The Smell of Telescopes

by Hughes, Rhys

  “I’ll do anything in return,” blurted Emyr.

  Before he could appreciate the idiocy of this remark, I gestured at my verger, beckoning him forward. The patrons frowned as he emerged from the shadows, stupefied as to how a minor divine could generate spontaneously from a void. Then I blared imperiously:

  “Free ale and cakes until the end of time.”

  “That’s easy. I want to do something difficult for you. Stand on my head for a month or marry a bucket. I can’t say that it’s pleasant to be stranded in Shropshire, which is an attenuated echo of Wales, but rather this than a return to Lladloh nasties.”

  My verger and I exchanged glances. I indicated the window. “Here is truly a bleak wasteland, devoid of the appurtenances of civilisation. If you construct a settlement, say a small town, to enclose the pub, I will be duly satisfied. Houses, shops, casinos, saloons, theatres, parks, but don’t build a church. Leave it amoral.”

  “Consider it done!” And Emyr reached behind the bar for a whip with which to enrol and organise the labour of his drinkers, whose complaints were drowned by the crack of knucklebone lash. One at a time, they drank up and slowly shuffled out to work. My verger gasped at this development and I bent closer to explain, mumbling:

  “Why race around the land looking for pastors when we can lure them here? What better trap than a godless pit? A town without a church! They will come to establish one themselves!”

  Under Emyr’s direction, work progressed rapidly. Within a week, we drank no longer in an isolated tavern but in a village pub. The settlement was as nameless as the tavern (in Whitby nothing is named because nobody can read in the dark) and we argued long hours over a suitable title. It was prudent to pacify the former customers, now slaves, and I shared much of my beer and cakes with them, instead of burdening them with wages, which I couldn’t afford anyway. The three managers of the project (which is how I came to think of the barman, verger and myself) based ourselves at the bar, ensuring that all tastes were accounted for. The ale ran out too quickly and we were forced to brew our own from local weeds. In time we adapted to the toxic flavours; at perigee to the tongue they eclipsed moonshine. I should have been content. But the harpoon in the beam still disturbed me. The stress in the cable was monumental and something would soon have to give, other than our host.

  One morning, while we were chatting about cricket (a game which has not yet reached Shropshire in any recognisable form) and how the ancient druids were wont to bat with a hare’s ear, the incident I feared as much as the tickle of a hangman’s noose occurred. The harpoon line snapped. I heard a shrill whistle, like a kettle boiling over a firefly, but it was not immediately obvious what had happened, for the rope didn’t break our end. I touched it and burnt my palm: it was contracting rapidly, and the tension was draining out of it like steam. My verger and I rushed to the window, to observe a pale object approaching from the horizon. I thought it was a toy balloon, knotted to the far tip of the cord, but as it flew closer, I recognised the outline as a callous intrusion from my past. My verger was as shrewd as I, standing aside from the window, but poor Emyr was tardier than a scrapbook, and when the missile crashed into the pub, it landed on him and skittled him awry.

  We hurried to his side. “Are you badly injured?”

  He was. The collision had prolapsed an eyeball. It hung down on his cheek on the optic nerve, as if to lower tears gently to the cold floor. He sat up, glanced about (by swinging the eye from side to side and over his shoulder) and groaned pathetically:

  “What in the name of leprous pustules was that?”

  “A yellow imp. He was clutching the other end of the cable and must have been catapulted all the way here.”

  The trivial being in question cleared its throat. “Sure, and it’s a long way from Monmouth. Hiding in the spokes of the waterwheel by Monnow Bridge, I was. Managed to cut a length of rope and suddenly found myself in this cavern of polychromic drunkards. Broke a fang on an iris, I did. You may arrange compensation in opals.”

  “Hiding, eh? Why weren’t you in the market?” I picked him up by the nose and inverted him, but his pockets were empty. “Cheating honest folk is your standard pastime, not lurking.”

  “You don’t understand. The market’s been taken over by gnoles. They have driven us out. We are unemployed.”

  “Don’t be ludicrous. Gnoles live in Zipangu. That’s where they went after they were successfully burgled by Nuth. Who did you steal this lie from? Answer quickly, my beige napkin.”

