Chapter 2 - Entertainment and Detainment
Honeydew whispered from behind Mr. Grey. “Think there’s a chance these horse, pig, cow-monsters can hustle? With some prodding?”
Mr. Grey turned on his mount to face her and Tom. No easy feat. The stubbly pig-legs and consequently-high stirrups placed the rider’s knees at shoulder height. He said, “They don’t seem keen on sprinting.”
Honeydew dug a heel into her cowsowhorse’s short loin. It lowed an indignant cello-note, but moved no faster. Honeydew frowned. “No wonder those hicks arranged us in the saddle. Stops us from escaping. Stupid ox…” Her mount lowed again; as if to say, ‘none taken’. Turning back to face more comfortably forward, Mr. Grey thought Honeydew guessed correctly.
The soldiers herded the mounted line of tourists along a loopy, winding road of dull pebbles. To reach this place, they’d journeyed over an expanse of wet sea floor. Barnyard had been the atmosphere all along the trip, and they traveled under the bubble made by their cowsowhorses. They’d walked the first stage. They’d trod the long desert of saltwater mud, which grabbed at their feet, threw grit between their toes, and wetted their socks. They’d swayed and stumbled under the giant pufferfish daylight. Eventually they’d reached the edge of another bubble on the bottom of the sea. This new membrane sprung high and wide off of the seafloor, too wide to see its curve. On entering, a dryer land relieved their muddy feet; a terrain of coarse gravel and hard dirt, with spots of craggy stone, and occasional patches of terse grass. Over this rough terrain they’d trod through a second, ceaseless stage. At the end of this second stage the soldiers had dismounted, put the tourists in the saddle, and set them down the dull, pebbled path.
The new road slithered into an old rock quarry. Water cascaded over the quarry edges; sometimes slipping down lazy chutes, sometimes showering over the side to roar against the stone below. Close ahead, one of these showering kinds pounded the pebbled slope. One soldier standing before the shower hooked their mount leads to spokes on a conveyor belt. The belt then led them beneath the water shower. Each mounted tourist had their turn; was dragged and beaten beneath the weighty deluge.
A jostlesome fracas ahead brought Mr. Grey’s attention to the present. The line had backed up where the soldier fastened their rides to the spokes. “Come on then, you tourist scum! Stop skipping back in line. The sooner you go through the complimentary washdown, the sooner you experience all there is to do and see, here at The Glory Days Rain-Fish Detainment and Entertainment Facility!”
Mr. Grey had no subversive thoughts. The garlands of rose-weave ribbons strewn across the facility, and the disciplined, soldierly garrison, identified them unquestionably as the king’s forces. They needed no ID to prove their allegiance, though an official symbol of office always pleased Mr. Grey. What the king’s men did was lawful. Mr. Grey - a lawful, visa-bearing citizen - felt safe. He forced that feeling into his mind. He did, just to be extra-safe, hold his visa out for the soldiers to see; a tiny, square, fabric shield.
Mr. Grey’s cowsowhorse carried him to the backup at the lashing-station. It ambled alongside a fellow Starharbor tourist, wearing a goose skin robe. Their mounts brought them to the spokes simultaneously. The waterfall growled over the pebbled path ahead. Mr. Grey - out of habit - gestured with an open palm toward the crushing shower, and said, “Please, after you.”
“Uhhh, thanks…” said the tourist. The soldier lashed her to the track, and the conveyor pulled her on. The liquid-crystal wall crashed only a short distance down the quarry ramp. The soldier at the lashing station began tying Mr. Grey’s cowsowhorse next. Mr. Grey held up his visa - like a steam-swan solo-operator’s license - for the soldier to see. The soldier cared nothing.
Honeydew’s cowsowhorse crunched across the pebbles and brought her up behind Mr. Grey. She said to him, “Bust me! Too much throwing happens at these Odormoats checkpoints. Thrown by a giant. Thrown in prison.” She waved her hand at the quarry floor below.
Mr. Grey leaned over the side of his cowsowhorse. He stared down the ragged cliff edge at the sundry structures below. He said, “Prison doesn’t seem the right term. They said, ‘Glory Days Rain Fish Detainment and Entertainment Facility’. It looks like there’s some entertainment.”
“Entertainment for who?”
“For us. Tourists I mean. Take those water-slides leading in, foinstance. Or that bucket-monorail. Those must be for amusement.”
Honeydew crossed her arms, setting her elbows atop her knees on the raised saddle. “The slides with armed soldiers beside them?” she asked, with a sarcastic tone. “Those slides? And the buckets aren’t a monorail. They’re an elevator, for whatever they’re making us mine.”
Mr. Grey glanced anxiously at the lashing-station soldier, but the man wasn’t paying them any attention. He struggled getting Mr. Grey’s lead secured to the belt hooks. The soldier fumbled his fingers each time he tried bending the stiff leather lead into a knot around a moving spokes, and kept having to undo it and start over on the next one. Mr. Grey looked again to the flooded quarry basin. He tried using an optimistic tone, which came off the same as always. “What about those marble amphitheaters?” he asked. “See how the water drains into them? What could those be? Maybe a fountain show.”
Honeydew whispered near Mr. Grey’s ear, so that the crash of pouring water masked her growl. “See the fish statues in the alcoves? Remember their leader chattering something about fish worship? Chances are they sacrifice us inside. Temples, I bet. Maybe the water flushes us when rituals end.”
