by Rhys Hughes
The Less Lonely Planet
(Tales of Here, There & Happenstance)
by
Rhys Hughes
Copyright © 2015 Rhys Hughes
All rights reserved. This book and any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Ebook Edition 2015
Gloomy Seahorse Press
Swansea, Wales, UK
http://gloomyseahorsepress.blogspot.com
This book is dedicated to
Sofia Rhei
Note: this ebook edition contains four stories that do not appear in the (out of print) hardback edition that was published by Humdrumming Press in 2008. This ebook is therefore closer to my original vision of the collection as it ought to be. The extra stories are ‘On the Deck’, ‘The Golden Fleas’, ‘The Juice of Days’ and ‘The Path of Garden Forks’. Shortly after issuing the hardback, Humdrumming Press went into liquidation and so my book remains relatively scarce. It remains to be seen whether it was my book that caused the collapse of the company. That is an example of self-effacing humour. I made the joke before you had the chance to do so. I wish you a pleasant day and joyful reading experience!
A Gloomy Seahorse Production
Contents
Foreword
Thinner Air
On the Deck
Troubleroot
Goblin Sunrise
The Two Kingdoms
The Taming of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shrew
Thief Among Thieves
The Golden Fleas
Below the Carnival
The Muse Ouroboros
Accordion Beach
The Mice Will Play
The Desiccated Sage
Two Fat Men in a Very Thin Country
Niddala
Sending Freedom Far Away
The Impregnable Fortress
The Bathing Bells
Doom Laden Haven
The Six Sentinels
In Moonville
But it Pours
The City that was Itself
The Man who Gargled with Gargoyle Juice
The Tallest Midget in Christendom
The Kissable Climes
The Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees
When the Microscopic Giants Took Over Happenstance
Venus and Stupid
Von Ryan’s Daughter’s Express
In Sunsetville
Fable with Turkish Coffee
Sir Cheapskate
Playing Impossible Instruments
The Juice of Days
The Path of Garden Forks
Afterword
Foreword
There can’t be many places left on Earth that aren’t the setting for at least one story. I’m not aware of any fictional tales taking place on Kerguelen or Bouvet Island, nor in Namaqualand, Caprivi Zipfel or Taklimakan Shamo, but doubtless they exist. Our entire globe has been fictionalised. It was thus with a measure of professional relief that I greeted the arrival of a new planet in our skies and when astronomers declared it to be on a deadly collision course with our own world I was less distressed than it does me credit to admit. My only concern was for all those new lands untouched by fictionalisation, lands I intended to plunder for plots and twists. I had a crazy notion I might leap across the gap just before the giant spheres touched and avoid annihilation in mid air, the only human author to survive. As it happened, the collision was milder than feared and not even precariously balanced crockery was affected by the impact. The two planets fused together gracefully.
The surface area available to writers having doubled, I was not slow to cross over onto the alien continents. As a consequence, the book before you is more than twice as long as it would otherwise have been. And yet I failed in even partly exhausting the fictional potential of that other world. There are thousands of tales remaining to tell about it, tales of high adventure and low morals and medium rares and stuff like that, about the Three Utopias and the Academickal Islands and Oog and the Cheese and Biscuits Empire, and how the King of Shush finally removed his finger from his lips, and what reason Batty of Nuts had for waging war on the Alternate Chops, and where Sagooo came from and went to, and why Diana the Rig straddled the ocean in the way she did. But these things are not for me to relate, partly because I don’t know the full details of such events and partly because I’m too lazy to invent those details. I’m so lazy I even wrote this foreword last!
Thinner Air
King Cosimo tugged at his beard and regarded the nervous archers who stood in a row before him. Although he did his best to appear cheerful, it was obvious that he was troubled. He turned to face his Minister with a sigh.
“There are not enough of them,” he said.
“The deserters have already been executed,” Xymes explained hastily. “However, I can assure you that those who remain are all the more eager. Each one is worth ten ordinary warriors. Just look at their bloodthirsty eyes...”
King Cosimo frowned and shook his head. “I have my doubts. But it is too late to worry about such things. It is all in the hands of the one legged god, Hopp.”
“Indeed.” Xymes bowed and mumbled a prayer.
King Cosimo turned back to address his men. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. The soldiers stared at him unblinkingly. He mopped his forehead with a perfumed cloth.
“Any minute now,” he began, “the Kandalii will be here. For many years, as you all know, the Kandalii have been ravaging the lands of the West, moving steadily closer. No-one knows where they came from. Some say from beyond the sea, others say from beneath it. What we do know is that they are singularly ruthless and spectacularly successful.
“The secret of their success has long been a mystery. Recently, however, a refugee fleeing from their onslaught provided us with some information. It seems that the Kandalii have discovered the key to invisibility. A lens of cunning workmanship beams a ray that renders transparent all that falls within its influence.
“We are not sure how this weapon is employed. We can only assume that by turning themselves invisible, the Kandalii also become invincible, easily able to cut down their enemies with impunity. The advantage for them would be the same as if they faced an army of the blind.”
