Entertainment and Detainment - Entrée
Treats of Multiple Faces; Familiarity Varying
You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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A bull-whip cracked through the purling harmonies of lapping water. “Keep those backs straight while you hunt; use your legs! Your next hit time’s coming. Show some hustle. You think the shiniest stones will just fall into your lap? I want to see teetering pebble stacks before the drain.”
Mr. Grey took his right eye from the gemseers kit and the shiny pebble he inspected for luster, peeled his left eye open from its wrinkled squint, and observed the commotion.
A soldier stood amidst the unarmed tourists in an ankle deep field of water. He screamed motivations at them as they sought shiny pebbles for the Pebble-Find recreation. The soldier cracked his whip again for emphasis. Emphasis seemed the leather lash’s only purpose; Mr. Grey had yet to see it strike a tourist.
Mr. Grey stood above the water, isolated on a flat table of onyx. All around him, the tourists searched, combing a field that rippled and glinted under the bright fish light. Mr. Grey’s shoes and the hem of his robe were, of course, wet; everything in the flooded quarry got wet. But Mr. Grey, at least, avoided trudging through the shallow, silty water.
Some of the cymbally streams coursing over the toothy quarry cliffs ran into the Pebble-Find field, where they became slow-moving waves. Despite the heavy inflow, the field remained at ankle-height. Indeed, all the deep pools, the wet fields, and the lazy rivers flowing through the quarry, maintained a static level. Mr. Grey had yet to see where the water escaped.
Mr. Grey’s assigned activity was at a wicker jeweler’s dais, atop the onyx table. His task: inspecting the baskets of pebbles brought to him by the other tourists. Sorting shiny from unshiny. The mechanical job of sorting; picking up the pebbles on one side, bringing it to the jeweler’s lens, assuming the same precise posture each time, getting the big-bright-fish’s light on each stone at exactly the same angle, and dropping the inspected rocks into piles of like glamor; this suited Mr. Grey. He’d found a rhythm - even a sense of shelter - in the job. It almost felt like pencil pushing.
The only awkwardness - the only part of the job hiccupping his flow - was the arrival of a tourist with a basket to sort. Whenever he heard that heavy thud of a pebble-filled basket on the onyx platform, he would yank his eye from the jeweler's lens and jerk his face to the invader. Each visitor would drop the leaden efforts of their labor at the jeweler’s stand and seek to steal a break in exchange. Each voice addressed Mr. Grey with a weary, “Hello,” or an envious, “Must be nice,” followed by a gesture at the shiny platform of onyx.
Mr. Grey met these unwelcome conversants with customary, awkward courtesy. He rushed the tourists back to their own jobs with monosyllables and lack-of-engagement. He sympathized with his fellow captives; he saw that their assigned leisure took a greater physical toll. Though the conversations chafed like a rash on his social comfort, Mr. Grey would have endured them. He would have given his fellows their break, if only from a sense of guilt. But, whenever the guards caught a gatherer lingering with the sorter, they screamed at both. The guards called them, “Lazy, thankless worms!” and demanded each return to their assigned leisure activity. They followed each demand with an exclamatory whip-crack.
Mr. Grey received this exact insult at that very moment. The guard he’d settled his eyes on had caught him staring. The whip cracked. Mr. Grey returned his right eye to the kit, re-scrunched his left, and searched for his rhythm.
Instantly two thuds sounded on the onyx; like signature-stamps on a legal contract. Mr. Grey swiveled his eyes off the job, onto the strangers.
The pair next to his table wore matching Starharbor suit-robes; shining inkily, like blood at night. He read little in their faces. The bright fish-sun glared off their twin sets of round, smoky glasses. It hid their eyes. But something about the two seemed familiar to Mr. Grey. Something in the way one stroked his bristled sideburns, or the way the other slid his fingers through greasy hair, or the way they both skulked around the gemstone table and flanked Mr. Grey.
“My dearest and most beloved Blackjaw,” said the greasy-haired one in a low whine to his companion.
“What, Slake?” growled the other, scratching at his bristles.
“Why, is this not the fellow we wanted? Not even ‘wanted’ - I’ll commit myself to say - but ‘needed’?”
“If he’s Mr. Grey he is.”
Mr. Grey twisted his head alternately between the two. He said, “Sorry gentlemen, you seem familiar. But I can’t place you exactly.”
