The Truth Spinner

by Rhys Hughes

  “What gives him the right to run an empire?” cried Castor.

  “He’s very runny, that’s what!”

  “I’ll offer him one of my stories in exchange for the train ride. Everybody likes to hear the tales of Castor Jenkins, the Münchausen of Porthcawl. Maybe I’ll entertain him with an account of how I once swallowed an apple pip and for many years had a tree instead of a skeleton.”

  “You define yourself as a Münchausen?”

  “No, no, I always tell the truth. That was a slip of the tongue! Anyway, I have many stories the Gross Fondoo will like to hear, I’m sure. Thanks for the help and good luck with the shopping.”

  “Be careful. The Gross Fondoo is a difficult man to please…”

  “Yes, yes, thanks again! Goodbye!”

  Castor hastened to the end of the Sorbet Glacier where he found the little platform and a wooden bench on which he could rest. Punctual and strange, the Sea Train emerged from a tunnel carved into the side of a mountain. It slid to a halt and Castor entered one of the carriages. It was unlike any train he had known. The sides were made of brine that was somehow fixed in place without being frozen and the floor of the carriage was littered with the lost bangles and necklaces of mermaids.

  The train pulled out of the station. Half expecting an urchin or jellyfish to suddenly appear and demand to inspect his ticket, Castor found it hard to relax and enjoy the journey. It was impossible to see anything through the windows: they were speckled with ancient trapped moonlight. Whenever the train lurched around a bend, the windows swirled and reset in new patterns of luminosity. Castor imagined that bizarre and monstrous scenes were taking place outside the train, but he never got to know for sure.

  He was on the train for almost twelve hours before it finally pulled to a halt in Rysnap’s main station. Castor disembarked and marvelled at his surroundings. The city was vast, modern and intimidating, far beyond his expectations. Nobody spoke to him or even noticed his presence. He wandered around, realised he was penniless and found a quiet park where he could devour what remained of his hiking supplies. He didn’t care to sleep rough in such an unfamiliar metropolis, so he decided to seek out the Gross Fondoo and ask for employment as a raconteur.

  Having just made this resolution, he was approached by two uniformed guards who pounced on him with shackles and carried him to a motor cart. Roaring down the boulevards, Castor had a free sightseeing tour of Rysnap. Mighty towers, massive public sculptures, cheese and cracker restaurants… This city had it all. At last the motor cart stopped in front of a palace and Castor was unloaded and hefted into the presence of the Gross Fondoo, who regarded him with eyebrows like poppy seeds sprinkled above his eyes. His voice was sickeningly sibilant.

  “So this is the fellow who tried to avoid paying the fare!”

  “I’m willing to pay it now, plus a fine!” blurted Castor. “Allow me to pay by telling a remarkably tall story; it is more of a conjecture than a factual account. It’s about the backgammon tournaments of the owls…”

  “Bah!” groaned the Gross Fondoo. “I don’t need another tale teller. I already have an excellent one.”

  And he clapped his hands and roared: “Pollux!”

  Into the room bounded Castor’s identical twin brother. Castor protested in alarm, “But he’s the exact spiritual opposite of me! Surely you don’t enjoy his anecdotes and narratives?”

  “The exact opposite, is he?” crooned the Gross Fondoo. “Does that mean you are a pathological liar?” Then he clicked his fingers and cried, “Pollux! A tale!”

  Pollux Jenkins rolled his eyes, pulled his nose, shifted his weight from one foot to another and began, “Once I was swallowed by an ant, not a giant ant but an ordinary one, smaller than average in fact, and it was a tight fit, especially as I was a hippopotamus at the time…”

  “Enough!” commanded the Gross Fondoo. He turned to Castor. “That short demonstration must convince you that we don’t need another raconteur. You must offer something else!”

