Red Herring

by Damon L. Wakes

  It was only then that Khorsa realised who had saved him: this traveller was human. But he was too grateful to shy away when she passed the thread around his neck. The material flashed cold, and when he reached up to touch it, he found there was no knot—only a seamless band of gold.

  “You need fear those creatures no more,” said the traveller.

  ***

  The wounds on Khorsa’s back had healed over by the time the village could repay the white-robed witch. Two bags of gold nuggets, painstakingly claimed from the banks of the river.

  But “I cannot accept this,” said the witch. “One of your number still does not have a cord.”

  “And with good reason.” The elder waved a finger in the air. “A farbeast fears only one thing, and that’s bad magic!” It was not the first time he’d said it.

  “If you don’t, you’ll be in danger. You don’t want that.”

  Saria spoke. “How do we take these off?”

  Khorsa had been wondering the same thing. He had tried slipping it over his head when he lay down to sleep, but it was far too tight.

  “You don’t.” The witch smiled. “But it’s a small price to pay to be free of the farbeast.”

  “Too great a price, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t...” Saria fiddled with the cord around her neck. “It feels like it’s breathing. I don’t want to wear this forever...”

  “You see!” The elder cried. “Bad magic!”

  But Saria had already found a solution. Taking the scissors from her pocket, she set about cutting through the cord around her neck. It took some work, but soon she was done. “There,” she said, smiling.

  The witch was preoccupied with the elder. “Such a fuss over nothing!” she sighed.

  Meanwhile, Saria had become quite pale. As Khorsa watched, she began to shiver. The scissors dropped from her hand.

  “Are you alright?”

  A bead of blood trickled down from Saria’s nose as her eyes rolled back in her head. She fell to the floor, twitching wildly.

  “Why are you just standing there?” the elder shouted at the witch. “Do something!”

  “Not until we’ve finished.” she said, firmly, holding the last cord out to the elder.

  Khorsa tried to re-fasten the cord around Saria’s neck, but in his hands the substance would not be rejoined. It refused even to hold a simple knot. Saria was now lying perfectly still.

  “Just hurry up!”

  Khorsa could see the elder didn’t have any other choice. He held still while the witch joined the cord around his neck.

  “Now help her.”

  The witch glanced at Saria. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  With a roar, Khorsa leapt forward, brandishing his dagger. But the leap did not take him far: the cord around his neck suddenly tightened, and he couldn’t breathe.

  The witch held a thin red thread, which she twisted between her fingers. On her left arm, she wore many more like it.

  “Did you think I would walk among you savages unprotected?” she hissed. “The true magic is mine alone.”

  Khorsa’s throat burned. His eyes felt as though they would explode. Suddenly, the cord relaxed. Kneeling, he saw the bags of gold hit the ground in front of him.

  “Melt those down and draw them into wire. I hear there is another village quite nearby.”

  ***

  The wounds on Khorsa’s back were old scars by the time he managed to forge the key to the witch’s tower. He had cast it from the same gold she used to make her cords. Fifty feet below, the “village” sprawled, coal smoke choking the sun from the sky.

  The witch’s eyes, accustomed only to the distant sights of her crystal ball, widened in surprise as he came through the door. Immediately, she rushed for her collection of threads, all tied to a vast rack or frame, a label and a name on every one. Frantically, she searched and searched, fingers running across the labels of innumerable threads. Khorsa, however, simply stood and waited. As the witch’s hunger for slaves had grown, she had only become more vulnerable: for in that great mass of lives that she had stolen, she could no longer find the first. Finally, with one wide sweep of his hammer—taken from the mines—he smashed the wooden frame, one thousand threads scattering to the floor. He threw Saria’s scissors at the witch’s feet.

  “Unmake them,” he spat. “Every single one.”

  21

  Custard

  “It’s been a really long day, but I still have to write something for Flash Fiction Month.”

  “Have you considered just writing ‘banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana’?”

  “Naah. Did that last year.”

  22

  Where Did All the Genies Go?

  Challenge #10: Write a 369er. A 369er is three different stories that are each exactly 69 words long, that are connected by a common theme, and meant to be read together.

  “My name is Ben! I am 5 years old! If you find this bottle, please email me at dinosaurben2008@squeemail.com and tell me where you found it! I live in Wales, so maybe when you find it it’s gone a really long way!”

  Screwing the cap onto the green plastic bottle (because green plastic looked like glass), Ben threw it in the sea. He hoped someone would reply this time.

  ***

  Taking the letter out of the bottle, Miguel crossed through the original message, careful to do so using only one short line per word. The pen wouldn’t last forever. No shortage of paper or bottles though. Messages from scientists, from hobbyists, sometimes just from bored kids: seemed like they all washed up there.

  “S.O.S.” he began. “Capsized near Barbados. Now stranded. Have seen no search planes for two weeks...”

  ***

  Kalleq wandered along the shore, his mouth a lemon-sucking dot of dissatisfaction. Seemed like the whole world’s waste washed up in Quaqortoq. Giving the plastic bottle another kick, he noticed that there was some paper wedged inside it. Probably a cigarette butt too. Kalleq remembered back when the bottles were made of glass, and people had manners. With some difficulty, he stooped and carried the bottle to the bin.

