CHAPTER SEVEN: BACK TO BUSINESS
Dragging the inscribed monolith up the hillside and then maneuvering it into the catapult’s basket took the effort of every gnome and human in Kettle’s Knob. It left behind a muddy trail that everyone was now using as a footpath to and from the war machine as its crew attempted to adjust its trajectory. The Captain stood beside the machine, its frame barely much taller than he, and scribbled equations on his palm with Vague Enterprise’s Small-Scale Squid-Startling Scribe™. As one might gather by the tongue-twisting name and if they knew the Captain at all, what he held was a sepia-spewing fountain pen. Housed within the pen’s receptacle of salt water was a teensy miniature squid; a type only found in the seas of Lemuria. This of course meant it held a supply of ink that lasted as long as the squid lived, though feeding the creature and upkeep of its diminutive tank proved even more costly and time consuming than simply purchasing ink. Alas, given a startling jab by the pressing of a button at its tip thus releasing a black cloud, the miniscule cephalopod had no understanding of the immanent peril outside the confines of the receptacle. If it had, the Captain’s hand might be even more covered in ink and there would be no need for pressing any buttons.
“Draw it down another two to three degrees,” the Captain instructed as the gnomes wound the ratchet that pulled the coil of rope, which in turn created the torsion by which the catapult would fling its projectile. They had already turned the siege engine a hair to the right so that they were not targeting the Gurglesplat specifically.
This drew the ire of some Kettle’s Knob gnomes who thought they were still trying to kill the towering monstrosity. When it was explained to them that the stone was indeed the offspring of the Gurglesplat, some needed to be restrained from attacking the seemingly inert slab of rock. Eventually everyone was calmed down and set to the same purpose and now they were moments away from possibly ending a generations-long menace.
This would prove a few moments late as the Gurglesplat had already reached the encircling hills of Kettle’s Knob proper. Its path, however, was not directed toward the center of town any longer. Instead, it had turned and was now slowly headed for the catapult and its child.
“That’s a shame, old boy,” the Captain winced, patting a very busy Dhamnú on the shoulder. The gnome looked up just in time to see his hut and smithy crushed by the Gurglesplat.
“Gufundapuknuggit!” he roared. “You destroyed my home!”
“Well, she- I suppose it’s a she now, eh Jobi? Anyway, you can’t blame the Gurglesplat.”
“I was talking to you, you hagsplottered fool!” the angry gnome barked and gave the Captain a swift kick to the shin before turning back to the catapult.
The Captain suffered the blow with a smile and a brisk rub but then saw that the catapult was ready to launch. “Here we go, dash-fired gnomes of Kettle’s Knob! On my mark!”
Stone after stone pounded down on the remnants of Dhamnú’s hut. Smoke and fire erupted and sparked as his small foundry was pulverized. The hill upon which the hut had once sat was likewise being gouged by the Gurglesplat’s churning locomotion. A huge cleft was taken from the side of the hill and spewed out the backside of the beast like so much fodder. With the hill gone, they could easily see the gaping cave entrance and in the rising sunlight poor Turbees came occasionally into view.
“Let’s do this for the gallant goblin, may he rest in peace!” the Captain announced. “FIRE!”
There was a twang, a whoosh, and a crunch as the catapult slung its projectile forward. The slab of stone cruised upward and then began to roll and pitch; its flight gone erratic. It was careening dangerously to the left and near to the Gurglesplat. Would she be able to stop from crushing her own child should it land at her feet?
Fortune played her hand and the stone fell short of crossing the Gurglesplat’s path. Alas, when it thudded into the hillside, it continued forward at a tumble, down the first hill and then slammed hard into the next. The stone shattered and crumbled into smaller bits that sprayed across the face of the hill. All of Kettle’s Knob gasped and then groaned.
“We should take flight,” Ghost-Tongue suggested. “Get these people far away.”
“It will only follow us,” said the mayor, his words glum and gray compared to bright red sash around his middle. “If we flee, every living thing we passed would be in its path. No. We will remain and we will die here for the folly of our ancestors.” The mayor then looked over his shoulder to the villagers that had gathered around him and said, “Come! We will join hands beside the creek and take what’s been coming to us for a long, long time.”
All the gnomes’ heads hung low then. Their eyes fell to their feet and they began a slow march down the hillside toward the center of town. All but Dhamnú that is. He sat staring at the Gurglesplat with a furrowed brow, which he scratched absently. “Don’t make no sense,” he said. “Should’ve worked.”
Ghost-Tongue looked to the tiny engineer and matched his gaze toward the towering heap of stone. “Perhaps it is long since dead. Perhaps, as the Captain had suggested, the life he saw in it was only the lichen.”
The Captain turned his head quickly from the slow procession passing him and looked out to the hill where the slab had shattered. He twisted at the lenses of his goggles and took a long look. “Gnomes, quell your fears! Look there! The light of its life… its quinta essentia! It stretches out in chords from stone to stone!”
