The Cutlers Of The Howling Hills

by Michael Summers

  "That was it," said Indole to Bulkington. "I'd lost my honour. I was a laughing stock. So I snuck over to the Howling Hills and took up the cassock, the spoon and finally the tea towel."

  "Don't you ever want to go back?"

  "Not really," said Indole. "There's a good living to be made out of spoons. I'm not actually quite as miserable as I could be here upon the Howling Hills."

  "You're actually happy like this?"

  "That's not what I said. Anyway, enough about me. What's your story?"

  Bulkington shrugged. "My life was being at one with the Scurrilous Sages."

  "Play much polo then?" asked Indole.

  "No," said Bulkington.

  "Doesn't sound very scurrilous in that case," said Indole.

  "Scurrilousness is a state of mind," said Bulkington.

  "Book of Sages, verse nine, line fifteen."

  "You really were a monk?"

  "Not a very good one," said Indole. "I found out that the monks made a sideline in distilling creme de menthe. One night I polished it all off and ended up asleep in the vestibule with only a half eaten faal to keep me warm. I would have gone unnoticed all through the morning service if it weren't for my flatulence. At least the creme de menthe cured my gingivitis." Indole smiled a bacteriological smile.

  "Let me guess: and your toad was gone."

  "Bingo," said Indole. He sighed in a way that was almost happy - but not quite. "And then here I was: up on the Howling Hills. Look out over the land, for this is truly as good as it gets."

  "The pinnacle of creation?" ventured Bulkington.

  "You've got it," said Indole. "Just be glad you're not part of someone's rockery."

  Chapter 7 - The Coliseum

  There is little to the Howling Hills in winter save for the progression of night and day; the wind is a constant, the cold a leech and the rain a drumbeat. The rhythm of a hundred storm-swollen clouds pours down and down as the sun rises and sets and rises again; the birds swim more than fly and the ground is hardly ground at all, but a pockmarked morass of sponge-like heather and freshly spawned streams. And it is always winter.

  After many days trekking across this barren waste, Bulkington and Indole came to a valley that was larger than the rest. At the bottom of the valley, there was a building, and it did things to scale that made scale look inadequate. Four tiers of stands, wrapped round in an oval, hewn of bricks that looked so weathered that they seemed almost organic. Up ahead there looked to be a doorway, looming out of the structure as though it were the entrance to a snail's shell.

  "The Coliseum," said Indole.

  Bulkington stared with eyes that were long used to squinting through the downpour. "How..."

  "Nobody knows how it was built, or who built it. Impressive. Magical, in fact."

  "What's it for?"

  "Some say that an ancient emperor built it to host fantastic shows for his people. Apparently the crowd particularly enjoyed the bit where several hundred ostriches were decapitated with arrows. The gladiators didn't fare much better. When their heads were in the sand it was usually because their necks were elsewhere."

  "People really liked that sort of thing?"

  "Difficult to say," said Indole. "You see, if you build a bloody great big coliseum people are going to go and sit in it just because it's bloody and big. Gladiators or no, you're going to get a crowd."

  Indole strolled through the entrance. Cautiously, Bulkington followed. They walked out onto a balcony overlooking the arena. It was as quiet as stone.

  "So there must have been a lot of people on the Howling Hills at one point?" asked Bulkington.

  "Why do you think they're so uninhabitable now?" said Indole.

  Bulkington shrugged.

  "The land was probably full of all the grape and grain you could feast on. Then people feasted on it, got strong enough to beat their ploughshares into swords and didn't stop burning and hacking until there was nothing but heather and rain."

  Bulkington looked around the arena. "Why do you think they built it so big?" he asked.

  Indole pointed to the far side of the arena. "Can you see what that says?" he said.

  There was some ancient writing writ large in gold leaf across the marble top of the seating area. Bulkington couldn't make it out so he shook his head.

  "It says," said Indole, "'Marble and gold: more effective than ostriches.'"

  "I thought you said you couldn't read," said Bulkington.

  "I can't, " said Indole.

