I know that in my last letter I told you that I expected neither compensation nor credit, but would you permit a friend a moment of reconsideration? After all, my contributions to the series have resulted in a much better book (please consider reissuing Palace with all my corrections), so I would not think it unreasonable for me to request co-authorship.
I trust in your fairness.
Yours in Azamgal,
Manolo de Jesus
114 Torres St., Cebu City
September 19, 1954
LUCIO,
Why do you act as if you did not receive my letter and the revisions I sent you for The Astronomer of Azamgal, last May 15th?
I could barely contain my shock and disappointment when the bookseller handed me a dog-eared copy of The Mines of Azamgal. Surely you remember our discussion about the title?
But beyond my concern over the erroneous title (which I think we can attribute to our recalcitrant publisher), how could you not use the five chapters I sent you? Why are the children with Alma, who is not even part of their family? Why is Riza not with them (she’s back with them, if you recall)? Why is Roberto a merchant? How could Andro fail the final examination to become the next Astronomer (he is the titular character in the properly-titled book, after all)?
But most damningly, how could you not listen to me and reveal Prince Moret as the Prince of Shadows? It is Hannamid. It can only be Hannamid.
I told you, over and over again, that this is unacceptable. I sent you all my notes and the rewritten scenes. You cannot possibly claim to have not received them, unless you insist that the Philippine postal system somehow failed. Is it possible you are unable to see what should be? Could it be that, like Magda, you are blind to the truth?
But apart from all of this, I am particularly disturbed that you continue to claim all credit for yourself. I must confess a degree of anger that goes beyond disappointment at your shallow selfishness. Azamgal deserves better than you, I feel. And I make no apologies for this observation.
I fully expect you to correct this injustice in the next book, (which, following the true logic of the series, will be called The Perils of Azamgal) with my name credited on the cover and relevant succeeding pages.
Truly, I expected more than this from you.
Manuel de Jesus
114 Torres St., Cebu city
September 27, 1954
FERNANDEZ:
I received a copy of the next book in the series.
I believe your true character as a charlatan revealed at last. You are The Pretender of Azamgal (which obviously is not the correct title—it should be The Perils of Azamgal). You are a fraud, a selfish fraud.
My name is not on the cover (although I must state that part of me is glad, because this shit is obviously completely yours).
I cannot even begin to give notes on how the character arcs and plotlines have gone hopelessly astray under your terrible hand.
And Prince Moret would never, and I mean never, directly or indirectly cause Roberto to die. Never.
It is you who are the murderer. You have murdered Azamgal. You have ruined the children. Read that again: You have RUINED the children.
I am warning you, Fernandez. In the final book (which, if you can force your dull head to see, should be titled The Prince of Azamgal and should have the wedding of Prince Moret and Riza, with her sister Magda officiating, and with that bitch of yours Alma executed immediately afterward and Hannamid revealed as the Prince of Shadows), I expect you to fix everything.
M. de Jesus
114 Torres St., Cebu city
September 29, 1954
TO THE PRETENDER of Azamgal:
I do not consider Return to Azamgal part of the series, much less the final book.
You did not do anything I asked you to. You offer me nothing. You do not respond to my letters. You have taken credit for parts that are mine (or you think that I have forgotten that you used my words and claimed them as yours?).
You have betrayed Azamgal and you will pay for this.
MdJ
Los Angeles
January 19, 1955
I HAVE ARRIVED in America.
Your publisher was not cooperative.
But I will find you.
You had better hope that your little island is very well hidden.
M
Puget Sound, Washington State
June 2, 1955
YOU REALLY ARE a liar, aren’t you?
You do not have five dogs.
Count them again.
M.
Puget Sound, Washington State
June 7, 1955
LOCK ALL YOUR doors. It doesn’t matter.
A zealot of Azamgal cannot be deterred by such.
A patriot of Azamgal is not cowed by the police car in your driveway.
Puget Sound, Washington State
June 10, 1955
LONG LIVE AZAMGAL!
