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“We walk, Ia’eh and Minkah, Desher and I,” Elizabeth read the email from Hypatia, “ towards the dark ridge of stone where the books lie hidden, awaiting the day they should be found again…..When Cleopatra ruled, the books numbered 400,000…and this, I think, is true. By the time of Theon of Alexandria, an age in which the books were no loner in the Great Library of the Palace of the Ptolemies, which was also no longer, but housed instead the “daughter” library of the Serapeum, they numbered 360,000. Those lost to the Bishop of Theophilus amounted to a tenth of these. But no matter if full half were lost, that Minkah brought out from Alexandria so many amazed me then; it amazes me still. He not only carried them here, but brought back an account of where each cave was sited, and which jars were placed in which cave.”
“Godfrey, didn’t we know a Minky once, who was a sort of a servant?”
“We did indeed, Liz, you were the one who inserted him into the story, surely you remember?”
“Well, the name rings a bell, Godfrey, but where did we meet him?”
Godfrey snapped his fingers and as if by magic, an excerpt from the Reality Play appeared:
“Just then a funny little man with a huge cheeky grin appeared and held out a tray. Smoothies! Coconut and berry smoothies, and pink cakes, croissants”
“Croissants!” interrupted Elizabeth.
“… and oranges, and a box of cadbury’s chocolates…”
“Don’t remind me about Cadbury’s” groaned Elizabeth. “I simply can’t bear it that they’ve blinked into another dimension”
Godfrey continued: “ Dory slurped and munched and gobbled and slurped some more, and underneath where the chocolate was, she saw a brochure.
On the front cover was a picture of a cave. OOHH A CAVE! Dory loved caves! Let’s go to the cave today, Minky! she said to the funny fellow with the impish grin. Minky winked.”“He was going to take Dory to the caves!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Why didn’t I finish that story thread!”
“There’s no need to wring your hands like that, Liz” said Godfrey soothingly. “You can continue it now!”
“The dream of caves in which I wander comes nightly now. Minkah has never appeared again.”
“He never did, did he?” interuppted Godfrey. “Minky I mean.”
“Oh yes he did!” replied Elizabeth, and continued to read the email from Hypatia. “ But each night I find myself lost there and each night I search for a child. So odd, so odd, as I know I will never give life to another.”
“Where is Yikesy, anyway?” asked Godfrey.
“With Minky, of course!”
Arona kept a firm hold on Yikesy’s hand. It was strange, unfamiliar terrain they traversed, and she was taking no chances, especially now she knew that horrid Minky was after the child.
“Hear that?”
“What?” Yikesy looked puzzled.
“Shush!” said Arona, in a rather bossy way. “Yes! Can’t you hear it! It is Vincentius singing in his exceptionally melodic voice! He must be nearby!”
“Weeeeeee Haaaaaaaa!” shouted Yikesy.
Sanso had been channeling singers for centuries as he wandered in and out of caves and labyrinths, experimenting with echos and energy deposits. He’d been particulary drawn to the melodious tones of Vincentius of late.
Yikesy didn’t want to sound ungrateful, nor did he want to hurt Arona’s feeling (all matters of age were a touchy subject at home, even and especially for ageless Arona), nevertheless he did find her a tad on the mother hen side.
After all, he was nearly 18 now.Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe, High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading, was going for a bath into the Pool of Rejuvenation. Her ineffable beauty had started to show the early signs of time tampering —signs she’d learnt to notice as soon as they’d appear. Luckily, the moons were in perfect alignment for the rituals of Spring Beautusk*.
News were good, very good indeed —which would certainly help in maintaining her perfect brow and forehead in pristine smoothness.
News were so good that she’d sent her minion Minky fetch the boy just right after her white crow Saggin had came back with news of finding him… after all those years (not that years did matter to her anyway, she prided herself on that).It’d been close to an eternity, and she weighted her words… (in actuality it was a few teens and futile years at most) that she’d been trying to recover the boy, but the dwarfs had played her, and had managed to hide him from her sight.
She had not thought he could be concealed by anyone powerful enough, and it was surely not by the magic of that headless Malvina and her pesky dragons. In fact, the boy had been concealed even after Malvina and her menagerie had left the boy and his caretaker. She was thinking the caretaker in question had a concealment charm far more powerful she thought could exist.But Minky would surely take care of that.