  Chapter 8 - The Fruit

  At this point it is good to know a little about the teachings of the Scurrilous Sages. Take, for instance, the story of creation. It goes something like this:

  God created the world and he saw that it was good, otherwise why would he create it? He created the heavens and the earth, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea and all the animals that walk the earth. He was pretty good at the whole creating thing, so he created capybaras, fjords and angular momentum as well. He created everything and it was all great, until he created man and woman. But then he ran into problems, because man and woman could be pretty horrible to each other and, in fact, were. They fought and died; they worked the dust day and night; and the serpents of the ground struck their heels. So God built a garden near some rivers, which was guarded by a sword that flashed back and forth day and night. He called the garden Nede.

  There was a man called Mada and a woman called Eve and one day they dove past the swords and into the garden. It was better than the rest of the world, but they knew sin and they knew evil, and they were ashamed. One day they were walking in the garden when they came across a beautiful tree, more beautiful than any other in the garden. Suddenly Mada stopped, and he started choking.

  "What's the matter?" asked Eve, terrified. "Please, Mada, what's wrong?"

  But instead of answering, Mada coughed into his hands a chunk of fruit. He stared at it, puzzled. Then he coughed up another chunk, and another. Eventually his hands were full of pieces of fruit. Mada noticed that they were of the same fruit and he fitted them together. Then he looked puzzled.

  "There is only half a fruit here," he said.

  "Perhaps you only ate half a fruit," said Eve.

  "I can't remember eating anything," said Mada.

  Then Eve looked worried. "I have a taste in my mouth," she said. "It is like apple, only sweeter and more delicious. But I haven't eaten anything."

  Mada looked at the fruit in his hand and then to Eve. "Here, take this half of the fruit," he said.

  Eve took the fruit, and as she did she started to choke. Into her hand she coughed up the rest of the fruit and she fitted the pieces together. When the fruit was whole, she walked over to the tree and pushed the fruit up into the branches.

  "Now the tree is whole again," she said. Suddenly she and Mada felt very happy.

  "It is as though I have forgotten the troubles of mankind," said Mada.

  "We shall stay in the garden forever," said Eve.

  They lay in the grass and the sun warmed them. Then Eve turned to Mada.

  "I've just had the strangest thought," she said.

  "Oh?" said Mada.

  "Wouldn't it be terrible if the whole thing had happened the other way round?"

  The Scurrilous Sages were called scurrilous for a reason, but the excerpt serves to place in context Bulkington's own progress. He had eaten the apple. He had been forced out into a world that was full of misery and death. It had happened the other way round.

  Chapter 9 - Weather

  It was night. On the hillside in front of Bulkington and Indole was a shed that looked like it had been botched together from storm-blasted pieces of board and plastic bags, which indeed it had been; it was held together by nails, staples and pieces of string which made a flapping noise in the wind. The two travellers had been walking since sunrise and were bone tired, so the poor shelter offered by the shed was incentive enough to take a closer look. There was a door, which Indole cautiously opened.
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  "What? What? What?" came a voice from the gloom inside. There was a single candle which levitated high and nearly set fire to the roof as the occupant of the shed held it up half in threat, half in senility.

  "What do you mean 'what'?" asked Indole.

  "I mean what, that's what!" said the man inside the shed. He brought the candle down a little and it illuminated a mouse-like face with a pair of glasses from which it looked like the eyes were trying to escape. The shed-dweller had off-grey hair that fell in disarray over his shoulders and clothes that had a dignified, expensive, leisurely quality to them, or at least would have done three centuries ago. There was the distinct smell of pipe-smoke, which appeared to be issuing from a meerschaum that was still smouldering from the top pocket of a long-suffering smoking jacket.

  "My name's Indole Flux. This is Bulkington. We're looking for somewhere to stay for the night," said Indole.

  "What?" Two eyes boggled from behind the glasses.

  "I said..." started Indole.

  "You can't stay here," said the old man. "Highly important research that will one day transform our understanding of... what?"

  "I didn't say anything," said Indole.