“Course he’s forgot,” said Blackjaw.
Slake smoothed his oily hair, straightened his smoky glasses, and said, “Now, now, now, Blackjaw! Why such crossness over inconsequentials? The fellow’s merely misplaced a memory.”
“Who’s cross?”
“Nothing to be cross about,” began Slake.
“When finding treasure,” finished Blackjaw.
The two crept tockwise around Mr. Grey. He followed their arc with his eyes. The stalking, circling motion jogged his memory. He said, “I remember now. Aren’t you finder’s for hire? The ones I saw in Honeydew’s wheelhouse?”
“Honeydew’s wheelhouse!” said Slake with a yipping laugh. “Isn’t that the cleverest little establishment nickname you ever heard, Blackjaw?”
“that’s not its name,” said the other.
“But how it rolls from the throat; Ho-ney-dew’s Wheel-house. Such poetry! But then, one expects that of sweetheart musicians!”
Mr. Grey twisted himself at a steady pace, following the arc of Slake. At the same time, his neck hairs warned him of Blackjaw’s close-creeping company. When Mr. Grey turned around, however, Blackjaw still lurked beyond arm’s reach.
Mr. Grey felt less comfortable than he had with any other pebble-searcher. He said, “Well then, gentleman. I hope you’ve traveled well. It is nice to make your acquaintance… again. But I-”
Slake cut him short. “Nice, he says! ‘Lovely’ perhaps. ‘Fortunate’ certainly. But more than ‘nice’. Don’t you think, Blackjaw?”
“Yes, Slake.”
The two edged closer. Mr. Grey glanced at the guards in the field. He wished, for once, one would notice his slackness. Mr. Grey resumed, “That’s as may be. But you and I have assigned leisure. I wouldn’t wish to make trouble by keeping you. And I’ve no financial business that needs…”
“No direct financial business, delightful Mr. Grey,” Slake interrupted. “You’ve certainly no direct financial business with Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire. Would you commit to that also, first-named in the business?”
“Nothing direct. Something indirect,” said Blackjaw.
Mr. Grey stopped turning, and tucked his dry hands into his not-so-dry pits. He let his eyes follow whichever of the pair passed in front, returning to the left each time one circled out of view. As a word-machine shuttle crawls slowly sideways with each keyclick, until a grey pencil-pusher’s hand reaches up and snaps it back to the start, finishing the pattern with a ringing mechanical chime; just so did Mr. Grey’s eyes follow Blackjaw and Slake. He said, “Gentlemen, I don’t mean to rush, but we each have occupations. I’ve misunderstood; could you clarify what you wanted?”
“A signature,” said Blackjaw. He rushed suddenly in and placed on the podium a stack of Starharbor-standard legal-text.
“What Blackjaw means by words put so succinctly,” said Slake, moving next to his partner, “is that your signature appears as a cosigner on the treasure loan agreement with an estimable client; perhaps the most estimable client. And this worthy finds himself in the most lamentable of situations!”
“Pecuniary Difficulties.”
“A circumstance; webby, tangled, nettled. But, fortunately, your position as a cosigner affords you the opportunity of rescuing your wretched friend from his plight.”
“Pay his debt.”
“Your friend needn’t suffer under the tender mercies of the bouncers’ court. Or find himself occupying cells in any prison but a workers’.”
Mr. Grey scanned the first page with quick comprehension, born from epochs in Starharbor’s Change of Address Office. But the pair pressed close. They distracted him from a close read. Distracted; with the fish light glinting off their glasses, and their gleaming teeth, and Slake’s oily hair. Mr. Grey looked up and asked, “Could you give me the friend’s name?”
“Bugwitch,” they said together, in a whine and a growl.
Mr. Grey remembered the name. He remembered the stoop dweller he’d given his nuts and bolts to while homeward-bound on a dragon-tram. He flicked skittishly through the document, now ignoring the twin gazers. And he saw it. On the last page of the stack he found his name, inked in loopy, uneven letters.
The signature was, of course, forgery.
“I’m sorry gentleman,” Mr. Grey began. “It seems your client made some error. This isn’t my handwriting.”
The pair grinned.
“Can’t prove that,” said Blackjaw.
