Chapter 14 - Swampus Maximus

“O’ lucky crowd; you blessed ones whose fortune it is to witness this forty-dozenth running of cowsowhorses over hoof-clutching earth! Praise to the Glorious Defense Force for the hosting. Praise for their certain victory in the coming battle with Horde-Masser Coats. See now, the final range of glory-seekers. As they ready their nerves, take your stock of each: Hide-tanner Orguonus, Salmon-favored Polytetes, The Oracle Eater, Bello the Near-Darter, Never-Losing-Neleum, The Sweet Relisher, The Dill Relisher, and - latest of competitors - The Stone Man. Give them your cheers, while to the fish they offer final Praise!”

The race announcer’s voice boomeranged tockwise through the ovular stadium reef. The voice shook the shaped-coral seats: branchy rows of ferny elkhorn chairs, clusters of fuzzy lapin pillars, uncomfortable benches of prickly, lambent fingers, like rays of sunshine. The voice reached the section of the Glory Day’s locals, who let up a particularly loud bellow for Never-Losing-Neleum. The voice moved on. It traveled through empty seats. It traveled through sections for tourists of other Odormoats: Starharbor, Wine Medo, Dreamland. Each section cheered for their own representative champions. Even the newcomer received a polite patter of applause from the Starharbor party. The Stone Man, or (of course) Mr. Grey.

After the voice made the full round of the reef bleachers, it dropped into the buzzing, slimy mire which was the stadium floor. It passed over a focus of the oval field where the riders, clueless to what the crowds had been cheering for up to that point, listened as they sat atop their cowsowhorses. There, the voice reached Mr. Grey. He heard it as a muffled, ringing, tinny tone, through an iron helmet.

Mr. Grey looked - with difficulty - down at Honeydew. She wore tall waders which shielded her against the deep swamp water. She had a hand on their cowsowhorse’s flank for balance. Mr. Grey said, “Are you sure I need this helmet? These things aren’t that fast. This one, especially, should have a leisurely stride.”

“Even more so in this terrain,” added Honeydew, nodding.

“Excellent. No need for this helmet.”

“Sure, take it of; if you want Ordus to notice you. And ruin the plan.”

Mr. Grey stopped, his gray fingers splayed on either side of the heavy metal headgear. “You think he’d recognize me? At this distance?”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t guessed already. What with that racing name they gave you.”

Mr. Grey’s sigh rang dully inside the helmet. He set it back to weigh against his skull. Mr. Grey twisted his body, tilted his neck - again with difficulty - and peered through the narrow rectangle in the iron constituting his field of view.

High and to his left, among the tiered seats for the Glory Days crowd, a wavy-edged lettuce-coral jutted from the stands, like an eggplant wedge. It formed a balcony for the Very Important Spectators. Glorious Defense Force soldiers lined its rim, their metal breastplates glinting in the sun fish light. Their guns were drawn, but at ease. A dozen thrones made from buttermilk sea fans perched on the overlook. Ordus the Diegeonary sat on one such throne. The seashell trumpet across his lap, the stripes across his copper armor, and the expression of severe impatience across his face, all singled him out from the other Defense Force leaders. This officer caste waited with tapping impatience for the announcer to begin the race, while hired menials offered polished platters of cottonfruit, or fanned them with smaller lettuce-coral leaves.

The announcer called again the moment Mr. Grey looked. He saw the reaction of Ordus - a purse of the lips and an antsy repositioning on the throne - long before the announcement reached him, down in the swampy racecourse.

“O’ riders, make final your getting-ready. Then banish your crews, that we shall begin!”

Mr. Grey swayed his head back to Honeydew. She drew her hand from the cowsowhorse’s flank and turned to go. He said, “And you’re sure I have to be in the back? To be last? Won’t I still lose if I come in the middle?” His voice rang out of the helmet’s slit, but the pufferfrogs croaking in the reeds prevented their being overheard.

Honeydew folded her arms across the golden-lily-flower robe. “Not enough of a loss,” she said. She patted the bright, dappled, coal-and-pearl flank of Mr. Grey’s mount. “We wouldn’t even earn back the carafe it cost you to do the fur-change on this stupid animal.”

The ancient cowsowhorse, whose usual coating was the same as Mr. Grey himself, groaned under Honeydew’s hand. Mr. Grey doubted the animal capable of anything but last place.

Honeydew went on, “If you came in first we’d win the grand prize. That could also work. The beast looks capable.” She clicked once, sarcastically.

Mr. Grey said, “No, last is the surest way. I’m… I think I’m ready.”

“It plays to our strength better. You don’t know racing, but I know odds. You’re highly favored, on that fine-looking beast. You lose badly; we win big.”

