King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (31 page)

“We will build a dyke,” said Drexel Poxy loftily.

“Why not just move back into the forest? Building a dyke is an awful lot of work.”

“I’m sure our friends the humans will help.”

“Of course,” said Lancelot, in the process of butchering the deer. Entrails tumbled out at the thrust of a sword, and a dreadful stink arose. Taking his dagger, Lancelot began skillfully to skin the carcass.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that here, Lancelot.” Even Poxy’s sensibilities were ruffled. “Giantish rituals are not always acceptable to gnomes.”

“You want to eat, don’t you?”

“Of course. We’re all very hungry,” said Poxy, who had been aware of mutterings of discontent from his followers for some time now. “But we don’t like to say anything.” He glanced hopefully at the nearby cart. “We’ve lost nearly all our food.”

“There was a misunderstanding,” said Bart quickly, “and several gnomes spent time carrying their personal possessions up the bluff instead of emptying out the community storehouse.”

“And then it was too late,” said Poxy ruthlessly, “because a dolmen smashed the storehouse to pieces and crushed the supplies. They just floated away.”

“On the tide,” Bart pointed out, becoming annoyed. “When recalling this day, I hope we will all remember that it was the tide that set in motion the sequence of events resulting in the accidental release of the dolmens. I’m sure none of us want to see gnomish history distorted.”

“You’re too late, Bart,” said Poxy with an unpleasant grin. “The Gooligog’s already made up his mind. You shouldn’t have destroyed his house.”

Bart began
to wonder if he’d done the right thing five years ago in Bodmin, when he’d thrown in his lot with Drexel Poxy. It had seemed a good idea at the time. But now they were at loggerheads over a simple misunderstanding, and Bart’s status was in decline. Before long, thought Bart gloomily, he would be deposed as Poxy’s second in command, and Mold the Outrageous would be appointed in his stead.

He must have sunk into gnomish contemplation, because when he next became aware of his surroundings, things had changed. A horrifying mass of flesh was searing on a hellish fire before him, and the gnomes were in an uproar.

“You can’t expect us to eat that! That’s a dead animal!”

“You’ve been eating dead animals for years!” A giantish protest.

“Rectums to that!” The voice of Mold making itself heard as usual. “Meat, yes. Meat you brought ready for the pot. Meat in bite-sized pieces that we cooked in our stews and didn’t have to think about. Clean, civilized meat. Not this stuff. This is barbaric! The stink when you were cutting it up was bad enough, but now? A severed head on the beach. The eyes looking straight at me. Arms and legs and God knows what hanging there scorching over the fire. And what’s that part hanging down there?—answer me that! Look at it all! It could be a huge gnome!”

“It’s a deer. You saw it.”

Another voice: “You should know we gnomes have a fear of being roasted on spits. It’s probably a deep-seated memory of ancient giantish practices, glimpsed in the umbra. Can you honestly tell me you didn’t feel queer when you stuck the spit up the bottom of that poor thing?”

Queen Guinevere’s voice, tearful: “We didn’t have time to cut it into little pieces. You really are the most hypocritical little swine! I’ve been feeding you and clothing you for five years now, and all I get in return is nastiness and mistrust!”

“We trust you, Queen Guinevere,” said the Great Poxy smoothly.

“You trust
me enough to jump to the conclusion that my friends are attacking you. You trust me enough to roll rocks down on me. Lance! Take me away from these ungrateful little beasts, before I kick them into the sea! I never want to see them again, ever!”

O
NE
MONTH LATER FANG PAID A VISIT TO JACK O’ THE
Warren to discuss the acquisition of a family rabbit, tractable and strong, suitable for carrying a female gnome and three small children. Rabbits being what they are, the depredations of Palomides and Bruiser had long ago been made good.

Mention of Fang’s home life brought an envious gleam into Jack’s eye. He began to wax maudlin about a gnome from the northwest corner of the forest, with whom he had formed a tentative liaison.

“I like her, Fang,” he said. “I really
like
her. Blue-belle.” He spoke the name with careful reverence, like a password.

“Well, that’s good.”

“I wish it was.” Jack eyed Fang speculatively. “You’re a gnome of the world. You’ve lived with a female for years. I’m speaking of the Princess of the Willow Tree.”

“I’d hoped you were, Jack.”

“And you’re married. I attended the wedding.”

