The Heroic Adventures of Mantus, Mighty Warrior, In Five Part, Three Ounces and Many, Many Walnuts
or
Onomatopoeia
This is a story that is probably still too crappy to put up, as I have to redraft and fix it up a whole lot. But any advice anyone would care to give is most, most welcome.
I have been somewhat influenced by the great Terry Pratchett (May He Continue to Write About Granny Weatherwax Forever) but I haven't stolen anything from him, except perhaps I borrowed the little old man and the bag of marbles.
`Agnostic heresy tends to turn up all over the multiverse wherever men get up off their knees and start thinking for themselves.' -TERRY PRATCHETT
Prologue
Before this land became the land it is today, it was ruled by a great king and queen. Some said they were descended from the great gods of the sky; some spoke of their creation by the little old man who plays with the universe like a bag of marbles; some say that they just happened to be around when the old monarchy died out and were good replacements. Anyway, however they got to be rulers, they were pretty damned good.
Their rule did not bring peace to the land, for it is not human nature that life be so. Under their rule, men still fought each other, children still died, and small green caterpillars still ate people's best rose bushes. Nor did the land become a magical place of milk and honey (a wizard had been hired for the job, but people complained that their carpets got sticky, and the lactose intolerant lot set up a protest).
The rulers were not perfect. They occasionally let a law slip through that was not justified, and sometimes a person was raised to a position of power that was then exploited. There were days that their marriage was not a happy one, and the rage of their arguments could be felt as far as the post-office. There were also days when the joy of their partnership shone out from their palace and across the hills and plains, warming even the old man who lived on the second-highest peak of Cold Mountain.
Their rule was a Golden Time for the land, and the reason was not quite clear. Perhaps a strange spell had been cast at the rulers' investiture. Or, perhaps more likely, people knew that their rulers were human, and life was not perfect.
However the people felt, the Golden Time, as all times must do, came to an end, and it was not from the people that the uprising came. No-one is quite sure how the Other Ones came into the land, or if they were always there. Only one thing is certain, and that is that the human rulers, Faith and Inquisition, were conquered by the Other Ones and were never seen again. The land changed, separating into a Land of Night and a Land of Light and a Land that Was Simply There, and the people, now plunged into a world of strangeness and misunderstanding, were encouraged to forget.
The Story
He was called Avid, and he carried a sword called Purity, and it was on a great black steed that he left his weeping mother to seek his destiny. The great god Machismo had visited him in the form of a devastatingly handsome mirror image and commanded him to go on a quest for the sparkling jewel that had once belonged to the invisible goddess Fortune. The journey would be long and arduous, no doubt with a series of life-threatening monsters and seductive evil enchantresses, and probably a grateful virgin or two. With barely a thought (which was, frankly, his modus operandi) , the young warrior leapt from the comfy armchair where he had been idly gazing at his reflection in a newly-sharpened dagger, waved his mother goodbye, and galloped off into the sunset with the contents of the household larder and the last three months' savings.
The wind that whipped through his glorious blond locks brushed away the cries of `Give me back my money, you bastard!' echoing behind him. The sinking sun sparkled in his eyes, which were half-closed, squinting in determination. Somewhat ironically, this prevented him from seeing the sharp turn in the road, and when his powerful steed cut off its breakneck pace and reared away, he had no-one to blame for the terrifying death-plunge into a rocky ravine but himself. It was probably a good thing that he had little time to think, for, as he plunged past several startled mountain-goats, the few precious seconds he had would have been wasted on stuff like `Ow' and `I hope I don't break my nose.' In any case, it really wasn't much of a waste of grey matter when he landed on his head.
Unfortunately, he didn't die, but woke up to find himself clutched to the breast of the town hag, who told him he was her husband, passionately kissed him, and took him off to lead a life of enforced sexual slavery in a damp old cave.
The horse was found three miles down the road with a broken leg by an old man, who ate it.
And the goats had a good laugh, because they understood the joke.
But this isn't a story about that.
This is a story about a young girl we last saw running down a dirt road yelling `Give me back my money, you bastard!'
By this time, she had gone back to mucking out the chickens, and muttering to herself how much of a bastard her brother was.
`Scummy pratt, I told Mum that we should've locked it up, just because of what happened with Dad, but no-'
This young lady's name is Prudence.
`-should've let Old Mr Sumpkins cut his nob off when we had the chance.'
She sat down on an old bit of log and looked at one of the chickens.
`I guess it's little to pay to be rid of him.'
The chicken indicated that this was probably true, but what was a chicken to know about the overall interconnectedness of things in life and perhaps having one repugnant brother was better than none?
Prudence sniffed and blinked a little, because although Avid had been so self-centred he had formed his own personal gravity, he was her brother. She would miss the way he completely ignored her existence.
Hearing a call from her mother, she brushed away a tear and hurried inside.
