When the Year is not Kept
And a Shave is Stolen while the Darkness is Borrowed
Robbed of her sight, Beret Chamberhand did her best to keep her words and her breath to herself. It didn’t feel like much of a robbery, as they were kept from her much of the time anyway by her marmoset masters, and she’d grown accustomed to having her view be nothing but white cloth, the only variety ever being the color of the trim.
Her surname was foreign to Compassleaf, as only tiny beities with enough wealth to own humans ever had need of her services. Marmosets were melodramatic and emotional creatures, and sometimes in their interactions they wished for the immediate architecture to reflect their emotional states.
So when the small monkeys were having gatherings there was often a Chamberhand standing over them, veiled, using only their skilled sense of hearing and their familiarity with their masters’ social mores to judge when and where to act.
If there was an argument, and someone immediately wanted space, a hand came between them to create a wall. When groups had to be separated, perhaps for a competition, a forearm would divide the floor completely. The greatest skill was required when two lovers needed an enclave all to themselves, and cupped hands had to carefully and seamlessly surround them without bumping into the romance.
For the latter task the softer and smaller hands of women were preferable, so Beret had been heavily trained for such precision and intuition. She had overseen more unions than she’d ever been allowed in her own servitude; the most closeness she’d been afforded was her arm sliding along that of another Chamberhand during joint sessions.
So while she did not feel robbed of her eyes, she did of her arms. At that moment, and for a painful amount of time now, they had been used as nothing but handles to hold her off the ground and keep her out of reach of her new owner: Lady Butterfur.
“Drop her this instant!” the bear shouted up into the branches. The cluster of beities was near the entrance to the Scion’s retreat, but not near enough that the bear could accuse the handful of baboons of trespassing. One of the larger decorative trees marking the edge of the grounds had been turned against her, and she just now realized there wasn’t a single branch low enough to be within her reach, even when a human was dangled off the side like a wet washcloth. “She’s my property and she’s brand new! You’re getting her dirty!”
“She’s already dirty,” one of them claimed with a sneer. “We have multiple reports of slang in this one’s mouth. It needs washing out.” Hocmursus, never one to attempt jumping until after the disappearance of her most valuable human, hopped as high as she could on her massive haunches. Beret was still out of her reach, but the baboon heaved and tossed her to another of the troop in a different branch.
“If you drop and break her my uncle will sit on your head! There’ll be lightning in your spit for the rest of your life!”
“Your uncle’s not here is he?” the first baboon said, able to mock her with a shrug now that he wasn’t holding Beret.
“He’s off chasing fish,” another laughed, with the others joining in. It was quelled when Mojopap appeared from behind a veil of leaves and cleared his throat. Gingerly he strolled along a branch, pretending to check the posture of his soldiers until he pretended to notice the blonde bear for the first time.
“We of course know that the duties of the Scion go above and beyond the stewardship of Compassleaf,” the troop leader said pompously. “We would never dream of disrespecting Krakodosus. Though it is a shame that the glut in the river has called him away from the most pressing state of affairs here.”
Beret was tossed again, Lady Butterfur waddling on her hind legs and reaching out to try and catch her, unsuccessfully.
“There’s nothing pressing at all!” she insisted, refusing to drop back to all fours. “If Loric and Hygenis were still in the city they would’ve been found by now. They’ve escaped. So everything here is back to normal, which is why, I suppose, you lot are harassing me!”
“Actually we’re protecting you,” Mojopap corrected, clicking his tongue so his subordinate would toss the slave to him, “from this ill-advised purchase of yours.” He lifted the human by her arm pits and smelled her, sticking his tongue out in disgust. “Imagine my surprise when I heard that, even though the delegation from Weaviranch had taken offense and left after opening their hunt, one of their humans was left behind, one that also happened to be present at the storyteller’s escape attempt.”
“I bought her precisely because they took offense,” the bear lied, which every baboon and even every bug on the tree was able to detect. “Now, should any other marmosets visit, we have a Chamberhand available to make them feel more at home. It’s called diplomacy, and you wouldn’t know the first thing about it if it bit you between the legs!”
“There’s no need to get testy,” Mojopap said in a tone of velvet. “I was just thinking that you had a different reason. I thought you might want to interrogate this human, learn something about the whereabouts of your dear storyteller in furtherance of your uncle’s hunt.”
“If I did it would be none of your business.”
“Afraid it becomes of concern when that human is overheard using a new and highly infectious slang arising from the incident at the gate.”
“And what slang is that?”
“Swearit,” the baboon swore, spitting out the word when he was done with it. Beret tensed in his hands, which he felt as immense vindication. “The word Loric tried to use as a password at the gate. She recognizes it; I can feel it in her limbs. There’s creeping talk among the humans that this new word can open doors for them… or rather a bloody set of jaws.”
“Do you have any proof that she has said it?”
