The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes)

by Raley, Richard

  “No colors among your kind?” Val asked, perfectly at ease. She did make friends with me, so I suppose another species wouldn’t trouble her at all.

  “Shades of black. Occasionally there are those born without any color at all, but they are rarer than wood or paper.”

  Wood or paper.

  “So there’s more of your kind around?” Val asked him.

  Pougpaelleith nodded. “These are barrens uncivilized lands, but south there are great cities.”

  Even with a mega-super pool this thought was not a happy one. “This bacon tastes weird,” I commented.

  Pougpaelleith tasted his own and shook his head. “Do you not have Steeltusks?”

  “Ah. So, boar bacon . . . not pig bacon.”

  He shrugged. “These names mean nothing to me.”

  “A different type of the same animal, King Henry is just trying to annoy you,” Val explained. “You’ll get used to it, it’s his way.”

  “I look forward to all you both can teach me in the hours we will spend together,” Pougpaelleith politely agreed.

  I put my plate and fork-knife down. “We need to establish some stuff here. First . . . you’re a Black Elf or whatever, nice, but what do you fucking do? Why are you fucking helping us? Who taught you fucking English of all things? Why were you fucking expecting us? How fucking long until we reach the spot where we can cross over?”

  I wasn’t making the missionary assumption here. This guy was no savage. Hell, the savages weren’t savages back when the missionaries were around. He had his own motives, complex motives. Maybe even political motives inside the Sawaephim. Maybe even political motives outside of the Sawaephim. Who knew? So the questions. And more coming up.

  Pougpaelleith thought it over for awhile.

  Val glared at me again.

  Eventually the Sawaephim answered the first question. “I am a priest and a warrior put together. I walk and travel, help where needed, see our laws are upheld in these lands. I give blessings and point the way for pilgrims should they cross my path.” He held the thirteen linked chain around his neck. “Most of all, I remember where others have forgotten.”

  After a bit, Val filled in, “He’s a templar.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” I agreed.

  Pougpaelleith shrugged. “This word is without meaning to me as well. As for the rest, the Great One is my master, he has taught me your language for this day, and knew it would come. We have been waiting many years for you to finally appear King of Dirt.”

  “I hate that fucking title,” I grumped mostly to myself.

  “Fuck . . . you keep saying this word, what does it mean?” Pougpaelleith asked.

  Apparently the finger into a hole hand-signal is universal because he picked up on my meaning really quickly.

  “You’re impossible,” Val whispered under her breath.

  “You have any questions for him or are you just going to trust him?” I asked.

  She thought it over. “Can we call you Poug? The other is very long.”

  Poug nodded. “Any name would sound like that of a king from your lips.”

  I gagged but Val ate it up. “Thank you, Poug.”

  Yes, the O is silent.

  She named him after a fucking dog and the poor guy will never know it.

  “The Great One . . . you’re talking about Meteyos, right?”

  “We do not use that name,” Poug stated very clearly. Clearly enough to get across that if I did it one more time he’d be breaking my arm to get me to never do it a third.

  “Right, but the same guy?”

  “Same being,” Poug agreed. “We . . . templars . . . serve him first. Though many of our people have turned from worshiping him and scorn his beliefs we will never forget the goal of our people.”

  “What’s that?”

  Poug smiled enough to show white teeth. It sent chills through me from head to toe. “To return,” he whispered, “to see the stars again.”

  [CLICK]

  Poug had us put on pilgrim robes over our clothes. Pilgrim robes are also apparently universal, since they were the same brown rough-spun cowled jobs as every Jedi and Crusade movie in the history of mankind. When I was disguised, he still frowned at me. “You are too short to be an adult. We must say you are not yet of age, born into the prayer orders.”

  “Another realm of existence and still with the height slams,” I complained.

  Val grinned at me from under her hood. “Not his fault you’re more dwarf than the dwarves are, King Henry.”