It was two weeks later. Prudence stood at a gate that had two doors: one that led to the Land of Light, one to the Land of Night. She knew this because a small flying pink lizard had told her. Well, actually, no, that's a lie. She knew this because she'd seen people go in and one side was extremely bright , the other very dark. The lizard had merely confirmed it.
How had she come to be here, dressed in strange leg-clinging trousers and with a sword in her hand? Frankly, she couldn't remember. The last few days, wandering without food and delirious from drinking tainted water, had left her drained of coherent memory.
It had begun the day that Avid had bolted from their lives. She had taken a sack of suspicious eggs and news of her brother's departure to her grandmother. While she was there, her grandmother had asked her to do an errand- retrieve a leather sack bound in golden twine, a possession she had misplaced in the next village over. Although she gave the habitual `grumpy teenage angst' refusal, Prudence did feel like a walk.
There was no-one to interrupt her thoughts as she walked along the track that led to Overton. The Nice Trees that grew tall all around blocked the wind, and the Small Bushes by the side of the track sheltered it from the sounds of the forest. When she stopped, Prudence was just able to hear a Nice Bird singing in one of the Nice Trees, and she reflected, not for the first time, that it would have been good if her ancestors had had a bit more imagination.
Prudence quite liked walking the paths through the trees surrounding her village. With the trees brushing the sky above, and the silence enclosing her, she could pretend. She liked to pretend that she was in a land that her grandfather had mumbled about. Of course, her grandfather had also mumbled conversations with a yellow bat called `Mr Spotty', but this had captured a little girl's imagination. She had asked her grandmother about it, but the old woman had smiled and turned away, eventually smacking her across the head with a rolling pin when she had persisted. Then her grandfather had died, and she had been left with strange images of a land where people talked about the rulers freely, a land where they decided what they were going to grow in their back gardens without asking the State first. This land seemed like a dreamworld to Prudence, and here in the woods she took it out to play with it.
In the woods, the State could not tell what a young woman was thinking.
The town of Overton was engaged in the Annual Festival of Joy, organised by the town Liar, the representative of the State in the town. Such festivals were required annually in every town, and were dreaded by the townspeople, who were forced to sit in uncomfortable chairs and watch Fools desperately trying to make the State's idea of humour funny. Other tortures involved throwing cream pies at one another, or sitting a small child on a `dunking chair' and being forced to take turns to attempt to plunge the child into icy water. Anyone refusing to take part in the festival, not participating joyfully in the activities or caught without the customary grim smile on their face would find themselves and their families locked in small boxes for four months.
As she walked the back lanes to avoid the hilarity, Prudence came upon a small temple, carved intricately with otters. Before she had time to find an alternate route, green smoke began to curl up from the centremost otter.
`Damn,' she said, and settled down to wait.
After a dazzling and undoubtedly expensive pyrotechnic display, the smoke cleared enough to reveal the large translucent figure hovering over the temple.
`COWER, SHIVERING MORTAL,' intoned the figure, `I AM THE DREAD GOD IMPRESSION, AND I AM COME-'
`Wait a sec, if you're only a god impression, why are you so dread?' interrupted Prudence.
`NO, I'M NOT A GOD IMPRESSION, I AM THE GOD, IMPRESSION!' boomed the spectre.
`Huh?' said Prudence.
`I AM- OH, WAIT A SECOND, I'LL TURN OFF THE REVERB.' The figure reached behind him and fiddled for a second. He seemed to deflate a little. `Now,' he said, turning back to Prudence, `I am the dread god Impression, and I am come to give you a quest.'
`Oh, Impression,' nodded Prudence. `Well, nice to meet you, but, you know, people to do, places to see. Bye.'
`Wait!' Impression blocked Prudence's path as she turned away. `I have a quest for you!'
`That's nice, but I really have to be somewhere. Bye.'
`No!' The god rolled his purple eyes and reached behind him again. `NO, MORTAL, I AM YOUR GOD AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!'
`Oh, okay,' sighed Prudence, and sat down. `You've got two minutes.'
`THAT'S BETTER. NOW, I HAVE A QUEST FOR YOU.'
`Why?'
`WHY WHAT?'
`Why do you have a quest for me, specifically? Don't these sort of things sort of go to males? Kind of like prostate cancer?'
`WELL, I BELIEVE IN WOMEN'S LIB.'
Prudence raised a discerning eyebrow. `Um-hum.'
`IF YOU MUST KNOW, I TRIED THE HEROES. THEY WERE BUSY.'
`Fine. Get on with it, then.'
`NOW LISTEN AND COWER YOU MORTAL, FOR MY POWER IS STRONG, MY COFFEE IS WEAK AND NO MORTAL KNOWS THE SACRED RITE TO BANISH ME. I, THE BROTHER OF THE HELL-LORD, MONEY, DEMAND THAT YOU-'
`Oops, time's up. Gotta go.' Prudence dusted off her skirts and started back down the alleyway, to find a more templeless street.
