by Rhys Hughes
“Not at all,” the voice wheezed. “No, my dear boy. You are sorely mistaken if that is what you think. Ever since the River dried up and the souls with it, life has been a living Hell down here. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else.”
“So what do you want? I am in a hurry, you see. I am bearing a message of national importance from Sir Nanoc of the Warty Toe to King Popkin. I am a sort of envoy, so to speak. And a hero as well. I cannot be delayed.”
“Your voice is a little high for a hero is it not? Unless, of course, you are one of the eunuch-mercenaries who wander through the Mountains of Farnar. They mutilate themselves, you know. Rather strange, I’ve always thought. I mean, I’m mightily shrivelled but I wouldn’t go that far. Do you get my meaning?” The voice broke into a laugh that was like a handful of autumn leaves blowing onto a November bonfire.
Frith shuddered at the word ‘eunuch’. He fully drew Nigel and held it before him. “But what is it that you want me to do? Speak up, bony fiend.” His blade made a deep shadow across his sneer, counting away the hours on the sundial of his face. He scowled.
“I simply want you to water me a little. I haven’t had a drink for ages. I’ve been baking with thirst ever since the Patrician of Murnu decided to divert the waters of the river for his Grand Agonised Canal. It was he who constructed the dam. Pun intended. But all I require is a little fresh liquid. It won’t take a moment. Surely you can do that? You can keep my diamond ring as a reward.”
Once again Frith gazed down between his legs. “I have no water, and the alternative method might be a little painful. I could spit on you, I suppose...”
“How about a little blood? Just a little? A couple of drops?” The eerie voice became plaintive. Shrugging his shoulders altruistically, Frith stepped out onto the parched Riverbed. He held Nigel tightly in his right hand, nicked his left and stooped to let the drops of blood fall onto the thirsty earth. Before he knew what was happening, the skeletal hand had grabbed his arm and pulled it under. There was the snap of bone and Frith screamed. When he pulled his arm free, his left hand was missing. Dried mud and filth had sealed the potentially fatal wound.
“Delicious,” said the voice. “The first decent meal I’ve had for over a thousand years! Thanks very much. And give my regards to whoever it is you are off to rescue. You are off to rescue someone I take it? Heroes always are.”
Snorting with fury and pain, Frith began to hack at the earth surrounding his assailant. He worked with a demented passion, carving great trenches in the Riverbed itself, isolating the deceitful skeleton and then levering it out with the aid of Nigel. The exposed shrivelled soul chattered in the late sunlight, pieces of Frith’s flesh still clinging to its gumless teeth. “What are you doing?” it cried. “I was only following my horrific nature.”
“I am going to slake my thirst for revenge on your worthless frame,” replied Frith, drooling and shaking. He dragged the skeleton to the bank, where it attempted to climb to its feet and make a mad dash for liberty. With a single well-aimed blow from Nigel, Frith knocked it sprawling.
Over the next hour or so, Frith discovered novel ways in which to make a skeleton beg for mercy. He also discovered that by sliding the blade of his tuned sword through the skeleton’s ribcage from behind he could control its movements. By angling the sword to the left or the right, he could steer the skeleton in any direction he chose. This gave Frith the idea that alternative transportation might be nearer at hand than he had otherwise supposed.
Thus it was a strange pair indeed that finally gazed down upon the Scalding Sea at dusk. Frith sat atop the skeleton, controlling its movements with a joystick that was really a magical sword, while the skeleton loped tirelessly onwards, cursing its rider frequently and gnashing its yellow teeth in ineffectual rage.
Huge clouds of steam drifted across Frith’s vision. The smell of exotic soups and stews grew stronger. Through gaps in the steam clouds, Frith could just make out the silhouettes of the mysterious Cauldron Ships and hear the lamentations of their parboiled crews. At the prospect of so much water, Frith’s knobbly mount began to whimper but Frith silenced it with a savage clockwise twist of Nigel.
Fortunately, the Scalding Sea was not their destination. Before it reached the Sea, the Riverbed of Screams diverged into a wide delta. This delta formed the grisly Marsh of Manic Mushrooms. Leading across the Marsh, parallel to the shore of the Sea for a while before curving away inland, the Boardwalk of Bones swayed ominously. It was across the Boardwalk that Frith had to venture to reach the Land of Insane Imps.
