by Mike Ashley
“What are you thinking, Barkwell?” the Grim Lord asked.
“I, m’lud?” Barkwell returned innocently. “Thinking is not part of my job description.”
“You are too thinking!” The Grim Lord smashed his fist onto his desktop. He had forgotten that he no longer had a desktop, overbalanced himself and sprawled at the zombie’s feet. “Don’t toy with me, Barkwell. I am a desperate locus of unfathomable evil.”
“I admit, m’lud, that I did have an idea. However, I do not think you are going to like it.”
“At this point, I’m ready to like anything. Except those goddamn pink drapes.”
“In that case, m’lud, I do have a suggestion: dump her.”
“What?”
“The princess, m’lud. Disentangle yourself from any alliances, domestic or otherwise, with the lady in question. Concede the match and allow her to return unharmed to the bosom of her family. Give her the royal kiss-off and get the hell out now.”
“What?” This time the Grim Lord said it more vehemently, with a lot of veinage showing in his Eye.
Barkwell shrugged. “There comes a time in every man’s life when he must examine his priorities and ask himself whether the game is worth the candle. In this case, our artistic guest will very likely adorn the niches of the Tower Ruthless with hand-dipped, patchouli-scented beeswax candles set in candelabra shaped like unicorns. He may even use bobeches.”
“What?” Now the word was used in its purely information-seeking sense. The Grim Lord got to his feet and dusted himself off.
“Those little collars you put around the bases of candles so you don’t get wax drips on the floor,” Barkwell provided.
The Grim Lord shivered at the horror of it. “You’re right, Barkwell. It will be hard for me to admit defeat, but better surrender and save what’s left of my sanity than put up with one more day of Selvagio.”
“Yoo hoo!” came a familiar voice from the far side of the study door. “I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten you! I’ll be coming in tomorrow to give you the high concept for a completely new vision of your study. I’ve found some corduroy swatches that—”
“Not a moment too soon, m’lud,” Barkwell murmured.
“Corduroy . . .” The Grim Lord mouthed the word as charily as if it were a live lizard. More charily; he liked keeping live lizards in his mouth. “Is the fiend a living cornucopia of cruelties and perversions?”
“Let us fervently hope we need never learn the answer to that, m’lud,” said Barkwell. Ever the considerate servant, he provided his master with a set of earplugs while on the far side of the door Selvagio continued to rhapsodize over the many uses of terra-cotta and chintz.
“Would it help if I said I’m sorry?” the Princess Minuriel asked. She was mounted on a fine steed, ready to depart Dire Garde. Her handmaidens had already passed beneath the portcullis and awaited her on the road.
“It would help if you said you’re taking him with you,” the Grim Lord replied. He held the bridle of her horse in a death grip. Despite all he had done to her, the expression of panic and desperation now on his face called up pity in the elf-maiden’s heart-of-hearts.
“But I can’t,” she replied. “My father banned him from the elfin lands—”
“Your father is one smart elf.”
“—and besides, you signed the contract. You can’t get rid of him until he’s finished the job; otherwise he’ll file a grievance and the Guild of Interior Decorators will investigate.”
“What do I care if—”
“Sixty-eight more Selvagios?”
The Grim Lord began to weep. This time he was able to keep his Eye out of it, so the tears that fell did not melt anything save Minuriel’s heart. To her surprise, she found herself leaning over in the saddle to stroke the Grim Lord’s hair – which was a very nice shade of brown if you could manage to catch sight of it between the tentacles.
“There, there,” she said. “I feel just awful about this, especially since you’ve been so nice about letting me out of my marriage agreement with you.”
“I thought you’d take him away with you!” the Grim Lord wailed. “That’s the only reason I let you go free!”
“Nevertheless—” The princess didn’t like to be corrected when she was riding the crest of an altruistic moment. “I feel a certain obligation to you. I must rescue you from this plight. I feel responsible. Noblesse oblige.”
“Is that anything like bobeches?” the Grim Lord asked suspiciously.
