Chapter 9 - The Lost City of Fountains
“It looks just like Starharbor,” said Honeydew. She made a low and wet click of disappointment. “An exact mirror…”
“Not quite an exact mirror,” said Mr. Grey. He leaned forward at a slight angle - 12 degrees or less - and peered into a dense, surrounding haze. “Almost no jelly.”
“Just as dark though. Do you know which bag my soap’s in?” Honeydew walked to the group’s piled luggage and flicked open a random case.
Tom looked at Mr. Grey with an expression modestly horrorstruck. He said, “Starharbor must be dismal.”
Curtains of sticky, thick mist overhung The Lost City of Fountains. The mist enclosed the three and their partisan companions in a lesser, inner bubble, within the greater bubble of Antiquity. It concealed the ends of the narrow alleys. It cut the tops off the skyscrapers. The mist even hid their shoes from sight. When Tom brought his parchment lantern low it scattered, and they saw their footgear, and the street cobbled in turquoise and aquamarine. But the moment he brought the light away the mist - like a thin layer of water - flooded over their ankles.
The fountains for which the city was named rose from the misty blanket, but did nothing to stir it. Their stony brims lay like the arm-rings of Viking giants on the overcast city street. Of the jets, spouts, runnels, rills, and cascades they’d expected to see and hear, there were none. No dragon engines roared. No water burbled. The water lay clear but still inside the round stone rings. Mr. Grey thought ‘Lost City of Pools’ would’ve been better suited.
An old hum - like air rushing through a long, mossy tunnel - filled the city, interspersed with the occasional chirrups of lonely bellbugs, or the din of the unpacking partisans.
“Hey!” Honeydew’s voice snapped, breaking the pattern. Mr. Grey and Tom turned away from the mist wall. She waved at the supplies laid out along the ring of one stone pool. “Help make camp.”
“I’m surprised at you,” said Mr. Grey. He moved to sort their supplies. “No offense, what I mean is: I thought you’d like this.”
“Let’s just make our camp.”
“Didn’t this take toil? Here there’s effort and treasure. And carven gemstones,” Mr. Grey tapped a foot on the road, “just like in the tomb.”
“Camp first,” Honeydew clicked sharply, as though whisking the conversation away.
She took a smaller bag from her main suitcase, shook it like a glass rattle, found its contents wanting, and handed it for Mr. Grey to sort. Mr. Grey felt a bit useless. His task of setting out their supplies in sensible order seemed, to him, a child’s job. Tom, meanwhile, took a large bundle of tent from the top of one luggage pile, and tried setting it.
The three worked poorly with each other. Perhaps the mist obscured their movements. Honeydew’s pile of supplies kept slipping off the stone ring into the blanketed road. Each time, Mr. Grey had to hunt for the fallen item in the murk. Tom, meanwhile, fought his tent. He pulled and pulled at the straps keeping the canvas rolled up, but made no headway.
Mr. Grey looked across the ring-dotted street, at the partisans also striking camp. They actively and effortlessly made their own circles of tents, supplies, and driftwood campfires. Candlehead wasn’t helping; he stared into the thick curtains. This didn’t seem to bother the other partisans, and Mr. Grey admitted that Candlehead cut a good figure as a lookout. The vapor stuck to his bronze armor and bagpipes in glimmering droplets; and though he had no face for expression, Mr. Grey easily imagined a steely, determined one carved in the candle’s wax.
His grey eyes caught Nuggets’. The rose-shouldered, downy-cheeked youth seemed to have been watching Mr. Grey. Nuggets dropped the tent he’d been holding. He tore across the mist toward them. “I can help you out!” he suggested, and bounced energetically on the balls of his feet. Honeydew gave him a doubtful look, but Nuggets took command. “Honeydew, pass me your stuff. I can do sorting. Tom, that’s self-setting. Just undo the Velcro straps, read the terms of use, sign at the bottom, and the tent will do the rest. As for Mr. Grey,” he said, turning to Mr. Grey with a smile. “Pick up Tom’s lantern. Go inspect the nearest pools. We’ll need one for baths, and one for drinking. Onetwothree let’s do this team!”