Mr. Grey nodded; he regretted it as the helmet banged against the back and front of his head. He set his gaze down the long, straight, divided track of muddy, misty, croaking swampland. His cold gaze connected with one unfortunate pufferfrog atop a mossy, wooden log; it instantly exploded.

Mr. Grey heard, dulled by the helmet, the splash of Honeydew’s waders in the water. He cranked his head back to her. The metal banged on his temple. He said, “It shouldn’t be too exciting.”

Honeydew turned. “What?”

“I mean, I think this scheme will work.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Right. If there’s nothing else, I want to watch. And track our bet.”

“Actually, one thing,” Mr. Grey ducked a hand suddenly into a pocket. The polished case of his ticker glimmered in Sun Fish light, until a film of putrid swamp air condensed on it like lizardskin. “Again, there’s little danger in this race. Just in case, could you hold my ticker?”

Mr. Grey offered the ticker, but Honeydew waved her hand and clicked with humor. “You’ll be fine. You keep hold of it.”

The water splashed as Honeydew turned her waders. She looked at the crowd. Mr. Grey realized he still had the ticker outstretched. He returned it to its pocket after wiping off the swamp slime. Honeydew drew her hand mirror and became very interested in composing her hair. For several tocks, the pufferfrogs croaked louder.

Finally Honeydew said, “I should go before the announcer complains.” She splashed around to leave.

Mr. Grey suddenly decided, however, that he should express himself clearer. He said, “I like that we’re collaborating on this scheme.”

At first Honeydew whirled with an exasperated look shining in her dark eyes. But those eyes glowed with sudden interest, as though reconsidering. She spoke with carefully chosen cadence and words. “You mention collaboration. We should consider what comes after.”

“After?” asked Mr. Grey. It came out the same way as every one of his utterances, but the reverberations of the metal helmet lent a ring of hope to the word.

“If this scheme works, what’s the plan for future travel?”

The old cowsowhorse shuffled beneath Mr. Grey. He brought a finger to the helmet’s chin guard and pondered. “A good question. I suppose at some point… that is, we should consider… how we’d go about… returning home?”

“Oh I agree,” said Honeydew earnestly. “We need a return plan.”

“Of course we can see other sights first. But most of our funds are back in Starharbor. And we should take care not to exhaust our cologne.”

Honeydew placed a finger on her own chin. “I’ve a fix. Another collaborative scheme.”

Mr. Grey leaned closer, but pulled back when the helmet tried dragging him off the old cowsowhorse. Honeydew went on, “What if you return to Starharbor right after we wrap this Jodee-visa business? You’ll find your baseline, get whatever treasure you need, restock cologne. Meanwhile I’ll take the visa. I’ll stay in Glory Days. Or wherever our vacation’s destined next. I’ll find the best sites. We can skip the boring ones when you return.”

Just then the announcer’s cry, running its circuit through the stands unbeknownst to Mr. Grey, reached him. “Ready yourselves, glory seekers! The race begins in short!” Mr. Grey’s cowsowhorse jumped, as much as the old beast could, at the sudden sound. Mr. Grey’s grip tightened on its loose fur.

Honeydew said, “Think about it,” She clicked farewell and waded away through the mire.

Mr. Grey had no chance to ‘think about it’. A clap of cymbals shook the swampy reeds on the heels of the announcement. The “race” began.

---

In a crypt under the swampy racecourse, high among the pillars and arches of the vaulted ceiling, the slow roar of cowsowhorse stomping sent a shudder through the stone. Dust and cobwebs - the massed collection of brother Time since the beasts’ last run - wafted toward the grimy floor and its milling people. Each hoof sent a dust sheet falling. One of these sheets fell at just the right time, and drifted at just the right rate, to land squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Grey and Honeydew.

Honeydew swiped at the webby sheet as it draped her. Mr. Grey lifted his left arm, dusted his right shoulder, set the arm back down, and performed the reverse operation. He looked to where the sheet had come from; the sky of umbral stone, thickly-peopled by bats and gargoyles, where hoof thunder rumbled. Mr. Grey said, “I’m still surprised. Our plans never seem to go that well.”

Honeydew dusted a last silky veil from her hair. She said, “True. But it would’ve been hard to botch.”

The two of them stepped across the crypt floor. Against the far wall, on a raised set of stairs, a row of iron safes sat behind a row of golden thrones, in which sat yet another row of Defense Force soldiers in their copper armor. The safes, the thrones, and the armor, all shone under two rows of lime-lanterns dangling from long chains. The breastplates were embossed by glimmering, twin icons of the Prawn Fish. All but one. One armor set displayed, instead, two quilled, coppery Sun Fish. This was the set of Ordus the Diegeonary. It scraped as he shifted awkwardly in his seat of gold, his head bent over another gambler’s bid ticket. It was towards him, with a ticket of their own, that Mr. Grey and Honeydew stepped.

