Showerhouse
Treats of a Brisk Drizzle
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Ordus’s voice reached Mr. Grey through opaque walls of steam. Its whinnying, angry tone made it instantly recognizable. “Yeah, I knew the whole time that Mr. Grey was our guy. You should have seen your faces during that whole scene in the Swampus Maximus treasury. Classic misdirected shock.”
Mr. Grey heard a laugh. Another voice said, “Sure Ordus, exactly as you put it.”
A shower of icewater gushed without warning from one of the ceiling’s ceramic, manta-ray-shaped showerheads. It startled the steam beneath. The warm clouds scattered, opening a gap in the opaque wall. Ordus’s image joined his voice at Mr. Grey’s senses. Ordus had discarded his decorous armor to prevent it rusting in the showerhouse. He still wore, over his shoulder, the wrinkled robe of belt-buckles, and the seashell trumpet clutched in his pale-knuckles instantly singled him out to Mr. Grey’s eyes. Even had he worn the normal waist-high shower-robe, and left his trumpet in the lockers, and even had he worn false glasses and mustache, Mr. Grey thought he’d have recognized Ordus. The diegeonary’s awkward shoulder-hunch; the way he glared on the other soldiers, all wearing regular shower robes; the way he alone stood, while those same soldiers stretched themselves across benches of stone beneath the manta-ray faucets; all these marked the diegeonary out from the crowd, with or without ornamentation.
Ordus finished ranging his sullen glare over the soldiers. They smirked. Ordus waved his trumpet and said, “Aww, forget you guys.” He noticed Mr. Grey through the reforming steam wall. He marched through it and joined the wet, glistering statue-man.
The diegeonary paced before Mr. Grey and Honeydew’s benches. Mr. Grey tried to watch the pacing, but the manta ray spout over his seat distracted him. On the third round of Ordus’s pacing, Honeydew said, “What do you want?”
Ordus stopped, faced them, and in a grudging note said, “I’m glad we didn’t have to battle or shoot you.”
Honeydew scoffed. She spread her flaxen hair across the bench’s granite and shut her eyes. Mr. Grey looked away from the spout and said, “Sorry, what was that?”
“Oh forget it.” Ordus walked to a vase of gladiolus flowers on a square end table nearby, and started arranging them by size.
Mr. Grey watched Ordus a few tocks; he couldn’t say exactly how many without his usual pocket-full-of-ticker. The moisture of the humid room desperately tried clinging to him and making his stony aspect shine. On Mr. Grey’s face the steam achieved some success; his forehead glistened like marble in sunshine after heavy rain. But his hands stayed dry; perhaps aided by Mr. Grey’s wringing of them. He asked, “So what’s the Defense Force going to do with the Lure?”
Honeydew raised her head to listen. Ordus turned from the flowers and said, “Don’t tell me you actually think we’d waste the artifact on enchanting?”
“No, no, no. I mean, will you… send it to the king? Since he’s, you know, king?”
“Of course not!”
Honeydew sat up. She asked, “Is it a reason for war with the crown and Starharbor? For Glory Days liberty?”
A hiss of gushing ice water followed by a blood-curdling scream staunched Ordus’s reply. The cold shower and its victim must have sat in some far corner of the showerhouse; no opening broke in the pale vapor wall around Ordus, Honeydew, and Mr. Grey. The scream was followed by weak-voiced words of, “Boy, that was… refreshing…” Mr. Grey wrung his hands to sparkmaking dryness in the humid room, while they waited through this interruption.
When background chatter rose once more, Ordus asked, “What were you saying?”
Mr. Grey beat Honeydew to answer. “She was anxious if you’d start a war with the king.”
“Of course not.”
Honeydew said, “You’d lose against the bouncers anyway.” She laid her head down. Mr. Grey stopped wringing his hands, having reached a near-magma state.
Ordus flushed and puffed like a balloon. Mr. Grey put in, “You’ll keep it in Glory Days?”
“The Lure will return to Antiquity,” answered Ordus with a release of breath. “There’s a Sun Fish Temple in Museumtown, The Helichthanon. It’s been chosen to feature the Golden Lure. Yeah, it’ll have a nice purpose there; drawing cologne-protected tourists. They can admire its golden glint safely, from a distance.”
Mr. Grey said, “Well that sounds agreeable to everybody.” He joined his back to the stone bench. The cold water faucet above once more caught his sight and attention.
Mr. Grey heard a gasping noise, which he at first mistook as coming from the same spout, readying an icy drenching. He braced, but realized the noise came from the walls of fog; from the materializing shape of Ms. Maysey. She rushed through the vapor; the fur of her-mice hair glistened wetly.
