Fool Me Twice (Filidor Vesh)

by Matthew Hughes

  “But all the wealth you took from Henwaye’s trove is back in the Osgood.”

  “I probably would have lost it all in the time honored way.”

  “I admire your disposition,” Filidor said.

  Valderoyn made a noise that conveyed pleasure and surprise. “I am only myself, but that is enough for me,” he said.

  Filidor found himself slipping into a mood of introspection. It was clear that Etch Valderoyn felt more than gratitude for his rescues, that the sailor truly held his deliverer in some affection. It was not a sentiment Filidor was used to receiving. Among the small coterie of lordlings with whom he made sport, there was some camaraderie, expressed in banter that differed only in quality, not in kind, from the lead-lined wit he had heard being lumbered about by the fence-sitting youth back in Clutter. Whether there was affection behind the barbs and jibes, or just a desire to score points regardless of any wounds that might be inflicted, was difficult to say.

  His thoughts again turned to his uncle, and again he felt a pang of concern. He could admit to himself that he regarded his only kin with a mix of emotions -- frequently it was exasperation, sometimes fear -- but that underneath all else there was a foundation of familial love. And he would admit to himself also that he believed the feeling was reciprocated. When he was younger, he often complained that his uncle had been set on Old Earth for the single purpose of making his nephew’s life a struggle and a torment. But now, having wandered the world with the odd little man, and having learned something of his own resources, Filidor was prepared to accept that the tests and ordeals the Archon had set him through the years had all been intended to benefit him, to “grow him up good,” as the old saying went.

  The dwarf cared about him, and Filidor returned the little man’s regard. But there was a dark obverse to bright side of that particular coin: because he cared for his uncle, he was now worried for him. Rationality could tell him that his uncle was capable of overmatching the likes of Faubon Bassariot; the indeterminate status of the Archon as reported by Tet Folbrey argued that the little man was by no means out of the game; but logic was thin armor against the hammering of fear that beat upon Filidor’s spirit when he turned his mind to what might be happening in the Archonate palace.

  Once more, he put those thoughts aside. There was one other aspect of his life about which his emotions were unsettled. Somewhere ahead of the speeding skimdoo was a young woman named Emmlyn Podarke, who figured largely in Filidor’s present predicament, and who loomed no less prominently over the formerly flat plains of his emotional life. The next day might well bring him within sight and scent of her, and how would that be?

  He could imagine various scenarios. He saw himself striding about, slapping something against the side of his leg for emphasis as he stressed to a trembling and apologetic Emmlyn the severity of her transgressions in stealing his plaque and sigil, before nobly bending to forgive her. Or perhaps he would arrive in the nick of time, to find her direly pressed by Bassariot or his minions, so that he could seize the moment with an appropriate flourish and perform one notable deed that would resolve all in his favor. The exact nature of the deed remained obscure.

  It did occur to him that their next encounter might carry some of the flavor of their last -- a mingling of anger and confusion leading to ignominy -- but that thought too he set aside. He had been caught unawares on the pavement of Vodel Close; now he would carry the initiative, and the results would fall into a more congenial arrangement.

  But, though he resolutely told himself that all would be well, a lingering odor of uncertainty kept rising from the back corner of his mind where he thought he had safely buried his doubts. He turned his head so that his voice was lost in the slipstream of his passage, and said, “Integrator?”

  I have little energy. My sheets barely glimmer. Be brief.

  “What do you know of love?”

  Everything and nothing. The answer was followed by a harsh click.

  Filidor rephrased his query, but the voice would not, or perhaps could not, answer.

  They crested another hill, the tight beam of their forelumen spearing the darkness like the single horn of some fabulous questing beast. Valderoyn sang a song about wine and women, and on they went.

  ***

  When the first pearls of dawn touched the tops of the hills behind them, they came down to Lake Foddlemere, passing through pasture land broken by small copses of pine and hybrid prussdar trees. Near the still water’s edge, they stopped in the shelter of one of the little stands of timber and dismounted from the skimdoo. Valderoyn’s eyes were red and heavy. “A few moments stretched out with my percies closed, and we’ll be off again,” he said.

