King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (8 page)

“I … I don’t have the sacred torch,” said Broyle the Blaze unhappily. “Somehow it got left behind in our old world. Woe is me. I’ve betrayed the trust.”

“You’ll just have to light another torch,” said the Miggot. “It’s a small price to pay for the warmth and comfort of us gnomes.”

Broyle began to tremble. “It’s happened too often,” he said. “Often I’ve forgotten to maintain the sacred torch because I’ve been contemplating, or sleeping, and I’ve had to kindle the Wrath of Agni all over again. I’m a disgrace to the Firelighters Guild, and one day Agni will strike me down with a bolt of lightning, you see if he doesn’t!” He glanced at the sky. “That looks like a very black cumulus up there.”

“Pull yourself together, gnome,” snapped the Miggot.

“Is that how you do it?” asked Bart. “You have one gnome take on the responsibility, and he lights all fires from the same torch? Isn’t that bending the Examples to suit your selfish purposes?”

“Broyle prays for forgiveness,” said the Miggot. “And anyway, it’s
kindling
the Wrath of Agni that’s against the Examples. There’s nothing wrong with
maintaining
the Wrath of Agni if someone else has kindled it for you. Broyle kindles the Wrath once, then lights everybody’s fires with the sacred torch. At least, that’s the principle of the thing. But the torch keeps going out.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked Fang, regarding the pile of sticks.

“Oh, to hell with you, Broyle!” shouted the Miggot, losing patience as the firelighter shot another glance at the sky. “I’ll light the bloody fire myself. I happen to have an example of the Wrath of Agni in the Sharan’s new cave, to keep her warm,” he informed the gathering at large, “and if that offends anyone, bugger them, that’s what I say.”

Everybody maintained a polite silence as the Miggot stumped off among the roots of the oak, to reappear with a blazing brand.
He thrust it among the sticks. Flames spread, and the Miggot grunted in satisfaction.

“One thing I don’t understand,” said Pong, once they were seated before a cheerful blaze, “is how you gnomes escaped from the giants.”

“It was the strangest thing,” said Fang. “The giants captured us right after the happentracks joined, and took us to the Great Hall. We thought we were in big trouble. They had us dancing on the table. There was a fire nearby, and you know what
that
means.”

The gnomes groaned. They knew what a giantish fire meant.

“And then, in came Nyneve. I doubt if she could have saved us by herself, but there was this giant Galahad with her. He seemed to have a strange power over the others. And a giant they call the Baron came, too, from over the other side of the moors. He told them to release us.

“Then Galahad took us to the Lake of Avalon and we watched Tristan’s funeral, which was rather sad. But then this new giant came out of nowhere. Arthur. Nyneve introduced him to us. He seemed like a good giant. Then they left us and we made our way back.”

“Where’s Galahad now?”

“He vanished about the time Arthur appeared. It’s a pity, because he’d have been a good giant to have on our side.”

“He said something odd before he went,” said the Miggot. “How did it go, Gooligog?”

“ ‘
Happentracks are funny things. You and I, we don’t quite coincide. You’ll find out, one day when we meet again
,’ ” quoted the Memorizer.

“So …” Bart looked around. “What do we do next?”

“We rebuild gnomedom,” snapped the Miggot, who, like Fang, seemed to have taken a dislike to Bart.

“Right now?”

“Well,” said the Miggot, “I have to attend to the Sharan. She’s about to give birth. What the rest of you do is up to yourselves.”

“Rather an
inappropriate time to have your Sharan giving birth, isn’t it?” said Bart.

“As a matter of fact”,—the Miggot snarled, “it’s an extremely appropriate time. She will be giving birth to digging creatures, and if there’s any kind of creature we need right now, it’s digging creatures. We’ll call them moles.”

“Why?”

The Miggot stepped close to Bart and stared down his long nose at him. There was a wart on the end of the Miggot’s nose that acted like a gun sight, and the accuracy and penetrative power of his stare was famous throughout Mara Zion. Bart backed off, blinking. “Because that’s what they are.” The Miggot’s voice was quiet, but it held a frightful menace—all the more so because gnomes are not normally menacing people.

“Of course,” said Bart quickly. “Of course. May I witness the birth?”

Shortly afterward the Miggot, Fang, Bart, and Spector met the elfin Pan outside the Sharan’s temporary quarters.