“Words don’t leave stains,” the head baboon countered. “We’ve seen to that. I am within my rights to hold this one in custody until such time that I can prove she’s been sucking a Forbidden Thumb.”
“You just want to interrogate her yourself! You’re trying to undermine a hunt that is rightfully the Scion’s and no one else’s!”
“Seeing as they’ve almost certainly left the city, and that the marmosets have opened a parallel one, there’s-” Mojopap adjusted his grip as he noticed the reverse tiger Grinjipan stalk in from the sidelines. The cat stared up with a slightly amused expression, as if she’d stumbled across two lovebirds fighting in their nest. “What is it that you want?”
“I want you to drop what belongs to me. I’m about to return to Bagogreen, and I need to gather my things.”
“I don’t have anything of yours.”
“On the contrary,” the tiger purred, “as Lady Butterfur was kind enough to sell that slave to me even though she’d just taken possession, all because of an admiring comment I made.” The baboon was about to call her a liar when he remembered his position. Hocmursus wielded her uncle as a cudgel much less effectively when he wasn’t around, and she was a pushover no matter how determined she was. The tiger was more of an unknown.
“Yes, yes I have done that,” Hocmursus interjected. “Except, actually, it was a gift! To make up for how things went awry at the show. Really, it’s the least we could do. And now here you are Mojopap! Ruining even this for her! All of Bagogreen is going to hate us when she reports back to them.”
For a moment the baboon couldn’t think of anything to say. Outright accusing either of them of lying would’ve been nearly enough to bring Krakodosus thundering back. It might’ve been better if it was enough, for as it stood his rage would be stewing the entire time he was in Plunderoe, building up his strength with the richness of the salmon, only to bring it back and all to bear upon the Babeloons.
He dropped Beret in the hopes that she would strike the ground hard enough to break both ankles, but Grinjipan was there to catch her. Instinctively the slave reached out and held onto the fur of the beity’s nape, only then certain that the creature she now rode was a cat.
“Far be it from me to cause a diplomatic incident,” Mojopap commented before turning and disappearing into the branches. His troop followed and left the other beities to chat while Beret kept perfectly still. Best not to move until she was told.
“Thank you for intervening,” the lady offered Grinjipan. “You’ll have to take little Beret there with you, to keep up appearances. I hope that isn’t a burden.”
“Not at all. There’s always room in my collection for one more.”
“You will… you will take care of her yes?” the bear asked, remembering the intricate scars across the humans that escorted the tiger into Compassleaf. The tiger assured her she would live a long life, but the lady couldn’t leave it at that. She had to take a stab at her original purpose. “I was hoping to ask Beret if she knew where Loric was.”
“I don’t,” the human finally offered through her veil, able to feel the disappointment radiate off the bear without seeing her face drain.
“Uncle will go mad if he doesn’t find out what happened to Sportarct in the end of that story,” the bear said sullenly. “It’ll kill that spark of artistry I finally managed to kindle in him. Oh, what a dark cloud this is that’s come over my house. First pulchritude, and now swearit. Where do you suppose he’s been getting all these naughty words?”
“Who knows where they got any of them in the first place?” the tiger offered with a shrug, but not enough of one to knock Beret from her seat. “I do wish you all the best Hocmursus, but I do actually have to be going.”
“Yes, of course, thank you again Grinjipan. Goodbye little Beret.”
“Goodbye,” the human squeaked in despair. There went her cushy position in the house of Hocmursus, gone before she had a chance to rest her head on the famous pillow trove. Not only that, but she would be leaving Namstamp, where she’d spent her entire life, for Bagogreen, the reputation of which more than suggested that they found humans no less interesting and useful, but certainly less valuable.
The slave sensed something else. With a veil blinding her much of the time she had developed a strong sense of positioning. Walls were mute but she still managed to find them by the way they asserted themselves on the air. While only in Compassleaf for a short time, she already had an idea of where the outer walls were, and when the tiger took her leave of the bear she wasn’t heading for the nearest wall. Not yet anyway.
“Where are we going?” Beret dared ask after glancing straight down and seeing her new master’s atypical colors, which the human found off-putting, like seeing a tree in an ocean of darkness casting bright shade.
“You’ll see. Won’t it be nice to see something for a change?”
“What will I see?”
“Something wild.”
…
The birds had treated Mojopap with both disrespect and skepticism, which did not sit well just after he’d been robbed of an opportunity to interrogate Beret. But to think they would actually laugh and honk at something so serious as the opening of a hunt.
“That’s the third hunt in as many days!” one of them had squawked. “And on the same man too! Did you all forget you were looking for him? Lie down for a nap, get up, freshen up with a steamy morning story, but it’s not at your bedside! Woe again! The sun didn’t bring Loric back, better open up another hunt.”
“Better go bother the birds again!”
“Not like they’ve anything better to do!”
