16
The fox Conredd, one of Alagadda's captains (you'd forgotten about him, hadn't you?) had lain in the orchard near the east wall of the Abbey for an entire day, unwittingly besieged on all sides by lizards. The lizards being the unwitting ones, of course. They didn't fancy too much the orchard, and its delicacies of a vegetarian bent, and although fruits and such things were not much to Conredd's palate either, he did what he must for the sake of his survival.
Waiting.
Darkness fell. Conredd had made only tepid motions the entire day, and rare ones at that, but as the moon rose in the sky he began to exercise his joints to rub away the stiffness that had crept in during such long hours.
Then he rose and made his escape. Lizards were everywhere, but always sleeping. In fact, so many had been sleeping throughout the day that he feared they were nocturnal and that his calculations had been off and that night wouldn't be optimal time for his egress after all. But the lizards slept at night, as well. They either slept or slew.
As a fox, moving unseen and unheard was a natural talent of his, and he weaved between the slumbering throngs of reptilians with only a twinge of fear that they might wake to rend him limb from limb. Even as the numbers glutted near the exit, Conredd only had to place slightly more care into his tread.
He was out the east gate faster than even he had anticipated. So fast it was almost a disappointment. As if he felt an urge to remain in the orchard and watch what happened, to see everything out to the end. But such notions were foolish, the thoughts of madbeasts. Alagadda may or may not be dead (in fact, he staked on the latter), but her horde certainly was and with it the main vestige of Alagadda's power. She was, after all, supposed to be Alagadda of the Many Blades, referring to her rather large horde, as well as several other elements of her half-fabricated warlord persona (Conredd had been around since near to the beginning, back when Alagadda's main drive was less self-aggrandizement and more power seizure, and had seen every iteration of the creature she had now become). Even if one eschewed the belief in quantity over quality, who did Alagadda have with her? Vellis?
So, hardly a secure bet. Conredd would take his leave of Miss Alagadda—even giving a respectful nod of his head toward the Abbey as he stole into the woods—and head south, where Jareck had once claimed the weather was warmer and the spoils more plentiful. Where foxes and vermin were not merely reviled outcasts forced to band together for survival but respectable members of more advanced and civilized society, partaking in professions Conredd had found intoxicating simply to hear their names roll off the oldish stoat's tongue: usury, simony, kleptocracy. Perhaps he would dabble in some of these ventures.
Something stopped him before he made it far into the woods. It was nothing tangible in the darkness; only a voice.
"You… You are one of the furred onezzz…"
Conredd drew his rapier, a light, well-adorned blade plucked from the paw of a slain Long Patrol lieutenant and bestowed upon him as a gift from Lady Alagadda, and backed against the nearest tree, trying to place the voice in the dark. Indubitably a lizard from the accent, which surprised him. He had not known they could speak.
"Obvious statement. Are you planning to kill me or what."
The voice spoke. "No… I dezire to zpeak of other matterz with you… Perhapzz you have heard tell of Tuzcarawaz of the One Blade…?"
The name made not the slightest impact on Conredd until he remembered it was what Kludd had been calling himself as he bossed around the lizards. Oh, right. Kludd was the one behind all this mayhem, that had completely slipped Conredd's mind, mostly because it seemed like both such a ridiculous and irrelevant matter.
"That's not his name. It's Kludd, an' he's nothin' special."
"I zuzpected az much… A fake, a liar, a zcoundrel…"
An odd intensity burned in the lizard's voice. Conredd had not known lizards capable of more complex emotion than hunger. The voice continued.
"I have watched you, buzhtail… You waited long for the opportunity to flee… You are smarter than your brethren. I zeek to help you…"
"Who are you?" Conredd asked.
"I am Kalzmar… I waz onze the ruler of my kind… alongzide my mate, Marclaw, we remained in blizzful dominion of our realm… Until thiz zo-called Tuzcarawaz came… He zlew Marclaw. The otherz all followed him… they are ztupid beaztz. They follow whoever iz the ztrongest… Nothing more."
"So you want me to help you assassinate Kludd, that's it." Conredd wondered how seriously he should contemplate this Kalzmar's offer. It could very well be true, after all, that whoever slew the leader became the leader. In fact, it had to be, how else would Kludd have gained control over them. Which meant one deft blow against the fool could swing everything into his favor, give him control over the Abbey, reverse his fortunes instantaneously.
Until Kalzmar found some new captain with which to conspire.
He would slay her before it came to that.