“The moles are born,” Pan announced.

“Oh.” The Miggot was disappointed. He liked to watch every detail of the Sharan’s labor; it gave him a sense of achievement to see creatures emerge from her womb according to his specifications. The Sharan herself lay on her side, panting, her normally glossy silver coat dull and matted. Two moles sucked on her generous teats. As often happened with small creatures, they had emerged from the Sharan fully grown.

The Miggot eyed them critically. “Something’s wrong. They’re deformed. Now what shall we do?”

The Kikihuahua Examples forbade the killing of any living creature. The Miggot sometimes awakened in the middle of the night trembling, having dreamed of a forest populated by monsters of the Sharan’s creating, which he could neither control nor dispose of.

“The moles are exactly according to specification,” said Pan coldly.

“Why are they blind, then?”

Spector,
sensing yet another clash between Pan and the Miggot, said quickly, “It’s probably a protective measure to ensure our sympathy.”

“It doesn’t ensure
my
sympathy,” snapped the Miggot, who believed in natural selection. “Far from it. It tells me they’re unfit for survival.”

“There was no mention of eyes in your specifications,” insisted Pan.

“Why would I need to tell you about eyes? Every animal has eyes. There are some things we take for granted. How in hell can these moles see without eyes?”

“Perhaps they make a noise and receive the echo back, like moondogs,” Fang suggested.

“Moondogs have big ears.” The Miggot regarded the two moles in growing anger. “These things have no ears. They’re little better than lumps of meat with claws.” He stepped close to Pan, seized his ragged smock, and tried to stare furiously into the elf’s eyes. Pan, however, overtopped him by several inches and was able to gaze loftily over his head.

“Let me run through your original request.” Pan was enjoying the argument. For once he felt he was on firm ground. “You asked for a creature that would live underground, skilled in digging tunnels. You said it would make life much easier because suitable burrows for use as gnomish dwellings were always in short supply.”

“In Bodmin,” Bart could not resist saying, “we live above the ground in stone huts. It’s healthy. It’s clean.”

“My cousin Hal lives in a stone hut,” said the Miggot in tones of the utmost contempt, “and he certainly doesn’t keep himself clean.”

“In pursuance of my duty, I planted a telepathic scenario in the Sharan’s mind,” continued Pan, ignoring the interruption. “I gave her to understand she would soon be living on a world where the air was poisonous. The only salvation for her children lay underground, where oxygen-producing fungi grew. So she produced the most suitable children for that environment. Eyes and ears would be a disadvantage, because there’s
nothing down there to see or hear. But I’ll warrant the moles have an excellent sense of smell, to sniff out their food.”

“What do they find to eat down there?” asked Fang.

“Insects.”

“You mean … flesh? But isn’t that against the Examples? We can’t create flesh-eaters, can we? Surely the moles ought to eat grass, like rabbits do.”

“They’re not going to find much grass underground, are they?” Pan regarded Fang impatiently. “And anyway, we have a precedent. Many generations ago, we created the shytes.” He pointed out a group of untidy black birds waiting hopefully at the entrance to the cave. “They’re flesh-eaters to a bird.”

“The shytes were designed to keep the forest clean,” said the Miggot. “They feed on carrion. They do not eat live flesh. Fang is right. The moles contravene the Examples. You have twisted my specifications, Pan. This is a matter of the utmost gravity.”

As though alarmed by the Miggot’s condemnation, the moles detached themselves from the teats and began to dig. The soil was light and sandy, and in no time they had disappeared.

“Stop them!” shouted the Miggot.

“Too late,” said Pan. “They’ll be all right. They’re supreme in their environment.”

“They’re the only animals
in
their environment, you fool. Now I’d like to get them back into ours. How can we put them to work if we can’t find them?” asked the Miggot, practical concerns overriding his conscientious objection to the creatures.

“You must follow them down their holes and lure them out with kindness. Kindness is in your nature, Miggot; you people are always telling me that. Gnomes are kind and good.”

“We could tie thongs to their hind legs,” suggested Bart, “and drag them out whenever we wanted. And we could train them to dig
where we needed, by chivvying them a bit.”

“Chivvying them?” The other gnomes regarded him in mild alarm.

“A good poke up the backside with a sharp stick will work wonders.”

