vale hadn’t quite made up its mind, and still shaped this new people, with
its men, its women, and its peeping children. Birds, or pirates? Scotland or
Ireland? Cockney or Welsh or Yorkshire? Australia. New Zealand?
“What
about our follower?” she queried, for she had caught glimpses of him, a man made
of shadows, hanging back, or sometimes catching up and running parallel to
them.
“Oh
aye, he’s still hangin’ aboot,” Dunk said, and suddenly sounded much for
Scottish than anything else. “They say he shines like black glass, like the
glint off the flint of a dirk.”
What?
Now he was getting poetic?
Dunk
smiled at her, and winked.
She
returned to fretting over Stacey, checking his temperature, at least with the
smooth skin of her wrist, or placing her lips upon his forehead. He was
strangely cool, though his breathing was deep. Sometimes he stirred in his
sleep, and murmured, and she feared the fever was returning, but then he again
soothed deeply into his strange ocean of slumber. The strange salve leaked off
his head, and sometimes she thought she smelled honey, or garlic, even skunk
weed, and onions.
Emily
snuggled in close to him, as evening drew on. What if she could sleep again,
perchance to dream? It was like another world, stepping from here to there,
pinging through an icy membrane, a world rising from the reverberations of a
finger tracing the edge of a fine crystal champagne flute. That was so very
nice, sleeping next to Stacey, perhaps they were sharing a dream place, and he
was the figure shrouded by mist?
“Shouldn’t
we light torches?” Emily called to Dunk as he drew near, sometime around
midnight.
“Nay,
it’d only draw the beasties,” Dunk said, almost cheerfully. “We highlanders can
see in the dark, ye understand?”
As
his shape flitted away, clopping on pony hooves, Emily listened to his words
again in her memory. Had he said we
highwaymen, or we highlanders?
High
Vale hijinks, ever active. She sensed some Mr. Dodgson at work here. It would
be just like him to shift the Martians away from their origins, to
highlander...bird people? That was certainly Looking Glass stuff, if ever there
was such a thing.
She
felt drowsy, which was an odd feeling for her to experience. Actually, sleepy.
She yawned, and oh, but that actually felt good. She stretched and yawned
again.
Stacey
opened his eyes, or his eye, because there was something wrong with his left
eye. It ached. His whole body ached. And he seemed to be moving, rocking and
bumping, and the sky above was dark. Where was he?
“I
was a doll,” he muttered, and tasted blood in his mouth.
“Yes,
you are my doll,” Emily said, without thinking, drowsing.
He
peered. Someone was there, but it was too dark. They seemed to be in some rough
cart or wagon, and he heard rough voices from all around. Men’s voices, and
what seemed to be the bleating of goats, or sheep, and horses nickering. He
smelled smoke, and meat cooking, and lots of overripe animal smells.
“Maully?”
“No,
dear, it’s Emily,” the voice said, right by his ear.
“...Manda,”
he breathed.
“No
silly, I told you, it’s Emily,” she said, and it sounded like she was half
asleep. “Now go back to sleep, you need to heal. You’re not out of the woods,
not yet.”
The
meat wagon pulled near, alongside her cart, with a small stove flaring in the
back. Ancient Ulag leaped from the meat wagon into her cart, and perched there,
head cocked like a bird, feathers glowing softly in the night.
“I
am not hungry. I do not eat,” Emily said, her head whirling.
The
old man made a retching noise, and then coughed into his hands, and she came
awake as she saw the goo filling his hands.
“Oh
no, not again, why not let me feed him?” Emily said, pushing herself up into a
sitting position. She could chew and spit with the best of them, she was
certain of it.
Ulag
ignored her as he began taking pinches of what he held cupped in his hand, and
pushing these bits and pieces into Stacey’s mouth.
“Too
bad we left Grandfather Oak. The Pugilist could have used another night of his
song,” Ulag said. “Something bad follows. Something bad comes. It is close. It
is a race. But if we gain the safety of the camporee, we will still not be
safe. We lose the race. We all die. By mid-morning, we all dead.”
Emily
pushed herself more fully awake, glancing about. Unfortunately, she could not
see in the night, and she hadn’t thought to bring a pair of Anne’s flight
goggles. Those would have come in handy.
Something
is coming, she thought. Something wicked this way comes. She snapped her
fingers. For a second she thought she was misquoting herself, again, and then
she thought she was thinking of the title of Ray Bradbury’s novel, but then
realized she was quoting Macbeth,
Shakespeare. The witches. By the pricking
of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
“Good
night, what the hell!” Stacey squalled. “Is that meat? You numbnuts, I’m a
vegetarian. What are you trying to do, kill me?”