Climbing up a dozen steps to the Boardwalk, Frith was halted by a sardonic demon who sat at a toll booth and shook its huge horned head. It scratched its nose and demanded payment. “Six groats for a cart, two for a sedan or rickshaw, one for a horse and half if you’re on foot,” it explained. “By order of the Patrician of Murnu, who built this Boardwalk seven hundred years ago.”
“I am riding on a skeleton,” Frith pointed out. “Besides, I have no money. Now be a good demon and let me pass. I’ll let you gnaw on my mount’s skull in return.”
“Sorry.” The demon shook its head again. “The price includes an escort across the Boardwalk. Have you any idea what would happen if you fell off the side into the Marsh?” It shuddered and looked at Frith through crafty eyes. “Do you know what the Manic Mushrooms are capable of?”
Frith replied in the negative and the demon whistled and sucked in its noxious breath. “They are free verse poets to a mushroom,” it said, “but they weave their verses from the bodies and souls of mortal travellers. There’s one poem that starts something like this: Her lace was green / alone in the house / as she met her maker / cobwebs ached heavily from the / ceiling corners / etc. Never heard of it? Well, those lines once comprised a man similar to yourself, good looking and strong, who also refused an escort. His nerves now form the thread that holds that poem together.”
“Look, I have no money,” Frith repeated. “Are you going to let me pass or not?” And when the demon shook its head a third time, Frith removed that head and spurred his skeleton mount around the toll booth. He had already thought up a name for his skeleton. Knuckles, he was going to call it. Frith, it has to be admitted, was strangely free from the ravages of any sort of originality.
“Listen,” called the demon’s head as it rolled to the edge of the Boardwalk. “You’re making a big mistake. A mushroom who buys everyone drinks might be a fungi to be with, but one that eschews all forms of rhyme and assonance and has a calypso like disregard for metre most certainly is not!”
But Frith ignored this diabolical advice and continued onwards. The Boardwalk of Bones, he saw, was composed entirely of the tibia of dwarves. Although Frith did not know it, the Patrician of Murnu had spent a lifetime collecting them. The bones that had been left over had been used to construct the banks of the Grand Agonised Canal that ringed the Capital of Murnu like a noose.
As Frith made his way across the Boardwalk, he saw that the demon had not lied. Myriads of giant mushrooms and toadstools crowded in around the edges of the platform, declaiming avant garde and surrealist compositions. Some of these poems were among the worst Frith had ever heard. They were all delivered in a variety of tones, some gentle and oily, others aggressive or simply incoherent. Frith covered one ear with his good hand, but his other ear was still fully exposed to the torment. Through winter days and nights / the grey skies press / their leaden weights against / my old cold soul, I am a / dental hygienist.
“This is unbearable!” Frith cried. And the mushrooms laughed and increased their output. Slowly, the lobe of his unprotected ear began to grow warm and then quite hot. It began to throb to the tumult of unstructured rhythms. Before long, the pain was beyond endurance, and blood trickled down the lobe onto Frith’s neck. He gasped and shuddered and tried to blank his mind to the outpourings of these pretentious fungoids, but all to no avail.
Just when it seemed that he had reached the limits of his sanity, Frith’s attention
was attracted by a curious pounding that grew louder with each passing second and which shook the Boardwalk of Bones in an alarming fashion. Far ahead, it seemed, a vast procession of figures was moving towards him. Frith reined Knuckles to a halt and awaited their arrival. He soon saw that the procession comprised a large number of sombre looking men dressed in identical clothing, each wearing a necktie and a carnation and all armed with rolled-up umbrellas.
“Good day!” called Frith. “Who might you be? And why do you brave the free verse terrors of this Boardwalk? Know you not what dangers await if you continue in this direction? They are dangers capable of being surmounted only by a hero of the first rank.” Frith made a little cough and rubbed the back of his hand against his chest in a casual manner. “My name is Frith and I am such a hero.”