The elf-maiden dismounted. “Wait here,” she instructed the Grim Lord. “I’m going to ask Selvagio to let you out of your contract as a personal favor to me.”
The Grim Lord held her horse’s bridle with one hand while with the other he pressed her fingertips to his mouth. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” he enthused between grateful smooches. “I know he’ll listen to you! How could anyone resist granting you anything your heart might desire?”
Despite having no lips, he was a surprisingly capable kisser. (It is a little known fact that the predominating elvish erogenous zone resides in the fingers. This accounts for the preponderance of pickpockets in the population, as well as why most elves don rubber gloves before shaking hands with orcs.) The princess felt an unwonted flush rising to her cheeks at his attentions. Almost reluctantly she disengaged her hand. “Please, there—there’s no need to thank me,” she stammered. Flustered, she fled into the castle.
She emerged a short time later, much changed. No longer did she blush or flutter. She was in full command of herself. She was every inch the royal virgin elf-maiden. She was nursing a slow-burning rage the size of a yak.
“That miserable little grub!” she bellowed, stamping her foot. One of the forecourt paving stones cracked right up the middle. The Grim Lord jumped at the sound and dropped the bridle; Minuriel’s mount bolted.
“Oh! Uh . . . oops. Sorry. I’ll have my men fetch you another one in just a—”
“Forget the frammin’ horse!” the princess swore. “I don’t want a horse. I want blood!”
“Er . . . You do?” The Grim Lord teetered between shock and hospitality. “What— what vintage?”
“His blood,” Minuriel specified. “The thin, worthless, probably pastel blood of Selvagio Napp!”
“He— he turned you down? He refused to cancel my contract?”
“Worse!” She began to pace up and down before the Grim Lord, working herself up into a royal snit. “Just because it was my magic that summoned him to Dire Garde, he presented me with a bill for his travel expenses. The gall!”
“But if your magic brought him here, he had no travel expenses.” The Grim Lord was well and truly ferhoodled.
“Well, he did have to send for his clothing and a few personal toiletry articles,” Minuriel admitted. “But you’d think a real businessman would write off things like that.”
The Grim Lord gazed shyly at the elfin maid. “I’d – I’d be honored to pay the bill for you,” he said.
“Would you?”
The Grim Lord nodded.
“No strings attached?”
He shook his head.
Princess Minuriel looked at him – really looked at him – for the first time. “Why— why Your Infernality, in a certain light you’re— you’re— why, you’re cute!”
“Shhhhhh!” The Grim Lord hushed her desperately. “You already ruined my home. Are you trying to ruin my reputation, too?”
Minuriel smiled and patted his cheek. “It’ll be our little secret . . . Grimmy.”
At this tender moment, Shiksael came trotting back into the castle forecourt. “What’s the holdup, Your Highness?” she demanded. “Shikagoel and I thought you maybe stopped to powder your nose and fell in.”
“Ah, the elegance of high elfin court training,” Minuriel muttered. More audibly she said, “Come on back in and bring Shikagoel with you. We’re not leaving.”
“What? Why not?”
“You’ll see,” she said mea
ningfully.
The scene in the great hall was almost identical to the first time the Grim Lord attempted to espouse the Princess Minuriel. True, the severed heads on the minstrels’ gallery had been replaced by plaster cherubs, the black draperies on the dais were now saffron, apricot, and gold, a thick layer of aquamarine stucco coated the walls, the drapes were unarguably pink, and someone had tied a white lace bow around Skully’s neck. Other than that, everything was the same.
Her eyes luminous with devotion, the princess Minuriel spoke the wedding vows of her people: “I, Minuriel, highborn elfin virgin, which nobody can deny, do pledge to thee my heart, my hand, and my dowry, freely and of my own will, so may these witnesses attest!”
The Grim Lord then gave the proper response according to his own beliefs, namely: “Her: Mine!” But to do him credit, he had the good grace to look embarrassed. The massed troops cheered.
