Unfettered III

by Shawn Speakman (ed)

  “The Elders,” Barthur whispered to himself.

  “Heh?” the old man who’d opened the door asked again, holding out a very dull needle in a vaguely threatening manner.

  Barthur gave his best bow, staying just far enough away so he couldn’t get poked with the needle, should the old man decide he was a threat. “O GREAT ELDERS, I SAID IT’S AN HONOR TO MEET YOU.”

  “It’s not beet soup, it’s chowder,” the knitting Elder said. “And there’s not enough to share.”

  “No, I’m not here for soup, it’s just that—”

  “Well? Take the needle and fix your dang tunic. You look ridiculous,” the first Elder said, handing Barthur the needle and returning to his chair. Barthur noted that the old man in question was wearing a short flowered robe over a long plaid robe and wore plush slippers featuring yellow duck faces, but he had to assume that this was considered less ridiculous and more eccentric when one was attuned to the higher spheres. Barthur held the needle carefully between thumb and forefinger and stood, breathing in the rich, thick air of the ancients and coughing a little at the pipe smoke as he regarded the grand personages before him.

  Every child in the village had heard tales of the Elders. Wise, learned, powerful, gifted, they were the rulers in spirit of the people, a guiding star in the increasing confusion of a society that all agreed was constantly falling apart at the seams. Long ago, in their ancestral lands, long before the Giant War, back when they’d been merely the Middle-Aged, the Elders had ruled with absolute power and magnificent benevolence. They’d led their people here, directing the building of this very town and drafting the Writ of Getting Along and Not Being Arses that still governed the land. Barthur realized he was holding his breath and released it silently so that he might continue to listen for any wisdom they might impart instead of passing out.

  “That’s not my niece Ermenegilda. It’s some strange boy. A hooligan. And he’s not fixing his vest,” the knitting Elder said, and Barthur was now sure she was a woman, even though her beard was as long and gray as those of the men. “He’s quiet, though. Might be an idiot. Someone offer him a butterscotch.”

  The old man who’d given him the needle now held out a crystal dish of candy that looked like lint-covered gallstones. When Barthur didn’t immediately take one, the old man shook the dish at him aggressively. “Eh?” he said. “All children enjoy candy. Keeps ’em quiet.”

  “I’m not here for candy, good sir,” Barthur said, trying to get things on the right track and avoid ingesting anything that resembled pancreatic excreta. “I come to you, the Elders, in hopes that you will grant me a quest and bless my holy . . . uh. Quest. A pixie hath anointed me, and—”

  “That explains the mucus.”

  “Yes, so I’m anointed, and—”

  “Are you a Chosen One?”

  That made Barthur stop and blink. “A Chosen One? Do you mean the Chosen One? The pixie didn’t use those exact words, but I do assure you that I’ve been anointed. I’m to be a king someday, the pixie said. I mean, uh, yon pixie hath decreed.” Barthur felt that distinct loosening in the bowels one gets when one realizes one is royally botching up something important. This audience wasn’t going at all as he’d planned.

  “Hmph. Kings. So you’re a future politician, eh? That’s your chosen career path? Back in my day, children worked in the mines, and we liked it.”

  “Well, the ones who didn’t like it died in the mines,” the woman interjected.

  “That’s not a mime! It’s just some mendacious young rando come to rob us!” shouted the Elder with the ear horn.

  “No! No, I’m not . . . robbing anyone. And I’m not a mime. Or a squirrel, to be clear. I just wish for your blessing and a quest. Honestly, either would do at this point; I’m not picky.”

  Barthur knelt, head down, which forced him to look at a stain on the tattered old rug that appeared to be cat barf.

  “Look, sonny,” one of the Elders said—the Aunt Sandy–esque one in the middle, judging by his excitedly swinging feet. “You seem to think we’re the folks who go around spouting writs and giving out halos, but we ain’t. Those folks were from a different lodge. The Elders—well, we’re more like a loosely knit cabal. Every town or city has ’em. Or maybe you’re thinking of the Welders, which is a totally different group, or the Box Elders, which are trees. But we don’t truck with blessings and quests here at St. Jocomo’s. We do weaving and fiber arts. I think the Elders in Okesvaa were into flower tiaras for a while, which is probably closer to a crown? Or was that macramé? Point is, we’re not the folks you’re looking for.”