`WAIT! WHAT ABOUT MY QUEST?'
`Oh!' Prudence yelled, getting annoyed. `Sod your quest!'
As Prudence disappeared down the street, the god frowned to himself. `DAMN. HOW DID SHE KNOW ABOUT THE SACRED RITE?' With that, he imploded.
Prudence emerged from the alley, only to be halted by a lanky young lad in buckskins.
`Fear not, virgin maiden, for I, Mantus, shall protect you!'
The misled young soul appeared to be under the delusion that she was on some kind of quest, after overhearing her conversation with Impression, and had seen through her `brave deception' that she was merely on an `errand' when she had tried to explain. Despite all efforts to the contrary, she had been stuck with him on the long journey.
For, after discovering that the place her grandmother had said the satchel was in the next town, Prudence had decided that she might as well keep going. And going, when she found it was further down the road. And going, when she was told it was over the next hill. And going...
Mantus, or `Josh' as his non-Greek-warrior name had it, had proved quite a help along the journey. If she hadn't had to rescue him from that strange monster with so many mouths, she never would have found the sword she had needed to cut off all of the arms that had sprung from that tree he had wonderingly called the Tree of Knowledge and hugged so joyously. And when he had been lured into that den of spirits by a man in a white wig, why, if that hadn't happened, they wouldn't have found those strange mushrooms that had been the only source of sustenance after he had traded their food supply for an aluminium `magical' sword. The green elephants that had entertained them later were a bonus.
And he was so gentlemanly. He refused himself the warmth it would bring if they slept close together, so as to guard her reputation. That thought certainly kept Prudence warm as she had lain shivering in the isolated forest, Josh sleeping wrapped in his woolen cloak a few metres away. Although, come to think of it, he really hadn't minded about her reputation when they had bathed naked together in the hotsprings they had found a few miles back, even though the sign had said `Hotsprings of Passion' and she, certainly, had left feeling a little unsettled.
True, though, he had saved her skin that once. It had been such a pretty book, pages moving all by themselves within it so quickly that you could not see them, and the pictures seemed to jump and dance so magically. As she had stared into it with fascination, she had felt herself being drawn into the beautiful story, wearing pretty dresses, dancing with handsome princes, eating fabulous roasts... After Josh had pulled her away from the book, she had the distinct feeling that she had not read it. It had read her.
So Josh wasn't heroic. So he had saved her by simply closing it, after attempting to push her away from it, chop it up, burn it and many other heroic, manly things. And so he was occasionally selfish and quite stupid. Sometimes, he wasn't, like when he had been in a coma from the poisonous thorns they had stepped in. Okay, okay, and when he had gone out and caught a snake, admittedly by stepping on it, for dinner.
`Okay, Josh, which one do we do?' Prudence asked.
Josh looked blankly at the doors. He'd thought that being a Greek Hero would be a cinch. Oh, how wrong he'd been.
Life, up to now, had been merely Waiting for Destiny. When he'd come across a real, live Distressed Maiden being given a quest by a real live god, he had thought, `This is it. The Big One.' Except the Maiden wasn't all that distressed, except when he accidentally frightened bears from the bushes or spoke to her. And the quest was for some old lady's handbag.
They did get here to... whatever this was, at least. This sounded heroic. It also sounded like a trick.
`Tell us again, small lizard,' he demanded in his best Hero voice.
The lizard sighed.
`Okay, it's like this. The Land of Light is a place where everything is beautiful, and you can be whatever you want to be. The Land of Night is a place of misery and darkness, with all sorts of gooey diseases. Now, choose a gods-damned door. I'm hungry.'
Josh's brow creased in concentration. It was a trick. They were supposed to pick the Land of Light, and then it would be full of things with nine legs and long tongues, or something. But then, what if They had thought of that, and they picked the Land of Night, and it really was a land of misery? The lizard had said it couldn't lie, but if it could, then it'd lie about it. Hmm.
Finally, he came to a conclusion.
`I will decide, small lizard, but first you must answer this: do you ever fantasize about being spanked by the Queen Mother with a very small and accurate whip?'
`Yes, often, especially on rainy afternoons,' answered the lizard instantly, before hitting itself on the head. `Damn! I always fall for that! Why don't I just tell him about all my embarrassing sexual experiences!'
`Fine. You do not lie, then. We choose the Land of Light.'
Three minutes after the two travellers had entered, the lizard began to laugh hysterically.
`Suckers!' It wiped a scaly paw over a teary eye. `I only ever fantasize about Prince Edward! Burn in hell!'
It was a pink lizard, but that didn't mean it had to be nice.
Prudence opened her eyes, and saw the world as it had always been, in the little private corners of her mind. Her perfectly glowing blonde hair flowed sensuously over her shoulders, her waist fitted snugly into the gorgeous dress that draped perfectly over her prefect curves. Around her, the hills flowed perfectly into a perfect horizon, a perfect little stream curving around them. And people, perfect, beautiful people, were scattered over the perfectly trimmed grass.