“What is going on here?” Selvagio came tromping into the great hall, bolts of baize and seersucker trailing behind him. “You can’t marry him!” He dropped the cloth and produced his copy of the contract. “It says right here that the wedding may not take place until such time as I have been paid for my services.”
Coolly Minuriel regarded the obstreperous decorator. “And how much do you expect to be paid, pray?”
Selvagio named a sum that made trolls quail and wraiths give up the ghost. Even the Grim Lord went a little chalky around the gills. The decorator was unmoved by this display. He folded his arms across his chest and said, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Did you think monogrammed towels for a castle that has fifty-eight bathrooms were going to come cheap? Have you seen the price of terry cloth on the open market lately? I have honored my part of the contract. I expect to be paid. And furthermore, there’s the matter of my travel expenses—”
“Well, it says here—” Minuriel whipped a copy of the contract from the bosom of her wedding gown, “—that you don’t get paid until you’ve finished the job!”
“But I have!” Selvagio objected. “I’ve only just finished his study.” He pointed at the Grim Lord.
“My study!” His Atrocity echoed. “Why didn’t Barkwell stop you?”
“Barkwell?” Selvagio’s brows knit in perplexity.
“My zombie manservant.”
“Ohhhhh.” The decorator was enlightened. “I mistook him for a stubborn mildew stain. A little lemon-scented cleanser, a little elbow grease, a half dozen bunny-shaped air fresheners, and he was gone.”
The Grim Lord groaned. “He was my best servant! Do you know how hard it is to dig up good help nowadays?”
“I thought he was rather outspoken for mildew,” Selvagio admitted. Then he shrugged. “I’ll deduct the cost of the air fresheners from your final bill, but that’s the best I can do.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said the princess. “Or this contract is null and void. You agreed to redecorate every interior on the premises.”
“But I have!” Selvagio asserted.
Minuriel’s lips curved up ever so slightly at the corners. “Not quite. There is one you missed.”
By now the decorator was growing irate. “I suppose you’re talking about a secret chamber or some such tired old gimmick. Well, you don’t get out of paying me that easily. The contract specifies that you’ve got to show me any interior I might have missed.”
“Would you like me to show it to you now?” Minuriel asked sweetly.
“Yes, I would!” The veins on Selvagio’s neck stood out in an alarming manner when he shouted like that.
“All right. If you insist.” The elfin princess raised her hands and gestured in a style familiar to mystics and hooch-dancers everywhere. There was a thrumming, a flash of green, and the air between herself and the decorator gelled into a conveniently compact indoor-sized dragon. It tilted its head quizzically at the quaking Selvagio and, without any fuss worth mentioning, devoured him.
The princess produced a memo pad and well-chewed pencil stub. With a fine flourish she ticked an item off a list known but to herself. “That’s the last interior,” she announced cheerfully. “I’d say Selvagio’s redecorating it just fine. Of course, as for his bill—”
The dragon gave a short, polite little cough and hawked up the former decorator’s paperwork, along with half a bolt of seersucker. Ignoring the fabric, Minuriel picked up the partially digested bill and duly marked it VOID. This done, she noticed the groundswell of terror currently pervading the congregation, all of whom were regarding the dragon askance. “Oh, calm down,” she directed. “He’s just my dowry.”
“Your dowry?” the Grim Lord echoed. “A dragon’s your dowry?”
“It’s an elf thing. Royal virgins receive the power to command dragons as soon as we’re married; it’s sort of like practice for handling husbands. Or do you think I’d have stood for being locked away in that tacky old tower of yours for so long if I could’ve summoned up something like him anytime I wanted?” The lady shrugged. “Besides, I already have a blender.”
The Grim Lord regarded his bride with renewed respect. “Why, darling, in a certain light you’re— you’re— why, you’re completely merciless!”
Minuriel blushed becomingly. “This old personality trait? I’ve had it for years!”
Tenderly he took her into his arms, and to the cheers of his subjects and the insane chittering of Skully, they embraced.