  "...transform our understanding of why the weather's always so bloody awful," continued the shed-bound scientist, tapping a sign next to some complicated looking equipment.

  Noctus Saltum

  Meteorological savant, forecaster of storms, diligent sayer of "what?"

  "That actually sounds surprisingly useful," said Bulkington.

  Noctus nodded. "Very useful indeed," he said, "if I could only get the equipment working."

  Bulkington peered into the dim interior of the shed. Spiders had long ago given up tending the webs that lay like candyfloss on everything, and the half-dark seemed to make everything somehow more distinct in an unpleasant way. All around were brass tubes and complicated looking screens. As Bulkington watched, one of the screens became a mass of jagged lines.

  "There you go!" shouted Noctus. "Another bloody artefact! I don't know where they come from."

  "What do you mean an artefact?" said Bulkington. "I thought that was something you dug up."

  "It means," said Noctus, tapping the screen as if to dislodge the lines, "that this here screen is showing a spike when there is absolutely nothing happening. No lightning, no thunder, nothing."

  "Oh," said Bulkington. "What exactly is it meant to do?"

  Noctus furrowed his brow. "This is a machine for detecting storms. Every time there is a lightning flash in the distance, the fabric of the air is torn asunder and little wave-type-things travel through the atmosphere and down one of the tubes. Then that screen registers the wave-type-things as a series of spikes."

  The screen flashed again.

  "And again!" shouted Noctus. "I don't understand it. I've calibrated this thing a hundred times, taken it apart, hit it with a hammer, everything. Ten years I've been trying it, but still the same old spurious results. And always from the same direction."

  "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" asked Indole.

  The look that Noctus gave Indole could melt lead.

  "Look," said Bulkington, "it's freezing cold, completely dark and lashing down with rain. Lightning would virtually be an afterthought. Can't we just kip on the floor and then we'll leave the next morning?"

  "No," said Noctus, "certainly not."

  "Indole will give you a tea towel," said Bulkington.

  "No I bloody won't," said Indole.

  "You must leave," said Noctus. "I must return to my work."

  Indole shook his head and turned to Bulkington. "Come on," he said. "It's only getting darker outside. Let's go."

  They left and trudged on through the night. Thick clouds fled across the surface of the moon, though the wind abated a little and the rain stopped in the early hours of morning. At last the two weary vagrants reached the brow of the next hill and then Bulkington looked up and stopped.

  "I don't believe it," he said. "We've gone round in circles. It's the same shed."

  Indole looked to the hilltop. "No," he said. "This one's different. Look, it's got a corrugated iron roof."

  Bulkington looked miserably ahead. "Why am I not feeling optimistic?" he said.

  "Enough whining," said Indole. "Hospitality favours the bold." They walked towards the shed and Indole opened the door. It took a moment for their eyes to accustom to the dark, so they heard noises before they could see inside.

  "Ha ha ha!" came a sound from the gloomy interior. There was a tremendous flash and a smell of ozone. Indole tried to smooth down his hair, which had suddenly started to stand on end.

  "What on earth are you doing?" asked Indole.

  "Brilliant!" shouted a short, fat gnome-like man. He had auburn hair knotted in dreadlocks and a wild look in his eyes as he danced round the shed in with a lamp in one hand. The lamp lit a giant dome on top of a pole. There was a steam-powered wheel rotating a belt that whirred round and round. "Good stuff!"

  "What?" said Indole.

  "Not 'what?'," said the man. "'Why not?' is more like."

  "Who are you?" said Bulkington.

  "Volt Macabre," said the man. He tapped a sign.

  Volt Macabre

  Meteorological lunatic, creator of storms, diligent sayer of "why not?"

  "What is that thing?" asked Bulkington, pointing to the equipment.

  "Van de Graf generator," said Volt. "The belt whirs up and down, creates static and then every ten minutes or so there's a bloody great..."

  The air lit up, there was a loud bang and Indole's hair fled upwards.

  "...flash," said Volt. "Brilliant eh?"

  "Any reason?" said Bulkington.

  "Not really," said Volt.

