Fool Me Twice (Filidor Vesh)

by Matthew Hughes

  The nature of immediate challenge before him was not hard to decipher. The two who held his arms stretched them out until Filidor’s thick gloved hands touched two of the boards set into the wooden cylinder. Then one of them stooped and pulled at one of the young man’s legs, urging it to climb the first step in the endless circle.

  “You expect me to climb the drum,” he said to the bullet headed man who had his leg, receiving in reply a gap-toothed grin and a rapid nodding of the head, as if the fellow was rewarding a particularly dim child who had somehow managed to get one of his lessons right.

  Filidor put out a foot and stepped onto one of the lower boards, his hands going to grasp two of the higher ones. As his weight settled onto the wood, the great cylinder groaned and the step on which he was standing began to subside. Filidor lifted his other foot from the plank laid across the sea pool and put it onto the next step, his hands reaching over his head as he did so. The drum turned slowly, and the Archon’s apprentice found himself making the motions of climbing without gaining any height. He craned his neck to look at the men who had put him to this strange task, and saw them all nodding and gesturing in encouragement.

  But Filidor was not warmed by their approval. Instead, he was conscious of a rapid rise in his body temperature. From every pore of his skin, there came an eruption of beads of perspiration which soon coalesced into sheets then full floods of sweat, all greedily absorbed by the thick cloth which swathed him. The seeping of moisture, added to the steady repetitive motion of step upon step, drove the intensity of his body-wide itch to levels that he thought must border on the supernatural. On every region of his hide, Filidor could feel his own tiny hairs meshing themselves into the tangled cloth. As Filidor mounted the endless curve of the rotating drum, his flesh crawled in every direction.

  The two who had put him on the wheel had removed the plank from which they had launched him, and were carrying it out the door with never a glance back at their handiwork. The man with the cudgel stood in an evaluative pose, watching Filidor climb.

  In itself, the work was not hard, but promised to become tedious, Filidor thought. He wondered what the motion was meant to achieve. He had noticed no belts or pulleys attached to the drums’ axles. Perhaps the inner space was filled with some material, like concrete, that benefited from being stirred. But, whatever the purpose of drum-treading, surely it would be much easier to do it without the thick, confining clothing. He called out as much to the man with the cudgel, but got no answer except for a disbelieving shake of the close cropped head, followed by an amused snort.

  The foreman turned to leave. Filidor thought it might be wise to cease traveling incognito and inform the fellow of his affiliation to the Archonate. But then would come the inevitable questions about plaque and sigil, and the young man realized that the only answers available to him might not swing judgment in his favor. Still, sitting quietly somewhere while the issues were weighed must certainly be more enjoyable than wheel-walking while being heat-smothered in a suit of itchery. But by the time Filidor had finished backing and forthing over the advisability of revealing his identity to the foreman, that individual had departed the room.

  The itch had not subsided. Filidor decided to ignore the advice he had been given along with the sea furze suit. He lifted one hand from the wheel and scratched his chest; that, is, he placed his thick-gloved hand over the dense layer of cloth above his breastbone and applied enough pressure to make the lowest level of the stuff move slightly against his skin. There was instant yet tiny relief, but it was followed by an immediate resumption of the itch, which seemed if anything intensified.

  Filidor rubbed harder, but gained no ground. On the contrary, while he had been seeking an abatement of the torture, he had lost height on the wheel, which was now rotating him down toward the pool of seawater. He raised himself a step on the drum, then paused again to scratch, and again he sank. The heel of his lower foot touched the water.

  A long tentacle thicker than Filidor’s arm broke the surface of the pool and struck toward his leg. At the end of the tentacle was a broad and leaf-shaped pad of flesh whose inner surface was set with rows of small hooks. These landed in the cloth that swaddled his ankle and set themselves in a solid grip. One of the small curved spurs even managed to penetrate the thickness and graze his skin, leaving a thin trail of fire across the flesh.

  Filidor squawked and kicked with the seized limb, at the same time reaching up and pulling himself higher on the wheel. He looked down and saw a second tentacle coming out of the water to secure what the first member had begun, and beyond them a waving aureole of other rubbery limbs and a pair of great yellow eyes.