This evoked an image so similar to the gnomes’ traditional fear of being roasted on skewers that the subject had to be changed at once. The gnomes hurried out of the cave, leaving the offensive words echoing behind. For once, the sight of the Gooligog emerging from the trees was welcome. He stamped irritably toward them, birds circling low over his head.

“If the shytes only feed on carrion, why are they following the Gooligog?” asked Pan triumphantly.

“The Gooligog’s time must be near,” the Miggot explained. “The stench of death is upon him.”

The Gooligog joined them, kicking aside a shyte that hopped before him like a pallbearer. “This is a macabre situation, Miggot,” he shouted, “and I want something done about it. One of the bastards landed on my head this morning. By the Sword of Agni, they’re worse than that bloody housemouse of mine!”

“I thought you’d come to terms with the housemouse, Father,” said Fang. “And anyway, wasn’t he drowned when your burrow flooded out?”

“He escaped and followed me, the faithful bastard. He was with me last night.” The shytes were not the only carrion-eating creatures in gnomedom. Elderly gnomes traditionally kept housemice in their dwellings, to clean up when they died. “I saw him standing there in the moonlight, trembling,” said the Gooligog. “He’s getting old too. I’m going to outlast the brute, mark my words. But not unless you call off these bloody shytes, Miggot. A while back I sat down under a tree to contemplate, and the buggers were all around me in an instant! Have you ever smelled a shyte’s breath?” He lashed out with a gnarled stick, catching a bird squarely in the rib cage and bowling it squawking across the clearing, shedding feathers.

“I don’t think
my father’s going to die yet, Miggot,” said Fang mildly. “He seems very spry to me. The shytes have got it wrong.”

“They know,” said Bart o’ Bodmin wisely. “They know.”

“The laws of nature,” murmured Spector. “And the balance of life. The moles are born, the Memorizer dies.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet,” snapped the Gooligog, “and I’ll thank you not to anticipate the happy event, Miggot. So where are these moles? People are getting impatient back in the forest.”

“You see those holes?” The Miggot pointed. “That’s where the moles are. You’re welcome to go down and fetch them, Gooligog. Bart tells us kindness will bring them out.”

“It would be unwise to follow a flesh-eating creature down its hole,” Spector warned him. “I can visualize an occasion when it might not respond to kindness.”

“Thongs are the only way,” Bart agreed.

The ensuing discussion lasted until nightfall, by which time the gnomes had made their way back to the blasted oak. Probably the only practical suggestion came from Fang: “We could wait until the moles abandon their holes, and then move in.”

“Rebuild gnomedom at the whim of burrowing animals?” cried Lady Duck. “What kind of credibility does that give us in the forest?”

“We must discuss priorities,” said Spector the Thinking Gnome. “That would be the logical thing to do next, with only two moles. Then, when we’ve found a way to put the moles to work, we will have a plan of action all mapped out.”

“It seems to me,” said the Miggot, “that the first burrow to be dug should be some kind of community gathering place.”

“Absolutely!” shouted Clubfoot.

There was a murmur of agreement and the gnomes found themselves nodding at one another wisely. It was several seconds before the first screams of dissent were heard.

“Nonsense!” cried
Elmera.

“Forget it, Miggot!” roared Lady Duck. “If you see rebuilding Tom Grog’s disgusting drinking hole as a major priority, then you’re a more selfish and stupid gnome than I thought. We need places to live, not stinking burrows where male gnomes drink themselves senseless!”

Tom Grog, a polite and pleasant gnome, said quickly, “You’re welcome at the Disgusting anytime, Lady Duck. So is Elmera, even. If more females used my establishment, it would be a much happier place. It’s hard for a gnome to be doing his job according to the rules of his guild, and yet find half of gnomedom against him.”

“I never mentioned the Disgusting,” said the Miggot, aggrieved. “By the Great Grasshopper, why does every discussion come back to beer?”

“That was what you meant,” said Elmera. “I should know, Miggot. I’ve lived with you for countless years, God knows why. You don’t fool me.”

The discussion petered out without any decisions being reached, which was the norm for gnomish meetings. In gloomy silence, the gnomes prepared for another night in the open.

“Tomorrow,” said the Miggot after a while, “Jack will furnish us with rabbits, and we’ll seek out our dwelling sites. For myself, I prefer this spot.” Lying on his back, he gazed up at the charred branches of the blasted oak. Shytes perched there, waiting for the Gooligog’s eyes to close.