  “Was that your way of calling me short and fat?”

  Poug looked confused. “Do I need to know?”

  “You might want to ask the Great One to let you watch some TV from time to time.”

  Poug looked more confused. “TV?”

  “Stop it,” Val admonished me.

  “Why the need for disguises?” I asked instead of waiting for a comment on TVs. “You said this was unpopulated.”

  “I said it was not civilized. It does have towns, however, and we must pass through one to reach the shore,” Poug explained.

  “Right, and?”

  He studied me like maybe I was stupid. “You have pink skin and she has golden hair, you do not think this will be noticed?”

  “Oh, so not everyone here is down on the whole follow the Great One’s orders thing.”

  Poug shook his head. “Sadly not.”

  “And if they saw us as humans?”

  “Among my kind, humans—especially those with the gift of power—are thought of as betrayers, wicked turncoats who are responsible for our imprisonment. They will attack you, attempt to seize you, and if caught you will be sent to Sawapann to be tried for the crimes of your race, found guilty, tortured, and then executed after you have told the Lords and Ladies of Sawapann all you know of how our once homeland fares.”

  That pronouncement hung in the air just a little bit.

  “Guess I’ll keep my mouth shut when we go through town,” I said.

  “Pilgrims do not speak,” Poug supplied.

  “Let’s hope this works then. I’d hate to have to destroy this place if they attack me.”

  Poug nodded. “As you say. Though my people may wish to capture you, you are the King of Dirt and you wield a world-breaker. What harm could you come to here but by your own hand or by the hand of the Great One himself?”

  That pronouncement hung in the air just a little bit too.

  “Remember that I rescued you from kidnappers not twenty-four hours ago, Mr. World-Breaker,” Val reminded me with a smile.

  Women.

  Always there to point out how much your shit stinks.

  [CLICK]

  We got through the town just fine.

  Out of the whole trip it was the most anti-climatic part.

  Town, better to say village.

  Maybe a dozen buildings. Couple guards at a wall collecting a tax for each person passing through.

  It’s really odd in that I think I could spend days describing things I saw and heard and smelt. How many people can tell you about the Sawaephim language?

  I can go on and on.

  About how it sounds like a handful of dice being repeatedly thrown across ceramic tiles. Or that there’s not a bit of wood to be found, that all the buildings are made of stone and metal, even the fences are made of copper posts connected by woven copper wire. That the lowest denomination in their currency is a diamond the size of a molar. That they have glasses and watches and every one of the men seems to smoke the same foul smelling joint that Poug did.

  That the women are just as tall as the men, that they are fair and beautiful, otherworldly, and seemed to have equality with the men, or at least superiority in different spheres of life seen as equally important. That most people closed their eyes when Poug passed by them and for those that did not he would often touch his hand upon their forehead like giving a blessing.

  On and on and on.

  Days.

  But th
is ain’t the story of the Sawaephim.

  Don’t get me wrong. The shit was amazing. And . . . fucking crazy.

  It turned your worldview around quick. Another species. Dwarves and maybe a whole bunch of other stuff ain’t so extinct as we humans think. Some serious ill feelings go through you. What’s it mean? What are the complications of us being there? What do they want? What do we feel about them?

  Don’t get me wrong. It was important. And . . . fucking crazy.

  Me getting down in the dirt and making a deal with Meteyos would have ramifications neither of us suspected.

  Wars. Death.

  Life. Peace.

  But this ain’t the story of the Sawaephim.

  It’s the story of Valentine Ward and King Henry Price.

  Of Christmas Ward.

  Of the Curator.

  So . . . I won’t be giving you the days and days of tidbits.

  I leave it to this: we got through the village just fine.

  Poug was pleasant company.

  I like the guy.

  Which I can’t say about many humans. So . . . Black Elves: good people outside of the whole wanting to torture me to death thing.