  “I could drive us,” Filidor said.

  “Sure you could,” said the sailor, “but you couldn’t do that and keep me from falling off the back. I had little enough sleep in the Osgood, and none since.” While he was saying it, he lowered himself onto the mat of needles and scarcely spoke the last syllable before he was asleep. Filidor manhandled the skimdoo under cover and lay upon his back, gazing up through the trees into the pre-dawn sky. He began to consider what approach to take toward finding their destination, and closed his eyes the better to concentrate. He was surprised to discover, when he opened them again, that it was full morning.

  Etch Valderoyn slumbered still. Filidor woke him and they breakfasted on some bread and cheese from the Flastovic larder. Then the sailor stretched and said, “On our way.”

  From the edge of the trees they looked east. Mt. Cassadet was in plain sight on the horizon, a squat, truncated cone of black and gray, with one side collapsed in an ancient eruption. Between them and it was the long narrow finger of the lake, with a rolling rise of forested hills beyond.

  “I’ll drive,” said Filidor, to which his companion consented. The young man started the skimdoo and they mounted. At that moment, they heard a deeper sound above the hiss of the little craft’s engine. Filidor looked up and saw a long, dark air-car slanting across the sky on a course which paralleled their own. It was too far distant for him to see the device emblazoned on its door, but the colors were unmistakable. And there could be only one person in that sleek, humming vehicle.

  “Perhaps things are arranging themselves to our advantage,” he told Valderoyn. “I would enjoy a reckoning with Faubon Bassariot.”

  The sailor shrugged and suggested they move off. Filidor steered the skimdoo down to the water’s edge then out onto the rippling surface. The conveyance plowed a temporary furrow across the lake, sending tickles of spray past their cheeks. As with every body of water, the distance to the far shore turned out to be greater than it seemed, but they were soon enough sliding over the narrow beach and then climbing the wooded slopes.

  Hember Forest was a dark place. It had been planted long before by the head of a noble house -- Filidor had once known which family, but had now forgotten -- which had owned most of the land hereabouts centuries before. The place had been a vast hunting preserve, its topography intelligently worked and shaped to provide interesting challenges for pursued and pursuer alike: blind canyons, unexpected precipices, sudden stretches of quicksand. To the natural fauna were added creations from the vivivats: garoons and proto-erbs, a common species of lizard enlarged until its height rivaled that of the trees, and a solitary ape of grand dimensions that had its own ideas about which was the hunter and which the quarry. Filidor told all of this to Etch Valderoyn, and saw the sailor’s face grow very still.

  “Are these monsters still about?” the man inquired, his eyes enlarging as he peered into the trees.

  Filidor could not remember, but said, “ I don’t think so. But let us be cautious.”

  No roads transected Hember, but the several main trails were wide as alleys in the city, and there were maps and direction signs where these passageways met. Soon after entering the forest, by means of a narrow footpath, Filidor came u
pon one of the broader trails, and followed it to an intersection. There he discovered that the trail on which they were traveling was named Rabalaunt Way, and that it was crossed here by Farlan Wind.

  Even more informative, however, was the schematic map of the forest reproduced by paint and gravure on a large slab of dark wood erected at one corner of the intersection. Filidor had been wondering how he would determine where the Podarke lodge lay without attracting the attention of the police agencies that would doubtless have it under close observation, if not actual siege, its owners having been publicly branded as bandits and lawless zealots. But that problem he now found removed from his agenda; the hunting lodges and other retreats were identified on the map by the names of their owners. Siskine Podarke’s cabin lay to the south and east, up a trail labeled Ridge Run. The map even provided a scale of distances, from which Filidor calculated that they could reach the place by late afternoon.

  “That will give us plenty of time to scout the lodge and find a safe means of bypassing any pickets,” he said. “Probably, the bobblobblobl will serve us well.”

