by Jeff Strand
"I heard that was just a rumor."
"No, no, it's the truth. Apparently the crystal used to be part of the legendary Necklace of Powerfulness."
As Randall pondered this piece of information, the servers entered from the kitchen, holding bowls of soup, which they placed in front of Randall, Alan, and King Irving.
"Remember," said one of the servers to King Irving, "at the bottom of your bowl is a happy face, so eat it all up!"
Randall looked down into his bowl. The soup was thick and sort of a pale orange color. "What is this?" he whispered to his server.
"Peel soup."
"Excuse me?"
"You know, the peels of fruits and vegetables are the most nutritious part, so that's what this soup is made from. Plus a special sauce."
"That's disgusting."
"Shhhhh. Eat up."
The servers filed out of the room. Randall put his spoon into the soup, and was not pleased to find that the spoon could stand straight up without him holding it.
King Irving swallowed a spoonful. "Ahhh, delicious!" he proclaimed. "So delicious, in fact, that I would be extremely disappointed and unforgiving if my guest should feel differently about the soup and not finish the entire bowl."
Randall scooped up a spoonful, and lifted it to his mouth. He smelled it. It made his nose hurt.
"So," he began, "about that necklace crystal. You say it comes from the Necklace of Power?"
"Is that what I said, Alan?"
"No, Your Highness, that is not what you said."
"Explain to our guest what I said."
"He said it was the Necklace of Powerfulness."
"That's exactly what I said."
Randall continued to hold the spoon next to his mouth. "They're the same thing, right? Is it conceivable that if I were to, say, need the Necklace of Power really bad and were to, say, obtain the Necklace of Powerfulness instead, that it wouldn't make a difference?"
"Heck, I dunno. Eat your soup."
Randall continued to hold the spoon next to his mouth. "I wonder if Sir William would appreciate me enjoying such a fine meal, while he's no doubt surviving on grubs."
"That's not our problem. Go on, eat up."
Randall continue to hold the spoon next to his mouth. Then, calling upon his full reserves of willpower, he placed the spoon inside his open mouth and closed his lips over it. He stayed in that position for a moment. Finally, he pulled the spoon out, leaving the soup behind.
He knew that spitting it out onto the table, gasping for breath, and shrieking "What psychopathic idiot in the kitchen thought this was edible?!?" would be quite a faux pas. As would simply keeling over. But, as desperately as he tried, his throat refused to admit the offending liquid, which meant that his tongue, clearly the suffering party, had to remain in soup-contact.
"Gak," he said, not meaning to.
"Pardon me?" asked King Irving.
"Gurk," Randall replied. He pointed across the table. As the king and Alan turned around to look, Randall leaned forward and spit the soup into the flower arrangement in the center of the table.
"What?" asked Alan.
"That painting," said Randall, gesturing to a painting of a chicken that hung on the wall behind the king and Alan. "It's very artistic. Where'd you get it?"
"The queen did it," said King Irving. "She says it symbolizes our lack of knowledge, since though the chicken lays an egg, we don't know which came first."
"It could also symbolize transportation by crossing the road," Randall pointed out.
"Shut up," said the king.
Randall looked over at the open window. "Forgive me, but I've always wanted to see what the view is like from a royal dining room. Do you mind?"
"Go right ahead," said the king.
Randall scooped up a mouthful of the soup, then stood up and walked over to the window. He leaned out, peering down at the commoners below, then spit out the repugnant fluid.
"Nice view from up here," said Randall. "The people on the ground look like ants."
"Yes, a rather unfortunate series of mutations," said Alan. "Probably something in the water. Come to think of it, you might not want to drink any more."
Randall sat back down at the table. There remained plenty of the hellish swill in his bowl. His stomach began to twist around like a balloon animal being formed. He could almost sense the soup mocking his taste buds, daring them to come closer...closer....
There had to be someplace else to get rid of the soup. His pants seemed like a poor choice, though he was willing to try it if no other option surfaced.