In the end though, they could not refuse him, and a third hunt was opened in the name of the Babeloons. Mojopap’s funds didn’t allow him to offer more than the marmosets as reward, but he didn’t want anyone else catching his prey anyway. Making the hunt official served only to cover his tail with the powers that be, though Krakodosus wouldn’t take kindly to it no matter how official.
As long as he was captured in the wilderness it wouldn’t matter. There was no law out there, and with the hunt opened his position at home remained relatively secure. But with all that done, there was still the matter of actually catching the storyteller and his pet dentist.
A human escape from Compassleaf with any amount of planning behind it only had one realistic option. Most directions would see their scent tracked before getting quickly run down without ever crossing a body of water large enough to guarantee their trail was gone. Not to the east however.
Those were the Shedlands, the quarantined prairie where both animals and plants were thinly spread and diseased, like pox upon an expanse of skin. The condition was called the Shed. Beities did not care for the medical knowledge of the humans. If it couldn’t be cured by a salve squeezed from a leaf then it couldn’t be cured. Gone was the understanding that diseases could have all sorts of different causes: bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi…
So they didn’t know why any mammalian beity that entered that range wound up suffering as they did, quickly losing all of their fur and becoming a pathetic naked wretch. Worse, after taking their coats the condition remained, warping the hide unevenly with redness and inflammation.
After that, some of the time, came death, but many sufferers remained alive and became deranged instead. Whether this was entirely due to the condition or was greatly worsened by the isolation of living in the Shedlands was unknown, but nothing naked was permitted to leave, except for humans of course.
They alone had hair sparse enough to go untainted, thus opening up the prairie as a fugitive’s road and refuge. Luckily for the rulers of the current Earth, the Shedlands had not expanded for many generations, no matter how many creatures were fed to them. To the beities it was just the way of things, but inquisitive humans still holding the reins of the Tame would’ve eventually discovered the answer.
The Shed was a fungus that took hold in follicles, needing both high temperatures and high levels of moisture to flourish. The Shedlands were hot enough, but only a follicle was wet enough. With the rest of Namstamp being too cold, and the river cutting it off on three sides, the pathogen wasn’t going anywhere for another geologic era or so.
Mojopap’s hunt was pointless if he couldn’t pursue quickly, before they got so far into the forbidden territory that one random change in heading meant they were lost forever. The troop leader could’ve hired another beity in his stead, a bird or reptile without any fur to lose, but then the honor was gone.
No mercenary had taken the oath that he had. I am diction’s death, he had swore, eater of words. All of recorded history was his bedding, and from sleeping in it he knew it would spread if not intimidated by his heavy breath directly over it. It caught like flame, much worse than the Shed, and the more it spread the more the world would know that it was Mojopap who had failed.
Literacy was a disease that carried around a list of those it had defeated, and the thought that the list might be all that was left of him turned Mojopap into a trembling nodule of rage. He needed to leave the city, if only to keep himself from tearing loose the shackles of authority and attacking a creature far above his station.
Only one possibility stuck out, a sore thumb indeed. The edges of the Shedlands had been worked out over countless seasons by wildly irresponsible experiments, but occasionally there was a fascinating result that did not end in naked derangement or death.
Some cats, retaining a hairless trait from their distant past, could pass through unscathed, and a few creatures with very short dense coats managed to shake off mild cases of the Shed. Mojopap knew of a boar who had, with that knowledge, had his human slaves use tools to shave him bare. He then passed through the Shedlands without contracting so much as the sniffles.
This was due to there being nothing to catch the windborne spores and feed them into the follicles, but Mojopap knew only that it could work. The problem was the tools required. Shaving with stones would take too long and be too imprecise. Having a swarm of ants snip off each and every hair at the base required a degree of trust in the insects that he did not possess.
Human hands were not necessary, those of his troop were plenty dexterous, but metal blades were vital. Every forged piece of metal, silver, iron, copper, and bronze, in Compassleaf was in the possession of dental professionals. They were supervised at all times by eight different eyes, all on a single head: Misugot the spider. The baboon weighed his options: burst into an appointment and take one from right out of a beity’s mouth or attempt to requisition one from the stalwart spider.
Mojopap himself wasn’t sure which one he would select until he marched into the medical facilities and was suddenly right at the threshold of the dental armory. Its location was the extent of his knowledge of it, as he’d never had cause to visit before, but that meant he was unaware of the line of silk across the floor that alerted the metal custodian to his presence the moment his sole touched it.
Easy to miss it was, as the floor looked bare of the stuff compared to the walls and ceiling. In fact the boundaries of the ceiling could not be discerned, obscured as they were by mounds of overlapping silk pouches holding all the tools needed to enable the forging of metals, interspersed with human bones picked so clean they glowed against the black threads swaddling them.
The tools of the teeth were similarly held aloft, lined up on the wall by thin tight loops, arranged according to size, function, and composition: Scrapers, pokers, mirrors, buffers, pressers, squeezers, and, most relevantly to Mojopap, slicers.