Of course foolish, unbridled ambition usually led to downfall. Conredd had seen it hundreds of times, the only exception being Alagadda.
"They follow him becauze of the zword… nothing elze. They follow the zword…"
The sword? Oh—the Abbey sword, the one rumored to have magical properties and yet had either not had such or else Alagadda had dispelled them in her duel with the so-called Abbey Champion. Conredd had liked the way the sword looked himself, although he already had a blade to signify his captainship. As had both Jareck and Vellis (although neither used theirs much); it was a customary thing.
If the lizards would follow a lout like Kludd if he only had the sword, that facilitated the process finely. Because Kludd was an imbecile, an incompetent, a joke, Conredd was sure of it, had been sure of it ever since the idiot rat's appointment. Alagadda had elevated his position as a grand joke, a joke on him, and their horde, and all of them. It only served Alagadda right that her joke would turn around to gnaw at her ribs. And only fitting that Conredd, who had been the tactician of her operation since its infancy, would seize the reins.
"Okay, Kalzmar," he said. "Let's kill the rat."
Alagadda wore a white sling around one arm and a swaddle of white bandages coiled around her otherwise-bare torso. Another bandage had been tied around her neck, and a few more covered the right side of her head, which appeared earless. And yet she still bounced around the cavernous library, indefatigable, even as all the other creatures sagged against the numerous plush chairs sighing heavily. Some of the bandages had dried blood on them. Nothing slowed Alagadda, she spoke nonstop, words Laramie was too tired to bother to understand.
At least, until Alagadda pranced forward and with her still-functional arm slapped Laramie in the face.
Laramie jolted out of her chair, blinking.
"I'm talkin' t'you," said Alagadda. "Listen."
"I've sprinted halfway across this Abbey, fought a buncha lizards, and leaped out a window to get here. Lemme rest a bit."
A quizzical expression grew over Alagadda's face, before she drew a knife from somewhere and held it to Laramie's throat. "What's this lip yer givin' me? What, d'ye think that just 'cuz there's an army a lizzerds out there I gots t'worry 'bout, I'm now beholden to you an' yore disrespect?"
"Apologies, ma'am. It may have somethin' more to do with the fact yer wearin' enough bandages to stock the whole Abbey infirmary," said Laramie. "Or maybe I'm so sick an' tired of this whole endeavor that I don't feel too much like cowerin' in the presence of Your Many-Bladedness."
Alagadda's eye—the one that still seemed to be working—began to twitch and Laramie felt the edge of the knife press closer to her skin, but Jareck swooped in and put a reassuring paw on Alagadda's shoulder. "Now now, let's remember ourselves."
"Don't you dare touch me, Jareck," said Alagadda.
Jareck held his paws up and took a step back, a childish grin on his face. "I'm just sayin', no need for violence further than that we've already seen."
Alagadda made a single, hoarse, mocking laugh. "No need for violence. No need for violence! Jareck, in this rotten world violence's the only thing for anyone to 'ave need of. 'Tis a world of cruelty and despair. Don't believe me, look outside that window, at the creatures this earth spat up to devour us all."
"The world is just a place," said Jareck.
With a dismissive wave, Alagadda forgot about him. "Look. Recorder. I'm not a patient beast, so let's sidestep the usual formalities. You may not put too much stock in preserving yore own life. But if you don't give me my due respect an' obey my commands, yore friend is dead."
She made a careless flick of her wrist and the knife sailed across the library and imbedded itself in the wall half an inch from Roane's head. Roane jolted out of a half-slumber and stared at Laramie with wide eyes.
"I'll do it piecemeal, too," said Alagadda. "Not all at once. Paws first. No, individual fingers, then the whole paw. I'll move up. Lots of body to carve up. So whaddya say, you feelin' a bit more submissive?"
Laramie bored her gaze into Alagadda's sockets.
"I said, whaddya say?" Alagadda drew another knife and balanced it precariously on her upturned paw.
"Fine," said Laramie.
"Oh no, fine will never do," said Alagadda. "I need a bit more assertion in it. Try this: 'I, lowly an' pitiful specimen of the conquered Redwall Abbey, do solemnly swear to submit my worthless being to one Alagadda of the Many Blades, to pledge my life to her whim, to efface myself into nonexistence. Repeat it, with feeling."
"'Tis a little difficult to remember word-for-word," said Jareck.
Laramie contemplated the feasibility of seizing the knife from Alagadda's paw and plunging it into the weasel's face, not even caring if Vellis, who watched the conversation with some interest from the other side of the library, murdered her immediately after.