Even as the Captain spoke they could see bits of the debris wiggling and then moving. Rocks and stones that were once a part of the monolith but had been smashed and scattered began to roll across the hill and converge once again. Where they converged, these smaller etched rocks ignored gravity and began rolling up one another until they formed a pile. Soon this pile had taken the shape of a sort of jagged cone jutting up from the hillside; a miniature Gurglesplat if you will but one that for all intents and purposes had been tattooed by the limericks inscribed upon it.
“Gnomes of Kettle’s Knob!” the Captain cried out. “You have been saved!”
He pointed and a mad rush of squat, little legs pounded up the hillside again. The villagers gathered around them and a great roar of joy, relief, and exaltation sounded. They cheered for their own spared lives and for the reunion of mother and child as the tiny pile of stones rumbled its way up to the titanic Gurglesplat.
The mountainous thing ceased its onslaught on Dhamnú’s hill, curled downward ever so slightly at its peak as if inspecting the smaller pile, and then rumbled toward it. Smaller stones within the Gurglesplat’s cobbled heap slid beneath its offspring and hoisted it up onto its stony lap. There the tiny jumble of rock stood and then after a moment it twisted as if turning to face the gnomes that had gathered on the hillside. Its tattooed would-be face slowly turned from one side to the next, casting a long look at its former captors, and then turned back around and up at its parent. It bulged for a moment, a stony sigh, and then began to rumble up the foot of its mountainous mother. It crept into the cave where Turbees now rested in relative peace and vanished into the darkness therein.
“Who would have thought it?” the Captain posed, his hands upon his hips in victory.
“What’s that, Cap’n?” Ghost-Tongue wondered without taking his eyes off the Gurglesplat, who was now so very slowly turning away from Kettle’s Knob.
“It’s got a pouch, like a kangaroo or an opossum,” the Captain smiled. “Don’t you see, Jobi? The Gurglesplat’s a marsupial!”
The Anasazi groaned.
As the sun rose to their right, erasing the tales and poems of the night sky for another day, the Gurglesplat rolled off to their left to where it would again cease its travels and slumber upon the daylit horizon. Every last living thing in all of Kettle’s Knob just sat and watched. And they continued to watch in a dreamy sort of silence, appreciating the stilled mound of stone as if it were some hideous masterpiece. Arms curled around the shoulders of loved ones and weak smiles told of tears turning from sorrow to joy. While concern arose
that the following night might see the Gurglesplat’s rage renewed, it was eventually agreed that the former terror, to whom they had been such a terror, would most likely take its leave of Kettle’s Knob. This time, they hoped, forever.
And so from the bright green blades of grass ripe for the sun-basking the Captain turned to Dhamnú. From one of his many extra-dimensional pockets he pulled forth a torn and perforated piece of parchment. He unfurled this before the gnome engineer and said, “My offer still stands, my good gnome. I would like to hire your foul-mouthed services.”
The crass gnome looked the contract over without touching it and snorted at some of what he read. “Not easy to read considering…”
“I’ll have it redrawn but I think you get the gist.”
“Aye,” the gnome said, “I do. Says here I get ten snit-gargling pounds of butterscotch a month besides all my other amenities; room and song?”
The Captain nodded, “A fizzing offer, I believe.”
“It also says I get one pound up front as a… signing bonus,” the gnome grinned wickedly.
The Captain offered Dhamnú his Squid-Startling Scribe™ and held up a leather sack. “It’s short a few ounces, I’m afraid. Turbees took a portion of your bonus,” the Captain explained.
“S’fine,” said Dhamnú, snatching up the pen and scrawling his name across the parchment. “I think he earned it.”
Taking the scroll back and letting the gnome keep the pen, the Captain stood up with a grunt. “Sorry about your home,” he said giving the devastation a long look.
“Bah!” Dhamnú barked. “I always hated it here. Never had anywhere else to go.”
“Well I think you’ll fit right in at Vague Enterpsies,” the Captain mentioned. “Thunderdune is a wonderful town with a few less… sensitive ears.” He said this last part while giving a wave to the mayor down by the well.
“Thunderdune? Gobsnobbered Vague Enterprises? Sounds big.” Dhamnú wondered aloud as they began to tromp down the hillside away from Kettle’s Knob.
The Captain smiled to Ghost-Tongue before answering, “Big on ideas, my diminutive vulgarian! What we lack in assets we make up for in scope!”
“Who will I be working with?”
“Baku, for one,” Ghost-Tongue interjected. “Queen of the Ananse, a very proud and noble race of spider people who have unfortunately seen better days.”
“Fabnaddered spider queen?” Dhamnú growled. “Who else?”
“Well that remains to be seen, my good gnome,” the Captain replied. “Just wait ‘til you meet the neighbors in Thunderdune. You will absolutely love Merle and Sampson…” The Captain stopped short and was forced to reconsider by the gnome’s gruff nature. “Well maybe not but you will love Merle’s junkyard. Anything you can dream of is there. Pick a heap of junk and start digging. It’s amazing what you’ll find. But first we have to make a short stop back at a certain primordial bog just a brief march from here. There’s a certain pixie I would like to bounce off a rock.”
The trio walked away from Kettle’s Knob completely oblivious to the soft patter of the vaguelosaur trailing them.
THE END
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The Vulgar Gnome of Kettle's Knob Page 12