Elypticus gasped.
“Are you ill?” Harris asked.
“I am desperately ill, my lord.”
“I wish I had a basket of mongerhide and a flagon of brantsgi for you, but I’m afraid it won’t get any better than shit in a pail.”
Elypticus sighed.
“My illness comes from shame, not hunger.”
Harris straightened the Thirdling’s shoulders.
“You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, my friend. You saved my life.”
“It was my duty to do so,” Elypticus replied, attempting to genuflect.
“Enough of that, sir,” Harris chided. “Look around you. We’re both in the same fucking soup. Your attention to protocol gets us nowhere, so stow it. When you realize we’ve a real problem instead of accepting this dump, you’ll feel a helluva lot better. Don’t look at this place and call it fate.”
“Fate, it is,” Elypticus said. “We are destined to it.”
Harris shook his head.
“Bullshit. That’s Trone thinking. I would expect a sqwallen-head to spout crap like that, but not an Ayelli.”
Elypticus grinned, but then covered his face.
“I am a Trone, my lord.”
“No, you’re not.”
“We are all Trones.”
Harris pushed away from the kaybar, kneeling beside his cellmate.
“How do you figure that? Have you seen me giving in to them yet?”
“We all have surrendered, my lord.” Elypticus sighed again, this time tinged with anger, an emotion Harris had never seen him display. “The Trones bow to all, but the Yunockers also bend their necks to the lords on the hill. The Thirdlings are fated to it also. We are raised like awidena, to be sacrificed when the time comes — like a game of grusoker. We are mated to goblins and hags — Thirdlings who breathe fire and have no faces, playing the game to see who will lay seed in barren fields. We try and try and never succeed, all for the sake of the one chance promised. Thousands of spawn, fated to try our luck, not for life, but for a miracle never to be, because . . . I do not believe it can happen. I believe we have been punished for the Electors’ folly and their warfare. So long as Thirdlings are sent between the realms to frolic between the legs, the Electors hope for the Spasatorum.”
“You don’t believe in it, do you?”
“Do you, my lord?” Elypticus clasped the wall and pulled himself up. The dim light from the distant port struck his tender cheeks, catching a glistening of tears. “We are all Trones. And the consorts are at the top of the tree, forced to make us, so the game can go onward and onward, never ending.” He turned to Harris. “I am ashamed because I have failed you, but I am glad that this Trone will find release from his Thirdling fate. I will not find the shores of a distant beast, who will ride me until I am sore and sorry, until I fade beside the Pulveris Stream, where my body will melt in the rippling tide and be lost to all memory.”
Harris stood, grasping Elypticus’ arm, and then pulling him into an embrace.
“With those words, you are truer to me than you know. You haven’t failed me, Elypticus. You’ve come to this realization on your own and, in my world, we call that wisdom — a rare gift and not one to melt in the Pulveris Stream.”
“Do you say true, my lord?”
“I say true, Elypticus.”
Harris hugged him tightly, and then drew him back to the kaybar. He picked up the pail, lifting it to his nose.
“I can’t tell whether this is food or waste,” he muttered.
He threw the pail against the metal bars, the racket stirring the other inmates, like feeding time at the zoo. A Fantin swooped down, hitting the grate with his Stick.
“Prisoner Belmundus,” the guard snapped. “If you disrupt the gallery again, you shall lose a finger.”
Harris shot the Fantin a finger, and then both fingers. He wasn’t sure whether this was a valid Farn expression of disrespect, but he was in no mood to moon the guard. Elypticus was on his feet again.
“Bring us something to eat that I can eat,” he demanded.
“You can eat my Stick, young whelp,” the Fantin shouted. “I shall shove it in your mouth and fire away. You might find the aniniya aftertaste a bit harsh for your refined taste, but you should have thought about that before you assaulted a regulati.”
“I did not assault a regulati,” Elypticus protested.
The guard pounded his Stick on the bars. The shouts from the other inmates increased and several Fantin joined the first, yelling expletives to quell the restless — promises of digit loss, cessation of feeding and other useless threats, which hopeless men disregard. Then, the Fantin warden arrived. Harris hoped Tarhippus would pay him a visit too. He had reserved the mooning for the General and perhaps a loud and sour bupka fart. But the warden, a pompous jackass who rarely spoke and only sneered, broke his customary silence with a single word.
“Visitor,” he said, his supercilious voice cutting through the clatter.
Harris pulled up to the bars to see who accompanied the warden and shuddered upon recognition. Lord Tappiolus had come to gloat.
2
“Boots!”
“Fuck you, Tappiolus and the Cabriolin you rode in on.”
“Cliché to the end, Lord Belmundus, or should I say, Prisoner Belmundus.”
“Stick to Boots, if you’re smart.”