Among the giant scalpels was the one he deemed most ideal in size and edge, perfect for shearing an entire troop of baboons in less than a day. It would need to be brought along on the journey of course, as they might spend weeks in the Shedlands, and the hair could not be allowed to grow for more than a few days without a remedying trim.
Misugot knew when and where Mojopap took his first step, his second, his third, but the minor beity was very distracted by the contents of his most recent cocoon. There was a human stood near the back of the chamber, underneath a gleaming knife that hung by a single strand. If it snapped the blade would fall just far enough, gain just enough energy, to ignore the skull and separate the two halves of its meaty interior.
If the human was aware of that threat they must’ve been aware earlier, for now their eyes, and their everything else, were wrapped up tight as an anxious mummy. Legs bound into one. Arms bound straight down to their sides. Head unable to turn in any direction, nose squished against the face. The piece over their mouth moved worryingly little as they struggled to breathe, the expansion of their lungs audibly straining the ten thousand bindings about their chest. Their life was a rope about to snap, in more ways than one, a perfect snare of applied pressure, all ruined by the interruption of the bumbling baboon.
The beity of the higher name didn’t see it as an intrusion, especially since he would’ve been more than happy to simply claim his sword and go, which was exactly what he tried to do. By the time he reached for it on the wall the rigid white spider, carapace as smooth as moon milk, skittered over it and blocked him. His human prisoner sensed that the jailer was no longer crawling along his back, and began to wriggle more actively.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever had the pleasure of a formal introduction,” the primate said with a yellow-fanged grin, an unsightly color against the arachnid’s white carapace and shining ornaments. “But I’m well aware that you are Misugot, master of metals, just as you are aware that I am Mojopap, page burner.” The spider’s blank eyes gave him nothing. “Word wounder?” Somehow, even more nothing. “Best of the Babeloons?”
The imprisoned human hopped forward experimentally, out from under the knife, managing to stay upright. Misugot turned, tugged on a line attached to them, which stalled their struggle for a moment.
“You’re also involved in the training of the dentists,” Mojopap said to flatter further, though flattering a lower name already felt so far beneath him that his toes twitched as if something was sandwiched between them. “This must be one of your apprentices, and I take it they’ve misbehaved. Did you catch them bloodying their own mouth instead of one of ours?”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Misugot turned. Perhaps he’d taken offense, or let something slip. It was impossible to tell which.
“Oh your secret is safe with me,” the baboon assured, though he had dropped his smile and was now prowling back and forth under the scalpel like he was waiting for a wildebeest to take its last breath and lay down its horns. “Of course your humans are getting rowdy now that the Bloody Mouth was invoked under your watch. That might arouse speculation that your loose silk has led to loose lips. I wonder… swearit!”
The human jerked. They started hopping again, toward the exit. Misugot scurried to the floor behind them and tugged on the line, causing them to slam onto their face and whine. It turned into a body-scrunching scream as Misugot dragged them back by the thread alone, despite only being a third his prisoner’s size.
“This is exactly why I need to borrow one of your tools. Remember that Forbidden Thumbs are for humans, not technically for us. There’s no risk that I’ll go mad and produce ten thousand more simply because I can. My blood runs far from that thin, which you should respect since, technically, it isn’t even blood running through your kind, is it?
This slicer will be used to shave, to enable passage through the Shedlands, and that’s all. As soon as the errand is complete, which will correct your sin of letting Hygenis escape with tools by the by, it will be returned, along with the two that I will reclaim from her. I’ll be saving your face.”
The baboon looked at said face in another futile attempt to read its reaction, and saw that the prisoner had somehow gotten to their feet again, perhaps pulled up by Misugot like he was pitching a tent. The spider was perched on their shoulders, fangs arranged about the back of their neck like a pair of scissors.
“It’s decided then,” the baboon tried to finalize, reaching for the scalpel-spear again. He managed to lift it out of its loops and turn toward the portal before he felt a certain someone scuttle across his back, over his shoulder and onto the blade’s handle. All eight legs wrapped around it tightly, practically becoming a part of it: a set of decorative ridges and eight inlaid onyx jewels.
“Aw-aw! How dare you touch me, as if your name could possibly get any lower. It should be under a rock with all the oth- Oh look, they’re getting away.” Hopping madly, and with impressive balance that suggested they had suffered Misugot’s cocoon many times before, the slave powered past them on the right side. This forced the spider to make a decision over which theft was more egregious, and he chose the property with a heartbeat.
Quick as he’d come, the light creature silently leapt off Mojopap and to the wall, attaching another line of silk to his prisoner as he went by them. One tug knocked them over, against the wall of weaponry. In seconds their legs were off the floor and their whole body was spinning, fresh sheets of silk spilling out of Misugot’s backside like all the nasty things he could’ve said to Mojopap.
Once they were finally and properly immobilized, practically disappeared into the substance of the wall, Misugot rushed to the edge of the portal and looked beyond. The baboon was gone with his prize. What a madhouse Compassleaf had become, and how disgustingly shabby and tattered it had left the spider’s web.