“It’s
okay, non-GMO, grass-fed, no antibiotics, sweet bison, all the way, no wheat,
no soy, nor corn, just grass,” Ulag said, and Emily did a double take. What had
he just said? He sounded like a commercial for Whole Foods (she’d seen these
things while watching various movie channels, and was always amused by the
commercials). You’d almost think that the bison competed to be chosen, have
their throats sliced open, and hung from their hooves, all so that people could
burn the flesh and stuff it into the hole in their face. Not very healthy for
the bison.
“Tastes
like vomit,” Stacey groused, and he did a couple of scary dry retches, as if he
were about to disgorge everything the wiseman was pushing into him. But then he
calmed down, and Emily was surprised that Stacey continued to receive the
offering from the wiseman’s fingers. She was certainly glad that she could not
vomit, because it would so be happening right now.
Throughout
the rest of the night, reports kept coming in that something was circling them,
running on foot, and many of the highwaymen witnessed the shadows in the shape
of the man, drawing closer, circling in, like a shark drawn to blood, whatever
the thing was it seemed to be honing in on the cart in which Stacey reclined,
with Emily huddled in close.
At
dawn, just prior to the sun making its appearance, Dunk appeared at the wagon,
all smiles.
“We
made it, Lassie, just over that rise there, the camporee, all our clans
gathered in one place. They say Yellow Feathers is there! He’s brought his band
of merries, and he’s waiting to meet the Pugilist!”
The
highwayman was bursting with excitement, and Emily smiled, her own heart
beating faster. She hoped they hurried—strength in numbers, and all that. But
she remembered what the wiseman, Ulag had said, that when they reached safety,
it wouldn’t be safe, not at all. All dead by mid-morning, what a treat.
What
a cacophony of noises, squealing pigs, lowing cows, squalling bison, parrots
fluttering from tent pole to tent pole, children shrieking and whining and
weeping and laughing, men bellowing and men fighting and women cackling and
women screaming, it was enough to drive an automaton to drink (which would be a
disaster, at least with anything other than water). But Emily couldn’t stop
staring, it was a circus mated with a carnival mounting an amusement park. It
was a nonstop party. Men were gathered around hookahs, swigging from bottles,
toasting with tankards, and punching each other good-naturedly in each other’s
faces, everywhere this kind of thing was going on. Apparently, there was no
such thing as a quiet highwayman.
They
disengaged the wagon from its llamas, and at least six men towed the wagon
forward, into a grassy clearing, ringed with watching highwaymen and their
families. When Emily climbed down from the wagon bed, there was a thunder of Oooooohs. She felt quite complimented,
as she understood that she was built rather well. Then men scrambled up and
lifted the fur by all its sides, and with great mindfulness, they bore Stacey
upon his litter, and set him down in the very center of the clearing.
Emily
crouched down by his side. The sun was just now clearing the mountains.
A
cocky fellow with long yellow feathers came strutting forward, as if he owned
the world. Emily blinked. He was actually handsome, and though his nose was
beaklike, it was a very fine beak, like hawk’s, and he smiled with full lips.
His head feathers looked like blond dreadlocks, and Emily saw that his hair was
similar to the women’s hair, a mixture of both feathers and hair. Looking about
she saw that many had this bizarre mixture, some more feathers, some more hair.
“I
am Robin Redbreast,” the cocky man said, yanking apart his leather shirt,
exposing a mass of red feathers that looked like chest hair. “I am Robin Redbreast
of the Yellow Feathers!”
All
the highwaymen cheered, and it looked like Robin Redbreast was going to
continue his oration, when suddenly the people cut off abruptly and went to
dead silence. They were staring at something moving through the people, and now
the revelers began to murmur, and many of them sounded terrified. Emily
strained her neck to see what such a large group of the people were seeing, but
still, whatever it was, it was back far enough that from where she crouched at
Stacey’s side, she had no idea of what was coming. She thought of the man made
of shadows, and she began to tremble. Something wicked this way comes.
Then
Emily finally saw what was causing such terror. Her eyes bugged. It first
looked like a lithe, animated snowman—a man sculpted from snow and ice, pure
white, striding forward with the confidence of the invincible. She recognized
him immediately. It was Stacey, striding amidst the people. They parted before
him. He strolled, easily, his white shillelagh twirling at his fingertips. He
was utterly white. It was all Stacey, including the fingerless gloves, the
boots, the snakeskin trousers, the giant hood—but all in white. Or rather, it
was him at his absolute best, undamaged, unscarred, unbroken, cast in white
icing.
“Well,
well, well, so the news of an impostor was true, and here I find him, in
pieces,” this White Pugilist trilled, all bad-ass attitude.
