Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy

by Chris Meekings

  Ah.

  Talbot starred morosely at his now dry empty beer mug. “I hate riddles. I’m going to get another drink. We’ll be here all day.” He pushed himself up and walked away to the bar—in an almost straight line.

  Do you think we should be letting him drink? she asked.

  Let him hang, I don’t care. It’s his liver, isn’t it? And besides he just gave the speech about finding his own style of drinking.

  Yes, but didn’t Ravel Magi say something about not letting Talbot drink?

  Possibly, but I’m more worried about getting the key out of the box. So, what can you set in glass?

  I think: anything.

  Do you think it means made of glass or actually set into glass?

  I don’t know, that’s part of the riddle, she snapped at Conscience.

  Let’s start at the beginning, he said. We are little creatures. All of us have different features.

  Lucy closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. She could do this riddle. She knew she could. The stale smell of old beer pervaded the bar and tried to drag her attention away from the task in hand. She had to focus.

  So we’re looking for small things, each one has individual characteristics. How many things are there?

  Conscience counted. Five, he said.

  They must be linked, or the riddle wouldn’t make sense. So, we’re looking for things that come in fives. How about Shakespeare poetry?

  There was a baffled silence from Conscience.

  The piano player changed tune to a plinky “Camptown races,” which was still out of place for a bar in a Medieval other world. Well, she’d have to worry about that later, for now, the riddle was all that mattered.

  She tried to explain her, admittedly shaky, logic.

  It’s how you categorise the poems written by Shakespeare. Sonnets, A Lover’s Complaint, The Rape of Lucrece, Venus and Adonis and Funeral Elegy.

  You appear to be gibbering. Shall I check your brain in case you’ve had a stroke?

  Well, it’s something that comes in fives, she huffed.

  Do you ever think that you should have gone outside occasionally, got some healthy exercise and made friends instead of reading all the time?

  She gave him an icy mental stare.

  I don’t think Shakespeare’s poems are set in glass or made of jet, so they don’t fit, said Conscience. One of us you’ll find in tin. And another boxed within, he continued. What do you find in boxes?

  Anything. Everything. Oh, this is useless. Why can’t I solve this? I’m good at riddles. It’s what I do. Someone asks me a question, and I answer.

  You needn’t look so smug, glowered Conscience to the box. It surprised them both by replying.

  Smugness is as smugness does,

  and I am only smug because,

  whilst you flit around like ballet dancers,

  it’s only I who have the answers.

  The box sang in its music mistress voice.

  I think I hate that box more than I hate the goat.

  It’s not my favourite thing in the world right now either, thought Lucy.

  So, why can’t you solve this riddle then? You’re right, you know? You seem to be the kind of person who can just look at a puzzle and solve it. It’s one of your defining features. What’s wrong?

  She didn’t know. Every time she thought about the riddle the answer was there, but it kept slipping out of her grasp like an eel. But, there was something else, a clue perhaps?

  Whenever I look at the riddle, a phrase comes into my head.

  What phrase?

  The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog.

  And what does that mean?

  I don’t know, whenever I try to think about that it feels like trying to catch smoke in a butterfly net.

  Well, aren’t we just full of colourful metaphors?

  Oh, shut up, she said. When I think of the riddle, I keep wanting to touch the fingers on my left hand in order.

  Why would you do that?

  I don’t know. If I knew that, then I could probably solve the riddle. Why isn’t Grandpa Will here? Whenever I didn’t know how to do something or what the answer was I would ask him and he would always know. Something is blocking me, stopping me solving it.

  The Dimn?

  The author.

  A brainwave hit Lucy as the piano player finished “Camptown races” and started on “My, my, my Delilah.”

  Maybe, I’m not supposed to solve it? she asked.

  You’re not supposed to solve it? Who is, then?

  Someone we haven’t met yet.

  Someone we haven’t met is going to solve the riddles? asked Conscience, slowly.