Mr. Grey searched the great, gouged pit of stone for some welcoming sign. But Honeydew seemed to know his thoughts, and she railed on against the Glory Days Rain Fish Detainment and Entertainment Facility. “Don’t get me started on those seaweed and ship’s mast kiosks. They’re souvenir shops, sure. But they’ll just shackle you here longer. Every wheelhouse has a dozen. And the soldiers moving to and from that giant seashell, at the far end? I’m betting that’s a barracks. Yep - click - definitely a prison.”
Mr. Grey hesitated. He leaned over the edge yet again; a gargoyle looming above a flooded city of marble. “But It’s so tidy, too clean for felons. A workers’-prison perhaps? What do you think, Tom?” Mr. Grey asked, turning in his seat.
Tom’s ride swayed up beside the pair. The big man rubbed his wrinkled handkerchief around the inside of an ear and blankly stared at Mr. Grey. He asked, “What was it you said? My ears are feeling muffled. And that water yells.”
Mr. Grey watched the torrent hammer onto the shoulders of the tourist with the goose skin robe. It nearly knocked her from the saddle. He turned anxiously to the soldier at the conveyor, but the man still grappled with Mr. Grey’s leash and the spokes.
Mr. Grey said, “We wanted your thoughts. About this facility.”
“It’s a prison for tourists,” declared Honeydew with confidence.
Tom tried matching Mr. Grey’s looming lean, but pulled back after teetering. He shook his head, then looked at them with a smile. He said, “Never seen the like of this. If it’s a prison, then I like prisons. Though it could use more flowers.” He leaned over the other side of his cowsowhorse and searched for growth among the lusterless pebbles.
Honeydew made sure the soldier was still busy with Mr. Grey’s knot. Then she prodded Mr. Grey and Tom’s shoulders, and wriggled a finger for each to lean in closer. In a low hiss between closed teeth, she said, “After we’re inside, it’s tiny odds we’ll escape. Best to break off now. No time for cooked schemes, we’re going to improvise. Just follow my queue.”
Without giving Mr. Grey or Tom a chance for input, Honeydew spun in her saddle and leaned toward the soldier tying Mr. Grey’s knot. The man stepped warily back, but Honeydew only grinned. The smile was cloying, at odds with both the matte sunflower eyes on her robe, and the oil-shine ones of her face.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother,” she began, with a friendly growl. “My friends here missed their last cologne dab. I’m worried they’ve been bit by an odor.”
Honeydew looked pointedly at Mr. Grey and Tom. Mr. Grey, in his customary reaction to being caught off-guard and asked to improvise, stared with the face carved from stone. Tom sniffled, believably. Honeydew turned a hopeful glance back on the guard.
The soldier grimaced. He said, “‘Cease, o siren, the plight of your friends, tourists taken ill, that brings poor regard upon your own reputation’,” he returned to his knotmaking.
Honeydew dropped her false smile and friendship. “Um, what?”
“Ugh. Don’t you tourist barbarians ever read? Forget it. A thorough de-scenting follows every complimentary washdown in Glory Days. So just wait quietly while I finish tying this stupid knot. You’ll be fine.”
Honeydew rested elbows over knees and set her chin on the crossed arms. She gave one angry click. Mr. Grey tried once more to bring some cheer. He said, “I bet there’s upsides; tourist accommodations. Clearly there’s showers. Probably meals too, maybe a bean-based option.”
The guard almost had his knot set now. Mr. Grey was just stowing his visa to stop it getting doused, when he heard a commotion from the rear. He looked back to see an auntish tourist knocked from the saddle by a soldier. The soldier leveled his rifle barrel at the lady. She held her own visa up in a shaky arm, like a flag of truce. The soldier waved the barrel, ordering her to climb back atop the stubbly mount.
Mr. Grey’s mount lurch forward under the conveyor’s pull. Before it got beyond his friends, he turned to Honeydew. He held the visa out to her and said, “I doubt we’ll need this - this place is under King’s Law - but in case they ask, you take the visa. They can make me a copy.”
Honeydew took it from him. “Thanks,” she said, though still with the glum tone.
Mr. Grey was readying another reassurance when the screaming water demanded his attention. He felt the wet storm crash onto his shoulders and skull. It soaked him instantly down to the shoes. The weight of the downpour stunned his senses. He only just stayed saddled. His unbothered cowsowhorse carried him out the other side.
As the conveyor led him further down the ramp, dripping and battered, Mr. Grey admitted Honeydew had a point.
The Glory Days Rain Fish Detainment and Entertainment Facility felt a little prison-ish.
A bull-whip cracked through the purling harmonies of lapping water. “Keep those backs straight while you hunt; use your legs! Your next hit time’s coming. Show some hustle. You think the shiniest stones will just fall into your lap? I want to see teetering pebble stacks before the drain.”
Mr. Grey took his right eye from the gemseers kit and the shiny pebble he inspected for luster, peeled his left eye open from its wrinkled squint, and observed the commotion.
A soldier stood amidst the unarmed tourists in an ankle deep field of water. He screamed motivations at them as they sought shiny pebbles for the Pebble-Find recreation. The soldier cracked his whip again for emphasis. Emphasis seemed the leather lash’s only purpose; Mr. Grey had yet to see it strike a tourist.
