Chapter VII.

 (Pages 78-121)

Chapter VII.

Melardi’s Mules and the Blessed Blensosa

Thraxus Strikes Back, Picapelli’s Place

Tchotchke & Chain, the Toper’s Treehouse

As Well as a Joyful Jaunt to Jovial Nights

I.

            Sirs Humphrey and Desvot awake, walk out their rooms, and take a seat at a table next to Sir Levee who has in front of him an open can of non-alcoholic Orange Vanilla Juce. “Schlemiels and gentlemen, I have come to a decision; I shall now forth and here on out be known under the name of Sir Nicholas Guardine and any other name I shall ne’er respond to. Do ye understand my fellows?”

            “Sir I understand not why thou insisteth so squarely upon switching thine pseudonym each hour of every evening, but if thou will have it no other way, then soforth I shall call thee not Lev, Levi, Levit, or Levee, but by thy new name of Sir Nicholas Guardine, and thusforth thou shall be known,” Desvot says as the waitress, so pretty and wonderful with not a flaw to be immediately noted upon her having heavenly hair that glistens under the tavern glow. She steps to the table and gives them each lunch menus, as the adventurers had managed to sleep well into the afternoon.

            “Hi, my name is Jenniue, I will be thine waitress this evening – may I help you with any beverages this evening? Perhaps another can of Juce for thee?” she looks into the face who is now Sir Guardine with such entrancing eyes.

            “I surely would love another can of Juce madame,” he says with his can mostly full.

            “What kind of beer do you have on tap?” Humphrey asks with his eyes locked onto naught but her breasts. “I could really go for some Jugg’s IPA right about now.”

            “We have Spud’s Ale on tap, otherwise if you like Forelite it’s two silver talls tonight.” Humphrey and Desvot lock eyes upon another.

            “We’ll begin with four Forelites then,” Desvot orders with his left hand up and thumb pressed into his palm.

            “Splendid sirs, I shall return shortly,” she says still with eyes on Guardine’s. The three survey their menus and soon enough Guardine comes to a conclusion, closes his menu, and once Humphrey and Desvot have followed suit, Jenniue returns with another of the same Juce can placed in front of him next to the four Forelites. “Do ye desire another moment to make up thine minds, Or art thy orders ready for mine recording?” She takes out a notepad and pen from her pocket.

            Humphrey and Desvot stare back into her chest, unhearing the words from her lips, “I would like one large order of thine most mouthwatering hot wings with bleu cheese and celery if thou would, please,” Sir Guardine says past a gulp of Juce. It takes another minute until Humphrey and Desvot collect themselves.

            “I’ll have what he’s having, uh, but with ranch dressing, and carrots instead of celery,” first Humphrey, taking a sumptuous swig from his beer.

            “As for myself, I would like the Riscardé Regular, no onions on the burger, lightly salted tater tots instead of fries please,” Desvot precedes a simple sip of his beer.

            “Alright, we will have thine food in but a moment’s notice,” Jenniue says collecting their menus.

            “On second thought sirs, I believe I may just adjust mine alias to Sir Nicholas Levitt, that is with two T’s now, instead of my new former Guardine. What unspeakable spewage of syllables even is that? Anyhow, shall we discuss our plans for the day ahead?”

            Humphrey starts, “Are we not to discuss thine hijacking of–”

            “I know not of what thee speak sir. I was thinking, would thou wish to stop by Melardi’s so I may procure myself a mule fore we set off to Picapelli’s? I am without a steed is all and such would aid in a swifter, safer travel.”

            “I see no reason for any otherwise,” Desvot says into a glass now only a quarter full.

            “Hey, can I get another beer?” belches Humphrey as he slams his second onto the table and no one hears him. “Service here is terrible,” he says in frustration of his emptied Forelites. Levitt finishes his first can of Juce and cracks open the second, after a waiting while Jenniue returns with a large trey full of all their food, placing the items down one by one.

            “The Riscardé Regular, no onion, lightly salted tots, and two large orders of hot wings, one celery and bleu cheese, one carrots and ranch,” setting the first to plates softly and tossing the most latter platter onto the table in front of Humphrey with a clamoring clank.

            “Thank you,” from only Levitt, Humphrey still in distress and Desvot distracted by the aromatics arising from his food.

            “Hey. I want two more beers right now; can’t you see these are empty? Thou worthless wench, cannot even wait tables properly,” Humphrey says through a heightening heat, either Guardine or Levitt (whichever he is now) eyeballing him sternly all the while.

            “Yeah, right away,” she says returning to the counter mumbling something under her breath at the beer-blotted belligerent. She returns with two more beers as Desvot takes another swig from his second, collecting the glasses and returning them to the back room. Levitt tears immediately into his hot wings, soon to follow Desvot and once he’s finished another beer Humphrey now starts at his hot wings which still to not satisfy him. Levitt and Desvot take their time to indulge in this magnificent meal, Humphrey tears through his in a matter of minutes, going on immediately to his second beer that slips down his throat in a single slurp.

            “EEUURGHHhh,” one earth-quaking eructation effluviates in front of Humphrey with a stench that stains the very air they breathe, “Barely even any wings for how much silver now? Waste. Of. Money. Really, this establishment doesn’t deserve a single cent from the likes of me; I’m gonna go puke and head out to Picapelli’s if either of you fecalfaces want to follow,” he says getting up to his feet and stumbling through a bar stool on his way to the bathroom where one can hear his wretched retching from even the back room.

            In the midst of Humphrey’s humorless upheaval, Jenniue returns with their bills, “My apologies for my fellow Humphrey’s unbearable behavior; I will cover his bill since he will not pay himself,” Levitt says dropping a gold piece onto the table.

            “Thank thee sir, need thou any change?” picking and inspecting the gold piece.

            “No, keep it for thineself madam, and do not accept a penny from Desvot either – I shall cover the expense of his dining as well,” he says returning to his platter of hellishly hot wings. Sir Humphrey’s retching resolves and yet he lingers in the restroom for longer than foreseen by him or his fellows while Desvot devours what’s left of his fries and commences the consumption of the latter half of his Riscardé Regular Burger. “May I by chance ride with thee on the back of Aletra on our ride to Melardi’s, Sir Desvot? Humphrey reeks so fetid and bounds so bellicose I want naught to do with him on this ride.”

            “Of course you may ride with me until you should soon yourself a mule acquire.”

            In fifteen minutes once Levitt and Desvot both have finished their food, Sir Humphrey comes barreling out the bathroom, “Ye twosome prepared to depart to Picapelli’s? I will be out on Aletra waiting for thou to join,” before stumbling out the door and to Savella’s Stable. There is a catastrophic crash caught clamoring from nearby, Levitt and Desvot exit Rompey Riscardé’s to see outside Sir Humphrey has drunkenly charged his horse straight into the side of a building and is lying unconscious next to his congruently conked Aletra.

            “Shall we leave him here for the while?” Levitt asks.

            “Sure, I see why not; we will return once we have for thee a mule acquired,” Desvot leading them to the stable where Stelanos is just where they had left him. The stableman is sat upright with a black sack fastened around his hipped head.

            “Greetings sir, need thou back thine swiftly steed Stelanos?” The stableman stands, one can almost hear what’s most comparable to grumbling growl from beneath the black sack.

            “Yessir, and please accept this tip as a token of my gratitude,” Desvot flipping to him a coin of silver.

            “Ah, I thank thee sir, what a gracious tip; I shall invest it into the construction of a second stable,” Savella says through a slick of sarcasm that Desvot doesn’t seem to digest. He leads them over to a gate he unlocks which from inside comes Stelanos, and once Desvot has untied the lead they mount to make way for Melardi’s.

            “I thank thee so tremendously O trusted steed tarrier; we shall do business once more in the near future. Farewell my good sir,” Desvot waves as he trots away from the stable; it takes not four minutes until they reach a building, painted onto which a wooden sign next to the two louvered café doors is the name Melardi’s Mules in magnificent manuscript. They dismount Stelanos and tie his lead to a pole supporting the awning, brisking through the café doors that wave forth and back behind them.