  “It’s true. The place is crawling with them. Please don’t wipe your chin with me! Of course gnoles live in Zipangu, but now Zipangu lives in Monmouth! It’s the waterwheel’s fault.”

  I remembered the machine and Monnow Bridge, where Owain had knocked out my canine. The imp and I had two traumas in common: sore gum and exile. Yet he was enlightened and I was confused, so our woes were not entirely matched. Nonetheless, a speck of empathy required me to put him down and smooth the petals of his sunflower jerkin. An impulsive movement to gain time to ponder, to subdue my tongue for a more sober interrogation, but the imp satisfied my unvoiced queries without prompting; the wind of his trip had oiled his lips. Monmouth had changed a great deal, he insisted. It was built on three separate levels now, each precariously balanced on the other, parts of which had given way so that vast tracts were jumbled up together. There was the original town at the base, then the island of Zipangu, held over it by the iron poles of the market stalls, and a lush kingdom of hemlock forest over this, supported by the pagodas of Zipangu and trailing tendrils of vegetation over the rim. All very peculiar, but life continued much as before, except for the imps, who couldn’t compete with the aggressive gnoles. Famished, they wandered the suburbs of the town, seeking scraps to eat. Because imps are good at selling rope, and gnoles have been known to express an interest in it, our yellow friend resolved to obtain a piece and win their trust. For some reason, there were three extremely long lines wrapped around the waterwheel: two were tangled and beyond rescue, the third met his knife.

  “It didn’t help much,” he muttered. “I bet the gnoles will be after me now for leaving Monmouth without a permit. Gross dictators, they are! Sipping sword-flavoured tea all night!”

  The last thing I wanted was a troupe of gnoles taking over the pub, spoiling my project. With a flourish, I drew out my flawed blueberry pie from a secret pocket. “Perhaps I can assist you, lemon fool. Allow me to stain your skin with a fruity filling.”

  I lifted the lid off the crust and he nodded.

  “Disguise me as a blue dwarf? Superb!”

  “Climb inside and splash around for a while.”

  The operation was simple but effective. The instant he finished his blueberry ablutions, he was a yellow imp no longer.

  Just then, there was a rumpus from outside. Not the gnoles, but the slaves, who were tired of erecting buildings and wanted to rise up in revolutionary ferment. Draping his loosened eye over his left wrist like a dishcloth, Emyr went to deal with the problem. I could hardly bear to look at him now, though he had always been ugly, and was delighted for him to go.

  Returning with a worried squint (which was engineered between finger and thumb) he told us that the slaves were planning to storm the tavern and kill the verger and I. They had finally made the logical connection between our appearance and the theft of their meals. Before we arrived, beer and cakes vanished mysteriously. Now they gorged at our expense and naught went missing. So there had to be a link between our existence and this anomaly: a link to be severed with many blows of a shovel.

  The blue dwarf formerly known as a yellow imp touched my knee. “You did me a favour. Let me now return it.”

  And he walked out of the building. There were screams, so muted and ethereal that I thought he was kicking moths, then he came back in, tiny hands slick with a dull, viscous fluid.

  “The colour of my skin is different. But I still have the skills of an imp. We are the finest pickpockets.”

&
nbsp; “I assume you picked something else today?”

  He smirked. “Livers. Do you have a loaf of bread?”

  I didn’t know whether to hug or retch all over him. But Emyr tapped my shoulder. “Without a workforce, we can’t finish the town! I refuse to mix cement, heft bricks, mend trowels.”

  “No need,” I replied. “Everything’s turned out for the best. We may not have a town, but we’ve got a quaint village, and that should attract pastors even more quickly. Let’s have a pint while we wait for the knock on the door. It’ll take about a month.”

  And so it did. Yet when I answered the rhythmic fist, as ready to kiss a sacred hem or sing a pious hymn as sign a hissing pie, if one ever baked my way, I found no column of holy agents but a vision of feminine beauty beyond any succour of the Church. A radiant maiden, stronger on radiance than maidenliness, and full of glee, all light and smiles and frolicsome as a young fawn, loving and cherishing all things within reason, and I jumped up high to clap my clumsy hands.

  “Fair Myfanwy! You’ve come back to me at last!”