  Castor had no possessions and realised he was in a tricky situation. As if by accident he was struck with inspiration. “Why don’t I offer you the town of Porthcawl? I don’t mean as a physical gift, in the sense that the town of Obidos in Portugal was given to the king’s bride on her wedding night. I mean in a symbolic sense. Have you heard of the custom of twinning towns around the world? Rysnap and Porthcawl could be twinned. You would be able to send your young people there for an education, take part in cultural exchanges of all kinds, woo our women…”

  “Very well, I accept this offering,” said the Gross Fondoo. He clapped his hands again. “For the first cultural exchange, I command 10,000 of my fiercest warriors to march on Porthcawl immediately!” He turned to grin at Castor. “I hope Porthcawl is good enough to be twinned with the beautiful and powerful city of Rysnap. If it isn’t, you’ll be in trouble for trying to trick me. Tell me about the charms of your town.”

  Castor took a deep breath. He thought about Porthcawl and its many attractions: the surrounding dunes and golf courses, the enormous caravan park to the east, the rotting funfair, the annual pantomime at the Grand Pavilion (a building with a seating capacity of 643), the grey limestone headlands, the greasy pubs and chip shops, the rain, the rain, the rain, the retired people, the evil seagulls and dogs, the yeasty beer.

  “I’ve got something else to offer you!” he babbled.

  The Gross Fondoo raised one of his peculiar eyebrows. “It’s too late to recall my warriors, but if you want to give me a second gift, I won’t complain. What is it?”

  “Extra salt for your crackers.”

  The Gross Fondoo looked left and right. “Oh yes? Where is this salt?”

  “The Sea Train… If you break it into tiny pieces with hammers, you can sprinkle it over your crackers. The train is made of brine, you see, and it has been proven that sea salt is healthier than rock salt.”

  “Good idea! I accept that suggestion as a formal gift. Well done! In fact it’s such a fine idea that I feel I owe you some change. What can I get you? A packet of cigarettes, perhaps?”

  “I’ve just quit,” replied Castor Jenkins.

  2: Tribulations of the Human Bean

  Castor has seemingly been everything in his time; he worked in a circus and was an ornithologist once; and his knowledge of mythical creatures is second to none. The following pages fill in some of the gaps about all that, and also describe the first time he became friendly with Paddy and Harris during a strange silky and silly adventure in their company. The literary agent who sold this book also has a turn telling a personal story in which Castor just happens to be one of the characters.

  The Monkey’s Pawpaw

  The seaside town of Porthcawl sparkled like the fake jewels on the cheap necklace of a bad actress. But Castor Jenkins and his friends didn’t notice the effect because they were inside it.

  They sat in their usual pub near the broad window that looked over the rocky shoreline; and Castor finished the bowl of crisps that stood in front of him, washed the barbed crumbs down his throat with a greedy gulp of beer and wiped his lips with his sleeve.

  “This is all very peculiar,” he said thoughtfully.

  “What is?” chorused his friends.

  “There hasn’t been a storm for a week. It hasn’t even rained for three days. But we are living in Wales! It always rains in Wales. Can you see that strange yellow ball in the sky?”

  His friends squinted as they followed his finger. “Do you mean the one that hurts the eyes to look at?”

  “That’s called the sun, that is,” explained Castor, “and it’s something they get a lot in foreign countries, even in England; but Wales, Ireland and Scotland aren’t generally allowed to have it. Occasionally, as a treat, it comes to visit; but it never stays.”

  His friends nodded wisely, then Paddy Deluxe said, “I might as well confess that I’m to blame for this. I found a magic charm, you see, on the beach, and I used it to make a wish.”

 
And he reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered shoe with a few limpets clinging to the heel. Castor frowned and inspected it, stroking it with gentle fingers and humming.

  “Impressive. It appears to have been designed for a left foot. But how do you know it’s magic? It might just be an ordinary item of footwear lost by a sailor after evil mermaids tricked him into undressing. Such objects do circulate with the ocean currents.”

  Paddy smirked. “Turn the shoe over. What do you see? It’s the official mark of some ancient water demon.”

  Castor answered, “Yes, you’re quite right. That is certainly the symbol of an ocean-based demigod. Although much eroded his name seems to be CLARKS. I ought to check my grimoires and other books of sorcery later to learn what his attributes might be.”