            Levitt and Desvot’s eyes immediately center on the two cynosures of the establishment: not any mule, not Melardi, but a purple Indian peahen with blue and green ocelli walking aside a leucistic peacock. On either side of the room mules are kept behind wooden gates that each their heads poke over for display, and at the end of them all behind the counter is Melardi herself, reading silently some pointless piece of pulp.

            Centerstage the pallid-plumed peacock walks past the wooden fencing in front of the mules on the right of the establishment, passing one particularly rugged, plump and putrid mule that chomps its face down around the omphalic peafowl. The bird struggles in its mouth with the mule attempting to chew; its plumage plods powerfully yet the peafowl stays put until the mule begins to choke on a feather, spitting it out onto the ground. The leucistic peacock proceeds to distance itself from this rapacious, reprobate ass, nearing the purple peahen as Melardi comes to attention of the customers’ arrival.

            “Greetings travelers, how may I be of service to thee?” She asks atop a stool, replacing the bookmark, shutting the book, and setting it in front of her on the counter.

            “Hello Melardi, dost thou remember me Sir Desvot? I recall a romantic encounter one night when thou aided in my search for a steed, and thus here is Stelanos – swifter than ever,” he says nearing the counter, putting his arm onto it and looking her in the eyes so sultry.

            “Ah, Sir Desvot, it’s been some time, has it not? Who’s the friend if I may ask?”

            “This is Sir Nicholas Levitt; he is on a journey for the invaluable virgin Delcita Lavie, and he will stop at naught to make her his wife, so here we must acquire him a mule to aid in his travels. I was wondering if I may cut the same deal as we did for Stelanos if such would be suitable for thee; maybe four silver?” Desvot leans in closer to her, and she shifts her gaze immediately to the reprobate ass that had attempted to commit a murder most peafowl.

            “I believe I may just have exactly the mule thou art looking for. Have thou the four silver now, or must I wait two weeks as I did for Stelanos?”

            Sir Levitt steps to the counter, producing four pieces of silver from his haversack, “Only two seconds on this occasion madam. Would this price include saddlebags, a lead, and a saddle? Or must I purchase these separate?”

            “That would be four more silver, sir,” Melardi says with a conniving expression to her face; what a sucker.

            “We have ourselves a deal then,” Sir Levitt holds his hand out and they shake on it; he coughs up four more coins of silver and follows her lead to his steed, who as they approach belches out a single frosty feather that flutters to the ground. “I shall name thee Blensosa, oh marvelous mule, thou art mine Blessed Blensosa and shall carry me through to the end of my journey,” he says reaching out to stroke the mule’s muzzle. Melardi opens the gate in front of it, guarding the peafowls from the mule’s famished maw as Blensosa trots to Sir Levitt and lets a huffing exhale through its right nostril (the left being clogged with mule mucous). Melardi reaches to shut the gate and leads her peafowls behind the counter with her as she retrieves a saddle, two saddlebags, and even the requested lead, placing them next to the cash box she deposits the eight silver into, Levitt takes these and brings them to his newly-acquired mule.

            “If thou ever need any more mules, or if thou by some happenchance lose any thine saddlebags, you know where to find me – just come to Melardi’s Mules,” she says returning to the pulp she is reading: The Serious Case of Salmagundi Sam, one which Levitt recognizes as a murder mystery involving a man named Sam who is found completely unrecognizable in an infinitely uncountable summation of pieces. He doesn’t remember how it ends because at that point he had gotten so tired of it his eyes would read the words yet his mind would dally in some disconnected direction. The saddle and bags slip on in a cinch, and Blensosa presses out through the café doors, hearing them swing behind him as they exit to see if Sir Humphrey has yet awoken from his drunken disaster.

            Arriving at the scene, they find that Humphrey and Aletra have gone elsewhere, now wondering where they might have wandered off to. Following the trail of an obnoxious odor, they start down the path to Picapelli’s through Tvawles Forest Trail, soon enough finding his new crash site at the base of a tipped tree. Humphrey, just as unconscious as they had previously found him, is knotted to his horse where Desvot approaches, “Sir Humphrey, art thou alive? It seems thou have caught thineself in quite the cobweb; need thou any our aid?”

            Sir Humphrey remains in place, Levitt tosses onto his forehead a rock, and yet still he does not stir. The twosome dismount their steeds and thus they untie the locked limbs of Aletra and Humphrey, the horse of whom is quickly back to hooves as Humphrey lies in place. At this they decide to lift his body together, one with his legs and the other his hands, flopping him face-down on Aletra’s back they use his lead to fasten him firmly to the steed, using another to guide them ahead as they advance to Picapelli’s Place.

            The trail is straightforward, yet as they saunter forth Blensosa slips and falls flat as Sir Levitt has his head lobbed into the ground. He helps his mule to his hooves and notices what befell his Blessed Blensosa; there coming from the dirt is a chain with some unintelligible tchotchke attached to the end; metallic, made in the mold of a claw or hook. He unwinds it from Blensosa’s cannons and pulls on it with all the might he may muster, yet it does naught.

            “We shall challenge this chain on our return, but as of now we must make to Picapelli’s – agreed?” he says to Desvot who nods.

            “Our cabbage will not be waiting all day; if we are to arrive late then another may purchase the stock from under our noses,” he says sniffing a string of slinking snot in the frigid forest air.

            As onward they trot, behind them they hear the struggling of the hammered Humphrey who hollers at them harshly, “Release me at once thou fiendish fools; I am not to be thine prisoner thou pests!” He sends a spitball soaring toward Levitt, landing it only on his own chest. The two stop and Humphrey’s horse continues a sum of steps until Aletra comes to a stop behind Stelanos. Levitt and Desvot dismount and unbind Humphrey from his horse, “What gives with you? Tying a man to his own steed as a prisoner?”

            “You charged Aletra into a tree sir; we simply tied thee in place to commute thee to Picapelli’s place, of which we are near to arrival,” Desvot divulges to him.

            “Oh. Well I don’t like it,” he says wiping the spit from his chest and sitting up in a sullen slouch. “What is that something soaring across the skyline?” The three look above to see descending by rope from a high perch none other than the thieving Thraxus with a silk satchel slung over his shoulder.

            “Wahaha! It is I, thou nescient ninnyhammers! The Thieving Thraxus, King of Kleptomaniacs, bow down to my acquisitive awesomeness and forfeit thy furtive fortunes or suffer my storm cinquedean!” He continues descending by a pully high above them, soon getting stuck only feet from the ground he struggles to lower himself any further.

            “What wanteth thee of us? Explain thine motives thou dilettantish bandito!” Sir Levitt sitting tall atop the back of his Blessed Blensosa, who with the assistance of his rider’s aim (holding his head by the ears to hit just perfectly) spits a bile bullet of slobber colored near the same sickliness of umber as a vanadinite crystal that splats straight into the suspended stealer’s face. Thraxus uses a red handkerchief to wipe off the sour slobber.

            “I want naught but all thine gold, silver, and the fair maiden Delcita Lavie all to myself to deflower and forget; which will ne’er happen with thee still around, inimical Nicholas Levitt,” he pulls from his sack a cinquedea he uses to sever the rope, falling into a heap on the ground and spraining his ankle swollen. He brushes the dirt off himself and holds his dagger by the fuller and flings it their direction, severing the ostentatious orangish plume from the top of Levitt’s helm – Thraxus quickly swipes another cinquedea from his sack as Levitt bends down and pockets the plume.

            “Sir Thraxus; most maladroit and amateur of all throat-footed thieves; oh, from wherever did thou retrieve such a sackful of cinquedeas? Thou did not pilfer them as the rest of thine possessions?” Levitt again, undaunted by the soaring cinquedea.

            “Thou fool! This is not a sackful of cinquedeas but dozens of dirks! Have thou no clue the difference between such cutlery?” The incompetent thief with no knowledge of edged weaponry proceeds in his attempt to sound more knowledgeable on the classification of such cutting edges than his foe, failing flawlessly.

