Nowhere Near Milkwood

by Rhys Hughes

  Not that I'm in the habit of admiring such items of lingerie when I try to peer up skirts, but this is the modern age and boundaries keep on sliding. Can't be halted or reversed. Fly with the times, is what I say, at least now — when I was Prefect of Police I'd rather say arrest them! Clobber those upstart times! Lock them in a clock! That is because I was basically unhappy, a fretful cog in the diseased machine of society. The story of my life was a novel whose missing chapters included empathy and kindness and tolerance. Quite a blank tale really. Won't say I've caught up with my humanity, or made up for lost time, by voyaging this world in baskets, but some of the frustration has flaked away. O! the hot zephyrs of Khyor! Plus its perfumed cheese!

  Just let me roll this smoke, finest Qtiztowf resin, don't you know, and I will proceed with my yarn. That's better. Light it from the engine above my head. The old sugar doesn't mind my drug habits, partly because his nostrils deserted in the trenches of the second Garlic Offensive and he can't smell the pungent dream, so he doesn't know what I'm doing. Not that he's an intolerant sort anyway. The nicest military man I've met in a long while. The Top Zincs in the offices are the unimaginative idiots, not the soldiers in (or above) the field. Consider the zoetrope reels of the Liliaceous Wars. They're all puffing parsley, grooving to Psychopomp Rock, mostly Jammy Cockrix and Joe Henner. No need to worry. Mauve haze, whole in my shoe, voodoo chilblain.

  Guess I'm rambling, mind as well as body. Listen up then: it was in the orchards of Lubbalouana that the President came back into my life. I had almost forgotten him, but I still recalled his parting insult before I left the Capital. So I could visualise the words but not his nose. The strings on my mandolin were sighing softly. My socks were maturing, hole and rind, perfect for grating. Everything was mellow ochre, as bald coat singer Pegg Donzelcart might say. Not that he ever did. Too busy cooking green kebabs on his 13-string catarrh — traitor! Anyway, those orchards are the main source of the planet's plums and limes, which is heavy news for twigs, and it was impossible not to impale a thousand or more on our spikes as we pushed gently through.

  However, once clear of Lubbalouana I realised the way the fruit was aligned on our armoured canopy wasn't random. Reading them from the top, a message was apparent. Each plum represented a dot, each lime a dash (a dash of lime is also good in overproof rum) in Morose Code, the glummest genre of encryption known to telegraphites. It was obvious the trees had been planted in a deliberate sequence to ensure this communication. Only the President has enough free time to bother with something so elaborate and unnecessary. Leaning out of the basket and craning my neck upward to read, I understood he was summoning me back to his tower. That is all he ever writes to me for, even on my birthday. The plums and limes demanded my instant return without a please.

  "The blasted arrogance of the man!" I grumbled.

  My impulse was to ignore this message. Though I couldn't tear it up and cast it away, I might drink the juice of its individual letters. But a second reason for ignoring it was that it was impractical to obey. The realm of Lubbalouana is half a triangular globe away from the Capital on the Isle of Chrome, and a balloon must travel at the mercy of the winds, even powered examples such as ours.

  Smug musings on this fact were interrupted by a deep hum, the sound of another engine, hidden in the clouds. It wasn't a balloon, for it was travelling too quickly. Then it emerged — a biplane made of stiff card, with pictures on its wings. A propeller whisked the mists. And seated in the front cockpit was Satsuma Ffroyde, my acidic deputy, with his pitted forehead and eyes peeled for facts.

  He sneered at me: "Pipped at the post, Titian!"

  "Segmented lackey! What are you doing here? Nobody from the Station may pick me up except Lola Halogen, who never does. The Code of Leverage prohibits it, page 78, fulcrum 43."

  "President's whim. Jump over."

  "I might fall and become destructed far below."

  "The wings predict you won't."

  Something in his voice convinced me, for I gripped the old sugar in a farewell hug and said: "I'll be back as soon as I can to continue this adventure. Consider my absence a parenthesis to my wanderlust. I plummet down to establishment values in order to return to their converse with a fresh vigour. It has been so long since I was a stooge of the government I've forgotten what I'm rebelling against. My memory and rage need to be flexed again to keep them healthy."

