The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Ah, high-spirited womanhood, delight of the world!

  “And if you mean the kind old gentleman in the magician’s robe,” she continued her abject explanation, “he said to take a snack and a tankard on his own tab, and he’ll see you in the morning.”

  Could it be? Mayhap, thought I, the sorcerer Mus Domesticus was willing to come to terms. Perhaps he had realized that his victory over Upchuck the Barbarian was but a temporary one, that any man who durst place himself in opposition to the terror out of Secaucus was doomed. If Mus had so realized, mayhap he was seeking to make amends.

  “Very well,” quoth I to the serving wench. “Bring me a haunch of salmon and a flagon of fermented penguin’s milk, and be quick with it. And by the by,” I added quickly ere she was away, “what do they call you, my dear?”

  She blushed cunningly and curtsied at that sharp sally, and said, “Betimes they calls me Blodwen and betimes they calls me other things, but I never me mind so long’s they don’t call me late for dinner!”

  With that she burst into an uproarious tittering and made her way, both jiggling and giggling, to fetch my food and drink. I pointed mine naked feet toward the inn’s fireplace to warmth. Sorely did they miss old Ed and Fred, held hostage by Mus Domesticus. Whilst awaiting mine refreshments I occupied myself with listing to the conversations of revelers and merry-makers athwart and abaft my unbroken oaken table.

  Nearby a grimy cut-throat and his equally disreputable companion were discussing the local Shire Reeve, one Lawless Quinsana, whose latest exploit had been the arrest and imprisonment of an entire class of choir students en route from matins to midday devotions. Shire Reeve Quinsana had accused the younglings of thinking impure thoughts, and had sold them all off into bondage to the Geometers of the Plain of Euclid. None were expected to survive the ordeal.

  Afore I could hear more sweet Blodwen returned with a steaming platter which she placed on the oaken board before me. I sampled the dishes thereon and offered her my gallant approval, adding a sly compliment to her maidenly charms. “Wouldst join me in a comfy room above, after thy service ends for the night?” I asked.

  “Aye, fuzzycheeks,” she assented, “Lord Domesticus’s simoleons be as good than any, I’ll close mine eyes and think on some fair foreign land whilst I earn my—ugh!— biastres.”

  Well, ye who read this chronicle, see you now the irresistible appeal with which she was smitten! I downed two, three, many tankards of fermented penguin milk in celebration of my coming disflowerment, then trembling with anticipation and somewhat nauseous from the amount of penguin’s milk I had downed, I staggered barefoot up a narrow flight of stairs flickeringly lighted by a few greasy torches.

  Upstairs I flopped across a mattress of straw ticking and hummed a brave tune to myself while I held down my stomach and awaited Blodwen. Here is how went the old folk ballad that I hummed:

  Ay, diddle dizzy dilly dummy

  Dooby what a hack

  Wrote about a dopy fellow

  By the name of Brak.

  Sing swords and thews and beak-nosed Jews

  It’s very absurd but it’s a penny a word.

  Ay, decades ago there was a guy who wrote

  About a goop named Jongor

  But the passage of time brought a much worse crime

  When another scribbler first invented Thongor.

  Sing spells and bells and bottomless wells

  And write any junk as long as it sells.

  Ay, Kothar, Kandar and the resta them yuks

  Can struggle along till things go wrong

  And then, you see, if you don’t know what to do

  You can stop and vamp while someone sings a song.

  This stuff is bunk though I guess the author needs it

  But what kind of cretin is the idiot who reads it?

  By now there were poundings upon the walls of my quarters and angry shouts of protest from other guests of the inn so I ceased my ballading. Admit I will that the meter was imperfect in one or two places, and mayhap the rhyming was a trifle obvious, but then it was an old ballad which I was making up as I went along, and my head was more than slightly bleared.

  As well I had raised my dulcet voice in song, though, for now, with only a shy knock to announce her arrival, the voluptuous Blodwen slipped through my doorway, a large drinking-skin – I should guess of rehoboam size – coyly hidden beneath her already amply filled blouse. She bolted the heavily timbered door behind her and crossed the room lightly, seating herself beside me on the bed.

