Summary: A sillyfic. (Are we
astonished? We ought to be.) Chandri discovers why in Subreality, a name can
have a bloody awful lot more in it than just syllables and meanings; for
example, unexpected sentience.
===================
STARSHOPS VERSUS HOT DOGS
Part 1/2
or:
Why Writers Should Never
Order Magic Cleaning Appliances off of the Home Shopping Network
By Chandri MacLeod
===================
There were certain
advantages to holding sole ownership of a magical castle in the far northern
reaches of Subreality. Unicorns, Dryad fictives, talking wolves,
physically-represented metaphors of one's inner self, whole tribes of Elves
that practically worshipped you and gave you names like "Lady of the
Crystal" and "Lady of Crystallis". Not to mention the rather
interesting architectural additions one could make when there were no other
tenants to speak of - discounting, of course, the State of Diversion,
Crystallis's only known neighbor, and that could hardly be counted as a
protesting neighbor, given the activities its citizens indulged in on a
semi-regular basis - the owlery was coming along nicely, and the floating
airship portal that hovered ominously over the rear gates frightened away most
attackers.
There were, however, certain
disadvantages. For example, it was hard to get anyone to work on the grounds.
The few domestic servants that had been Written into existence for the purpose
of keeping the grounds upkept had either vanished abruptly, or had fled in
polite terror, pleading as excuse that the woods were haunted, that the lands
were stalked by monsters, that a twelve-year-old Writer and her Muse of the
same approximate age were continually terrorising them. "Duh," had
replied Chandri to most of this. "What did you expect?"
For she had not Written the
entirety of Subreality North. Much of it had been here prior to her arrival, it
had just been a little less... well, organised might be the term. Even now,
there were some things in the lands surrounding Crystallis that she herself would
rather not inquire too deeply into. One of them, somewhat less directly, was
the fact that Crystallis, semi-sentient as it may have been, was not nearly as
fond of self-cleaning as, say, the average electric stove.
A vaguely offended *push*
touched Chandri's mind as she thought that. The Writer in question was
currently engaged in one of her most hated activities, and was grumbling quite
suitably.
"Lady of the Crystal,
my foot," she muttered, shoving a sofa aside. "I still have to do all
the cleaning."
The roar of the vaccum
cleaner had long since caused the Island's canine residents, Chowder, Sheba and
Mincha, to discreetly remove themselves from sight (discreetly meaning, in this
case, running full-tilt out of the room, yelping and barking, and diving under
the nearest reasonable piece of furniture) and retiring to quieter quarters.
Lyra, the yellow-eyed tawny owl that Chandri had somewhat more recently
acquired in Diagon Alley, had made an offended sound and retreated to the
rafters of the Great Hall. She was now staring reproachfully down at her
mistress while preening her feathers. Lily's snowy, Ambyrr, was huddling behind
a beam further down the rafter, if anything looking more offended than Lyra.
"Note to self,"
Chandri said under her breath. "Owls do not like vaccum cleaners."
She kicked a final ottoman
out of the way and pushed the vaccum over the last section of floor. She turned
off the vaccum. "Done. Finally. Now, just dusting." She rolled the
vacuum's cord around the neck and pushed it into a corner, then produced a
device that appeared as if it would have done quite well for directing traffic,
airplane landings, or turning princes into frogs. It was three and a half feet
long, had a black handle, and was covered in what appeared to be green fur.
"And what is
*that?*" asked Tris's voice from above. Chandri glanced up at her Muse
where she perched near the two owls. She had offered to help with the cleaning,
but both the fact that she was so good at it and the fact that she kept getting
in Chandri's way had decided for both of them that perhaps Tris should watch
from a safe distance (that, and the very thinly-veiled threats Chandri kept
making with toilet brushes and soapy sponges).
"It's a duster. For
dust."
Tris rolled her eyes.
"I figured *that* part out, thank you. But why does it have... fur?"
"Not fur; plastic
bristles. Static cling; I barely have to do anything. It's one of those
"magic dusters". Got it off the Shopping Network."
"*Magic* duster?"
Tris seemed suddenly apprehensive.
Chandri shrugged and made a
dismissive gesture with the duster. "It's just a gimmick, Tris. It doesn't
mean anything."
"Uh huh."
The Writer stopped dusting
and looked up. "What?"
"Well..." Tris
seemed to consider. "Remember what happened when you brought that
"Super-Duper Magic Weathervane" up here and put it on the roof? It
was supposed to answer detailed questions about the weather, the temperature,
tell your fortune. Shaped like a big purple duck?"
Chandri stared off into
space. "Yeah... It developed a drinking problem, got really rude, then
pulled itself off its pole and flew away."
"And how about that
cat-shaped "Magic Alarm Clock"? It was supposed to wake up all
sleepers at the appointed time with a gentle mewing sound and a cool
breeze?"
"And instead, it was
putting people to sleep at random intervals, roaring like a heroin-addicted
cartoon panther, and freezing people into solid blocks of ice. It went...
somewhere. I think it's still hunting the Dune mice in the basement."
"And what
about..."
"All right, all right,
I see your point." Chandri peered dubiously at the duster. "But all
those things were animal-shaped; endowed with a base level of sentience. What
sentient characteristics could a duster possibly give itself?"
"Correction;
Subreality's sense of humour gives the characteristics."
"Whatever. I don't see
the problem." Chandri crossed her arms and stared stubbornly up into the
rafters. A moment later, a resigned sigh floated down to her.
"All right. But I'm
locking my door before I go to sleep tonight. That alarm clock left me with a
week-long flu."
====================================================================
It was quiet, unassuming
night in Crystallis.
Actually, it really wasn't
all that quiet. It would have been quiet, but for the distant, odd thumping,
clunking sound that came from an unsuspicious trunk sitting in the corner of
the Great Hall. No one heard it at first but Lyra and Ambyrr, who had just returned
from hunting mice and other unfortunate rodents in the great forest. Both owls
glided in through the high windows, and alighted on a chair near the trunk,
glancing at each other bemusedly.
