Melonius pushed Harris’ hand away. However, he didn’t dispute these remarks. They might not have penetrated his bull head. The words could have been hornets, buzzing about his temples, threatening to sting, but never doing so.
“We have laws, my lord.”
“No law trumps hope, Melonius. No darkness is so powerful that light is forever extinguished. Think about it. I’m not asking you to raise a flag and join me in a crusade. This isn’t a holy mission. I’ve been appointed Kuriakis’ representative to safeguard Ayelli interests in the marketplace, a position which hasn’t been filled within anyone’s memory. Sounds like a make-work post to me.” He grinned, detecting a slight change in Melonius’ expression. “But what the fuck, we should show them all that a Yuyutlu without a Didaniyisgi is like a whore with only one tit. Help me with this, and then you can scurry off to Volcanium or Aolium and marry the daughter of the Seneschal of Bippity-boo, and I . . .” He winked. “I shall find a hole to slip back into the hostile, violent, volatile world I lost — a world with a sliver of hope. Help me trust you, Melonius. That’s all I ask.”
The Danuwa nodded, curtly.
3
“You have found him,” came a voice.
Parnasus, now fully dressed, stood on the threshold, Elypticus peeping over his shoulder. Harris turned.
“Yes, lads,” he chortled. “Seek and ye shall find. Your partner in crime was about to show me how to play . . . glunocker?”
“Grusoker,” Melonius said, shrugging.
“My favorite game,” Elypticus piped, crossing the threshold. “You need at least three players.”
“You are not a good player,” Melonius said.
“Good enough,” Elypticus replied, scooting to the gaming table. “Come, Parnasus, help me set up.”
Parnasus bowed to Harris, and then proceeded to the table. Harris looked to Melonius, who still hadn’t cottoned to the idea, no doubt.
“I like games, Melonius,” Harris said, “and I’ll bet this one is better than the one we’ve been playing.”
Melonius wandered to the table, sitting in the round. Harris joined him.
“Yustichisqua handles my purse, so I’m playing on credit. Does anyone object?”
“How can we?” Elypticus said. “We are playing with your yedalas.”
Parnasus laughed and clasped his coins in his hand.
“Then the question goes to Melonius,” Harris said, “whose luck has given him a fistful of Yunocker yedalas.”
“The best way to learn is to listen and watch,” Melonius said. “I will explain, but you will not understand until you see a few rounds.”
“Shoot,” Harris said.
Elypticus pressed a button and the board elevated slightly from the table. It was an attractive playing surface — round and richly carved. There were blue slots for the yedalas, the bets no doubt, and a track with holes circumnavigating a bright-green slab. In the holes, or at least in what Harris assumed was the starting position, were ivory pegs — a cribbage arrangement. Then Melonius pressed another button and seven dice materialized centerboard. Harris grinned at the pretty things — three pyramids, three tetrahedrons and an octahedron — pearl white with blue and red markings, which Harris had come to recognize as Farn numbers.
“First we shake these,” Elypticus said, passing the dice to Parnasus, who gave them a good rattle, barely able to contain them in his hands. “And let them fall onto the gorettle.”
Parnasus dropped the stones in the center of the board — in an area which lit with a flash of green, and then with a warm, cozy blue. Elypticus scanned the dice with his index finger, calculating.
“Two yedalas,” Melonius said.
“Is it two?” Parnasus replied, cocking his head, looking for himself.
“Trust me.” He glanced at Harris. “We calculate the bet based on the arrangement of the stones, and then divide their position by the numbers appearing on the face-ups. The side stones, turned inward, are discounted — we subtract that amount, and then look to the mother rock.” He pointed to the octahedron. “If it has an even number, we deduct one. If odd, we add one, and if it is blank, it is a wash.”
“I think it is only one,” Parnasus said,
“Two,” Melonius quibbled.
“It is two, Parnasus,” Elypticus said. “See, this one with the five, faces this one with the three.”
Parnasus squinted, and then took two yedalas and slipped them into the slots. He moved a peg forward. Harris was befuddled. Never strong at math, he would stink at the Farn variety. He hoped he’d fare better in the marketplace. Elypticus took his turn at tossing.
“Oh, bogger,” he said. “Three. That is much.”
He frowned, but placed his wager in a separate slot and moved a peg forward two spaces. Melonius grinned, took up the stones in two hands, gave them a stylized rattle as if he could control luck’s vagary. Down they went.
“Free ride,” he exclaimed.
“I think they are rigged somehow,” Elypticus said.
“You know they are not,” Melonius exclaimed, and then clasped his fingers together in greed. He turned to Harris.
“Now that the bidding is set, the play begins.” He pressed a button and a stack of tiles levitated above the board. Swiftly, they were dealt to each player, who caught them and quickly hid them behind the low boundary of the table’s edge. Harris peeked at Melonius’ set. There were tiles in four colors — red, yellow, green and blue, and only on the face. The backs were golden. Each had a Farn number, but Harris could see script sigils on some.
“Watch,” Melonius said. “We shall play this first rubber slowly.”
Another stack appeared centerboard — in the gorettle. Melonius turned over a tile.