Eventually the creature would work up the nerve to emerge from his shadowy hole and investigate the whereabouts of his charges, but by then the Babeloons would be marching into the Shedlands.
The greatest delay was not in shaving them, but in getting them to sit still long enough to suffer the indignity. Disgusted their leader was, returning to the tower triumphantly only to find his troop cowering from him, biting their nails over the prospect of feeling unfiltered sunlight on their skin.
If they hadn’t been shuffling about so nervously, dodging his gaze so as not to be the first one ordained as volunteer, they might not have disturbed the trail of already-shuffled papers left by their prey on their way down into the flu-riddled throat of the Earth.
One monkey was brave enough to voice her reservations, plainly stating that taking such measures over two humans and two metal sticks was overkill. They would become the laughingstock of Namstamp if anything as thick-blooded as a bird so much as glimpsed them from the sky.
“Curious blighted beak will look down, see a line of pink nuggets, and dive just to get a laugh that we can hear Mojopap!” Her commander didn’t answer immediately, instead searching the tower’s interior for the perfect spot to sit himself down, with enough room for those in need of a haircut to sit in front of him like they were going to engage in the much more common behavior of picking fleas out of each other’s coats.
“Two humans and two metal sticks you say?” Mojopap muttered as he found the spot, putting his back against a massive roll of paper recovered from a printing press that was found back when Compassleaf was still being dug out from between the roots of the mountain-stumps. It had a peculiar smell, like alcohol, likely some chemical treatment that kept it from ever yellowing or decaying.
The roll’s edge became a rug under him, hanging off a lip of clay like a giant piece of toilet tissue ready to be ripped away. Its pristine surface would perfectly show exactly how big the mound of fur he was about to claim was.
“You forget your own specialty,” Mojopap went on, testing the edge of the scalpel-spear by using it to cut strips from the paper underneath. Incredible. It took no effort at all, like cutting through sunbeams. “Loric Shelvtale got many of his words from a book, and we’ve found nothing in his things, so he has taken it with him.
We are not after him, or his companion, or their sticks as much as we are after that book. It has the power to create a thousand Lorics. Do you not remember that the pen is mightier than the sword? The pen is the greatest distortion of the Tame. Its false truths are the thin venom that runs in the veins of the humans.
We will gladly suffer a little nakedness to do our holy work. We will obey our troop leader, who has the will to bury more knowledge than was ever committed to the page. We will do this or we will suffer banishment from the troop, and we will remember that monkeys have few friends beyond their own kind.
You take your cut and your duty, or you go and live in Weaviranch as a freakish giant.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at the blank page in front of him. She who had dared to object had apparently just volunteered, and needed to take her seat immediately. Every moment they delayed was that much more time that had to be spent naked in the Shedlands, chasing after a legged book.
Perhaps baboon hands were dexterous enough to provide a clean shave, but not without practice, and not without a finesse that Mojopap lacked in all things. She was cut several times in the process, and the paper would have turned red before the scalpel reached her neck if its coating wasn’t disturbingly hydrophobic. The droplets of blood rolled away as they fell, trickling over the edge and into the depths.
When he was done with her she went to weep in a corner and lick her cuts, staring at the inside of her eyelids rather than the mound of beautiful fur her leader had collected. He snapped his fingers again, and a real volunteer came forth. At least Mojopap hadn’t cut his teeth on the rest of them.
…
The veil was lifted, and it took several moments for Beret’s eyes to adjust to the light despite its weakness. A few shafts of sun came through a crack in the earth directly above her, and they were warm, but the underground chamber countered that sensation with a chilling aura from its dark half, awash in what she swore was unnatural shadow. She could almost see patterns swirling in it, the spiraling exhalations of something hidden.
The great velvet head of Grinjipan the tiger rose up to block her view of the dark half. Her thin orange stripes ignited in the sunlight, feeding power to the slits in her eyes. The cat sat on her haunches and placed one paw across the top of both Beret’s thighs.
Chamberhand had been forced to take a seat on a pedestal of rock, a lone, jagged, chalky tooth in a place that was otherwise empty, unless there was an army hidden in the shadowy portion. She kept her arms at her sides, hands shaking as the beity experimentally extended her claws and poked at soft flesh.
“Do you know what goose pulling was?” her new master asked. Beret shook her head, fighting back tears. “It was a blood sport, back in the world run by you and yours. You were jealous of the thickness of our blood, and so you sought ways to draw it out of us dramatically, sickly.
In goose pulling a live goose was affixed upside down in the middle of an arch, its neck greased and slippery. A human on horseback, another gross forced participation, would ride under the arch at full speed and attempt to rip the goose’s head from its body.”
She demonstrated the sensation by pulling one claw down the length of Beret’s thigh. Blood trickled down the side, but its warmth couldn’t match the sun’s, so it felt only wet, almost like she’d emptied her bladder in fear. The wound was not deep, not yet, it only felt that way.
