The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  Next, she caught the eye of Ubolt, the burly guard, who sat in his easy chair atop the sentry house. He had thrown a kiss to Irlinza when she passed. Now he stood and tossed kisses to Muriel with both hands.

  Just as she was starting up the steps, Jaff, the royal messenger, slender and handsome and fiery-eyed, stopped her long enough to pin an ornament on her shoulder. This was slightly irregular. The official who was conducting her coughed with impatience. But the Dobberking himself was smiling down indulgently upon this little interruption.

  It was a lovely ornament—an award that Jeff had once received as the champion footracer of the tribe. Now it pressed cool against her shoulder, a miniature silver foot with wings.

  “I’m giving you this for luck,” Jaff said, smiling.

  Giving it to her! An effusion of delight filled her—a quickening sense of popularity. The crowds were cheering as she, the last of the contestants, marched across the palace porch.

  Nor did she fail to catch the gleam of interest from the Dobberking himself. He was a masterful young bachelor of thirty, short and stocky. His solid head—wide cheekbones and heavy jaw—reminded her of a chunk of stone with two hot torchlights for eyes. The shining metal mesh of his ornamental vest seemed to swell as he drew a deep breath.

  Muriel took her place in the line. She tried not to notice the jealous glance from Irlinza. She looked to the crowds. How they were cheering! Her head swam with a strange dizziness. So many of them were applauding her, as if they loved her.

  “You’re going to win, Muriel!” came the shrill little voice of Neeka from the front of the crowd.

  But no, Muriel didn’t really want to win. This was enough—this dizzying sensation of being a part of the contest, being cheered, receiving favors—She clutched the winged ornament at her shoulder. That had been the award of a champion.

  Now the votes were being taken, according to the custom. The royal moss gatherers marched, single file, across the porch in front of the line of beauties. Each moss-gatherer whispered his vote to the Dobberking. No votes were recorded in writing. The Dobberking simply “remembered” when his royal workers preferred.

  The stocky, square-jawed Dobberking marched forward to announce the decision. He extended a hand, as he walked down the line of candidates. Irlinza started to step forward. But the Dobberking walked past her. Muriel saw the high color that leaped to her cheeks, saw her turn white with rage. But the Dobberking didn’t notice.

  He came straight to Muriel, took her by the hand, led her to the center of the porch. He lifted her to a pedestal that formed a part of the porch railing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Dobberine Kingdom, I give you, as the festival queen of the year—Muriel!” The cheering was like the thunder of an approaching flood.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the ruler went on, “this is the first time that Muriel has competed in the festival contest, but from the acclaim you have given her, I know you hope it will not be the last time.

  “To win this honor is also to win certain responsibilities. You all remember, the beauty queen plays her part in the Evil Heart Ceremony . . .”

  The speech went on, but Muriel had ceased to hear anything. She was almost helpless against this sudden flood tide of popularity. She was the beauty, queen! She was the beauty queen—the queen!—the queen!—the queen—A skull! Her eyes grew wide. She was looking over the heads of the crowd. The little old Lava Man was watching her from a distance. He lifted one of his red arms to the level of his wrinkled, glowing shoulders. A skull appeared on his fingertips. A purplish-white skull.

  But it didn’t stay there. It came floating slowly over the head of the people, straight toward Muriel. Closer, closer, until it was near enough to touch.

  She started to draw back, as if a bird floating slowly over the heads of the Dobberking didn’t notice; he went on speaking. Neither did the crowd see it.

  But it was real, it was there, it was singing to her, speaking words in a soft resonant voice.

  “Muriel-l-l. Muriel-l-l . . . This honor-r-r. This honor-r-r . . . Do not let it defeat-t-t you-u-u.”

  The skull whirled twice around her head. Its jaws clicked like stones. It sailed back across the crowd, back to the little old man’s fingertips, and disappeared. And Muriel, the Festival queen, was left, staring, speechless, oblivious to the thousands of Dobberines who were cheering for her.