“Impossible to prove it’s not yours,” added Slake, in a falsely sympathetic whine. “Simply impossible. Why, it would be a monumental effort proving it was yours. A long, arduous, courtly, costly undertaking. Handwriting’s so messy, messy, messy. There’s the experts to consult, and the friends and family to drag in, and the nights spent sleeping on courthouse benches. Why go through that, when paying off friends’ debts is so…”
“Satisfying.”
“One teensy signature on a withdrawal form, and you’re free to follow your feet. On whatever path they tread! To lands of golden wine, or unclouded bubbles, or-”
“You there!” came a soldier's holler from the watered field. The whip snap followed. “You two on the platform! Get back to leisure. Do you want to miss out on the thrill of the hunt? And you, in the grey. Don’t you like seeing lots of shiny pebbles? Well then get sorting!”
Blackjaw and Slake lingered. They pushed the parchments beneath Mr. Grey’s nose, they smiled wider than ever. A last ditch effort at an easy signing. But the whip cracked again, the soldier scowled, and the finders scurried back to the field.
Mr. Grey let out a relieved lungful. The finders had no legal standing ground, but their way of speaking and moving applied gradual, unnoticed, increasing pressure. It gave one’s head an anxious ache. Mr. Grey looked to the guard to offer thanks. Threat of violence - on the soldier’s face, in the soldier’s lash - convinced Mr. Grey to show his gratitude by sorting. He did.
Tocks vibrated Mr. Grey’s chest from the ticker in his pocket. The tocks gave constancy to Mr. Grey’s sorting cadence. And the tocks kept time. The little judders of the metal hands, over the ivory face, inside the cotton pocket, told Mr. Grey the precise number of moments spent in unbroken, relaxing labor. In a word; few.
Mr. Grey heard the next conversant coming before the pebble-basket drop. His grey ears caught splishing of quick footsteps through the pool. He swung both lens and pebble from his grey face. He clicked his head at an angle and braced against the interruption. The sharp grey eyes dulled - like a stone rubbed smooth by the tides’ strong hands - as they met the familiar approach of Ms. Maysey. She mounted the onyx table breathlessly. She dropped her basket with a relieved gasp. Mr. Grey saw that it carried no stones, but a lighter collection of moss. Ms. Maysey gasped off a soundless, “Hello Mr. Grey,” while rooting in her robes’ folds for the tobacco pipe.
Ms. Maysey and Mr. Grey spent a moment collecting; not moss or pebbles, but breath and thoughts. Ms. Maysey took deep, hypochondriacal inhales from her pipe. Mr. Grey thought of how Ms. Maysey’s pilling saddle-robe and squeaking mouse-hair had become familiar on this vacation. Her company no longer melted his cool, as it had on the balloon elevator back in Starharbor. As it had so many other times in their coworking existences. Mr. Grey didn’t feel relaxed with her as he did when alone, or even with Tom and Honeydew. But, Mr. Grey could talk to Ms. Maysey without a lengthy thaw.
Following a final precautionary puff, Ms. Maysey repeated, “Hello Mr. Grey,” with added sound and a friendly smile. “I see they put you on the closest thing to pencil pushing!”
“Hello Ms. Maysey,” said Mr. Grey; also with sound, hold the smile. “The Glorious Defense Force probably tries matching our assigned leisure to our regular work.”
“But how would they know? Just because they’re the king’s soldiers - and I can tell you that they are the king’s soldiers - doesn’t mean Glory Days offices should know one’s Starharbor work history. Oh, but, does it? If sharing records is lawful then that’s another matter entirely. Of course I’m not against lawful document sharing. What I mean is- what do you think, Mr. Grey?”
Ms. Maysey’s waffling made her opinion unclear. Mr. Grey’s view turned equally blurry. He said, “If the king’s soldiers work us right at Starharbor, I suppose they do the same in Glory Days.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you mind my asking why they’re making you collect moss?”
“Mr. Grey! They didn’t ask me to gather this.”
“Yes. Of course not.”
“I filed an exception. Reallytruly, scrunching up my lungs all day in pebble hunting, or stretching them out in ceiling mural painting, would just exacerbate the very conditions this sabbatical is solving. Don’t you think?”
“That seems possible.”
“When I filed they searched for my name. They saw my ‘Hopelessly Neurotic and Intractably Hypochondriacal’ diagnosis. And it struck me odd they’d know my medical history. If you say it’s lawful though, who am I to protest?”