  You were right, we’re being stalled. And, if the box is a stalling device, then why would I be able to solve it straight away? It’s for solving down the road.

  Lucy glanced at Talbot, who happily leaned on the bar, five used shot glasses lined up on his left, and five more, with brown sticky-looking liquid inside them, lined up on his right. He tossed the first of the full ones back in one fluid movement. His short, sausage tail wagged faster.

  It all clicked into place for her in one instant.

  Oh, flip-it! We have to go. We have to go now, she thought urgently. We’re really in trouble. We almost got out of it, but then we got stuck again!

  “Hello, little girl,” said the voice, sounding like coffin nails scraped over oak. It was a dark, dry, gritty sound that reminded her of cemeteries—an old husk of a voice, like a dead snake skin in a desert.

  Hey! What’s going on? asked Conscience, as the bar noises dried up.

  We’re in real trouble, the author, or the Dimn has caught up with us again. It’s Mexican stand-off time. It’s why this damn bar is a wild west bar. It’s flippin’ Mexican stand-off time!

  The silhouette of the Ega stood in the bat-wing doorway. Wind whipped down the street outside and billowed his duster in a parachute of leather as an out of place tumbleweed tumbled behind him.

  The piano, in the bar’s corner, stopped its plinking of “My, my, my Delilah” right in the middle of a “why, why, why Delilah.” Music carried on for Lucy alone to hear.

  A steel-stringed guitar played a haunting western theme in the back of her head—a single note repeated again and again. Dang-dang-da-dang-da-da-dang-da-da-dang. It drove through her like a fistful of heartbeats. The building’s boards creaked under the huge weight of expectation. Women, out in the street herded their children indoors. The wind blew dust devils, and the wooden flaps of the window shutters slammed shut. The whole world paused on the edge of forever waiting for the stand-off to be finished. Waiting for the good and the bad to be decided, for the ugly blood to be spilled.

  She licked her lips; they were dry as jerky. She felt her own breath coming out of her in ragged gasps of tension. The guitar in her head was joined by a brassy trumpet and then a full vocal choir.

  Her throat was parched like the earth around a cactus. Every time she tried to swallow it felt like she was eating a mouthful of tarantulas on crackers.

  The Ega shifted his weight. His leather boots creaked on the hardwood flooring. The salty sweat aroma of his chase to catch her invaded her nostrils.

  The trumpet in her head hit a feverish high note. The choir peaked at full ensemble. The guitar reached a twanging, single-note frenzy. Everything in the whole world was an expanse of sheer, Sergio Leone, baked spaghetti western opera. The stand-off came to its conclusion.

  Lucy grabbed the table and flipped it onto its edge like a dropped umbrella. She ducked behind it using it as a makeshift barricade between herself and the Ega. The first throwing knife zipped high over the table’s top; the second thudded deadly into its centre.

  “Talbot!” she screamed.

  People were moving in the saloon now. Tables, chairs and drinks flew in all directions as the patrons tried to get out of the way.

  Oh God, this is it, isn’t it? This is when I die! gibbered Conscience.

  The Ega’
s boots thudded in the silence left by the vacating patrons. She had to get out of the bar, had to get away. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird.

  Conscience continued to moan in her head. The spell in her chest, which had been oddly quiet for hours, began to beat again. Get away—on with the quest—move forwards—don’t let them catch you!

  She took stock of her situation. She was stuck behind an upturned table, the Ega was walking steadily towards her with the easy speed of the victorious, there was no one to help her, and she’d lost the box.

  Lost the box?

  She searched in desperation. Where had it gone? Of course, it had been on the table when she’d tipped it over.

  The Ega was very close now. His boots sounded as if they were only meters away from her hiding place. She dared not even look to see how far he was away or where the box had fallen.

  A short, sharp whistle came from the bar. Talbot stood behind the bar holding a large bottle of evil-looking liquor.

  “Hi,” he said to the Ega and threw the missile.