  “Anyway,” resumed Paddy, “I used this shoe to ensure the endless rain of Wales went away. That’s why there haven’t been any storms or drizzles lately. So I’m the one to be thanked.”

  Castor was just about to congratulate him, with appropriate zeal, when the other friend interrupted. Frothing Harris reached into his own pocket and drew out his own battered shoe.

  “Not so fast!” he objected, as he flung it on the table. “For it seems I’m about to be cheated of my rightful allowance of praise. This is the magic charm I found last week; and I used it to make exactly the same wish that Paddy did. So who is to say who is truly responsible for driving away the bad weather? It might well be me!”

  Castor picked up the second shoe and examined the sole. “It was made for a right foot, but it doesn’t form a pair with the other one, for shape and texture are different; but it does have a magic symbol carved into it, also much eroded, and the name of a rival oceanic demigod, MARTEN. If only I had my reference books to hand!”

  “Or to foot,” wryly commented Paddy.

  Harris asked, “How can we determine which of us was responsible for making the dreadful rain stay away?”

  Castor said, “I don’t use the word blame lightly, but you must share it equally, for when the same wish is made independently on two charms of similar design, the force is multiplied.”

  “Doubled, you mean?” asked Paddy.

  “At the very least,” acknowledged Castor. Then he sighed and finished his beer and seemed much dejected. Eventually, after considerable urging from his anxious friends, he added, “I fear it will never rain again and that Porthcawl will wilt in the grip of an eternal drought and we will be forced to brew our beer from sea water or else perish. By wishing away the rain twice you have banished it forever.”

  Harris frowned. “Are you sure about that? The prognosis is an extreme one and I would like to know what reasons you have for making it. Until I am convinced of my guilt I refuse to feel remorse. I acted in good faith at every stage of the wishing process.”

  “Me too,” said Paddy, waving his shoe.

  “Very well,” said Castor suddenly. “I will tell you a tale about another case of double wishing and you may draw your own analogies. But first I require further lubrication. Buy me a pint and be quick about it! For soon beer will be too briny to stomach except in small doses. Now let me relate the tragedy of a cyclops on a roof…”

  * * * *

  It wasn’t a normal cyclops (said Castor) but a particularly horrid variation properly known as a spolcyc that is more rare and perhaps more evil than the basic kind. In the past century only a dozen have been reported; and the Reverend Richards had the misfortune to be lumbered with a stubborn one that wouldn’t leave him alone.

  I’ll tell you a secret about the Reverend. He never stopped regretting his move to Porthcawl, but it wasn’t his decision in the first place. His bishop had ordered him to come here. At first he rather liked the seaside town; its relative quietness and the sea views appealed to him; and his church seemed a venerable edifice.

  And yes, it is visually a charming structure, that’s for certain, but it had a tendency to attract spooks and monsters. Maybe some former priest was of a sorcerous bent and opened an astral gateway without shutting it later. Let that be a lesson to you! Always close astral gateways securely when you set off exploring spirit worlds.

  And pick up your psychic litter! And don’t light fires!

  Whatever the truth of the matter, Reverend Richards was plagued with more than his share of grims. He had demons popping up behind the pews and even getting stuck in organ pipes; and his bell made a moaning sound instead of a metallic clang, and when he went to check he discovered that the clapper was an inverted skeleton.

  Do you know what a nogrog is? It’s like a gorgon but not quite. In fact it has mongooses for hair and it preys on gorgons. It’s a sort of backwards gorgon. I mention this because every type of monster is supposed to have its own negative version, and the nogrog is the best known of this bizarre subset of mythical beings. Anyway…

  One night during a thunderstorm, the Reverend was roused from sleep by a knocking on his door. He dressed quickly and went down and found himself confronting a group of drenched parishioners who cried, “On the roof. It’s up on the roof. A monster!”

  “The roof of my house?” babbled the Reverend.

  “No, no, the roof of the church!”

  The Reverend was sick of demons and other frights; he wanted only to return to bed, but if he turned his back on his parishioners and they wrote to the bishop to complain of his negligence, as doubtlessly they would, he would be in for a severe reprimand.