  “I don’t care for forests,” the sailor told him again. “There are things in them, things you don’t see.”

  Filidor spoke over his shoulder. “Are there not things hidden in the sea?”

  “I never cared for them either,” said Valderoyn. He peered into the darkness between the trees, as if sure that something with teeth, claws and an appetite was already identifying his tastiest portions. “Couldn’t we try the place in town?” he said.

  “We are here, and might as well see what we can see,” said the Archon’s apprentice.

  They turned onto Farlan Wind and took it slowly. The trail, though comfortably wide, lived up to its name; it curved and bent around outcrops of rock and stately trees, so that the wayfarer could never see more than a short distance ahead or behind. Filidor did not want to round one of its curves and find a Trumble sheriff’s car blocking his way, or worse yet, some irascible beast that would be glad of a target on which to vent its aggressive nature.

  As they traveled, the land rose. In places, the trees thinned and they could see vistas of the open country they had crossed to reach Hember, or more of the forest itself. Soon, however, the trees closed in and for all they could tell, there might be nothing but timber and undergrowth in all the world.

  As the map had indicated, Farlan Wind brought them to the Coralegg Steps, and they put the skimdoo up the terraced path until they met Ridge Run. As its name had suggested, this trail ran along the top of a long wrinkle in the landscape that ended on the slopes of Mt. Cassadet. The sign at the intersection told them that the Podarke lodge was only a few minutes skim.

  “We should dismount here,” Filidor said, “and proceed on foot.” He checked the skimdoo’s power reservoir and found that it was largely depleted. “We’ll push it along with us, in case we need to make a rapid departure.”

  He adjusted the craft’s controls to their lowest setting, and asked Etch Valderoyn to bring it along behind, while he walked a little ahead to scout the way before them.

  They came to a bend and Filidor took to the undergrowth at the side of the trail and eased forward. The way ahead, when he saw it, was as empty as that behind, and they walked on. He repeated the procedure several more times as they followed the winding path, always without incident. Then, as the shadows among the trees were deepening into dusk, they came to a place where the trail rounded a great black boulder patterned in bright green lichen. Filidor edged his way partly around the obstruction, then quickly pulled back.

  “What is it?” Valderoyn whispered. “The falicks?”

  “I’m not sure,’ said the Archon’s apprentice, puzzled. “I saw no uniforms or insigniated cars. But it must be the Podarke lodge, and there seem to be people relaxing on the porch.”

  He peeked again at the scene beyond the boulder. The forest had been cleared on both sides of the trail. On one side was a grassy area on which two rubber tired vehicles were parked, on the other was a sprawling two-storied building of squared timbers and rough hewn stone, girdled by a covered verandah and surrounded by a close cropped lawn. At the front, some people were sitting on chairs or lounging on the porch railing, talking animatedly, though he was too far away to make out what they were saying and the shade from the overhanging roof made the figures only dark silhouettes. It appeared they had drinks in their hands.

  “The Podarkes could not be making so merry when they are the objects of official action,” he told the sailor. “The struggle must be over, and these are the victorious police assault units refreshing themselves after completing the job.”

  “Then let’s not tarry,” said Valderoyn. “Let’s away.”

  “Not yet,” said Filidor. “I’m tired of being in the dark.” He pulled the bobblobblobl from its pouch and slipped it over his head. “I will go closer to see what I can learn.”

  Invisible, he rounded the boulder and cut across the lawn toward the rear of the building. He intended to make his way forward until he could overhear what those on the porch were saying, without getting close enough for them to smell the Obblob sheath -- this far from the sea it would be so unexpected an affront to the senses as to invite investigation.

  The grass of the lawn was thick and still damp from the morning’s dew. Filidor looked back and saw that he was leaving a discernible trail, but it could not be helped. Fortunately, the people on the front verandah were too occupied in their own merriment to notice. In a short time, he made it to the side of the lodge near the rear, and found that the floor of the porch was just about level with his head. He began to make his way toward the sound of voices.