  With a wordless cry of horror, the young man kicked again, this time fortunately catching the soft flesh of the tentacle against a corner of the plank he was standing on. The thing spasmed and lost its grip, tearing loose a hands width of the suit’s material. Freed of its grip, Filidor scrabbled higher up the drum, then looked down to see the pale orbs of the thing in the water slowly subsiding into the murk.

  He heard a cynical chuckle from the man on the bench behind him, but did not look around. For a considerable time, he concentrated on remaining well above the surface of the pool. The itch was forgotten, and the heat of the suit had been replaced by a bone-deep chill.

  Walking the wheel was monotony in motion. The hand reached, the foot stepped, the other foot followed and the other hand finished the cycle. Then the process repeated itself. Filidor kept looking down, but he saw no sign of the pool’s occupant, and gradually his terror ebbed into mere wariness. He reached and stepped, and stepped and reached, and found that if he didn’t think directly about the itch and the sweat, his mind could somehow rise to float above them, as if the sensations were distant background noises.

  For the first time since awakening in the basket, he could think. And, even though he would acknowledge -- at least he would if honesty was the only option -- that thinking was probably not the use he was best designed for, he recognized that he had much to think about, and that he should bend himself to the task.

  The issue of Faubon Bassariot was decided. The man was a blackhat, and would be dealt with as such, when and as circumstances allowed. The matter of the purloined plaque and sigil and the fate of the Podarkes must also be put off, though Filidor lingered for a moment over the memory of Emmlyn’s heart-shaped face, managing to edit out the expression it had worn and the criticisms of his worth and capacity it had forcefully emitted the last time he had seen her.

  Now another thought occurred to him. Not only was his present predicament entirely owed to the malfeasance of Faubon Bassariot, who had proved himself to be a miscreant of the worst degree, but it dawned on Filidor that the original fault that had led to the loss of his Archonate identification should also be laid to the functionary’s charge. It was Bassariot who had forced Filidor to receive the petition of The Ancient and Excellent Company of Assemblors and Sundry Merchandisers, and who had offered no help when the Archon’s apprentice had sought to delay a decision. Whatever skullduggery was afoot in distant Trumble, the major-domo was surely an active and knowing agent of it.

  Now here was an uplifting revelation. Being largely ruled by an appetite for ease, entertainment and the gratification of the senses, Filidor had often found himself enmeshed in situations from which there was no happy means of exit. Almost always, he could look back along the path that had led him into difficult circumstances and see that he had come to grief because of some self-indulgent lapse or a failure at some crucial juncture to do what he ought to have done. Not that Filidor would normally look back to see where he had gone astray -- he believed that the regrettable past should be left to languish wherever it took itself when it was finished being the enjoyable present -- but his uncle would always conclude Filidor’s rescue with a precise cataloging of the missteps and negligences that had brought him to plead for extrication.

  But now, fo
r the first time in as long as he could remember, he was not the sole author of his own troubles. True, his present predicament was not encouraging: he was clearly a prisoner with no immediate prospect of escape from hard taskmasters who were connected to giant, and possibly deranged, sea-going ultramondes that craved his essences. But -- and here he once more quickly reviewed the series of events that had brought him to his present pass, climbing this endless wheel, itched beyond all scope of reason, just out of reach of a ravenous beast that was doubtless twitching its tentacles and craving the taste of Filidor-flesh -- but the conclusion remained unaltered: this time, it was not all his own fault.

  This elevating realization was almost enough to overcome the sharp pains that were knotting through his thighs and causing his calves to bunch and spasm. Filidor’s breath came faster while it grew increasingly ragged. His fingers had begun to ache from clutching the boards and the muscles in his shoulders were sending sharp and insistent messages of complaint to anywhere they might be received. Filidor sought to offset the discomfort by imagining Faubon Bassariot in the same situation, then wondered if there were any way to make conditions even worse for the source of his misery.