  We walked and walked and walked some more. It was hot under the pilgrim robes but Poug wouldn’t let us take them off. Good reason too, since twice other groups passed us on the road. Once it was herders with these big, black, wooly goat looking things. The other time it was a pair of scruffy looking Sawaephim riding bears.

  Big fucking white bears. Not polar bears mind you. Polar bears’ big brothers.

  Poug had us get off the road while they went by, his lance in the ground and his hand on his metal bow, ready to pull it from his hip like a gunslinger of the Old West.

  “You have actual bear cavalry?” I asked, jealous.

  “We have horse cavalry, just as you do I have been told,” Poug corrected, “Many things are different, many things are the same. Thousands of years, but still, all the realms were once one.”

  “And the fucking giant bears?”

  Poug spat at the backs of the bear-riders, but only after making sure they weren’t looking over their shoulders. “The clansmen of the north went feral after our fall. They turned against artifice and creation and instead make violence for violence’s sake, and menace craftsmen for their goods. The bears . . . help.”

  We kept walking.

  Walking, walking . . . feel like I am in a Peter Jackson movie . . .

  Val started to get antsy. “How much longer? We need to get there before the Curator and this is taking forever.”

  “For your sister, yes? He has stolen her?” Poug asked instead of answering.

  “How do you know that?”

  “The Great One speaks to me often. Guides me, places tasks before me.”

  “Are you the only one?”

  “No, but Poug is one of a kind,” he grinned.

  Val laughed over him.

  Good thing we’re leaving or I’d have competition.

  An hour later, Val asked again, “Are we close?”

  “Closer,” Poug said, “the coast is near, open your nose.”

  He was right, you could smell the sea. Salt and water vapor. Still weird not to hear seagulls though. Or any bird. We’d seen more goats and some type of half-rock half-armadillo creature that Poug made us run past, his lance pointed towards it. But no birds. “You don’t have birds?” I finally broke.

  “Birds? I do not know this word.”

  “Flying creatures. Feathers.”

  “Feathers come from tree lizards. They jump from branch to branch. I have seen it myself or I would not believe it.”

  Val shook her head over the difference. No mockingbirds. No nightingales. How very sad.

  The coastline was rocky, not sandy. I suppose it should have been expected in the Geo Realm. Sand’s a type of earth though. I wonder if there are deserts or . . . or . . . so many questions to ask and not enough time. Val had shocked Poug with tales of airplanes and trains. He’d countered with electric lights, which didn’t shock, but did make us again feel not so far from home. Meanwhile his casual mention of metals stronger and lighter than steel astounded us and our telling of gunpower produced nothing more than a shrug.

  Poug found a specific hole in the rock, worn away by waves now further to sea. It was low tide and it also seemed like the water had once been higher. Perhaps this realm has the opposite problem that we do, lowering sea levels. He pointed at the hole, perhaps three feet deep. “The Great One has told me to lead you here and you will know how to do the rest.”

  I looked at the hole. “The Great One is full of it.”

  “Please do not say such things, King of Dirt.”

  “Give me a hint then.”

  “King Henry,” Val put a hand on my shoulder, “same way as we got here, don’t you think?”

  “Get in the hole and release my pool?”

  “It seems right.”

  “It seems too easy,” I muttered.

  Poug shrugged at the problem I was having with it. “Turning a key is simple. Getting the key is the task.”

  “What key?”

  “You know what key, King of Dirt.”

  The Shaky Stick.

  I studied Poug, black skin, armor, bow, very much not human but again . . . not a bad guy. “Guess this is goodbye.”

  “My task is finished,” he agreed. He nodded to Valentine. “I will remember your golden hair till death takes me, Fire Queen.”

  “And I will remember your proud bearing and noble face until death takes me, Pougpaelleith,” she responded and then . . . hugged him.

  Bastard winked at me from over her shoulder.

  “I am to remind you that you must not face the Broken One,” Poug said after Val had returned to my side. “And that you should head to your right and look for a chariot of green.”