Mr. Grey stood above the water, isolated on a flat table of onyx. All around him, the tourists searched, combing a field that rippled and glinted under the bright fish light. Mr. Grey’s shoes and the hem of his robe were, of course, wet; everything in the flooded quarry got wet. But Mr. Grey, at least, avoided trudging through the shallow, silty water.
Some of the cymbally streams coursing over the toothy quarry cliffs ran into the Pebble-Find field, where they became slow-moving waves. Despite the heavy inflow, the field remained at ankle-height. Indeed, all the deep pools, the wet fields, and the lazy rivers flowing through the quarry, maintained a static level. Mr. Grey had yet to see where the water escaped.
Mr. Grey’s assigned activity was at a wicker jeweler’s dais, atop the onyx table. His task: inspecting the baskets of pebbles brought to him by the other tourists. Sorting shiny from unshiny. The mechanical job of sorting; picking up the pebbles on one side, bringing it to the jewelers lens, assuming the same precise posture each time, getting the big-bright-fish’s light on each stone at exactly the same angle, and dropping the inspected rocks into piles of like glamor; this suited Mr. Grey. He’d found a rhythm - even a sense of shelter - in the job. It almost felt like pencil pushing.
The only awkwardness - the only part of the job hiccupping his flow - was the arrival of a tourist with a basket to sort. Whenever he heard that heavy thud of a pebble-filled basket on the onyx platform, he would yank his eye from the jeweler’s lens and jerk his face to the invader. Each visitor would drop the leaden efforts of their labor at the jewelers stand and seek to steal a break in exchange. Each voice addressed Mr. Grey with a weary, “Hello,” or an envious, “Must be nice,” followed by a gesture at the shiny platform of onyx.
Mr. Grey met these unwelcome conversants with customary, awkward courtesy. He rushed the tourists back to their own jobs with monosyllables and lack-of-engagement. He sympathized with his fellow captives; he saw that their assigned leisure took a greater physical toll. Though the conversations chafed like a rash on his social comfort, Mr. Grey would have endured them. He would have given his fellows their break, if only from a sense of guilt. But, whenever the guards caught a gatherer lingering with the sorter, they screamed at both. The guards called them, “Lazy, thankless worms!” and demanded each return to their assigned leisure activity. They followed each demand with an exclamatory whip-crack.
Mr. Grey received this exact insult at that very moment. The guard he’d settled his eyes on had caught him staring. The whip cracked. Mr. Grey returned his right eye to the kit, re-scrunched his left, and searched for his rhythm.
Instantly two thuds sounded on the onyx; like signature-stamps on a legal contract. Mr. Grey swiveled his eyes off the job, onto the strangers.
The pair next to his table wore matching Starharbor suit-robes; shining inkily, like blood at night. He read little in their faces. The bright fish-sun glared off their twin sets of round, smoky glasses. It hid their eyes. But something about the two seemed familiar to Mr. Grey. Something in the way one stroked his bristled sideburns, or the way the other slid his fingers through greasy hair, or the way they both skulked around the gemstone table and flanked Mr. Grey.
“My dearest and most beloved Blackjaw,” said the greasy-haired one in a low whine to his companion.
“What, Slake?” growled the other, scratching at his bristles.
“Why, is this not the fellow we wanted? Not even ‘wanted’ - I’ll commit myself to say - but ‘needed’?”
“If he’s Mr. Grey he is.”
Mr. Grey twisted his head alternately between the two. He said, “Sorry gentlemen, you seem familiar. But I can’t place you exactly.”
“Course he’s forgot,” said Blackjaw.
Slake smoothed his oily hair, straightened his smoky glasses, and said, “Now, now, now, Blackjaw! Why such crossness over inconsequentials? The fellow’s merely misplaced a memory.”
“Who’s cross?”
“Nothing to be cross about,” began Slake.
“When finding treasure,” finished Blackjaw.
The two crept tockwise around Mr. Grey. He followed their arc with his eyes. The stalking, circling motion jogged his memory. He said, “I remember now. Aren’t you finder’s for hire? The ones I saw in Honeydew’s wheelhouse?”
“Honeydew’s wheelhouse!” said Slake with a yipping laugh. “Isn’t that the cleverest little establishment nickname you ever heard, Blackjaw?”
“that’s not its name,” said the other.
“But how it rolls from the throat; Ho-ney-dew’s Wheel-house. Such poetry! But then, one expects that of sweetheart musicians!”
Mr. Grey twisted himself at a steady pace, following the arc of Slake. At the same time, his neck hairs warned him of Blackjaw’s close-creeping company. When Mr. Grey turned around, however, Blackjaw still lurked beyond arm’s reach.
Mr. Grey felt less comfortable than he had with any other pebble-searcher. He said, “Well then, gentleman. I hope you’ve traveled well. It is nice to make your acquaintance… again. But I-”
Slake cut him short. “Nice, he says! ‘Lovely’ perhaps. ‘Fortunate’ certainly. But more than ‘nice’. Don’t you think, Blackjaw?”
“Yes, Slake.”
The two edged closer. Mr. Grey glanced at the guards in the field. He wished, for once, one would notice his slackness. Mr. Grey resumed, “That’s as may be. But you and I have assigned leisure. I wouldn’t wish to make trouble by keeping you. And I’ve no financial business that needs…”
“No direct financial business, delightful Mr. Grey,” Slake interrupted. “You’ve certainly no direct financial business with Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire. Would you commit to that also, first-named in the business?”