            “We will not give up to thee another cent, let alone another silver to thine grubby mits. It is now that thou wilt feel the sharpened edge of these judgmental jaws of justice,” Desvot says dismounting Stelanos.

            “Hah! Not today!” Thraxus exclaims sending another cinquedea their way that pins the fringes of his shirt to Stelanos’ Flank, who at this is sent sprinting in pain, dragging Desvot behind him whereall he dashes through the clearing. Humphrey dismounts and is simultaneously greeted by a cinquedea sinking into either foot, pinning him in place and with any attempt to remove them he is greeted by excruciating anguish. “And last but not least – Sir Levitt – my most inimitable attack – meet my double-quick dirkian drumfire!” Thraxus taunts as he sends hurling a storm of cinquedeas his direction, which he deflects each one by one with several swipes of his Kris before charging the Blessed Blensosa straight into the likes of the loathsome thief Thraxus, who is trampled with no trouble. Returning for seconds, this time the mule stops on top of him and tears a tuft of hair from his scalp chewing it in his mouth like hey, and now Blensosa steps off to free the pilferer from what harrowing throe he had thrust upon him. There he lies twitching in place on the ground until from his lips escape, “You haven’t heard the last of me!” One sudden spring to his feet and he disappears into the forest, a nagging “Ow” accompanying his every right step until he is so far his grievances go unheard.

            “And stay away or thou wilt undergo the cutting castigation of mine Kris! Fear the name, Thraxus, the altruistic hero Sir Nicholas Levity for by none other name shall I e’er be known!” Sir Nicholas Levity exclaims as he at last alters his alias to one with which he may settle for the rest of his journey.

            Desvot manages to soothe Stelanos and slips the cinquedea from her flank, patching the wound with a suture kit from his saddlebag. Humphrey stands still until Sir Levity arrives to free him by flinging both daggers from his feet as he howls in pain and they take back onto the path to Picapelli’s after some more of Desvot’s deliberate needlework.

            “So Sir – uh – Levity now, right? I hear thee effuse so enthusiastically of this city Sfouma yet know naught about it; would thou tell me more about it please?” Desvot, still disappointed by the devastating tear in his shirt.

            “So thou wish to hear more of the city Sfouma? Let me tell thee then of the greatest city thou wilt ever lay eyes upon in thine lifetime: untouched by Gruceti’s gendarmes, by the Baton, a place so peaceful of such scant crime, void of most burglaries, most minimal murders of anywhere in this great country of Valji’ik. It is so warm and of greater luxury than any land thou may step foot in,” Levity gets lost imagining the image in his head, Desvot and Humphrey as well who form their own images of what Sfouma may be like.

            “If this supply of cabbage brings in enough revenue, I may just invest in some new saddlebags,” Humphey says as they pass a sign, Petrich Picapelli’s, behind which is built a log cabin, smoke rising from the chimney.

            “Thou knowest sir, I may just as well invest myself in a new saddlebag, as Stelanos seems lately to be off-balance,” Desvot says aside Aletra, following Blensosa ahead to a small log stable with only one steed tarried aside a warming woodstove, they tie their leads alongside it and Blensosa far enough away he won’t cause any trouble, spitting out one horrendous hairball into the fire of the woodstove where is sizzles as the saliva boils out of it and soon enough of the hair itself catches fire.

            Sir Humphrey, still struggling to walk straight, takes the lead and knocks on the door to Picapelli’s cabin, “Hey, there should be some crates of cabbage under the name Sir Humphrey, or else Sir Desvot if there are not any under the name.” The door stays shut and he tries again, “Hey, cabbage for Sir Humphrey Senatsy and Desvot Don Davari? Open up!”

            A head peeks sideways through an opening in the nearly shut curtains, creeps from view and the door opens to two familiar faces, “Greetings travelers, my name is Krifeld, and this is my brother Frikled, pleased to make thine acquaintance,” says the man as he gestures to a head grown from the side of his body through a shirt specialized with his own neckhole.

            “Do I not know thee from someplace? Thou’rt not related to Delfrik by some crazy coincidence, art thee?” Desvot asks the man.

            “Delfrik? What, just because we both have two heads thou think we are related or something, huh? Do we all look the same to thee? Cause allow me to inform thee, not all conjoined twins are related Sir,” Krifeld says in a fit of offense.

            “Sorry sir, I was just inquiring,” Desvot says embarrassed by his mistake.

            “Is Picapelli not here himself to outfit us with our cabbage?” Levity asks to change the subject from this awkward argument that wasn’t really an argument yet sort of sounded like an argument despite not being one – what is best known as a misunderstanding.

            “Good question sir, but Picapelli does not show his face even to myself; kept constantly in concealment, not one man alive knows what he looks like. The Cabbage King I call him, yet I know not if even he still eats it himself. All I know is he lets us live here with all the women we wish, encouraging us to share them even with customers if we – or more accurately they – wish to do so,” Krifeld idles in thought for a moment until “Ah, indeed sir I do have four crates with Humphrey’s name on them, and one surplus if thou would wish for thine own, Sir Levity is it? Thou appear to be a Sir Levity; thou surely look like a Levity,” Frikled spiels stepping backward, revealing a flamboyantly furnished room featuring two divans (atop which rest two slumbering sweethearts), two more traditional sofas (one of which is home to another alluring lady), a fireplace, kitchen, dining room, doorway leading to a bedroom (which may just inside have more beauties to behold), and one staircase leading down to the supply room. Desvot is awestruck (that’s one way to put it), Sir Humphrey grows hungry for something, and Levity is captured by the women’s fascinating faces.

            “The crates are just downstairs, though I am not much of a heavy-lifter myself, so if thou wilt thyselves carry this cabbage upstairs that would be great. In the meantime, I’m going to go take a quick five to ten minute nap,” Krifeld says as he returns to his bedroom. Humphrey and Desvot stumble downstairs behind Levity into the basement, lit dimly by what little natural lighting penetrates a miniscule window across from the staircase. They feel their way around the walls to a stack of crates – five in total. Levity takes one, Desvot another, and Humphrey haphazardly heaves two crates of cabbage by himself up the stairs, sauntering careless ahead of them. Not seven steps up the stairs he flips backward into Desvot, knocking all their crates of cabbage onto the floor, one of which the top falls off and from which roll countless cabbages which Levity and Desvot help pick back up into the crate.

            At the end of the cabbage trail Humphrey runs into what is immediately recognizable as a blood-tarnished rack and pinion, shmeared with guts and piled on one end with bones.

            “Sir, I believe Picapelli may be up to something much more sinister than selling cabbage,” he says taking two steps back.

            Levity looks studies it for simply two seconds and looks back, “Art thou asinine? These are fish bones; he is up to nothing more sinister than filleting himself a feast.”

            Humphrey inspects it closer and doesn’t say a word acknowledging his modest mistake, taking back to the cabbage spillage on the cement. He heaves the crates back up in his arms and more cautiously now carries them up the stairs so sluggishly. They set the boxes outside the cabin as Desvot goes back for his second, now returning inside to bid their newfound friend farewell before they depart to Great Trickle, knocking twice on the bedroom door, to the knob of which is fastened a red-and-blue shepherd’s plaid necktie.

            The door opens a crack and Krifeld’s head pops through it, “Did ye get thine requested cabbage sirs? Mayhap ye would desire some of these gorgeous gals to go down with you before thine departure?”

            “I believe we shall be sated without; I thank thee for thine offer, but as it stands we must depart straightaway,” Levity interrupting the two hankering hes behind him.

            Frikled presses his head against the door to poke his own head through, “What, do ye not want a little head? My going rate is–”

            “These heads of cabbage shall suffice,” Levity interposes his ever-enticing offer.

            “I see, thou must be that Chosen One Picapelli was speaking of – you are a virgin, right? That Picapelli was persistently prophesizing some Chosen One that would go on to greet Gruceti and thrust him from his throne, taking before him all his Grateful who have each been causing such unimaginable woe and adversity in their wake. Iniquitous enemies unmatched by any opponent except – according to Picapelli’s prophecy – the Chosen One and his group of more-or-less do-gooders.”