*THUMP*
Lyra and Ambyrr twitched,
and Ambyrr flapped into the air for a moment, alighting on the trunk. She gave
the lid a few experimental pecks, and tapped it with a talon. Nothing happened.
She tilted her head to one side, nearly upside-down, and stared at Lyra. Lyra
leapt into the air and joined the other owl on the trunk. She copied Ambyrr's
movements of a moment before.
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP!!*
Lyra and Ambyrr screeched in
alarm and retreated into the rafters as quickly as their wings could carry
them. The trunk was silent.
For now.
====================================================================
The same sounds that had
intrigued the owls had attracted the three dogs. They entered the Great Hall at
respectively different paces. Chowder pranced, Mincha bounced, and Sheba, the
most catlike of the three (having the outside appearance of a sleek, muscular,
floppy-eared panther) practically slithered. All three approached the trunk,
noses in the air, whiskers twitching curiously.
When they came to within a
few feet of the box, the three dogs spread out and surrounded it, sniffing at
its base. Mincha, the stockiest, wolflike dog with black fur and tan markings,
actually climbed up onto the trunk and pawed at it, large ears twitching.
*CLUNK*
The dogs looked at each
other, then glanced up at the sudden hoot from the rafters. Lyra and Ambyrr
were watching them nervously.
"Hoot," said Lyra.
Sheba looked at Chowder. Chowder looked at the trunk.
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMP*
Mincha yelped and leapt off
of the lid of the trunk, landing on all fours and spinning about to face it. In
a moment, all three dogs were barking angrily at the box. Suddenly, something
made them silence.
*SCRITCH, SCRITCH*
Three sets of floppy ears
flattened to three canine heads.
*CREEAAAAAAAAAAK*
The dogs backed slowly away.
The lid was opening itself, but - they looked around - there was no one around
to open it.
*CREAAAAAAAAKTHUMP*
The lid was totally open,
the lid resting against the wall behind it.
The three dogs crept slowly
forward. Lyra and Ambyrr floated down towards them. All five animals reached
the box at the same time, and peered down into it.
Something was looking out.
An instant later, it moved.
The entire area around the
box for about three feet exploded with yelping, running dogs, and screeching,
terrified owls. Fur and feathers scattered into the air as they retreated from
the room.
*THUMP*
Something had leapt out over
the edge of the box and landed on the floor.
And all was silent.
====================================================================
*CLUNK. CLUNK. CLUNK.*
Chandri heard an odd sound
in her sleep, and rolled over.
*THUNK, CLUNK,
SCRIIITCHTHUMP*
She opened her eyes, sitting
up, and looked around her room. She had only recently started sleeping in
Crystallis again, and was still getting used to it. She sat staring, confused,
for a moment, ears straining to hear the noise that had woken her. When after a
moment, she heard nothing, she growled at the silent room and laid back down,
pulling the covers up to her neck.
*THUNK. CLUNK.*
Chandri sat bolt upright,
eyes wide open, now wide awake. She threw off the covers and dove for the
denn'bok on the bedside table. She shook it twice and it opened with the sound
of metal sliding on metal and a quiet *snap*. Holding it at the ready, she
stood still for an instant, silent, waiting to see if the sound would repeat
itself.
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMP*
She ran to the door and
wrenched it open, looking around the doorframe. She could see nothing, even
when she turned on the lights.
*THUMPTHUMP*
The sound was coming from
far down the hallway. She retreated into her room for a moment, pulling on an
old soft pair of black ballet slippers and putting on a robe over her t-shirt
and sweatpants. Then she went back out into the hallway and went in search of
the sound.
=====================================================================
A loud thumping on Tris's
door woke her out of a sound sleep. She sat up, blinking away sleep, and stared
blankly into space for a moment before the pounding began again. It was quickly
joined by a voice.
"Tris? You awake? Open
the door! Quick!"
"Chandri?" Tris
pushed the covers away and stepped onto the cold floor. She flinched and
reached for her sheepskin slippers, and caught up her robe in one hand as she
moved toward the door. She pulled it open and her Writer all but fell into the
room.
"Chandri? What's going
on?"
"There's a... it's a...
I... shut the door! Hurry!"
Tris obediently closed the
door, and locked it, just for good measure. "What is it? What's
wrong?"
"Uhm... you know
that... thing... I bought that you weren't sure about, because you thought it
would develop semi-sentience and eat us?"
Tris suddenly felt
apprehensive and a little bit annoyed. "Yes?"
"It's developed
semi-sentience and is trying to eat us."
=====================================================================
Somehow, in her mad dash
between the Great Hall and Tris's bedroom, Chandri had managed to grab the
packaging that the "Magic Duster" had come in. The shipping label on
the oblong box read: "Universo's Emporium for Fine Goods: Starshop Interdimensional
- 'Wherever you need us, when you least expect it.'"
A nasty little idea was
forming inside Tris's head. That name reminded her of something, and she was
pretty bloody sure that it wasn't a good something. Starshop
Interdimensional... no, that most definitely didn't sound good.
"Where did you say you
got this?" she asked her Writer.
"I ordered it off the
Home Shopping Network. It was a sort of infomercial for one of those vanishing
shops. You know, the ones Terry Pratchett is so fond of? They had all sorts of
nifty stuff, but the duster was all I could afford. Why?"
Tris stared. The nasty,
vague little idea was solidifying into something that was making little bumps
rise up on Tris's arms, and the hair rise up on the back of her neck.
No one knows why, but all
the most truly mysterious and magical items are bought from shops that appear
from nowhere and, after a trading life even briefer than that of an arthritic
mosquito, vanish like smoke. There have been various attempts to explain this,
all of which have failed because they don't fully account for the observed
facts. These shops turn up anywhere in the multiverse, and their immediate
non-existence in any particular city can normally be deduced from crowds of
people wandering the streets clutching defunct magical items, ornate greeting
cards, and looking very suspiciously at blank brick walls.
