The Less Lonely Planet

by Rhys Hughes

  “I am Frith, a hero trying to prevent the nefarious schemes of Lord Sourglum. I travel now to the Capital with a message for King Popkin. So, as you can see, I am in a hurry. Therefore, I will brook no delay!”

  “Not so fast. I have heard of Lord Sourglum. He wishes to make himself Meringue of all the Realms of Memirir. Some call him Sourglum the Bitter. His Lemon Hordes are notorious warriors. However, I see no reason to aid you. In fact, I think that I should eat you instead. It is not very often that I have the pleasure of eating a hero. Or even a hero’s liver, come to think of it! Usually, I make do with the Moon Children of Lentilville. They worship me, you see, and always leave a sacrifice or two on the first day of every month.”

  “No, no,” said Frith in a very small voice. “My liver would give you indigestion! Yes, the Moon Children sound much more appetising. Yum! My liver is sure to be rotten. It would leave a foul taste in your mouth. I had a pain in it once, a stitch, when I ran after a pig,” he added.

  “For that item of trivia,” replied the Ruse, “I will rend you twice and mash you thrice and pick my teeth with your thigh bones.”

  Doubling up, Frith stooped and clutched at his stomach. “I am sick with fright!” But his good hand clutched Nigel’s hilt and when he heard the Ruse approach, and felt its fetid breath on his clammy face, he brought the mystic blade up in a deadly arc. There was a sickening crunch and something flew off into the bushes. “Your head!” cried Frith triumphantly.

  “One of my heads,” said the Ruse. It did not seem particularly concerned. Frith turned and ran blindly into the unnatural undergrowth, carving a path before him with Nigel. For long hours he ran until, utterly exhausted, he paused and listened for sounds of pursuit. There were none. He sighed a long sigh of relief and thanked Nigel yet again for saving his life.

  Pushing onwards more cautiously, Frith topped a low rise and found himself once more on the edges of the Moor. The moon had just risen, large and full, and it was possible to see for some distance ahead. Not far below, the lights of a village twinkled merrily and just beyond, the trees of a stately forest formed a stockade against the horizon. Frith began to laugh with delight. This was doubtless the Coniferous Forest. His quest was nearly at an end.

  Whistling merrily, Frith sauntered down towards the village, swinging Nigel in time to his improvised tune. Entering the village, Frith was surprised to find it apparently deserted, though strange hypnotic music filled the air and the windows of the houses glowed with rich pulsating colours. He peered into one house through the gaudily stained glass and blinked in astonishment. A motley collection of figures, dressed in loose flowing robes and garish headbands, were reclining around a flask from which extended various tubes. Every so often, one of the figures would raise a tube to its lips and a liquid inside the flask would bubble and froth. Smoke would then issue from the figure’s nostrils.

  Frith tapped on the window. “I’m a hero!” he cried. He dearly wished to be congratulated on the successful completion of his mission. “I’m a legend!” But the figures inside completely ignored him. He noted that the music came from a large peculiar stringed instrument that one of the figures was playing. The pulsating light came from a mechanical device that rotated in the corner. Frith tapped more vigorously but to no avail. Frowning, he moved on.

  Strangely, he discovered a similar situation in all the houses he investigated. Occasionally, one of the figures would raise its heavy lidded eyes in his direction and smile abstractedly, as if witnessing an entertaining delusion. Frith scowled and threw up his arms in frustration. He was bemused to find that most of the other buildings were craft shops of some kind, selling all sorts of amulets, charms, bead necklaces, paintings of mandalas and other mystic symbols and the almost ubiquitous flasks and tubes. All these shops, however, were closed.

  “Such ingratitude!” Frith fumed, but he decided to forget all about these odd people and hurry onwards to the Palace. King Popkin would surely heap so many praises upon his head that the apathy of these villagers would cease to matter. So he walked down the main street and set his eyes on the Coniferous Forest in the distance. He quite relished the prospect of once again walking through a normal, and relatively harmless, part of the countryside.