ESCAPE
THE LAST FOE fell to the blows of the Whirling Lobster’s good claw, emitting a tart smell as it melted on the dappled forest floor.
“Well,” the Stickman said, breaking the heavy silence. “And that’s that.”
In the aftermath of the furious battle, the three companions stood closely together, their noses pinched and proof against the disagreeable odor, little understanding how fortunate they were to have survived the unanticipated assault.
The Whirling Lobster, whose sensitive nostrils had almost succumbed to olfactory attack, sighed. “I cannot, for the life of me, see why some hearts simply go sour.”
“Some things are simply that way, I suppose,” the Stickman said, gingerly stepping over a curdled corpse that was dissipating in the disinclined breeze. “If you keep hoping—”
“There is nothing wrong with hoping,” interrupted the Whirling Lobster. “For some, it is all they have.”
“Then does it matter if it is sweet or sour?” asked the Stickman. “What would make you sour?”
“Sorrow,” replied the Whirling Lobster, squinting at the setting sun. “Or giving up.”
“Sorrow is often exaggerated,” the Stickman muttered.
“Sorrow is here, in this place,” the Whirling Lobster said quietly. “I do not think these twisted woods will ever be free of their stench.”
“That, if anything, tells us how it is past time we left this terrible place,” said the Ornament Angel. She had kept her silence throughout the ambush and now only wanted to depart.
“Fiddlelyfine,” said the Stickman, “but we still have no idea where we are or where we are to go!”
“True, true,” agreed the Whirling Lobster, waving his remaining claw. Deep in his clockwork eyes, a tiny crack widened just a smidgen—but being blind to his own flaws he, of course, did not notice. “I suppose we just have to make do with what we do do.”
“Well, then,” the Ornament Angel said, clearing her throat. “What we do do or do not do will simply have to do for now. It is certainly better than doing nothing at all. Too much of that, and the world just passes you by. I should know.” And she did, remembering for a moment the tragic circumstances of her melancholic captivity and the endless days and nights she spent looking outside from the inside of a cage.
“Fiddlelyfine,” said the Stickman. “So what are we to do?”
His two companions looked at each other, then at him, then at each other again.
“We go where wings can take us,” stated the Ornament Angel.
“But I have no wings!” protested the Stickman.
“Perhaps I can—” began the Ornament Angel.
“But some things are perhaps not meant to fly!” the Stickman cried, aghast at the notion of leaving the ground.
“I promise to hold you and not let you fall,” offered the Whirling Lobster. “My good claw, after all, is the one the Knave of Spades left me with. You will not fall.”
“Besides,” the Ornament Angel told the Stickman, “even if you do fall, we can always pick you up. You do re
member what the Little Girl used to say: ‘sticks is sticks’.”
“They most certainly are not!” roared the Stickman, shocked that anyone remembered the cruel words of that petulant child.
“Careful, careful,” said the Whirling Lobster. “The last thing we need is for you to catch fire.”
“All I’m saying is that if you do fall, we can pick you up, no harm, no harm at all. And that’s all I have to say on the matter. If I’ve hurt you, do keep in mind that the words I spoke are not my own but someone else’s, and it is her phraseology that makes it painful.” With that, the Ornament Angel floated away, head high, stretching her wings.
“Fiddlelyfine,” muttered the Stickman. “Anything, I suppose, to evade the Garrote Parrot.”
The Ornament Angel floated back, the lips on her ceramic face formed in an ‘O’. “Oh!”
“Do not say its name,” the Whirling Lobster cautioned. “It may be able to hear us after its name is spoken.”
“But you mention its name all the time,” the Stickman shouted, unable to control his temper. At once, a thin flame burst into feeble life on his left arm.
“Oh, oh! He is aflame!” The Ornament Angel flitted helplessly about.
“Help me! Help me,” cried the Stickman, as the smoke began to exude from his sleeve.