“Couldn’t help. Familiar voices.” Instead of pipe smoke, she punctuated each gasp with an exhale of the omnipresent steam. She swallowed, saw they were staring at her, and plopped down on a stone bench. She went on breathlessly. “Sounds like you two saw loads of things. I feel bad. Sure, I didn’t have the health for high adventure. But I feel I could have accomplished more. All I did was eat at nice restaurants and look at coral formations.”
“That sounds alright,” said Mr. Grey. He avoided looking at Ms. Maysey.
“So what happens with Jodee?” asked Honeydew with an oil-slide of her eyes to Ordus.
“Cease and desist orders?” added Mr. Grey.
Ordus set the gladioli back in the vase. He paced again before their seats. Their three sets of eyes, and all the eyes of Ms. Maysey’s mice, tracked him.
Ordus said, “We’ll storm her Acropolis.” He pumped his fist for emphasis, sending condensation drops flying from the trumpet’s seashell bell. “All the might of the Glorious Defense Force. Uncountable rifles, uncountable barrels, safeties off.”
Another scream erupted somewhere in the steam. Honeydew said, “Not very relaxing. Ice water showers in a steam room.” She moved a dark eye to the ceramic manta ray over her own head, daring it to gush.
Ms. Maysey raised a finger. “It’s supposedly good for the nervous system. It keeps the neurons on their toes. Plus I’ve heard it’s lucky. Of course, I haven’t been favored.” The hair mice watched the spout above her with beady, longing eyes.
“But back to the tourists,” said Mr. Grey. He watched Ordus. “Wouldn’t most listen to reason? You could negotiate.”
“Whose side are you on, huh? If I didn’t think better, I’d say you wanted more innocents bitten by rampant stenches,” said Ordus. His upper lip twitched at the molded shape of Mr. Grey on the stone bench.
“I just think it’s better to be legal and merciful. Not-existing seems harsh. For so many.” Honeydew and Ms. Maysey agreed, nodding and shaking their wet hair; Honeydew’s flaxen, Ms. Maysey’s mousey. An image of tourists - standing before the Defense Force firing squad - flashed before Mr. Grey’s eyes. The figment rushed his mind, like a stag over a road in the dark. He fled from it.
“You’re the only one talking about ‘not existing’!” said Ordus. He threw his hands up. “We won’t need to fire the guns. Geez. There’s reinforcements coming in from Prestige. They’ll be here before the next cottonfruit ripening, well before the tourists regroup from our capturing Wargermopolis. When we come upon them at Jodee’s acropolis, arrayed in overwhelming force, they’ll realize they have no choice. They’ll surrender. Without a shot fired.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Mr. Grey. He looked at the showerhead again. He expected a bucket’s-worth of cold water any tock.
In a quiet voice, Ms. Maysey asked, “Won’t that be too late?”
“What do you mean,” asked Ordus. He didn’t shout, but spoke as if promising to.
Ms. Maysey went on, in an even lower tone. “Reallytruly, I’m probably mistaken. And it’s not my business. I only heard - from an unreliable source, surely - that Jodee was planning to attack. And that the time for it - which could always be late, or early I suppose - was ‘before the next cottonfruit harvest’. But I’m sure-”
Ms. Maysey choked off her word as Ordus sprang. He didn’t spring at Ms. Maysey, but at Mr. Grey. He hauled Mr. Grey, with difficulty, to his feet. He clutched Mr. Grey by an elbow crook and held him at arm’s-length. Mr. Grey nearly slipped on the wet tile. Honeydew leapt to her feet too, shoulder-ready.
Ordus yelled, fulfilling the earlier promise. “So! This was the plan from the start: distract me with the Golden Lure, while Jodee strikes in ambush.”
“This is news to us,” said an outwardly calm Mr. Grey. “We didn’t just promise you the Lure. We gave it to you. And we’re still here, with you, now.”
Honeydew crept nearer the diegeonary with a ready shoulder-strike. But Ordus released Mr. Grey, who stumbled on the wet tile before finding his balance. Ordus splashed a sandal on the floor. He said, “Blob Fish curse Jodee Coats!”
Just then, the lucky ice shower previously destined for Mr. Grey drenched Ordus. The Diegeonary wrestled with speech between teeth at once clenched and chattering. “If she attacks. Can’t control outcome. Rely on guns. Bad image. Need better plan. No direct assault.”
Mr. Grey stepped forward after an unmeasured tock. He said, “I’d like to help. With any pencil pushing, that is. Or things of that sort.”
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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