  We stood there, staring at each other. “I suppose since I have the key I can always return.”

  Poug grinned. “If you dare.”

  “If I dare,” I agreed. On a whim I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out my cellphone. I showed him how to turn the thing on. “Don’t know how long it will last—or if you can get your electric light power to charge it up—but . . . has some human entertainment on it even if you can’t use it for talking to people like it’s intended. Music, movies . . . might help you with your English.”

  Poug held the phone like it was magical. I guess it was. “Like paper made of light . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  He studied me in turn. Short, stocky, beat up human that I am. “I must make a gift in turn,” he announced and then pulled out a knife from behind his back, under his cloak. It was made of something that mixed glass and metal. Long and thin, made for punctures. “This knife was made to kill our greatest enemies but our enemies are the victors and not a one remains without our reach. You, however . . .”

  He handed over the knife and it was as light as a feather. A bird feather. No idea about the tree-lizard feathers. “You mean . . . this was made before whatever happened?”

  “Thousands upon thousands of years it has been trapped here with me and my people . . . let it return home,” Poug announced. He nodded at me, then at Val. “I wish you safe journey. You have traveled the Sawaephim realm . . . no task remains to you but the last one.”

  Saving Christmas.

  The Curator.

  I grabbed Val around the waist, stepped into the hole, and threw down a pile of geo-anima.

  Here we come, Earth.

  Session 31

  I had a good feeling about the day, such a good feeling I’d slept like a log all night long and then popped up before the annoying ass humming alarm went off.

  I hurried to my cabinet, pulled out a set of clean colors, and then was off to the showers. Cleaned, dried, ass crack nice n’ sparkling, robed and back to the bedroom. The alarm finally went off just as I pulled my curtains shut to get changed. Groans and complaints echoed all around me.
<
br />   Pocket eventually grabbed my curtain and gave it a yank back and forth so I noticed someone was there. “Coming, dude? Not like I need to smell your stanky butt and get beat on by the Three Queens at the same time.”

  “Already showered,” I said, slipping on some pants. “Nice n’ sparkling, good sir, nice n’ sparkling. Even checked my grundle twice!”

  Silence for a bit, then concern, “Do I need to worry about any of the showers exploding or something?”

  “Nah. I’m just in a good mood.” Shoes next. Even they were colored to match our Mancy discipline. Tennis shoes always, every day at the Asylum, unless you were part of some club that allowed you cleats or hiking boots. We never really controlled our clothes, shit just showed up when we needed it and disappeared when we didn’t.

  “Why a good mood?”

  “Val out there with you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Miranda?”

  “Just me.”

  I pulled open my curtain and slid on my necromancer’s coat at the same time. “Awesome. Go take a shower already.”

  Pocket squinted at me. When he woke up, his brain worked slower than usual and he had a habit of almost sleepwalking to the showers. “What’s going on? You about to steal all of Welf’s clothes again so he has to walk around in a robe trying to find a maid? It was funny the first three or four times but I think it’s gotten old.”

  “Nothing to do with Welf.”

  “Jason?”

  “Nope.” I went back to my cabinet, pulling out something wrapped in a spare coat. I pulled the coat off to unveil my prize.

  Pocket blinked at it a few times. “Where’d you get that?”

  “I made it.”

  “For Val?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pocket sighed a bit, put a hand through his messed up hair. “You don’t go halfway, do you?”

  “Think it will work?”

  He just shook his head at me in wonderment before finally stumbling towards the showers.

  I studied the thing, turned it around, studied it some more. After leaving Ceinwyn’s, I’d rushed on over to the Hall to find Miss Greenbrier, our Elementalism as Art teacher, who was finishing up the decorations for the dance. She’d been pretty happy to see me interested in making anything at all, since I usually spent my time in her class cursing over broken rocks or shitty looking metal hell-if-I-know-what-it’s-supposed-to-be sculptures.