  “But surely you can see the glow of the anointed around me?” Barthur said, standing up and waving his arms a bit.

  “Can’t see much, sonny. Eyes are going fast. But we don’t do magic, either. Lost our last witch four years ago, and she was only good for talking to cats, which was about as useful as a bucket with a hole in the bottom since the cats just ignored her and borfed where they liked anyway.”

  “Rest in peace, Malefibeth,” one of the Elders said, pouring out a chunk of soup from his cup directly onto the floor.

  But Barthur wasn’t done. “At least tell me what it means to be anointed? To have the Aura of Fate wreathed around me? Am I destined for greatness, or is death still, like, a really big risk?”

  The knitter spoke this time, although her needles didn’t stop clacking. “Tell me this, tell me that?” she mimicked. “You tell me how many stitches of worsted alpaca to cast on to start a proper cap, and I’ll tell you everything I know about pixie mucus,” she barked. “Which, in both cases, is not a dang thing! Can’t a body mind its own business anymore? Not all folks are handy with quest-giving, you know. It’s rude to make assumptions.”

  Barthur deflated. “Look. Things are bad in the world today. Taxes are high, the earl is all but useless, we haven’t figured out how to have a king yet. My parents can barely make ends meet, and the price of chickens is down, and when that pixie anointed me, I suddenly had this feeling, deep in my—”

  “Bowels?”

  “No! In my chest. It entered me like a ball of white-hot light—”

  “Yes, yes. In the bowels. I know that feeling. Too much fiber!”

  “No! No! It felt as if God had entered me—”

  “Gross!”

  “Argh!” Barthur stood, furious, his hands in fists. “Please let me finish!”

  “Rude,” the knitter grumbled. “Young people are always interrupting.”

  Barthur gritted his teeth. “Look. You might not be the Elders, but you’re still elders. You’re old. You’re wise. You have arcane knowledge. You’ve witnessed generations of triumphs and failures. You must know something about staying alive successfully. I just want a quest. Some direction. Tell me what to do. What to seek. Who to save.” He raised an arm as if hefting a mighty sword, looking into the cobwebbed rafters as if a shaft of sunlight fell from heaven upon him through the thatch. “Tell me how to elevate my people from the muck and bring about an enlightened era, as is my anointed destiny!”

  As if in response, a thatch-tortoise fell through the ceiling and onto the floor, moaning a little as it scuttled away under a table. The closest Elder grabbed a stick and slowly chased it with murder in his eyes, thwacking its shell, and Barthur deflated a bit more.

  “Just . . . help,” he whispered.

  “Help you? Pfft. Look at us,” one of the Elders muttered. “We’re old and stale like last week’s donuts. We’re doing the only thing we can do, which is tell you that we can’t do anything.”

  “But you can at least give me your blessing,” Barthur said.

  “He just wants dressing?” shouted the Elder holding the ear horn.

  “Who’s undressing?” barked another one. “Stop that right now. Bodies are shameful!”

  Louder, Barthur repeated, “Your blessing. I wish to undertake a quest to . . . to . . .”

  He looked down, frustrated. Irritated by the heavy press of mothballs an
d soup and cough drops and smoke. Annoyed by the fact that the Elders weren’t what he wanted them to be, what he’d been told they were, what the legends promised. Angry that life was so greedy with direction and surety, seeming to apply it only in hindsight to those who had failed.

  Being anointed wasn’t enough, apparently, to set one on a path.

  But then he saw something. A shape. The crusty, hairy, gooey thing sticking to the carpet. Round, with little fluffy bits. It looked a bit like . . . like a . . .

  Good heavens. Could it be?

  And then he knew! He knew his quest!

  Barthur rose, and in the voice of a future king, he spake, “I will find the Holy Quail!”

  For just a moment, the room went silent, and all the Elders looked at Barthur, their jaws dropped and their eyes mostly open.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said my quest is to find the Holy Quail! The pixie mentioned it, but now I know for sure! The quest is in my heart! All I need is your blessing. Or even . . . just . . .” Barthur scratched his head. “Not quite permission. Maybe you could just say that it was a decent enough thing for a foine young lad to do?”