Suddenly, around the giant crystal vats of mintwater sitting in the giant vault’s arched margins, two shadows slunk. From the left, Blackjaw. From the right, Slake. Together, finders for Hire! The same instant, the crowd of other gamblers dropped silent, and dropped considerately into the room’s dusky corners. Yet again at the same moment, an especially heavy cowsowhorse plodding above stomped out an especially loud clap of thunder. And yet again once more, in that exact same tock, Ordus shoved off his throne, shoved aside both the ticket and gambler he’d been ostensibly handling, and shoved a finger at Honeydew and Mr. Grey.

“Oh bankrupt me, here he goes,” said Honeydew.

“Well. Well. Well,” began Ordus. He punctuated each word with the clap of a sandal on the dusty stairs. “You thought yourselves sooooo clever, didn’t you? You thought to yourselves, ‘We’ll stack the odds in Mr. Grey’s favor, get everyone else to bet on him winning. Then we’ll bet against. That will get us right in front of Ordus — ME - since he’ll be the one to distribute our gambling treasure prize.’ That WAS your plan, don’t deny!”

“If you know it, and we know it, why spell it out?” asked Honeydew.

“To hear you admit your scheme. To finally get you to say, ‘We’re working with the partisans - with Jodee Coats herself - to overthrow the king and his servants, the Glorious Defense Force. To overthrow the Great Fishes themselves!’” Ordus made a circle in the air with the index he’d leveled at the pair. The other race-winning-distributing soldiers stood. They pointed at the pair with the barrels of their guns. The gloomy crypt echoed with the synchronized click of disengaging safeties.

Mr. Grey, unperturbed in face, said, “If you’ll let us speak. We did want to meet you, but-”

“Don’t play cool. Pretending getting caught was a key piece in your scheme.” The other soldiers sniggered behind the sights of their guns. They fell silent at Ordus’s sideways, wrathful glances. He turned back to Mr. Grey and banged on his armor’s Sun Fish symbols. “You underestimated me, Mr. Grey, Miss Honeydew. You thought me easily duped. Easily overcome. Just cause I serve the mighty puffer of light, instead of the cunning prawn of war.”

“Do go on,” said Honeydew. “Tell how you outschemed us schemers.”

“That part was simple,” said Ordus with a contorted, angry smile. Using the seashell trumpet in hand, he gestured first at Blackjaw, then at Slake. “The foe of my foe, after all.”

Slake stepped from beneath the enormous mintwater vat. The lime lantern rebounded off the water and reflected as two undulating emeralds on Slake’s sun lenses. He let out a whiny chuckle, rubbed his palms together, and said, “What an enormously unfortunate set of circumstances we find ourselves in, partner Blackjaw. Compelled by… by…”

“Conscience,” barked Blackjaw. He stood under another lantern’s halo.

“Conscience. Compelled by conscience to inform on a prospective client, for whom we have only the most respect. Ah, if only he’d signed a contract!”

“Attorney-Client privilege then.”

“Alas, the short-of-sight Mr. Grey did decline. But hark. I see yet the buds of hope on this barren soil. Bails may be posted. Fines paid. Pecuniary difficulties; overcome.”

“Easy with a loan.”

Everyone within the room - the gamblers in the vault’s corners, the soldiers with their guns, Ordus, Honeydew, Mr. Grey, even the bats and gargoyles high in the ceiling - had followed Blackjaw and Slake’s exchange like a tennis match. Now, Mr. Grey alone turned his stone face to Ordus. “Sir Ordus,” he said, evaporating the next line leaking off of Slake’s tongue, “the reason we-”

“You think I need help knowing your reasons?” asked Ordus in another determined interruption. “Puh-leese! I know your whole quest, mouth-to-fin! Step one: sneak into the Temple of Windows disguised as true Sun Fish adherents, and corrupt the oracle into revealing the Golden Lure’s whereabouts, so you can retrieve it for Jodee. Step two-”

“Can we skip to the last step?” asked Honeydew.

“Are you proud of what you’ve done to these people?” Ordus waved at the gamblers lurking by the pillared walls. In their coughing and sneezing, they made a good sample of Wargermopolis’s odor attack epidemic.

Mr. Grey held up a polite interjecting finger; Honeydew held up a less-polite one. Ordus forced a mocking laugh. He walked toward them, saying, “I can only guess your last step. Maybe you planned to ransom the Lure. Maybe you planned to end my existence. Whatever it was, it’s foiled.”