The perfect man standing near her snaked his perfect arm around her waist, and pulled her to him. Their bodies fitted together... perfectly. He lowered his perfect lips and Prudence only then realized it was Josh.
Sunlight shone in her eyes, almost blinding her. She attempted to hide from the fluorescent brilliance, but the light emanated from the very trees. Something was wrong. No light should be this bright, this white.
She rubbed at her watering eyes, and for an instant, barely a second, she glimpsed a strange silvery substance in her peripheral vision. She looked around, but no silver was there- the golden fields, the luxurious trees, everything was there. She rubbed her eyes again, harder this time, and the silvery image filled her vision again.
Prudence walked around, rubbing her eyes hard and staring. She stared at Josh, and at the tree behind him. He turned, luxuriating in the feel of his rippling muscles, and saw nothing.
`All mirrors,' whispered Prudence. `It's all mirrors!'
Josh shook his head. `What?'
Prudence rubbed her eyes again, and stared at Josh, the real Josh with the wobbly eyes and big nose, and at the silvery, reflective landscape around them.
`Rub your eyes! Can't you see? It's all mirrors! It's not real!'
She grabbed the sword that was still attached to the ragged trousers that she still wore, and staggered toward a tree.
`Can't you see, Josh?' she said as she scraped at the bark. `It's mirrors! Rub your eyes!'
Josh rubbed hard, as much to block this madwoman from his vision as anything. As he opened them, for a split second, he saw.
The beautiful landscape now was a land of flowing, silvery mirrors, strange, fluorescent light bouncing off the images of staggering, crawling captives. The beautiful movie star in her chariot was a staggering, emaciated old woman, the scientist giving a speech a man banging his head against a silvery wall. And then the image blurred, and the trees were back.
He turned to Prudence, who by now had scraped a hole in the silver and was peering through.
`I don't care what it is, as long as it's real!' he heard her cry before the glass seemed to reach and enfold them and the world was glass and then...
Night.
`Grandmother!' Prudence woke up with a start. The light began to smother her, envelop her and all she could see was silver-
`Shh, child. It is but lamplight.' A warm hand on her shoulder eased her back on to the pillow, and the light dimmed to a small glow in the corner. Prudence sighed. Light was so much brighter these days.
A steaming cup of tea was pressed into her hands, giving her time to accept her surroundings. Here was the warm cot, tucked snugly away in her grandmother's hut. Here was the small fire that warmed the room. Here was the lamplight that glowed over a heap of blanket next to her-
Here was Josh's forehead, slightly warm still, but easing away from the fever that had left him delirious for the last day of their journey. Prudence sat back slightly, relieved, and smiled a small smile. Delirious men said a lot more than one would expect. She smoothed the blanket back over his shoulder and sighed.
When they had stumbled, half-blind, into the hut two nights ago she had tried to explain to her grandmother in some way. The Land of Night, the misery and pain of it, the sorrow there, and the relief it all was after that falsely glowing land of silver. Her grandmother had sat there and nodded as she had told her story, held her tight as she shudderingly told of that land of light, smiled and nodded as she again escaped into the loneliness, the starkness and most of all the realness of that other dark land. Prudence had woken up every morning amazed at how real it still all was, finding more to wake up for than ever before.
All the time, knowing there was one thing that she had not told.
She looked at the old woman bent over the fire.
`I have failed you, grandmother,' she said.
`Hmm.' The woman barely acknowledged her, but Prudence decided to go on.
`I failed to find your satchel, grandmother,' she continued anxiously. `I know how much it meant to you. I looked everywhere, I promise-'
`Hush.' The old woman turned around sharply and looked down on her. Slowly, her gaze softened. `I would have thought you would realise by now. It seems I will have to tell you.' She sat down, and took the girl's hand. `There is no failure, child.
`I lost something, long ago, that held everything that was important to me. This land became for me a land that is simply here, and once I put down the thing that meant the most to me, I forgot about the treasures it held. I lived my life from day to day, I had my children, and every day it seemed more far away. I could not remember where I had lost it, and it seemed so difficult to retrieve it, that I simply gave up. But you... you, Prudence, have done something for us, for me and you and many more. I asked you to find a satchel of the finest leather.' The old woman put her hand over the girl's cheek. `Bound with golden twine.' Here the old woman brushed away a few strands of the girl's blonde hair. She paused, looking into her granddaughter's eyes. `You, Prudence, have found it, and it is you I thank for it.'
The girl and her grandmother embraced, and in the warm little hut, with more than fire glowing in it, we will leave them.