At least, this is the case
in normal cities. In Subreality City, these shops were almost more commonplace
than mobile hot dog stands (theoretically because of the composition of Subreal
hot dogs... after all, if the things are made out of such unnamable substances
in Reality, can you even *imagine* what alternatives Subreality City
manufacturers might have turned to?). In any case, people found they were less
likely to contract unpleasant stomach ailments in connection to the vanishing
shops (plus, there was all this really nifty *stuff*). The fact that the
alternative consequences of the shops versus hot dogs ranged from mildly more
exotic to unimaginably horrible was one that had, thus far, managed to
completely escape most prospective patrons.
Nevertheless, either because
of or in spite of all of this, the shops remained, and flourished, while the
Subreality fast food market suffered. There had been union negotiations.
Tris had always, as a rule,
been suspicious of those places, nearly as suspicious as she had been of the
Home Shopping Network. She had never imagined that the two might be connected
in any way. Now she knew, and she *could* imagine. She was not enjoying the
sensation.
"You," she said,
not really sure of what expression she should put into her voice, but coming up
with largely astonishment, "Ordered something without even checking where
it was being sent from?"
Chandri blinked. She
shrugged uncertainly.
"In Subreality?"
"Uh... well...
yeah."
Tris facepalmed. "You
didn't even read the warning on the box."
She held up the box in
question. Written in small red capital letters on the side it said:
"WARNING: PRODUCT MAY EXPLODE IF HEATED. MAY CEASE TO FUNCTION OR DEVELOP
UNUSUAL CHARACTERISTICS IF USED INCORRECTLY. DO NOT LEAVE IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT.
SHAKE IN A WELL-VENTILATED AREA - FAILURE TO SUPPLY PROPER MAINTENANCE MAY
RESULT IN HEADACHE, ALLERGIC REACTION, AND/OR DEATH AND/OR ETERNAL DOOM. DO NOT
FEED. DO NOT EAT. EXTERNAL APPLICATION ONLY. DO NOT IMMERSE IN WATER.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED."
Chandri threw up her hands.
"Big surprise. A Subreal product has a warning of eternal doom. Catfood in
Subreality has warnings of doom. Butter has warnings of doom!"
"Happens when the milk
comes from cows that are capable of interdimensional teleportation," Tris
said, her voice muffled.
There was a thumping noise
that sounded suspiciously like something large, plastic, and with only one foot
hopping along the corridor. The door and windows rattled in their frames.
"So I guess you left it
in direct sunlight, neglected to shake it out, immersed it in water...
something like that?" Tris looked up. "What exactly *has* happened to
it, anyway?"
"Uh..." Chandri
glanced at the door, which was suddenly looking a lot more fragile. "It's
grown to about twice original size and is hopping around the castle."
"Is that all?"
"We think it ate the
alarm clock."
Tris brightened momentarily.
"Though that does mean
it's now got some sort of mouth."
The Muse slumped. "I
don't want to be eaten by a feather duster, it seems like such an embarassing
way to die, what with all the other things that we --"
Tris went silent, then,
because Chandri had slapped her. The Muse raised a hand to her stinging cheek
and stared up at her Writer.
"You were
gibbering," Chandri supplied.
When she had caught her
breath, she said, "Thanks. Sorry. Habit."
Chandri grinned. "No
problem. I owed you one. Now come on. We've got a rogue feather duster to
tame."
Their first plan had been to
try phoning the one-eight-hundred number on the box. This plan failed when they
discovered that the feather-duster - which Chandri had dubbed Henry - had eaten
through the main phone junction, presumably having mistaken the large wires for
pasta. At this point, Henry had become very interested in Tris's bedroom door.
Fortunately, Crystallis being what it is and where it is, they discovered a
hitherto undiscovered secret passage and spent several feverish minutes trying
to pry it open while Henry made a loud effort at forcing the door.
"Why won't it
open?" Chandri stood back and stared puzzledly at the wall.
"I don't know. It's a
several thousand-year-old secret passage. Maybe it's rusted. Or
something."
"Possibly. Or
maybe..." Chandri got down on her knees and inspected the join of wall and
floor, apparently looking for something. A moment later, she said:
"Hah!" and there was a faint click. She stood up, watching
expectantly.
Tris gave her a sideways
glance when, after about ten seconds, absolutely nothing happened.
Chandri kicked the wall.
"Come on, damn thing. Open."
The wall was stoic; it did
not move.
"Please?"
The section of wall creaked
outward with such speed that it knocked the Muse and the Writer to the floor.
Tris and Chandri stood up, peering into the dark space beyond.
"I guess it just wanted
you to say please," Tris ventured. Chandri shrugged again, then produced a
large flashlight and turned it on, beaming it into the space. An open, winding,
narrow stairway was revealed beyond. Very narrow.
"Oh, goody,"
muttered the Writer. Tris patted her on the shoulder.
"Look at it this way;
at least it's not a *haunted* passage."
Chandri sighed and turned
her head to stare glumly at her Muse.
"Oh. Damn."
Because it *was*, in fact, a
haunted passage. No one was completely sure of *what* haunted it, but they
could all be pretty sure that for the most part, they didn't want to know. They
were probably right.
Strange noises sounded
randomly from up and down the passage and either side of the stairs. A few
times, something whispered past them, making a sound like steel on silk and
brushing up against them ever so slightly. Once, a step crumbled out from
beneath them and Chandri had to haul Tris back up to the previous step by the
collar of her tunic. After that, Tris risked spreading her wings and gliding
both herself and Chandri down to the bottom of the stairs.