“Nothing direct. Something indirect,” said Blackjaw.
Mr. Grey stopped turning, and tucked his dry hands into his not-so-dry pits. He let his eyes follow whichever of the pair passed in front, returning to the left each time one circled out of view. As a word-machine shuttle crawls slowly sideways with each keyclick, until a grey pencil-pusher’s hand reaches up and snaps it back to the start, finishing the pattern with a ringing mechanical chime; just so did Mr. Grey’s eyes follow Blackjaw and Slake. He said, “Gentlemen, I don’t mean to rush, but we each have occupations. I’ve misunderstood; could you clarify what you wanted?”
“A signature,” said Blackjaw. He rushed suddenly in and placed on the podium a stack of Starharbor-standard legal-text.
“What Blackjaw means by words put so succinctly,” said Slake, moving next to his partner, “is that your signature appears as a cosigner on the treasure loan agreement with an estimable client; perhaps the most estimable client. And this worthy finds himself in the most lamentable of situations!”
“Pecuniary Difficulties.”
“A circumstance; webby, tangled, nettled. But, fortunately, your position as a cosigner affords you the opportunity of rescuing your wretched friend from his plight.”
“Pay his debt.”
“Your friend needn’t suffer under the tender mercies of the bouncers’ court. Or find himself occupying cells in any prison but a workers’.”
Mr. Grey scanned the first page with quick comprehension, born from epochs in Starharbor’s Change of Address Office. But the pair pressed close. They distracted him from a close read. Distracted; with the fish light glinting off their glasses, and their gleaming teeth, and Slake’s oily hair. Mr. Grey looked up and asked, “Could you give me the friend’s name?”
“Bugwitch,” they said together, in a whine and a growl.
Mr. Grey remembered the name. He remembered the stoop dweller he’d given his nuts and bolts to while homeward-bound on a dragon-tram. He flicked skittishly through the document, now ignoring the twin gazers. And he saw it. On the last page of the stack he found his name, inked in loopy, uneven letters.
The signature was, of course, forgery.
“I’m sorry gentleman,” Mr. Grey began. “It seems your client made some error. This isn’t my handwriting.”
The pair grinned.
“Can’t prove that,” said Blackjaw.
“Impossible to prove it’s not yours,” added Slake, in a falsely sympathetic whine. “Simply impossible. Why, it would be a monumental effort proving it was yours. A long, arduous, courtly, costly undertaking. Handwriting’s so messy, messy, messy. There’s the experts to consult, and the friends and family to drag in, and the nights spent sleeping on courthouse benches. Why go through that, when paying off friends’ debts is so…”
“Satisfying.”
“One teensy signature on a withdrawal form, and you’re free to follow your feet. On whatever path they tread! To lands of golden wine, or unclouded bubbles, or-”
“You there!” came a soldier’s holler from the watered field. The whip snap followed. “You two on the platform! Get back to leisure. Do you want to miss out on the thrill of the hunt? And you, in the grey. Don’t you like seeing lots of shiny pebbles? Well then get sorting!”
Blackjaw and Slake lingered. They pushed the parchments beneath Mr. Grey’s nose, they smiled wider than ever. A last ditch effort at an easy signing. But the whip cracked again, the soldier scowled, and the finders scurried back to the field.
Mr. Grey let out a relieved lungful. The finders had no legal standing ground, but their way of speaking and moving applied gradual, unnoticed, increasing pressure. It gave one’s head an anxious ache. Mr. Grey looked to the guard to offer thanks. Threat of violence - on the soldier’s face, in the soldier’s lash - convinced Mr. Grey to show his gratitude by sorting. He did.
Tocks vibrated Mr. Grey’s chest from the ticker in his pocket. The tocks gave constancy to Mr. Grey’s sorting cadence. And the tocks kept time. The little judders of the metal hands, over the ivory face, inside the cotton pocket, told Mr. Grey the precise number of moments spent in unbroken, relaxing labor. In a word; few.
Mr. Grey heard the next conversant coming before the pebble-basket drop. His grey ears caught splishing of quick footsteps through the pool. He swung both lens and pebble from his grey face. He clicked his head at an angle and braced against the interruption. The sharp grey eyes dulled - like a stone rubbed smooth by the tides’ strong hands - as they met the familiar approach of Ms. Maysey. She mounted the onyx table breathlessly. She dropped her basket with a relieved gasp. Mr. Grey saw that it carried no stones, but a lighter collection of moss. Ms. Maysey gasped off a soundless, “Hello Mr. Grey,” while rooting in her robes’ folds for the tobacco pipe.
Ms. Maysey and Mr. Grey spent a moment collecting; not moss or pebbles, but breath and thoughts. Ms. Maysey took deep, hypochondriacal inhales from her pipe. Mr. Grey thought of how Ms. Maysey’s pilling saddle-robe and squeaking mouse-hair had become familiar on this vacation. Her company no longer melted his cool, as it had on the balloon elevator back in Starharbor. As it had so many other times in their coworking existences. Mr. Grey didn’t feel relaxed with her as he did when alone, or even with Tom and Honeydew. But, Mr. Grey could talk to Ms. Maysey without a lengthy thaw.
Following a final precautionary puff, Ms. Maysey repeated, “Hello Mr. Grey,” with added sound and a friendly smile. “I see they put you on the closest thing to pencil pushing!”