Tappiolus pushed aside the Fantin, allowing the warden to repeat his announcement, but with a more pronounced sense of importance.
“Visitor,” he snapped.
“I’m not at home,” Harris replied, and then receded into the darkness, standing with Elypticus.
“I have come to assess your condition,” Tappiolus said.
“Is Charminus upset that my dick didn’t show up on time?”
“You are not up this week. But even so, she is disturbed by the circumstances and is distracted.”
“Distracted?”
Tappiolus waved the warden aside and came close to the bars.
“You have broken our father’s heart, Boots.”
“Why should he care?” Harris asked. “He’s only interested in hunting and Brunting and making nice with the other Electors.”
“For the gain of Montjoy and for Farn.” Tappiolus rattled the grate. “You have brought much harm to the household. I cannot forgive you.”
Harris charged the bars, shaking them vigorously, setting Tappiolus back and the warden forward.
“If harm has been brought to the household, you’ve brought it with your pompous attitude and your fucking spying. I should have blasted The Eye when I had the chance. Now you’ve cooked my goose and my Danuwa and . . .”
“. . . your Taleenay?” Tappiolus snarled. “With that Trone you cooked your own bird. But he will be found and brought to the Porias, where he belongs.”
“You haven’t found him?” Harris gasped. He grinned. “Good. You can use two Eyes and you’ll never find him, you two-bit apple-pinching porn star.”
Tappiolus rushed the grate again, clasping his fingers around Harris’, the two consorts, nose to chin now through the bars. Elypticus emerged from the shadows, but took a half-measure, shaking his fists and glaring at the warden.
“You are your own destruction, Boots.”
“I’m still here.” Harris tensed his jaw and poked his tongue through the gap in his teeth. “I suppose I’ll be tried on the hill and kept caged in Charminus’ bedroom.”
Tappiolus pushed back.
“A tribunal,” he said. “Yes. I do not understand it, but the household still is saddened by your plight. You spin a magical sympathy over them — even Kuriakis, who wept when he heard you were taken.”
“Despite the broken treaty?”
“The treaty has not been broken.”
Harris pushed back now, cocking his head.
“What are you about, sir? Why are you here? Surely not to tell me the family sends their regards and will cheer my case at trial.”
“No, Boots
. Such may be the case, but I doubt you will ever come to trial.”
“Ah,” Harris said, turning to Elypticus. “They mean to poison us.” He regarded the food pail. “Probably already have. We’ll be swimming in your Pulveris Stream very soon, I bet.”
“Nothing so subtle, Boots,” Tappiolus snarled. Harris sighed, and returned to the bars. “You must be interrogated. General Tarhippus is a thorough interrogator. He will apply pain to much of your body until you admit your guilt.”
“I’m guilty,” Harris said. “I did it. I broke the fucking treaty. I don’t need interrogation.”
“There is a rumor to that effect, Boots, but no confirmation.”
Harris turned back to the darkness, and then raised his hands high.
“It’s no rumor, sir. I broke the fucking Treaty of Para-fucking-zell.”
“Perhaps you have, and perhaps you will admit it. But the regulati are fastidious concerning protocols and interrogation as a point of procedure. There are many questions to be settled — much paperwork and affidavits before you gasp your last breath . . . under General Tarhippus’ blades.”
“Damn you, Tappiolus, there are hundreds of witnesses.”
“Witnesses, Boots? There are no witnesses.”
“How about the shithead brigade of regulati at the gate and on the bridge?”
“Dead, I am afraid.”
“Dead?”
“Killed to the last Yunocker.” He drew close now, grinning. “You would be surprised how efficient a hungry tludachi can be.”
“The tludachi?”
“Yes. They escaped their pit and killed every witness to your infraction.”
“Not true,” Elypticus said. “There are four living witnesses.”
“You mean yourself, young pup?”
Elypticus came forward, anger on his brow, righteousness on his lip.
“I drove the Cabriolin and saw it all. I will swear on Lord Belmundus’ behalf, and so will the others.”
“Your word wears thin, Seventh Son of Lord Arquebus. You have crushed your father’s soul.”
“No,” Elypticus gasped, twitching as if kicked in the belly. “I would never dishonor my father.”
“Never? You are in the Katorias, young pup. What honor do you rain down on your mother? I believe you will see Tarhippus’ blades before Lord Belmundus chokes on his last crust of bupka.”
“But I am not the only witness.”
“Do not think about my son.”
“Where’s Melonius?” Harris asked.
“Why should you care? You sent him to the Myrkpykyn to be swept in the net set to capture you.” Tappiolus shrugged. “That boy has always been a disappointment.”
“He didn’t follow your mold, you mean,” Harris said. “You planted him to spy on me, and he showed his more honorable side.”