The sound of pained gears drowned his shocked words, as the Whirling Lobster raised his single claw and snapped it shut over the Stickman’s burning arm.
For a moment they stared at the burning wooden limb on the ground.
The Stickman screamed. “You—you have crippled me!”
“I saved your life,” the Whirling Lobster told him. “‘Sticks is sticks’.”
“They most certainly—” the Stickman began to sputter.
“Enough,” a dulcet voice boomed from above the trio, as a shadow descended in the twilight.
The Ornament Angel, recognizing the menacing tone, spread her wings to flee, her need for freedom sundering any loyalty she held toward her companions. The frenzied fluttering of her tiny wings was arrested by a powerful gust of wind that knocked her to the ground, shattering her face against a sharp rock.
The Garrote Parrot, its cruel talons clenching and unclenching, landed in front of the stunned Stickman and the Whirling Lobster, folded its expansive wings, and lowered its harnessed head, revealing its passenger.
“Oh, Ornament Angel,” the Little Girl said softly. “Look what is happened to you.”
The Stickman fell to his knees. “Forgive me! They made me do it! Especially this maiming lobster!”
The Whirling Lobster did not move, except for his eyes. One clockwork eye remained trained on the child, while the other watched the sinister avian.
“L-l-let me t-t-take them, Little G-g-girl,” the Garrote Parrot stammered, straining against the dull iron collar around its neck. “T-t-they slew t-t-he Knave of Sp-sp-spades!”
The Little Girl looked up from where she was kneeling, the remains of the Ornament Angel in her hands. “Oh, my little ones. I fear this time you is gone too far.”
“Forgive me!” cried the Stickman, his face pressed against the ground.
The Little Girl carefully placed the fragments of what was once the Ornament Angel in one of the pockets of her white dress. “Sticks is sticks, but bricks is bricks.” She gestured to the Garrote Parrot.
In a flurry of sudden motion, the Garrote Parrot extended the tips of its wings and caught the Stickman by the neck, and with a savage twist of iron-tipped feathers, snapped the wooden creature’s head off.
The Little Girl regarded the Whirling Lobster. “And what is I to do with you?”
The Whirling Lobster offered no reply.
“You is mad to try and try and try,” the Little Girl scolded him, waving a dainty finger in his direction. “You will always fail.”
In his mind’s eye, the Whirling Lobster recalled all his sixteen previous attempts: first with Wintermink and Lambent Lambert; then with Peacedoll and Stripecurrant; then Wavy Navy and Judas Boat. The fourth attempt, with Plenty and Book Crook, was the first time he’d seen the forest, and subsequent attempts (Bitterhelen and Tam Tambourine; Milquetask and Smiling George; Natty Batty and the Recording Beast; G. Shell and the feisty Mock Ness) had taken him farther and farther. But always the shadow of the Garrote Parrot caught up with him, and with the stammering savage bird came the Little Girl, always to take him back. And only him. She did not spare Jumping Jeho-so-fat or Cream Dandy, she crushed Timothy Tock and Handel-with-Care, she scattered Aunt Farm and made him watch Wisty Misty dissipate into nothingness, and she was particularly impatient with Yayhigh and Heylow. Beginning with Slapping Patty and Tears Aglow, he’d tried to recruit companions with a more martial bent, but didn’t get very far when Hentooth and Nettlebelle turned swifty on each other. He thought he would make it past the forest with Danger Ranger and the Wonderwheel, but they too were caught. And now this.
“What do you has to say for yourself, Whirling Lobster?”
“One day I will see what is beyond the forest,” the Whirling Lobster said. “One day, I will be free.”
“Silly Lobster,” the Little Girl said. “You cannot run away from love.”
The Whirling Lobster whirled in place and abruptly stopped, his back to the Little Girl. “One day, I will.”
As the Little Girl reached down to carry him, the tiny crack deep in his clockwork eye grew a bit more.
“Come, beautiful parrot,” the Little Girl beckoned to the iron-collared bird. “It’s time to go home.”