“Hello Ms. Maysey,” said Mr. Grey; also with sound, hold the smile. “The Glorious Defense Force probably tries matching our assigned leisure to our regular work.”
“But how would they know? Just because they’re the king’s soldiers - and I can tell you that they are the king’s soldiers - doesn’t mean Glory Days offices should know one’s Starharbor work history. Oh, but, does it? If sharing records is lawful then that’s another matter entirely. Of course I’m not against lawful document sharing. What I mean is- what do you think, Mr. Grey?”
Ms. Maysey’s waffling made her opinion unclear. Mr. Grey’s view turned equally blurry. He said, “If the king’s soldiers work us right at Starharbor, I suppose they do the same in Glory Days.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you mind my asking why they’re making you collect moss?”
“Mr. Grey! They didn’t ask me to gather this.”
“Yes. Of course not.”
“I filed an exception. Reallytruly, scrunching up my lungs all day in pebble hunting, or stretching them out in ceiling mural painting, would just exacerbate the very conditions this sabbatical is solving. Don’t you think?”
“That seems possible.”
“When I filed they searched for my name. They saw my ‘Hopelessly Neurotic and Intractably Hypochondriacal’ diagnosis. And it struck me odd they’d know my medical history. If you say it’s lawful though, who am I to protest?”
Mr. Grey didn’t quibble on Ms. Maysey’s interpretation of his thoughts. Instead he brought them back to his question. “So, does that moss pile need sorting?” He waved a stiff hand at the gemseer’s kit. It was an invitation, but with a sardonic wrist flourish, saying, ‘that’s not one of the use-cases’.
“You think you’re quite the jokester, don’t you Mr. Grey?” Ms. Maysey’s mouse-hair squeaked with nervous laughter. “Of course you don’t sort the moss.”
“Right, how foolish of me.”
“They told me to occupy myself. And I like gathering moss. No, I came to give a warning.”
Mr. Grey watched Ms. Maysey rest her elbows on the soft moss in her basket. She leaned casually closer. He threw a glance at the field, but the whipping soldiers were busy elsewhere. Another tourist held their interest; a Wine Medo woman wearing an eggshell robe patterned in apples. She splashed up and down in a dance, and waved over her head a pebble of pure gold. The distraction gave Mr. Grey and Ms. Maysey time to chat. Mr. Grey leaned stiffly closer and angled an ear.
“So, they forced me to sit for epochs on this hard granite bench in the quarry infirmary while they searched for my medical files. And I had absolutely nothing to do! I got down to my last tobacco pinch. Luckily the medics brought some from an emergency box. The whole ordeal made my eyes droop and my mouth yawn. That just seems weird, doesn’t that seem weird to you? That they’d put someone of my constitution through baptisms? On a sabbatical?”
“You came to warn me of the dull infirmary?”
“No, no, no. While I was going through that trial, that fellow who seems to lead the king’s soldiers dropped in. Couldn’t tell you why. He looks healthy. Well, he chatted me up; he seems like a chatty kind of person. Ordus? He and I talked. He mostly, I was feeling under the weather after the long sit on the hard bench. He asked again about our origin. I tried telling him we came from Wine Medo, and that you and I came from Starharbor. He either didn’t hear what I said, or didn’t believe,” Ms. Maysey paused to smoke.
“You think he’ll ply the rest of our voyage with questions?”
“I do think so. Especially you Mr. Grey. Because, you see, we got to talking, and somehow the name ‘Jodee Coats’ entered the conversation. I think she’s a big deal around here? Anyway, somehow her name came up. And somehow your name came up. And it must have been me that put them in the same sentence. I guess.. I mentioned you knew each other. I was so worn out, it probably just slipped off the tongue? And that Ordus-leader-person seemed keen that you knew her.”
Mr. Grey leaned abruptly back. “Miss Coats is famous? In Glory Days too?” He wrestled with questions. “Did Ordus say why she’s famous? Or why I’m under scrutiny?”
Ms. Maysey twisted a bundle of moss between her hands. “He talked so long while I sat on that hard bench… It’s possible he did say… I guess I didn’t hear. Or don’t remember. I do hope, Mr. Grey, you aren’t troubled on my account.”
“I’m sure there won’t be trouble. If I talk to this leader, Ordus, I’ll elaborate on why we’re here. Who knows, I might even clear up any lingering enmity between us tourists and these Glory Days officers.”
“Well I must say it untangles my nerves, you taking it so well. Do you want some of this?” she asked suddenly, holding out the moss. “To carry? You twist it for stress relief.”
“Not today, but thank you.”
Mr. Grey wanted to ask Ms. Maysey what else she’d overheard sitting on the hard granite bench; and where in the quarry the infirmary lay, in case he ever needed to know; and - politely - what she thought of Glory Days. Mr. Grey knew Ms. Maysey would’ve used lots of off-topic words to get to the on-topic ones; she would’ve smoked, and talked mostly about herself; he would’ve spent the time quietly listening. That all sounded fine to Mr. Grey.
On Ms. Maysey’s easy company, the Glorious Defense Force put a hard stop. All but one soldier still gawped around the apple-robe tourist and her golden stone. The exception snuck behind Ms. Maysey and Mr. Grey. No whip crack announced their reprimand. Instead, they heard the sudden, intrusive enchantment of a trumpet. Ms. Maysey jumped and whirled in the air to face the source. Mr. Grey swiveled. They saw, strutting through the water and polishing his breastplate with the enchantment the trumpet made, their gossip’s subject; Diegeonary Ordus.
