Lore of the Underlings: Episode 4 ~ The Letting Pen Read online

heaven sent to a folk so forsaken. Redemption. Rebirth. The smell of bacon.

  But then there by the floor, at the foot of the door, the magical yarn got caught in a knot. A tragic tangle of the tale. For in the final frame they found not chords of joy or sweet string sounds but notes of fond farewell and grief. Runes etched around an empty seat told of a treasured man's defeat as Guard and folk and elders sung the tune of a life too brief.

  H Hurx was gone or lost or ghost.

  Yet to his place a young man rose. A handsome one, his elder son - "Ayryx of Hurx" it said below. As all bore witness to his grace, he bowed his head and turned his face in humility to the sacred ground. And the mantle of Treasuror was bestowed upon his shoulder with a pike.

  Thus was this enshrined for time to come in the red hewed everwood.

  John Cap stepped back searching ceiling to floor, hoping to find a few panels more. "We need to know where the story goes to understand these people."

  Morio grabbed the young man's arm and with it fought to make his feet. "Perhaps on the other side of this door, my friend, it may continue. I did not notice when we came in."

  "The door was open. It couldn't be seen."

  "Of course, now I remember too. Anyhow, it's high time we try the latch," said Morio doughtily reaching out. He itched for a fight with its rough handle. "Perchance we can sneak a peek or two or even snatch a more leisurely glance."

  John Cap was wary yet did not object.

  But try as he might, despite clutching it tightly, the man o' more simply could not trip the catch. And so some grumbling ensued.

  "It's locked."

  "We're stuck."

  "Do you think we should knock?"

  "Then what, Morio, ask the guards for a tour? I'm sure that they'd love to punch our tickets."

  "Yes please! That's the ticket indeed dear lad, the magic of wishful thinking at work. A tour plus punch to quench our thirst? Now I'm truly optimistic!"

  "But maybe just hold that thought for a bit, 'cause I'd rather live till daylight. And anyway, Vaam is still asleep."

  "I could wake her if you'd like."

  "No 'O, not yet. She needs more time. Let her dream on a little longer."

  Then the two men did their best to recall what they saw on their path that night to this place, this hell-scented pigpen of fallen angles, this lopsided lockbox of purpose unknown?

  The Guard had led them from Liar's Tree field down a road by a glade to the foot of a hill. There, yet under night's thick cloak, they saw a dark structure loom ahead enshadowed from the moon. It was oddly tall amidst the trees with a face of silent stone - a visage unwelcoming, gray, and cold. Windowless it was this fa?ade, though oriented east, as if keeping some secret unseen within or shunning the light of the world without.

  And so by the push and prod of the pike were the three strangers sent single file inside, to and through its open maw all of two stories high and yawning wide. On their left and their right there they passed twin great gates of hardest ironwood wrought by hand. Upon those gates a herd of shapes adorned the void that they minded with beasts.

  One thing low and snaky, two lofty a-wing, some devilish dirt dog, an odd cat-like king. Bull-sheep and bear-ass greeted them too, both by a boar-rat and all under toe of a tusky behemoth from realms far below.

  The clear voice of the tall young woman rang like a song through the stony hall. "Why this menagerie?" she sang. "Why honor these unheard-of creatures here?"

  But she and her friends knew not of this place. And the Guard were in no mood for show and tell.

  Rudely were they ushered on through a chamber of dull-colored quarrystone. Its floor was smooth, worn down in places, as if by rituals oft repeated. Yet its ceiling soared halfway to the heavens. They glimpsed strange implements hung from the walls, devilish things that seemed made to maul or maybe maim or make holey somehow.

  Dead ahead a pair more of the armored Guard awaited them mirthless and still - stoic sentinels standing on either side of a gaping inner doorway. The hole of it filled a space like the first through which they had safely passed, but from this deeper one there spilled an unavoidable blackness. Far off to the left at a table there sat two others, yet Guard those were not. They looked of old plainsmen, swarthy and crude, who eyed the strangers with cold disdain. One leaned back with his feet propped up as he sharpened the tip of a goring pole. It was bile-stained a vile green. The other bit into a blood-red pom and spit out its seeds with spite on the floor. Both wore the leathery skin of countless seasons riding wild and free, as ranger men of a treeless land, ever awash in sun and dust.