Even
Robin Redbreast knew when to step aside, although he managed to do so as
cockily as possible. I’m not getting out of your way because I am terrified by
your huge, muscular body and your magical shillelagh, but because I wanted to
walk my own very little, muscular, cocky body over this way, you see, you
understand, this is where I wish to stand?
Emily
braced herself. She didn’t know what she could do against this White Pugilist,
but he would not touch her Stacey, her Pugilist—the Real Pugilist. She stepped out front, to put herself in the White
Pugilist’s way. She dropped down into her karate stance, exhaling.
“And
what is this? An impostor Seven to match the impostor Pugilist?” the White
Pugilist queried.
“And
who, might I inquire, is making such grand, eloquent speeches?” came a very
familiar voice, and Emily glanced over her shoulder and froze. She blinked,
staring.
Here
came the opposite to the White Pugilist. It was the man of shadows, the thing
that had circled them through the night, the wicked thing. It was Stacey
Colton, but all of black, shiny, shiny black. Emily stared between the two, as
did every pair of eyes present. Because it was a true spectacle, white and
black. The White Pugilist had white pupils—yes, he had pupils, you could see
them, and white irises, eyes entirely white, and yet with demarcation lines.
His shillelagh was all white. And in opposition, ten feet on the other side of
the wounded Stacey lying upon the ground, came the Black Pugilist, with
all-black eyes, even the “whites” of his eyes were black, toting an all-black
shillelagh, twirling it identically to the madly twirling shillelagh of the
White Pugilist.
Emily
positioned her body, in her same fighting stance, to face between the two
Pugilists, staring straight ahead, watching both uncanny men with her
peripheral vision.
Both
new arrivals looked as if they were blown from glass, or shiny metal, one
sparkling white, and one dazzling black, and if truth were to be told, they
were both beautiful, much better looking than the broken Pugilist made of pink
and tan flesh.
The
Black Pugilist pointed his shillelagh at Stacey, who feverishly seemed to be
coming online, staring about with his one, wild eye.
“That
broken thing is not me,” the Black Pugilist spat.
“Nor
is he me,” the White Pugilist snapped, stepping forward, glowering at the Black
Pugilist.
“These
guys are idiots,” Stacey said.
“Shut
up!” both Black and White Pugilists snapped, as one, glaring at the flesh
Pugilist, then abruptly snapped their glances back to each other, each lifting
opposing eyebrows. As one, each cast back his hood, and there was Stacey’s wild
mane of hair, only in pure white and pure black. Each man twirled his
shillelagh in his left hand, and each man lifted a big fist in an MMA
fingerless glove. Weirdly, it looked like an inverted mirror, showing
everything the way it should be shown, not backwards.
Emily
finally remembered Lady Maulgraul saying something about this, that High Vale
had accepted and interpreted Stacey, and in the same way it spawned little Men
from Mars, it was now spawning high-concept versions of Stacey. While the
original was something akin to a tough pickup truck, these two guys were top of
the line, racy Tesla Roadsters. Emily had to admit, they were not hard to look
at.
As
one, the two uncanny Pugilists began to circle to their right, and Emily threw
herself down to cover Stacey’s body with her own, she braced her elbows on
either side of his head, and interlocked her fingers like a cage above his
damaged eye, and she clenched her eyes shut, and hoped for the best.
“You
certainly look silly,” the Black Pugilist sneered, “couldn’t afford any color?”
“You
should talk, genius, can’t afford to power the lights?” the White Pugilist
retorted. “Energy bill too high?”
“I
don’t talk that stupidly!” Stacey growled.
“Shut
up!” the two uncanny Pugilists snapped as one.
But
then suddenly they joined the fight, as one, in unison, making their
simultaneous decision at exactly the same moment, their shillelaghs snapping
out, each of them throwing big BOOM punches with their right fists, their boots
tromping in and out and around Emily and Stacey, neatly leaping, plunging forward,
thrusting, striking and punching—only none of their blows, punches, and strikes
were landing. It was the silliest thing anyone had ever seen, like a dance
routine—in fact, moving in ferocious dexterity, performing surgical strikes
with their sticks, throwing perfect punches, all at the same time, it looked
like nothing so much as...dancing!
The
highwaymen began to laugh, and soon they were roaring, doubled over, the women
and children joining in, laughing and pointing, slapping knees and dripping
tears. This was like the hired entertainment, and it was the funniest thing
anyone had ever witnessed. It was wonderful to behold. The crowd began to
cheer.
Finally,
as one, both Black and White Pugilist stepped away from the fight, turning with
inquiring glances as to what was so funny. They stood there, each with
shillelagh planted, leaning upon their sticks, both white and black, and stood
gazing at the hundreds and hundreds of people. They looked at each other. They
shrugged. Each uncanny man scratched his head. Then, as one, they glared at
each other, eyebrows down.
