Farling's Wall, page 6
They braced him into a zinc holster and Paiesmy paced about with sneering contempt. She ordered him to arrest his foul squirming and his sharp imprecations. From the centre of the wheel Graeitch stood squared, a force of unbounded malice with a dour grin carved upon her porcine jowl. Loeitch skipped forward with enthusiasm, with a polite offering of her services while Paiesmy gimped about, haunting the drum’s centre like a tall, egg-headed owl.
The device began to whirl. Baus felt a familiar vertigo.
Graeitch and Paiesmy pointed objects at him, in sharper, ruder frequency. Paiesmy prodded areas of his anatomy at which he found great offence. The outlaw cursed and bridled at the pokes and prods. He almost vomited over the course of the invasive ritual, but the Wickles ignored him. He fought with a compulsion to lash out at them, but, prompted by an inner voice, he returned to a state of early cunning and let his eyes roll up and assumed an air of trance. In a high-flung voice, he mustered several brave words: “Wickles! Your enterprise is decisively depraved! The drum is sordid! From ‘Beyond’ I bid you to release these upstanding grooms and feed them only fried buckler and bread of the highest quality. This is my command! Send them on their way! They are innocent and virtuous. You have heard my counsel—now pay heed! This comes from ‘Beyond’! Offer thy grooms a dozen freshly-baked mallow-tarts and sweet, baked mushrooms if you like, but do not expect any forgiveness from them regarding your obscene rituals!”
Loeitch stood back in perspiring heat and placed a clammy palm to her brow. Paiesmy, likewise, tugged the hook of her nose with critical contempt. Graeitch remained subdued, abstracted in her own breed of doubt. Baus’s zombie-like act had presented more lamb-like jabber than anything and the pig-Wickle became instantly suspicious. She wielded her goad and blasted Baus a horrid jolt on the navel. The hagwipple tip caused Baus a convulsion and he keeled over, snorting out a moan of anguish.
“So!” Graeitch shrilled. “You would mock our ceremony?”
Loeitch put a hand to her mouth. “Blasphemy! In its entirety! How did you know, Graeitch? The pilgrim was in the throes of ecstasy, I saw it!”
Graeitch ground her teeth with annoyance. “Shut your gob.” She displayed Loeitch a vitriolic smile. “A true medium under the trance of ‘Beyond’ would never suffer from such a trifling paroxysm. The fit was induced by guile, nothing more. It was a stimulo-reflex.”
“So ho!” Loeitch gave several decisive nods and Graeitch ordered the outlaw dragged back to his post, where he was tendered a half dozen goads for his duplicity.
Valere, who sat back watching the chicanery, was next conveyed down into the hub. He attempted a variation of Baus’s scheme, but it too was met with harsh measures and resulted in his rotating at higher speed with pitch-gong thrust at his groin. “Speak, groom, speak!” cried Graeitch. “The ‘Beyond’ calls! We must learn what the ‘Beyond’ has to tell us!”
Next a monster-ant thorax was aimed at his solar plexus.
Valere struggled, wheezing with rigour. No great profit was to be made by the effort. He clamped his tongue in teeth and grimaced with most horrible anguish while his face remained a ghastly rictus.
The Wickles returned the seaman to his post where he was made prey to goads. “Now learn from your discomfit—you perfidious mountebank. Never hoodwink a Wickle!”
Graeitch’s displeasure seeped into the pores of the Honey Home. “I cordially despise buffoonery and deceit of all kinds! Now—let us move on. Should pranks persist, they will give result in only more severe punishments!”
Baus and Valere glowered. Poli was pitched in the hub. The cycle continued …
Graeitch subjected the recipients with shots of waizelwilk to reduce risk of lampoon—a worm juice afflicted intravenously by penetrative jabs of goad prior to whirling, likely a mild derivative of what had been injected into Sansix. Thereafter, Baus displayed a heightened cordiality in accord with the Wickles’ wishes—as did Valere. In situ, the rebels demonstrated little results, but with greater obeisance.
* * *
Now it was late in the afternoon and the Honey Home was bathed in a soft plum-coloured glow. Sounds of the forest were muted to whispers. A sudden rain brought a dankness to the air which the wind pushed ever gently through the casement. The bees buzzed in agitation. The lack of sunlight had the insects spooked. The small smokestack winding up the dome offered no solace, either in exit or entry, whenever rain or wind hindered them.