The soldier splashed from the field onto the onyx table. He maintained his battle-march on the seashell instrument, which he brought to Mr. Grey’s face. The note-bearing air from the bell fluffed Mr. Grey’s mustache and washed his rocky cheeks. Ms. Maysey shrank and shivered. Ordus ended the enchantment with a blaring final note; a few of the pebbles vanished from Mr. Grey’s shiniest pile. The soldier’s armor glimmered in the big fish’s bright rays.
Ordus stared at Mr. Grey. His face contorted for a moment. As though he couldn’t choose between anger, triumph, and contempt. He got no reaction from Mr. Grey, and so swiveled to Ms. Maysey. He said, “Are you looking for a battle or something? Can’t you tell I want a one-on-one with the guy sorting the pebbles?”
Before Ordus finished his exposition, Ms. Maysey’s feet scurried from the table, her hands grabbing the moss basket. The shiny-armored soldier stowed his trumpet, straightened the shoulder-strap of his robe, and grunted; satisfied. He turned back to Mr. Grey. “So, Mr. Grey. Thought you’d avoid the Sun fish’s light, did ya? Thought you could hide?”
Mr. Grey looked pointedly in a wide arc over the wet field, then fixed his eyes on the singular, raised platform of onyx. He said, “I don’t think I’ve hidden anything, Mr…?” Mr. Grey knew the officer’s name was Ordus, but chose to observe formalities.
“That’s Sir Ordus to you!”
Mr. Grey could make that work. “Sir Ordus, I want to cooperate with King’s Law. I myself am a king’s employee.”
“You think I didn’t know? Of course you work for the king. It’s how you know about this park already. Isn’t that right?”
“The name tells me it’s for Entertainment and Detainment.”
“That’s right. And because you’re a smart guy, you’ll know this place was originally a prison; after being a quarry. And you’ll know it was a prison during the war with Starharbor’s king. Back when it was wrongly ruled, not by the king, but by the barbaric Junean dynasty. And after the king established his law, this became a tourist park. And you’ll also know how, with this new rebellion, it’s a tourist-park-prison.”
Mr. Grey hadn’t known those things, and didn’t think all of them relevant. But it cleared up some of his questions. After extrapolation, he said, “You think we’re new rebels, and thus we’ve been detained?”
Ordus jerked his head and stamped a booted foot. “Traitor to the king! You think you’re crafty, don’t you? You want to take Jodee’s tourist horde out of Panache and into Prestige in smaller units. Wage a guerilla war. Don’t deny it!”
Mr. Grey listened respectfully to the rant - partly because he was a good listener - but with his grey eyes fastened on the gun stock over the diegeonary’s shoulder. When Ordus finished Mr. Grey said, “Sir Ordus, if you’d explain what Ms. Coats did here in Glory Days, I think…”
But Ordus chose to explain, instead, something else. “Now it makes sense. You’d be giddy if I told you all we know of Jodee’s plans, wouldn’t you? That’s your purpose here, isn’t it? Infiltrate a Glorious Defense Force base in Prestige, scout out weaknesses, then relay them to Jodee with some… secret… Starharbor enchantment. That’s why you needed your violin. So you could give Jodee and her horde the signal to move, and overthrow the Defense Force. Yeah, I see through your plan now, don’t I?!”
Mr. Grey felt worried and exhausted. He showed neither feeling. “Please… sir… I don’t mean offense. That’s not quite right.”
“Wow. Real hard cases, some of you tourists. I’ll admit, you lie with a straight face better than any man I’ve ever seen. But you won’t win. The other diegeonaries, myself, we’re prepared to defend the bubbles of Prestige, Pluck, and Antiquity. If need be, to existencelessness! We’ll retake Panache from you mongrel barbarians. So you keep that tongue held. See how much it helps you. Oh, and here,” he added as an afterthought while turning away. Ordus tossed Mr. Grey a crystal vial. “The Defense Force won’t sink to your tourist savagery. That’s cologne, so you don’t cease existing by a wild odor attack. You’re welcome.”
Diegeonary Ordus jumped from the onyx table. He splashed away at a canter; through the water field; chest up, head up. The nearest tourists shrank from his shining form.
Mr. Grey watched him go; followed with cool, grey eyes; breath catching, head bent. He forgot his pebble-sorting. Forgot, until he heard the guard’s whip crack. He resumed his assigned leisure with a shakier cadence.
He did, first, apply some cologne.
Mr. Grey watched the soldier existence-guarding the Glory Days Rain Fish Detainment and Entertainment Facility Cafeteria Wave Pool - alternately referred to as the G.D.R.F.D.E.F.C.W.P., or, casually, ‘The Cafeteria’ - bump an elbow on his gun’s stock. The guard dropped the hardcotton biscuit he’d been eating into the lapping waves. He leaned out from his floaty chair and scanned the silty water.
With his right hand, Mr. Grey paddled his floaty chair through the turbulent pool. With his left, he held a parchment bundle aloft, out of the spray. From the alluvial depths below rose the antediluvian growl of a dozen Dragon Engines. They stirred the sediment in the water, and their rage rolled the tides.