By the way, the land they lived in did not become more than a Land that Was Simply There, because even though the girl and the old woman showed the people what they had found, the villagers continued to believe in what was not there, follow the words of those who told them they were servants, and distrust their own hearts. They are closer than they seem.
or
Onomatopoeia
This is a story that is probably still too crappy to put up, as I have to redraft and fix it up a whole lot. But any advice anyone would care to give is most, most welcome.
I have been somewhat influenced by the great Terry Pratchett (May He Continue to Write About Granny Weatherwax Forever) but I haven't stolen anything from him, except perhaps I borrowed the little old man and the bag of marbles.
`Agnostic heresy tends to turn up all over the multiverse wherever men get up off their knees and start thinking for themselves.' -TERRY PRATCHETT
Prologue
Before this land became the land it is today, it was ruled by a great king and queen. Some said they were descended from the great gods of the sky; some spoke of their creation by the little old man who plays with the universe like a bag of marbles; some say that they just happened to be around when the old monarchy died out and were good replacements. Anyway, however they got to be rulers, they were pretty damned good.
Their rule did not bring peace to the land, for it is not human nature that life be so. Under their rule, men still fought each other, children still died, and small green caterpillars still ate people's best rose bushes. Nor did the land become a magical place of milk and honey (a wizard had been hired for the job, but people complained that their carpets got sticky, and the lactose intolerant lot set up a protest).
The rulers were not perfect. They occasionally let a law slip through that was not justified, and sometimes a person was raised to a position of power that was then exploited. There were days that their marriage was not a happy one, and the rage of their arguments could be felt as far as the post-office. There were also days when the joy of their partnership shone out from their palace and across the hills and plains, warming even the old man who lived on the second-highest peak of Cold Mountain.
Their rule was a Golden Time for the land, and the reason was not quite clear. Perhaps a strange spell had been cast at the rulers' investiture. Or, perhaps more likely, people knew that their rulers were human, and life was not perfect.
However the people felt, the Golden Time, as all times must do, came to an end, and it was not from the people that the uprising came. No-one is quite sure how the Other Ones came into the land, or if they were always there. Only one thing is certain, and that is that the human rulers, Faith and Inquisition, were conquered by the Other Ones and were never seen again. The land changed, separating into a Land of Night and a Land of Light and a Land that Was Simply There, and the people, now plunged into a world of strangeness and misunderstanding, were encouraged to forget.
The Story
He was called Avid, and he carried a sword called Purity, and it was on a great black steed that he left his weeping mother to seek his destiny. The great god Machismo had visited him in the form of a devastatingly handsome mirror image and commanded him to go on a quest for the sparkling jewel that had once belonged to the invisible goddess Fortune. The journey would be long and arduous, no doubt with a series of life-threatening monsters and seductive evil enchantresses, and probably a grateful virgin or two. With barely a thought (which was, frankly, his modus operandi) , the young warrior leapt from the comfy armchair where he had been idly gazing at his reflection in a newly-sharpened dagger, waved his mother goodbye, and galloped off into the sunset with the contents of the household larder and the last three months' savings.
The wind that whipped through his glorious blond locks brushed away the cries of `Give me back my money, you bastard!' echoing behind him. The sinking sun sparkled in his eyes, which were half-closed, squinting in determination. Somewhat ironically, this prevented him from seeing the sharp turn in the road, and when his powerful steed cut off its breakneck pace and reared away, he had no-one to blame for the terrifying death-plunge into a rocky ravine but himself. It was probably a good thing that he had little time to think, for, as he plunged past several startled mountain-goats, the few precious seconds he had would have been wasted on stuff like `Ow' and `I hope I don't break my nose.' In any case, it really wasn't much of a waste of grey matter when he landed on his head.
Unfortunately, he didn't die, but woke up to find himself clutched to the breast of the town hag, who told him he was her husband, passionately kissed him, and took him off to lead a life of enforced sexual slavery in a damp old cave.
The horse was found three miles down the road with a broken leg by an old man, who ate it.
And the goats had a good laugh, because they understood the joke.
But this isn't a story about that.
This is a story about a young girl we last saw running down a dirt road yelling `Give me back my money, you bastard!'
By this time, she had gone back to mucking out the chickens, and muttering to herself how much of a bastard her brother was.
`Scummy pratt, I told Mum that we should've locked it up, just because of what happened with Dad, but no-'
This young lady's name is Prudence.
`-should've let Old Mr Sumpkins cut his nob off when we had the chance.'
She sat down on an old bit of log and looked at one of the chickens.
`I guess it's little to pay to be rid of him.'
The chicken indicated that this was probably true, but what was a chicken to know about the overall interconnectedness of things in life and perhaps having one repugnant brother was better than none?
Prudence sniffed and blinked a little, because although Avid had been so self-centred he had formed his own personal gravity, he was her brother. She would miss the way he completely ignored her existence.
Hearing a call from her mother, she brushed away a tear and hurried inside.
