King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  By now more gnomes were arriving, shouting and gesticulating. It was quite flattering, thought Gwen, that they should be looking to the humans for help.

  “Mold’s right!” This from the Gooligog, arriving at a slower pace. “We were persuaded to build here by the Great Poxy. I committed the discussion to memory. Would you like me to repeat it verbatim?”

  “Action!” cried Mold. “Why are we standing here arguing, when our very homes are in jeopardy? To the cottages, gnomes!” And he dragged ruthlessly at his rabbit’s ears, swung him around, and rode for the settlement.

  The other gnomes followed, the humans riding behind. Pong guided his rabbit beside Gwen. “There’s been some question about the Great Poxy’s leadership recently,” he said.

  “That’s nothing new in gnomedom,” grumbled Pan to Palomides. “King Bison is walking a tightrope too.”

  “And the Sharan?” asked Ned. “She’s in good health, I hope?”

  “I don’t want to talk about the Sharan.”

  “The Great Poxy mentioned the Sharan only the other day, Pan,” said Pong. “He felt it might be more appropriate for you and the Sharan to live here instead of in the forest. I don’t agree, really,” he added unhappily, “but that’s what the Great Poxy is saying. I thought I ought to tell you.”

  “There’s sense in that,” said Palomides quickly. “This is a thriving settlement. There must be three times as many gnomes here as in the forest.”

  “Is the Sharan so important?” asked Gwen.

  “She’s the whole reason for gnomish existence,” said Pong.

  “Then certainly she should be here with our beach gnomes.”

  Pong sighed. “The Miggot would never come here.”

  “The Miggot is a cruel and heartless swine,” said Pan. “I’m sure I could bring myself to serve another guardian, if one were officially appointed.”

  “That’s settled, then,” said Gwen, relieved. Transferring the Sharan made a lot of sense. Now that she came to think about it, Ned had proposed just such a relocation several times over the years. And the Sharan would be a unifying influence on the beach gnomes. It was rather worrying to find little Drexel’s popularity slipping.

  They arrived at the gnomish village. Over fifty small structures stood on a flat grassy area bounded by the forest to the north, the beach to the south, the rocky bluff to the east, and the brook to the west. Between the village and the beach ran a ribbon of flotsam: driftwood, dry seaweed, seagull bones, and empty crab shells, delineating the normal high-water mark. This bank of muck was now heaving as waves began to pass under it. Tongues of water crept across the grass toward the cottages.

  Lancelot sprang from his horse and, seizing one of the cottages, tried to drag it toward the forest. Tiny by human standards, it was about four by four by three feet high. It resisted his efforts. “Come and give me a hand with this, Ned!” he shouted.

  Somewhat reluctantly, Ned took hold of the building by the eaves. “This is pointless, Lance. We’ll never get them all moved in time.”

  “We have to do something, Ned. We can’t just stand around watching.”

  “I don’t believe in empty gestures.” Ned, still grasping the cottage, made no attempt to lift. “And anyway, it was the gnomes that got themselves into this mess. It’s not our problem. Either they’re self-sufficient or they’re not.”

  “For God’s sake, Ned!” snapped Gwen. “Get on with it. The gnomes are depending on us!”

  Grumbling, Ned lifted. Lancelot lifted. With a rending noise the cottage roof came away from the walls, revealing a gnome lying in bed, blinking the sleep from his eyes and regarding them in terror.

  “The giants are attacking!”

  The scream of warning alerted nearby gnomes to the situation, and they paused in their evacuation, possessions in their arms, worried expressions changing to fear.

  “The giants are attacking!” The word spread up the rocky bluff to the plateau where Bart o’ Bodmin was supervising storage of the refugees’ possessions. He looked up from his work and saw Lancelot and Palomides for the first time, apparently in the process of destroying the village.

  There was not a moment to lose. “To the dolmens, gnomes!” he shouted.

  He had waited two years for this moment.