Krifeld looks to Frikled who replies to his glance, “I never thought there would ever be a Chosen One. If thou were to ask my advice, this appears to be but a league of lazy losers – how does Picapelli expect them mmhmrmmh,” he says as his speech turns inaudible due to a necktie being wadded into his pessimistic piehole.

            “I’m a Chosen One? I thought I was just searching for my lover Delcita Lavie to marry me, but now thou expecteth me to take down Gruceti, his Grateful, and the entire Baton?” Levity asks, anxious of his accidentally-acquired responsibility.

            “It is not my own expectation sir, but that of Sir Petrich Picapelli himself, and one thou’rt unable to refuse for it is thine destiny. I can read to thee the entire prophecy if thou would wish, or summarize many the details myself, which will be much easier on you and myself,” a brief pause, “Essentially, he harangued incessantly about a virgin, his mule, his search for true love, two acquisitive adventurers his companions carrying countless cabbages, something about some ghost following them who he advised to be wary of yet thankful for, as he will be of great aid to you in thine journey, and I think that’s about it. I think there was something about a Kris sword, too if you have one of those. Oh! And he said one of ye three shall perish by the journey’s end, but I cannot recall which of you – I would have to consult that prophecy wherever I placed it… maybe downstairs inside my steel maiden…” Krifeld starts mumbling to himself incomprehensibly about his placement of the prophecy, but at this time the travelers are already tired and ready to take their cabbage back to Trickle.

            “Well we must be taking our leave, for it is already nearing nightfall. I bid thee well in thine venereal ventures,” Levity lifting his helm and bowing to Krifeld and Frikled as he turns to the door.

            “Farewell Sir Krifeld – Frikled,” Desvot waves with his hat in hand, replacing it and making room for Sir Humphrey.

            “Thanks for the cabbage and farewell freaks,” marching out after his two companions, distraught that he doesn’t get to be the Chosen One – positive that he must be the fellow to perish by the journey’s end simply by his luck thusfar and the ghastly voice ruminating in his head – some specter possessing and corrupting his cranium, bending the humanity inside him to his own wills and ways.

            They carry the crates of cabbage back to their steeds using their leads to fasten behind them the crates of cabbage they have acquired, That without the lid being emptied into one of Sir Levity’s saddlebags to stop any spillage. They make their return down the trail where they come back to the chain they had previously passed and stop to ponder its purpose in this woodland passage; Humphrey is quick to conclude a method of maybe moving the tchotchke and attached chain from the ground.

            “I have myself a stupendous conception sirs; stand back so I may demonstrate,” he says as he detaches his cabbages and winds around him the chain, securing it in place with the prongs of the imponderable tchotchke. “Watch and learn,” he says charging Aletra forward, the chain uncoiling from the ground and straightening behind him, little by little it unwinds and yanks him off the saddle of his steed as Aletra continues forth four paces and slows down, comes to a stop.

Humphrey stands and brushes the dirt off his clothes, “Here sir, I feel I may have a better idea,” Levity says approaching the chain.

“Back off, I can do this on my own – I’ve got a better idea anyway,” Humphrey says remounting his steed and passing a hook of the tchotchke through a loop on his saddle. He charges forth once again and at the end of the chain the saddle slips off his steed who falls over as Humphrey himself lands concretely on his coccyx, lying back now for a moment to recover.

“Humphrey let me try; I know I can do this,” Levity approaching Aletra and taking the tchotchke himself before Humphrey is to the chain bind her ankle and injure his steed any further. Humphrey grumbles inaudibly into the earth and Levity hops onto Blensosa; he hauls mule the opposite direction as Humphrey had attempted while the chain slides out of its place in the dirt – he slows down and reaches the extent of the chain where he stops.

Nearby on a girthy-grown tree opens a doorway with two hinges that had been previously unseen; a sign on the interior reads Toper’s Treehouse, and there inside a ladder leads them underground. “Humphrey get up, have We got a good time over here just waiting for us, or what?” Desvot directing his attention to the doorway which they proceed through.

In the bottom they come upon a room: a claustrophobic cubicle with a bookshelf pressed against each wall abounding with books where simply a soupçon of sunlight simmers through the space with bisquelike dust soaring ubiquitous in the air and sticking to each exposed surface to which it can clin; that it may sink itself into. In the center of it all dangles from the ceiling a solitary oil lamp, Humphrey hankering for a cigarette after such a long day without one pulls a cigarette from his coat searching for his matchbook.

“Need a light?” Jacarbi asks, materializing from nowhere and holding out to Humphrey the matches he had been searching for.

Humphrey falls backward a step in astonishment and obliges, “Sure, sir specter; I thank thee so greatly, my greatest friend and fear.” He takes the matchbook, strikes the match three times until the matchhead breaks off, tears out another match that lights after two strikes, lights his cigarette first, then moves his hand too quickly on its way to the lamp, procrastinates with another match that he strikes once and holds to the lamp, turns a small knob to release more wick that catches and lights the room, revealing on the wall the names of many masterpieces scrawled on the spines of so many hardcover books. “I bet thou there is a passageway hidden behind one of these shelves; we must just reveal it by pulling from the shelf the correct book,” Humphrey as he begins to throw from the shelves one book at a time.

Levity picks these works off the floor for inspection as the pile proliferates, “This story seems to be something regarding sheep. His outlook on life though is so dismal and depressing; too pessimistic, he views all around him as if it could only be better and not any worse. A chickenhead he is with barely a brain or heart inside him; the marvel of this masterpiece appears better interpreted by other eyes in the end, though the concept itself clever and creative.” He sends it into the corner and lifts another off the ground, “Ah, such lovely language this book is rife with though all inevitably nonsense; a good time, albeit without any love, without any heart or romance, not a character to dub analogous to my darling Delcita Lavie, and with such a pestilent protagonist,” he throws the book back in the corner alongside the previous, “Though I do so admire its vision and creativity, how the man develops into a man unlike my characters kin.” He lifts another from the pile, “What an interesting work of art is this, of a man who believes the whole government out of all its citizens specifically hates him and his work, for being a writer in an ungracious government. His outlook as well so awfully acrid yet thoroughly enjoyable, clever and complete with words his own, and the meanings of which groundbreaking in modern medieval – or excuse me, postieval politics – one can compare it to tyrannies of the past or those of the outside world.” He spins it into the distraught stack in the corner. “This one I see is much akin, and it even has drugs in it – what a riot! Such a tragic tale, I admire its ingenuity, a protagonist I can nearly call my own, yet again so pessimistic and rude. Into the corner it comes,” tossing and retrieving another, “Euch, this protagonist is so disgusting; a murderer and necrophile, though its prose so passionate, the metaphors marvelous – I much prefer this writers other work, even without a character to cling fully to, his kid is quick and courageous, admirable still as I see it. I judge This although to be naught but filth,” and the projectile piles atop the others, “This man seems not to shut up about legal and illegal plunder for all of roughly fifty pages,” throwing it into the pile, “This man is clearly a pedophile,” tearing in half a Russian book romanticizing a child, “Humphrey, may I borrow thine matches? I believe the corner to be much too luxurious for this pedophilic filth.”

“Be gentle with these matches sir, they mold and mangle with even my lightest touch. I have but five matches remaining and see myself smoking another four cigarettes tonight,” Humphrey says tossing to him the matchbook. Desvot meanwhile is minding his own business reading some stupendous smut concerning explosives he had pulled off a bookshelf.

“Thanks,” Levity says lighting the match on his first attempt, dropping it on the wood floor atop the torn pages of ‘adulterous’ poop de provocateur. The tatters of the novel light lividly as the floor itself starts to catch fire, a blaze which he stomps out once the pages are rendered unreadable. “I much prefer this other work of his anyway; so cryptic the poetry and accompanying prose; I admire its complexity. Ah, this one seems a wonderful time, all of the two protagonists drugged, disoriented misadventures in such an incoherent and comedic light. Not by any means morally admirable yet entertaining as many.” He tosses it with the rest only to notice Humphrey has torn each book from every barren shelf.