  The tone suggested carefree banter. He was almost close enough to make out what was being said when he heard a curious whirring noise from somewhere near his feet. He looked down and saw something small and white through the gauze of the bobblobblobl. Before he could identify it, it nosed itself under the hem of the Obblobs disguise and revealed itself to be some kind of small household pet with a depressed muzzle and protruding malevolent eyes. The whirring sound was its growl.

  “Get away,” Filidor whispered, kicking fitfully at the thing, but the animal disregarded his instructions. Instead, it shot forward and sank small but sharp teeth into his ankle.

  Filidor’s eyes bulged much like his diminutive assailant’s as he suppressed the impulse to cry out in pain. Now he kicked with earnest, flailing the seized limb about in an attempt to dislodge the grim little monster. But the thing had apparently been engineered to retain a grip on anything its needlish fangs encountered. It swung from side to side at the end of his leg as if grafted there. Finally, the young man flung his leg straight, with the energy of a dancer attempting a new record for the high kick. The creature departed from Filidor in an arc across the lawn, a piece of his flesh still clamped in its jaws, and landed with a minor thump on the grass. There it lay half stunned and whimpering.

  The sound of its distress was some comfort to the young man, but not enough to compensate for the fire in his wounded ankle. Still, he crept forward, now leaving spots of blood in his mysterious footprints. But the struggle had not alerted the people on the porch. He heard something said in a bass tone, which was answered by a woman’s insouciant comment that touched off general laughter.

  Now another growl came from behind him, and something about its timbre caused him to look. Above the little whimpering demon stood a much larger version, this one done in black and brown, with bunched muscles and teeth almost as long as Filidor’s fingers. Its ears lay flat against its broad head, and its capacious nostrils were flared. It growled again, nosed the air once more, then set a course that would bring it straight to the bobblobblobl.

  Filidor doubted that the sheath’s odor would deter the watchbeast any more than it had the sharp-toothed pet. There was no hope to outrun the thing, which was already lollopping over the turf at impressive spe
ed. With no other recourse, he extended his arms, bent his knees and leapt to catch the railing that topped the verandah’s balustrade. His grip, through the slippery fabric of the bobblobblobl, was insecure, but he managed to pull himself up until his belly was on the railing. At that point, the snarling animal arrived below him, and being able to see his legs and feet through the open bottom of his disguise, it leapt at those targets with fangs bared.

  Its maw first met the trailing edge of the invisible bobblobblobl, however, and it sank its teeth into the thin, rubbery fabric. Filidor might have been grateful that it was not his own flesh in the mouth of the beast, which now hung its considerable weight from the Obblob disguise, the powerful body shaking from side to side, the jaws clamped shut. But any cause for gratitude would soon be canceled out by the inevitable next stage of the assault, which would see him dragged free of the porch railing, to land on the grass where the brute would have its choice of places to bite him.

  He clung as hard as he might to the railing, but the bobblobblobl offered scant friction between his hands and the wood. The sheath had stretched a little, enough that the watchbeast’s rear feet had descended to the ground, but that meant that its head was now out of kicking range, even if kicking such a head might have had any influence on its intentions, a likelihood which Filidor doubted.

  All the while, the animal kept emitting deep throated growls and gruff grunts of effort, joined now by ear-grating yaps from its little white companion, which had limped over to be in on the kill. The noise attracted the attention of the people on the front verandah. They came around the corner and saw the two animals, the larger one apparently balancing on its hind toes in an unlikely posture. Of Filidor they could as yet see nothing, although one of them said, “What is that awful stink?”

  Filidor’s complete attention was focused on trying not to lose his slipping grip on the railing. He had made up his mind to call for help, preferring being taken by the falicks over being ripped apart by the slavering beast below, while its yipping partner chewed his remnants. He opened his mouth, but as he did so the fabric of the bobblobblobl split where it was stretched tightly across the top of his skull. To those watching, it seemed that a head suddenly appeared in the air above the railing, followed by a neck and shoulders, then more of the young man as the sheath tore away.