Lord of the Manor -- Section 3

[I did it. In fact, I overdid it by just a little today. 3,948 words for the day. Don't really know how usable they all are, but they're written, and that's the important part for a first draft.

[This book is strange to write. I wanted to do something less serious after finishing City of Dreams, and now I'm putting out stuff like today's section. A society in ruins. An ominous presence. A Scullery.

[I'm going to keep going, though. The advantage of writing at this pace is, if it doesn't work out especially well, I've only invested a month in writing the book and I can move onto the next one. I do think that I'm writing the story that's right for me to write right now, though, so I write it, I enjoy it, I learn from it, and I hope you enjoy it, too.

[3,000 more words tomorrow. How exciting.]

[EDITOR'S NOTE (which, in this case, is also AUTHOR'S NOTE): Talk has now been changed from a boy demon to a girl demon. You have been notified.]

            Rope Feast looked down at the lag next to him, and Tickertape's eyes followed. Drop by drop, the bluish liquid was falling from the little imp's transparent chest down into its equally transparent gut. Around them scurried a procession of bags with their sagging cheeks, grumbles with their broad, hairy feet, tags with their oversized eyes, and snags, trailing threads behind them. A few tiny flickers hung from the chandelier overhead, shedding light down over the entire chaotic swirl. They bustled around the Scullery, which was filled with all the necessary pots, barrels, sinks and basins required for cleanup in kitchens massive enough to feed a manor. It was the seat of power for the kitchens, the place that, day after day, was the site of battle for the three Masters of Feast.

            Not for the first time, Tickertape wondered how it could be worth it, and even what had started it. Why would Shatter, Rope, and Noise ever fight? It wasn't as if any of them had the authority to call forth meals at any time other than their given hours of the day. All the battle did was make certain that the imps of the North Wing were hungry, two out of three meals. In fact, now that Shatter Feast was out of the fight, his people must be hungry all day. Tickertape couldn't understand why he hadn't seen more of them coming to join with Rope Feast. Perhaps they were all off to join Noise Feast, but that Master didn't seem to have any more imps for his battle lines than before. In fact, based on yesterday's attack, it seemed that his numbers were down as much as Rope Feast's troops. Not many gone, but some. Tickertape chewed on his lip and wondered.

            And he looked back to the lag, one of the rare imps of the household that looked (and acted) like a walking hourglass. The drops continued, one at a time. Drip. Drop. Almost there...almost...and done. The afternoon minutes of the Feast of Lynchings had passed and the time for the Feast of Din began.

            The lag--whose name was Micklewhip, not that Rope Feast cared, Tickertape was certain--Micklewhip flipped himself over, standing on his remarkably broad hands, and the liquid began its hourly trip in the opposite direction, from gut to chest.

            "He'll be coming now," muttered Rope Feast, master of the Feast of Lynchings. Tickertape watched as his master cracked his knuckles, his fingers and arms as thick and knotted as the rope of his name. "Help me into my armor, quirk."

            That’s not my name, thought Tickertape. Besides, I’m not just any quirk. I’m Chief Quirk Exemplary Plenipotentiary over Dishes and Sundries. Or at least, he had been, before the old Master had become so sick. Tickertape sighed--but quietly, so as not to be noticed by his large and irritable overlord. He grabbed a gauntlet made from bent forks, the wheel of a baby carriage, and old socks, then climbed up a short foot-ladder to bring himself to Rope Feast's shoulder level, perhaps three-and-a-half feet above the ground. Quirk enjoyed human units of measure. They were so consistent. So accurate.

            "What do you think he'll try this time, quirk?" mused Rope Feast. "Yesterday was clever, I'll admit, but popcorn won't work twice on us. We're ready this time. The bags are all lined up--they ARE lined up, aren't they?"

            "Yes, sir," said Tickertape. He finished fitting the first gauntlet on and climbed down for the other as Rope Feast turned.