“There’s not even any booze in here and it’s a toper’s treehouse? What gives its owner the audacity to label this a toper’s treehouse if there is not any alcohol for my arms to acquire and mine palate to take pleasure?” he vents and punches the wall in frustration only to dislocate his knuckles. He steps to the pile of masterpieces in the middle of the floor, “Pfft, get a load of this – the writer was so lazy he couldn’t come up with a decent name for his novel so he just used one letter. I mean, there is a period after, but still, how lazy can you get? Sounds like a chickenhead to me. This guy’s even more of a riot, his first name a phallic epithet and surname a metaphor for stroking himself. Boring, next. Oo, look at what a dunce this fellow was, only hating at the woman he is so hopelessly love with, hates just about every masterpiece he sets eyes upon, who does that make you think of? Doesn’t even care for his own loving mother it seems, though how hilarious a tale it tells indeed. Wow, what about this loser? Thinks his virginity is the way to go with women when it’s all about money honey. Hey, this one seems interesting, the first story is about this man impervious to all yet the second is all about this boring brainiac – who could care less about him? Here we go, this one’s more my style, it’s got fart jokes and everything. Even some fine females in it, lots of money and booze, now there’s something savory I can sink my teeth into.” He looks over to Desvot who has shut his smut and placed it back on the shelf, gripping a small crevice behind the shelf he uses to flip the entire thing onto the ground.

“Sirs, I have discovered a doorway! Inside I affirm you we shall discover all the intoxicants thine stomachs could e’er desire. Mayhap even some stupefying marvel that will catch us completely by surprise,” he says trying to open the locked door.

“Step out of the way Desvot, I can pick this lock with my bare hands,” Levity says stepping back and charging his shoulder through the door, disintegrating the corroded latch as he impacts it. The room ahead is already lit lively, abundant barrels of booze lining either side, ahead a table and chairs atop which rests a cage containing a giddy golden pheasant. In the chairs are seated a gaggle of gagging ghosts, partaking in a hearty havoc of wholesome laughter. They take swigs from their glasses that splatter on their seats, slide through a stream and into a drain in the floor.

II.

Meanwhile in Great Trickle at Rompey Riscardé’s an argument is brewing through the barroom walls between Evanue Riscardé and his wife Jenniue at whom he his yelling vivaciously over a misplaced barrel of Juce. At the bar one man is sitting alone in silence minding his own as the invective Evanue imbues endless insults upon her character – a crashing is heard from the back room and silence.

“I’m tired of thou being so imbecilic as not to even know where the Juce barrels are stored; I best throw thee out the window and be rid of thine nagging sentiments at long last,” escapes from Evanue as another violent attack echoes from behind the bar followed by a barrel crashing against the wall, “Hey honey, I finally found the barrel thou vile virago,” Juce comes flooding from underneath the door and soonafter Jenniue comes stumbling through it, her bruised eyeball meets the cringe-locked lips of the thusfar zipped patron.

She struggles to her feet, slipping in the slick of Juce and tightens her grip around the base of a barstool, raising it into the air and awaiting the irate Riscardé’s return, she hears him affronting from behind the door, “If thy impudent ass has not returned to me in five seconds thou wilt have brought upon thee my reckoning, repulsive wretch. One. Two. Three. Four,” and without another moment’s notice Riscardé bursts through the door and the stool comes striking down upon its skull, see planks from the seat coming loose – she raises it again and sends it into his head, a leg and crossbar coming free as the seat further demolishes against him and detaches his consciousness. She raises it again to strike once more and kill this toxic miscreant as the patron catches her arms.

“Best not ye bash his brains any further, for charges of manslaughter art the last of thine worries,” and slowly he loosens her grip from the stool with such delicacy of his hands, “What say we banish this belligerent and take ownership of this facility for ourselves? Mayhap we rename it to something less extoling of this antagonizing abuser?”

Jenniue takes in a lungful of air, the most pristine her aching alveoli have diffused to her capillaries in an excruciating eternity, holding it for a moment until she exhales and breathes in again now feeling free, rushing with relaxation at long last. The man takes the stool from her and sets it down, wrapping her arms around her to console this maltreated mistress, “Let us rename it then to Jovial Nights for all the joyous and carefree nights we shall spend together here rid of this rotten rascal.”

She reaches her arms around him as well, “Sir, in thy months of patronage I must say I do admire thine attitude; such a respectful esteem to thee, much more manly than this battered brute. A true gentleman.” Jenniue plants a kiss of this greathearted caregiver, “Thou have treated me with more manner and munificence than any other man I have met it mine lifetime Kelvus, and together at last our hearts shall be bound in such a manner Evanue has ne’er offered upon me.”

“Madam, what should we do of his body before he awakes?” Kelvus asks. Jenniue returns to the back room, returning with an empty Juce barrel she unlatches, removing the lid and setting it aside.

“Wilt thou kindly lend a hand good sir?” Kelvus obliges and takes his feet as she his arms lifts him and lets his limp limbs into the barrel, replacing the lid, shutting the latch. “West of Trickle I believe to be Alavus Hill if thou’lt follow we may send him so far he may never return again.”

“Of course my dear, let us send this villain far from us to never thrash thee again,” Kelvus decrees as he kisses back upon her cheek, “and on our return if thou wish I will make love to thee with such passion Evanue has ne’er offered thee.” They embrace once more, tip the barrel on its side, wheel it out the doors of Jovial Nights and off to Alavus where with one puny push the barrel comes rolling down the steep hill, breaking open against a tree where Evanue lies unconscious among the wooden scraps.

“Good riddance.”

III.

            A man is walking through town with a tarp over his back following far behind a man he recognizes as Solomon, whom himself is tailing close behind a woman into a park. Solomon reaches into his coat for a Gladius as they pass through hedges to where they can’t be seen. The man hears screaming and soon enough from Solomon, “Lovie for Sollie! Lovie for Sollie!” Hear him taking another tie, what sounds like choking, and after some time the man emerges from the park wearing now seven neckties – the tarp man sprints as far from him as he can.

IV.

A bellowing belch bursts from the bulging belly of the foremost spirit who looks across the table to Jacarbi, “You wanna do some shots? We’ve got all the booze your spirit could ever desire,” his head shifts to the newcomers of the Toper’s Treehouse, “Hey, didn’t see you guys come in; did you want some shots?” He levitates eight shot glasses into a line on the table using a pitcher of overproof rum to fill them each with only lifting a finger.

“I should be alright; I thank thee pallid pals, though I am not much of a drinker,” Levity being first to reply as Humphrey steps forth and takes four shots in rapid succession.

“Have thou anything to chase this rum? My stomach feels like a bubbling bog; a stewing swamp; for I know not how long this liquor will stay inside my stomach for,” he looks around for any water or soda to settle his stomach.

The stout spirit left of Jacarbi offers a swift solution, “Well there’s four more shots right there to chase it with if you want. Otherwise I think we might have some water somewhere around here. Just don’t go messing around with those barrels too much cause some of those have got our bones in them and I’m not so sure how you, uh, how should I put it… people who aren’t dead yet appreciate bone brew.”

Across from him a slenderer spirit sits with the symbol of what at first glance appears to be the Gurung Yantra on his shoulder, “I think there’s some water in that second barrel over there,” he says pointing across the room left of Humphrey, who instead of taking another shot finds himself an empty glass and takes it to the spigot and fills it to the top. He throws it down his throat only to realize that it’s not water at all, and he begins choking on it violently.

“I don’t think that’s water,” he says spitting the pungent, unpalatable liquid from his face and setting down the glass.

“Oh my bad, that was only moonshine I believe. Otherwise across from it I think we should have a wine cask full of our most ambrosial amontillado that may soothe well thine stomach,” the same man replies.

“Otherwise if you go back into the other room, behind one of those bookcases should be a kitchen, but we can’t really go in there and get the water for you ourselves with our spirits being bound to this room by salt and all,” the foremost again says as Jacarbi takes the remaining four shots for himself, dumping them out onto his chair.

“This wouldn’t happen to be the same rum my distillery crafted back in the day, would it? The flavor is so familiar to me, it must be my own creation,” Jacarbi says with a smile.