“This is a blue four,” he said. He pointed at Parnasus to his right, counter-clockwise. “Now Parnasus will attempt to match either color or number. Do so, Parnasus.”
Parnasus placed a tile.
“A green four,” Parnasus said.
Elypticus placed a tile atop this one.
“A green seven,” he said.
“The play comes to me,” Melonius explained. “You can see, I can play one of several tiles. If I want the play to continue to Parnasus, I will play another number. But if I wish the play to return to Elypticus, I will place a sigil.” He pointed to one. “There are four sigils to each color — a sun, a moon, a star and a comet. This turns the play.”
He played a comet.
“Blue comet,” Elypticus said, playing a blue number. “Blue seven.”
“Green seven,” Parnasus declared, playing his tile.
“Yellow seven,” Melonius said, and suddenly their hands went to the stack, slapping it hard.
“Grusoker,” Elypticus and Parnasus both shouted.
“I got it,” Elypticus snapped.
“I think I did,” Parnasus complained.
“It does not matter,” Melonius said. “I announced the three in a row to demonstrate.”
“Oh,” Elypticus said. “Take it, brother,”
“No, brother,” Parnasus replied.
Melonius snapped his hand over it.
“Grusoker, then.” He grinned and gathered the entire stack. “Do not pout. You know the rules.”
Harris laughed.
“But who gets the yedalas?”
“They accumulate, my lord,” Melonius said. “Whoever gets the full stack gets the ransom.”
“It seems easy,” Harris said.
Melonius grinned, and then nodded to his fellow players. Parnasus’ hand went to the stack, revealing the next tile. Elypticus played a number, Melonius a sigil, reversing play, quickly, and so it went. Harris could hardly see their hands flying as the play went about and about, punctuated by slapping hands and cries of grusoker. There were several debates over false starts with the slaps, but the game was vigorous — stopping briefly for a toss of the dice, new bets and peg advancement. He wanted to ask about the pegs, but could barely keep track of the flyi
ng tiles, the slaps and the shouts. Finally, the last slap came crashing down in the gorettle, and Melonius declared himself the victor. Harris roared and clapped.
Elypticus and Parnasus appeared crestfallen, but shook their brother Danuwa’s hand.
“It looks like I’ll need to pay you lads more often to keep you in grusoker money,” Harris announced. “But I might not need to pay Melonius anything if this is an example of his gambling skills.”
Melonius nodded to Harris. It wasn’t kinship, but ground had been established. However, Harris might need to win some yedalas before Melonius would consider the playing ground level, but at least there was a playing ground now.
“Ah, grusoker!” came a hearty hail over the threshold.
“Lord Agrimentikos,” Harris said. “Are you a player?”
“I might have invented the game back when we called it Egyptian Ratscrew, but I have not played at it in years.”
Buhippus was at his side and, behind them, Yustichisqua.
“My lords,” Buhippus said. “There is no time for such play.”
“Why, what’s happened?” Harris asked.
“The sky, oginali,” Yustichisqua said. “It has turned.”
“Yes,” Agrimentikos declared. “Yichiyusti is finished. Kuriakis no longer stirs.”
“We will be summoned to the Zocor council,” Buhippus said.
Harris turned to his Danuwa. The dank, smoke-laden air of the gaming pit seemed perfumed now.
“My loyal Danuwa,” Harris said. “I will continue to learn this fascinating game on another day. Perhaps, I’ll get good at it and whip your asanos. But now we must fulfill our duty. Let’s sparkle for the council, now that our lord no longer stirs. Let the Ayelli make its mark.”
“That is the spirit,” Agrimentikos said.
Harris glanced at Melonius, who appeared less recalcitrant, although he wasn’t dancing the herky-jerky. Harris looked to his trusty Taleenay.
“Little Bird,” he called. “Time to shine. Time to sparkle.”
Yustichisqua nodded and slapped his dagger’s hilt. Harris slapped his Columbincus. There was nothing like a game of grusoker, played with the highest stakes.
Chapter Thirteen
Time to Shine — Time to Sparkle
1
At Yichiyusti’s end, the sky shone turquoise. Solus and Dodecadatamus were two butter pats melting in the heavens. Outside the Lyspykyn, the revels began — banners and dancers and musicians, generating a festival where there had been gloom. Harris rode in his Cabriolin, Yustichisqua holding tightly to the railing. The Danuwa rode in formation beside throngs of Gurts and Zecronisians, who sang and juggled and skipped and hopped on two or three legs, each to nature’s accordance. Elypticus, pie-eyed, beamed at the sights — the scantily clad women, who twisted and shook like puddings on a rack. Parnasus puckered, as if to blow a kiss to an odalisque, who reclined in a sedan, carried by four hulks on their tripod legs. Melonius kept his eyes front, but Harris saw them occasionally leering at one reveler or another.
Buhippus was in the fore, his vanguard Yunockers clearing a way through the crowd.
Banners whipped across canopies as the Didiniyisgi’s cortege entered the principal boulevard of the Wudayleegu — a broad thoroughfare lined with sandstone buildings with palladium doorways; off-kiltered, because these buildings mushroomed into a fantasy array — minarets, pagodas, stupas, ziggurats, beehives, bulbous domes and other pietra dura. Green and yellow pigeons swarmed above the roofs, reflecting like bees in a riot of gold, jade, lapis lazuli and peridot tiles.