Mr. Grey did just as he’d been told. He started with the pool ringed by Honeydew’s cosmetics. Tom, who’d been struggling with the Velcro straps since the beginning, pretended like nuggets had given him a vital clue to unraveling the tent. He wrestled it with new vigor. Honeydew handed her tiny bottles of makeup to Nuggets with unchanged air. Mr. Grey thought Nuggets’ slapdash setting-out of robes, tweezers, clippers, rations and other supplies no better than his own, and less organized. But Nuggets did seem to brighten their moods. Even if the camp-setting went no faster under his direction, it felt easier.
Mr. Grey brought Tom’s lantern low over the stone ring. The water inside lay perfectly still, and almost air-like in its translucence. The patterns on the lantern’s parchment made fish-shadows swim through the pool. No real fish joined their shadow-kin. Mr. Grey felt relieved that nothing lived in this particular pool, the nearest one to their camp. Just under the shallow surface, a bed of smooth stones made up the basin. Most were covered in mossy, undulating, shamrock cilia. There were, however, a few curvier plates of tortilla-stone; grainy and mossless.
Nuggets’ voice pulled Mr. Grey from his survey. “Say Mr. Grey, since we’re here. I wanted to say…”
Mr. Grey looked at Nuggets. His blank face made the young man stammer. Mr. Grey said, “You need something enchanted? A close shave, perhaps? Or water flavored?”
“That isn’t, like, my main point. Or it sort of is. Mr. Grey… sorry! I’m sorrysorrysorry!”
Nuggets twisted his cloth visa into a tight cord. Mr. Grey looked at him without comprehension. Honeydew glanced up from her unpacking. Mr. Grey said, “Sorry about what? You haven’t given offense, whatever it is.”
“Back in the sand dunes. I acted shouty and rude. About the water. I have this problem, where I forget my temper. It came over me, outside that old tomb.”
“Can we please move past the tomb,” said Honeydew. She shoved a heavy, leather, sunflower-eye-patterned robe on the unsorted pile; Nuggets just rescued a cologne bottle from being knocked into the pool.
Brushing past the apology, Mr. Grey added, “And we’ve made it here: The Lost City of Fountains,” The tension in Nuggets shoulders and face eased off. Mr. Grey went on, “Despite the thick fog, it feels familiar; this likeness of Starharbor. I wonder what’s here. A Justice Center?”
Honeydew said, “Let’s explore the city we already know, after a wash,” She looked pointedly between Nuggets and Mr. Grey. Nuggets immediately unlatched another purse in search of soap. He pulled out a long tangle of hair-extensions. Mr. Grey, forgetting he’d already inspected this pool, leaned over the ring again.
All four heard footsteps on the mist-coated paving stones. They saw the shark-bellied guide approaching from the partisans’ camp. He strode up to Nuggets, said not a word, and held out a rough, sharkskin palm. Nuggets wore his mouth confusedly open for a tock, then said, “Oh of course, stupidstupid!” He shoved a hand into one of his Wine-Medo-robe’s many folds and pulled out a silk treasure purse. Nuggets dropped three novelty spoons from the purse into the sharkskin palm. The guide brought them to his belly and peered at them with his soulless eyes.
“Are you sure about leaving?” asked Mr. Grey. “If you stuck around, you’d be welcome here.”
“I’m sure about leaving,” said the guide. And instantly after, he clicked his razor teeth shut, clicked his treasure-purse closed, and clicked his heels on the street as he turned and walked from the group. The shark-bellied guide disappeared down an alley, into the swirling mist.
“Why doesn’t The Wind break this mist?” asked Honeydew. She folded her arms and looked between the others. “She’s clearly busy; active in these parts.”
Tom took a break in his Velcro tussle and said, “Some light would be nice. It’s just as hot anyway,” He wiped condensation from his brow.
Mr. Grey held the lantern out, leaned over the pool, and stared sternly down. Down, at the clear water, and undulating fronds of shamrock, and especially at the growthless plates of stone. He asked, “How will we know our target; the Golden Lure’s Pond? Will there be a sign?”
Nuggets answered Tom and Honeydew’s concern first. “I’ve heard the mist is a curse. This city came first, out of all cities. And the first king ruled from here. But people turned proud. They declared a war; against the great fish themselves. The Prawn Fish complained, and the Blob Fish cursed, and from them came blinding fog. Even the Sun Fish, with his quills of light, could not pierce the city’s doom.”