  The bottle broke on the Ega’s eyebrow. The man, taken by surprise, staggered back under the weight of the throw and fell backwards out of the bat-wing doors.

  The faun looked at the tipped over tables, the upset card games. More importantly, he saw the spilled drinks. “What a waste,” he sighed. Then, coming back to himself, he continued, “Come on, over here.” He waved one of his hairy arms at her, and then he began to collect glasses, possibly as ammunition against the Ega.

  The box! I don’t want to have to come back, Conscience whined.

  Lucy reached around the table and grabbed the riddling box.

  “I am a box without key for my lid, inside all your—” the box tried to say.

  “Not now,” Lucy hissed at it. As she stood up, a crossbow bolt whizzed from the doorway and just passed over her head. She ducked back down again and two more bolts thudded into the table. She was trapped again.

  Any ideas? she asked Conscience.

  Get to Talbot. Get out of here. Run and never stop running.

  She grabbed the table’s central leg and twisted it, spinning it around like a wheel, involuntarily ducking as more bolts smacked into the spinning top. She wheeled the table and jammed it flush against the bar.

  Conscience continued to whimper inside her head.

  Talbot stood up from his hiding place and hurled glasses at the open bat-wing doors, making a shredder of broken glass.

  The Ega backed away, momentarily driven off by the dangerous jagged edges.

  Lucy grabbed the bar’s edge and vaulted over it. She cringed below the safety of the wooden counter as more crossbow bolts splintered into it.

  Talbot squatted beside her, a great greasy grin on his face.

  “Ah, nice of you to join me,” he said jovially. Then he threw another glass, grenade style, over the counter’s top. “You know, I’m getting a little fed up of our friend, Mr. Ega’s persistence.”

  The faun seemed vibrant to her, he was more alive than at any time on their journey together. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks were flushed, and then he started slurring and Lucy knew the truth.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yep, I’m more than all right. Thish is the mosht fun I’ve had for ages—ages and ages and ages.”

  Oh great, the goat’s gone mad.

  “Fun?” she asked, alarmed, “You think this is fun? He’s trying to kill us!”

  “True, but so far we have gone up against him twice and come out on top both times. I confidently predict this trend will continue into the future and we will once again prevail. Oh, pickled eggs!”

  “You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Lucy asked, as Talbot reached for the jar of eggs and began to unscrewed the lid.

  The faun smiled at her in his greasy way and held his thumb up.

  “Just a teensy-weensy bit tipsy, yes.”

  That’s just terrific.

  I can see by your darkening glower,

  that this might be your final hour,

  so, before you leave this realm of earth,

  would you try to solve my riddle first?

  Shut up, box! snapped Conscience. I’m afraid the position of magical assistant for this quest has already been filled.

  The box remained stoically silent.

  “Little girl?” The Ega’s voice drifted like poison gas over a battlefield. “There is no escape, little girl. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I will find you. I will smoke you out of your hole, and then I will kill you.”

  Lucy looked in the large mirror which hung over the bar. She could see the Ega reflected in it. He hung just outside the bat-wing doors. He lowered his crossbow as he gave his ultimatum.

  “Make this easier on yourself,” the Ega said. “Come out and I’ll do it quick.”

  The Ega seemed to have lost his hat in the fracas. Blood dribbled down his face from the gash on his brow where the first bottle impacted. The blood welled like spring water from the tear in his scalp and rolled like tears down his face.

  A tear with tears, or maybe, a tear with tears. But which is which? How can I tell? Lucy mused, but she couldn’t hold onto the thought for long. There was too much going on around her and the thought was too slippery. The skull beneath the welling blood in the monster’s face gleamed with a pale light. She could see his craggy features. His eyes were too wide in his craggy face. His grin was too toothsome. The look could only be described as “foaming-dog” mad.

  Do something, Lucy, do something, now. We have to get out of here. I don’t want to die! squeaked Conscience.