"I swear to pledge myself to you," she said, seething.
"Oh come now, that was weak, pitiful." Alagadda grinned. "Let's try it again, with sincerity."
"Come on Laramie, it's just words," said Roane.
But to a creature whose profession was words, words were nothing to append a 'just' to. She ought to just make a grab at the knife and kill Alagadda and die knowing at least she had succeeded at something in this entire gambit, that at least one of the endless array of villains plaguing Redwall had died. The only thing stopping her was not the prospect of dying but rather the prospect of failing, as Alagadda did not strike Laramie as a creature of dull reflexes.
"I do solemnly swear to submit my entire worthless being to your every whim and whatnot, sans exceptions or scruples, and efface myself into nonexistence. Are you satisfied milady or shall I try enunciating a tad more clearly?"
Alagadda flipped the knife back into her paw and swept it across Laramie's face. She didn't feel a thing and at first thought the strike had missed until she felt a trickle of blood running along her brow.
"That was for the sarcasm," said Alagadda. "I'll do without it next time."
Laramie wiped the cut and inspected the blood. She would probably have a scar. "So what is it you want from my self-effaced self, or was it just the satisfaction of hearing me say that?"
Alagadda sighed and whisked the knife-edge diagonally across Laramie's face, causing another unfeeling cut. "You are a truly stupid creature, Recorder," she said. "I've common hordebeasts with more sense than you."
"Had," said Jareck.
"There's still that'un." Alagadda pointed at Iredell. "What's yore name, ferret."
Iredell leapt to attention and saluted. "Iredell, milady! Pleased to still be breathin' t'serve you, milady!"
"I like that," said Alagadda. "Yer a captain now. Congratulations."
"Thank you, milady!"
Alagadda forgot all about Iredell and returned to Laramie. "Okay, I've cut you twice now. If that didn't make an effect, I'll send the next cut at yore chum. So let's do without the lip. What I want from you is simple, an' it's somethin' I know you know how to do. I want you to write."
At first Laramie didn't think she heard her correctly, and had opened her mouth to make another comment loaded with snark (it wasn't that she intended to speak that way, it was simply that in the face of such a monstrous creature she could not deign to not fight back) when she remembered that the next threat was directly levied at Roane and desisted. Instead, she said:
"Write what?"
A bead of blood had coagulated on the very tip of Alagadda's knife; she licked it with her tongue. "Write what indeed. Why, I want you to write my chronicle, of course."
"Chronicle."
"Yes, I need you to do it. Jareck can't write, despite what he says."
"I can write," said Jareck.
"You can write your name an' that's about it," said Alagadda. "A chronicle needs more'n that. It needs to be big, expansive, it needs to capture everythin'. Not a detail can go missing, else it's lost to the rot of time."
"What's the purpose of a chronicle to a creature who can't even read it," said Laramie, less spiteful and more genuinely curious.
"It ain't for me, I can remember myself just fine. 'Tis for what comes after. Jareck, take one of those big ol' dusty books off the shelf an' read it for me, will ya?"
Jareck turned to the nearest shelf and perused the backs for a bit before selecting one and extricating it from its perch, brushing accumulations of sand from the cover as he cracked it open. Clearing his throat and squinting his eyes at the print, he began in a halting voice:
"Ahem. 'Anybeast could lay claim to the clan leadership, providing they could defeat Sawney in combat, but for a long time none had dared to. Sawney Rath could fight with a ferocity that was unequaled, and he never spared the vanquished challengers—'"
"That's enough," said Alagadda. "Who was Sawney Rath? Has anybeast e'er heard of 'im afore? We verminy types are quite proud of our ancestral heroes and yet even I ain't e'er heard of 'im. You, Vellis?"
Vellis shook her head.
"You, Jareck?"
Jareck was still examining the pages. "Seems he's an old Juska chieftain. I've met a few of those types, known for their tattoos and piercings, and also their gullibility—"
"So that's another no. An' I suppose you ain't heard of 'im afore neither, Recorder."
"Actually," said Laramie. "I've read that story already, it's the tale of the Taggerung."
"That's the point!" said Alagadda, suddenly growing very excited and flinging her remaining good arm above her head. "The fact is that each an' ev'ry one of us in this room has heard of Sawney Rath an' the ferocity he could fight withal, 'cuz we just heard it told in that very book. Sawney Rath is dead, long dead, an' buried an' rotten an' not even food fer worms anymore, but he's still livin' in those pages, he's still alive."