            "Excellent. Any popcorn attacks this time and our side will eat up anything they  can throw at us. It was my fault yesterday, I suppose, for trusting the left flank to a tag. All organization and no action, those tags. Wonderful for arranging spices, but useless in a fight. No, much better idea to have that tumble--what was his name?"

            "Ping Pong, sir."

            "Really?"

            "Yes, sir."

            "I thought his name was Ricochet, or some such thing."

            "I'm afraid not, sir."

            "What did happen to Ricochet?"

            Tickertape finished belting on the second gauntlet and kept his mouth shut, hoping the question would go away on its own. Rope Feast did that at times, asking questions then forgetting to wait for an answer, and if Tickertape were very careful and quiet, maybe this time he wouldn't have to--

            "I asked you a question, quirk. What happened to Ricochet?"

            Tickertape stuck out his tongue in frustration--out of sight, of course--as he reached down to pick up the helmet he had crafted from the bell of a trumpet, a toilet seat, and guitar string. "He...left, sir."

            "Left? How do you mean, 'left?'"

            The quirk climbed back onto the footstool and held out the helmet, waiting for Rope Feast to bend down so he could place the armor over his head and shoulders. Rope Feast didn't move closer and didn’t even flinch when a flicker dropped sparks down around his head.

            "How do you mean 'left,' quirk?"

            "This is rather heavy, sir."

            "Answer my question and you won't have to hold it anymore."

            "I'm not certain you'll like the answer, Master Rope Feast."

            "Bah." The larger demon leaned his wrinkled face in closer to Tickertape, glaring with eyes the color of the noon sun. "I didn't ask for a commentary, quirk. I asked for information. I'm a demon that can handle bad news, but I can't handle wishy-washiness. So speak up!"

            "He said he was off to work for Shatter Feast."

            "WHAT?!?" Rope Feast's fist knocked the helmet out of the imp's hands. It clattered across the room and banged into a large, copper cleaning pot. All motion around the room halted and all eyes turned to watch as the Master of the Feast of Lynching stormed around the Scullery. "Went to work for Shatter Feast? How dare he?!" The larger demon stormed back across the room and banged his armored fist into a wooden rinsing tub. The blow seemed to let out enough anger that some tension went out of his shoulders, but Tickertape cringed at the gashes in the wood. Making new things was easy enough, but fixing old things was real work, and any tubs or basins in the Scullery would have to be fixed, not just replaced. No authority to make new ones, not since the old Master had died.

            "Went to work for Shatter Feast," muttered Rope Feast. "WHY would he? That old buzzard can't even feed his followers, not since he broke his leg. Their chances of holding the Scullery are smaller than a flicker. Am I right, quirk?" Tickertape didn't even bother to nod. "Even in the morning," the demon went on. "No one here has eaten at the Feast of Breaks for a week. Why would anyone join Shatter Feast?"

            MAYBE, thought Tickertape, BECAUSE HE'S A NICE DEMON WHO DOESN'T SHOUT AT YOU FOR DOING WHAT HE ASKED. For perhaps the thirtieth time--that DAY--the small quirk considered defecting to the Master of the Feast of Breaks himself. Life could be better. He bet Shatter Feast would value a former Chief Quirk Exemplary Plenipotentiary over Dishes and Sundries.

            In the calm after Rope Feast's storm, motion through the Scullery began to pick up again, and the Master's small army of imps--grumbles, tumbles, firks, quirks, tags, bags, lags, snags, and flickers, perhaps fifty in total--began to mount the impromptu barricades of pots, cutting boards, chairs, one upended table, a mop bucket, and a laundry hamper pilfered from somewhere near the East Wing in Master Silver's territory.

            But before that, in the silence, Tickertape's stomach growled. Rope Feast heard it.