“Have I done something wrong!?” Beret whimpered, fully aware she couldn’t slip out from the weight of the paw even if she tried.
“Shhh, I haven’t finished the story yet. Goose pulling was far from the only cruelty of its kind. There was also fox tossing. You see one would be placed in the middle of a long bouncing cloth, with a human on either end, and with all their might they would pull, throwing the animal as high into the air as they could. It would exist, in nothing but fear, completely unaware of its self, only the potential loss of the self, until it reached the ground and the loss occurred.
This monstrous behavior is fun to you. You enjoy it.” Grinjipan took to the other thigh, used three claws this time, let them go a little deeper, draw a little more, like she was digging for a bottomless well of blood that would come gushing out as soon as she found just the right spot. Beret groaned through gritted teeth.
“I know what you’re holding back,” the tiger insisted. “You’re accusing me of enjoying the same thing. And, in this moment, I will forgive your confusion. I like to put my claws in living things because it feels good on them, and I like for weaker things to know they are weaker, but I do not derive pleasure directly from suffering.
Now, Augustus II the strong, he certainly did. His lowest name was still good enough to be called king, back in the time of goose pulling and fox tossing. He once held a giant party, inviting all his friends and subjects, doubling that guest list by corralling hundreds of terrified animals to the grounds as well.
Then he showed off his incredible strength by holding up his end of the bouncing cloth with a single finger. Then, toss, toss, toss. All dead, all for entertainment. I doubt all of the scavage escaped waste that day.”
Grinjipan stooped down and licked the blood from her slave’s scratches, savoring it with a purr that made the shadows in the back ripple. There was anticipation in the darkness, and Beret would’ve sensed it if she wasn’t lost in panicked thought like a child abandoned to moonlit woods.
“Swearit,” she squeaked.
“What was that?”
“Swearit. Swearit. Swearit!” The young woman looked around, but nothing had changed.
“Oh that new word,” Grinjipan said. “You think perhaps it’s an incantation? That your fellow humans can all hear it and they will come rushing to your aid, every mouth bloodied like a proper predator even though I’ve just explained to you how the blood was always on your hands.
That’s the difference I’m trying to communicate to you. We animals create death; you humans machine it. You make it excessive, a process, a system. You set forth quotas of death. All because you couldn’t find a better use for the Tame. As a kind you killed yourselves because you couldn’t handle its responsibilities.”
“Swearit!” Beret tried again, for she had heard many things about the word in the short time betwixt its first utterance and her purchase by Compassleaf. Indeed, it had been said that it was even more powerful than the fabled Bloody Mouth. Some were whispering that a revolution was imminent, that this one word could bring down the city and raise it again under a human banner, becoming a second Staircase.
“Look at you, so afraid, even though I’ve made it clear I would never pull you like a goose or toss you like a fox. It’s been said, that at the party, the wildcats made for particularly poor sport, clinging to the bounce cloths for their dear lives, viciously attacking any human that came near. We’re such historic ruiners of good times.
So I’m happy to ruin yours now. Swearit means nothing at all. That poor baboon has been blowing his blood vessels, running around to put the lid on all these new swearing jars. He doesn’t know that I’m the source of most of the whispers.”
Beret didn’t speak the word again. Instead she swallowed it, waited for it to hit the bottom of her stomach like a stone tossed down a well, but it never did. She’d just doomed herself, but why had the reverse tiger done this if not out of cruelty? It had to be cruel, judging by the fear running through her every muscle, wriggling in her streaming tears, and beating down the door of her heart.
“I spread the word swearit,” the tiger explained, anticipating the little human’s every thought the same way she would the zigs and zags of an escaping rodent. “It was a good seed of hope, and there is no fear without hope. Treasures replace courage, and the other way around. With swearit you thought you had something, and were very afraid to lose it.
Now there are dozens of humans in Compassleaf, all holding that jagged little hope, taking its damage even as they make desperate moves to hold onto it, like your little outburst just now. You are afraid, yes? More than you’ve ever been?”
“Yes,” Beret admitted. “W-what good is m-my fear to you?”
“Yours was the most convenient is all,” Grinjipan said, blasting breath out her nostrils, nearly knocking the veil off her head. The big cat strolled behind her, but the girl didn’t dare turn, as she was now face to face with the black half of the chamber. Could it even be called a chamber anymore? She felt the space past her vision expand, to a plain, a continent, a world.
“We have our own Augustus,” the beity growled in her ear, whiskers poking at her cheek like metal-tipped mosquitoes looking for the best drilling site. “He has taken as many lives, but not because he is cruel. He is Phobopan the fear-full lion of the Wild Trinity. Fear-full because his belly is full of the fearful.
Beret squealed. There was nowhere to run. Closing her eyes would just send her to a greater darkness. Never had she considered that she would come face to face with one of the Wild Trinity, the ultimate beities who had reigned since their bloodshed made the mount of power too slippery for any other animals to attain.