  At the other side of the village, however, he met two figures who were standing around a large open air fire. One was male and the other female, or so it seemed to Frith, though they were wearing similar clothing, astrakhans, sandals, amber jewellery, and both had long golden hair. The male was smoking a long cylinder of rolled up paper stuffed with some pungent herb. Frith hailed them and, languidly, they turned their heads.

  “Good day!” Frith cried. “I am a hero, although few seem to be interested in the fact, and I would appreciate some answers to a few questions. Who are you? And what is the name of this bizarre village?”

  The female stroked her long hair back from her face and smiled. Tiny silver bells tinkled as she moved. “My name is Sunflower, and this is Skychild. We are the Moon Children and this is Lentilville, the centre of the Universe and a place of peace, where all the ley lines converge and where all men, women, children, animals, plants and minerals live in harmony, side by side. Like wow!” she added, seemingly for no good reason. “I mean, hey!”

  “Groovy!” The male offered Frith his cylinder of herbs. Frith accepted out of politeness and inhaled deeply. A huge spark flew from the tip of the glowing tube and landed in his eye. He screamed as he felt the retina burn away. He choked as the noxious smoke filled his lungs. He staggered as an invisible hammer apparently struck him on the back of the head. Suddenly, everything seemed very funny. He fought down his hysteria, wiped ash and pieces of eye away from his cheek and tried to blink his vision back to a functional standard.

  “Lentilville? Then you are in grave danger! Don’t you know that the Wicked Ruse is on his way at this very moment to plunder your village and eat you? You must go inside at once and prepare to defend yourselves. I will stay to aid you. I am a hero!”

  “Heavy!” The male whistled through his teeth. “Relax man, take it easy. Open your mind to the rhythms of the Cosmos. We are safe here. We are the Moon Children.”

  Frith scratched his chin. For children, they seemed a trifle old. Indeed, he guessed that they were probably on the other side of middle age. “But the Wicked Ruse!” he repeated.

  “You mean Ruse the Earth Mother?” said the female with another smile. “Yes, we already know that she is coming. We are her offerings for the month. It is a great honour. We shall enter the belly of the great Earth Mother and be reincarnated as something pure and beautiful, like a tree. Or a dolphin.”

  Frith was exasperated. “No, it’s a trick! All the Ruse cares about is sucking the marrow from your bones! Listen to me, I was born a misfit and abandoned at the bottom of a gorge. The only one who would adopt me was a local pig farmer who made me live with the pigs and kept me working sixteen hours a day. But I have been redeemed! I have accepted the quest of Sir Nanoc of the Warty Toe to warn King Popkin of the expansionist designs of Lord Sourglum. My mission is almost over. I have braved many dangers and surmounted them all. You must let me continue my good work. You must heed my warning!”

  “Hey man, you’re chilling the scene!” The male seemed disturbed. He retrieved the burning cylinder from Frith and took long silent puffs. Almost instantly, he cheered up. “What’s the hurry? Life is an endless circle. Round and round we go. Peace and love.”

  Frith began to realise that they were incapable of defending themselves like ordinary people. A sudden altruistic notion came into his mind. He drew Nigel from his belt and held it aloft.

  “This is a magic sword. Its name is Nigel. It will protect you from the Ruse. Take it! I no longer need it. See that forest over there? That is the Coniferous Forest. Do you know what ‘coniferous’ means? It means ‘trees which bear cones’. Such a forest is not a danger to me. Yes, take my sword and remain safe from the clutches of the Ruse. Take my blade while I complete the last le
g of my journey. I leave you now and bid you farewell. To the Coniferous Forest I go!”

  Frith handed the sword to the male who gingerly accepted it and peered closely at it. “The colours!” he whispered, and his companion nodded. “Like, awesome!” They were both too engrossed to wave goodbye to Frith who was striding towards the Coniferous Forest, pleased with himself for making such a generous, heroic gesture. Sir Nanoc, he believed, would have been proud.

  When Sunflower and Skychild finally raised their heads, Frith was no more than a tiny dot, almost at the first rank of trees that comprised the beginning of the Forest. Skychild scratched his head and balanced Nigel in his hand. “What shall we do with it? Perhaps we could cut it into little pieces and make it into amulets?”