  “Hoy there, Blodwen,” quoth I, “welcome to my love nest.”

  “Ooh, fresh,” she responded, holding the wineskin to my lips. Deeply quaffed I of its nectar-like contents, lying back with a sigh and beginning to toy with her skirt.

  “Why Upchuck,” she giggled, “art always so for’ard with the maidens?”

  “Mmm,” I replied archly. She offered me a bit more of the wineskin and I imbibed deeply, rubbing mine cheek sensuously against her neck.

  A few more endearments and a few more sips from the skin and I lay back upon the ticking, struggling to free myself of Lotion and Gravyshedder. The now enchanted Blodwen gave me the wineskin to hold and pressed me down upon the ticking. I felt myself burp once or twice and then all was blackness.

  The yellow rays of dawn crept through cracks in the wall of the Stagger Inn and wakened me still there upon the ticking. Lotion and Gravyshedder still clung to me. Mine head was filled with a myriad trolls pounding anvils. Mine stomach was as an angry swamp, sending upward distress signals and sour tastes. I sat myself upon the edge of the bed and found myself barely able to remain upright.

  After a while I stumbled down the stairs and found a crew ready to confront me. There stood the tricksy Mus Domesticus, there stood the blowsy and delightful Blodwen, and between them a man of surly mien and foul disposition who introduced himself as the Shire Reeve Quinsana.

  “Ay, Reeve,” quoth I, “your goodwill is appreciated but I wouldst seek mine own revenge against these two foul traitors.”

  “He’s the one,” Blodwen broke in, “he ate and drank and filled a room, and now he must pay.”

  “Pay?” I gasped, amazed. “Pay? Twas the foul sorcerer who robbed my stash and who then offered me his hospitality at this inn!”

  “Never heard of the bum,” saith Domesticus, turning toward the Reeve. “I just dropped by to visit my cousin Blodwen and her old daddy, Quinsana.”

  “What?” I choked. “Then stand and defend your foul selves!” Thus saying I reached for Punkzapper and Hoodsticker, only to recall that they had been stolen from me along with my boots, Fred and Ed.

  The Reeve siezed me by one shoulder, the sorcerer by the other. “Come along, kid,” quoth Quinsana. “A little spell with the Trigs’ll straighten you out. I’ll see to it that they set you free as soon as you come to full manhood, so you can become a decent, bill-paying citizen.”

  I screamed, kicked and struggled all the way to the Shire Reeve’s cart. The guardsman at the gate recognized me as we left Poughkeepsie and followed us screaming that the Duke would demand his tribute if ever I dared set foot in the city again.

  My lovely she-horse Heroine was seized to pay my debts.

  But Upchuck does not forget, nor will he be forgotten. Somehow I will endure my vile servitude until I am able to escape, and new chronicles of Upchuck of Secaucus will see print, if but ever again I can find an editor mad enough to purchase them!

  THE TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH EUNUCH

  Jane Yolen

  Jane Yolen (b. 1939) is a prolific writer of fantasies for both children and adults. She is a master of the fairy tale, having produced over a dozen such collections, of which perhaps the most representative are Tales of Wonder (1983) and Dragonfield (1985). Many of her tales capture that essence of story and she can manipulate it to whatever ends she desires. The following amusing Arabian Nights entertainment is definitely not a fairy tale – at least, not for children.

  It is tr
ue that I am the seventeenth eunuch of the Lady Badroulboudour, and the last of the bed guardians chosen to serve her. Some of us were born so, some were created so by other men, and a few are self-made – or self-unmade. But none of the eunuchs had so odd a borning as I.

  When I came to the Lady Badroulboudour, her husband The Aladdin was already some years dead. Their illustrious sons were the rulers of kingdoms, court viziers, and members of the advisory. Their daughters were wives to neighboring princes and caliphs and emirs. Exiled to her own apartments – for the new sultan, her eldest son, knew how mothers can interfere in the running of kingdoms – she had nothing better to do than practice such small magicks as her husband had instructed her in, read trashy tales of houris and kings, and care for her many cats. She had white cats with fur like the tops of waves, brown cats the color of the dunes at dusk, gray cats as dark as storms. And one brawling black cat just newly acquired.