Baus fidgeted uselessly before his post driven into the Honey Home’s earthen floor. A dry nausea pulsed through his veins like poison. He assessed his companions with a grimace. Their contusions and abrasions were insufferable. He reckoned his wounds were as rudely placed as when he was worked over by Zoren’s pirates so many months ago; however, his mood had lost none of its vengefulness. His wrist bonds itched. Not possibly could he raise himself high enough to standing position without alerting the monitors, Paiesmy and the execrable Loeitch. Several schemes coursed through his mind. Not the least of which included the Auk king and how its power could be brought to wreak havoc on the Wickles. But how could the ghoul’s power be harnessed in some perverse manner to throw bedlam upon the hags?
Improbable, if not impossible.
Baus pinched his eyes shut. Brainstorming a stratagem seemed hopeless. Yet if he wanted to escape, he must come up with something. Failure and triumph hung in balance. Which was it to be?
His eyes strayed to the swords and weapons hanging above the sink. If he could use them as instruments of coercion … But they were far out of reach. No less the ganglestick which seemed placed on a higher peg to thwart Esling’s wandering hands. Even if one of them could snatch the wand and arouse it into working condition, how long would it last before Graeitch noticed it and tormented them with goads?
Upon the worktable dwelled a projectorate of brown fluid. This caused Baus an involuntary shudder … it was the one Paiesmy often used to launch at certain offensive bat dryads that were wont to creep about at night in the Wickles’ garden. If he could impose the projectorate on the bees above, perhaps impel the insects to—?
A stupid plan. Baus shook his head.
His only hope lay with the rebel, Esling. There was a general artlessness about her which was certainly pliable. Her naivety struck him as quaint. A intuitive conviction arose that the creature could possibly aid them …
Baus peered at the fawn-like Wickle with reflection. She was crouching down over the lip of the hub, watching Poli whirling and listening to his moaning with a kind of distracted fascination. The experiment involved balroon-hoof and nimbu-claw this time. Yes, the Wickle was an odd duckling, but what of it? Transfixed by the curious sounds and the sinister movements, not to mention wholly perplexed by the day-to-day horrors, she seemed given to entertaining an air of pathos.
Baus ruminated. There were certain agreeable aspects to her character. What if the Wickle were further compelled to rebel against her masters? Many times he had heard Paiesmy and Loeitch crooning to her softly in the evening hours: “Esling, Esling, dear! Bring us our wash brush”, or “Esling, scratch our backs” or “Esling, be a good little Wickle and fetch us our night slippers!”
Ordered about and goaded like an unwanted pet, the poor Wickle was not like her housemates—she was neither mean-spirited nor crabby, like the wart hogs in heat. Hereupon, Baus bit his lip in surmise. How to entice the Wickle onto his side? A tender word? A sound word of sympathy? A warm shoulder to cry on?
So maltreated, the Wickle might tender favour to them.
Baus’s grin cut into his reverie. She appeared to fancy his presence and often he had seen her flashing him sidelong looks whenever she thought his head turned or he was sleeping. Looks of sly quality, appraisal, even affection, he observed …
Baus set himself to a crafty plan …
* * *
As darkness crept over the Branx forest, the Honey Home began to slip into an eerie, nocturnal somnolence. The bees had returned in force, buzzing noisily about their hives. The glowmoth lanterns had been shaken, causing a slinking light to spread over the cluttered spaces of the Wickles’ abode. The Wickles’ failure to retrieve the secret information they coveted from the grooms had pitched them into a sour mood. Their usual banter was filled with a heated bickering, overtones of obnoxious punitive slaps and kicks. Scratching and hissing, they spat insults at each other. Watching with interest, Baus hoped to gain an advantage over their visible acrimony.