  “Good idea!” Sunflower was delighted. She clapped her hands. “But what a strange little man! Doesn’t he know that Lord Sourglum has already overrun the land and cut King Popkin’s head off? Talk about living in the past! And what does he mean by ‘Coniferous’ Forest?”

  “I think he means ‘Carnivorous’ Forest,” replied Skychild. He gazed again at Frith’s receding figure. “The one forest whose bark is as bad as its bite.” He idly swung Nigel and yawned. “Come on, let’s get this thing cut into pieces before the Earth Mother arrives.”

  As they headed back towards the village, Frith took his first step into the Carnivorous Forest. He was blissfully unaware of the spelling mistake that was to cost him so dearly. But as far as our tale is concerned, he has already justified his existence to posterity. Thus ends the legend of Frith. The rest, as they say, is History.

  Goblin Sunrise

  Anna shook her husband awake. Gareth blinked dreams from damp lashes. He struggled through the syrup of hypnopompic sleep. His yawn was as pink and large as the morning.

  Anna kept shaking him. “Eh?” he gasped. His hands clenched the pillow and wrestled it over the edge of the bed. The reflexes of a tree, Anna thought derisively. His eyes snapped open.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Anna lost no time. “There’s a little man outside the window. He’s wearing a floppy hat and curly slippers. He’s laughing his head off. He’s very ugly. He has a dirty beard and a warty face. Also, he’s got horns.”

  “Ah yes, that must be the goblin I ordered.”

  “The what?” Anna cast a doubtful look through the frosty glass. She frowned. “Did you say goblin?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I ordered one yesterday to do some work for us. Very hard workers apparently. Very efficient, very neat. Good overall value.” Gareth yawned again.

  “Where did you order it from?”

  “Little People Inc. A new company based in Cork, Eire. They provide goblins, gnomes, dwarves, elves and leprechauns for customers. Goblins are the cheapest of the lot. Not very bright, you see. But good workers all the same. Beautiful,” he added.

  Anna pouted. “I see.” She lay back down on the bed. Gareth closed his eyes. Anna frowned once more. Gareth snored. After a couple of minutes, she turned on her side, propped herself up on one elbow and studied his face with its gaping, drooling mouth.

  “What now?” He was somehow aware of her gaze.

  “Let me get this straight. You ordered a goblin to do some work for us? What sort of work?”

  “Oh, in the garden.” He was dismissive.

  There was another long pause. “I see,” she said again. She scratched her nose. She introduced the toes of her left foot to the toes of her right. “Then why is he floating in the air? And why is he cutting at the clouds with a pair of clippers?”

  “What?” Gareth woke with a start, jumped out of bed and squinted in the early light. The sun was big and red on the horizon. And there, far away, silhouetted by the dawn, a goblin was carefully trimming the rosy cumulus tufts.

  Gareth opened the window, looked down at his overgrown garden, shook his fists at the sky and cried: “The lawn, you fool! The lawn!”

  The Two Kingdoms

  There was a man called El-Viz who worked in a date factory in the far off land of Rholl. This date factory did not manufacture, or even process, those dried fruits you see sold in boxes which have pictures of oases on the label. Not at all! This date factory made days, weeks and months. The land of Rholl was always short of calendars, and so was a neighbouring kingdom which paid for them with fathoms, yards and inches.

  This neighbouring kingdom was called Krokh and was a desolate wilderness full of warlike people who rattled spears and feasted on nettles. One day, it occurred to the King of Krokh that instead of bartering for the precious dates, he could simply walk over the border and take as many as he pleased. Not by himself, of course, but accompanied by thirty thousand and one heavily armoured soldiers mounted on unicycles. He duly renamed himself ‘The Thief of Time’ and donned his copper helmet, brass breastplate, bronze greaves and tin whistle and prepared to invade.

  Now in Rholl, El-Viz had a deserved reputation as a shirker. At the date factory, he rarely produced a day on time. Quite often he wouldn’t have finished yesterday until tomorrow, or today until a week next Thursday. Whenever his immediate superior gave him a task to complete, he would sigh dreamily and reply: “Presently.” This was his answer to everything. Eventually, his colleagues decided that (as he didn’t have one) ‘Presently’ would be an apt surname.