  The doorkeepers held abreast and ready a brace of heart-crossed battle pikes. Now each rapped his own two together twelve times in a duel of hard knocks to announce their guests. By this were the guests held in rapt attention with no choice but to listen. Nor had they a hope to avoid the vision of hosts of apparitions sprung from the chamber's phantom lamplight just for the chance to dance for them.

  Ghosts of a hidden history? were we never let to tell our story? but for the shadows upon these walls? where we evermore dwell?

  Done, the rappers sang a song, a torch song of hellish welcome:

  Had you a good wife?

  A strong, young son?

  Beautiful daughters

  Chased yet virgin?

  Questioned guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Cornered beast

  Pale ghost

  We see soft hands, signs

  Of rich lands owned,

  Fine fabrics your skin,

  Fat flesh on bone

  Hapless guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Captured beast

  Pale ghost

  And in some safe haven

  Of holywood,

  For what is your treasure

  Of gold now good?

  Helpless guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Hogtied beast

  Pale ghost

  "This pelt be of value"

  "For marrow, his bones"

  "Hang him till tomorrow"

  "All blood let and run"

  No marrow tomorrow

  Your hide be gone

  The last of your 'morrows

  Bled on this ground

  Sorrow tomorrow

  Six feet down

  Death bed made

  No sound

  Screamless guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Dreamless guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Hopeless guest

  Pale ghost, pale ghost

  Lifeless beast

  Pale ghost

  So into darkness the three were thrown, over the crown of ghastly glow.

  Morio must have felt that his shoes had gone loose for he bent at the belly to tie them. His plump hands nimbly found the soft, weathered boven-hide leather and laces but something sharp as well.

  "Wow! Oh! Ho, that smarts!" he exclaimed with a wince of pain.

  It was a needle still stuck from the Liar's Tree.

  He checked his pricked finger and saw that it bled, thick as hooven soup but red. So he kissed it and sucked at the running blood all the while yet doubled over.

  "You make a good point," he said to the stickler as if engaged in some civil debate. "But if you don't mind I'd like a retraction. Better that than dicker or bring legal action to force a divorce and secede from this union made by the blade of an iron-willed faction against a mere fancy-free, footloose sole."

  Morio paused for dramatic effect. But, hearing no rebuttal back, the porkster mustered all his pluck and unstuck his pockmarked folk shoe.

  "Ah," he exhaled. "I smell defeat!"

  Unluckily as he dethorned himself his system of checks and balances failed - so ironically though no longer nailed, the shift of state sent him a-sail, and thanks to the crooked planks on the floor, each one a conspirator and all at odds and war, he was at last toppled, order upset, governing body over head. Betrayed by the
rules of a natural law that was traitor to his constitution, Morio found the upright overthrown and in the throes of revolution.

  "Divided we fall after all?"

  He tumbled away from the storied door and rolled downhill to the parallel wall. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thud.

  John Cap called, "Okay there 'O?" No response. "Morio?"

  Then a slow and woozy voice. "This place? is surely full of pitfalls? truly unruly? but? O the thrills?"

  "I guess, if that's what you're looking for."

  "I'll bet this is some kind of play-house or pen?"

  "Really dude, are you alright?"

  "A funfair for children to frolic in?"

  "More like an amusement park from hell."

  "To make us feel like boys again?"

  "Only because you bumped your head."

  "Dizzy with dreams from way back when?"

  "That's just your concussion talking, man."

  "When we rode on the wings of the wind? in a magical land of mirth and men? where anything could happen?"

  Suddenly a painful expression washed across Morio's hazy face. As if his brain had been picked, his ears bent, or eyes peeled. Something had woken him up.

  He listed left then let out an "Ooo!" and pulled the freed needle from his behind. "Yet you, my friend, are no magic wand." He studied the silver spike in his hand, turning it over several times. "And still?"

  From the deepest depths of a bottomless pocket hidden within his handy pants, Morio conjured a swaddle cloth and wrapped the needle in it. "Since you've stuck with me this long? I suppose we should try to keep keeping on." Then he stuffed the bundle away.

  At that moment time came to a crossroads it seemed. As if at a fork in the void. Awaiting. What could have been years or a second or two?

  And there without warning, omen, or clue, but for a stirring of air in the room, the wizard's hand cast upon Morio's wall transformed from its hollow and bitter vein blue to