  The dolmens were Bart’s invention. Two years previously, Drexel Poxy’s grip on his little empire had begun to slip. A small team of gnomes, whose duties consisted of cleaning out the sewers at Camelot, refused to work. In the course of the endless meetings it became clear that a hard core of dissidents existed who objected quite strongly to many aspects of the gnomes’ association with the humans.

  “Poxy, you have sold us out!” cried Bran the Restless.

  Although Bran was never seen again—Bart reported seeing him riding west—the echo of his cry continued to reverberate through the village, gnomish memory being what it is. Until, one week later, Drexel Poxy uncovered a frightful situation that drove all else from the minds of the beach gnomes.

  That evening as they sat around the village’s central fire eating meat, a new and tasty food to which the humans had introduced them, Bart o’ Bodmin rose to his feet. “The Great Poxy has an important announcement,” he said.

  Drexel Poxy stood, his eyes reflecting the glow from the fire. “The forest gnomes are preparing for war!” he boomed in a voice worthy of King Bison himself. “We must arm ourselves against the foe!”

  There was an outburst of shouting in which could be distinguished the words “Buttocks!” from Mold the Outrageous, and “What foe?” from the majority. “What foe?” they cried, glancing nervously into the shadows.

  “I just told you,” shouted Poxy irritably. “The forest gnomes!”

  “The forest gnomes can’t be foes,” said Pong. “They are gnomes. You must mean we should unite with the forest gnomes against the common foe!”

  “Unite with the forest gnomes,” cried the gnomes, relieved. They’d become increasingly unhappy about the rift between them and their inland friends. “Against the common foe!”

  “It takes a common foe to make us see sense!” shouted Pong. “It’s good to have a common foe again!”

  There was a roar of assent. “We must send a message to Bison. We must meet and exchange views. We must make mutual decisions on how to deal with this terrible threat!” Buzzing with excitement, the gnomes began to discuss it among themselves. It would be good to see the forest gnomes again; dear old Bison, sensible young Fang, even the Miggot of One and Elmera. However, it slowly became apparent that their discussions lacked some essential element. There was a void that needed filling. Pong was the first to put it into words.

  “Who is the common foe?” he asked.

  By now Poxy realized he’d lost the day and must salvage what he could from the wreckage. He stared at the forest for inspiration; at the rocky bluffs, at Pong, at the sea. And suddenly he had a vision of a giant creature rising dripping from the sea on armored legs, pincers snapping.

  “The lopster!” he told them. “The lopster is the common foe!”

  They groaned with horror and followed his gaze. The sea surged darkly, breaking into threatening little waves near the beach. The lopster, they realized, could come at any moment. The matter was deadly serious.

  “If the lopster is the common foe,” asked the Gooligog shrilly, “what the hell are we doing living on the beach?”

  “We will protect ourselves!” countered the Gnome from the North swiftly.

  And so the dolmens came into being.

  The dolmens stood on the rocky bluff, a row of great boulders precariously balanced. Bart o’ Bodmin had directed the work. A group of Accursed Gnome refugees had dug away the soil and chipped away all extraneous granite from beneath certain big rocks chosen by Bart. When the work was complete, each boulder needed only the slightest push to send it bounding down the bluff toward the beach, and the common foe. The gnomes were all in favor of a trial run with one or more dolmens, to gauge their effecti
veness and, of course, to see the splash when they hit the water. But Drexel Poxy would not allow it. “The day will come when we need them all,” he’d said darkly.

  And so the dolmens had remained poised above the village for two years, but the lopster had not attacked. Bart became a bitter and frustrated gnome. In due course the memory of the lopster faded and the main threat to the village became the dolmens themselves. On stormy nights the beach gnomes shivered in their tiny cottages, dreading each thunderclap, each gust of wind that might result in a dolmen breaking free and careering madly through the village, smashing cottages and gnomes alike. Bart came in for criticism. Poxy made the most of these occasions, however, leading the gnomes in a prayer to the Great Grasshopper, urging everybody to pull together and inveighing against malcontents. Bart, for the first time, experienced some resentment of Poxy’s methods.

  But now at last, the boulders would prove their worth.

  “To the dolmens, gnomes!” shouted Bart o’ Bodmin.