At the bottom, the
cobblestones were grimy with what must have been dust, and in places slippery with
what had to be water (at least, that was what both of them fervently *hoped* it
was). There were sconces in the walls for torches, but no torches to put in
them. Tris walked along the passage behind Chandri, and both watched carefully
for any sign along the walls that might mean an exit back into the castle. They
walked for nearly a quarter of an hour before they reached what seemed to be a
wood-panelled dead end. Tris slumped against this wall and sighed. "Tell
me the truth," she said. "We're going to be down here forever, aren't
we?"
Chandri shrugged, tapping
out an idle SOS on the wood with the flashlight. "Possibly. Alternatives
include being attacked by wild animals, ghosts or over-zealous rodents, and
being eaten by a plastic feather duster."
Tris stared. "Oh. Good,
then. Makes me feel a whole lot better about everything."
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMP*
Both Muse and Writer jumped
back from the wooden wall, eyeing it suspicously.
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMP*
"Henry?" suggested
Tris, looking around the tiny circle of light cast by the flashlight, sighting
a burned-out torch against the wall and snatching it up. She hefted it
experimentally while Chandri reached into a pocket and produced her denn'bok.
Tris had to admit; having a five-foot-long metal pole between herself and a
giant, sentient feather duster didn't make her feel *much* safer, but it helped
to some degree.
*THUMPTHUMP*
"You know, I don't
think..." Chandri was staring at the wall, her head tilted to one side.
She seemed to be listening.
*THUMP, THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP,
THUMP THUMP*
"Shave and a haircut. I
don't think you can do that without knuckles." Chandri stepped up to the
wall and answered the knocks with the same sequence.
"Chandri? You in
there?" came a muffled voice that sounded rather a lot like Corone.
"We're here! We just
can't figure out how to get out!" called Chandri to the other Writer.
"Stand back!" came
Dez's voice. It was the kind of warning you listened to, because it was about
to be followed with something involving high explosives. Tris and Chandri dove
around the corner just as the wall evaporated with a puff of steam and the
smell of burnt shelack.
"Good?" Dez asked,
obviously proud of herself.
"Very good,"
agreed Corone. The dark-clad Writer leaned into the passage through the smoking
remains of the archway. "Chandri? Tris?"
The two in question came out
from under cover and approached the smoking hole in the wall.
"Can I ask a
question?" Chandri asked.
"Me first. How did you
end up all the way in Diversion?" Corone asked.
Chandri stared. "Ah.
Never mind."
============================================
STARSHOPS VERSUS HOT DOGS
Part 2/2
or:
Odd, Mouthless,
Ridiculous-looking Monsters that go Bump in the Night
By Chandri MacLeod (with
input from Corone P. Elfboy)
============================================
It was one of those nights
when even the grimiest henchmen of the most powerful supervillains makes active
attempts to avoid being outside, and even the panhandlers and street beggars
and pickpockets had retired early for the evening.
Not that most of these often
existed in Subreality North. Between Crystallis, Diversion, the Black Mountains
and the Northern Forest Subreality North was home to some of the most
frightening, ugly, bloodthirsty, vicious and generally unpleasant creatures in
Subreality. This knowledge kept street folk to the comparatively civilized
City, most of the time. Every so often, though, someone would try it on the
streets of Diversion. Business was always brisk - and by brisk it is not meant
that business was successful, or particularly good; Diversion had few citizens
and even fewer that originated from Universes with currency. By brisk it is
meant short-lived, brief, and virtually non-existent, up to the point where a
shuffling noise can be heard, the businessman in question wanders off to
investigate. This is shortly followed by a noise best left undescribed, which
is accompanied, every so often, by a scream, or more often, a rather surprised
"Oh. Um...". Then there is a snap, and then there is nothing (except,
on some occasions, a crunching noise).
And so, the streets were
nearly deserted, and silent. It was so when a large, lumbering shape came,
well, lumbering down the middle of the street. In fact, even if the streets
hadn't been deserted, they would have become so very quickly, given the appearance
of the individual in question.
His name was Ramo, and he
was a warrior (well, in his mind, war *lord*). He wasn't a very nice warrior;
in fact he spent a great deal of his time in fics robbing, pillaging, and
filled the spare moments with arson. He was smelly, and ugly, and rather needed
a shave. He enjoyed his life; it was a fairly eventful one, rarely got boring,
and he was always jangling with gold as a result. He was jangling now. It was
perhaps this sound that had attracted whatever it was that was following him.
Now, in most Universes,
there is a thing called a Trump Card. No one knows exactly how this name came
about, but what a Trump Card is is a sort of emergency escape plan. For most
warlords, their Trump Card is a weapon of some kind (or, failing that, a whole
lot of other people who were fanatically devoted to you and had their own
weapons). Ramo's Trump Card was a long, nasty-looking dagger coated in a thin,
dried sheen of something red and formerly sticky.
This was hind's blood. It
was a substance capable of killing even most gods, and anyway, even if that
didn't work, it was on a bloody *knife*, and as far as Ramo was concerned,
there was very little that couldn't be dealt with by way of a bit of stabbing
and twisting.
(Ramo had never calculated
the fact, however, that *some* horrifying monsters cannot be defeated with
blades, simply because of the slight advantage of never having evolved a
cardiovascular system, let alone blood. Ramo really hadn't gotten the hang of
Subreality yet, which is a pity, because his time in which to do so was rapidly
slipping away.)
He carried the dagger on his
belt, for easy access. He hadn't needed it for quite a long time, but was
certainly thinking a lot about it now, because he was being stalked by something
quite, quite large. He kept stopping every several steps and glancing over his
shoulder - but every time he did this, the *SHUFFLETHUMP* noise would stop and
the street would be blank and empty behind him. In reaction to this Ramo would
grunt, shrug and keep walking.
It might be mentioned at
this point that Ramo was also not particularly bright, for a warlord. While he
was aware of the something following him, he was unaware of the fact that it
was getting closer; or at least, if he was aware, it hadn't occurred to him to
be concerned about it.