—
- It should be said that one of the effects of the rituals of Spring Beautusk were a slight stiffness of the overall face (and other dipped body parts), which earnt Messmeerah the cute and albeit ironic sobriquet of Winky, as she hardly managed to blink and was often victim of bouts of winking when she tried too hard.
“Bugger” said Sanso, rather bad-temperedly, but after all he had been practising for 57 days without a break. ‘I am never going to sound as melodic as that Vincentius.”
“You will always be my endearingly ugly baby, Yikesy,” said Arona sternly, “however old you are. Why it was not even a year ago that you were eleven, according to that weirdo dragon anyway. And now here you are all grown up telling me you are eighteen. It doesn’t matter to me one way or another, my precious boy.”
Arona sniffled emotionally.
“Now keep hold of my hand while we go and see if we can find Vincentius. I hope he has that grumpy old cat with him.”
“Have you noticed?” Yurick asked Yann
“What?”
“You didn’t notice!… that we moved near the Robespierre road?”
“Yeah, and what?”
“Robespierre,… that one must have been a secret Peaslander too; after all, didn’t he end up losing his head like the rest of ‘em?”They were thick as theives, freinds for thousands of centuries, or even more; sometimes thick, sometimes theives, and anything else you might imagine. They got together again and again in this time and that, here, there and elsewhere, just for the fun of it. There was nothing they liked more than a puzzling occurance, or a riddle, or a basket full of clues to ponder over, unravel, and turn around and around, toying with meanings until they found one they liked. They had a home in The City, sort of a home base so to speak, where they met regularly each night in the dream state, regardless of which time or place they spent their waking hours. It was sometimes a releif to meet up at home in The City and always a pleasure: sometimes it was hard to stay under the radar back down on the ground, it was part of the job to stand out in the crowd, which often resulted in a lynching, or a ducking, or the stocks, at the very least. All too often it ended up on top of a bonfire, tied to a stake.
One day in one of the Decembers, in amongst all the sweet dreams they often shared, they started having some unsettling group dreams, where they all felt like they were betwixt and between, falling through the cracks you might say. It was a feeling similar to dying of thirst, although it wasn’t really a physical thirst, it was more than that, a hungry yearning sort of thing. Some of them had strange nightmares, of a monstrous beast, and some of them actually saw beasts in the daytime too, especially on those falling through the cracks days. When they met up at home in The City, they compared notes about the beasts, and not always, but sometimes they found they were mirroring each others beasts. That often ended up in a heated debate, because the more mirroring that occurred, the more real the beast seemed. Some said that the beasts that appeared when you fell through the cracks were in a deep ravine, in a manner of speaking, and not of this plane at all. Others argued that if the beasts appeared through the cracks, then they were on this plane.
And so it went on, and on. There were many more puzzling occurances to come, and lots of meanings to be considered, rejected, or taken on board for the friends, as thick as thieves, to turn around and around, and hold up to the mirror for closer inspection and dissection. They were making a tapestry, a huge rich colourful tapestry, and all the puzzling occurences, and even the beasts, were depicted in the colourful threads and patterns. They were the warp, you might say, of the weave. Love was the weft.
“Congratulations, Liz” Godfrey remarked drily. “Are you supposed to use three months worth of creative writing challenges in one entry?”
“Don’t be silly, Godfrey, of course not. Rules are meant to be broken, that’s what they’re for.”
Robin Peter was handing out yellow sou’westers on the street corner. The Rain of Terra was just about to commence.
:weather-showers-scattered: :weather-showers-scattered: :weather-showers-scattered: :weather-showers-scattered:
Robin Peter’s wife, Felicity, was handing out sample bottles of shampoo on the opposite street corner. Felicity knew that fresh rain water was marvellous for the hair, and often wondered why so many people went to such extraordinary lengths to keep their hair covered during the rain. They ran across roads in front of traffic, and dashed hither and yon, tiptoeing through puddles, racing home to their houses and flats, and then went straight into the shower to get themselves wet ~ after they accidentally got themselves wet outside.
“There’s nowt so queer as folk,” as Felicity’s Granny always used to say.
Yurick had to laugh when his dear friend Finn told him “welcome back”, not that he didn’t like to be back, or Finn’s lovely comment of course. But rather because Finn being back herself at a time he wasn’t, was a most delightful irony he couldn’t miss. Unlike Finn (whom he had missed in the past, he felt obliged to add, in a manner to dissipate any misunderstanding).
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