  “Not quite, Gruffydd. But an explanation is in order. I followed an unwound turban to find this place. When the cable propelled the imp from Monmouth to Shropshire, a frayed end of his elaborate headwear caught in a waterwheel spoke and stretched into a yellow ribbon which led me here. Now let me tell you the part you’ve played in my little scheme. Remember when you romanced me with a carrot and clock? You lost your trousers and soul because of your lust, and when I exchanged my own to buy them back, a hatstand and three harpoons were thrown in. These simple items gave me an opportunity to improve intellectual conditions for the common folk of Wales. Before Owain, yourself and I rushed to the corners of the scalene world, I mounted a harpoon on each of our heads. Then I wrapped the ends of the trailing ropes around the waterwheel. My notion was for the barbs to stick in our destinations, the three points of existence, and for the turning wheel to gradually pull them together, so that the planet was no longer triangular but folded over like a samosa. That’s not as neat as a sphere, but Welsh mentality mustn’t be rushed. It should first be herded and dipped, then shorn of woolly ideas.

  “I realise you are flabbergasted by the audacity of this operation. To be honest, I was unsure whether the Welsh were ready for such a giant leap in the science of geography. But I was tired of living in a country which still had a triangular planet. In every other nation, the world is round, like an orange. Only in Wales does it resemble a slice of pie. Of course, I feared you might spoil the venture, and so you did. Owain went to Zipangu, the eastern corner of the planet, and I reached Pennsylvania safely, the western corner. But instead of braving it out to Hyperborea, the northern corner, you stopped in Whitby. Then you inadvertently fixed your harpoon to a weak point by climbing through a window in a structure which broke free of the land and was drawn in without any background. So although two flaps of the triangle have come together in Monmouth, there is still a third jutting out into the cosmos, and Wales continues to lag behind its European neighbours. I make no mention of Shropshire, because it has an even more primitive conception of the world (a bubble in solid rock) and thus cannot be helped. Now I want you to come back with me, to put matters to rights. It’s your duty.”

  Fumbling with my surplice, I cried: “You’re not going to send me to Hyperborea? What a fine woman you are!”

  She nodded in agreement, turning her head one way and then another, so that her profile might have an airing. It was noble enough to be that of an empress of confections, and my heart yearned to be a berry beneath her crust, but she didn’t share my ardour, for her smile was utilitarian and would brook no syrupy emotion atop.

  “It’s not sentiment, Gruffydd. The mess can be sorted out from your home in Monmouth, but I need you to operate the ovens. In return, I will help you conquer Owain and Tangerine Pan, his familiar. It’ll be the pie fight of the millennium! A prime example of batterpole, which is rougher than slapstick. Come with me, buffoon!”

  I glanced at my verger for advice, but his expression was even more devious than Myfanwy’s. I knew he was formulating his own scheme when he answered: “Yes, let’s go back to Monmouth. But permit me to take Owain’s trousers first. It’s a kind of trophy.”

  As we left, barman and dwarf ran up to me. I thought they wanted to commiserate, or wish me luck for the future. But what had really excited them was something far more selfish. Although his hanging orb oscillated like a pendulum, Emyr’s timing was bad.

  “I’ve finally come up with a name for the pub! ‘The Plucked Eyeball’. What do you think? And my tiny friend here thinks ‘Purloin My Liver’ would be a humorous epithet for the village.”

  “And accurate, because I intend to pick the livers of everybody who crosses into it,” added the blue dwarf.

  “You still need a local clergyman,” I pointed out.

  Myfanwy took my arm and we stepped out into the mundane wastelands. My verger skipped and bent to retrieve Owain’s trousers. They were stuck fast under the foundations and he had to strain hugely to free them. But the rewards of this toil were material.

  “Look now, Gruffydd! They’re completely buckled!”

  Lanolin Brows

  A city made from wood. Not planks and boards nailed together, but carved out of a single pine block. Towers and temples, homes and shops, arcades with slender columns, windmills and taverns, concert halls and theatres, libraries of grainy books, squares and parks, all lovingly chiselled and planed and painted. Each oval cobble on every road is a protuberance on a whole body, not a separate element. The environment is integrated with itself. It is one. And there is no civil strife, for the inhabitants are also fashioned from wood, rooted in the ground, immobile and bevelled. A population of empty suits of armour, fixed in bustling positions at work and play. The outdoor cafés are full, the municipal buildings are packed with clerks, there is an audience at the opera, the jail has a prisoner, but none are true, all are varnished.