*SHUFFLESHUFFLETHUMP CLUNK*
Ramo stopped. "Awright,
who's there?" he demanded of the empty air.
*THUMP*
Ramo grunted. "Fine, be
that way, don' matter ta me."
He turned around. He was
about to take a step, right hand wrapped around his dagger, ready to drive it
back into whatever was about to ambush him.
He never got that far.
*SHUFFLESHUFFLETHUMPCLUNKSHUFFLEHISSSSSNAP!*
*CRUNCH, CRUNCH*
There was the clatter of a
dagger hitting the cobbles, and the street was empty again.
===========================================================
Tris was having trouble
understanding what was so damned funny.
"And so it... it's
what?" Corone was shaking with laughter that he was making almost no
effort to contain.
"It's a giant feather
duster," Chandri supplied.
"And it's
grown..."
"To the size of a
Disneyland mascot and is stalking Subreality North."
"And it's
trying..."
"To eat us."
"You... you..." he
gasped.
At this point, Corone fell
out of his chair. Dez rolled her eyes.
Chandri crossed her arms.
"I might mention that it's escaped from the castle, and is probably in
Diversion by now."
Corone continued to laugh.
"And if it is, it's
going to try to eat you, too."
Corone, or at least the lump
under the table that resembled him, went silent. He sat up, his face deadpan.
"Sounds dangerous...
for a statically-charged cleaning utensil," Dez said.
Regaining himself, Corone
stood up, "Danger is my mother's maiden name." A quick scan of the
room told him his humor wasn't
appreciated. "Weapons locker?" he suggested.
"Weapons locker,"
Chandri agreed.
Tris smirked at Dez. Dez,
being much more mature than Tris, stuck out her tongue.
=============================================================
On the way to the weapons
locker, something feathered came barrelling in through a side window and
collided with Tris's head. The Muse made a surprised exclamation and fell over
sideways.
As Tris sat on the floor
rubbing her head, Lyra (which was, as it turned out, the feathered thing) leapt
into the air, flapped a few times, and came to rest on Chandri's wrist, where
she sat with her head tucked into her wings, keening alarmedly. Her talons dug
into the leather gauntlet, hard enough to hurt the Writer's arm.
Chandri winced and smoothed
the roused feathers along Lyra's back. The tawny owl shivered and continued to
make frightened noises.
"Love, you're hurting
my arm. Calm down, will you?"
Lyra peeked out from under
her wing and peered at her mistress. A moment later she shook herself and sat
straight, staring around as if she were expecting something.
"What's the matter with
her?" asked Corone, bending down to look at the owl.
"Something's scared her
badly," Chandri said, still petting the owl's head then resting her hand
on Lyra's back. She closed her eyes briefly. A moment later, she opened them,
and said, eyebrows raised, "Yep, that's it. It's out. Lyra just saw it on
the edge of Diversion."
"Crap. We just had the
outer town rebuilt," muttered Corone.
Chandri had an idea.
"Hey, can I use your phone?"
Corone produced a cell phone
and handed it to her. "Yeah, but I don't think beating it over whatever it
calls a head with a cell phone is going to help much."
Chandri rolled her eyes at
him as she dialled. "I'm calling the company's one-eight-hundred number.
Maybe they can think of something." She listened. They waited. Then they
waited some more. Chandri's face became more and more annoyed as the seconds
ticked past. Finally, she thrust out the phone in annoyance. "Listen to
this! I swear, first chance I get, I'm going to..."
They all leaned in to
listen.
"We're sorry, but the
number you have dialed is out of service. Starshop Interdimensional has
moved... since that's what we're supposed to do, it's in the name, you know,
don't be silly... the new location is unlisted. Please wander aimlessly in your
nearest major city and one of our helpful salespeople might in a million years
appear to answer any questions you may have. Starshop Interdimensional takes no
responsibility for any damaged or malfunctioning products. Look up some good
mercenaries, that's our advice. Thank you; have a nice day."
Corone scowled and threw the
phone to the floor. Dez and Tris took turns stamping on it.
============================================================
"Tell me again why you
have mouse traps?" Chandri stood, arms crossed, watching Corone rummage
through a cupboard against one wall of the large weapons locker.
"I know this sounds
wild, but... mice?"
"When was the last time
that any kind of mouse small enough to be
killed by conventional
mouse-traps showed up in Subreality North?"
Corone stilled, and turned
around, expression contemplative. "Well..."
"You just use them to
catch Dez and Sycos unawares, don't you?"
Corone opened his mouth and
was about to exclaim indignantly, but the grin
on Chandri's face stopped
him.
"No," he said
firmly. "I also take pictures."
"Figures." Chandri
took a katana down from the wall. "I thought you didn't
use light weapons,
Core," she said, testing the sword's weight.
Corone shrugged. "I use
daggers and swords when they're necessary, but in most situations they aren't
of much use for anything other than fear value... or fighting immortals."
He pulled out his quarterstaff for a moment, looked at it and went back into
the locker. "Y'think a feather duster has common sense enough to be afraid?"
"Funny, that's just the
reason I thought you would help..."
"Charming girl..."
Corone said to one of the gun-laden shelves. "I thought you had a
sword."
"I do," said
Chandri, "But the only thing I brought with me from Crystallis is my
denn'bok, and we've pretty much established that *that* doesn't intimidate
Henry much. My sword's in my room, and not currently much good. I didn't even
bring a pen."
"I see," Corone
said, emerging from the locker with a laser rifle big and powerful-looking
enough to rival the one Dot Matrix carried in Web World Wars. It was the size
of a large dog.
"Overkill, much?"
Dez asked, appearing from the next room. She herself was toting a large
broadsword.
Corone raised an eyebrow at
her, "Remember, you can never *be* overkill. If it works, you're just
'kill' enough." At this point, Tris appeared behind the other Muse. She
wore a sheathed silver sword on a belt over her robe and nightgown.
"Tris? I didn't even
know you knew how to use a sword," Chandri said.