The king lifted his bowl to his lips and began to slurp the remainder of the soup. Alan did the same. Randall lifted his bowl, shouted "Nervous twitch!" and hurled it across the room. The bowl shattered against the wall.
"Sorry."
"That's quite a twitch you've got there," King Irving remarked.
"I know. It's a terrible burden in social situations. Especially romantic ones. You'd be amazed how many amorous moments have been disrupted by my punching a potential lover. Though on one occasion it led our relationship into a whole new area."
"I'll have some more soup brought out to you," said King Irving.
"No, that's okay. I need to teach my body a lesson or it'll never learn. I really should be fasting, anyway. It's Saturday, right?"
"Monday."
"Yep, two days after Saturday on the dot. No food for me."
"Well," said the king, "I guess the meal is over. Time to get back to my royal duties, unless you have anything else you'd like to say."
Randall glanced down at the necklace and remembered his whole reason for being here. "There's a little something, I guess. Nothing important. A tiny tidbit of information I'd like to glean, if you don't mind."
"Let me guess. Believing that you've gained my trust, you're going to very cleverly try to get me to reveal the secret location of the treasure chest I keep hidden in my room, so that you can steal it quickly after sneaking into my room tonight and slitting my throat, right?"
Randall's blood went cold. "The necklace is a giveaway, isn't it?"
"Yes. Those guys try the same old stuff, week after week. When will they learn?"
Randall tried to emit a good-natured chuckle. "So, I can safely assume that you're aware I was forced into this situation? I mean, I am Sir William's squire."
"What do you think, Alan?"
"Nothing good, Your Highness."
"I'm serious," Randall insisted. "There's this bug, and it saved me from dying in the desert, and the Ricks are holding it hostage unless I work for them!"
"So you're putting a bug above a king?" asked Alan.
"Just now thinking that over, it does sound pretty bad, doesn't it? But I wasn't going to go through with it! I was going to raise an alarm at the last second, giving you a chance to catch the Ricks in the act!"
"I'm sorry," said the king, shaking his head. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to notify King Waldo of Mosiman that the squire Randall was executed for treason."
"Notify. Okay. But, in reality, you're just going to banish me, right?"
"No. We're going to guillotine you. Alan, see to it that our guest is given accommodations in our dungeon."
Chapter 14
A Bummer Situation For Randall
HANDS CHAINED behind his back and two guards flanking him, Randall followed Alan down the spiraling stone stairs into darkness. Spiders scurried in and out of cracks in the wall. A bat flew overhead. A boll weevil got crushed beneath Alan's foot.
After several spirals, they reached the bottom of the stairs and the doorway to the dungeons. They waited a few minutes for the spiral-induced dizziness to wear off and for one of the guards to be sick in private, and then proceeded forward, where they were met by another guard. His skin was burnt all over, and he wore an eyepatch. Unfortunately, he was wearing the eyepatch as a makeshift jockstrap, and it didn't cover nearly enough for Randall's happiness.
The burnt guard gave the
m a savage grin. "Torture or execution?"
"Execution," Alan replied, "but I think he could do with a bit of torture first."
"Good." The burnt guard took a piece of paper off a nearby desk. "Fill out this torture request form in triplicate, and he'll be taken care of."
A piercing shriek came from the dungeon area.
"Get him to scream louder!" shouted the burnt guard.
The shriek got louder.
"Increase the pitch!"
The pitch increased.
"Get him to scream 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'!"
No response.
The burnt guard scowled. "Torturers today, they can't even get a prisoner to shriek a nursery rhyme. In my heyday, we'd have six prisoners singing that in perfect harmony and with all the correct lyrics."
"Here you go," said Alan, handing him the paper.
The burnt guard looked it over. "Ah, another crony of the H.L.K.U.A.K. movement. When will they learn?"
After Alan and the two guards left, Randall was led down a long hallway, where miserable-looking prisoners sat in their cells doing nothing. "It's Learn-To-Quilt Week," said the burnt guard, "but none of them seem to be getting into it. Their loss, I say."