“He doesn’t appear lightly,” Grinjipan added, having somehow gotten closer. Was she inside Beret’s ear now, or was that something else? “Each Trinitarian has a way of keeping humans in line.
Vissovis the golden fleece dulls them with comfort, excess, and luxury. Never will they desire to claw back the Tame if they are drowning in his grape juice, lounging in his wool, and dreaming to his count.
Assaulquus the Trojan Horse, the hooves of war, crushes those who attempt to throw off their shackles with her standing army. She is direct, she does not negotiate, and no orders in this world have less wiggle room than hers.
Phobopan, the fear-full lion, suppresses them with fear. He’s the one who crushes rebellions before they begin, before Assaulquus has to be bothered to move her entire army across the lands.
The situation here was not so dire as to require his attention, but I am in need of his help if I am to get what I want, so I planted the swearit seed. He will have taken note, but in order for him to be summoned to this place a being must experience tremendous fear in the company of darkness. Then, when he smells it, he emerges from that darkness, just as big as it.
And would you look at that pile of shadow before you little Beret Chamberhand? It’s gargantuan! If the fear-full lion strolls out of that he’ll be tall as a giraffe. He could eat you in one bite, but for the crime of swearing out loud he will make it many.”
Beret was breathing louder than she ever spoke. Grinjipan’s whiskers were on her right cheek, so she tried to lunge to the left, but somehow the tiger’s shoulder blocked her when she did. Even with her life on the thinnest of lines the beity was still so much faster. In a futile effort to ensconce herself in the sort of chamber she’d built for the marmosets countless times she threw up her hands as walls, only for a great black paw to gently lower them.
This was her fear, and she had to feel it. No others could possibly be responsible, she realized. It was her mind that seized upon its possibility, her heart the pumping bellows that stoked it. Of course it was all her, and of course she could expect the world to react to such a shameful display of wanton dread.
“That’s it,” Grinjipan encouraged her flickering spirit, “here he comes.” The air in front of the darkness stirred with a new breath. A wave of dust rolled out from what was likely a single pawstep. “He’s coiling for a pounce. I can feel it. And here he-”
Beret screamed. All from herself, all from emotion, as she hadn’t seen anything to warrant it. Now she saw even less, for the moment she opened her mouth Grinjipan had delicately grabbed the veil in her fangs and pulled it back over the slave’s face. There was no reason for the familiar sight to calm her, for the world was exactly the same beyond the veil, but it did so regardless. Phobopan could’ve been right there, should’ve been if everything Grinjipan said was true, but if so he wasn’t eating anyone just yet.
Grinjipan was the close one, whiskers pressed against her shoulder. Except, now that the veil had fallen in the way, they couldn’t have been hers. Beret tensed again, though it felt like the next one might cause her to collapse into a pile of sand.
The whiskers were walking across her shoulder, back and forth, their ends sharpened. There was a growl under the veil, small but deep, prowling her countenance as if it belonged not to the human. As a final proof that it wasn’t Grinjipan, the tiger grabbed the edge of the veil and lifted it back once more.
“And there you are,” she purred, Beret’s presence no longer of any consequence since she had already served as Phobopan’s tunnel. He was everything every legend claimed him to be, but all concentrated to the size of a walnut as the black lion with the ashen mane prowled across the slave’s shoulder.
“Swapping out the shadow of this place with the shadow under the veil at the last moment,” the lion noted, voice like a carnivorous canyon relaxing and picking its rocky teeth after gorging on time itself, “in order for me to take the least intimidating size in my passage. Clever, but you’re not the first to think of it. Do you think me weak as an insect now? Think it your chance to squish one of the Wild Trinity and ascend to my position?”
The little lion flashed his teeth, which were not bone but quicksilver. His double-thick blood expressed itself that way, allowing those he was about to devour to see their own reflection in his fangs, screaming mouths warped larger so they assumed they had never been anything but fear disguising itself as a genuine fulfilling life.
“I mean no disrespect,” Grinjipan clarified, bowing her head as she stretched her front legs: the salute of the cats. “I wanted only your attention, and I thought if I looked bigger to you I could be spared a few additional moments of your time.”
“What for?” the beity asked, flopping onto his side, tail flicking lazily. He began idly cleaning his claws with his teeth, steadying himself when needed by digging into Beret’s flesh. It hurt, but she kept as still as she could, praying a bead of sweat wouldn’t splash onto the little monster and disturb him.
She wasn’t there. As with the marmosets, she wasn’t there. Instead there was just architecture, made in the human style, brought to life only in its attention to detail. Beret Chamberhand was but a stowaway in a beity’s property, so she retreated into its recesses like a spider finding the corner of an attic that hadn’t seen cleaning across the most springs. She became small and distant within herself so the gods could talk uninterrupted.