It was two weeks later. Prudence stood at a gate that had two doors: one that led to the Land of Light, one to the Land of Night. She knew this because a small flying pink lizard had told her. Well, actually, no, that's a lie. She knew this because she'd seen people go in and one side was extremely bright , the other very dark. The lizard had merely confirmed it.
How had she come to be here, dressed in strange leg-clinging trousers and with a sword in her hand? Frankly, she couldn't remember. The last few days, wandering without food and delirious from drinking tainted water, had left her drained of coherent memory.
It had begun the day that Avid had bolted from their lives. She had taken a sack of suspicious eggs and news of her brother's departure to her grandmother. While she was there, her grandmother had asked her to do an errand- retrieve a leather sack bound in golden twine, a possession she had misplaced in the next village over. Although she gave the habitual `grumpy teenage angst' refusal, Prudence did feel like a walk.
There was no-one to interrupt her thoughts as she walked along the track that led to Overton. The Nice Trees that grew tall all around blocked the wind, and the Small Bushes by the side of the track sheltered it from the sounds of the forest. When she stopped, Prudence was just able to hear a Nice Bird singing in one of the Nice Trees, and she reflected, not for the first time, that it would have been good if her ancestors had had a bit more imagination.
Prudence quite liked walking the paths through the trees surrounding her village. With the trees brushing the sky above, and the silence enclosing her, she could pretend. She liked to pretend that she was in a land that her grandfather had mumbled about. Of course, her grandfather had also mumbled conversations with a yellow bat called `Mr Spotty', but this had captured a little girl's imagination. She had asked her grandmother about it, but the old woman had smiled and turned away, eventually smacking her across the head with a rolling pin when she had persisted. Then her grandfather had died, and she had been left with strange images of a land where people talked about the rulers freely, a land where they decided what they were going to grow in their back gardens without asking the State first. This land seemed like a dreamworld to Prudence, and here in the woods she took it out to play with it.
In the woods, the State could not tell what a young woman was thinking.
The town of Overton was engaged in the Annual Festival of Joy, organised by the town Liar, the representative of the State in the town. Such festivals were required annually in every town, and were dreaded by the townspeople, who were forced to sit in uncomfortable chairs and watch Fools desperately trying to make the State's idea of humour funny. Other tortures involved throwing cream pies at one another, or sitting a small child on a `dunking chair' and being forced to take turns to attempt to plunge the child into icy water. Anyone refusing to take part in the festival, not participating joyfully in the activities or caught without the customary grim smile on their face would find themselves and their families locked in small boxes for four months.
As she walked the back lanes to avoid the hilarity, Prudence came upon a small temple, carved intricately with otters. Before she had time to find an alternate route, green smoke began to curl up from the centremost otter.
`Damn,' she said, and settled down to wait.
After a dazzling and undoubtedly expensive pyrotechnic display, the smoke cleared enough to reveal the large translucent figure hovering over the temple.
`COWER, SHIVERING MORTAL,' intoned the figure, `I AM THE DREAD GOD IMPRESSION, AND I AM COME-'
`Wait a sec, if you're only a god impression, why are you so dread?' interrupted Prudence.
`NO, I'M NOT A GOD IMPRESSION, I AM THE GOD, IMPRESSION!' boomed the spectre.
`Huh?' said Prudence.
`I AM- OH, WAIT A SECOND, I'LL TURN OFF THE REVERB.' The figure reached behind him and fiddled for a second. He seemed to deflate a little. `Now,' he said, turning back to Prudence, `I am the dread god Impression, and I am come to give you a quest.'
`Oh, Impression,' nodded Prudence. `Well, nice to meet you, but, you know, people to do, places to see. Bye.'
`Wait!' Impression blocked Prudence's path as she turned away. `I have a quest for you!'
`That's nice, but I really have to be somewhere. Bye.'
`No!' The god rolled his purple eyes and reached behind him again. `NO, MORTAL, I AM YOUR GOD AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!'
`Oh, okay,' sighed Prudence, and sat down. `You've got two minutes.'
`THAT'S BETTER. NOW, I HAVE A QUEST FOR YOU.'
`Why?'
`WHY WHAT?'
`Why do you have a quest for me, specifically? Don't these sort of things sort of go to males? Kind of like prostate cancer?'
`WELL, I BELIEVE IN WOMEN'S LIB.'
Prudence raised a discerning eyebrow. `Um-hum.'
`IF YOU MUST KNOW, I TRIED THE HEROES. THEY WERE BUSY.'
`Fine. Get on with it, then.'
`NOW LISTEN AND COWER YOU MORTAL, FOR MY POWER IS STRONG, MY COFFEE IS WEAK AND NO MORTAL KNOWS THE SACRED RITE TO BANISH ME. I, THE BROTHER OF THE HELL-LORD, MONEY, DEMAND THAT YOU-'
`Oops, time's up. Gotta go.' Prudence dusted off her skirts and started back down the alleyway, to find a more templeless street.