One of these cafeteria tides struck Mr. Grey’s floaty broadside. Mr. Grey fought for balance. He brought his oar in and hunched his torso. He kept the parchment stack above his head. As a restaurant server balances a wide tray of hot plates on his palm; he weaves through the untimely elbows and extended legs of idle patrons, paints the ceiling in meat-steam, and gracefully swoops to the right table; just so did Mr. Grey balance his parchments. The briny wave spray didn’t touch his mail, it only spit over the entire rest of his body. Mr. Grey’s floatie rocked unsteadily, almost bucking him. But ages on the Change of Address Office’s Tockwork Crags gave Mr. Grey stability. He kept from capsizing and paddled on after the tide’s roll.
Mr. Grey sailed his craft through three further tides. He reached the stabler surface of an oval floaty-table, a sadder and a wiser sailor. There he met up with Honeydew and Tom.
“You actually got our mail?” asked Honeydew incredulously when she saw him set the letters in the table’s center. “How?”
“I filled the mail-release form,” Mr. Grey answered.
“But it ran three hundred pages.”
“Yes, very standard.”
“Very inconvenient.” Honeydew looked at the parchments. “How’d they ship our mail down here?”
Mr. Grey knew scant much about the systems and rituals of the Regular Sunshine Post. To Honeydew’s question, he had no answer. Tom, after deciphering her accent, did. He said, “They take post and stones; mix them in a big bottle; feed the swaying sea.”
Honeydew reached for the stack. “What if I have mail to send?”
“They’ll take out the stones.”
Mr. Grey thought Tom’s process sounded inconsistent. Honeydew seemed reassured. She pulled a thick booklet from the parchments; a statistics subscription magazine called ‘Popular Odds’. The magazine made most of their mail’s bulk. Two letters were left. Tom grabbed the one addressed to himself, marked with an illegible return cipher. Mr. Grey took the last piece of post, slid his pencil from its pocket and through the envelope’s seal, pulled the parchment from inside, unfolded, and read. The letters ran with sharp corners and sudden stops, like corridors in a labyrinth. The missive came from Mr. Grey’s boss, Jack York. These were its words:
Starharbor Regional Justice Center Change of Address Department, date: eons ago.
Mr. Grey, I take this chance to write you. I arrived at work just as the jelly pushers finished plowing a path to our office. A jelly downspout commenced last night, not very hard, but it is nasty enough. I have been to the department of civilian relations, and heard that your travel takes you to Glory Days (I look for notification next time you pass a Odormoat, into an additional stage of your vacation). I knew a fellow, we served together in the king’s infantry, during the Glory Days campaign in the last war. I have his picture inside my gun cabinet at the office. It was taken on our first days in the campaign, when their rain fish sent down a miserable storm. We are wrapped in our blankets, both woolen and rubber, so that we could keep dry, and our canteens are held out to gather the fall. He had cousins in Glory Days, and stayed on after the war. Became localized, I dare say. His name is Pollo, you will recognize him by his remarkably handsome face. If you find yourself in want of a guide, or need training with the firearm I provided, you will find him a useful resource. When you return I expect you to give me news of my friend. Additionally, the Change of Address method reforms will have been established. Do not be caught off guard. Remember to direct your letters to Starharbor if you write, or they may be picked up by the Wine Medo or Glory Days Regional Justice Center.
Jack York
Change of Address Company, Second Division
Mr. Grey looked up. While he’d roamed his eyes through the mazey text; shuttling them slowly right as he navigated each line, knocking them suddenly back to the left, entering the line below it with the same cautious reading step; all this time Mr. Grey held the letter aloft, in an elbow stiffly crooked. The dragon engines gurgled like sea monsters. They churned the tides without ruth. Mr. Grey’s floaty chair and the floaty table endlessly rocked and splashed. Keeping Jack York’s letter dry had been a multitasking feat. Now, as Mr. Grey escaped from the last tangled word, and brought his blinking eyes off the script and onto his friends, he found them still reading, under the same trials. The waves threw spittley drops on Honeydew’s smooth cheeks and the bristly ones of Tom. They tried to focus and held their own parchments high.
“Not much to note in my mail,” Mr. Grey said. “I did get a name. A potential guide, who lives here in Glory Days. A man named Pollo.”
Honeydew said nothing. Tom grunted noncommittally.
“I learned a few things. From that diegeonary,” he went on. “Earlier today - is it still today? So hard to tell by sun fish - well earlier on, Sir Ordus held forth. He spoke of the Defense Force. And this Tourist Hoard. Some of it stumped me, and some seemed unimportant. But-”
Honeydew slammed an impatient finger to her lips. Tom flicked his steel eyes at Mr. Grey and added, “I’m almost finished.”
“I’m interrupting. My mistake, I’ll pin my voice.”
Mr. Grey compressed his lips to a hard, thin line. His floaty chair hiccupped in the waves. He balanced his elbows on the bobbing table. The pool water licked his knees, his ankles, and the small of his back. The grit and salt dredged up by the dragon engines slipped through the grey wool of his robe and chafed his skin, which wrinkled in the tepid brine. Such tortures placed herculean demands on Mr. Grey’s patience.