But the man who led the procession merely scowled and cried: “Make way! Make way! We are in the middle of a Revolution. We have no time to converse with silly fellows. Now stand aside, you are interrupting our inevitable progress and ultimate victory.”
“A Revolution, eh? But, as you can see, I am in no position to stand aside. To do so would be to throw myself over the side of the Boardwalk. The Manic Mushrooms would like nothing more than to get their dirty little spores on a hero. No doubt, I would become an epic.” And here Frith raised an eyebrow and sighed languidly. “The Boardwalk is simply too narrow. I apologise if I have intruded upon your Revolution. But my business is infinitely more important than yours. I will not sacrifice myself to the parasitical poetasters down there merely to please you.”
“Then you must retreat!” The leader of the procession adjusted the conical black hat on his head and waved his umbrella. “It is out of the question for us to go back now. We are not covered by expenses. Now, come along. Time is money and we have precious little of either left. Besides, I don’t like your face. You look like a scrounger or an anarchist.”
“I am nothing of the sort!” Frith was indignant. “I am a living legend. I have taken up the quest of Sir Nanoc of the Warty Toe and bear the mystic sword, Nigel. So answer me this: who are you? And what is this Revolution of yours?”
“It is the Pedant’s Revolt,” replied the man, “and I am its ringleader. My name is What Tyler. These are my Chief Executives, Why Tyler, How Tyler and Where Tyler. We work in the Ministry of Pedantic Policies, but we have decided to strike over the recent cuts in accuracy. We march now to the Ministry of Facts with the intention of forcing the Reality Clerks to hand us more concrete facts and to recall all the uncertainties they have been issuing lately.”
Frith noted that the man’s ‘Executives’ nodded completely in time with each other. They were like pinstripe puppets, he thought idly. “All very well, I’m sure,” he said, “but it means nothing to me. I have an urgent mission to reach King Popkin with a vital message. It is you who must retreat before me. Your fight for precision will have to wait, I’m afraid. So turn around and be quick about it. I may let you escort me to the Palace if you are good.”
“You slacker!” What Tyler spluttered with rage. “You have no idea what is at stake! Listen to me. In the basement of the Ministry of Facts lies the world’s only Cartesian Well. It is from this well that all analytic facts are drawn. Buckets of Ontology, you see. Cogito Ergo Sum, and all that. Without this Well there would be no a priori truth. We would have to rely on empirical values alone. Yet the Reality Clerks have blocked this Well up. Empiricism is all the rage now.”
Frith shook his head and gave What Tyler a pitying look. “This conversation bores me. Heroes are easily bored, you know. But I will forgive you if you turn around and let me complete my quest. Yes, you must give way before me, lest I grow very angry and force you to comply with my demands. I am not a hero to be meddled with!” And spurring Knuckles forward he cried: “Onwards faithful steed! Let us drive a pathway through these dolts.”
“Now then!” What Tyler raised his umbrella and held the tip under Frith’s chin. “I won’t be dictated to by an incompetent! Our quest for perfect accuracy is of the utmost importance. This is the Pedant’s Revolt and we are its authors. In triplicate!” he added, for good effect.
A sudden notion struck Frith. He eased himself off Knuckles and stood there before them. “So your mission is for certainty in an uncertain Universe? In that case, you have been defeated before you have begun! For uncertainty is the only certainty, and change is the only constant that isn’t boring!” With a gasp, he withdrew Nigel from the ribcage of his bony mount. “Look here! Tell me the colour of this finely tempered blade. What colour is it?”
“Blue!” cried What Tyler, but he was instantly contradicted by his colleagues. “No, green! I mean, red! No, no, I meant purple! Perhaps orange? Or yellow!”
Frith held Nigel higher and the shifting rainbow colours fell over them all. “It is obvious that a sword blade can only be one colour, so how can you claim it is many? Obviously your senses are unreliable and deceive you. Thus you will never be able to know the absolute truth of anything, for even a priori facts are first learned through the senses. As separate ideas they may be fully rationalist, but their application remains empirical. So the whole basis of your Revolt crumbles beneath you. You advocate a philosophy doomed to failure.”