Tris shrugged. "Are we
ready?" she asked, adjusting the belt.
"Pretty much,"
said Chandri. She looked at Corone. He nodded.
"Not a lot else we can
do without an army," Corone said, pausing to look down at his massive
energy cannon, and considering correcting himself, "but at the moment we
don't have one. I've got explosives and weapons systems on the streets that we
can activate by remote once we get out there, but I think we should use them
sparingly," he
finished, definitely considering correcting himself on that last phrase, but as
a responsible duke of Diversion, he decided against it. ::Damned
responsibility...:: he thought.
"I agree," said
Chandri.
*CRASHTHUMP*
The two Writers and two
Muses looked up. Lyra fluttered back to Chandri's shoulder.
"We should go,"
Dez said. No one disagreed.
=====================================
"You know, for
something with only one leg, that thing moves pretty damned fast," Corone
observed as they ran down the main street of Diversion. Henry was close behind.
The uneven gait adopted by the feather-duster was loud and ungraceful, but very
fast. It was rapidly gaining on the two Writers and company, and they were all
running out of ideas on how to deal with the
situation.
"So, blades don't work,
blunt force doesn't work, explosives have no effect... what is this thing made
of?" Corone asked as they ducked around a corner.
"Plastic?" Chandri
shrugged. The sound of Henry's approach had momentarily ceased. The silence was
unnerving. "Why do you suppose..."
The silence persisted, and
Corone sheathed his weapons and looked up. "No idea, but maybe we should
get to some higher ground?"
"Sounds like a good
plan to me," Dez agreed, pulling down the nearest fire escape ladder and
jumping up onto it. Chandri, Tris and Corone followed as quickly as they could
and kept on climbing as they heard Henry start moving again.
*THUMPCLUNKCLUNK*
"Is it just me, or is
he getting closer?" Tris asked nervously.
"It's not just
you," Chandri said as Henry appeared below, making some sort of snuffling
noise. "He can't possibly be finding us by scent... can he?" She shot
Corone a worried look.
He returned with a shrug.
"Dunno. You'd never know to look at it... him... that he's got a nose, but
it's obviously got a mouth of some kind... there are Teletubbies missing, and
I'm pretty sure they were there last night." He paused for a moment,
wondering if in that the feather duster had wronged him or commited an act that
he would have liked to see in a FOX special. "And unless there's another
giant sentient feather-duster wandering around that I don't know about..."
"It's rather like the
Luggage, isn't it?" Chandri reflected.
"Luggage?" Corone
gave her a blank look.
"Sort of conscious, but
not necessarily malevolent... eats anything that gets in its way."
"Luggage?" Corone
repeated.
"It was a sort of trunk
with legs. Terry Pratchett books. Had different dimensions inside than out,
kind of like how Immortals keep their swords inside their coats without it
showing; it ate anything that threatened its master. It *did* come from one of
those vanishing shops, like Henry did."
"They're actually
hiding them in a velcro fold that goes down their pantleg..." Corone
replied, as he climbed onto the third floor platform, ever a source of useless
information.
Chandri raised an eyebrow at
him. "You *trying* to ruin it for everyone?"
"Luggage..." Dez
muttered to herself. "Those shops should be regulated. Of all people to be
selling semi-magical objects to, to sell them to Writers..."
"Hey!" Chandri and
Corone turned to her in unison with offended expressions. Tris just laughed.
"Maybe we should do
something about that..." Chandri said, pointing downwards. Henry had
somehow managed to hop up onto the first rung of the ladder.
"Keep climbing!"
Corone said, activating the laser rifle and aiming it downward. A moment later,
there was hot blast and the bottom half of the fire escape crashed down to the
street below. A cloud of dust rose up into the air as the two Writers and their
Muses climbed to the top of the building. When they reached it, they looked
over the edge. From beneath the pile of ruined and twisted metal, Henry was
squirming, and was soon on his foot again, and seemed to be staring up at them.
"There's something
unaccountably eerie about being stared at by something with no eyes," Dez
said, shivering slightly.
"I feel the same way
about shriners..." Corone said quickly, about to unleash another blast.
Before he could, a sharp breeze hit him and the rest of the party, and out of
the corner of his eye, Corone saw something big on the roof with them.
Something with feathers.
"What's up?" The
giant feathered bird Sycos asked, making Tris jump.
"Chandri brought an
electrostatic duster to life which grew to mammoth size and is trying to devour
us all," Corone explained to his avian friend.
"Oh... I caught a
raccoon!" He said happily. Anywhere but Subreality, a bird of prey
catching a raccoon would mean just that - having caught a small masked member
of the Canoidea suborder. In Subreality, it meant seeing a giant bird with arms
devouring a cartoon relic of the childhood in a red woolen sweater.
"You're not right
inside," Corone said. He peered over the side of the building to fire
another shot at the feather duster.
After a moment of silence,
Chandri piped up, "Is there a problem?"
"Besides being stalked
by an eight foot tall feather duster that intends to consume us all?"
"Yes, besides
that."
"Then yes, there is. I
think it's gone inside the building to take the stairs up, and I just blew up
the emergency escape."
"Oh." Chandri
stared for a moment, then turned to Tris with a bright grin on her face.
"Oh, Muse Mine..."
Tris crossed her arms.
"When pigs fly."
As if to illustrate
something terminally ironic, a flock of small, pink pigs flapped by in
formation, tiny, white feathered wings pumping furiously. The lead pig squealed
cheerfully at the group on the roof as they passed.
Tris glared at her Writer.
"Shut up. I'm still not doing it."
"Aw, come on..."
Tris shook her head firmly.
"No. I couldn't carry everyone at once, and we haven't time to ferry you
all over one at a time, even if Sycos helped. He's a lot faster than -"
*THUMPTHUMPTHUMPSCRAAAAAAAPE*
*SWOOSH*
"Damn," said
Corone, as Sycos left the roof with a derisive snort and a wash of wind.