“I would love a collaboration,” the reverse tiger claimed enthusiastically, which perked up the supreme beity’s ears. Few were so brazen. “There is a treasure I wish to claim, but it’s all caught up in politics. Working with you would cut through that netting, as you cannot be questioned.”
“No I cannot,” he agreed. “And what would this collaboration get me?”
“Conclusion to a matter that would, I believe, eventually require your time and attention anyway. It would save you a great deal of effort in the long run, and provide the two of us an opportunity to get to know each other.”
“I don’t take mates. You’d be long gone before I remembered I missed our second date.”
“Our blood may run at different speeds, but I see us as peers,” Grinjipan asserted herself. “I am perfectly content without mates as well, but I like stories. The best storyteller I’ve ever encountered is on the run from Compassleaf, having fallen into a book it seems.”
“They are literate? Then there is nothing to be done. Solid words are one of the more egregious thumbs.”
“Yes, but there’s no evidence he has made any of them solid, only interacted with someone else’s offense. It is my hope that, once I take custody, I can nibble off his thumbs and we can all move along. He will return to Bagogreen with me and be kept out of all light but that of my private stage. By hoarding him I will ensure that he spreads no more trouble.”
“You’ve glossed over where this saves my time.”
“That lies in how I got you here,” she elaborated. “A few rumors in a few ears was all it took, based on a single word made up by this storyteller. Tell me, was this human’s fear not of a particular flavor? The one with the scent that draws you?”
“It was. There is no panic like that induced by opportunities to climb or slip down the social ladder.”
“Exactly. My storyteller is out there, spilling such words hither and thither. He’ll have you popping up from under rocks in every human enclave on the continent if not reigned in soon. Multiple hunts have been opened on his name, but I suspect rules will be broken in pursuit of him as well. There’s a baboon here who wouldn’t know respect even if his mind was greatly expanded by the licking of a toxic toad.
He confuses it with fear, a sentiment I imagine most offensive to one such as you. It would be good for all beities if he did not win this hunt.”
“So you contend that you respect me properly, and do not fear me?” Phobopan asked his fellow cat. She nodded once without breaking eye contact. “If I were to suddenly break this little spell of yours, be here in a more typical size, you would not cower as I step toward you through the tatters of your snare?”
“Let’s find out,” the tiger challenged, knowing not how he could do such a thing but not doubting the ability. This was the fear-full lion; only a fool would think themselves capable of taking anything more than a brief sideways glance from him.
“Let’s, seeing as I am not in fact trapped in miniature. There is always darkness.” With that Phobopan got to his feet and leapt what, on his scale, was a great distance up the side of Beret’s neck and to her ear. He clung on the lobe with his claws like a heavy earring, but Beret kept still. After finding purchase he found the tunnel leading into her skull, as dark as anything Loric and Hygenis had seen in the bowels of the Tower of Babel.
In another leap he vanished into it, finally getting the slave to flinch. That was the ultimate terror: that the black lion could pursue her even into her soul, track her down by the scent on a trail of memories. Eat her spirit while the heart yet beat. Leave only the unpalatable skin and empty eyes, wandering as a testament to how terror could hollow anything.
But he didn’t. Instead he reappeared out of the dark half of the chamber, tall as a giraffe, just as Grinjipan had threatened. The shadows at the back receded, for he was all but made of the stuff, and since so much of it had stepped out into the open there was only a thin skin of it left.
His eyes were slate discs streaked with chilling rain, pupils a perfect crack down the center of the slab, chasms welling up with the black waters of fear in which living things could not swim, only drown. Phobopan could and had killed with one look.
Grinjipan did not fall victim. Did not need to shore up her resolve. Respect it was. The brilliant creature remembered no miscalculations anywhere in her long life, and planned to continue the pattern so it could go much longer.
“We will hunt then,” Phobopan said to reward her honesty. “For your storyteller, and for all who pursue him out of fear.”
“Fantastic.” The tiger strolled past him, toward the shadows she assumed would now accept her and offer passage. Phobopan turned as well, his greater size allowing his front half to vanish before the tiger’s quite got there. “Oh,” she said as she caught something by the tail that was about to slip her mind, “Beret dear. We’re finished. You may return to Lady Butterfur and tell her I was unable to accommodate you in my travels.
I should take a thumb for swearit, but what good is a Chamberhand with a hole in the wall? You can keep your finger if you promise to remember what Augustus the strong did with his.” Beret exploded back into herself, spattering across her own insides, nodding and weeping with such effort that she nearly fell off the rock.
“Now she will spread caution rather than discontent, excellent technique,” the fear-full lion praised from the darkness.
“Thank you. If we could stop off with the birds quickly before we go, I have something to share with them.” The tiger’s last stripes were sucked down into the blackness like a noodle down a gullet. Beret sat there alone, trying to pull herself together like a wet mound of sand. She waited for the walls to open up and reveal themselves as nothing more than another pair of cupped hands.