“You aren’t Jacarbi himself by chance, are you?” the ghost to his left inquires.

“Yes I am, and by the taste of it that must have been my own Jacarbi 164, quite a rare vintage any longer. Last I’d seen the strongest they sell any more is my own Jacarbi 132,” he continues to blather about booze as Desvot fills himself a glass of Amontillado and Levity follows Humphrey back to the library where they discover one bookshelf to be stapled to the wall while the other flips onto the ground with little effort.

“You better not be burning any of my books in there; keep it tidy too, it took my an entire lifetime to collect all these works,” the slender spirit steams at them as they enter a kitchen that is such an unbearable, dangerous mess that once they have gotten two glasses of water they return immediately to the main room where despite having chased his liquor with an entire glass of water Sir Humphrey still runs back to the kitchen and pukes on the floor, the spewage blending in with the rotted planks and mold.

Levity drinks his glass of water and moves closer to the golden pheasant to stroke its festive feathers; he asks of its owners, “May I open this colorful creature’s cage sirs?”

“Of course,” the foremost begins, “Her name is Zevalia, the most fetching pheasant in all the lands.”

“Has she not a pheasant to love her? What a lugubrious bird is she, so lovely yet all alone, I could ne’er stand a life of such isolation and dejection,” he says unlatching the cage, allowing her to step onto his finger as he strokes her head so subtly. “Any other bird I could ne’er extol so greatly as this fine pheasant; such a lovely bird is this Zevalia, may I take her back to Trickle with me where I may care for and feed her properly?”

“By all means, she has been starving ever since Joran died, so that’s been about two days or so,” the foremost again, “The cage is good as yours as well, too. If we have no longer the pheasant then what use is the cage?” Sir Levity pecks a kiss upon the pheasant’s feathered forehead, stroking its head once more with only a finger and sets her back inside the cage.

Jacarbi, finished with his four shots immediately thirsts for further liquor to tranquilize his tenacious temper which he feels returning with the slow onset of his own sobriety, “Sir specters of the Treehouse, what kind of booze have you left in these barrels? I ache for more alcohol, what would be thine finest recommendation?” Jacarbi begins breathing deeply so to suppress his simmering savagery.

            “Behind me if you want ist ein Fass Kräuterlikör; mein Lieblingsgetränk,” the slender spirit says, “if you want I will permit you a single glass of it.”

            “No, take some more rum instead; we have another bottle someplace; no one likes your herbal liquor anyhow, Joel,” Joran yanks at him.

            Jacarbi hovers himself to the barrel Joel had offered wherein he places beneath the spigot an empty glass and turns the faucet which falls off. Nothing comes out, his temper starts to swell, “I want some damn herbal liquor; I don’t care how crap it tastes, I just want some damn herbal liquor,” he says proceeding to manifest his Gada to slog the faucet furiously, taking as well with the head of his humungous weapon half the barrel as well, standing in front to suck up as much of the intoxicating tsunami as he might and soon finding himself choking on someone’s missing mandible as a skeleton washes with the wave onto the floor.

            “Mein Kräuterlikör! Thou sickening swine! Impudent and bellyfeeding bovine!” Joel manifests a hammer that he embeds in Jacarbi’s jaw.

            “You take that back right now,” he says raising his Gada, only to be sliced across the stomach with a silver sickle. “I’m gonna give you one more opportunity to stop spazzing out at me or I’m gonna have to get you with my Gada,” Jacarbi says as Joel plants the sickle into his skull. “Alright, that’s it,” he has just about had it, hammering his great Gada into the ground, ravaging Joel’s joints and ligature. Bent into some oblique origami, he unfolds himself back into a shape from which he begins screeching.

            “Desvot, bundle his bones; hurry, before someone breaks!” Humphrey hollers across the room to him nearest the spillage, sneaking past the two striking spooks.

            “Hey, what are you doing with my bones, boy?” Joel jumps over to Desvot with seven sickles now in his hands, as he brings his arm back to sink one into his skin he is interrupted by Jacarbi flagellating his face with the ferrule of his Gada, sending him falling forward into the floor where he is kept down firmly by its finial.

            “Should I bring these back to the library Sir Levity, or shall I burn them forthwith?” Desvot bundling the bones in his arms and slipping past the screaming skirmish.

            “Yes, follow me to the library sir,” he replies as they sprint to a mishmash of masterpieces Desvot drops the bones upon and looks for a matchbook that isn’t there; Levity sees this and calls out for aid, “Strongest Sir Humphrey, wilt thou strike me a match to light the skeleton and send this spirit to its prison of permanent perdition?”

            “What was that sir?” Humphrey says emerging from a glistening goblet of amontillado with a smoldering cigarette in his hand, smoke sailing to the sky.

            “Please set ablaze this scorned skeleton at once!” Desvot demands.

            “Whatever thou say… Now where did I place that matchbook…” Humphrey hassles through his pockets and notices he left it over on the cask of amontillado. He paces back to pick it up and returns without it, “Look sirs, I know not where I put the matches, so I guess we must watch these ghosts grab at another’s throats until we leave.”

            Desvot walks up to Humphrey and hacks the tip of his cigarette with his scimitar, the smolders sent into the stack of papers that quickly catch and soon the skeleton sent into a sizzling storm atop it. Then the fire spreads to the floor behind them as they return to see Joel’s phantom fade into flame ‘neath the finial of Jacarbi’s Gada.

            “I believe that will thus be the end of this ethereal entity and its explosive exploits,” Desvot says filling a glass with amontillado to celebrate the closure of this close scrape.

            Sir Levity, hearing the continued crackling of fire behind him, turns to see the entire library has engulfed in flames and spread to the ladder which no longer will lend support to their attempts of ascension. He hurries to the pheasant, taking her cage and placing it inside his haversack, he asks the foremost, “Is there another escape from this treehouse?”

            The foremost replies, “Well, back behind the other bookshelf there should be a tunnel back to Trickle; it’s just riddled with roots and infested with insects.”

            “How though should we surpass this incredible inferno?”

            “I can help with that,” Humphrey utters as he heaves the barrel of which he had been previously misinformed of the contents, and soon with Jacarbi’s assistance sends it airborne into the inferno where it only aids the inferno in its fervid amplification.

            “Louon, do you want me to set off the sprinkler system for them?” Joran asks as he floats over the table to a lever marked explicitly for emergency use only.

            “You see Joran, I’m not so sure this classifies as an emergency; I’ve seen much worse things happen here that we didn’t spring the sprinkler system for, so I don’t see what the big deal is. Last we had a fire such as this we simply drowned ourselves in booze and we’re happy as hell as it stands – I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t want the same fate as we,” Louon to Joran condescendingly. Joran who contests this counsel by flipping the lever to send flooding from an open pipe a cascade of liquid that extinguishes most the flames, enough at least to open a path to the remaining bookcase. “Look what you did, now there’s all over the place and the whole treehouse is ruined. Most the booze is probably no good any longer, especially once all the water permeates the barrels and dilutes it all.”

            “Here, I’ve got an idea,” Jacarbi says bashing through all the remaining barrels.

            “What the hell are you doing?” Louon laments as all their leftover liquor spills onto the floor and slowly slips down the drain.

            “I’m gonna grab a few of your bones and you can just come with us over to Rompey Riscardé’s for the rest of eternity,” Jacarbi says finding their skulls and femurs, “This should suffice to keep your spirits high and hearty.”

            “This bookshelf will not budge,” Humphrey says attempting to pry it from the wall.

            “It is fastened to the floor and along the wall be several staples it seems,” Levity inspecting it more closely, “We are going to need to break through this if we wish to reach the other side.”          

            “Allow me,” Jacarbi precedes a ponderous plummet of his Gada, leaving a doorway where there previously hadn’t been, “Ladies first.” Levity leads them into the tunnel, hacking away strands of root hanging past their heads.