  "A diet of figs," he croaked in unfathomable reply. He didn't truly care about my companionship, so I balanced on the edge of the basket and flung myself into the rumbling sky.

  I span as I fell and Satsuma piloted his biplane under me. I landed in the rear cockpit, bruises hatching on my legs. Then my deputy giggled and banked his machine to the west.

  "Full speed for the Capital!" he announced.

  "Exactly what sort of aircraft is this? Why is there a picture of a monk on the upper left wing, that of the sun on the upper right, and two coins on the lower left, not to mention eight swords on the lower right? A rather elaborate set of designs."

  "It's a Tarotplane. The pictures change to predict engine problems, adverse weather and other trouble."

  "Did you invent it, you scurvy antithesis?"

  "It was unearthed during recent excavations of the tomb of Nitrogen Parsley. At this moment the wings prophesy that we'll land safely in ten hours or so, although we can expect reproaches and arguments on the way. I suggest we get them over with now, you vile subhuman, to save time. Do you use vole-oil to fry your chin?"

  "Never! Sheathe your frugiferous slanders."

  "They are fated, not willed. See! Now the lower right wing has been shuffled into the four of sticks. You are going to be invited to a meal. There is a pickle under your seat."

  I retrieved the gherkin and chewed it moodily. Arcane turbulence is the enemy of the stomach, as obtuse stomachs are the enemy of the heart. When it was all gone, apart from one green crumb, which I flicked at the back of Satsuma's head, because it clashed with the orange, I turned all my attention to the wings, hoping to catch them in the act of shuffling. But they were waiting for me to blink, changing in that fraction of dark between lid and eye. Now the upper left wing depicted a man dangled from a tree by his feet, a drawing which my deputy insisted meant "downfall". Turbulence over the Aracknids fulfilled this, and we dipped to less than a sacrifice's length over the tallest temple, wherein a crabby, seasoned Sideways Priest nipped a holy mass.

  I hissed to myself: "Villain!"

  Satsuma turned to face me. "Ah, you sound more like the old Titian! Has the mellowness truly worn off?"

  It had. I retorted: "Keep your eyes on the altimeter, or I'll strip you of the Order of Grand Marnier."

  That medal was Satsuma's favourite possession and the juice drained from his face in distress. The wings remained optimistic for the rest of the flight and the Tarotplane cruised above the Capital. The President's tower had left the market square, rumbling through the highest city gate into the open country. Oddly, there were seven other towers collected in the same location, and Presidents and Prefects on each of them, pointing up at our aircraft and attempting to tell their fortunes without seeming to appear too gullible. We circled the converging structures like a moth around an array of unlighted candles, not at our wick's end, nor theirs, but certainly waxing wroth. A guttering soul, mine. The soot is internal and unavailable for making pigment.

  "Which is the genuine tower?" I bellowed.

  "For you, the one without a Titian Grundy on the summit. You're the last to arrive, by the look of things. Undo your seatbelt and prepare to disembark. Note the upper left wing! It has now become the House of God, which often suggests a fallen man."

  And so saying, he inverted the Tarotplane with a jerk. I disengaged from my seat with a slurp and fell again, cursing my deputy's morals and stalk, but unable to arrest him, because there can't be extradition from the sky, not until the Courts sport wings instead of wigs, and even then the flapping will probably have an adjournment. So I conti
nued to hurtle down, like a bag of disappointment in a vertical laundry-chute, toward a doctored meeting with a cushion of nettles. The stings broke my doom and the President broke my ears, shouting at me to mind his weeds, which was poor advice for my brow, already studded with nodules of agony. I jumped up and saluted him and his idiotic precepts, most of which were mine. He smiled askew but grimaced straight.

  "Titan Grubby! This is the latest you have ever been early! So what kept you? A social conscience, eh?"

  I licked my blistered lips. "I left that behind in Lubbalouana. Now I'm keen to serve whimsical autocracy. Who do you require me to oppress? My truncheon was lost in far climes, but when it is done beating them it is bound to make its own way back."

  "You can't frighten a cosmic flaw with a piece of wood, Prefect. We are in dire straits here, because our enemies are no longer the ordinary people, but an elite — ourselves!"