“You refer to his unfilial side. But he will be rewarded. I have decided to farm him to the mating pool. He will be suitably matched to a mud maiden from Terrastrium — someone suitable to the political landscape and dismal to his lungs. He shall spend his days wondering whether he has skin beneath the muck and ash in his underground home.”
“You bastard,” Harris said.
“He is my son and . . . he has found filial respect. As for Captain Buhippus, he is not my concern. As a witness, he is poor and answerable to his brother.”
Harris grunted and pounded the bars.
“You wouldn’t discharge a man of honor?”
“I have no use for honorable men, Boots. I also have no need to know his fate, although I suspect he shall become a zugginak keeper under Tarhippus’ gwasdis.”
“And Parnasus?” Elypticus asked.
“We shall find him — be sure of it.”
“So, there is one witness on the lam,” Harris said.
“Only a matter of time,” Tappiolus replied. “So, Lord Belmundus, I predicted you would be trouble from the first time I spied you at Pelargis.”
He bowed mockingly, and then turned away.
“Come back here, you bastard,” Harris shouted. “I demand to be taken to Kuriakis at once. There’s no need to interrogate me. No need.”
The warden nodded his respects, and then followed Lord Tappiolus. The Fantins rattled their Sticks along the bars, catching Harris’ hand. He jumped back, clenched his fists and brought them to his head. He stared at his Columbincus. It pulsed dimly. He supposed when it faded completely, he’d be dead — doing the backstroke in the fabled Pulveris Stream — he and Elypticus.
“My lord,” Elypticus said, his voice trembling. “I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Harris muttered. “You’ve been faithful.”
“I am sorry you are so angry,” he said, grasping Harris’ arms and dragging them down to his sides. “That was Lord Tappiolus’ purpose. He came to make you angry and he has succeeded.”
“Trones,” Harris snapped. He shook his head. “You’re right, Elypticus. We are Trones. They pull our strings and we dance the funky chicken.”
“I have never danced like that, my lord.”
Harris grinned, a laugh deflating his ire.
“No, you haven’t. I’ve seen you do the herky-jerky, and you slam down a good hand of grusoker.”
“I wish we had the game board here now.”
Harris put his arm around Elypticus’ shoulder and pulled him down to the wall.
“We should sit and wait.”
“For the blades to scrape our skins?”
“You’re cheery, ain’t you?” Harris patted the Danuwa’s hand. “No. We should just sit here and tell each other the story of our lives. I mean, yours is short and might be a vamp to pleasure. But mine is socko, filled with thrills and chills, although pretty hum-drum until I met a certain Gothgirl on the red carpet of my last film.”
Elypticus appeared bemused, but kept his eyes trained on Lord Belmundus.
“It’ll while away the time,” Harris suggested.
“I am listening, my lord.”
“Well, try to keep up with me.” Harris squeezed the lad’s hand. “I was born Humphrey Kopfstutter in a place called California.”
Elypticus chuckled.
“A funny name, my lord.”
“Humphrey?”
“No. Calipornica.”
Now, Harris laughed.
“Just how funny, you’ll never know. My mother worried that I had way too much energy and decided to funnel it into modeling, which suited me fine, because I was only eight. Of course, that’s only four years older than you are now. I was a real cutie and was spotted by an agent, who thought I’d be good as a street urchin in a Dickens remake and . . .”
Harris looked at his audience, who had drifted off to sleep. He patted Elypticus’ hand.
“Good idea.”
Harris shut his own eyes. He prayed, and he wasn’t sure to whom — the God of his Father (who left him high and dry when he was a baby) or to Greary Gree, the beauty ensconced on Hedonacaria’s bier. He sighed for poor Melonius, who would creep about Terrastrium like a toad. He worried about Captain Buhippus — an honorable man, despite allegiance and orders. He prayed Parnasus was holed up safely where no one could find him. Then he thought of his poor Little Bird and wept. But as he drifted to melancholy, a danger more potent than hunger, he was swept by the sight of brave Cosawta wielding the brashun blades and Littafulchee — she who had captured his heart. He hoped they would shelter Yustichisqua. Such thoughts wafted him to sleep, until his dreams became polluted by visions of Charminus’ misplaced worry and Kuriakis’ careworn disappointment. When The Eye invaded the dream, he stirred, just before Tarhippus came riding through the mindscape, his Cabriolin shooting fire; his gwasdis inciting a pack of a dozen zugginaks.
Harris awoke abruptly.
The cell was darker, if possible. Elypticus snored. However, Harris sensed another presence. Was his tormentor quietly watching them from the shadows?
“Who’s there?” Harris whispered.
He saw an out
line moving. He scurried to his feet as this form emerged into the scant light.
“Garan?” Harris exclaimed.
Garan the Gucheeda bowed, his hand extended.
Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1) Page 48