`WAIT! WHAT ABOUT MY QUEST?'
`Oh!' Prudence yelled, getting annoyed. `Sod your quest!'
As Prudence disappeared down the street, the god frowned to himself. `DAMN. HOW DID SHE KNOW ABOUT THE SACRED RITE?' With that, he imploded.
Prudence emerged from the alley, only to be halted by a lanky young lad in buckskins.
`Fear not, virgin maiden, for I, Mantus, shall protect you!'
The misled young soul appeared to be under the delusion that she was on some kind of quest, after overhearing her conversation with Impression, and had seen through her `brave deception' that she was merely on an `errand' when she had tried to explain. Despite all efforts to the contrary, she had been stuck with him on the long journey.
For, after discovering that the place her grandmother had said the satchel was in the next town, Prudence had decided that she might as well keep going. And going, when she found it was further down the road. And going, when she was told it was over the next hill. And going...
Mantus, or `Josh' as his non-Greek-warrior name had it, had proved quite a help along the journey. If she hadn't had to rescue him from that strange monster with so many mouths, she never would have found the sword she had needed to cut off all of the arms that had sprung from that tree he had wonderingly called the Tree of Knowledge and hugged so joyously. And when he had been lured into that den of spirits by a man in a white wig, why, if that hadn't happened, they wouldn't have found those strange mushrooms that had been the only source of sustenance after he had traded their food supply for an aluminium `magical' sword. The green elephants that had entertained them later were a bonus.
And he was so gentlemanly. He refused himself the warmth it would bring if they slept close together, so as to guard her reputation. That thought certainly kept Prudence warm as she had lain shivering in the isolated forest, Josh sleeping wrapped in his woolen cloak a few metres away. Although, come to think of it, he really hadn't minded about her reputation when they had bathed naked together in the hotsprings they had found a few miles back, even though the sign had said `Hotsprings of Passion' and she, certainly, had left feeling a little unsettled.
True, though, he had saved her skin that once. It had been such a pretty book, pages moving all by themselves within it so quickly that you could not see them, and the pictures seemed to jump and dance so magically. As she had stared into it with fascination, she had felt herself being drawn into the beautiful story, wearing pretty dresses, dancing with handsome princes, eating fabulous roasts... After Josh had pulled her away from the book, she had the distinct feeling that she had not read it. It had read her.
So Josh wasn't heroic. So he had saved her by simply closing it, after attempting to push her away from it, chop it up, burn it and many other heroic, manly things. And so he was occasionally selfish and quite stupid. Sometimes, he wasn't, like when he had been in a coma from the poisonous thorns they had stepped in. Okay, okay, and when he had gone out and caught a snake, admittedly by stepping on it, for dinner.
`Okay, Josh, which one do we do?' Prudence asked.
Josh looked blankly at the doors. He'd thought that being a Greek Hero would be a cinch. Oh, how wrong he'd been.
Life, up to now, had been merely Waiting for Destiny. When he'd come across a real, live Distressed Maiden being given a quest by a real live god, he had thought, `This is it. The Big One.' Except the Maiden wasn't all that distressed, except when he accidentally frightened bears from the bushes or spoke to her. And the quest was for some old lady's handbag.
They did get here to... whatever this was, at least. This sounded heroic. It also sounded like a trick.
`Tell us again, small lizard,' he demanded in his best Hero voice.
The lizard sighed.
`Okay, it's like this. The Land of Light is a place where everything is beautiful, and you can be whatever you want to be. The Land of Night is a place of misery and darkness, with all sorts of gooey diseases. Now, choose a gods-damned door. I'm hungry.'
Josh's brow creased in concentration. It was a trick. They were supposed to pick the Land of Light, and then it would be full of things with nine legs and long tongues, or something. But then, what if They had thought of that, and they picked the Land of Night, and it really was a land of misery? The lizard had said it couldn't lie, but if it could, then it'd lie about it. Hmm.
Finally, he came to a conclusion.
`I will decide, small lizard, but first you must answer this: do you ever fantasize about being spanked by the Queen Mother with a very small and accurate whip?'
`Yes, often, especially on rainy afternoons,' answered the lizard instantly, before hitting itself on the head. `Damn! I always fall for that! Why don't I just tell him about all my embarrassing sexual experiences!'
`Fine. You do not lie, then. We choose the Land of Light.'
Three minutes after the two travellers had entered, the lizard began to laugh hysterically.
`Suckers!' It wiped a scaly paw over a teary eye. `I only ever fantasize about Prince Edward! Burn in hell!'
It was a pink lizard, but that didn't mean it had to be nice.
Prudence opened her eyes, and saw the world as it had always been, in the little private corners of her mind. Her perfectly glowing blonde hair flowed sensuously over her shoulders, her waist fitted snugly into the gorgeous dress that draped perfectly over her prefect curves. Around her, the hills flowed perfectly into a perfect horizon, a perfect little stream curving around them. And people, perfect, beautiful people, were scattered over the perfectly trimmed grass.