King Cosimo fanned himself and took a deep draught of cold wine from a silver goblet. He had been rehearsing this speech all morning but had the feeling it was being wasted on his present audience. Nevertheless, he decided to continue:
“The refugee urged us to abandon our cities and flee also. Yet we refused to do so. If we fall, the whole continent falls. We are the last bastion of civilisation against these barbarians. We must face them.
“Accordingly, we have prepared you especially for the purpose. There is one disadvantage to an invisible army: overconfidence. We have decided to exploit this weakness. We have revived the tradition of the longbow. No-one has considered using archers before. Yet a hail of arrows will be an effective force against an invisible enemy by virtue of the laws of chance.”
King Cosimo bent forward, anxiously peering into the faces of the archers, to gauge the effect of his words. Some of the warriors gnashed their teeth or trembled, but as this now seemed to be their normal behaviour, few clues were provided.
“Actually there are two disadvantages to an invisible army,” Xymes ventured. The second disadvantage had only just occurred to him and he was desperate to communicate it.
King Cosimo silenced him with a wave. “To demonstrate our contempt for cowardice, we have arranged a grim spectacle.” He snapped his fingers and cried: “Executioner!”
A burly deformed man
stepped forward, dragging a prisoner by the hair. He raised his knotted club and proceeded to beat the prisoner to a pulp. Soon there was nothing left but a twisted mass of purple flesh, swollen veins leaking blood into the dusty soil.
“The refugee,” King Cosimo said lightly. “A warning to the faint hearted.” He was about to launch into a tirade condemning the sin of cowardice when he was interrupted by a shout:
“The Kandalii are here!”
King Cosimo squinted into the distance. On the crest of a far hill he could just make them out. “What are they doing?”
“They appear to be setting up a machine of some kind.”
“The lens of invisibility!” King Cosimo nodded sagely. “The information was correct. They seek to destroy us by fiendish knavery!”
“Majesty! Our warriors are disappearing!”
King Cosimo blinked. It was true: the air had started shimmering around the archers. Soon they had completely vanished. The Kandalii began to bear down on their hideous sea-green mounts.
“The fools!” he laughed. “They have pointed the lens the wrong way! This is even better than I could have hoped for! We will annihilate them!”
Slowly, the horrible cries of the Kandalii grew louder as they approached closer. King Cosimo smiled. Before long, they would be in range. It would be a massacre.
Relishing the prospect, he waited for the right moment and then gave the command to fire.
There was a curious scuffling from the empty space where the archers had stood. A yelp of pain. A single arrow flew out of the field of invisibility, gracefully arcing in the wrong direction.
King Cosimo raised an eyebrow.
Xymes bent forward and whispered in his ear. “As I was about to say, I fear we may have overlooked a minor point. The human eye works by collecting light and thus stimulating the optic nerve. However, if you are invisible, light will pass straight through you. The optic nerve will not be stimulated.”
“Are you trying to tell me that our archers are all blind?”
“I was merely wondering if this was the way the Kandalii used their weapon. The opposite way to the one we anticipated.”
King Cosimo turned pale. “Then we shall have to retreat! Sound the horn! Cowardice is not so bad after all!”
“Majesty! Our men will not know which way to run!”
“Then they shall have to stay and fight. At least they should give a good account of themselves at close quarters.”
Xymes coughed and shook his head.
“Arrows are of little use in hand to hand combat.”
King Cosimo pondered. He had to make a decision quickly and act on it. It was the prime duty of a King. As he considered, there seemed to be only one course of action left.
“Whose idea was it to use archers?” he demanded.
“Mine Majesty.” Xymes stepped forward.
King Cosimo nodded and tugged at his beard again. Yes, there was no doubt about it. There was only one thing he could do. Glowering at Xymes, he snapped his fingers and cried:
“Executioner!”
On the Deck
After dinner, they went out on deck.
“Money is the root of all revel,” said Laura, as she sipped the last of the champagne and tossed her glass casually over the side. “Don’t you think so?”
“Absolutely.” Jerry felt sick. He grasped the rails and bent his head forward. The Beef Chasseur in his stomach began to churn.
“And how delicious the moon is!” Laura added, leaning back and pouting, her fingers idly worrying the beads that looped around her swan’s neck. “Big and round.”
“Enormous.” Jerry clutched his sides and gasped. His cravat had come askew, his cufflinks glittered in the ‘delicious’ light. He was enjoying himself but little.
“And the swell of the sea, the splash of the fish...”
“Extraordinary.”
Laura sighed and lit a cigarette. There were, in fact, no fish to speak of, nor swell of the sea. But there was a moon, so massive and heavy that the proverbial lunar man must surely have filled his cheeks with apples...
Jerry turned his sallow face towards Laura and said, in a voice not unlike a croak:
“I will be happy when we reach land.”
“Oh, really!” Laura was exasperated. She inhaled her cigarette in languid disappointment, the curl of the blue smoke rising up to kiss her kiss-curl. “Sometimes I think that you don’t really enjoy travelling.”