  The king of this timber metropolis stalks the alleyways with a saw. It is his token, as it was for Shamash, god of the Sumerian sun, who cut the days into dark and light. But he, the mortal, is a Swedish carpenter and knows nothing of deities other than Woden, who is jointed and rotten and felled. The teeth of his blade are blunt, for they have rasped much, feasting on the knots of his domain, but a symbol may serve on a loftier level. Infrequently, as he patrols the pavements, he adjusts a member of the public, perhaps notching lines of age on smooth cheeks, amputating a finger to simulate a plague, trimming a splintered beard. At night, when he surveys the city from the balcony of his palace, he can be assured it is changing in accordance with standard time. To thrive quicker than his subjects is one of his worst terrors.

  His name is Lanolin Brows, though none of his people call him that. Once a pirate, now a potentate, his eye is frosted from winking slyly at the equator. It was not a safe gesture. The imaginary line is too bright at noon on a foaming sea. His memories of buccaneering are unhappy. When he followed Morgan to Puerto de Naos, creeping along the scurvy coast to Porto Bello, the captain ordered him off the ship into a canoe to attack the town more secretly, but the smaller vessel was chipped on the stern, a poor piece of work; he disapproved. His protests were disregarded. The life of a craftsman among ruffians is difficult. The arquebus nestled so awkwardly in his arms that he cast it away and charged with his tools. A drill does not need reloading. Nor a vise virtue. Glue flicked in a face is also a sticky end for expressions.

  The inhabitants were asleep when the carnage began. So he fashioned cabinets from chests and spittoons from snores, unopposed. Shaping death is not as comfortable as producing chairs, but his mercy was sanded away in a professional frenzy. The richest citizens woke and hurled valuables down wells to cheat the rovers of booty. He peered over the edge of one, at a bobbing casket of pearls, wondering how to hook it out with an axe, but his musings were pounded out of his mind by a gold candelabrum which fell from the upper storey of a house. The woman who
dwelled up there had mistaken his blond hair for reflected moonlight at the cistern’s bottom. From that moment he vowed never to rush into battle without armour, hewn from teak joists: helmet, greaves, cuirass. In the aftermath he span his lathe, filling the port with sawdust.

  “Do you seek to choke the donkeys and prisoners? Do you not trust a swallow of grog as protection, ’Lin?”

  “Not really, sir. It is inadequate proof.”

  “Take care not to rot in the marshes of Panama. This raid is only a practice for our big act of bravado.”

  And Morgan stomped off, to torment a captive nun. Truly Porto Bello was a dry run for an assault on the Cup of Gold, as the urban wonder was mostly called, for the rum ration had been reduced and the Welsh corsair wanted all blood thinned with water or knives, depending on nationality. The rovers ridiculed the grog which substituted for the manly stuff; the Spanish had no more affection for the blades. When the armour was ready, the carpenter tried it on, to the amusement of barber and sailmaker, his closest friends. Spermaceti Whiskers wanted to shampoo the visor, but was dissuaded by a hammer; Thanatology Spleen hoped to stitch a surcoat, but was repelled by a mallet. The suit moaned as it moved, but it was hot in winter, cool in summer, and deflected grapeshot quite as well as an iron shell. Also it floated across rivers.

  The sound of wooden armour, though muted, was unique enough to give him nightmares of thorns. Now, in his own city, the kindling chords were everywhere with the wind. When ice blew down from the mountains, all his subjects would creak together. Then he would leave the palace balcony in numb anxiety and return to his throne. His saw doubled as a sceptre, his head as an orb. He listened to the crowd and it seemed they were hailing or jeering him; he could not judge. No civil strife? Ha! So what if they grew sufficiently high to oust him? Pine versus teak; he was tougher but they were more. It hardly mattered he was a benign dictator, for history is a chisel and gouges the pith with the worm. A sculpted republic might arise, with equal rights for all branches of society; a dismal prospect, against the grain of honest politics.