  "And how long have you been doing this?" asked Bulkington, thinking of Noctus.

  "Oh, about ten years now. Why do you ask?"

  "No reason," said Bulkington. "Any chance of some floorspace?"

  "Of course," said Volt, "so long as you don't mind the occasional..."

  There was another flash.

  "Occupational hazard, I suppose," said Indole. He found a piece of floor as far away from the generator as possible and lay down uncomfortably.

  "Every ten minutes?" asked Bulkington.

  Volt nodded. "The ozone's good for the sinuses."

  "Right," said Bulkington gloomily. He curled up on the floor and fell into a deep sleep for nine minutes and fifty nine seconds.

  Chapter 10 - The Path To Avaciggy

  Paths are a form of life. The path on which Bulkington and Indole walked was growing wider and so they knew they must be nearing Avaciggy. They passed a wheezing old crone leading a mule slowly along. She squinted at them from under a mass of haystack hair and smiled.

  "Nice day for it," she said.

  "For what?" asked Indole.

  "Being a wheezing old crone."

  "I suppose you're right," said Indole. "That'd explain why it's a bloody awful day for being anyone else."

  "Of course, the path was shorter when I was a lass."

  "Oh?"

  "Enough to make you wheeze, paths getting longer."

  "Are you sure it's not just your legs getting shorter?"

  The crone thought for a while. "Could be, could be," she said.

  "Are we heading in the right direction for Avaciggy?"

  "Aye, I'm heading for Splutter. You're on the right road. Better hurry up otherwise the path'll be getting longer faster'n you're walking."

  "Sound advice," said Indole, ushering Bulkington past. "Have a nice day?"

  "What do I look like," said the old woman, taken aback, "a crone?"

  Chapter 11 - The Town and Its Centre

  South amongst the paperbark trees, where the narratives grow, through the ribbeting, still gloom, a hoarse breath blew. The first rasps of storm, flickers of long-pent lightning, a below of thunder; then the gale found its feet, the swamp water rippled and waves grew. Toad after toad hopped from l
ogs, from hummocks and tussocks and rocks, down into the safe, treacle-black waters where the storm could only be heard as an echoing chunter and the wind felt only as the swirl of pondweed.

  All around the wind whipped, in great slow circles. Then it gritted its teeth and spiralled in, around the marsh where the toads lived. Round and round it tore, until the howling of the hills rang through the bog. The water sprayed and frothed, and droplets flew up into the night air. A vortex of tearing force touched down, hit the brackish mire and suddenly all was a column of turbulent water, beaten white by the tornado. With a great, ribbetting whirl, hundreds upon hundreds of Collywobbler Toads disappearing high into the night.

  "Looks like foul weather over there," said Indole, pointing to the distance. "Sky like pitch. Still, shouldn't be on us until tomorrow. And look, there's the town. Avaciggy."

  And there it was. It smelt like an ashtray, a smell to make the eyes water. Filter-tip chimneys and pack-of-twenty houses, the sharp smell of a thousand lives. Those lives revolved around tramping out onto the hills, cutting down whatever half-dead tree or bush could be found and lugging it back to shove in the fireplace in order to fend off the cold for a few hours longer. For food the inhabitants ate a mixture of wolves, roots, pigeons, rats and nearly edible mushrooms. These were usually condensed into the form of some kind of pasty which, with a little creative thought, could be considered appetising. The people of Avaciggy were marginally less miserable than they should have been, owing mainly to the latter component of their diet, but also to their ability to maintain a sense of humour even when they were outnumbered by the former.

  Avaciggy was not yet a city due to lethargy, malnutrition and mild narcosis, but it was a town and as such the heart of the Howling Hills. Long ago, it had spawned the culture that had produced the Scurrilous Sages, who had rode out of the gates seeking philosophical stimulation, fresh polo grounds and a temporary abatement of emphysema. They had found the first, despoiled the second and got within spitting distance of the third, when the revelation that the country life was one of hunger and monotony caused them to return to town with dreams of grandeur and a sack full of toads.