  CHAPTER IV

  Rehearsal for Sacrifice

  It would have been wonderful being the beauty queen if there hadn’t been so many complications. Nothing like this had ever happened to Muriel before. Smiles from everyone. Praise from people she didn’t even know. And gifts!

  Just imagine buxom Aunt Friel coming home from her day’s work at the palace, bringing a heaping tray-of the finest cheese-moss, fruits and fish.

  “Compliments to the queen of beauty,” said Aunt Friel, bubbling over with pleasure and good humor, “from the palace servants.”

  “How lovely!” Muriel exclaimed. “I never dreamed this would happen to me.”

  “All you have to do is stand up and be beautiful, and they pile the groceries right at your feet. It’s the funniest way I ever heard of earning a free dinner.” Aunty Friel laughed until she shook all over.

  Little Neeka danced around with joyous excitement. “I’m going to be beautiful when I grow up too.”

  But Muriel tried not to be swept away by all this good fortune. Whenever she had a moment of quiet thought, the image of the singing skull came back to her, and she remembered its warning.

  Could her good fortune last? She wondered. Through her school days, life had never been easy for her. Her home had been one of poverty. She had had to fight hard for her few successes.

  When she had won certain scholastic honors, she had found herself very popular—but the popularity had never lasted. After all, she was Muriel, the daughter of a poor moss-gatherer. She couldn’t dress in the finery that was required by the upper social levels. Her good times had been the simple times: gathering moss blossoms with her good friend Jaff, playing nurse-maid to little Neeka.

  But now Neeka was hers to keep, and Neeka had been a child of wealth.

  “I’m going to give you some jewels for your own,” Neeka said. “They look so pretty on you.”

  “No, Neeka, you musn’t do that.”

  Muriel wondered. Should she accept a few? Would the people say she had attached herself to this child to get a share of her wealth? But no, they couldn’t say that. It simply wasn’t true.

  Through the streets came the town criers calling for volunteer laborers. Soon the floods would come. The last supplies of cheese-moss, left in stacks in distant caves, must be brought in at once. How many men and women would volunteer to help?

  Muriel picked up a pair of work gloves and hurried out to the street. Here was a patriotic service she could perform.

  “No, not you,” said the crier. “You’re the beauty queen.”

  “But I should help. My father and mother always helped with the cheese-moss harvest. They even made trips to the surface and braved the storms for supple-bark and fruit. They were proud to work with their hands.”

  “We can’t accept you,” the crier said. “It’s not only that your hands are too beautiful; many good workmen might be distracted if the queen of beauty were along. Good-bye, Miss Muriel.”

  Curious incidents of this sort occurred almost every hour of the day. All at once Muriel was forced to assume a new personality. She couldn’t dodge this wave of popularity?

  A messenger from the Dobberking knocked at her door the day after the Festival. He. presented her with a slender blue-metal box.

  “With the Dobberking’s compliments. A silver cheese-moss knife.”

  “Oh, how pretty.” Muriel lifted the gleaming blade as if she were handling precious stones. “But I could never use it to gather cheese-moss. It’s too bright and beautiful. Are you sure it’s proper for me to accept it?”

  The messenger laughed. “If
you knew how much one of the other girls wanted it, you wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “Irlinza?”

  “How did you guess it? That sister wants everything. Most of all she wants the Dobberking. But since the contest, she’s been in a rage.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The messenger went on his way laughing to himself. But Muriel was sincere. For in a way she wished Irlinza had won.

  She was still standing on the steps, holding the blue-metal box, when Jaff came running along the cliff path. As usual, he was on an official errand for the palace. But he took a moment to stop and look at her new gift.

  “What a beauty of a knife?” It’s a knockout, Muriel. Gee, I wish I could give you something nice like that.”

  “Why, Jaff, you gave me your own championship pin. That’s the nicest gift I ever received in my life.”

  “Honest?” His large brown eyes were bright with boyish eagerness.

  “Do you really like it?”

  “I’ll wear it to all the ceremonies as long as I live,” Muriel said.

  “Gee, thanks. Well, I’ve got to hurry on. The Dobberking will be in a fever to know how much more cheese-moss is coming in.”