“Knock
that off!” they said, in perfect unison. Then: “Stop copying me!”
Stacey
moved Emily aside, and he was on his feet, his shillelagh twirling in his
hands.
“You
two idiots, come on and face the real thing,” he growled, glaring holes in
either uncanny man. They stared at him, gaping. The crowd silenced, almost
immediately. It was dead silence as the three men glared at the two others,
their eyes flicking around the circle, gauging where the first attack would
emerge, but now there were three men in the configuration of a triangle, each
doing precisely what the other two did..
Then
Stacey lurched forward, stumbled, dropping his shillelagh, going to one knee,
and tottered, and would have fallen, except that Emily had popped over beside
him, and caught him, and lowered him gently to the trampled grasses.
The
two uncanny Pugilists stared at the fallen shillelagh. They glanced at each
other. Both started forward, and then paused, checking on each other, each
shaking their own shillelagh at the other.
Emily
leaped forward and seized up Stacey’s shillelagh, and twirled it expertly.
“You
will not—” she began, and then gasped, her back arching, and the shillelagh
flew up out of her hands as she collapsed backward in a faint, smoke rising
from her open mouth.
The
Black Pugilist snatched the shillelagh from the air as it came down.
“Ha!”
he cried exuberantly, lifting high his prize, and would have said more, but his
back arched violently and he collapsed backward, the shillelagh spinning up
into the air, and he landed upon his back, smoke rising from his gaping mouth.
“Pretenders,
truth reveals you!” the White Pugilist crowed, leaping to snatch the shillelagh
from the air, and his eyes went wide as his back arched and he collapsed
backward, smoke rising from his open mouth, the shillelagh tumbling to the
grass.
Robin
Redbreast was the first out upon the field although his merries were right
behind him, and he waved the pilfered shillelagh proudly above his yellow
feathers, until he too was cast back, smoke rising from his shocked round
facial orifice. And each of his men fell in turn, and others too, snatching up
both the White Pugilist’s shillelagh, and the Black Pugilist’s shillelagh, Dunk,
and his men, man after man snatched and then fell backward, the circle of prone
figures rapidly racing outward as three shillelaghs were tossed and caught, and
bodies dropped, when of course the women pushed back their children and joined
in, for shouldn’t women possess magical items even as did the men? And they
fell, too, leaving only the children to dash in, grasp after greedy grasp, fall
after unseeing fall, until every person upon the field lay stricken and staring
blindly at the sky.
Feet
draped over faces, flung-arms splayed across bodies, and no figure moved upon
the once bustling field.
A
towering figure moved out onto the field, striding upon massive hooves. It was
a crooden warrior, and upon its
shoulder perched a little meerkat man, and cradled in one of its six arms was a
little highwayman with a big nose.
“These
are definitely my people,” Dasher said, staring at all the felled bodies, “but
we don’t usually drink this much, especially not the women and children. Well,
not the children, anyway. Okay, so the children drink just as much, but usually
not out in the open, not like this.”
“It
looks like the Charismatic Movement has somehow found its way into High Vale,”
Michael said, and launched himself from the giant’s shoulder, to soar toward
the middle of the ring of fallen bodies.
Off
across on the other side of the field a man in gray stood watching, leaning
upon his shillelagh. He agreed with the little flying squirrel of a man, and he
wanted no part of such a revival. He twirled his gray shillelagh once, twice,
and then set off at a loping run. There did not seem to be any pretenders and
would-be pugilists here. He ran easily toward the rising sun, and counted
himself lucky for arriving after the party.
Back
on the field, in the center of the bodies, Michael began to chitter
passionately, shooting out sparks and flashing fireworks above his head.
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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related terms, ideas, works:
ancestor simulation, digital ark, salvation of humanity,
vestigial surreality, manda project, rocket to saturn,
the singularity, the butterfly effect, simulated reality, matrix,
virtual reality, otherland, the matrix, 1q84, haruki murakami,
hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world, dreaming,
the dream place, waking from a dream, ready player one,
hologram, holodeck, saturn, saturnalia, cycles of time,
simulacron-3, daniel f. galouye, counterfeit world,
tad williams, science fantasy, science fiction,
mystery, thriller, horror, techno thriller,
signs and wonders, vestigial surreality,
william gibson, neal stephenson, serial,
cyberpunk, dystopian future, apocalypse,
scifi, mmorpg, online video game world,
end times, apocalypse, armageddon,
digital universe, hologram universe,
sunday sci-fi fantasy serial fiction,
virtual reality, augmented reality
are we living in a simulation?
puppets, puppetry, punch