At the end of the hallway, they rounded a corner. "This is our torture area," the burnt guard explained. "But here in Rainey Dungeon, we're not just barbarians into physical pain. No, we realize the impact of mental torture as well."
He stopped by one of the cells. A prisoner was chained to the wall while a pair of torturers stood in front of him.
"You're worthless," said one.
"You're not just worthless, you're completely worthless," said the other.
"And nobody likes you."
"Nobody at all."
"And you were adopted."
"By accident."
The burnt guard continued moving, leading Randall down to the cell at the end of the hall. He shoved him inside, where another pair of guards were waiting. "This is Bob and Ben," the burnt guard said. "They don't like people."
Bob and Ben were twins, except that Ben was a little uglier. Not too much, just enough that a casual observer might think that Ben had taken a slightly larger sip of the Ugly Broth at birth. They were both large men, with enormous muscles everywhere one cared to look. They both had exactly one eyebrow each. They had one tooth between them (and Bob was using it at the moment). Their combined stench was enough to explode a small animal from twenty feet away.
"Hello to you, my friend to be. It's too bad you're not here for tea," said Bob, in a sing-song pattern.
The burnt guard slammed the cell door shut. "He's going to be executed tomorrow," he said, "so make sure there's enough left of his head to chop off."
"We shall do that, I'm sure you know. For we are men who run the show."
"Will you knock it off?" asked Ben. He turned to Randall. "You can't even have a lousy conversation with this guy."
"My speech is what makes me unique. Into my soul it gives a peek."
Ben motioned to an unsturdy-looking wooden chair. "Have a seat," he told Randall. "We'll get started."
"Yes please sit down, oh one to die. So we can make you want to cry."
"I'm going to make your ugly face cry if you don't start talking like a normal person instead of some poetry freak."
"You know the way I feel for rhyme. I like to say them all the time."
"Can you believe this guy?" Ben asked Randall. "Oh, he thinks he's all impressive, but try to get him to say something he hasn't said a million times already. Watch this. Hey, Bob, what's your opinion of a moose?"
"I must admit I don't like moose. I think that they..." He thought for a moment. "...are far too loose."
"See? What kind of ridiculous statement is that? I mean, he could have said something like 'I think that they are worse than goose.'"
"Well, goose would be singular," Randall said.
"Yeah, that's right. But you've got truce, deuce, abuse, obtuse..."
"None of those have much to do with moose."
"I must admit I don't like moose. I'd like to hang them from a noose," said Ben.
"Stoooo-pid."
"I must admit I hate brown moose. I wish that they came in chartreuse."
"You see my point?" Bob asked Randall. "That rhyme stuff just doesn't work in a normal conversation."
"Leave me alone, brother of mine. Or I shall have to..." He trailed off, unable to complete the sentence. "Dang."
"You've made yourself into a verbal cripple. I hope you're satisfied. Now, let's get to the torture!" He turned to Randall and slapped him across the face. It wasn't a particularly hard slap, but it still stung.
"Gonna cry?" asked Bob. "Huh? Gonna cry? Gonna cry? Is the baby gonna cry?" He reached out and gave Randall's nose a good pinch. "That hurt? Huh? Gonna cry?" He gave Randall's ear a sharp tug. "What about that? That hurt? Gonna cry? Want your mommy? Gonna tell on me? Huh?"
He tapped his finger against Randall's chest. When Randall looked down, he brought his finger up, snapping Randall across the face. "That hurt? Gonna cry? Ben, get me Igor."
"I shall do just what you request. My brother you are just the best. Ha! Flawless!"
"You had to separate 'bro' and 'ther' to get the two-beat pattern right. Sounded pretty forced to me."
Ben sighed and picked up Igor, a small hand puppet of a deformed hunchback. He gave it to Bob, who placed it on his hand, then held it less than an inch from Randall's face. "This is Igor. Kissy, kissy!" He shoved the puppet against Randall's face, moving it in a grinding motion.
"Quit it," said Randall.
"Oh, he wants me to quit it! Had enough? Has the baby had enough? I'll decide when you've had enough." He continued grinding the puppet against Randall's face. "Kissy, kissy!"