  Yes, Muriel would wear Jaff’s winged pin at every public occasion. The Evil Heart Ceremony was just around the corner. She would wear it then. A shudder of uncertainty filled her whenever she thought of this occasion. It was the one tribal ritual that she had always dreaded—even before Neeka’s father had fallen victim to it.

  Noskin, the palace record keeper, was her next official visitor. He was knocking at everyone’s door these days, collecting data for the Evil Heart Ceremony.

  He was an important little man with a bird-like face and quick dark eyes. He walked in and made himself very much at home. He commented on the luxurious furniture that Neeka’s parents had left. He was fascinated, too, by the sight of the silver moss-knife. Then he turned his attention to her. It wasn’t easy for a face like his to smile, but he made an effort to accomplish the feat.

  “I don’t know why I should come here searching for Evil Heart evidence,” he said. “Anyone knows that our new beauty is incapable of any evil. But you know how it is. We officials are paid by the number of calls we make. I’m canvassing every house.”

  “That must be dreadful,” Muriel said.

  “Why?”

  “Because wherever you go, the people know you’re looking for the most evil heart in the kingdom. Whenever you look at anyone, it makes that person wonder whether he may be sacrificed to the flood.”

  “No, no, no. You take it too seriously.” He patted Muriel’s hand. And being rather pleased with himself, he repeated, “You take it much too seriously,” and patted her hand again. He moved his chair closer to hers. “Pleasant here, isn’t it?”

  She rose abruptly. “You were telling me about how you choose the most evil heart, Mr. Noskin.”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” He quickly resumed his business-like manner. “It’s very simple when you know how. I always put my prospect at ease by saying, ‘How are your neighbors behaving? Do you have any neighbors that might be candidates for the sacrifice?’ You’d be surprised what any man is willing to tell about his neighbor. Don’t worry, I’ll have a nice little bookful of evidence on tap when it comes for the crowd to make nominations.”

  He gathered up his record books. In the doorway he paused and Muriel saw that he was again practicing his smile on her.

  “You’re very timid, Miss Muriel. It wouldn’t hurt you to make acquaintance of some of us influential officials. Now take someone like me. I’m not more than twice your age, and some people have actually said I’m handsome.”

  Muriel smiled with amusement in spite of herself. “Are you officials paid for the number of social calls you make?”

  This may have angered Noskin, for he mumbled and floundered. Then abruptly he started off. On the porch steps he stopped, turned, took a letter from his pocket.

  “I almost forgot to give you this,” he said. “Ubolt, the guard, is probably waiting for you.”

  Before the record keeper’s sullen footsteps had echoed away, Muriel was hurrying down the long grade to the palace plaza. For the letter was an official notice to report for a rehearsal of the Evil Heart Ceremony.

  “Where you been?” Ubolt called down from his sentry station. “The officials have already rehearsed. The show’s over. You got left out, good-looking.”

  The accusation struck sharp. Muriel didn’t know how to answer. She couldn’t explain that Noskin had tried to get friendly and almost forgotten his official business. No, that would never do.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” Then a flash of hope came to her. “Do you mean I won’t have to take part?”

  “I mean nothing of the kind. There’s only one person that ever has the honor of tying the victim to the post and that’s the beauty queen. Come on, we’ll go through your part of it right now.”

  He descended from his roof station, and invited Muriel to follow him into the sentry house. It gave Muriel a strange feeling to be coming into this place. All her life she had walked around this question mark shaped ridge of stone. This was the first time she had ever seen inside. Its hollow interior was like a curved stone. While the guard puttered around gathering together some ropes, she gazed out the wide, low window for a sentry’s eye view of the city. The right corner of her view was blocked by the six-foot onyx stalagmite—the dot-end of the question mark—the death post for the Evil Heart victims.

  Suddenly a horror gripped her. There was where Neeka’s father had gone to his death. Within a few days Muriel would be forced to tie someone else to that post, to go to his death, and twenty-five thousand people would applaud her for her act.

