The Lost City of Fountains - Entrée
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“Could be the old case - like back in the tomb - of mistaken intenti-”
Mr. Grey cut his own thought short. The nearest fountain creature rushed him with loud, clacking taps on the stone. Mr. Grey stepped back. Too late. One of the creature’s chitinous pincers, coated in slime like peanut oil, closed over his grey hand. Mr. Grey tried pulling away. The claw held his hand fast. The claw squeezed. The plasmatic, jellyfish-like underbelly below the carapace shoved wetly against him. The two crust-covered, stalky eyes leered through thin, milky slits. The claw squeezed harder. The strength of its shell came against Mr. Grey’s stern, stony, dry skin.
The claw cracked on Mr. Grey’s hand. A hairline fractured up the creature’s chitin. It released its grip. Mr. Grey backed off, but the soft monster still pressed him with its bulk. Mr. Grey found himself buried beneath the squishy, cold, translucent flesh of the underside.
Then another crack sounded from its shell. The monster’s body rolled off Mr. Grey. He looked up and saw the face of Tom; one hand holding a lobster-meat-coated mallet, the other held out to Mr. Grey. Tom heaved Mr. Grey to his feet and said, “No miscommunication; not this time around.”
From every pool near the partisans’ campsite rose the clattering of chitinous legs. The tortilla-like shapes Mr. Grey had thought fountain stones were, in reality, dozens of these attacking crustaceans. They surged from out of the pools and made the formerly-still surfaces splash. They rolled over the ringed sides and clacked over the misty cobblestones. Bug armor covered them from antennae to pereiopods, but the fleshy part beneath looked more like saltwater in a clear balloon than tissue. They lurched towards Mr. Grey’s group and the partisans, like ghosts in armor crossing the ankle-deep mist.
Honeydew backpedaled toward Tom and Mr. Grey. She ducked one snapping set of claws. She had her shoulders ready, but wore doubt plainly on her face. Tom rushed in. As the creature closed he dealt its crusty stalks a haymaker mallet strike. The blow crunched into the monster’s brain. It teetered past him and splashed down as a translucent, pulpy mess in the nearest fountain.
Before either Honeydew or Mr. Grey could speak, Tom spun and charged them. He grabbed both their wrists in one of his huge hands, and pulled them along. He led them in a sprint at the nearest gap in the thronging lobsters. Mr. Grey just caught his violin coffin, lying on the rim of a pool, with a hooked finger. Tom yelled, “Need to find shelter,” and beelined the nearest alley.
Honeydew skipped agilely along as Tom tugged her wrist. She fought him, but Tom seemed blessed with fishly strength in the heat of battle. Mr. Grey had a tougher time. Many moments passed before he found an appropriate percentage of his regular-walking-pace to keep sure footing behind Tom. By then Tom had dragged them through a flurry of alleys. The creatures’ clacking still sounded from every direction. Only the cries of the partisans had faded. Mr. Grey stumbled over his tongue too, as he said, “Shouldn’t we… Should we stick with Jodee’s group? Safety in numbers.”
Tom shook his head. His steely eyes took on a cunning, battle-wise slant. “The worst idea. These things flock to groups. Trust me, I’ll find us safety,” Tom ran on, heedless of Mr. Grey’s verbal - or Honeydew’s physical - resistance.
More moments passed. Alleys and streets came and went. Mist - full of splashing, and rattling, and tapping of exoskeletons - swirled all around. Sounds from the partisans vanished entirely.
Mr. Grey fine-tuned his fast-walk. He scaled the skyscrapers with eyes, up to where they disappeared into the mist bubble. He glanced at Honeydew and said, “What do you think: anything like a Starharbor locale?”
She answered, “I can’t say unless we pause a tock!”
“This might be Smithersfield. I mean, The Lost City of Fountains’s equivalent.”
“Tom, all our stuff is back there,” said Honeydew.
Mr. Grey added, “We are getting a bit lost. And these pool monsters, they haven’t quit yet…”
Tom heaved air up and down his throat now. He’d dropped to a trot. But he kept their wrists wrapped in his fingers, and he kept them marching forward. Between gasps he said, “We’re keeping them on their toes; these water creatures. We’ll sneak away soon.”
One water creature, as if responding, burst through the mist-wall at the road’s end. The pearly vapor rolled off its gritty shell, and swirled in its see-through meat like glue in water. The monster made word machine clicks at a pencil pusher’s pace as it rushed over the stones.
Tom swung his head first left then right. This street offered no alleys of egress. Tom breathed hard and lifted his mallet, but the creature came too quick upon him. It slammed Tom. The big man fell behind Honeydew and Mr. Grey. He released them from his grasp. The creature swelled to its full height, twice that of Candlehead at his most heroic. It loomed over Mr. Grey and Honeydew. It divided its two cankerous eyes between the pair, one stalk for each.
It faltered. Impossible to say why. Perhaps the lobster-armored ghost reconsidered its odds, on finding itself alone against three foes. Perhaps Honeydew’s sharp shoulders seemed a greater danger against its soft belly than Tom’s mallet. Or perhaps the creature saw Mr. Grey - with his washed-out skin and robe, and his anchor-shawl - and thought itself facing that most-feared predator, the fishing ship.
Whatever the case may be, the monster reeled. Only for a tock. A tock was all Tom needed. He regained his footing, leapt to the front again, and landed an overhead sweep of the mallet. The shell gave a crab-leg snap. The armored ghost buckled and collapsed.
Mr. Grey listened. The tapping and clacking teemed just beyond the mist. From behind and ahead, hulking silhouettes appeared on the walls of mire. To Mr. Grey’s left and right, the skyscrapers presented mausoleum-marble facades; with grassglass windows wet with condensation, and double-doors of aged copper.
Mr. Grey looked at his company. Tom leaned on the mallet and rasped air through his lungs. Honeydew flicked her eyes ahead and behind, appraising each route, readying her shoulders.
Mr. Grey said, “Should we turn back now? Try to find the partisans. It was a good plan, just with ill-turned luck.”
Tom shook his head and spoke between gasps. “Awful idea… Being with the partisans… Find a hiding place… Get off this main street…” Mr. Grey thought this an odd reversal of Tom’s attitude at the oracle’s temple, where Tom had insisted they follow the partisans.
Honeydew snapped. “We can’t go back now! Now that we’re lost. All because he thinks he’s this great shoulderer!” She jerked her head toward Tom. Then she added, with a howl of anger, “All our stuff is back there.”
Tom swallowed air as though it were a finite and precious thing. He looked between the monster pods and the stern-faced buildings with watery eyes. “We should have lost them… We ran in zigzags…”
Mr. Grey said, “Perhaps it’s harder? It’s tough planning maneuvers, caught in noise and haze.”
Tom nodded. “Does anything here… Do these tall towers - any of these closest ones - look like Starharbor?”
Honeydew said, “No! You got us lost.”
Mr. Grey raised a finger. “Actually, yes. On our immediate left, with the shineless glass, and the dark granite. I think I’ve been there before. There’s a rear exit.”
With the monsters of jelly muscle and stone-plate armor closing in, the three mounted the wide set of wet, alabaster stairs. They reached the double door of copper. Mr. Grey, Tom and Honeydew combined their strengths. They heaved the heavy door open. An ancient breath of air hissed out of the sealed halls. They ducked inside.
The monsters - and two other, separate shades - followed them in.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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