“Astounding,” Harris said. “It’s like the set for Gandhi or perhaps The Last Emperor.”
“Oginali,” Little Bird noted. “It is like a fungimus forest.”
“I know what you mean,” Harris replied, although he hadn’t a clue.
“The Wudayleegu is the pride of Montjoy,” Agrimentikos said, his Cabriolin sidling to Harris’. “The interiors are what you would expect. Lord Kuriakis visits twice a year to gape at the architecture and to acquire a few oddments for the Museum.”
“The Zecronisians are quite the builders,” Harris remarked.
“The Gurts are the builders, Lord Belmundus,” Agrimentikos replied. “They are remarkably ugly creatures with the lowest of habits, but from them emerge . . .” He waved his hand beneath the shadows cast by palaces and pavilions. “All this and more.” He tugged at his cloak. “More.”
As they penetrated the boulevard, the crowd thickened. Soon, the Provost’s cortege resembled a parade, becoming the center of attention. Sidelines formed. Banners waved. Welcome shouts assailed Harris, assaulting all his senses. Should he raise his hand like the Queen and give a little twist? Instead, he held his head high and arched his shoulders. Yustichisqua imitated this, as did the three Danuwa. This stance was met with acclaim, swelling with many Adadooskis and Arkmos, although other words resonated, shouts of bobyfysmagu and jipjipjiptipu or something like them. Harris hoped they were the equivalent to Ayelli praise words. Otherwise, he would need a Cabriolin hooded with protection — the Farn version of the Pope-mobile.
At the end of the boulevard loomed the Zocorpykyn — the Wudayleegu’s Custom House — the chief building of the city. Harris recalled it when they had dropped out of the Yugda. It impressed him then and impressed him now. A full skirt of mopyn swept from a two-hundred foot pinnacle in a graceful spiral to a broad veranda. A series of arches braced a rotund glass façade.
“How does it remain standing?” Harris mused.
He glanced to his Danuwa. All three craned their necks to survey the Zocorpykyn. Then, along side their entourage appeared a floating platform — a stiff magic carpet, if Harris let his imagination wander. On it sat (in their tripod fashion) trumpeters and a single drummer. They raised their instruments in unison and blasted away. The sonorous fanfare was an intricate composition, probably reserved for special occasions. On the opposite side, another carried more drums and an organ-like instrument, a Zecronisian master filling in melodies and descants, weaving like Liberace on his best night.
“Welcome to the Zocorpykyn, Lord Belmundus and company,” came a voice that cut through from another float, which swerved before the cortege. It was Mr. Fytzyfu with a corps of the Lyspykyn dancers. “It is an honor the Elector favors the Wudayleegu with his Didaniyisgi.”
Harris touched his Columbincus and, at that, the trumpeters blew a salute. Buhippus gazed back, a grin blossoming across his face.
“Oginali,” Yustichisqua muttered. “They are happy to see us.”
“Time to sparkle, old man. Time to shine.”
As they approached the façade, wide glass doors shimmered, and then opened. The surrounding terraces were overhung with citizenry, cheering and applauding. Harris saluted as the procession entered the Zocorpykyn.
Inside, a foyer widened into an auditorium — wide enough to accommodate the floating band. A chorus sang in the hall’s recesses. It sounded to Harris like a hymn, but with oriental overtones — somewhere between the Hatikvah and Chopsticks. He looked to Agrimentikos, whose congenial smile gave way to astonishment. Elypticus looked as if he would lay an egg, while Parnasus trembled, with delight perhaps, but it might have been awe. Melonius shook his head affirming the proper respect accorded to Ayelli.
Time to shine. Time to sparkle.
The audience hall brimmed with the Zecronisian aristocracy, all upstanding and cheering. If Harris had been a gladiator seeking a thumbs-up or down, he couldn’t have expected a more rousing response. The auditorium lacked seats, the population having their own retractable anatomical stools.
Harris gazed across a sea of silk, satin, gems, turbans, twists, mortarboards, shawls, gagoos and bling. He also noticed pockets of similarly attired Gurts, their low foreheads and olive skin setting them apart from the Wudayleegu crowd.
The bands drifted to the auditorium’s front, settling into niches as if they were iPods slipped into portable speakers. On the dais, three rows of dignitaries
sat — the Zocor Council, wearing white shawls streaked blue and fringed green. Some wore round fur hats, while most had small boxes strapped to their noggins. They bowed repeatedly to each other as they spoke. First row members seemed more prominant, their robes brightly colored — arrayed in rainbow order, violet to red. The three centerpiece men wore green. Harris recognized Nikodemos and assumed this was the council. He later learned the three were the Byllymycky, chosen by a Zecronisian-Gurts caucus. Evidently, Gurt power went beyond their craft, sharing spiritual kinship with the Zecronisians. Still, the Zocor Council sat as the Wudayleegu’s spiritual spearhead and the Byllymycky, the council’s supreme authority.
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