Mr. Grey sought diversion in casual surveillance. He rolled his stone eyes in a slow arc over the other cafeteria-pool-goers. Perched around one table, a chord of harpy-tourists avoided their assigned leisure activity by picking at their food in atom-sized bites. They spent the time cackling, and writing rumors about fellow prisoners on parchment scraps which they dropped around camp. Bent over another table, a toothless tourist in a seagull-feathered robe and doubly wrinkled skin battled with a bowl of pudding-cotton. Of each shaky spoonful that he brought from dish to mouth, the waves took the sea lion’s share. Mr. Grey noticed the cafeteria guard on his floaty cruiser; the one who’d dropped his biscuit. The soldier still searched for that biscuit. He stirred the dirty water with the barrel of his gun.
Honeydew and Tom rescued Mr. Grey from torturous distraction. Simultaneously they finished reading. Tom, on wrapping up his letter, tore it to snowflakes, tossed the pieces, and whistled. Mr. Grey wanted to ask what the letter said, but Honeydew spoke first. “Do you want this?” she asked. She offered the statistics magazine.
“I’m fine, but thank you,” said Mr. Grey. He tried holding a rigid, awkward posture on the chair and table. Honeydew chucked the magazine into the waves.
Tom gauged Mr. Grey with fingers stroking his bristly chin. He said, “What’s your worry, friend?”
Mr. Grey breathed once through his nose. “I’ve become… listless,” he said. “We lingered in Wine Medo, with lessons and play. It turned out ducky, but Ms. Coats wasn’t idle. Now there’s tourist hordes, and tourist prisons. The Glorious Defense Force; I begin to think, ‘this goes past visas’. If I have Jodee fill hers, what’s been accomplished? When there’s war and guns, visas seem wasted effort.” Mr. Grey rocked in sync with the tides, his eyes fixed distantly.
Tom brought Mr. Grey’s eyes back to the present with a heavy fist smack. The table bobbed under the blow. Tom said, “There is no such thing. Effort isn’t wastable. Effort is purpose. You’re in a sour spell, and your tongue burns with bad tastes. But you carry on. Close the bag you bought, pass through the stinging eons, and come out better.”
“Glad you realize the Jodee pursuit’s silly,” said Honeydew. She stretched her arms, but suddenly brought them back to steady herself as a tide struck. “You’ve got a once-in-existence chance to explore the Odormoats. A waste to follow someone else’s journey. Go on those walks you like, or visit a museum. If you’re like Tom, smell flowers.”
“Yes, make time for the flowers,” Tom added. He sniffed for emphasis, but with a slight congestion.
“Whatever spins your wheel,” Honeydew continued. “My point; none of that happens while we’re stuck in waterpark prison.”
Mr. Grey had, by now, sat up. He turned to Honeydew, keeping one hand on the table for balance. “I tried showing our visa.” He paused. “I think we’re trapped here. Until their war ends.”
“We aren’t fighting the king, so we don’t belong. You agree?”
“That’s… true I suppose.”
“Then it’s not unlawful to leave.”
“They won’t let us go.”
“We won’t say we’re going. We’ll sneak out.”
Tom struggled to follow. Mr. Grey bobbed nervously.
“Here’s my thinking,” she went on. “There’s this big ‘Tournament Activity’. I overheard one of these gun show goons talking about which team he was staking on; I was cleaning their barracks mirrors. He picked terrible odds. That’s not the point. All the soldiers will be at the tournament. And they won’t have their weapons.”
Mr. Grey side-eyed Tom, who stared at Honeydew with an open, uncomprehending jaw. Mr. Grey said, “Tom’s a fine fighter.”
“Thank you, you’re great at pencils,” said Tom.
“I mean to say though; even he can’t fight them all.”
“Well you can’t write every word,” said Tom with sudden sulkiness.
“He won’t need to fight them all,” Honeydew said with an impatient click. “Maybe none. Just listen. I found out they keep our stuff in an old adobe warehouse. Next to the infirmary. While the soldiers are at the tournament, our stuff won’t be guarded. Anyone taken to the infirmary at that time - say, for tournament injuries - could grab whatever they wanted. Our stuff, or anyone else’s. If we each took a nosebleed, or a broken toe, or a bruised eye, we’d all go to the infirmary. Tom grabs his mallet, knocks out our escort, and we escape.”
Honeydew wound up her scheme with a rap of knuckles on the bobbing table. For a few tocks the only sounds were the lapping waves and the churning dragon motors. Tom and Mr. Grey glanced at each other; the former with confusion, the latter with doubt. Finally Mr. Grey said, “What if the sport’s no-contact? How do we break toes? Or bloody our nose? I suppose for the bruised eye, we could use doorknobs…”
Honeydew clicked again, this time dismissively. “Just fake hurt or sick. You can do that much?”
Mr. Grey coughed dryly, as he might if trying to get a presenter’s attention during a quarterly meeting. Tom coughed convincingly.
Honeydew folded her arms; she bobbed out of sync with the table. “You have a better plan?” she asked.
Mr. Grey dropped his chin in his palm and stared blankly. He saw the guard, on the other end of the pool, finally find his biscuit. The man drew the sopping piece of hardcotton from the murky water with the barrel of his gun. It dangled from the tip of the rifle like a limp body.
The guard frowned, looked up, saw Mr. Grey staring through him, thought Mr. Grey was staring at him, and shouted. “You three! In the cloud robe, sunflower-eye robe, and grey robe! Cafeteria time’s over. Get back to your assigned activity!” The guard flung the hardcotton biscuit away. He encouraged the three with a leveled gun-barrel.