  23

  The Second City

  You may know of an old tale, about a great city that crumbled, because its king was made a fool by fate, and fell into despair after his queen and princes were swept away by the river of that place. However, what you may not know is that the raging waters did not slay the princes, but only carried them far away, deep into the desolate wasteland where none but beasts dwelled.

  In this bad place, no hope had they of human help, nor any did they find. Their infant cries brought only a she-wolf, seeking to devour them. But fate is nothing without balance, and the princes’ journey—begun so terribly—could not also end in such a way. Sensing this, the wolf forgot food, and instead raised the children as her own.

  In this way, the twin princes passed their first fifteen years. After this, the she-wolf died—having had an unusually long life for such an animal—and the princes carried her body reverently to the top of the highest hill they knew, sad to think that they would now know greater solitude even than they had before.

  But it so happened that on the very day they climbed the hill, a caravan had passed below, and become beset by a great six-legged serpent. The princes were not surprised to see this creature—for in those days many such things roamed the earth—but the caravan and its drivers brought them much amazement.

  Eager to protect this strange new wonder, the princes ran down the hillside with the swiftness of wolves. Clothed in animal skins and wielding crude clubs, they terrified the people of the caravan more even than the monster that had first assaulted them. But soon the fearful travellers saw how one wild-man gripped the serpent around the neck while the other struck its head, and they rejoiced to have found help in this desolate place.

  “Thank you greatly,�
� said the driver, stepping forward to embrace the nearest of the brothers. “Name anything we have that can repay you, and it shall be given.”

  But immediately it became clear that the brothers knew no words, for they had not heard a human voice since their first day of life.

  “Strange,” said one of the travellers “Mark this one. Does he not have the same nose and chin as our late king?”

  “Do not think on it,” replied another. “Why, these two look as much like the good queen as anyone—well can I remember such a face.”

  “Then might these not be the lost princes, named Pride and Envy by the cruel seer?”

  “These are our names!” cried the twins, at once. “In speaking them, you have freed us from our silence.” And this was so miraculous that the people of the caravan could not doubt that they were speaking to the sons of kings.

  “Tell us,” said Pride, “where is this kingdom that we are heir to?”

  The driver pointed. “Its stones stand a hundred miles to the east, but its people wander, scattered. The barbarian hordes have driven us from our land, and so the kingdom itself is nowhere now.”

  Envy spoke bitterly. “Since that place could not be ours, it is well that it has fallen.”

  But “Hush, brother,” said Pride. “We must have a new kingdom. One that will withstand a thousand ages.”

  And so the twin princes began to build a city, high upon the hill where they had buried the she-wolf. The work was hard, but Pride would not settle for anything but the highest walls, and the most lavish towers. Envy, meanwhile, sought out those places where the crude barbarians camped, and took from them his lost inheritance. Seeing this, many who had fled from that first city chose to become citizens of the second. Pride and Envy, the bad seer had said, would have ruin snapping always at their heels, but here the people saw no danger. Indeed, this city was the only haven in the barren wilderness.

  But the brothers’ work slowly forced them apart. In designing palaces and parks befitting his great dignity, Pride secluded himself in ever higher towers. Envy, meanwhile, stalked the wasteland, seeking out ever more distant riches that were owed to him, and striving always to maintain his great army that would strip the savage barbarians of all that they had. Only the driver of that first caravan saw that this was happening, however, for he had become the princes’ trusted messenger. Eventually, there came a message that he dreaded to bring.

  “His Majesty, King Pride, declares that as you have been gone so long from the capital, he has claimed the kingdom for his own.”

  “That wretch has a kingdom only because I fought for it!” Envy cried. “It is rightfully mine!” So leaving his army out in the wasteland, he rode homeward, his messenger’s tired horse straining to follow.

  By the time the messenger managed to catch his master, he was already in the throne room, lavish beyond compare.

  “If I can have no crown,” shouted Envy, “then I shall see yours broken!” and with one mighty blow from his sword, he cut the golden band, slaying his brother with that same stroke. Too late, he realised what he had done and all he had lost. His messenger, and all his courtiers, watched in horror as he began to panic, dashing to and fro before the throne.

  “O gods,” he wailed, “hide me from my shame!”

  The messenger stepped forward to offer what comfort he could, but immediately had to step back, for the creature darting to and fro before the throne was not his master, but a wolf: having heard his plea, the gods had transformed him. With a scattering of claws on stone, the animal fled into the street, and no citizen of that great place ever saw it again.

  Though ambition is a virtue clear,

  Vainglory offends the envious ear.

  24

  Episode III: Roommate of the Sith

  Challenge #11: Write a piece of Fan Fiction.

  On November 13th, Darth Vader was asked to remove himself from his place of residence on Tatooine. That request came from the Jedi Council. Deep down, he knew they were right, but he also knew that someday, he would return from the Dark Side. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his friend, Emperor Palpatine. Sometime earlier, Palpatine's mentor had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two Sith Lords share a space station without driving each other crazy?