Nuggets wrapped up his story with a moment of held silence. Then he turned to Mr. Grey with usual joviality. “As far as the pools, look for the glimmer of gold. That’s for sure the lure.” He noticed Mr. Grey’s focused gaze on the water. “Why, did you find it?!”
Mr. Grey said, “Find it… no, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I just thought, from your face.”
Honeydew suddenly exclaimed, “Got it!”
“You found the golden…” Nuggets began. He came up short when he saw the flamingo-stamped rectangle clutched in her fingers. “Oh right, the bath soap.”
“Now we can wash the road’s filth.”
Tom let the tent drop to the mist. “Sounds like a good plan,” he said with a heavy breath.
“Do these pools have special properties,” Honeydew asked Nuggets. She and Tom gathered a pair of towels and moved toward the pool’s stony ring. “Any skin benefits?”
Mr. Grey leaned silent, holding Tom’s fish light lantern far over the water. He held up an index finger as they drew near. “That idea might not work…”
The clear, still water exploded. The huge plates of stone - the ones on which no moss grew - lurched up toward the brim.
“Could be the old case - like back in the tomb - of mistaken intenti-”
Mr. Grey cut his own thought short. The nearest fountain creature rushed him with loud, clacking taps on the stone. Mr. Grey stepped back. Too late. One of the creature’s chitinous pincers, coated in slime like peanut oil, closed over his grey hand. Mr. Grey tried pulling away. The claw held his hand fast. The claw squeezed. The plasmatic, jellyfish-like underbelly below the carapace shoved wetly against him. The two crust-covered, stalky eyes leered through thin, milky slits. The claw squeezed harder. The strength of its shell came against Mr. Grey’s stern, stony, dry skin.
The claw cracked on Mr. Grey’s hand. A hairline fractured up the creature’s chitin. It released its grip. Mr. Grey backed off, but the soft monster still pressed him with its bulk. Mr. Grey found himself buried beneath the squishy, cold, translucent flesh of the underside.
Then another crack sounded from its shell. The monster’s body rolled off Mr. Grey. He looked up and saw the face of Tom; one hand holding a lobster-meat-coated mallet, the other held out to Mr. Grey. Tom heaved Mr. Grey to his feet and said, “No miscommunication; not this time around.”
From every pool near the partisans’ campsite rose the clattering of chitinous legs. The tortilla-like shapes Mr. Grey had thought fountain stones were, in reality, dozens of these attacking crustaceans. They surged from out of the pools and made the formerly-still surfaces splash. They rolled over the ringed sides and clacked over the misty cobblestones. Bug armor covered them from antennae to pereiopods, but the fleshy part beneath looked more like saltwater in a clear balloon than tissue. They lurched towards Mr. Grey’s group and the partisans, like ghosts in armor crossing the ankle-deep mist.
Honeydew backpedaled toward Tom and Mr. Grey. She ducked one snapping set of claws. She had her shoulders ready, but wore doubt plainly on her face. Tom rushed in. As the creature closed he dealt its crusty stalks a haymaker mallet strike. The blow crunched into the monster’s brain. It teetered past him and splashed down as a translucent, pulpy mess in the nearest fountain.
Before either Honeydew or Mr. Grey could speak, Tom spun and charged them. He grabbed both their wrists in one of his huge hands, and pulled them along. He led them in a sprint at the nearest gap in the thronging lobster. Mr. Grey just caught his violin coffin, lying on the rim of a pool, with a hooked finger. Tom yelled, “Need to find shelter,” and beelined the nearest alley.
Honeydew skipped agilely along as Tom tugged her wrist. She fought him, but Tom seemed blessed with fishly strength in the heat of battle. Mr. Grey had a tougher time. Many moments passed before he found an appropriate percentage of his regular-walking-pace to keep sure footing behind Tom. By then Tom had dragged them through a flurry of alleys. The creatures’ clacking still sounded from every direction. Only the cries of the partisans had faded. Mr. Grey stumbled over his tongue too, as he said, “Shouldn’t we… Should we stick with Jodee’s group? Safety in numbers.”
Tom shook his head. His steely eyes took on a cunning, battle-wise slant. “The worst idea. These things flock to groups. Trust me, I’ll find us safety,” Tom ran on, heedless of Mr. Grey’s verbal - or Honeydew’s physical - resistance.