Jorc the orc peered around the great hall doorway. “I got fired off me paper route. Any chance o’ me gettin’ m’old job ba—?” He paused, awestruck by the spectacle he now beheld. “D’I miss anythin’?” he asked, hesitantly creeping to the head of the assemblage.
The dragon, who had digested Selvagio’s sense of style along with the rest of the decorator, ate him. He didn’t match the drapes.
PRESS ANN
Terry Bisson
Like Avram Davidson, Terry Bisson (b. 1942) is one of those treasures of fantasy and science fiction who produces highly original stories that defy categorization. Novels like Talking Man (1986) and Fire on the Mountain (1988), as well as the ingenious stories in Bears Discover Fire (1993), show a rare talent that is always testing the boundaries of fantasy. Even the following story, which is one of his most straightforward, is far from simple.
WELCOME TO CASH-IN-A-FLASH
1342 LOCATIONS
TO SERVE YOU CITYWIDE
PLEASE INSERT YOUR CASH-IN-A-FLASH CARD
THANK YOU
NOW ENTER YOUR CASH-IN-A-FLASH NUMBER
THANK YOU
PLEASE SELECT DESIRED SERVICE—
DEPOSIT
WITHDRAWAL
BALANCE
WEATHER
“Weather?”
“What’s the problem, Em?”
“Since when do these things give the weather?”
“Maybe it’s some new thing. Just get the cash, it’s 6:22 and we’re going to be late.”
THANK YOU
WITHDRAWAL FROM—
SAVINGS
CHECKING
CREDIT LINE
OTHER
CHECKING
THANK YOU
PLEASE ENTER DESIRED AMOUNT—
$20
$60
$100
$200
$60
$60 FOR A MOVIE?
“Bruce, come over here and look at this.”
“Emily, it’s 6:26. The movie starts at 6.41.”
“How does the cash machine know we’re going to the movie?”
“What are you talking about? Are you mad because you have to get the money, Em? Can I help it if a machine ate my card?”
$60
$60 FOR A MOVIE?
“It just did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Bruce, come over here and look at this.”
“$60 for a movie?”
“I’m getting money for dinner, too. It is my birthday after all, even if I have to plan the entire party. Not to mention get the mon
ey to pay for it.”
“I can’t believe this. You’re mad at me because a machine ate my card.”
“Forget it. The point is, how does the cash machine know we’re going to a movie?”
“Emily, it’s 6:29. Just press Enter and let’s go.”
“Okay, okay.”
WHO IS THE GUY WITH THE WATCH?
BOYFRIEND
HUSBAND
RELATIVE
OTHER
“Bruce!”
“Emily, it’s 6:30. Just get the money and let’s go.”
“Now it’s asking me about you.”
“6:31!”
“Okay!”
OTHER
“Excuse me, do you two mind if I . . .”
“Look, pal, there’s a problem with this machine. There’s another cash machine right down the street if you’re in such a goddamn hurry.”
“Bruce! Why be rude?”
“Forget it, he’s gone.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY
WOULD YOU LIKE—
DEPOSIT
WITHDRAWAL
BALANCE
WEATHER
“How does it know it’s my birthday?”
“Jesus, Em, it’s probably coded in your card or something. It is now 6:34 and in exactly seven minutes . . . what the hell is this? Weather?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“You’re not going to press it!”
“Why not?”
WEATHER
THANK YOU
SELECT DESIRED CONDITIONS—
COOL AND CLOUDY
FAIR AND MILD
LIGHT SNOW
LIGHT RAIN
“Em, will you quit playing around!”
LIGHT RAIN
“Rain? On your birthday?”
“Just a light rain. I just want to see if it works. We’re going to the movie anyway.”
“Not if we don’t get out of here.”
PERFECT MOVIE WEATHER
WOULD YOU LIKE—
DEPOSIT
WITHDRAWAL
BALANCE
POPCORN
“Em, this machine is seriously fucked up.”
“I know. I wonder if you get butter.”
“It’s 6:36. Just press Withdrawal and let’s get the hell out of here. We have five minutes until the movie starts.”
