The Wondermark Gazette

Outside the hall, the street teemed with the ill and the reeking — but inside, the very same sweaty funk of fever and mashed-together bodies was heavily masked beneath clouds of imported body-cologne and rarely-aired show-clothes. The folk of the village had gone all-out to welcome their ancestor back to these shores, and I wondered how they would react if I told them what Ursula had told me: that Grenadon was really Grenadine of the Yam-Runners, and had any of them actually ever seen him heal anyone?

The dancing cheese-blob at the tip of my twirling-wand cut a path for me through the pressing crowd. I flipped and spun the wand deftly to keep the cheese pliable, as it would likely set up in an instant were I to slow my motion. Nonetheless, images of Grenadon kept creeping unbidden through the sluice-grate of my mind — that crazy old man from the salt-barrel, speaking languages I’d never heard, discerning our location from a glance at the sun, diving over-board to move a loaded merchant-ship using just steady kicks of his strong legs in the sea. If that was Yam-Runner stock — I’d better stay on Ursula’s good side.

I paid dearly for the distraction. My fingers fumbled on the wand, and an orange drab of cheese-goo settled wetly onto the back of a large woman’s silk shawl. I recovered quickly and managed to prevent another glop from escaping the central mass — but it took all I could muster to keep it flowing and lively, and I’d never rescue the errant wad now. I vaguely sensed a murmur growing in the crowd around me, but all I saw was flopping orange and the tip of the wand; the art filled my vision, and my periphery blurred to nothingness. It was me and the cheese, fighting for control, wrestling with gravity and momentum and Sir Newton’s damnable bodies-physic, and it was glorious.

“Oi, twirly, back edge, flop on!” came a call from behind, vague and dim in my perception, and instinctually I whirled and globbed a neat row of orange onto an outstretched bratwurst — then a stripe on a pickle-spear, a full drip-blop on a nacho-plate, and finally a triumphant half-smear on a twice-bitten bruschetta as on-lookers roared their approval. Finally, the wand spun clean, free of cheesy cargo, and my job was done. A crush of applause returned to me my full spectrum of senses.

This was it. This was what I loved to do. I had forgotten, through the years of lazy indulgence and whippery-sport and servant-branding. I heaved with breath and wiped my brow, exulting in the triumph of craft and labour. They were eating my cheese. And they were enjoying it.

Suddenly stifling, I shrugged out of my coat. The Yam-Runners’ letter brushed my fingers as I did. My mission returned in a crush of weighty responsibility that darkened my brow and cock-blocked my glory. I scanned the crowd for the Mayor, searching out that boisterous, fat face, but didn’t find him. Folk were rushing to me now, clapping me gaily about the top-quarters and proclaiming my wizardry to each other, but I had eyes only for a pair of deep-set eyes in a ruddy round face. I found many ugly, gap-toothed features in the masses, some of them gleefully spittling effusive praises in my general direction, but not the man I sought.

For an instant I thought I’d found him — a large figure, half-hid in gloom, leaning against a service-exit wearing a sour expression — but I corrected myself after a half-instant. This shadow was shaped like the Mayor, but younger, busy cultivating a fashionable apathy. It was Rikah’s beau — the Mayor’s own son.

Perhaps he would do for my purposes, however, and I set through the crowd towards him, laughing along with hearty congratulations from strangers and accepting the occasional honour-fig, quite sweet to the throat after my exhausting performance.

As I broke through the crowd at the far end of the room, I realised that the bulky not-Mayor wasn’t alone: he had with him the raven-haired beauty whose horse I’d knocked off a cliff not twenty-four hours previous. It was Rikah, splendiferous in shining chiffon with fine beeswax adornments, aglow with the sly demeanour of a woman who knows more than she’s telling. She slanted her head an inch as I slipped casually into conversation-range.

“When she puts the shawl back on, she’ll be surprised to find her special gift,” Rikah smiled, and it took me a second to catch that she meant the large woman with the un-ordered bonus-cheese still resting in her silken accessory.

“I’ve not met a lady yet who wouldn’t give me a free pass on such things,” I sparkled right back, and she smiled politely. With a jolt of beautiful energy I realised that Rikah didn’t recognise me at all.

This was perfect. Here, where nobody knew me, I could be whoever I wanted; all I had to do was choose a persona. Who should I be? The rakish cheese-twirler from Azerbaijan? The cheese-twirling rogue from Darkest Sandwich Isles? Perhaps a duke or baron from the New World, moon-lighting with a cheese-wand to hob-nob with the locals?

“Go on, we’re not in the habit of socialising with the help,” Major Jr snorted, and I deflated. But Rikah shot him a glare, which did much to pump the brightness back into my teeth.

“Actually,” I said, sidling up to the big man and drawing the Yam-Runner’s folded letter from the coat draped o’er my arm, “I have an urgent missive for the Mayor himself. Will he be making an appearance tonight?”

Mayor Jr traded what might have been a meaningful glance with Rikah, then scowled at me impassively. “He’s not here yet.”

“I’m afraid it’s terribly urgent,” I said. “It’s — it’s about Grenadon.” Anything that would get this oaf to take the letter to his equally-oafy sire. Or just take the letter, full stop — perhaps that would count for my obligation, and how would the Yam-Runners know, anyhow?