            The tunnel is cramped, forcing them to crouch in order to fit inside it; the floor is riddled with rabid red ants that nibble at your feet, squirms and centipedes, beetles and grubs, all crawling from the walls, dropping from the ceiling, tickling your scalp and harassing your hair. The ground above them begins to tremor and dirt breaks off the ceiling like dust while Humphrey gripes and grumbles over some particles landing inside his eyes as they listen to the beat of bestial footsteps above. Jacarbi flies through the cave ceiling to the surface as his Gada drops on his way through, hitting Louon on the head irking a reply “Could you watch where you wave that thing? My head already hurts enough as it is.”

            The tremors persist and soon Jacarbi returns, “There’s an entire army up there marching to Trickle by the lead of a Giant dragging in his footsteps a club ever more massive than my Gada,” which he locates on the ground by Louon’s feet, “Looks like the Baton to me, though it Could be something far more sinister.”

            “That giant must be Greigor the Gargantuan. I was unaware he had joined the Baton; his father Gregor would have shunned such behavior by him,” Levity listens closely to their pounding march, and what must be Greigor lifting his club as with its impact the tunnel caves on him – Humphrey sticks the butt of his cigarette in wall as Desvot follows him in a process of hurriedly hurling handfuls of dirt behind them. As this is not making fast enough progress, they stick their scimitars in the dirt to use their scabbards as shovels. Levity says something muffled by the mound of dirt suffocating him as Joran takes from the wall Humphrey’s cigarette and draws such a draining drag through the filter that once he has finished this hit the filter itself has incinerated. He sends forth a whirling gust of smoke which results in Humphrey and Desvot both coughing their lungs out for a short spell as the dirt erodes and smoke clears to reveal Levity still holding his breath with face to the ground.

            “You can have your smack back if you want,” Joran says extending a fistful of smolders to Humphrey’s open hand. He brushes it into the dirt and lights another.

V.

            “Mabel, I must remark thine splendor; how precious thy face, thy lush crimson lips; how I wish to press mine own against yours and kiss thee with open arms,” Esvartio is saying to his lover, preceding a hug and leaning in to kiss her, but his eyes catch once more upon a monstrous mole lying beneath her right eye. He retreats, “Though honey, Mabel, thou must surely take care of that baleful blemish beneath thine eye; it is so unsightly; truly horrendous. I know a surgeon is Sfouma who may be able to remove it for thee.”

            He leans back in for a kiss but she backs away from him, “You find my face hideous? For only a single mole stuck under my eye? I would much prefer to keep it, thanks.”

            He takes her back in his arms, “But dear, I love all else about you – more so than any man alive – it is but the mole that offends me so, I cannot keep my eyes off it so repulsive.”

            “I love myself as I am, moles and all – If thou’rt unwilling to commit to the same unconditional love as I have had for thee, I see not how thou are the perfect man for me. I have no desire to take to Sfouma and remove it and instead shall leave thee for another more loving and charming man,” she says this with eyes locked.

            “Honey, thou art the most splendorous sweetheart I’ve e’er met in my life; I only wish to make you more beautiful and perfect thine image as well as mankind is capable,” he says trying to keep her there in his arms, but she struggles free.

            “My visage is already as perfect as it need become; such a surgery would only make my face less mine and more like another – more toward some deranged image of perfection. I shall dismiss thee and devote my love to another.” She leaves his side and makes home to collect herself as Esvartio makes for the newly rebranded Jovial Nights to collect himself as solitude takes hold of his body back in its displeasing embrace.

VI.

            After digging inside his haversack for nearly half an hour, Levity finally locates a lantern that with the expenditure of Humphrey’s last match lights the path forth through the tunnel past bugs, beetles, and over a tiger roach – Sir Humphrey plants his foot upon a Mole Cricket, and raising his foot it yells, “Watch thine feet thou careless beast; this is the home of my family; the grave of my ancestors; be attentive of thine feet as thou proceed forth.” The entire party scrambles their eyes in confusion of this disembodied voice, like another ghost whispering through a gust of air. “Down here thou foolish apes,” taking their attention on the ground is the mangled body of a mole cricket, still clinging to life with limbs misshapen and antennae unplugged. “Have thou never met a mole cricket before?”

            “A mole cricket? I’ve ne’er heard of such an insect in my life,” Humphrey says wiping its antennae off his boot into the dirt.

            “I would appreciate those back please, for they do not so simply regrow upon my head,” the mole cricket cracks one of its limbs back into operation, watch it wave in the air in perfect operation. Its next limb begins to uncrumple itself from the knotted position wherein it previously lied. Humphrey locates the two antennae like strings in the dirt, nearly invisible like lost lenses, takes them softly, and sets them upon the insects head. The mole cricket cracks its remaining two limbs back into operability and replaces its two antennae on the front of its face, now finally taking a chance to scrutinize the travelers, “What effete weaponry thou carry on thine hips; such prostrated limbs; I do not perceive how thou see thineselves e’er reaching the end of this devious cast of caverns with such bloodthirsting battalions of beetles and otherwise unwelcoming insects that care not but for a forceful grip around thine throat with their pincers and stings.”

            “Thou mean to say thou’rt worried we may be brought to our deaths by miniscule insects such as thineself?” Humphrey spits near the mole cricket, “We are fit to take down any cockroach, scarab, scorpion, or squirm slithering through these tunnels and make it through to the other side with nary a problem concerning our scalps aside these itching ants and intolerable insects.”

            “Thou have clearly not set thine eyes upon the more immense insects deep in these tangling tunnels, have thee? Anyhow, It is time I must depart, as my family awaits in our nest. If ye meet us later in thine path, ye are welcome to join us for some lovely Sayba Soup – a specialty of ours,” proceeding to bore below him into the earth and disappear.

            The tunnel twists, turns, and runs into a T where their journey comes to a recess wherein they sit down to deliberate their choice of direction. As Levity’s lips open to speak so soon does a monstrous earthworm come crawling across the path ahead of them; likely the creature who had itself initially carved the entanglement of tunnels below the earth. After its stupendous serpentine body squirms across the path for seconds turned minutes, a rhinoceros beetle is to follow that comes straight toward them. Its body is half as tall as him, its horn alone measuring the same as Humphrey’s height, taunting them with its forceful jaw, the Hercules Beetle cries out with a choleric, acidic hiss. Levity turns for help to see that the spirits are not to be seen, the three of them fighting alone against the voluminous beetle.

            Having not the room for any to step in front of him, he sprints forth and swings his Kris for it only to be caught by its horns, like pincers set vertical they latch around his sword and its head swings upward where holding firm against the hilt he flies into the air and is swung into the ground. His Kris comes loose and he swings once more, being caught by its jawlike apparatus and severed in two. Taking this fragmented blade in hand, he hurls it straight into his foe’s right eye and unzips his haversack to obtain himself an uncut Kris. He rolls past its pinching jaw and leaps onto its back where with his thighs tightly gripped around its neck, he plunges the blade into the back of its throat. The beetle hisses again and charges forward to chomp another chump in half, locking its jaw around Humphrey and nearly severing him in half as Levity removes the blade from its throat and takes it now by the blade to pummel its head with his pommel repeatedly like a ball pein hammer.

            Hissing its acidic squeak once more, it collapses and Humphrey is set free. He lies down with blood pouring from his waist and wailing in pain, “Leave me here to be, for I cannot bear to venture much further. This pain is so intolerable I cannot bring even my legs to stand; come back for me once you have a wheelbarrow or otherwise to wheel my wimped weight from these carnivorous caverns,” speaking more slowly as his words whimper into a whistle and he passes out in the dirt and breathes no longer. Trails of tears streak down Desvot’s face as ahead they see another rhinoceros beetle charging ahead their way, this one with a single menacing horn below it, and above from its head a single protuberance that pales in comparison to the Y-like one below it.