Annoyed, Randall glanced over at Ben, who was removing something from a coal stove. A red-hot poker.
"It is my turn to bring him pain. No pain, no gain, no pain, no gain."
Bob stepped out of the way, bringing Igor with him. Ben very slowly began to move forward, the poker out in front of him. When it was three inches from Randall's face, he stopped, moving it up and down, teasing him. Randall frantically tried to blow on it to cool it down.
"Starting to sweat?" asked Bob. "Kind of hot, isn't it? It sure doesn't feel good having a red-hot poker that close to your face, does it? Get it even closer, Ben."
Ben moved it another half-inch closer. Rivulets of sweat poured down Randall's forehead, and he could barely breathe in his intense fright.
"Put it over by his ear," suggested Bob. "That'll really be uncomfortable. You know, because your ear is more fragile and all that."
Ben brought the tip of the poker around next to Randall's ear. He held it there for several seconds. "Okay, that'll do," said Bob. "Put the poker back in the stove."
As Ben returned the poker, Igor came back into play. "Kissy, kissy! Kissy, kissy! Gonna cry?"
"All right, he's had enough," said the burnt guard, appearing at the cell door.
"But I didn't get to use the rubber bands!" Bob protested.
"Tough."
"Or the glue!"
"Tough."
"Or the spitballs!"
"I said, tough." The burnt guard threw open the cell door, entered, and grabbed Randall by the arm. "C'mon, let's go."
"We shall miss you, I think I'll say. Please do come back some other day."
"He can't come back, doofus," said Bob. "He's gonna be dead. See, if you wouldn't worry so much about those rhymes, you wouldn't say stupid things like that. You think he respects you now? You think he's going to go to his grave thinking 'Gosh, that Ben guy sure was a swell chap!'? No way! He's going to die thinking 'That rhyming imbecile sure made a twit out of himself.' I mean, you had a million rhymes for 'say' and you still couldn't come up with something intelligent."
"Fine," said Ben. "I will never rhyme again. You hear me? I ill-way ever-nay yme-rhay ain-agay."
"No!" said Bob. "No pig latin! I mean it!"
"Oes-day it other-bay ou-yay?"
Bob lunged at his brother and smashed Igor into his face. The burnt guard shrugged and led Randall out of the cell and back down the hallway. He unlocked the first cell after they rounded the corner and shoved Randall inside with a young man with a tremendously long beard and filthy clothing.
"That's Jack, your cellmate," said the burnt guard, as he shut the door and left.
Randall surveyed his surroundings. There wasn't much besides the heavily written-upon wall and a bunch of straw on the ground. Jack sat in the corner, watching Randall carefully. Randall looked at him uncomfortably.
"So, what's up?" Randall asked.
"It's a direction. The opposite of down."
"I see."
"As do I, and all creatures with eyes."
"I'm not going to like you, am I?"
Jack grinned. "Just messing with your mind. And you are...?"
"Randall. A squire." He noticed that the walls were covered with thousands of games of Hangman, every single one of which used the word 'debutante.'
"My previous cellmate had a one-word vocabulary, but he did love to play Hangman," Jack explained.
"What happened to him?"
"He was hanged. Poor boy didn't realize the irony until the very end. Are you here for imprisonment or to await execution?"
"Execution."
"Ah. So it doesn't matter if we get along or not. Me, I've received a sentence of life imprisonment. Once a day I'm taken to be tortured and have that stupid puppet shoved in my face, but aside from that it's not such a bad life."
"What did you do?"
"Therein lies a tale. Do you want me to share it with you?"
"Is it long?"
"Not too long. A few minutes."
"How many?"
"Maybe five."
"Can it be condensed?"
"Not without losing most of the details that give it a you-are-there feel."
"Okay, go ahead."
"Thank you. Here's what happened..."
ONCE UPON a time, a boy named Jack lived in a small cottage with his mother. The cottage was certainly not "roomy," and the pastel motif was less than pleasant, but it was home.
One day their cow, Bessie Sue Mae, quit giving milk.