  So he snatched up an umbrella and followed the agitated group to the building. The umbrella blew inside out instantly and was snatched away by the wind and sent flapping over the town, ending up in a hidden valley to the west where all lost umbrellas are busy evolving into a new species of crow. But that’s a different story.

  By the time he reached the cursed church he was sodden, bedraggled and alone, for his parishioners had melted away to their own homes one by one, having fulfilled their duty simply by notifying him of the trouble. He sneezed and blinked at the roof.

  It was too dark to make out much, but a black shambling silhouette of indeterminate size was definitely perched on the summit of the tower. It clung there precariously, wobbling.

  A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the scene!

  It was a being unlike any he had ever seen. It was almost spherical and seemed to be made entirely of eyes.

  Yes, it was a spolcyc, the negative or reciprocal of a cyclops. As we all know, the cyclops is a visually challenged horror, possessing one eye; the spolcyc has its own weaknesses, despite its greater observational abilities, being unable to pass through thorny thickets or roll over broken glass. It’s an endangered being for that reason.

  The Reverend repressed his instinct to flee.

  He stood in the lashing rain and wondered what action to take, but the only solution that occurred to him was to fetch a ladder and climb to the roof; he had a vague notion he might be able to talk the spolcyc down. All the same, he wasn’t confident it would listen to him. Perhaps it was stuck fast up there. But how it had managed to get to the top of the tower in the first place? He would be sure to ask.

  There was a ladder in the little shed that sagged its rotting planks in a corner of the overgrown graveyard. This was where the sexton kept most of the tools of his trade; he needed a ladder to climb out of graves once he had dug them. The Reverend picked his way through the damp grass and was relieved to discover that the shed was unlocked. He opened the door and groped around in dusty darkness.

  Finally he extracted what he required, an extendable ladder that at full reach was sufficiently long to take him to the roof of the church. Leaning it against the most dependable gargoyle, the Reverend scaled it rapidly to the guttering and pulled himself over.

  He stood on the sloping roof and gingerly made his way across the wet slates to the base of the tower. The spolcyc leaned over from its perch and watched his approach; being made of eyes it could scarcely do otherwise. With a shudder, the Reverend returned the stare, in an attenuate
d fashion, with his single hazel pair of peepers.

  “Now look here, my good thing—” he began saying.

  Suddenly there was a mighty flash and a deafening boom and with his ears whistling, the Reverend fell backwards, sliding over the slates almost to the very edge of the roof. He shook his head numbly. A lightning bolt had scored a direct hit on the church!

  The spolcyc was shivering like a supersonic jelly, for want of a better simile, and the pupils of all its eyes were grossly dilated; and to his horror the Reverend saw that his own image was reflected in every black pool of unholy perception. Then he shrieked.

  He shrieked with pity for his own tarnished soul!

  We all know how a bright light can create an afterimage and how it’s not unknown for such afterimages to last for many hours. So intense had been the lightning flash that an afterimage of the Reverend had appeared in every single one of the spolcyc’s innumerable eyes, an afterimage that was so deeply burned it was permanent.

  The Reverend realised this as he lay sprawled on the slates. For long minutes he absorbed the implications, then he regained his willpower and dragged himself over the roof to the point where the ladder connected the guttering to the ground, and he descended, rung by careful rung, back to ground level, the spolcyc high above.

  This was a dreadful outcome, the very worst!

  Wherever it looked, the spolcyc would see the Reverend superimposed on any background; he would be perpetually in the monster’s sights. That was truly an unholy and unwholesome fate for his image, and more to the point, his parishioners wouldn’t like it.

  They would associate him, the Reverend, with it, the beast; they would deduce in their narrow-minded way that there’s no smoke without fire, no eyelash without an eyelid, no afterimage without collusion. He would be tarred, thickly, with the unnatural brush.

  The bishop would be furious too…

  Besides which, he didn’t care himself to be constantly observed, even in the confines of an optical illusion, by a spolcyc; it felt blasphemous and icky. He had to find a way of wiping the afterimage away! But how could such a tricky remedy be implemented?