  “Do what? Graffiti and lollygagging?”

  “No, my quest to find the quail.”

  “Definitely mind the pail,” an Elder muttered. “Don’t kick it. We pee in there sometimes.”

  Barthur shook his fists at the heavens, or at least at the thatch.

  “I WILL FIND THE HOLY QUAIL!”

  “Doesn’t exist,” the middle Elder said, shaking his head. “Legends and folly.”

  “But didn’t the Elders hatch it from a golden egg? That’s what the legend says.”

  The middle Elder groaned. “We keep trying to tell you, kid—there’s elders with a lowercase e and Elders with a capital E and then again there’s ELDERS in all capital letters with little flourishes. That’s the one you’re looking for, and it’s the one we definitely ain’t. We’re just a local branch of a social club. These Elders you’re all so anxious to find—the ones who bred fancy glowing quails and gave out blessings? They’re gone. Dead. Dust. Left nothing behind but debts, soup recipes, and a mangy old bag of quail feathers. That’s kind of the key thing about being an elder in general—you’re always one step away from the grave.”

  He gave a firm nod and picked up a mug of thick soup, which he began to mostly spill down his beard with a shaky spoon, although Barthur was glad to see some of the bigger bits made it into the man’s mouth, and that he might be able to squeeze some drippings out of his beard later.

  “Fine,” Barthur snapped. “Fine. If not your blessing, if not your guidance, then could you at least give me directions toward the famed Laddy of the Lake? Perhaps he could—”

  The oldest, baldest Elder threw up his hands in a puff of dust and possibly dander. “See? There you go. Laddy Whosits. You young folks think all old people know each other. Well, I never heard of him. Now if you want to be a true foine ladde, just go back home and do what your parents tell you. We need strong young backs to run the economy and produce the soup, and old folks can’t stay safe if all the youngsters go running off willy-nilly with these . . .” He squinted at Barthur, who felt quite small under that withering glance, for all that the old man had the muscle strength of a boneless goose. “Quests,” the old man finally finished, but it looked like he had meant to say something much worse and had held back only because he was running out of soup and would probably ask Barthur to fetch more shortly.

  “Staying home and doing nothing never fixed the wrongs in the world,” Barthur barked back. “I’m part of the next generation. It’s my duty to make the world a better place!”

  “Balderdash,” the knitting Elder muttered. “Nothing can do that.”

  “You’re wrong. With all due respect, which isn’t much, you’re wrong.” Barthur stepped forward, and his form was wreathed in a golden light that smelled a bit like spring flowers and honey, and his squeaky, cracky voice took on the timbre of nobility and power. “I will make the world a better place. I have been anointed, and it is my destiny, and I pledge my body, mind, and heart to this quest. I will find the Holy Quail, and tenderly keep her, and collect her Eggs of Wisdom and Truth, and—”

  The old man with the ear horn poked a finger into his hairy ear. “Did somebody just shout down my earhole about eggs?” he screeched. “I don’t like eggs in my earhole! They hatch!”

  “The point is,” Barthur shouted, clearly beyond maintaining any sort of patience, “I’m going, and I would like your blessing. Will you give it? Honestly, just a simple head nod will do at this point in time.”

  One of the Elders who had not yet contributed stood on wobbly legs and raised his bushy white brows so that he could look each member of his party in the eyes. And then he turned to Barthur, catching him in a steely glare. Under his scrutiny, Barthur stood up straighter and puffed out his chest, wishing to be everything a hero should be.

  “No,” the Elder finally said. “Can’t go sending young people on foolish journeys. Wouldn’t be any young people left to do paperwork and sweep the floors. Stay here, do what your father tells you, and pay taxes like everybody else. That’s how stability happens.”

  “But what about the evil plot of the Dark Lord Fitzherbert?” Barthur challenged. “Staying home won’t stop that, and I hear he wishes to outlaw soup.”

  The Elder waved a hand. “Dark Lords have always been terrible, but they’ve never changed the taste of soup. We survived by not angering anyone with a wand. Silly little quests won’t make anything safer. A bunch of kids with hope in their hearts never changed the world, and that’s the sorry truth.” He blinked at Barthur and frowned. “Kids these days. Being weird. Just be normal. Weirdos never get anywhere, you know.”