  Gnomes took up their stations behind the dolmens, levers at the ready. Two years of training were about to pay off. The human peril would be smashed.

  “Let go Dolmen Number One!” yelled Bart, lost in a haze of joy.

  Three gnomes poked stout staffs under the boulder and leaned against them. The dolmen shifted, rocking. Timing their heave, they tilted the boulder beyond the point of balance. It moved away from them, slowly at first, noisily crushing stones in its path. Then it gathered speed, bounding, bouncing down the bluff.

  Cries of alarm rose from below. Gnomes scattered, dropping household items as they ran. The dolmen’s shape was irregular and it changed direction with each bounce. The humans heard the commotion but quickly realized they were out of its direct path. Lancelot apologized to the gnome in bed, who by now was frantically pulling on his boots, and replaced the roof. They watched with fascination as the dolmen, about four feet across, smashed its way through the cottages and, its momentum checked, rolled tamely into the sea.

  “What the hell are you doing, Bart?” shouted Mold.

  But Bart o’ Bodmin was drunk with power. “Let go Dolmen Number Two!” he ordered, and yelled with delight as the next boulder sped on its destructive path. He saw the Great Poxy scuttling toward him, shouting. He saw the humans back away from their evil work, crestfallen and defeated. “Let go Dolmen Number Three!” he squealed, and his gnomes bent to their task with a will.

  The Great Poxy appeared at his side, face contorted with emotion, reaching for him. He could only assume that his leader intended to embrace him; but now was not the right time. There was work to be done. Fighting off the Gnome from the North, he dispatched Dolmen Number Four.

  This one cut a swath through the outlying dwellings and actually passed quite close to the giants. Bart had the satisfaction of seeing Lancelot jump back with a cry of alarm as a broken board spun past his face. It was the last satisfaction Bart had. Drexel Poxy and Mold the Outrageous wrestled him to the ground.

  “You have some explaining to do, Bart!” shouted the Gnome from the North.

  Meanwhile other gnomes had arrived and overpowered the remaining dolmen teams. The Gooligog came stumping out of the forest where he’d been contemplating his memories, hoping someone else would carry his possessions to safety. Hearing the sounds of destruction, he emerged to find his dwelling reduced to its components. “This day will live in infamy, Bart,” he cried. “I’ll make bloody sure of that. Your foul deed will echo through the annals of gnomish history.”

  Bart managed to twist his face out from a tussock of rank weed. “I was defending our village against the common foe! What’s the matter with you all?”

  The gnomes regarded the sea. Many of the houses were awash by now, but no monster rose from the deeps, no pincers reached for fleeing prey. “I see no common foe,” growled Poxy.

  “The giants are the common foe!”

  “You have it wrong, Bart. We went through all this years ago. The lopster is the common foe.”

  Lancelot, Gwen, and Palomides arrived, mildly puzzled. “You smashed a lot of houses,” said Lancelot. “Why did you do that?”

  “Really, Bart,” said Gwen, “it was too bad of you.”

  “I was misinformed,” muttered Bart, beginning to understand. “I received poor intelligence. I acted in accordance with information received, and it’s possible that a mistake was made somewhere.”

  “It was inevitable,” said the Gooligog. “You perch a row of rocks above a village, and sooner or later someone’s going to take a lever to them. If not on this happentrack, on the next. It’s gnomish nature. Well, to hell with you all, that’s what I say. I’m going to build myself a proper, sensible gnomish burrow at the edge of the forest where it won’t get flooded out and where the trees are too thick for these bloody shytes to hover. I should never have been talked into building a cottage. Cottages are for humans, burrows are for gnomes. Good-bye.” And he plodded back down the rocky road to the beach.

  Bart, perhaps hoping to improve the Memorizer’s final impression, called after him desperately, “Have a nice day, Gooligog!”

  It was a mistake. The Gooligog wheeled around furiously. “Doesn’t it ever occur to you people that I might not want to have a nice day?” he shouted back.