  Then he told me the awful story. Back among establishment hypocrisy my past felt relieved, but my present felt betrayed. Those other towers, he pointed out, were simultaneously equal and lesser versions of his own abode, and their occupants both trespassers and rightful owners of their properties. He juggled the contradictions nicely, dropping a dozen or so but making it look part of the act, except when they rolled over the rim of the balcony and were lost forever. I listened with a face so grave it used my chin for a mossy headstone.

  "Parallel dimensions, you say? That's a severe blow to our sense of uniqueness, if not our sense of smell. But the resins of Qtiztowf, which I've recently imbibed (and fined myself seven coughs for so doing), have expanded my consciousness and given me a very original idea. We must act before the towers move any closer."

  "Speak your plan, gross chum. No dawdling."

  "You must declare all the other towers illegal. Then I'll lock them up inside this one, the same way a recalcitrant amoeba (a single cell of crime) is cooped in a dungeon (a larger cell of punishment). Then at the trial, we'll exile them back to their own dimensions, one at a time. Our cosmos shall be uncluttered again."

  "Silly Prefect! Those towers are identical in size to mine. How can you possibly fit them inside this one? Do you mean to grind them to dust and pour them in through the roof?"

  I leaned on the railings. "No, that would take too long. Tell me if visually they are a matching size."

  "From this distance they obviously look smaller, but that's not the point. It's a trick of perspective. Because they're still a league or so apart, they appear smaller than we do. They'll be within breathing range before another day is out, with violent contact the day after that. Then you'll see them as they truly are."

  "Best not to let matters come to that, sir. It occurs to me that if you declare the rules of perspective illegal, I might stride over to the towers and pull them up, carrying them back under one arm. I suggest you implement this decision immediately, as every minute which passes brings them closer, thus increasing their size and weight. As things stand, the process will only take one sortie."

  "Outlaw perspective? Why not? I hereby do so!"

  I stretched my muscles, ready to bound over the rural vista, fields and meadows and dales, like a fairytale giant, when a shadow loomed from high above. It wasn't Satsuma in the Tarotplane, nor a Tsunami from deep Aracknid seas, nor Beatrix Trifle on her Baluchitheriumobile, but me, an amplified version thereof, with all the wrinkles, pimples and blemishes, repugnant enough in the original, here swollen to nightmare proportions, such as might cause geology to shudder. A gargantuan Titian Grundy, blue in the cheeks from the frosts of high altitude, bones cracking under the density of his own frame, eyes forming holiday skies for geese, stooping painfully down and taking hold of our tower between finger and thumb, to pluck us from the earth like a peg.

  The President wept. "You've stolen your idea!"

  (7)

  It should have been the happiest day of my life, which is why I expected to be mournful. I'd always wanted to be married in white, and ghosts had scared me thoroughly the night before, on the orders of my best man, the President, so I was still pale enough to dispense with fabric to achieve the desired colour. Those phantoms had been phoney, made from sheets and springs and pasteboard, as I afterwards learned. But far from reassuring me, this revelation was even more appalling because it implied that real ghosts didn't assume I was worth spooking! What a blow to my reputation! And a callous trick on the part of our endearing leader, who had damaged my residence by hollowing the walls to insert the puppets! Next to haunt me would be the bill for repairs.

  After ten hours of shuddering, I was exhausted when the hearse came to pick me up. I slumped in the back while the chauffeur jerked the silk reins on the Black Widows. A traumatic voyage past crowds of ill-wishers and dung-hurlers, terminating at the Temple of Drigg, packed with all my relatives. Of course, having no family, this ensured there was plenty of space for the other guests. None of my staff had showed up yet, with the exception of Lola Halogen, who was all hat. Indeed I suspected there was nothing under the brim and that she too had let me down. The tall priest had to stoop under the low arches to sprinkle cheap wine over the altar. The scale of the Cosmic Serpent seemed to wink as rogue sunbeams impaled the moisture. Romantic and nasty.