  The kelp curtain across the door to the outside parted, and the two big henchmen entered. They brought with them their long plank, which they fitted across the pool beneath the drum next to Filidor’s, then helped the man who had been climbing that wheel down and over to the bench beside the wall. Then the one with the uneven eyes went to an alcove beyond the pile of sea furze suits, and came back with a wooden wheelbarrow. The other had meanwhile stripped the released wheel walker of his suit, revealing him to be dark haired and thin, his ribs and joints prominent under goose-pimpled skin. The removed garment, now a bundle of sweat-sodden cloth, was placed in the barrow and wheeled out of the place by the sandy haired man, while bullet head retrieved the plank and followed. The naked man paid no heed, but lowered himself face down onto the bench and was instantly asleep.

  Watching this, Filidor had unthinkingly let his pace slacken, and now he found his feet had descended closer to the surface of the pool than might be prudent. He looked down, saw something yellow and round in the depths, and redoubled his efforts, until he was well up on the wheel. His thighs and calves complained bitterly, his skin begged to be torn off, and he felt like something being roasted in damp pastry, but he kept up the rhythm of reach-and-step.

  He had no idea how much time had passed before the two men came back, the larger of them this time pushing a wheelbarrow full of sea furze clothing, which he dumped onto the pile at the end of the room. The pop eyed one brought his plank, and laid it across the pool beneath the drum recently vacated by the dark haired man, then signaled to the pot-bellied man who had been slumped on the stone bench when Filidor was brought in. This fellow, though looking not much restored from the weariness he had exhibited earlier, rose slowly to his feet and crossed to the pile of sea furze. He pulled out a suit and struggled into it, then went to where the plank waited for him. Moments late, he had begun to climb the wheel, the plank was lifted away, and the creaking of the drum resumed.

  Filidor waited until the kelp curtain closed behind the two sailors before turning to the man on the wheel beside him and introducing himself. The man said nothing, so Filidor spoke more loudly.

  “I am Arboghast Fuleyem,” was the answer this time. “I do not care to speak with you.”

  “I have always felt that conversation leavens even the worst of occasions,” said Filidor.

  “Your views are trite. Please keep them to yourself.”

  “At least you could tell me, what is in the drums?”

  The young man’s question prompted his neighbor to repeat the cynical laugh Filidor had heard when the men had first put him on the wheel. “Much the same as must be in your head,” said Arboghast Fuleyem, “which is to say, nothing.”

  Filidor ignored the insult. “Then why do they make us turn them? And dress so uncomfortably.”

  This time, the laugh was even louder and grimmer. “At first I took you to be merely unintelligent, but now I see that you have a truly profound gift for missing the obvious.”

  “I am sorry,” Filidor said, not comprehending.

  “Frequently, I don’t doubt,” said Fuleyem. “Now leave me to my own misery.”

  Filidor determined that he would puzzle the thing out for himself. He itemized the elements of the situation: the wooden cylinders, the itchy clothing, the beast in the pool. But his concentration was disrupted by a droplet of sweat that trickled down from his brow and stung his eye. Something to do with essences and the Obblob, he thought, but the connection still eluded him.

  Some time later, the foreman and his two underlings came in and removed him from the wheel. They stripped him of the now sopping suit and helped him to the stone bench. Filidor discovered some difficulty in walking on the level surface of the floor; every time he moved a foot to take a step, it would rise of its own accord as if still climbing the wheel, giving him the appearance of a villain stalking the helpless ingenue through a pantomime.

  He sat with his back to the coolness of the coral wall, while his fingers administered the relief that his itching skin demanded. He noticed that the gaunt, dark haired man beside him had awakened and was now also sitting hunched nearby, looking up and regarding Filidor with intelligent eyes. The Archon’s nephew nodded, too tired for the gestures that politeness required, and the other man acknowledged the greeting with a small twist of his mouth.

  The pop eyed man and his larger companion loaded Filidor’s used suit onto their wheelbarrow and left with it. The man with the cudgel, however, remained. He offered Filidor a smile that involved only the muscles of his cheeks, then extended a bladder of water and pulled free the stopper. The Archon’s apprentice began to reach for the liquid, then checked his hand when he saw the man next to him give a tiny shake of the head. The foreman’s eyes snapped to that side, but now the dark haired man was staring at his feet.