Fang flushed. His wedding had been marred by a curious incident of which he would rather not be reminded.

It was a gnomish tradition that the bride’s train should be carried by two children, representing the steady-state population, but at the time of Fang’s wedding, the only gnome-child of suitable age was Fang’s own son, Will. So the second child
had to be carved from wood, mounted on wheels, and attached to the end of the train. Will was instructed in his duties, which included keeping an eye on the dummy rolling beside him.

Gnomish weddings include a parade around a ceremonial fire. This was symbolic of the lust, hopefully as short-lived as the fire itself, that the wedding was supposed to generate in the bride and groom. By the time the parade reached this point, however, little Will had lost concentration. He failed to notice the dummy had cut inward in circling the fire and rolled over some red-hot embers. The wheels burst into flame.

Will squealed, dropped his corner of the train, and ran. The guests panicked. Gnomes are peculiarly inept at dealing with fires, and Fang alone kept his head. Seeing flames quickly spreading up the train toward the Princess, and realizing that she would not have time to undress before they reached her, he threw her across Thunderer’s back, jumped on, and urged the rabbit into headlong flight through the forest, the blazing dummy bouncing along behind.

The guests groaned and avoided one another’s eyes. The symbolism was so complex that even Spector the Thinking Gnome was stricken into silence. There was no precedent by which to judge the event. However, every gnome present, watching the flight of bride, groom, and flaming effigy, felt in his bones that the portents were not good. It was the kind of incident one could blame crop failures on.

Fang and the Princess returned eventually, drenched, having ridden Thunderer into a pond. Oddly they seemed to think the whole affair was a huge joke. They were surprised to be greeted with awestruck horror, beard twirling, and head shaking. They were disappointed when many of the guests crept away quite early, probably to pray to the Great Grasshopper.

Jack o’ the Warren had an anxious look. “What’s it
like
living with a female, Fang? When you’re with her all the time—day and night, if you get my meaning, Fang—there are bound to be embarrassing moments. Moments when the depths of existence are plumbed. Moments when the basic nature of life is forcibly brought home to you both. Do you understand what I’m referring to, Fang?”

“Moments when
filth rears its ugly head?”

“Exactly,” said Jack gratefully. “I knew you’d understand. No matter how careful you are, those moments will arise.”

“They will. Quite often. You learn to look forward to them.”

“But it’s different for you!” cried Jack. “As Spector once said, you’re a gnome subject to uncontrollable lusts. You can shrug those moments off.”

“Spector wasn’t talking about that kind of lust,” said Fang irritably. “He was talking about blood lust. The Slaying of the Daggertooth.”

“Whatever. You can’t deny you have three children. That tells me something.”

Fang was fairly sensitive on that subject. “What exactly brought this conversation about, Jack?” he asked coldly.

“A tragic incident. Bluebelle and I happened to meet near the warren. We greeted each other in friendly fashion. We talked. I was thinking how nice it was to have a normal, intelligent conversation with a female gnome, free from any implications. A small flock of swallows were flitting around the treetops. The rabbits were basking in the sun. The wind—”

“I have to meet the Miggot shortly.”

“I was just setting the scene, Fang. I want you to picture in your mind’s eye Bluebelle and me, the swallows and the rabbits.”

“And the wind?”

“Perhaps the wind is superfluous,” Jack admitted. “And maybe the swallows are too. This is what happened. Just at the very moment we were laughing at some shared joke, two of those rabbits took it into their heads to indulge in filth. Right then and there, right in front of Bluebelle and me!” He flushed a deep crimson at the recollection. “Clutching and vibrating—you know what rabbits are like.”

“Bad
luck,” said Fang. “How did you handle it?”

“Well, I tried to pass it off, of course. I babbled on and hoped Bluebelle wouldn’t see them. But it was no good. The sight of those two rabbits triggered the others off, and soon they were all doing it, all over the compound! Well, Bluebelle couldn’t help but notice what was going on. She went a funny color, muttered something, and ran. I haven’t seen her since.”

“She’ll get over it, Jack. Females are resilient.”

“Nobody will ever get over it, Fang. I’ll carry that dreadful moment in my memory lobe all my life, and I’ll pass it on to my children, if I ever have any, which is extremely unlikely; and they’ll pass it on, and so on. The memory of my degradation will become a chapter in gnomish history!”

“But none of your descendants will ever actually recall that memory.”