* * *
All was now quiet in the Honey Home and the companions were herded back to their posts. The Wickles were ready to retire to their cots and Baus surveyed them with wry dispassion. Rude, loathsome beasts, they were. Each eyed him with distrust and took their turns in the bathtub. The sisters sloshed about, like vain, ungainly pubescents of the most vile kind. Unconscious of their offensive nudity, Graeitch and Paiesmy were only more smuttily rendered in the soft chestnut light. Graeitch’s obscene, lubberly form was directly propped in front of Baus’s line of sight, a view which became ever more noisome to his eyes. He was forced to turn his head away—moreover, on a stressful angle. Esling was last to bathe, being somewhat demure in her habits and thankfully of comelier aspect. She ordered the grooms’ heads turned before she would doff her jumpsuit.
Nightgowns were donned and the Wickles slept.
* * *
During the wee hours, Baus awoke to the sounds of scratching at the door. Amidst a buzzing and humming could be heard a sinister clicking of paws from the outside. The rustling grew in volume—it was an insistent clawing, cunning forces at work. Familiar luminous scarlet eyes stared in from the window. Hereupon, Baus’s upper lip twitched. The weirdness had caused him several missed heartbeats. Two sly Wicklish shapes managed to jimmy the door. They stole silently in, past the burlap sacks and into the Honey Home’s interior. One shut the portal and two silhouettes eased themselves in, pausing in reflection. They swayed back and forth in the pale moonlight like two unnameable wraiths.
The door was relocked—only a barely perceptible click was heard in the gloom. The first figure was a fox-eared bandit, set against the lightness of the window pane. The other crouched at the door, bobbing and humming, a bulky and amphibian form, reminiscent of a calculating reptile. Lewd, gleaming eyes peered forth, blazing like a weird abomination of nature. Both creatures seemed to search for signs of human vulnerability and the presence of traps or deadfalls.
Graeitch and her sisters snored unawares. The rhythmic sounds of their breathing rose and fell with loud rasps.
The intruders relaxed, sidling in with a confident stealth. A curious fascination came over Baus and he remained fixed, frozen to immobility. His tongue cleaved to the top of his mouth.
The stealth of the first figure was so subtle that it managed to inch within grasping distance of him before he knew what was happening.
A damp paw clamped over his mouth. His trousers were quickly peeled down before he could squawk out an adjuration. A furry abdomen negotiated itself onto his lap and began a halting industry—pitched in the pretence of arousal.
Baus careened back against his post with an emotion hardly describable. He grunted out a muffled disgustful wail.
An alarm trilled suddenly. The end of an imminent coupling with an elderbeast! Graeitch came bounding forth from her cot in rising anger. Her sisters stumbled at her heels. Esling gaped, running this way and that. Loeitch ignited the lantern. Paiesmy was hard upon the heels of the intruders. They huddled, quivering, scratching at their flanks. One hissed an admonitory croak and crouched in the shadows, looked like a ghastly frog.
The lights came flaring on. It was plain that the culprits were none other than Banaga and Gladdus.
The purplish-black froglike form was Banaga, squatting on all fours before them, with a back bowed and a half amphibian, human face. Gladdus smirked with insufferable cunning, a slinky half-woman, half-fox with red-furred body. Back and forth she sidled like a trapped animal.
Graeitch demanded an instant explanation.
The intruders muttered glib words, pretending that they had perceived soft, melancholy hoots around the Honey Home. Being altruistic souls and worrying about the grooms, they elected to check on their safety.
Graeitch sneered. “A brazen lie!” She and her two sisters beat the interlopers within an inch of their lives with goads. Out into the night they shooed Banaga and Gladdus with heavy brooms and kicks. In the midst of the screeching and caterwauling, the perpetrators attempted retaliatory blows.
But these were met with severity. They were chased away. The three Wickles returned to their domicile triumphant. Graeitch ordered Loeitch to fashion lassos as anti-intruder mechanisms which they quickly assembled over the front door.
Hand to mouth in recognition, Graeitch began a planning of an effective deadfall for subsequent invaders. Foaming at the mouth, she chastised Loeitch for being remiss in not installing one earlier and alerting her in time.
Loeitch framed a haughty objection but couldn’t help but be doubly annoyed by the criminal intrusion.
Baus called out in a brassy tone: “The security of this domicile is abysmal, Graeitch! I find these cloak-and-dagger assaults disgusting! Please remedy them.”
“Silence, jackal! How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice?”
Esling sprang to Baus’s defence, hoisting his pants back up to his waist.