  “Have a drink,” said the foreman. “You must be consumed by thirst.”

  Filidor’s throat felt as if it had been salted down and exposed to the sun for a weekend, but he managed to swallow dryly and say, “Very kind, perhaps later.”

  The man with the cudgel raised his head and peered at Filidor down a nose that diverted in another direction halfway along its length. He put the stopper back in the neck of the container and said, “As you wish.”

  He shot another sharp glance at the dark haired man, whose attention remained fixed on the floor, then walked out.

  When their taskmaster was gone, Filidor’s neighbor straightened and rotated his neck and shoulders. The young man did likewise, finding that his muscles, unused to even moderate exertion, were beginning to stiffen and throb. He extended a hand and said, “I am Filidor, from Olkney.” He thought it best not to divulge his title.

  The other returned the salute and said, “Orton Bregnat, undermate of the brig Porpillion out of Scullaway Point, but now and for the foreseeable future, a hapless prisoner on this nameless pimple on the face of the blameless sea. The man you were talking to on the wheel is Arboghast Fuleyem, an intercessor with a practice in Thurloyn Vale, who advertises his services widely.”

  “How did he come to be here?”

  “Like all of us, save for Gwallyn Henwaye and his two bullyboys, he was found at sea and rescued by the Obblob.”

  Gwallyn Henwaye, as Filidor soon learned, was the man with the club. His pop eyed helper was Tormay Flevvel, and the other one answered to Toutis Jorn. “Pirates they are and ever were, though none too preeminent in their trade. Jumped up net robbers and cubby pilferers was all, until Henwaye happened upon this place and glimpsed boundless opportunity.”

  Filidor’s face urged Bregnat to continue, and the man did.

  “This was nobbut a flat bit of rock where the Obblob would bring folk they’d rescued, mainly wash-offs a
nd fall-aways found drifting after a blow, with the occasional poor wight who’d tossed himself apurpose to the sea’s mercy, then thought better of it before the last cold lungful.” He inspected Filidor, and said, “I recall no recent storms. Perhaps your ship sank?”

  “A man I trusted plied me with Red Abandon, then threw me overboard.”

  Bregnat digested this news, and said, “I advise you not to trust that fellow again.”

  “Fear not,” said Filidor, “retribution is the cornerstone of my program.”

  Bregnat flicked his eyebrows briefly up and down. “Though it may be a while before you can implement it. None has cast off from this place in a long season.”

  Filidor said nothing, but indicated that the man should go on.

  “Anyhap,” said the seaman, “this little dab of rock was oft spoken of by the rescued. The Obblob would bear you here, then bring you food and drink. When you had your strength again, a few of them would lick you, then they’d tow you to some beach or shingle near a town, mayhap leave you with a few pearlies or a lump of something noble to aid you in gathering up the strands of your life. But, when a wave plucked me from Porpillion’s afterdeck...”

  “Did you say, ‘lick?’” Filidor interrupted.

  “Aye,” said Bregnat, “for the essences. So I came ashore here, and there was Gwallyn Henwaye, whom I could lay out for a long nap on any good day...”

  “Essences?” Filidor broke in again.

  “I said so,” said the seaman. “So I come ashore, and there he is, and his two rat-swivers beside him.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Filidor, “but are you telling me that the Obblob obtain human essences by licking us?”

  “Actually,” said Orton Bregnat, patiently, “I am trying to tell you something else entirely, but I will digress to discuss essences.”

  This he did, and Filidor learned that Obblob ecstatics hungered for certain substances that were to be found in human perspiration, a taste of which could keep them in euphoric bliss for the better part of a day. It was what had first lured them to Earth, but in the early days there had been difficulties in finding cooperative humans. At first, the Obblob had tried calling to passersby on shore, extending their broad, spade shaped, yellow tongues, and graciously asking permission to use them. This had turned out to be a disappointing strategy, since very few people could comprehend Obblob speech and the ultramondes’ attempts to convey their wants by signs and gestures were misinterpreted as a desire to devour.