Ordus stood directly before the pair. He also stood in the sightlines of his soldiers; they lowered their guns. Blackjaw and Slake lurked closer, waving pen and parchment to attract the attention of Mr. Grey.

Ordus railed on steadily. “Here’s a sample platter of the towering stack of lawful punishments you’re due,” He raised his trumpet; not to his lips, but pointing forward with the glistening mouthpiece. As he listed each punishment he emphasized them by poking the seashell instrument in Mr. Grey’s sternum. “Breaking out of a detention center: forty epochs right back inside. Fomenting rebellion: community service. Letting your native scents rampage: chained to a rock and forced to feed cowsowhorses. Treason against the king: banishment into the Abyssal Plane, with a bubble. Treason against the Defense Force: banishment again, without. Heresy against the Great Fishes: reincarnation as a Woe Worm! Plots to… Plots to…”

Ordus’ pokes slowed. His rant came to a heavy-worded halt. He looked from Mr. Grey’s eyes to his hands. In the stony palm-bowl, held for Ordus to see and take, Mr. Grey offered the Golden Lure.

Ordus flicked his eyes; from the glossy minnow swimming under the lime lantern light, to Mr. Grey’s matte orbs. Several soldiers and the bravest gamblers crept like flightless moths toward the buttery glow reflecting from the cupped stone hands. Blackjaw and Slake skulked over Ordus’s shoulders. They still clutched parchment and quills in fists. But their sunglasses, and the double emeralds reflected on the lenses, fixed fast to the golden minnow.

After running through varied contortions of face, Ordus finally settled on a narrow-eyed, frowning, suspicious look at Mr. Grey. He didn’t reach for the Lure. For once, he held back the readied harangue.

Mr. Grey said, “We only wanted to meet so we could give you the Golden Lure.”

In an indignant, whinnying tone, Ordus said, “Laced with poison.”

“No. Just plain. Reallytruly, we’re not partisans. We wanted Jodee to fill out her visa. Following Candlehead - and when that failed, delivering the lure ourselves - seemed like the fast route. But after seeing these smell-struck people… Well, it seemed wrong. Instead, we’re giving it to the Defense Force.”

“Which,” put in Honeydew, with a mutilating stare at the diegeonary, “we could have said. Without theatrics. If. You’d. Shut. Up.”

The soldiers on the stairs snickered. Ordus spun and glared until they stopped. When he turned he noticed the pad-footed approach of Blackjaw and Slake. “What are you two still lurking for?” he asked. His voice was lower now; which is to say, just below a shout.

“You shall find, most distinguished Diegeonary Ordus,” began Slake, “these parchments, here in my hand, are of singular bearing to the circumstances. Within this contract lies the signature of our wondrous future-client, Mr. Grey. It establishes his pecuniary relations with yet another wondrous client, Bugwitch.”

Blackjaw said, “Grey’s the guarantor.”

Ordus took the tendered parchment from Slake delicate, hairy fingers. He skimmed it header to footer without reading. He raised one brow at Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey, still cupping the lure, shrugged. He said, “There’s been some misunderstanding. This Bugwitch must have mistakenly scrawled my name there. Perhaps through absentmindedness?”

Ordus growled. He said, “Yeah, sounds about right for Starharbor.” He glanced at the Lure in Mr. Grey’s hands, then spun - fast enough to get a short squeal from his trumpet - on Blackjaw and Slake.

Ordus ripped the contract in twain. Blackjaw and Slake looked unconcerned; finders always have copies. But Ordus’ next words did send their craned necks reeling. He said, “I’m dismissing this suit.”

Slake chuckled in a high voice; Blackjaw growled defensively. Slake said, “Illustrious officer Ordus, I anticipate you’ll realize that King’s Law grants us-”

“Are you trying to tell a servant of the king, AND THE SUN FISH, how the law operates?” Ordus’ question rang through the rafters and across the crystal mintwater vats, sending dust shuddering and water lapping. “I’m an officer of the law, a devoted trumpeter of the puffer, and a clear-thinking guy. I’m telling you it’s ended, so it’s ended. Scram. Before I lose my calm.”

He jerked with his head. The rifle barrels snapped to Blackjaw and Slake. The two cast long, shaded-eyed gazes at the minnow and Mr. Grey. But, under bullet persuasion, Blackjaw and Slake skulked from the room.

Ordus turned to Mr. Grey. A peal of cowsowhorse thunder shook dust rain from arches. He snatched the Golden lure from the cupped hands. He held it delicately by its tail fin between two fingers. He stared at the minnow a moment, then at Mr. Grey. He tried, for a tock, to stare Mr. Grey down. He thought better. The diegeionary about-faced, and marched toward his soldiers.

Ordus glanced back once, however, and said, “Let’s have a chat.”