  “There.” Palpatine slammed something down next to Vader’s plate. “There’s the key to the back door of the Death Star.”

  Vader sighed, though it was pretty much indistinguishable from the noise of his regular breathing. “What is it this time?”

  “I’m sick of seeing you! Always swanning around in your fancy robot ninja suit. You think you’re better than me?”

  “It’s hard not to with you wearing that stupid dressing gown all day. You run a whole empire, and you still go out dressed like that?”

  “I’m a malevolent dictator with magic powers! Who’s going to argue with me?”

  “Anyone with any sort of fashion sense.”

  “Eeeyurrrgheh...” Palpatine made a “blah blah blah” motion with his hand. “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got friends coming over for Dejarik later.”

  There was a noise like a bird getting sucked into a pod racer. It took Palpatine a moment to realise that Vader was laughing.

  “What?” He said, folding his arms. “I have friends.”

  “Name one.”

  “There’s...uh...Greedo.”

  “The guy Han Solo shot first?”

  “Oh. Then no, not him, not him. But...uhh...you know, just...the guys.”

  “What ‘guys’?”

  “You know...the grey guys. In the grey suits.”

  “The people who work on the Death Star?”

  “Yeah! And the...oh. What do you call them. The ones in that white, funny-looking armour that doesn’t really do anything.”

  “The Stormtroopers?”

  “Yeah!”

  Vader sighed again. “And you say I need a life outside of work.”

  “Yeah. You should get a hobby.”

  “Like what.”

  “Like something far away from here.” Palpatine pressed a finger to the table. “From now on, you stay on your side of the Death Star, and I’ll stay on my side of the Death Star, and we’ll all be a lot happier.”

  “It’s...ugh.” Vader clapped his hands to the side of his awkwardly chunky helmet. “This thing is the size of a small moon. I don’t see why we ever run into each other in the first place.”

  “Yeah, well, we do. Now kindly remove that spaghetti from my Dejarik table.”

  Vader chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Palpatine.

  “It’s not spaghetti, it’s linguine.”

  Palpatine paused, picked up the plate, then threw it at the wall. “Now it’s garbage.”

  Vader folded his arms. “I am not cleaning that up.”

  “With that crazy mask of yours, I don’t see how you could have eaten it!” And with that, Emperor Palpatine turned and stomped away.

  Sighing once again, Darth Vader stood and went to find a mop.

  25

  Red Herring

  The shotgun blast was deafening in the cold, hard foyer of the bank. The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of several small chunks of plaster clattering to the floor.

  “Alright!” shouted the gunman. “I’m not going to ask you to put your faces to the floor, because it wouldn’t matter if you did!” He pointed to his Nixon mask. “Point Break reference. Classy, right?”

  Nobody said anything. They simply watched, perfectly still, as the rest of the robbers filed in. There was a Ronald Reagan, a Jimmy Carter and...another Richard Nixon. Clearly there weren’t all that many Lyndon B. Johnson masks around. Jimmy Carter hurried over to the door of the vault and began unpacking various clamps and drills.

  “My card.” The first Nixon handed a business card to the bank teller, lingering over the gesture so that everyone in the room could see the design: a simple red silhouette of a
fish on a plain white background. It had been in all the newspapers.

  “That’s the Red Herring!” hissed a customer, still standing in line.

  “I thought they said he was a master of disguise!” whispered someone else in reply. “Richard Nixon mask and a pinstripe suit? Not particularly imaginative, is it?”

  “Who said that?” The Red Herring strode over to the man in the queue.

  “I...uh...I mean...It’s just that...all the other disguises you’ve used have been really impressive...”

  The Red Herring laughed. “So good to meet a fan of my work! And so sorry to disappoint. Normally I do my best to make things nice and theatrical, but this heist’s all about the money, I’m afraid. Speaking of which...” he took a few steps towards the vault. “How’s that door coming, Jimmy?”

  “Aaaaaand I’m done!”

  “Hey! What was that...twenty seconds? That’s crazy! But I suppose that’s to be expected from the top safe-cracker in the country. Reagan, would you do the honours?”

  Unceremoniously, Ronald Reagan shot Jimmy Carter in the back of the head. “Now we only got to split the money three ways, right Boss?”

  “That’s right! Good job shutting down the CCTV, by the way. You’re all done with that?”

  “Sure am!”

  BLAM.

  “Don’t worry.” He dropped the shotgun and turned to the last remaining accomplice. “I’ll still need you to help carry the money.”

  The accomplice levelled his own weapon at Red Herring’s chest. “Don’t count on that happening.”

  “Oh, come on.” The master criminal spread his arms. “Is this because we both came as Nixon? Because I called it two weeks ago. And I told you, if you wanted that Lyndon B. Johnson mask to arrive in time, you’d have to shell out for the faster shipping.”

  “Oh,” said the accomplice. “It’s not that. It’s just I’m...” he peeled off his Nixon mask, “Bruce Steel. F.B.I.” There was a surprised gasp from the bystanders.

  “We’ve...uh...we’ve been planning this heist for quite a while, remember? All those meetings? The F.B.I. thing is news, but I already knew what your face looked like.”