Graeitch smoothed out her polka dot nightgown and pursued her line of defence in amusement. “The situation is more serious than I cognized. As you witness, dire measures are being taken to prevent future assaults.”
“These admissions are unsatisfactory,” thundered Baus. Glad of his pants being pulled up, he shivered in anger. “In point of fact, your peers have overslept, and have failed to thwart an outrageous act. Others in the village are obviously incorrigible and culpable of unimaginable mischief. You cannot protect us from these clandestine infringements and I demand our instant on-the-spot release!”
Graeitch smiled with an offhand gesture. “Some of your complaints are merited, true, Baus. We Wickles are merely in oestrus and our female receptivity cannot help but be aroused. So, you must bear with our impulsive behaviour.”
Baus puffed out his cheeks in fury. “This is an unacceptable conciliation! I quiver at the concept. We cannot be mauled like chipmunks in the dark.”
“Baus has hit hard to the mark!” croaked Valere. “I for one am only glad you were its recipient, not me.”
Poli was quick to agree.
Baus took no comfort in his peers’ remarks. Graeitch let her eyes rove about, glittering upon Valere’s muscled body. “My thinking is along similar lines, Captain, and my convictions have been wisely confirmed.”
“What do you mean by that?” the seaman bawled. “Release us, you vile pig. If you are so prodigal with your promises, then let us have no more of these rough-and-tumble surprises!”
Graeitch ignored the demand. She turned deaf ears to the outlaws’ protests and insults. She assisted Loeitch in fashioning a lasso to ensnare emboldened interlopers. “As I hinted,” she added grandiloquently, “we Wickles are broaching singular periods in our cycle. Loeitch hankers for a robust groom; I, on the other hand, am biased to no one in particular. Paiesmy lusts for Poli and his vigour, and Valere would not be a bad match for Loeitch. My own belly shall conceive hardy imps when the moment is ripe.”
Baus recoiled at that thought.
Paiesmy gave a blushing cry, “You speak in indelicate terms of our Wickle-ness, Graeitch!”
“Silence, you bald owl! Though your thoughts are immature, I come to tolerate them. The facts have been exposed, Paiesmy. I insist on a mutual co-existence in this domicile in harmonious excellence!”
Loeitch and Paiesmy growled and shifted back to their labours, frowning at Graeitch’s imperiousness. They were clearly resentful of the work put out for them and if not for Graeitch, they would be plotting less dark schemes.
Graeitch, missing the nuances, nodded with approval. Each of her sisters toiled with industry to complete her portion of the snares—including rock-rig, mop-bucket and tripwire.
V
The following morning, Graeitch was out for her morning stroll. Aurimag’s golem swept swiftly on bare feet through the forest. A thing of wraithlike terror, it seemed hardly a real thing of earth, mud and slime.
The pulsing node embedded in its right shoulder gave the creature a clear path—it was like an antenna which drew it toward its quarry, attracted by the psycho-magno exudations of Baus’s ganglestick.
The golem won past the fastness of Desenion and encountered a fearsome obstacle in its mission—a massive wall, towering fifty feet high, looming ever imperiously over thorn and thicket. To its newly-developed brain, the barrier was of daunting significance. Hours before, the overgrown ruin of Desenion had become a passing memory, an enigma for it to ponder in the dew-dripping stillness. Desenion’s dark, jutting halls and shadowy courts and crumbling parapets had lurked ominously in the mist. The creature had run parallel to the castle a mile south then plunged deep in the forest. It had discovered a breach in the mammoth wall, known only to a few denizens, then it proceeded beyond the compromised wall into a territory most remarkable.
The golem leaped and bounded—over waist-high pumpkin mushrooms, championing mossy logs and sprawling roots, fording fantastic brooks and fungi-haunted forest and tortured stumps. Its legs, singularly manifested of bog-water, knew no fatigue. Through copses of grey ghost oak, it skirted hidden glades, enchanted pools and meres of the fairest blue. It vaulted over glades of twitchgrass, haunt-flower, careening past ruins of ancient stone, fanes and crumbling old villages choked with weed and creepers and phantom elm, as if from a forgotten time. Off through the silent ruins it passed… broaching tracts that had never been disturbed in a hundred years …