  Her brain scrambled for a spark of inspiration. Just one little idea for a way out. The dry timber of her mind caught on one simple notion.

  “How about a cocktail?” she asked, aloud.

  This isn’t the time for a party, said Conscience, in a voice that was a bit too calm to be sane.

  “I love cocktails!” said Talbot, with exuberance.

  “Good. This is going to be a big one. Give me your flints and distract the Ega for a moment.”

  “Right you are,” he smiled.

  He handed over his flints, sprang over the bar, landing crouched behind the upturned table and squatted there for cover. His head rose ever so slightly over the table’s rim to peer at the Ega in a highly dangerous game of peek-a-boo.

  Lucy grabbed at a smelly looking beer rag and stuffed it into a liquor bottle. The pungent aroma of nearly neat ethanol came to her nostrils as she uncorked it. The plan might yet work.

  What are you doing? asked Conscience, still too calm to be sane.

  Making a cocktail. The Molotov variety.

  Ah, I see. Isn’t that going to be slightly dangerous?

  That would be the idea—yes. And, it’s not as dangerous as waiting for the Ega to catch us.

  “Little girl, little girl, give me the key,” said the Ega, pushing open the bat-wing doors with the tip of his crossbow.

  Beneath the bar, Lucy tipped the bottle of liquor upside down to let the alcohol spread into the rag.

  “Not by the hair on my scabby old knee,” giggled Talbot, from his hiding place.

  Lucy scraped the flints together, trying to get a spark. Just a one spark would be all that was required to set the old rag alight.

  “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll go on a killing spree!” finished the Ega.

  He raised his crossbow and fired.

  The much-suffering table, finally gave up the ghost and split down the middle, each side rolling away in perfect crescents.

  Talbot sat on his haunches utterly exposed. For a moment, it seemed as though he didn’t even realise what had happened. Then his eyes met the Ega’s. Talbot beamed in total incomprehension of the situation.

  The Ega’s eyes blazed in sheer hatred. “Hello, faun,” he said, using the word faun like a swear. He aimed down the long sights straight to Talbot’s heart. “It’s time to die.”

  Lucy’s flints sparked.

  The rag
ignited.

  The Ega’s finger twitched on the trigger.

  Lucy stood, the flaming bottle in her hand dropping spots of fire to the floor like a comet. She hurled the cocktail along with its trailing fire streak at the Ega.

  The bottle exploded on the floor just at his feet. The floor was already covered in a potent mix of spilled beer and liquor. A wall of flame sprang up, cutting the Ega from the travellers.

  The Ega staggered away, caught off guard by the sudden bright light and heat. He stumbled out of the bat-winged doors. The heels of his boots slipped on the step, and he tumbled into the street.

  The fire caught in the bar, quickly spreading over the alcohol soaked floor in lashing waves of flame. Within a few seconds, the fire had shot across the floor, streaked up the wall and was making good progress at eating its way through the structural beams of the building.

  It’s a great plan, sneered Conscience. Only, we appear to now be inside a burning building.

  I didn’t hear you coming up with a better plan.

  What, than throwing incendiary devices in a wooden building? No, you’re right, I didn’t have a better plan than that. No plan was better than that!

  Talbot knelt open mouthed. “The pub,” he wailed. “You’re burning down the pub!”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” Lucy hissed under her breath, vaulting back to the customer side of the bar. She landed by Talbot and pulled him up by one massive forearm. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Where’s the back door?”

  “Back-door? What back-door? I never said anything about this pub having a back-door.” The faun coughed as thick smoke belched from the surrounding blaze. Lucy’s eyes watered as the clouds enveloped her.

  “There’s no back-door?”

  The thick palls of smoke clung to the inside of her lungs like dark cloudy clumps. She could almost feel layers of ash being laid down inside her. Her throat was caked in it. Her voice was thick like porridge. Tears streaked down her face from her weakening eyes. They tore through the grime on her face.

  Tears and tears, tears and tears, but which is which?