  It was late evening. The tide had receded and the gnomes had moved back into their homes, taking in refugees from the broken cottages until the damage could be repaired, lighting big fires to dry things out. The biggest fire of all roared in the center of the village, and around this sat Lancelot, Gwen, Palomides, various gnomes, and a dead deer.

  Bart, striving to reassert himself, said, “It looks as though we have some problems with our present location.”

  Drexel Poxy replied testily, “We don’t have problems, Bart. We’ve never had problems. We have a few challenges, that’s all. Today has been a good day. We’ve learned some useful lessons today. We’ve been through a testing time and we’ve emerged intact, our confidence in the future undiminished, our good friends the humans at our side.”

  “And the dead deer,” Mold pointed out, “that’s at our side too.”

  “And the dead deer,” agreed Poxy, giving it a mystified glance. Its eyes were open though dull, and its tongue lolled from its mouth. It lay slackly on the sand, fur matted. A flock of shytes, left over from the Gooligog’s departure, eyed it covetously. “Our challenge is to prevent a repetition of today’s disaster. That will be simple. The remaining dolmens will be disarmed by packing soil and gravel around their bases.”

  Pong the Intrepid said, “I thought today’s disaster was that your houses got flooded out, like I said they would. You should have listened to me. I know all about tides. I’ve lived in that cave of mine for a hundred years, and my father before me.” He shut his mouth quickly, flushing. The reference to Poop the Craven had slipped out accidentally, and he hoped nobody had noticed.

  “We will build a dyke,” said Drexel Poxy loftily.

  “Why not just move back into the forest? Building a dyke is an awful lot of work.”

  “I’m sure our friends the humans will help.”

  “Of course,” said Lancelot, in the process of butchering the deer. Entrails tumbled out at the thrust of a sword, and a dreadful stink arose. Taking his dagger, Lancelot began skillfully to skin the carcass.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that here, Lancelot.” Even Poxy’s sensibilities were ruffled. “Giantish rituals are not always acceptable to gnomes.”

  “You want to eat, don’t you?”

  “Of course. We’re all very hungry,” said Poxy, who had been aware of mutterings of discontent from his followers for some time now. “But we don’t like to say anything.” He glanced hopefully at the nearby cart. “We’ve lost nearly all our food.”

  “There was a misunderstanding,” said Bart quickly, “and several gnomes spent time carrying their personal possessions up the bluff instead of emptying out the community storehouse.”

  “And then it was too la
te,” said Poxy ruthlessly, “because a dolmen smashed the storehouse to pieces and crushed the supplies. They just floated away.”

  “On the tide,” Bart pointed out, becoming annoyed. “When recalling this day, I hope we will all remember that it was the tide that set in motion the sequence of events resulting in the accidental release of the dolmens. I’m sure none of us want to see gnomish history distorted.”

  “You’re too late, Bart,” said Poxy with an unpleasant grin. “The Gooligog’s already made up his mind. You shouldn’t have destroyed his house.”

  Bart began to wonder if he’d done the right thing five years ago in Bodmin, when he’d thrown in his lot with Drexel Poxy. It had seemed a good idea at the time. But now they were at loggerheads over a simple misunderstanding, and Bart’s status was in decline. Before long, thought Bart gloomily, he would be deposed as Poxy’s second in command, and Mold the Outrageous would be appointed in his stead.

  He must have sunk into gnomish contemplation, because when he next became aware of his surroundings, things had changed. A horrifying mass of flesh was searing on a hellish fire before him, and the gnomes were in an uproar.

  “You can’t expect us to eat that! That’s a dead animal!”

  “You’ve been eating dead animals for years!” A giantish protest.

  “Rectums to that!” The voice of Mold making itself heard as usual. “Meat, yes. Meat you brought ready for the pot. Meat in bite-sized pieces that we cooked in our stews and didn’t have to think about. Clean, civilized meat. Not this stuff. This is barbaric! The stink when you were cutting it up was bad enough, but now? A severed head on the beach. The eyes looking straight at me. Arms and legs and God knows what hanging there scorching over the fire. And what’s that part hanging down there?—answer me that! Look at it all! It could be a huge gnome!”