  The eunuchs cared for the rest. They tried to pleasure her – for do not think that eunuchs are devoid of sexual passion. It is just that we cannot father a child. And – truth be known – we take far less pleasures ourselves in our duties.

  But the Lady Badroulboudour had no interest other than in her memories. Her husband The Aladdin had been a manly man, his black hair and beard long and luxuriant, his voice resonant and low. He had been gallant and frequent and manly in his loving – as attested to by their numerous progeny. The Lady Badroulboudour made many loud exclamations to that effect.

  Why, then, did her son, the sultan, allow her so many eunuchs? Perhaps because he believed the stories fostered by the harem that no man can perform save he has all his parts. Or perhaps because he firmly believed that if his mother were satisfied in all ways, she would leave the running of the kingdom to him.

  Now it was on the tenth day of the third month of Lady Badroulboudour’s fiftieth year that she came upon the lamp that The Aladdin owed all his wealth and power to. She had been looking for it in desultory fashion ever since he died, as she was only partially convinced there was any such thing. No one but she had even believed the old stories of the lamp anyway, except her crazy mother-in-law, who was dead now as well.

  The discovery of the lamp happened in this fashion. The eunuchs in their high-pitched voices had fallen to quarreling over some inconsequential and Lady Badroulboudour had banished them to the outer rooms. Then, wanting to feed the cats, she noticed that she was short one dish, for the black cat was but newly arrived, a present from her son, the sultan. She wanted to comfort the new black cat with sweetmeats and a dish of cream, that being her way.

  So she went from inner room to inner room, then outer room to outer room, looking for a suitable container, rejecting rouge pots and flower vases and a basin containing rose petals in water. And at last, way down the hall, she looked into a storeroom that had been closed for years. There, in a corner, as if thrown by an angry or disinterested hand, was an unprepossessing copper lamp with a small wick and a handle with a chink out of the right side. It was the chink she dimly recalled, having handled it only once, when abducted by the Afrik magician long ago.

  She pounced on it with a cry not unlike that of one of the brown cats, which brought the new black cat running into the room to twine around her legs. She picked up cat in one hand, lamp in the other, and made her way back to her rooms.

  “Lady, your pleasure?” asked the fifth eunuch, a pudgy, hairless, whey-faced man much given to candies and flatulence.

  She dismissed him and the others with a wave of her hand. And when they were all gone, exiled to the outer rooms, she settled herself down on her great bed with her pillows and white cats at her head and feet.

  “Could it be?” she mused to herself. The black cat and two brown ones echoed her. “Could it be?” She remembered The Aladdin’s hints about magic. Then she added, “If I could have a wish, surely I would ask for my dear Aladdin back.”

  At his name, all the cats but the black one jumped down to the floor and made themselves scarce for often the mere mention of the name caused Lady Badroulboudour to weep and wail and throw pots and bowls. Only the black cat did not run away. He was, you must remember, new to the palace. And not yet moving quite so fast as the rest.

  “But,” Lady Badroulboudour reminded herself, “I must attend to my dress.” For it is true that since the death of The Aladdin she had lived in great neglect of her person, except for the occasional state dinner. So she took a long and luxuriant bath with soft oils and many powders after, filling the apartments with a heady aroma, not unlike that of nepeta, mintlike and pungent. The cats all rolled about and frisked with pleasure.

  Then she put on a gown of silk the color of the sea – green and blue and black. Around her waist she placed a girdle of diamonds set in gold. She set about her neck the six-strand necklace of pearls. On her wrists she put bracelets of diamonds and rubies. Her eyes she outlined with kohl and she put rouge on her mouth and cheeks. She was a woman in her prime.

  Then, taking the lamp in hand, she sat back down on her bed, leaning against the black cat. The cat did not complain, but purred both deep and low.

  “If there is a genie,” Lady Badroulboudour said aloud, “I shall set it free.” And she turned the lamp this way and that, looking for a magical key. For though The Aladdin – and the Afrik magician – had both spoken of the lamp, neither of them in the telling had thought to mention how it worked.

  She pulled at the wick. She tried to light it. She stuck her finger inside the spout. She blew across both top and bottom. At last, in frustration, she tried to shine the lamp as if by doing so she might find some written instructions on the side.