“It’s not that,” Jerry protested. “It’s just that I can’t shake off the feeling that something is not quite right. I mean, where are all the other passengers? And why does the Captain keep changing our destination?”
“He’s a wonderful man,” Laura replied. “All this was his idea. I never thought I would travel. Especially not in such style. We owe him a lot.”
Jerry expressed doubt.
“He winked at me tonight,” Laura said, realising it for the first time, according it exaggerated significance as a result, and trying to repress a hot flush and a giggle. “He might even touch my knee tomorrow.”
“Bah!” Although Jerry was jealous, he did not feel left out. He too had an amorous secret. The Captain had also winked at him...
“I think we’re heading for Ceylon,” Laura said, “where the girls are lithe and mysterious and their hair smells of sandalwood.”
“It’s Sri Lanka now,” Jerry corrected. “Besides, you’re thinking of Burma. They wear little bells around their ankles and they capture little birds in cages just to release them again. Rather odd, don’t you think? Just a trifle odd?”
“Not at all. I think it’s very beautiful. If only I could find a man strong enough to capture me and then let me go again, I would be happy. To be enticed and then rejected out of love...”
“You’re such a decadent!” cried Jerry.
Laura smiled a wry smile and adopted a decadent pose. She had read enough French novels to know that true decadence is affected, and that it is the pose that counts. “Alas!” she said, for no good reason.
Music drifted on the still air, a suitably romantic waltz that washed over them, and over the rails, into the night.
“The band!” Laura squeaked. “How perfect! We must dance immediately! Take me in your arms and spin me around, your sensuous mouth fixed on mine!”
“I’d rather not.” Jerry turned green at the prospect. “My stomach is not up to it at present. And you’ve got to maintain a sense of proportion.”
“On the contrary! You’ve got to dream!” And Laura snatched him by the hand and dragged him close, clasping him savagely and whirling him in a tight spiral. Although he struggled mightily to loosen himself from her clutches, he only managed to free one arm, and this flapped like a flag as she spun him faster and faster.
“How exquisite!” she cried, as they crashed against the rails and rebounded. “How gorgeous! My darling, my swallow, my monstrous orchid!”
Eventually, of course, it was all too much. Jerry threw up.
“I’m sorry,” he panted, dejectedly. “It was all too much.”
“You wretch, you sombre wretch!” Laura was in tears. She pounded her fists against his chest and wailed. “I’m never coming on another trip with you again! I’m going to seek comfort in the arms of the Captain!”
Jerry had collapsed in a pool of nausea. “I refuse to play any more!” he groaned.
Laura ignored him and left the deck. The Captain was waiting for her in an easy chair. He had seen everything. “Oh Captain!” she hissed. “It’s not fair! You’ve got to dream, haven’t you?”
“Indeed.” Smiling gently, I tugged at my magnificent beard and stood up. I was feeling in a benevolent mood. I had already cleared away the remnants of the meal and washed the dishes.
“Sometimes it’s the only way to cope with life.” She fell into my arms and nestled there like a child. “When life seems drab what else is there?”
“What else?” I echoed. “Yes, you have to dream.”
“Oh,
Captain! You’re a sweet darling. My husband doesn’t understand me...”
We were interrupted by an angry knock at the door.
“What was it this time?” I asked her.
She gazed up at me with puppy eyes and blushed. “A champagne glass,” she said.
I shook my head disapprovingly, but she could see that my fondness for her had not dissipated. I patted her on the head and winked again. “China tomorrow,” I said. “And then Japan.”
Before answering the door, I doffed my cap, moved over to the gramophone and lifted the needle off the record. I hoped that the unexpected caller would accept a bribe. I inspected my wallet. Maintaining the dream was proving expensive. I cast doubtful eyes out onto the deck and listened for the swell of the sea, the splash of the fish.
Twenty floors below, the London traffic flowed onwards.
Troubleroot
Let it be told of Frith as he met his destiny by the side of a well. Up the rutted path to the ruined cottage he went, dragging his bucket behind him. The well stood next to the cottage, obscured by weeds and brambles. His destiny lay in the undergrowth gasping and wheezing.
Dropping his bucket, Frith peered closer and saw that his destiny was, in fact, a knight in exceptionally rusty armour. Huge patches of metal had flaked away on breastplate and greaves. Frith stooped and helped the fellow to a sitting posture, opening his visor at the same time. Below a fevered brow, pale blue eyes regarded Frith with a measure of hope.
“My name is Nanoc of the Warty Toe,” the knight croaked. “I am bearing a message of the utmost importance to King Popkin. The Hordes of Lord Sourglum are gathering at the borders of Zugzwang. The Prince of Zugzwang, Kal Dornan, a staunch ally of Popkin, requires aid if his Capital, Borog-Terish, is not to fall into the hands of the bitter and twisted barbarians of...”
“Eh?” Frith scratched his head and frowned. The unhappy product of an unnatural conjunction betwixt a brother and sister (who had abandoned him at birth at the bottom of a gorge) he was neither the most comely nor the brightest of youths.