"Looks like he got slain by some old stoatwife, actually," said Jareck, with a touch of pride at the exploits of one of his own species.
"That don't even matter. It don't even matter if he dies in the chronicle, don't you realize? It don't even matter. Sawney Rath lives when by rights his is a name that ought not to linger even in the most nether crevices of anybeast's mind." A maniacal glint had risen in Alagadda's working eye and she leaned back over Laramie, her breath sour. "You'll write the chronicle."
Laramie held up her paws. "Very well."
"Good, good. Fetch paper, a quill, ink, there must be some in this book room."
"Aye," said Laramie. She pointed across the room at a small table nestled between the shelves. "There's my desk there. Inside are my writing supplies. If you'd let me move…"
"Of course, of course," said Alagadda, hoisting Laramie out of the chair and more-or-less shoving her toward the desk. Jareck followed, snout-deep in the tale of the Taggerung, which Laramie had herself always found a fun story, with an interesting plot and protagonist. She'd once read it to the Dibbuns, in happier times.
Alagadda pulled out the chair to Laramie's desk and sat her down. She fiddled with the desk drawers until Laramie brushed her aside and undid the latch to reveal a plethora of her most essential supplies. She always kept well-stocked. It was, after all, her job to write, and she had spent many wakeful nights in the library beside a flickering lamp with her only company being the Champion Fannin, who also took great pleasure in literature and read even more than she did. The memory of Fannin was bitter, and she had to exert her will to avoid betraying any outward signs of discomposure.
Soon she had a blank piece of parchment before her, with a well of ink and a quill (plus a few spares). She dabbed the quill in the ink and set it to the top-right corner of the page, a black dot seeping into the pulp.
"Well?"
"The title first," said Alagadda. "The Chronicle of Alagadda of the Many Blades."
"I'm not fond of the repetition of the preposition 'of,'" said Laramie. "It causes a hollow-sounding pattern of such a weak syllable. Hardly stylistically strong at all."
Surprisingly, Alagadda did not lash out at her. "An' what's a better one?"
Laramie nibbled on the tip of the quill, searching for a appropriate title that would sidestep Alagadda's cumbersome moniker. "How about: A Chronicle Concerning Alagadda of the Many Blades, Feared Warlord and Conquerer of Redwall Abbey."
"Concerning," said Alagadda, turning the word over in her mouth. "I don't like that word, concerning. It's weak. It ain't got no pizazz."
Laramie was not fond of having herself corrected, but she'd suffered enough ignominy at the paws of this beast and she supposed she would suffer much more before everything was done. She also regretted not having kept her mouth shut and going with Alagadda's original proposed title, as if she actually cared about the quality of this lousy chronicle. But she supposed she oughtn't let Alagadda catch wind of that, so the criticism at least served as a facade of legitimate concern. Oh sorry, concern was a bad word, allow Laramie to search her mental thesaurus real quick for a more suitable replacement. How about consternation, does that have enough pizazz for you?
"Alagadda of the Many Blades: A Chronicle," said Laramie, rubbing her eyes.
"Ooh," said Alagadda. "I like that. Puts my name right up in front, nothing unnecessary gettin' in the way. Go with that."
Laramie scrawled it across the top of the page in calligraphic paw.
Alagadda bounced up and down in trepidation at every looped letter. When Laramie set aside the quill and displayed the title in full for all to see, the warlord placed her face close to the ink and… sniffed it?… or at least made as if she knew how to read it, which she didn't.
She tugged on Jareck's coat. "Read it, read it!"
Jareck was too engrossed in his novel to notice until Alagadda struck him over the head and he flinched. Adjusting a pair of spectacles that Laramie wasn't sure whether he had found somewhere in the library or if they were just the kind of thing Jareck often had at paw, he too leaned toward the typeface and in bold elocution declared:
"Alagadda of the Many Blades. A chronicle."
Alagadda seized him by the shoulders and kissed him in utter jubilation. It was the first time Laramie had ever seen Jareck even close to surprised. Meanwhile, Roane and Iredell had wandered over to Laramie's desk, wondering about the hubbub. Only Vellis remained at her spot by the window, staring into the distance and feeling the fletches of her arrows.
"It's real," said Alagadda, who had relinquished Jareck to start hugging Iredell. "It's real, it's real, it's real!"
"It's a title," said Laramie.