  No sooner had she stroked it, then a strange bituminous smoke began to ascend from the spout, coalescing into a shape that was as rounded and hairless and large as a eunuch, only wafting about four feet above the bedclothes.

  “Oh, I have had enough of you half-men!” she cried, sitting up.

  “I am no man, lady,” said the genie.

  “I did not really believe it,” said Lady Badroulboudour.

  “I am ready to obey thee as thy slave,” the genie answered.

  “So it is true,” Lady Badroulboudour replied.

  And they would have gone on and on like this at cross-purposes and not actually corresponding, if the black cat had not been made so playful by the scent of nepeta that the feline took a swipe at the smoke where it was connected to the spout, all but severing the genie’s legs from the lamp.

  At that Lady Badroulboudour gathered up the cat to her bosom, where it was distracted by the six strands of pearls.

  “Then, slave, restore to me my husband, The Aladdin.”

  The genie managed to look nonplussed, not an easy trick for a man of smoke. Then he laughed. “If you have me bring him back, lady, he would be nought but winding cloth and bones. Is that your desire? For you must mind what you ask for, mistress.”

  “Give him back to me as he was, not as he is.”

  The genie laughed again. “That I cannot. I can only bring you what is, not what is no longer.”

  “I want Aladdin!” She pouted for a moment, looking just like the princess whom The Aladdin had loved so long ago.

  “Alas, that cannot be,” said the genie. Somewhere a door shut or opened and the breeze it let in made him sway gently over the bed.

  “Then what good is your magic?” Lady Badroulboudour cried, and she threw the lamp, genie and all, across the room where they fetched up against the north wall with a clatter and a bang. Before the lamp actually hit, the genie managed to disappear back down the spout, though there was a small, pitiful cry from inside the lamp when it landed.

  Lady Badroulboudour did not come out of her room the entire day, nor did she pick up the lamp. She lay on her bed, angry and speechless, until the sixth eunuch, who was given to honeycakes and moist eyes, threatened to call her son the sultan. And the ninth eunuch, who was given to candied dates and belching, threatened to call her son the vizier. When the sixteenth
eunuch, who was given to buttered toast and tears, bent over to pick up the lamp, Lady Badroulboudour sat up in the bed and screeched so loudly that all of the bed guardians left the room at once, the last slamming the door behind him.

  Then Lady Badroulboudour rose from her bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She drew more kohl around her eyes and pinched her cheeks until they were red. She took off the dress the color of the sea, took another long bath, then put on a dress the color of sand – brown and white and gray. She rearranged the diamond girdle, the necklace of pearls, and the bracelets. She put red jewels in her ears. She was a woman in her prime.

  Then she picked up the lamp and stroked its side with a feather touch.

  This time a strange ocherous smoke ascended from the spout, coalescing into a shape that was as rounded and hairless and twice as large as any eunuch. The genie wafted about three feet above the lamp.

  “So,” Lady Badroulboudour said.

  “What one wish wouldst thou have?” asked the genie.

  “Can you bring back my husband any better than your brother can?” she asked.

  “No more than he, mistress,” said the genie. “Save in winding cloth and bones. Oh— and a bit of wormy matter as well. I have taken the opportunity to check.”

  “That is all?” Lady Badroulboudour asked.

  “That is all,” said the genii. “But . . .” he wavered a bit, right hand raised. “I could bring you a substitute. One who is like and yet not like your former master, The Aladdin.”

  “And by this you mean . . . ?” asked Lady Badroulboudour.

  “I can bring you a dark-bearded man from the streets of your city, or a deep-throated man from the gateposts of a neighboring town, or a well-muscled man from the taverns of another kingdom, or from the Antipodes for that matter.”

  “Where they walk upon their hands and eat the dust of the road?” shouted Lady Badroulboudour. “Never!” And this time she threw the lamp, genie and all, against the south wall with a clatter and a bang. The genie managed to disappear – all but his left foot – back through the spout before the lamp actually hit the wall. But there was a rather loud pitiful cry from inside the lamp and a bit of strange muck ran down the lamp’s side.