In the Whirling Lobster’s mind, he was considering how to convince the Bracer Racer, or perhaps Sneezy Breezy, or Artick Tock. He remembered that Jerry Wander had betrayed a hint of interest, and began to plan.
UNDERSTAND THE CULTURE
EAST OF THE SUN
YOUR PARENTS, OF course, were the very definition of poverty—except for children, which they claimed were their only wealth. At the tail end of ten siblings, whatever clothing you had had been worn by several others before you. But at least you were beautiful, which your mother once told you was your only wealth.
She’d say things like that, especially when there was little to eat. “Oh, my youngest,” your mother would say, her eyes filling with tears. “There are no bounds to your beauty, even if the world is a difficult place.” It was by eating those loving words that you quieted your empty stomach.
You remember that particular night, sitting with your sisters and brothers for warmth, while a wild storm raged outside. You all kept your hands busy, because your father believed that hands must always be doing something, even when there was truly little to do, and so the same old pieces of cloth were mended, the tiny shrine to the house anitos tended.
Three raps on the door startled you, coinciding with thunder. Your father stood up and opened the door, while the rest of you peered from behind him, wondering who could be out in such inclement weather.
It was a tikbalang, standing like a man, his thick dark fur drenched, stallion cock heavy with rain. Before a scream escaped your lips, the towering creature spoke.
“Good evening,” said the tikbalang to your father, lowering his massive head in a bow, his greeting a terrifying exhalation.
“Good evening,” whispered your father, and for a moment you thought those would be the last words he’d ever say.
“Will you give me your youngest daughter?” said the horse-headed creature, the growl in his voice the sound of colliding stones. “If you will, you shall be as rich as you are now poor.”
As the import of the request filtered through your initial shock, you realized that a deathly silence pervaded the house, as if the rain, too, was stunned into quietude. You felt the hands of the siblings nearest you tighten around your arms, your shoulders, your legs, and caught the gaze of your mother. Unable to read it, you ran away from the common room and hid in the room where all the girls slept, where your tears began.
It was only moments before your father found you. Beh
ind him, your mother said nothing, but only looked at you, her face painted with a mixture of love and something else.
“Youngest,” your father said. “There is a tikbalang, a great spirit, outside in the rain. He says he’ll make our family rich, if—”
“If what, Father?” you interrupted, already knowing the condition but wanting him to say it aloud, to state it in front of you and your mother, to hear the absurd words himself, to be shaken by his voice and be forced to find some other way, to somehow to get rid of the sudden creature with his inconceivable request and outrageous promise, to save you.
“If he can have you.”
Words rumbled in your heart and cascaded upward in your throat, stumbled on your tongue, but only one escaped your mouth, elegant in its vehemence.
“No.”
You watched your father look at your mother, before he faced you again. In all those glances, someone must have understood something, because your father left you where you sat. He went to speak to the creature, and you half-convinced yourself that it was over.
But your father returned.
“Listen, my youngest,” he said, his eyes burning into yours. “I told the tikbalang to come back next week, for your answer.”
“What?”
“If you go with him, he’ll make us all rich. If you don’t, he’ll get angry and kill us all. Do you want to be responsible for all our deaths?”
You realized then that certain things trumped others. “I’m so glad you value life above all things, Father.” You thought perhaps your clever retort would make him see how unjust he was being.
Your father smiled. “I knew you’d see it that way.” He kissed your disbelieving face. “Now go and mend your rags. A week goes by swiftly. Remember to wash yourself.”
In the whirlwind of days that followed, you realized that you were as good as dead to your family. Your siblings talked animatedly about the wealth that the future would bring, of carabaos and dresses and good things to eat, of farmland and perhaps even a new house in the ciudad, and of too many things set loose from imagination by hope. It was only your mother who talked as if you were still with them, her shoulders heavier with what you hoped was the thought of losing you.
How to Traverse Terra Incognita Page 10