            Levity swings into it with his Kris that catches on the crescentlike end of its horn, he withdraws his hand and tries again with a lateral slice and is caught and deflected by the side of its horn. It then steps back and charges ahead, lodging its horn beneath Levity’s feet and flipping him into the air. Desvot unsheathes his scimitar and striking from the left his blow is once again deflected by the horn of what is more specifically known as a kabutomushi. Charging ahead once more, Desvot’s neck is stuck against the wall with by crescent on its horn and he begins to choke out, his spit sticking in the eyes of the behemoth beetle. Its grip loosens and Desvot pushes it away to see Levity standing on its back with his sword stuck like a pin into its back through its heart. With one more swipe of his arm the beetle’s head is severed and collapses next to its discomfited accomplice. The earth starts to shake below them, and ahead at the T in the path they see the same worm turn its head their way, opening its massive maw and plowing ahead through the dirt and no matter how fast the two try to outpace it the worm is more fleet – its massive maw is quick to greet the group and gormandizes them all. As his eyes go black he can attest to the dulcet audiations of Delcita, “Levity my love, we are nearer now than e’er before. Do not hearken any hellish temptress that may steal thine eyes; heed my call; remember this soothing sweet, and when again we meet thou shall recognize my heart by my speech, the words I utter and my mellifluous melody.” He hears her humming gently to him an amorous eight bar ballad that begins in D Phrygian and midway molds into E flat Lydian as his body goes numb; his sense of sound is last to fade as the worm takes a turn downward to the mole cricket’s cave and slips out of sight like spirited spaghetti noodle.

VII.

            “I think he’s regaining consciousness,” Sir Humphrey says with his hands pressing into Levity’s lungs. He reflexively hacks out a heap of dirt into his face and continues choking on all he had inhaled from the imploding tunnel. His lungs are on fire, throat soar like strep, he turns over and coughs up an anthill under his face, flopping back over and sinking into a stolid sack he stares into the ceiling at a group of grubs in a small pocket their parents have dug in the dirt that is their home. “Art thou well, sir Levity?” Humphrey asks to no reply, “I believe Jacarbi has nearly dug through the rest of the cave-in. We found a spade in thine haversack that has aided our excavation of the tunnel. I thank thee kindly for bringing with such a tool.”

            Levity lies in limbo with his head rushing like a roaring rapid; he risks the sensation of spinning and discomfort and tries to his feet, falling through them as he balances on needles. Humphrey lets out his hand and Levity accepts it; he helps him to his feet where he is held in place as his balance stabilizes, his vision breaks and thus regains from permeating umbrage. He shifts his head to Jacarbi who is yet to reach the other side of this catastrophic collapse and then to Desvot who is marveling at some jangling thingummy from his haversack which has come apart and is yet to fully be pieced together. “You may keep it if you like,” Levity catches him off-guard, “It is an aluminum burr puzzle my grandfather had designed and crafted himself o’er in Sfouma long ago. I have already taken all the enjoyment from it I am capable; stumbled upon its solution long ago and thence it is the same each and every.”

            “It disassembled in a synch, yet I cannot put the pieces together again for the life of me,” he fidgets and finagles the fine blocks of notched aluminum yet they come not near the shape which they had originally formed.

            “It shall come to thee eventually sir; I admire thine persistence.”

            “Guys, I made it through!” Jacarbi celebrates with his spade over his head, a hole just large enough for them each to crawl through now presents itself in the center of this collapse. Meanwhile behind them another quaking discerns itself from that of Greigor as they watch millions of army ants flooding the tunnel in the distance, pouring their direction like a pipe leaking an ocean of water.

            “ANTS!” Desvot shrieks jumbling the burrs in his hand, pocketing them for a later attempt. Jacarbi disappears and the other three are prompt to plunge themselves through the hole, Levity lagging behind as he collects his spade and haversack, careful not to drop the lantern as he passes through. They sprint for what must be between five or six minutes as an alluvion of ants tails them only meters behind until above them appears a crack of light.

            “Ye both must please help me heave this hinderance heavenward and escape these caliginous caverns at last,” Levity calls for the aid of his two travelers, “These ants be on our asses; make haste and heave!” Humphrey and Desvot place their hands forthwith upon the bottom of a board and break sweat from their scalps that soaks over their eyes – it begins to lift, the ants are nearly upon them, and the broad board flips over as they crawl through to replace it atop its stone coffin-like stand.

            “Why in the sweltering scorch of hell art thou hassling me so late in mine stable for, you rascals?” Delfrik, who has just been overturned from atop the mattress he’d slept on is in a daze as the trio trip and twist their way back through the woods on foot to find their horses, mule, and crates of cabbage unidentified.

            Only a kilometer down the trail Levity stops them, “Shh, keep quiet,” gesturing over to a nearby clearing wherein they spy an entire army slept in tents and around a fire, especially noting Greigor the Gargantuan snoring like an ox just paces from a booming bonfire. He cradles his club as if a lover and as he rolls to his other side a shackle jangles around his right ankle binding him to the densest oak available so he does not uproot it from the ground as times previous. Two makeshift guard towers flank either side of the site, one guard of which has sunk into a snooze while the other is yet alert with a spyglass, scanning the grounds for any heroics. Humphrey tries to say something but Levity slaps him across the face and they sidle silent through the woods until the camp is out of sight.

            “For what purpose dost thou believe this army to be invading Trickle, sir?” Humphrey asks direct to Levity who disregards this question and saunters on.

            “I would say either because we have the Chosen One here or to spread the Gruceti-mandated religion of Bans Bollingism; either way, not such a swell outcome if I do say so myself,” Desvot gives his own reply in consolation.

            “What’s Bans Bollingism?” Humphrey continues catechizing over the coming crisis as he looks ahead to the unusually silent Levity whose eyes gaze ahead like headlights.

            “Some religion Gruceti conceived that only the foolish believe and his slaves will follow. Essentially, he claims to have had no parents and been birthed by a tree, from which the Dami of Desolation withdrew his crying core, finding there with him abundant iron ore that he took as well, burning all the tree aside from a great branch – that is the sacred Bollinger Branch or Bans Bollinger – that is worshipped as a God and Gruceti its son. The Dami then took the ore and smelted it to iron, then smithing it himself into Gruceti’s legendary, burdensome battleaxe. Apparently Gruceti’s Book of the Bollinger was so fascinating he managed to convince Himself of it – I could see that Messiah complex forming in his eyes when first I seen him swelling greater by the day; I’ve seen many before,” Desvot gets lost in his mind as thoughts of Gruceti circulate his mind and his torturous programs of forced conversions.

            “The Great Gruceti has got to be deluded out of his head on dozens of drugs to buy into something so conceited, so egocentric as that; anyhow, we already have a Messiah and his name is Jesus Christ,” Humphrey replies stepping close to his side. Levity shakes out his head, and the light in his eyes goes out like that. “Why would they burn the entire tree like that if they thought it was a God? It makes no sense to me,” Humphrey hassles him further.

            “He probably just though it would make his religion more interesting. Asides, there is a yearly ceremony in which all Bans Bollengites congregate around a mighty Bollinger tree to send it into smolders. Then every Wednesday they all amass in the city of Alshamistar to worship at the Amphitheater of Austerity; where they have held the Battleaxe and Bans Bollinger; where they all feed Gruceti’s ego for roughly four hours and then go home.”

            Ahead Levity can descry a figure rummaging around near their horses currently engorging himself full of their cabbage; he runs to confront him, “Get the hell away from our cabbage thou nescient nuisance, thou thickheaded Thraxus,” He quicksteps into a kick to his ribs, and with only a wave of his Kris above him in the air he scampers off into the wilderness. “It gets easier to thwart this thief our every confrontation, I swear.” The three take back their horses, mule, and cabbage. Levity leads on Blensosa’s back over their return to Trickle, cathooving their steeds past the slumbering army, both the watchmen of which have at this point passed, and tarrying their horses in Savella’s stable, Delfrik on duty once again though this time actually awake when they require service for some reason.

            Though confused by its rebranding, they step through the doors of Jovial Nights and take in the new atmosphere as another air runs through the barroom that had not on any other occasion – Riscardé is not to be seen, Jenniue boasts behind the bar a greater smile than she’s e’er worn upon her face, a newly-installed fireplace is roaring with life. They filter into their rooms, flip into their beds, and each fall asleep in a flash.

Copyright 2020 -- Return to Chapter Selection