"Told you," said
Tris.
*THUMPTHUMPCLUNK*
Everyone who had weapons
drew them and looked nervously at the large steel trapdoor set in the middle of
the roof.
"So, this
Luggage..." Corone asked casually. "It ate people, you say?"
Chandri nodded.
"And how did it do
that... without a stomach?"
"Pratchett didn't want
to know, and neither do we," replied Chandri decisively.
The trapdoor clanked
ominously.
*THUNK*
"If either of you has a
secret weapon, now would be the time for the dramatic moment," Dez
suggested.
"It's in my other
cloak," said Corone.
*THUMPTHUMPCLANK*
At this point, most of those
on the roof were resigned at least to a battle to the death - or failing that,
being devoured alive by a giant electrostatic feather duster. They were
expecting bruises, growling, drool, blood, maybe some shorn plastic bristles.
But of all the things they were expecting, probably the last thing on anyone's
list was a Something appearing behind them in a puff of magenta smoke with some
diminished fanfare like a third-generation recording of a 1940's TV theme song.
As no one was expecting
this, when it actually happened, Dez almost fell off the edge of the roof
(being the closest to said edge), and Lyra squawked reproachfully and
accidentally buffetted Chandri's head with her wings. The Writer squinted and
held the owl at arm's length until she had calmed. Then she transferred Lyra to
her shoulder and stared with the rest of them at the creature that had appeared
before them.
"Greetings!" said
the small, vaguely Hobbit-like man, clapping his chubby hands together with
what seemed to be great enthusiasm. He had sparse, fluffy grey hair and tiny
blue eyes, and his face seemed to be permanently pink. He wore no shoes.
"I am Tabo Underhill,
proprietor of the Subreality City branch of Universo Emporium. I am here on
behalf of our parent company, Starshop Interdimensional, in response to a
maintenance query placed at approximately --" he glanced at a gold
pocketwatch that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, "--two AM this
morning. How may I help you?"
Chandri blinked.
"Maintenance query?"
"Yes. It was received
in 'Help Me, You Useless Bastards' format by invisible courrier." The
little man held out a crumpled piece of blue paper. Chandri took it and peered
at it. Printed on it in spidery red letters was a brief paragraph in
quotations:
[["Chandri? What's
going on?"
"There's a... it's a...
I... shut the door! Hurry!"
"What is it? What's
wrong?"
"Uhm... you know
that... thing... I bought that you weren't sure about, because you thought it
would develop semi-sentience and eat us?"
"Yes?"
"It's developed
semi-sentience and is trying to eat us."]]
Chandri blinked again.
"How did you... actually, never mind." In an aside, she turned to
Tris. "Remind me to sweep Crystallis for surveillance devices, huh?"
"I was dispatched
approximately one hour after we received the request, but I had to go looking
for you, as you weren't at your recorded address. Not that it was any trouble,
mind you. Glad to help."
"Well, see, we've had
some trouble with the product we ordered."
The little man continued
helpfully on; "In long standing tradition of helpful and considerate
salesmanship, Starshop Interdimensional is happy to see to any of your
maintenance or various (meaning any) of your starshop needs -- what sort of
trouble?" Mr. Underhill seemed to have been going on as if from a
pre-written script and without breath, but now the flow of his speel was interrupted.
"It sort of came to
life, about tripled in size, and is trying to eat us," Corone said dryly.
Mr. Underhill briefly wore a
perplexed look before he wiped it swiftly away. "And what was the product
you ordered? It's probably just a simple malfunction."
The trapdoor continued to
clank and clatter ominously as Henry's packaging was produced and handed to Mr.
Underhill. He studied it carefully as the clanking got louder and more
frequent.
*CLANKCLANKCLANKSKREEEEEEK*
"I think he's got the
lock," Dez said, nudging her Writer, who half-turned back to face the
trapdoor.
"Think you could hurry
it up a bit?" Chandri asked the little salesman.
"All in good
time," Mr. Underhill said brusquely. "Everything worth doing takes --
urk."
"Everything worth doing
takes urk? Never heard that before."
Again, Corone glanced around
and found his humour unappreciated. "You people have no sense of
humour," he grumbled.
"What's wrong, Mr.
Underhill?" asked Tris over her Writer's shoulder.
"Well... er... you
see... you've been sent the wrong product for your order." The little man
looked extremely flustered, and pulling a purple silk hankerchief from a breast
pocket, mopped his forehead.
"What? I thought those
shops were supposed to be infallible!" Chandri demanded.
"Well... you see... we
usually are... it's just this one product... sort of rogue, you see... sapient
pearwood is like that..."
"Sapient
pearwood?" asked Dez. "I thought it was made of plastic."
"Well, *it* is... but
Its offspring varies greatly."
"*Offspring*?!"
"Well, yes. Great
literary figures, you know, literary cliche, and this *is* Subreality, after
all..."
"Mr. Underhill, are we
discussing a certain piece of Luggage?" Chandri asked suspiciously.
Mr. Underhill nodded so hard
that he appeared to stop breathing, and his head seemed to retreat into his
shoulders with the effort of hiding his embarassment. "Hardly ever
happens, you know, but that Luggage is an odd one... hard to keep track of,
impossible to really control, and now it has... you know... offspring, and
they're all as bad as their... parent."
"The Luggage had
*kids*?" Chandri's tone was disbelieving.
"Parent?" Dez said
at the same time.
Mr. Underhill nodded,
shamefacedly.
"We're doomed,"
Chandri said, face in palm.
The clanking had become a
background noise by now, and as such, the two Writers and two Muses had sort of
stopped paying attention to it - that, and the appearance of Mr. Underhill had
presented quite the distraction. But it was at this point that Chandri, hoping
to convince her Muse that the unlikely plan of flying them to safety was now
their best - or rather only - option, turned around looking for Tris.
"Uhm... Tris?"