  “Are you listening to what I’m telling you?” Ubolt said harshly.

  “I—I’m ill,” said Muriel. “Please. I may not be able to—I’d like to be excused from taking part. Do you think the Dobberking would excuse me—

  “Aw, stop it!” Ubolt growled. “None of that weak-kneed stuff. The beauty queen always does the tie-up act. Now watch sharp what I’m telling you. See this rope?”

  It was a thick, ten-foot fibre rope. Ubolt made her practice swinging the end of it.

  “I don’t know a thing about tying knots,” she said.

  “No woman knows how to tie a knot. But we have a way to take care of that. See this bucket of honey-glue? It’s the same dope the valley folks use to seal their doors against the flood. All you have to do is swing the rope around the victim. It’ll wrap around itself with a grab like a vise, see?”

  “I—I guess so.” Yes, she remembered, that was the way they had done with Neeka’s father last year. Irlinza had officiated.

  “Well, you’d better practice it once or twice.”

  “No . . . No . . . I’ll be able to—please don’t make me.”

  “Come on. You’ve got to be prepared. Sometimes you get a victim that squirms and hollers, and you have to whip that rope around in a hurry. Sometimes you get a victim that goes dizzy on you and falls away in a dead faint with his tongue hangin’ out—what the devil’s the matter with you, girl?”

  “I—I—” Muriel reeled dizzily and fell to the floor in a faint.

  CHAPTER V

  Terrors of the Night

  Such dreams! Such hideous hallucinations. Innocent people being tied to the post. Innocent people with skulls for heads. Skulls, skulls, skulls! Skulls that floated like bubbles. Skulls that sang. Skulls that whispered. Skulls that taunted, and growled and screamed. Yet all in dreams. Muriel awoke in a cold sweat. She lay awake, listening for the faint signal bell from the plaza that announced the hour.

  The night was less than half gone. She must restore her feverish body with sleep.

  Neeka called to her through the darkness.

  “Muriel, did you hear someone walking around the house?”

  “No, dear. Go back to sleep.”

  For a little while Neeka was silent. Then, “Muriel, I heard
someone.

  “It was just your imagination, dear.” Then all was quiet. Soon the slow rhythmic breathing from Neeka’s room told Muriel that the child had gone back to sleep. Aunt Friel, too, was sleeping peacefully.

  As Muriel lay awake, the details of the frightening dream came back to her. At once she wondered whether the dream skulls had been the same skulls as those of the lava pit. No, there was a difference. It was as if they were the distorted dream images of those real skulls from the Lava Man.

  But now she remembered that, at the last of the dream, skulls had been dropping, one after another, with a rhythmic crunch, crunch, crunch. The rhythm of footsteps!

  Yes, she had heard it. Neeka was right, there had been footsteps. Slow, heavy ones that had woven into her dreams. Someone had been prowling.

  Who? Why? Did she have any enemies?

  One answer came clear. If there was someone in this kingdom who knew he might be tied to the post by her in the forthcoming ceremony, he might come intending to kill her. Cold terror shot through her heart.

  Fear makes people do unaccountable things. Muriel now thought of a weapon. She could get the silver knife, hide it under her pillow.

  In the darkness, she crossed the living, room. She groped along the wall. She knew the very spot where it hung. The flat of her hand reached out to press down upon the cool surface of the blade.

  Even as she touched it, the blade moved. It lifted away from her touch. It was gone in the darkness.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. The swift heavy footsteps thumped across the dark room.

  The front door swung open, the prowler bolted out. Muriel’s stifled scream gave him a burst of speed. He didn’t bother to slam the door. He raced noisily out into the night.

  Muriel bounded to the door, watched the shadow figure slip through a short alley and cut across to the cliff path. Only a fleet-footed person like Jaff would be able to overtake a man in the maze of tunnels along that path. Had he taken the one thing he wanted?

  Muriel struck a torch. The knife was gone, all right. Whoever the thief was, she thought, wouldn’t dare come back after narrowly escaping detection. If only she had lighted a torch before going into the living room.