Mr. Grey didn’t quibble on Ms. Maysey’s interpretation of his thoughts. Instead he brought them back to his question. “So, does that moss pile need sorting?” He waved a stiff hand at the gemseer’s kit. It was an invitation, but with a sardonic wrist flourish, saying, ‘that’s not one of the use-cases’.
“You think you're quite the jokester, don’t you Mr. Grey?” Ms. Maysey’s mouse-hair squeaked with nervous laughter. “Of course you don’t sort the moss.”
“Right, how foolish of me.”
“They told me to occupy myself. And I like gathering moss. No, I came to give a warning.”
Mr. Grey watched Ms. Maysey rest her elbows on the soft moss in her basket. She leaned casually closer. He threw a glance at the field, but the whipping soldiers were busy elsewhere. Another tourist held their interest; a Wine Medo woman wearing an eggshell robe patterned in apples. She splashed up and down in a dance, and waved over her head a pebble of pure gold. The distraction gave Mr. Grey and Ms. Maysey time to chat. Mr. Grey leaned stiffly closer and angled an ear.
“So, they forced me to sit for epochs on this hard granite bench in the quarry infirmary while they searched for my medical files. And I had absolutely nothing to do! I got down to my last tobacco pinch. Luckily the medics brought some from an emergency box. The whole ordeal made my eyes droop and my mouth yawn. That just seems weird, doesn’t that seem weird to you? That they’d put someone of my constitution through baptisms? On a sabbatical?”
“You came to warn me of the dull infirmary?”
“No, no, no. While I was going through that trial, that fellow who seems to lead the king’s soldiers dropped in. Couldn’t tell you why. He looks healthy. Well, he chatted me up; he seems like a chatty kind of person. Ordus? He and I talked. He mostly, I was feeling under the weather after the long sit on the hard bench. He asked again about our origin. I tried telling him we came from Wine Medo, and that you and I came from Starharbor. He either didn’t hear what I said, or didn’t believe,” Ms. Maysey paused to smoke.
“You think he’ll ply the rest of our voyage with questions?”
“I do think so. Especially you Mr. Grey. Because, you see, we got to talking, and somehow the name ‘Jodee Coats’ entered the conversation. I think she’s a big deal around here? Anyway, somehow her name came up. And somehow your name came up. And it must have been me that put them in the same sentence. I guess.. I mentioned you knew each other. I was so worn out, it probably just slipped off the tongue? And that Ordus-leader-person seemed keen that you knew her.”
Mr. Grey leaned abruptly back. “Miss Coats is famous? In Glory Days too?” He wrestled with questions. “Did Ordus say why she’s famous? Or why I’m under scrutiny?”
Ms. Maysey twisted a bundle of moss between her hands. “He talked so long while I sat on that hard bench… It’s possible he did say… I guess I didn’t hear. Or don’t remember. I do hope, Mr. Grey, you aren’t troubled on my account.”
“I’m sure there won’t be trouble. If I talk to this leader, Ordus, I’ll elaborate on why we’re here. Who knows, I might even clear up any lingering enmity between us tourists and these Glory Days officers.”
“Well I must say it untangles my nerves, you taking it so well. Do you want some of this?” she asked suddenly, holding out the moss. “To carry? You twist it for stress relief.”
“Not today, but thank you.”
Mr. Grey wanted to ask Ms. Maysey what else she’d overheard sitting on the hard granite bench; and where in the quarry the infirmary lay, in case he ever needed to know; and - politely - what she thought of Glory Days. Mr. Grey knew Ms. Maysey would’ve used lots of off-topic words to get to the on-topic ones; she would’ve smoked, and talked mostly about herself; he would’ve spent the time quietly listening. That all sounded fine to Mr. Grey.
On Ms. Maysey’s easy company, the Glorious Defense Force put a hard stop. All but one soldier still gawped around the apple-robe tourist and her golden stone. The exception snuck behind Ms. Maysey and Mr. Grey. No whip crack announced their reprimand. Instead, they heard the sudden, intrusive enchantment of a trumpet. Ms. Maysey jumped and whirled in the air to face the source. Mr. Grey swiveled. They saw, strutting through the water and polishing his breastplate with the enchantment the trumpet made, their gossip’s subject; Diegeonary Ordus.
