The Wondermark Gazette

Each step down the mountain was a hammer-blow to my purpose-brain, driving home the task before me. I would enter the room, locate the Mayor, and press the Yam-Runners’ letter directly into his fat hand. Then, before ten seconds had passed, I would pivot on my heel and climb the mountain once again, returning to those caves to confront Ursula and learn what she knew about the Tome of the Precious Lore. If I had a chance, I would snap off a whuppin’-sized tree-branch on my way back up the mountain, so that I might have the facility to make my argument as convincing as necessary.

Ursula’s slim opticle, fitted to my eye, guided me clearly and steadily through the unsteady hills directly down to the village. Even when a slow-moving cloud obscured the bright moon, a coloured line pulsed on the ground through that lens — a sharp green closer to the mountain, fading into a dull grey over the furlongs. Before long, lantern-light danced between the trees, and the sounds of music and voices ruffled the dangling leaves — I had made it.

It wasn’t hard to see where the banquet was being held; everybody in the village was crowded around one tall building bedecked with banners and bobbin-bunting. The mob was relatively quiet, for a mob, probably because it was largely made of sick individuals dangling o’er the precipice of death. Many of the ill and infirm lay heaped upon the dusty earth; others milled about, peeking occasionally through the hall’s brightly gas-lit windows, muttering foreign oaths to themselves or (presumably) cursing their sorry lot in life. The ground was thick with mucous-coughing brats and wobbling cripples, and I had to pick my way carefully through their moaning masses.

Closer to the banquet-hall door, I could hear lively music from within; the crowd was thicker here as well, and a constant press of smelly bodies pestered against the entrance. A single gibbering door-man fought to keep everybody outside, and was surprisingly successful despite his flop-sweated sheen of frustration.

“Come on, now, let us in,” one shabby-capped soot-monger crowed at the sputterer. “Just ten seconds with old-man Grenadon’s all I need, just one touch to clear up me rheumatis’, and I’ll be on my way quick as you please, Jack’s-your-baby — I’ll even nick you a mug from the beer-barrel I see they’ve got, and none’ll be the wiser.”

“We’ll be the wiser!” a shrill harpy of a scum-woman snapped back, pushing her own way in front of the hatted-man. “I need to see Grenadon right away, or else I’m afraid I’ll die of angst-poisoning within the fort-night! I’ve got too much of the stuff seeping out of every stinking pore — just look at these diary pages!” She fluttered a stack of purple-penned journal-leafs at the door-man, sending misery-soaked paper-pellets spewing in a white cloud. I coughed on an emo-poem and staggered back against the wall.

The door-man raised his palms to the creatures, a gesture that was probably an insult in some of their home nations, and I suspected he knew as much. “Look, I’ve told you! Grenadon’s not even here! We don’t know when he’ll show up,” he insisted, with the plain tone of someone repeating what he’s been told even if he doesn’t believe it himself. It was clear that the mob believed the healer to be inside the hall, however: a rousing cry of protest went up at the door-man’s every other syllable.

It was clear that I’d have a tough time finding my way inside. Perhaps if I explained my urgent business with the Mayor himself? Then, I could leave my yam-tainted letter in this smelly place and make haste back to the mountain.

I fought my way through the press of thread-bare coats towards the door-man, only to be interrupted by a gruff voice. “Look, let me through, as I’ve got an important message for the Mayor,” said a meagre-looking chap with a scruffy moustache, raising a hand beside me. “It’s important that I see him right away.”

“What’s the message?” the door-man replied, setting his hands resting on his hips, clearly dubious.

“That Grenadon can rot in Gehenna!” Scruff-stache cried, flicking his fingers at the door-man in a horribly obscene gesture that I’d previously only seen attempted by die-hard fjord-pirates in ice-braving Norway, where the wind could grow so cold at sea that deck-hands would have to keep their extremities in constant, frantic motion or else risk losing fingers to frost-leprosy (or, as we called it in the taverns, “snow-stubs”).

Scruff-stache kept up his verbal assault on the door-man: “It’s sick how these people wait at the edge of death for some miracle saviour none of us have even ever seen! You people with your mythology are giving them nothing but false hope in some ‘Grenadon’ that you probably invented so you could sell souvenirs! I hope you all rot!”

A few scattered cheers could be heard among the furious chorus that rose to condemn Scruff-stache’s assertion. Shouts of “Get him out of here!” and “Kill ‘im before Grenadon can heal ‘im!” burbled to the surface of the chaos, but the door-man, admirably, held his ground, and even lifted his hands to quell the tumult. He offered no defence of the healer or his own island-folk, content to merely stand steadfast in the entrance. “Regardless, you’re not getting to the crab-puffs,” he said simply, and the mob, as one, moaned in sorrow.

It was clear that I would never be able to make it past the door-man, and from what I could tell, this was the only open entrance to the hall. Behind the door-man’s silhouette I could make out a lively collection of well-dressed islanders; surely the Mayor was among them, and I had to find a way to get inside!

I searched the pockets of the awful suit the Yam-Runners had given me. Its cut was old-fashioned, to say the least, and its colour and design were well into the so-ugly-it’s-ironic realm; to make matters worse, the coat and trousers were dusty and scuffed from my long, panting hike down the mountain, but at least their contents were intact. The Mayor’s letter had its own pocket, and I also found a thimble and a small copper spring in the trousers — probably left here by the last wearer of this suit, back when it was in style during the days of Oliver Cromwell.

And of course — there was my cheese-wand.

I drew the long, perfect rod from my trousers, then tucked it back in and pulled out the cheese-wand instead. As soon as I saw its ivory colour glisten in the gas-light I knew I had my plan. I ducked back into the darkness, away from the mob and towards the abandoned village square.

It didn’t take long to round up a lantern, a kettle and a few mounds of old cheese — the owners of the shanty-stalls in the square’s make-shift flea-mongery had thoughtfully left me exactly what I needed, poorly locked within their inventory-crates. A few smashed latches later, I had assembled a crude fondue-pot.

The wand felt light and delightful in my hands, and I was pleased to make its first introduction to the medium it was made for. Cheese burbled in the kettle, and with a sharp intake of breath, I drew out its soft orangeness with a practiced fluidity. The salty liquid balanced on the tip of the wand like a dew-drop on a rose-petal. I had forgotten nothing of my old craft, and it felt exhilarating.

When the door-man looked up two minutes later, he gave no second thought to the wackily-dressed cheese-twirler making his way through the crowd. “Entertainment for the banquet,” I said nonchalantly, spinning the wand between two fingers. The mob hushed instantly, every eye on that perfect, mesmerising twirl.

NEXT: The Mayor’s Son

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