Alagadda seemed to have started dancing with Roane, who stared at her mouth agape as his body jerked left and right to her offbeat rhythm. "More," said Alagadda, "There must be more!"
"Tell me what to write an' I'll write it," said Laramie, dabbing the quill in the inkwell. Anything to keep Alagadda placated. How long could either of them keep this up?
Alagadda began to narrate the course of her life.
After a day of near-complete dominion over Redwall Abbey, Kludd was kind of bored. Not much happened. He guessed he commanded the fear and respect of his army, but his army consisted of a lot of idiot lizards. He had tried to stimulate conversation with his lieutenant, Darkscale. It went something like this:
"So Darkscale, how's it feel to live in this Abbey?"
Darkscale shrugged.
"You may not know, but this is a place's haunted my kind fer as long as seasons can tell. The bane of weasels, stoats, ferrets, foxes, and rats everywhere. I'm shore e'en a few lizards cracked their skulls 'gainst these walls. But now it's ours, 'ow's that?"
"Yezz…"
"''Ow's that' ain't a yes-or-no question, numbskull! 'Ow d'ye feel, what are ye thinkin'?"
"…"
And so on. As far as he could tell, none of the other lizards were any smarter. Kludd felt terribly alone, even though the Abbey was lousy with his subordinates, all of whom paused and saluted as he passed, the Sword of Martin gleaming at his hip. It was as if they were no more than scenery, objects. Grisly, gruesome objects.
He'd accounted for the most part of Alagadda's horde, all his old mates. Letcher, Spink, Beadle, the lot of them'd all turned up mangled and eviscerated eventually. There were a few key exceptions. Alagadda and Vellis, of course. But also no sign of either Jareck or Conredd, which Kludd found not all too unsurprising. Jareck must had slipped out unseen and headed back south, it was something he'd do. Conredd, who knew. Probably with Alagadda in the library despite her claims to the contrary. Or maybe he tucked tail and fled, too. Either way it did little to ameliorate the issue that Kludd didn't have a single solitary beast to speak to, to collude with, to swagger over his accomplishments. The lizards didn't seem to care what they had conquered or who they had killed. He couldn't even get drunk with them, they were all stone sober.
So he drunk by himself, which was the worst way to drink, as everybeast knows.
In time the vermin to the north would hear of his exploits, surely. And they'd come down, curious, wanting a piece of the Redwall pie. Surely. And that way he could amass an army of thinking feeling beasts, not these abominations surrounding him currently. He could remove the lizards, slowly. Find excuses to execute a few, knock off some others in the dark, replace them piecemeal with real creatures, vermin, rats like him.
Surely.
Kludd was not known for his patience. After a few hours this plan of waiting seemed desperately impossible. Befuddled with drink, he tittered to and fro the Abbey, spouting incomprehensible gibberish to the lizards, who stared and saluted as always.
There had to be somebeast, somebeast around, anybeast. What had happened to all the Abbeybeasts, had they been devoured too? In a daze, Kludd tripped over something. It was the corpse of Fannin, which had not moved from where Alagadda had slain it an infinitude ago. The lizards had not touched the body, perhaps because they did not slay it themselves, and the mouse seemed serene, peaceful even, hardly dead. The rot had not yet seeped in.
With an illness in his stomach, Kludd gripped the cold, rigid wrist of Fannin and whispered, "Help me."
"How help," said Darkscale, always at paw and always willing to do anything except anything Kludd wanted.
Kludd gripped his blade and swished it out at Darkscale, who seemed to have broken into three Darkscales, all of which taunted him with their empty soulless eyes. The blade missed and stuck in the ground, which was at an angle different than the norm. "Yaaaargh!" said Kludd.
"…" said Darkscale.
Kludd crawled close to Fannin's ear and whispered: "The Abbeybeasts, where've you hidden them?"
"…" said Fannin.
Kludd sagged against the ground, close to sobs. He rolled onto his back and allowed the acute slant of the setting sun to blind him.
A dark shape stepped in front of the light. Kludd rubbed his eyes and blinked, expecting something significant to happen, but it was just Darkscale.
"Can't you go away already?" Kludd cried.
"Ze Abbeybeaztz… they are in the zellar…"
Kludd's head lifted from the ground. "The cellar? The cellar!" They were in the cellar! He knew that, he had been assigned to watch over them a long time ago before Alagadda had sent him on the death march into the swamp. He had put them in the cellar himself!
The haze lifted and he stumbled to his footpaws. "The cellar, take me there!" he said.
Darkscale nodded and said nothing.