  Barthur turned a shade of red his mother had warned him about, one that would’ve been quite pretty on a flower but made him look like he might be having a medical incident.

  “Weirdos can change the world,” he growled.

  “Weirdos can change my diapers when they can’t get a job,” the old man shot back.

  The warm glow of destiny had been replaced with the burning glow of rage. “I think we’re done here,” Barthur said, turning away without bothering to acknowledge the Elders. The standing one collapsed back onto his pillow with a slippery squeak fart, and they all took up their pipes and knitting and soup again as if nothing had happened.

  “But I’m still going,” Barthur muttered under his breath. “I will find the Quail.”

  “What?” the Elder with the ear horn shouted. “You found the mail?”

  Barthur stopped in the open door and turned back. “Oh, nothing,” he said with saccharine sweetness. “Thank you for your time, o wise and truthful Elders.”

  “Remember, kid: meek and silent is the way to get along each happy day!” the knitting Elder shouted. “Rhyming songs are always true!”

  Barthur let himself out, muttering, “I wish everyone knew the real truth about the Elders.”

  And then a strange thing happened.

  Barthur heard the soft, sloppy pop of magic, and the pixie mucus on his tunic peeled itself off the fabric in a blob, rose up into the air like a particularly nasty soap bubble, and floated right through the closed door. Barthur waited a moment, curious, and heard an even louder pop on the other side, in the room where the Elders sat.

  “Oh, gross!” one of the Elders cried. “It’s all over me. Somebody call a nurse!”

  “The nurse left because I kept grabbing her betonkus!” another Elder cried. “We got blackballed from the agency!”

  Another Elder shouted, “We couldn’t pay ’em anyway! We’re out of money! I stole it all to support my cat hoarding habit! That’s why I was always in charge of the petty cash drawer! You knobs never suspected a thing!”

  Another one yelled, “I’m not really deaf! I just hate listening to you people.”

  “If you think that’s honest, wait until you hear what I did with that vase
you painted for my birthday! I use it to pee in at night!”

  “I peed in it before I gave it to you because you said you didn’t like my hat!”

  Barthur smiled to himself as he listened to the Elders shouting their truths at the top of their feeble lungs.

  So that’s what pixie magic could do.

  Perhaps his anointing was real after all.

  “Oh, excuse me,” someone said, and Barthur looked up to find a boy about his age, but with black hair and golden skin and a shoddier tunic decorated with a very familiar greenish gooey splotch. “Is this where I might find the Elders?”

  Barthur gave the kid a tired smile. “Let me guess. You got anointed?”

  The boy’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Yes! How did you know? It was by a pixie! Who found me toiling in the barn and chose me for greatness and bade me go on a—”

  “A holy quest.”

  “Yeah, but everyone thinks I said vest.”

  “Lot of that going around.”

  The kid stared at the door, then stared at Barthur. “You going in next?” he asked. “Maybe delivering something that’ll butter them up?”

  Barthur shook his head. “Nah. I’m just going on my own dang quest. I don’t need anyone’s permission or blessing to do good in the world. I don’t need the Elders. Turns out they’re actually rubbish.”

  “Cor, what a bad boy,” the kid said with a tone of awe. “Say, I’m Dancelot. What’s your name?”

  “Barthur.”

  “Nice to meet you, Barthur.”

  They shook hands in a manly sort of way, and Barthur looked Dancelot up and down. He could see the Aura of Greatness there, under the mucus stains.

  “Tell me, good Dancelot,” Barthur said, “how do you feel about quail?”

  BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  WHEN WRITING MAJOR NOVELS IN THE DUNE UNIVERSE, WE HAVE ALSO had ideas for smaller portraits or vignettes. One of the ideas that came back again and again was an exploration of the Sardaukar, the ruthless and greatly feared military division that served the Imperial House. In the novel Dune, the Sardaukar are key players in the overthrow of Duke Leto and the downfall of House Atreides. They brutally attack the city of Arrakeen and hide their treacherous involvement by wearing Harkonnen uniforms.