  The President slapped my back as I arrived and whispered a dozen or so friendly insults into my ear. He had hired the Supreme Roger to be my chief witness — not the genuine Supreme Roger, for it was felt that the pelvic attributes of such a fabled worthy would draw unwelcome attention to my own untested nuptial endurance, but a lesser Supreme Roger. A Vice Roger, in a sense. There were other Rogers in the pews: acolyte, rookie, fledgling Rogers. They held dishes of glands. I'd hoped for confetti but the President insisted on glands. In one corner, the disharmonium hissed a rendition of Mendeleev's Periodic Wedding Concerto. My bride was here! I resisted the impulse to glance over my shoulder. I heard her cries and complaints as she was wheeled in.

  The locked chest came to a halt next to the altar and the President was kind enough to remove the chains and throw back the lid. My gorgeous Animula struggled in her shroud. To think that once she had been the sad inhabitant of a subatomic particle! But I had rescued her from the realm of the microscopic, dragged her into the bigger picture, for the sake of a sweet love (and because I'd been ordered to) which was now about to be sealed according to our religious code. The beauty of the notion was too much for her. She writhed and kicked, impatient to become my wife! I was already married, but my beekeeper spouse had stung me too often by proxy to expect loyalty from me, so the President had repealed the bigamy laws within the ellipse of my embrace.

  The disharmonium finished its work, having jarred all our nerves in a truly undelightful fashion. I'd waited for this moment since my return from the proton Neirb'O, where Animula had pranced in the energy-forests of the Semaj-Ztif nature reserve. Now the Aracknid priest sprinkled more wine over the Cosmic Serpent's scale. But something went wrong here, for there was a tiny explosion within the mystic facets of the relic, and it jumped off the altar. A bad omen?

  Not really. It was the proton Neirb'O detonating under the virulent onslaught of the quantum-surfers of the neutron Sgnimmuc. For years they had been bombarding Neirb'O with quarks, in an attempt to destabilise it and destroy the atomic bond between the two worlds. Finally they'd added enough quarks to attain their subdastardly stratagem. Animula's home had been destroyed! A more symbolic marriage smash than the breaking of dish or plate! But she wasn't pleased.

  I removed her gag. "Animula! What's wrong?"

  "My name is Mandy and all my friends and family have just perished. Apart from that, cramp in a leg."

  "Superb! That will keep you static in bed."

  "I spit on you! Let me out!"

  "Ah, she is so eager to satisfy my desire! For twelve years she has languished in a dungeon, serving time for daring to be the very smallest thing in the cosmos, dreaming of nothing but the date of her release and her subsequent marriage! She is drooling so heavily with i
mpatience that her saliva is spurting across the considerable gap dividing us with such force and accuracy that my blushing cheeks are plashed! Animula! Tonight I must take your maidenhead. I've no idea where I'll take it but you can come along as well, if you like."

  She grimaced in gratitude. "Swine monster!"

  Before I continue, permit me to point out that this Temple of Drigg was the miniature one in the model village in the roof-garden at the top of the President's tower. It was cheaper to book than the bigger temples in the real city, and more likely to be filled with my meagre companions to a level just above embarrassment. This was the place where I'd shrunk on my jaunt to Neirb'O, anticipating all sorts of adventures, other than those of love — which hurt more!

  Now the priest swayed from side to side and the President groped in his pocket for the ring. It was a diamond solitaire-confinement, but the gem had escaped by tunnelling through the platinum band. No matter: kiss and tickle require no tokens other than themselves. Animula and I had no need of ostentatious signs of our mutual affection. While the Vice Roger lifted her out of the box, holding her in a firm embrace, the priest and his congregation shuffled and cleared sundry throats. Another minute and I'd be the happiest husband ever!

  Then the President dropped the ring and it rolled out of the Temple into the garden. He hopped after and brought it back. The priest scowled and routinely asked if anyone present had just cause for preventing this union between Animula and myself.

  This question is pure tradition and nobody ever expects a person to actually raise an objection. Indeed the priest scarcely paused to listen for a reply before launching into the next part of the service, which is outdated drivel about obedience and honour (I certainly didn't intend to obey Animula!) and similar nonsense. But it was too soon to congratulate my fortune, for the President suddenly lifted his arm and cried out that he had an objection, a large one.

  "Cancel the wedding! Replace the wife!"