“Let me see that,” Jr said, snapping the letter crisply from my fingers, squinting at it, then holding it up to a gas-lamp to attempt to read the inside. The letter’s circle of green signet-wax began to glisten from the heat, and I caught the man’s arm — best not to take chances.

“It’s for the Mayor’s eyes immediately,” I told him, putting on my gravest of grave voices, and in my sideways-vision I saw Rikah stand a little straighter; likely she was batting at my wicket with a little Woman-Stare Action, which just goes to show how much credit a little cheese-twirling can earn you with the finer sex.

Jr looked caught between his natural haughty aloofness and a genuine sense of obligation, staring at the folded parchment as if he could divine its contents and be told exactly what to do, anything to absolve him of Making a Decision. I wondered if he would leave me alone with Rikah, and if he did, if it meant that I should probably go on and leave her as well, to go climb that tall, lonely mountain alone, to re-shoulder my heavy burden of obligation to my Quest, or whatever.

Or, I supposed, I could just stay here, the rakish cheese-twirler from Azerbaijan, for all she knew, and simply have a go at another new life.

Jr fixed me with a Meaningful Stare, then scarpered, and Rikah and I watched him go. His back looked exactly as it had the first time I’d seen him — at the stables, arguing with Rikah about her horse, Oat-Princess. She’d told Jr that Oat-Princess was missing, when she well knew that the horse was dead. Why had she lied? I’d been there when she’d seen the horse plummet down the cliff near Peapoddy’s air-ship.

Peapoddy. That’s why she’d lied. She had welcomed to the island a Peapoddy, a sworn enemy, unthinkable in this town loyal to Grenadon.

My mouth must have been open, or my stare must have graduated to a leer, because Rikah’s winning smile began to slowly sink into drawishness, and headed quickly for losingdom. I caught myself, and rakishly assumed my rakish persona once more. I wondered if I should find a rake, to complete the illusion.

“So,” I said with a charming smile, “I hear you’re a fan of Peapoddy?”

Her face fell. Whoops. Whatever I had meant to say, that wasn’t it. “What are you talking about?” she hissed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s–that’s why I’m asking you — I don’t understand! Seriously, what do you mean? Ha ha ha!”

She must have then taken my stunned lack of response for a serious stop-this-frontin’ impassiveness, for then she took my arm fiercely and dragged me out the small service exit into a dark alley-way. We stepped quickly but commandingly over moaning heaps of ailing supplicants until we reached a spot on a hill completely out of ear-shot of anyone remotely near-by.

After a moment to catch her breath, she turned to stare down at the banquet-hall, its fiery windows lit brightly from within. The flatness of her voice surprised me.

“What exactly do you know,” she asked.

My first instinct was to say “Nothing,” in the hope that she would think this was all a deep and tragic misunderstanding. I don’t have any evidence that would make you an out-cast among your peers! It’s not like I would use that to gain your favour! Honest! I just — uh — like make joke! In Azerbaijan this is good joke! It was a pretty good plan, but by the time I’d come up with a good Azerbaijani joke to follow up with, I realised that my mouth was already talking.

“The dirigible,” my fool mouth said. “I know you were there.”

She looked up sadly at me then, and if a dark cloud hadn’t been blocking the moon-light I would surely have seen her eyes shimmer. “And Grenadon?”

My mouth opened, but I managed to close it before I said anything retarded. There were a couple of ways I could go here. She didn’t know that the man she thought was Grenadon had actually been me, in disguise. But if she was hoping that Grenadon might still show up at the banquet, well — best to put this to rest as cleanly as possible.

“Grenadon’s dead,” I said.

She looked back down at the banquet hall, and nodded. “I’m — I mean, I’d hoped,” she said, almost too softly for me to hear. “But I’m not really surprised.”

She looked like she might start sob over the old man at any second. Time to change the subject, then. “Mayor sure threw a swell banquet,” I said. “Were those crab puffs in there? I heard there were crab puffs, but I don’t know if what I saw were eclairs, or what. Did you get any crab puffs?”

“The Mayor was waiting for Grenadon,” she said flatly. “He’s in his house, now, dying of a shrapnel wound sustained from the dirigible explosion.” She turned and pointed across the way, to where a shadowy figure — Jr, presumably — scampered down a deserted avenue. “That’ll be Morty, taking your letter to him now.”

Morty? Dumb name. My mouth wanted to mention that, but luckily I intervened in time, and we said nothing.

“He was waiting for Grenadon to heal him,” Rikah shrugged. “But I killed them both. I brought Peapoddy to our shores. I killed my ancestor, my island’s saviour. And also the father of my dearest love. We call that a ‘twofer.’ It hurts worse than a twofache.”

Dearest love. That stung, a bit. But what did I expect, really?

“Well,” I said in what I hoped was a helpful, I’m-solving-all-your-problems voice, “I don’t know if Grenadon could have done a whole lot for him, anyway.”

She whirled, and even in the cloud-blocked dimness I could see the flash of indignation in her eyes. “Why’s that?” she said. “What else do you know that you’re not telling? Don’t tell me you’re one of those Anti-Grenadon protesters — because Morty went out on a limb for you, delivering that letter, and I don’t appreciate you using his kindness to make some sort of political statement at the worst possible time for our family.”

“That’s not quite it,” I said. “I just wanted to give the Mayor a–” Whatever else I might have said was drowned out by the Mayor’s house deafeningly erupting into a blinding pillar of green flame.

NEXT: Dark Clouds Gather

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