The soldier splashed from the field onto the onyx table. He maintained his battle-march on the seashell instrument, which he brought to Mr. Grey’s face. The note-bearing air from the bell fluffed Mr. Grey’s mustache and washed his rocky cheeks. Ms. Maysey shrank and shivered. Ordus ended the enchantment with a blaring final note; a few of the pebbles vanished from Mr. Grey’s shiniest pile. The soldier’s armor glimmered in the big fish’s bright rays.
Ordus stared at Mr. Grey. His face contorted for a moment. As though he couldn’t choose between anger, triumph, and contempt. He got no reaction from Mr. Grey, and so swiveled to Ms. Maysey. He said, “Are you looking for a battle or something? Can’t you tell I want a one-on-one with the guy sorting the pebbles?”
Before Ordus finished his exposition, Ms. Maysey’s feet scurried from the table, her hands grabbing the moss basket. The shiny-armored soldier stowed his trumpet, straightened the shoulder-strap of his robe, and grunted; satisfied. He turned back to Mr. Grey. “So, Mr. Grey. Thought you’d avoid the Sun fish’s light, did ya? Thought you could hide?”
Mr. Grey looked pointedly in a wide arc over the wet field, then fixed his eyes on the singular, raised platform of onyx. He said, “I don’t think I’ve hidden anything, Mr.….?” Mr. Grey knew the officer’s name was Ordus, but chose to observe formalities.
“That’s Sir Ordus to you!”
Mr. Grey could make that work. “Sir Ordus, I want to cooperate with King’s Law. I myself am a king’s employee.”
“You think I didn’t know? Of course you work for the king. It’s how you know about this park already. Isn’t that right?”
“The name tells me it’s for Entertainment and Detainment.”
“That’s right. And because you’re a smart guy, you’ll know this place was originally a prison; after being a quarry. And you’ll know it was a prison during the war with Starharbor’s king. Back when it was wrongly ruled, not by the king, but by the barbaric Junean dynasty. And after the king established his law, this became a tourist park. And you’ll also know how, with this new rebellion, it’s a tourist-park-prison.”
Mr. Grey hadn’t known those things, and didn’t think all of them relevant. But it cleared up some of his questions. After extrapolation, he said, “You think we’re new rebels, and thus we’ve been detained?”
Ordus jerked his head and stamped a booted foot. “Traitor to the king! You think you’re crafty, don’t you? You want to take Jodee’s tourist horde out of Panache and into Prestige in smaller units. Wage a guerilla war. Don’t deny it!”
Mr. Grey listened respectfully to the rant - partly because he was a good listener - but with his grey eyes fastened on the gun stock over the diegeonary’s shoulder. When Ordus finished Mr. Grey said, “Sir Ordus, if you’d explain what Ms. Coats did here in Glory Days, I think…”
But Ordus chose to explain, instead, something else. “Now it makes sense. You’d be giddy if I told you all we know of Jodee’s plans, wouldn’t you? That’s your purpose here, isn’t it? Infiltrate a Glorious Defense Force base in Prestige, scout out weaknesses, then relay them to Jodee with some… secret… Starharbor enchantment. That’s why you needed your violin. So you could give Jodee and her horde the signal to move, and overthrow the Defense Force. Yeah, I see through your plan now, don’t I?!”
Mr. Grey felt worried and exhausted. He showed neither feeling. “Please… sir… I don’t mean offense. That’s not quite right.”
“Wow. Real hard cases, some of you tourists. I’ll admit, you lie with a straight face better than any man I’ve ever seen. But you won’t win. The other diegeonaries, myself, we’re prepared to defend the bubbles of Prestige, Pluck, and Antiquity. If need be, to existencelessness! We’ll retake Panache from you mongrel barbarians. So you keep that tongue held. See how much it helps you. Oh, and here,” he added as an afterthought while turning away. Ordus tossed Mr. Grey a crystal vial. “The Defense Force won’t sink to your tourist savagery. That’s cologne, so you don’t cease existing by a wild odor attack. You’re welcome.”
Diegeonary Ordus jumped from the onyx table. He splashed away at a canter; through the water field; chest up, head up. The nearest tourists shrank from his shining form.
Mr. Grey watched him go; followed with cool, grey eyes; breath catching, head bent. He forgot his pebble-sorting. Forgot, until he heard the guard’s whip crack. He resumed his assigned leisure with a shakier cadence.
He did, first, apply some cologne.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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