  On the morning of the King of Krokh’s planned invasion, El-Viz fell asleep at his grindstone. He was supposed to grind the year down to normal size, smoothing the rough edges of the future, shaving the stubble off the chin of Chronos. But he snoozed off, and the resultant year contained an extra day. This, of course, is the origin of the leap year. When the king of Krokh pedalled across the border, he found that all the inhabitants had disappeared. They had ‘leapt’ over their potential conquerors and left them stranded in the past. Because they couldn’t get back out, the soldiers fell upon their own spears. And thus was Rholl saved from destruction.

  Naturally, the ruler of Rholl was very pleased by this outcome, and once the fuss had died down somewhat, he called El-Viz into his presence and asked him his name. “Presently,” was the reply, and a more clever one than it seems at first, for it is both true and evasive. The ruler of Rholl pointed out that the neighbouring kingdom now lacked a king and offered the position to El-Viz, who readily accepted.

  But El-Viz was not to remain satisfied for long. He grew bored, twiddling his thumbs and listening to the owners of factories that made fathoms, yards and inches. Finally he raised an army of his own, mounted them on tricycles (he claimed that three wheels were more amusing than one) and armed them with sticks of wet celery. They promptly crossed over into Rholl and conquered that kingdom, El-Viz keeping the old ruler in a cage made of rhubarb.

  And so now he was master of two kingdoms, united under a common flag and twiddling his thumbs no longer. He took up music instead and soon became very popular. For he was El-Viz Presently, the king of Krokh and Rholl.

  The Taming of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shrew

  When King Zoser is tired of finding sand in his bread, he calls for beer. When he is tired of finding sand in his beer, he calls for bread. He knows he is happy because the year is turning as it should.

  “What I need,” he decides, “is what I already have.”

  Through the narrow windows of his favourite palace, he watches the flooding of the Nile. He sees the copper swords bent into sickles on the forge of the knee; the reaping of the tall grasses; the sickles bent back into swords. He follows all.

  At other times, while priests burn offerings on stone altars, he plays board games in the hollow gloom. Or else he merely lounges with his principal wife, counting the spiders that twirl their webs on the cracked plaster of the lofty ceiling.

  “What I do not need,” he decides, “is what I do not have.”

  One bright morning, listening to the reed pipes of Nubian musicians, covering his gaping yawn with a heavily-ringed hand, his repose is shattered by the arrival of a messenger who, gli
stening with sweat and gasping for breath, crashes through the solid air of the palace.

  “A message, O King!” The fellow casts himself at the foot of the dais on which rests the throne.

  “Yes?” King Zoser nods and waves a languid hand.

  Prostrate before his mighty ruler, the messenger merely trembles and clutches at the cool stone. King Zoser sighs.

  “A message you say? What message?”

  The fellow clambers to his feet, brushes himself down and holds aloft a piece of papyrus. He squints in the light and frowns. “Two heads in profile, an ibex and a cat, squiggly line, hand, eye, another hand, another head in profile,” he says. “Squiggly line again, scarab, four ankhs and another cat.”

  “What?” King Zoser stands up and tugs at his chin. “This is serious!” He takes a couple of steps down from his throne and pauses. “Do you really mean to tell me that a giant mouse has invaded our land is eating all the grain in the granaries?”

  The messenger fumbles with the message and studies it more closely. “Not a mouse sire. A shrew.”

  “Where has this mouse come from?”

  “A shrew sire.”

  King Zoser throws back his cloak and strides up to the fellow, snatching the papyrus away and bearing it to a smoky oil-lamp that gutters in a recess in the wall. He scratches his head. “What does this bit say?” he demands.

  The messenger timidly peers over his shoulder. “Dead Cat.”

  King Zoser turns purple. “And what does it signify? It is not a proper word surely? What does it mean?”

  “That you are holding the message upside down.”

  King Zoser scowls. It is a magnificent scowl, one of his best, and from a man who is no novice in the art. The messenger rolls his eyes in mortal terror and retreats back the way he has come, bowing and scraping his forehead on the floor. King Zoser turns the message around and purses his lips. Finally he claps his hands.