More moments passed. Alleys and streets came and went. Mist - full of splashing, and rattling, and tapping of exoskeletons - swirled all around. Sounds from the partisans vanished entirely.
Mr. Grey fine-tuned his fast-walk. He scaled the skyscrapers with eyes, up to where they disappeared into the mist bubble. He glanced at Honeydew and said, “What do you think: anything like a Starharbor locale?”
She answered, “I can’t say unless we pause a tock!”
“This might be Smithersfield. I mean, The Lost City of Fountains’s equivalent.”
“Tom, all our stuff is back there,” said Honeydew.
Mr. Grey added, “We are getting a bit lost. And these pool monsters, they haven’t quit yet…”
Tom heaved air up and down his throat now. He’d dropped to a trot. But he kept their wrists wrapped in his fingers, and he kept them marching forward. Between gasps he said, “We’re keeping them on their toes; these water creatures. We’ll sneak away soon.”
One water creature, as if responding, burst through the mist-wall at the road’s end. The pearly vapor rolled off its gritty shell, and swirled in its see-through meat like glue in water. The monster made word machine clicks at a pencil pusher’s pace as it rushed over the stones.
Tom swung his head first left then right. This street offered no alleys of egress. Tom breathed hard and lifted his mallet, but the creature came too quick upon him. It slammed Tom. The big man fell behind Honeydew and Mr. Grey. He released them from his grasp. The creature swelled to its full height, twice that of Candlehead at his most heroic. It loomed over Mr. Grey and Honeydew. It divided its two cankerous eyes between the pair, one stalk for each.
It faltered. Impossible to say why. Perhaps the lobster-armored ghost reconsidered its odds, on finding itself alone against three foes. Perhaps Honeydew’s sharp shoulders seemed a greater danger against its soft belly than Tom’s mallet. Or perhaps the creature saw Mr. Grey - with his washed-out skin and robe, and his anchor-shawl - and thought itself facing that most-feared predator, the fishing ship.
Whatever the case may be, the monster reeled. Only for a tock. A tock was all Tom needed. He regained his footing, leapt to the front again, and landed an overhead sweep of the mallet. The shell gave a crab-leg snap. The armored ghost buckled and collapsed.
Mr. Grey listened. The tapping and clacking teemed just beyond the mist. From behind and ahead, Hulking silhouettes appeared on the walls of mire. To Mr. Grey’s left and right, the skyscrapers presented mausoleum-marble facades; with grassglass windows wet with condensation, and double-doors of aged copper.
Mr. Grey looked at his company. Tom leaned on the mallet and rasped air through his lungs. Honeydew flicked her eyes ahead and behind, appraising each route, readying her shoulders.
Mr. Grey said, “Should we turn back now? Try to find the partisans. It was a good plan, just with ill-turned luck.”
Tom shook his head and spoke between gasps. “Awful idea… Being with the partisans… Find a hiding place… Get off this main street…” Mr. Grey thought this an odd reversal of Tom’s attitude at the oracle’s temple, where Tom had insisted they follow the partisans.
Honeydew snapped. “We can’t go back now! Now that we’re lost. All because he thinks he’s this great shoulderer!” She jerked her head toward Tom. Then she added, with a howl of anger, “All our stuff is back there.”
Tom swallowed air as though it were a finite and precious thing. He looked between the monster pods and the stern-faced buildings with watery eyes. “We should have lost them… We ran in zigzags…”
Mr. Grey said, “Perhaps it’s harder? It’s tough planning maneuvers, caught in noise and haze.”
Tom nodded. “Does anything here… Do these tall towers - any of these closest ones - look like Starharbor?”
Honeydew said, “No! You got us lost.”
Mr. Grey raised a finger. “Actually, yes. On our immediate left, with the shineless glass, and the dark granite. I think I’ve been there before. There’s a rear exit.”
With the monsters of jelly muscle and stone-plate armor closing in, the three mounted the wide set of wet, alabaster stairs. They reached the double door of copper. Mr. Grey, Tom and Honeydew combined their strengths. They heaved the heavy door open. An ancient breath of air hissed out of the sealed halls. They ducked inside.
The monsters - and two other, separate shades - followed them in.