The perfect man standing near her snaked his perfect arm around her waist, and pulled her to him. Their bodies fitted together... perfectly. He lowered his perfect lips and Prudence only then realized it was Josh.
Sunlight shone in her eyes, almost blinding her. She attempted to hide from the fluorescent brilliance, but the light emanated from the very trees. Something was wrong. No light should be this bright, this white.
She rubbed at her watering eyes, and for an instant, barely a second, she glimpsed a strange silvery substance in her peripheral vision. She looked around, but no silver was there- the golden fields, the luxurious trees, everything was there. She rubbed her eyes again, harder this time, and the silvery image filled her vision again.
Prudence walked around, rubbing her eyes hard and staring. She stared at Josh, and at the tree behind him. He turned, luxuriating in the feel of his rippling muscles, and saw nothing.
`All mirrors,' whispered Prudence. `It's all mirrors!'
Josh shook his head. `What?'
Prudence rubbed her eyes again, and stared at Josh, the real Josh with the wobbly eyes and big nose, and at the silvery, reflective landscape around them.
`Rub your eyes! Can't you see? It's all mirrors! It's not real!'
She grabbed the sword that was still attached to the ragged trousers that she still wore, and staggered toward a tree.
`Can't you see, Josh?' she said as she scraped at the bark. `It's mirrors! Rub your eyes!'
Josh rubbed hard, as much to block this madwoman from his vision as anything. As he opened them, for a split second, he saw.
The beautiful landscape now was a land of flowing, silvery mirrors, strange, fluorescent light bouncing off the images of staggering, crawling captives. The beautiful movie star in her chariot was a staggering, emaciated old woman, the scientist giving a speech a man banging his head against a silvery wall. And then the image blurred, and the trees were back.
He turned to Prudence, who by now had scraped a hole in the silver and was peering through.
`I don't care what it is, as long as it's real!' he heard her cry before the glass seemed to reach and enfold them and the world was glass and then...
Night.
`Grandmother!' Prudence woke up with a start. The light began to smother her, envelop her and all she could see was silver-
`Shh, child. It is but lamplight.' A warm hand on her shoulder eased her back on to the pillow, and the light dimmed to a small glow in the corner. Prudence sighed. Light was so much brighter these days.
A steaming cup of tea was pressed into her hands, giving her time to accept her surroundings. Here was the warm cot, tucked snugly away in her grandmother's hut. Here was the small fire that warmed the room. Here was the lamplight that glowed over a heap of blanket next to her-
Here was Josh's forehead, slightly warm still, but easing away from the fever that had left him delirious for the last day of their journey. Prudence sat back slightly, relieved, and smiled a small smile. Delirious men said a lot more than one would expect. She smoothed the blanket back over his shoulder and sighed.
When they had stumbled, half-blind, into the hut two nights ago she had tried to explain to her grandmother in some way. The Land of Night, the misery and pain of it, the sorrow there, and the relief it all was after that falsely glowing land of silver. Her grandmother had sat there and nodded as she had told her story, held her tight as she shudderingly told of that land of light, smiled and nodded as she again escaped into the loneliness, the starkness and most of all the realness of that other dark land. Prudence had woken up every morning amazed at how real it still all was, finding more to wake up for than ever before.
All the time, knowing there was one thing that she had not told.
She looked at the old woman bent over the fire.
`I have failed you, grandmother,' she said.
`Hmm.' The woman barely acknowledged her, but Prudence decided to go on.
`I failed to find your satchel, grandmother,' she continued anxiously. `I know how much it meant to you. I looked everywhere, I promise-'
`Hush.' The old woman turned around sharply and looked down on her. Slowly, her gaze softened. `I would have thought you would realise by now. It seems I will have to tell you.' She sat down, and took the girl's hand. `There is no failure, child.
`I lost something, long ago, that held everything that was important to me. This land became for me a land that is simply here, and once I put down the thing that meant the most to me, I forgot about the treasures it held. I lived my life from day to day, I had my children, and every day it seemed more far away. I could not remember where I had lost it, and it seemed so difficult to retrieve it, that I simply gave up. But you... you, Prudence, have done something for us, for me and you and many more. I asked you to find a satchel of the finest leather.' The old woman put her hand over the girl's cheek. `Bound with golden twine.' Here the old woman brushed away a few strands of the girl's blonde hair. She paused, looking into her granddaughter's eyes. `You, Prudence, have found it, and it is you I thank for it.'
The girl and her grandmother embraced, and in the warm little hut, with more than fire glowing in it, we will leave them.
By the way, the land they lived in did not become more than a Land that Was Simply There, because even though the girl and the old woman showed the people what they had found, the villagers continued to believe in what was not there, follow the words of those who told them they were servants, and distrust their own hearts. They are closer than they seem.