"Where'd she go?"
Corone too now turned away from the flustered little salesman. "She was
standing right behind us."
"Yeah," said
Chandri. "Was." The slightly tremulous note in her voice might have
been easily explained by the fact that Henry, unnoticed by the party, had
emerged from the trapdoor and was standing next to it (or, it might be argued,
tottering), and seemed to be huffing. The plum-skinned Muse, however, was
nowhere to be seen, and her sword was lying abandoned on the rooftop.
*PFFTTHUMP*
Henry began to approach
them. Chandri stared at him, and sheathed her sword. "It ate my
Muse," she said, as if she didn't quite believe it. She drew out her
denn'bok. "You great green plastic-furred gluttonous excuse for a
household appliance, I'll teach you to eat my Muse!" She ran at Henry,
madly beating at any plastic parts that looked likely to break under duress
from Minbari metal. Corone watched calmly, then looked sideways at Mr.
Underhill.
"I realise we can
always Write them both back into existence, but I think that would make Chandri
cranky," he said, half to his Muse, who nodded.
"All the Writers get
cranky when they get brought back from the dead. It's hell on the glands. Same
with fictives, for future reference."
"I don't suppose you
have some way of remedying this situation?" Corone inquired of the
salesman, who was wringing his hankerchief between his hands.
"But it's against
regulations!" protested Mr. Underhill.
"Rules are made to be
broken," said the tall Writer, patting his laser rifle.
"But I--"
"Look; I'll make it
easier for you."
Corone aimed and fired the
rifle at Henry's feet - er, foot. The feather duster toppled sideways. Mr.
Underhill made a dismayed noise.
"But that's valuable
merchandise!" cried the salesman.
"It could be argued
that so is Tris," Corone pointed out.
"I-- I-- oh, all right,
all right, I'll do it!" Mr. Underhill capitulated as Corone hefted the
laser rifle significantly. The little salesman pulled out his watch again and
did something to the inside face. There was a noise that was a cross between
something electronic and something vaguely resembling what one imagines the
Vienna Boys Choir might sound like if one tried to fit them all into a
HotWheels car.
The watchface flashed bright
blue, and Mr. Underhill held it out, wincing. A beam of pale blue light shot
out from it and collided with what by now, everyone had decided was Henry's
head.
For the first time, Henry
made something approaching a vocalization. He also writhed, after a fashion.
Chandri dove out of the way just before Henry... exploded.
Well; he didn't *exactly*
explode, to be strictly technical. But constrained to terms sayable by humanoid
languages, one must revert to such a simple description. It was rather like
Henry's insides became, momentarily, his outsides, and there was a foul-smelling
- or at least, odd enough to justify not describing it - blast of hot air that
washed out over the roof. An instant later, it subsided, and in the place of
the oversized Henry, there lay a perfectly normal-looking green feather duster,
a slightly twitching, cat-shaped alarm clock that had seen better days, a
large, ugly man in dirty leather armour (who stood up and, looking rather
confused, ambled away and over the side of the roof - no one noticed...), and
Tris, who was sitting up, flailing her arms and emitting a stream of the most
creatively colourful language anyone present had ever heard her utter. (There
were also several dozen other objects that, covered as they were in
unpleasant-looking green goo, we just won't go into.)
"This is just... it's
disgusting," Tris declared, holding up her arms and looking down at
herself with revulsion. Chandri took off her robe and draped it over her Muse,
who looked up at her, glaring.
"When we get home,
we're ripping the telephone out of the wall," she said as Corone inspected
some of the unnamable, goo-covered rubbish strewn over the roof. Dez stood
back, watching her Writer dubiously.
Mr. Underhill, in the
meanwhile, was picking across the rooftop. When he reached the feather duster
that had been Henry, he pulled a latex glove out of his pocket, put it on, and
picked up the currently dormant cleaning appliance, placing it in a paper bag -
which disappeared quickly into the folds of his coat.
"Well, if that will be
all, I'll be going. Please think of Starshop Interdimensional the very next
time you require out-of-this world goods or services. Have a nice day!"
"Hey, hold on
there!" Chandri dove to catch the little man but caught only a cloud of
magenta smoke. She patted the roof where he'd last been standing.
"Damn. I wonder how you
lodge a complaint to a multi-Universal comany with no central offices."
Corone shrugged. "Maybe
the Luggage will find out he let its baby out and eat him. Not a very good
babysitter, if you ask me."
Chandri actually looked more
cheerful. "Point."
"Can we go home? I'm
all... slimy," Tris asked.
"Let's," agreed
Dez, as Lyra dared to reapproach the roof and alighted on the Muse's shoulder
before sighting Chandri and returning to her. The owl actually seemed to be
looking contemptuously at where Underhill had been standing.
"Hey, Chandri?"
asked Corone as the group started down the stairs through the trapdoor.
"Yeah?"
"Can I make a
suggestion?"
"What's that?"
Corone let her get a little
ahead before he spoke again; she was still carrying her denn'bok.
"Next time you need to
clean, hire a maid?"
=====================
Disclaimers: Subreality
concept is Kielle's, all hail.
Corone is a Writer and
therefore property of himself. Dez is his Muse, and Sycos is his too.
Tris is my Muse; 'nuff said.
Pratchett is Pratchett's, as
is the Luggage. And the starshops.
Hobbits are Tolkien, but I'm
hereby delegating Tabo Underhhill to the ownership of the first
Pratchett/Tolkien ficverse that presents itself.
Lyra's mine.
FOX is owned and operated by
Satan.
The denn'bok is also known
as a Minbari Fighting Pike, and is from Babylon 5, which is property of JMS. As
is the word Minbari.
Ramo was no one's to begin
with, and is no one's again, unless someone really wants to scrape him off the
streets of Diversion and file suit.
The Teletubbies also belong
to Satan.
I don't think I've forgotten
anything, but if I have, just remember, you can't sue someone with no money. I
hope.