What Tyler lowered his head and removed his hat. He seemed very dejected. “He’s right. Well it seems that we’ve been wasting our time. The world doesn’t need pedants any more. Why should it? In a Universe without any a priori truth there is no place for us.” He straightened up, turned to face his colleagues and addressed them in clipped tones. Frith could tell he was struggling to keep back the tears. “Right lads, we’ve been made redundant. There’s no point living any more. Over the side with the lot of us. Jump to it!”
Frith watched in horrified fascination as, one by one, the pedants flung themselves over the edge of the Boardwalk. The Manic Mushrooms squealed with delight and set about converting them into free verse poems. Why Tyler, How Tyler, and the other Chief Executives were turned into sardonic Futurist manifestos replete with assonance and violent mood changes. Frith closed his eyes as the travesties of literature reached fever pitch. Inspired in spired domains / ideas prick a fluid pierce / through sallow lobes / and rheumy eyes.
What Tyler himself, last to go, stepped off the Boardwalk with a curt salute to Frith and disappeared into a sea of ravenous fungi. He had the singular misfortune to be converted into a Dadaist composition, a performance piece that would haunt Frith for many days to come. At last it was all over. Frith breathed a sigh of relief.
“That was a bit of luck,” he said to Knuckles. “I must be a philosopher.” But turning around, he discovered that Knuckles had vanished. Without Nigel sandwiched between his ribs, he had regained his free will and was now running at full speed back the way they had come. “Stop!” cried Frith, and at this order, Knuckles looked back and poked out his shrivelled tongue. It was a fatal mistake. Unable to see where he was going, he veered off the Boardwalk and span through the air straight into the clutches of a bohemian deathcap.
The poem created from the marrow and cartilage of Knuckles was the most awful of all. It was so bad that Frith’s unprotected ear completely fell off and his eardrum burst, blood mixed with orange wax pulsing from the gaping hole. Even the other mushrooms paused and drew back. It was apparent they had finally gone too far. In rhubarb anguish, cauliflower despair / the abandonment often associated with overripe / plums, I took a hoe to life / weeding between the human beans / for diseased tubers and butter / cups.
“You devils!” howled Frith, as tears streamed down his face. But he took a firmer grip on Nigel and bravely pressed onwards, reaching the end of the Boardwalk before nightfall. From here, it was little trouble to reach the Land of Insane Imps, a place he knew nothing about. Afterwards, he was glad of his ignorance, for had he known he might never have accepted Sir Nanoc’s quest.
Of the Land of Insane Imps and what befell Frith there, it is better to say nothing. Suffice to tell that three days l
ater he managed to escape from their capital, Bigtopia, with a curious limp and a turbocharged unicycle. Such vehicles were the main form of transportation in that realm but it took Frith, for varied reasons, many hours to master their use.
Eventually, however, he became competent enough to steer a direct course towards the Moor of Malevolence. The Moor was completely overgrown with mutant daisies, thistles and clumps of gorse that towered as high as any tree Frith had ever seen. All along its circumference, this monstrous vegetation was considerably less dense and it was just possible to navigate around the edges of the Moor. Frith changed to a lower gear and began the hazardous task of weaving in and out of the prickly papilionaceous shrubs and nightmare dandelions.
As night fell on yet another day, Frith lost his way amid the grotesque forest and found himself heading towards the centre of the Moor. It was at this point that his unicycle developed a puncture and threw him out of the saddle into a clump of gargantuan honeysuckle. Nigel flew out of his belt and embedded itself in the soft earth.
Almost at once, a grim chuckling came at him from the gloom. Frith raised himself just in time to place his unicycle between himself and the laughter. There was a crunch of spokes and a screech and then a long satisfied belch and more giggling and snorting. Frith squinted into the night and desperately felt along the ground for Nigel.
“Who is it?” he demanded, not entirely sure that he wanted an answer. As he backed away, he stumbled over the icy metal of his sword and righted himself. “Whoever it is, I don’t much care for your sense of humour.”
“I am the Wicked Ruse,” replied the hoarse, deep voice. Frith shuddered at a sound like sandpaper being rubbed against a nerve. The creature laughed again but the voice continued. “I am on my way to eat the Moon Children of Lentilville. Who are you?”