“They will if they happen to become Memorizers. Anybody could become a Memorizer, you once told me. It’s just a knack.”

It was probably at that moment that the great idea occurred to Fang. “That’s right,” he said slowly.

“Oh, my God!” wailed Jack. “What am I going to do? I wish I’d never resurrected the string. I never had this problem with the bogus rabbits!”

“The bogus rabbits?”

“A slip of the tongue, Fang.”

Fang regarded him thoughtfully. “Doesn’t it seem to you somehow
unnatural,
that this kind of thing should happen?”

“Unnatural?” Jack turned a tortured face to Fang. “Unnatural? Not at all. It was horribly natural.”

“So why were you embarrassed?”

“Huh?”

Fang left Jack staring after him in bewilderment, and hurried to his meeting. He found the Miggot sitting on a charred root of the blasted oak, drinking beer and snarling at the hangdog, which sat at his feet. It was a dissolute and depressing sight. The sky seemed to have clouded over, and an unseasonably chilly wind rustled the trees, scattering a few leaves as though winter were around the corner.

“Miggot,” said
Fang, “pull yourself together and cast your mind back a few years. I want you to recall a conversation we had, just before I was deposed in that coup of Lady Duck’s.”

“There will be other coups, Fang, believe me. You’ll be back!”

“Perhaps. Anyway, you’d criticized my urges and compared me to Bison. ‘Bison’s sexual urges are well under control,’ you said. And then I’m afraid I lost my temper, and I said, ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Miggot, that there might be something wrong with
your
urges?’ And you said, ‘Yes.’ Do you remember that?”

The Miggot had not had Fang’s practice as Memorizer, but he did have the photographic memory of gnomes. “I remember,” he said. “And then I said, ‘I’m accustomed to dealing with the Sharan and the business of birth and so on.’ ”

“So you did. But what did you say next, Miggot? Your exact words.”

The Miggot closed his eyes. “I said, ‘I ask myself questions.’ I might say, ‘What if …?’ And then I’ll say, ‘If that were so, then …’ And following that, ‘But supposing … ?’ And then suddenly I’ll say, ‘ A-
ha!
’ That’s what I said.”

“A-
ha!
What did you mean by ‘ A-
ha!
’ Miggot?”

“It was a cry of discovery, similar to ‘Eureka!’ ”

“And what had you discovered?”

“Nothing in particular. All I was saying was that I am in the habit of following my thoughts through and sometimes coming up with interesting answers.”

“And you came up with an interesting answer about sex, didn’t you?”

“Maybe I did, but this is hardly the time and place to discuss it.”

“All right, we needn’t discuss it. All I ask is that you listen to me and tell me what you think.” Hearing no objection, Fang continued. “
I was just talking to Jack o’ the Warren, and it struck me how unnatural it is, the gnomish hatred of filth. We’re the only creature in the world that feels like this. The Princess once said something interesting about that. She said it might be because the kikihuahuas created us with some kind of mental block, so we wouldn’t fill the Earth with gnomes. We don’t
need
to multiply, you see. All we need to do is maintain our population so we can do our job.”

The Miggot displayed some interest. “A mental block? That makes sense. It could hardly be a physical incapability. That would be impractical, and our ancestors are very practical people.”

“
I
don’t have that mental block, Miggot. And neither does the Princess.”

“But I have it, thank God.” The Miggot’s face creased in disgust. “Can you imagine how appalling it would be, to
want
to indulge in filth with Elmera?”

“But if you
wanted
to, it wouldn’t be appalling.”

“Logically you are correct, Fang. But in my bones I know it would be ghastly. It always has been, and it always will be. The struggling and the sweat and the horrible nakedness! A gnome can keep his boots and cap on for it, but not much else. Ugh!” He shuddered. “And yet … I don’t deny I’ve sometimes wondered if we gnomes are really normal members of the animal world.”

“Well, we’re not, because we have the mental block. And if there is a block, there must be a key.”

“No. It’s locks that have keys, Fang, not blocks.”

“Ask yourself, Miggot—what prevents you from becoming a Memorizer? And the answer is: There’s a mental block that bars access to your memory lobe. I had that mental block, too, some years back. But when the shytes first started circling over my father, his duty compelled him to instruct me in the Memorizer’s art. And he did this by unlocking the block. Or unblocking the lock,” he said quickly, seeing an objection trembling on the Miggot’s lips, “with a key.”