            "What? Hungry again, little quirk?" Rope Feast was looking at him. Tickertape gave a flat smile and shrugged. "Fear not, my friend. Soon I will conquer the Scullery once and for all, and will call forth meals for you, morning, noon, and night. No need for us to go hungry again. Just watch," said the demon, picking up his helmet and fitting it on over his head, slightly askew. "I'll beat back Noise Feast yet."

            Tickertape sighed. He'd heard it before.

            "They're coming!" shouted a tumble, scampering across the kitchens and into the Scullery. "They're coming!" Then the small imp, dressed in jogging shorts and miniature track shoes, lost his footing and slid across the Scullery floor on his back. He finally came to rest against Rope Feast’s foot, looking up at his Master with an apologetic look on his face. “They’re coming,” said the tumble, “and they’re bringing soap suds.”

            Walk, Talk, and Shambles, three young demons, crouched at the south-east corner of the Great Hall, looking out through a hole in the wall that they'd carved, carefully and quietly, over the course of the last week. There it was, covered in dust, massive, silent, and terrifying: the Great Hall. At least, it was terrifying to Walk. Talk wasn't saying much, and Walk could never tell what Shambles was thinking.

            "You sure you two want to do this?" asked Walk.

            Talk shrugged her skinny shoulders and Shambles used his thick hand to scratch behind his ears. Walk sighed.

            "We can stay here, guys. It's not like Ugly Man is that bad."

            "He hits me," said Shambles. Talk pointed silently at a bruise on her arm.

            "Yes, but he doesn't ALWAYS hit," said Walk, sounding stupid even to himself, "and he doesn't hit as hard as Tall Man."

            "I miss Crooks," said Shambles. "He was nice. He let us steal things."

            "Yeah, well, that was before," said Walk. "That was when we could go outside of the manor house. But now we gotta stay inside. You do know that, right Shambles? It's not safe to be outside."

            "'Course," said the thickset demon. "I'm not THAT stupid."

            "You're not stupid at all," said Walk, though it was true that Shambles was kinda slow. He hadn't always been that way, but after the old Master got sick, something in Shambles got sick, too. He got slow. He got slow, the same way that Ugly Man got mad and Tall Man got mean and Crooks got all disappeared. Then the South Wing went bat-crazy, no offense intended to bats, and things went bad all over.

            "We have to go across," Walk muttered to himself. They had to, because things had to be better in the North Wing. That was where the old Master used to live, so Walk was sure things hadn't fallen apart there--not like they had in the other wings. Not like in the Great Hall, where there was something living that, if he wore pants instead of having legs covered in scales, would have scared the pants off of him. Not that Walk had ever seen what was living there, but he'd heard the stories, and after the trio had worked their way through the East Wing, room by room, still and quiet as a lag at the half-hour--after he'd come to the one barrier they absolutely HAD to cross, the dusty expanse of the Great Hall--he had felt it. Something was there, and it was breathing, and it was watching.

            Which was why they hadn't dared to enter the hall through the doors. They knew the presence would be watching those. Instead, softly, quietly, they carved their way through a wall with a special saw that a quirk had made for them in exchange for two sets of chopsticks and a Ho-Ho. Walk still missed the Ho-Ho, but he comforted himself with the thought that on the other side of the Great Hall lay the kitchens. Break Feast, Lynch Feast, Din Feast. Salads, soups, roast anything. Walk's mouth was watering and he swallowed before any could leak out. They could do this. They had to do this. The South Wing wasn't safe anymore.

            "You two ready?" he asked.

            Talk shook her head, smiled, and shrugged. Shambles reached through the hole into the Great Hall and picked up a handful of dust. "Someone should clean this place," he said. "Should we bring some grumbles with us?"

            "We already talked about this," said Walk. "Ugly Man wouldn't let us get away if we brought any imps with us. They're too useful."

            "But aren't we useful?" asked Shambles.

            "Too young," said his friend, as patiently as he could manage. "We don't have our real Rights or Privileges yet. When we get a new Master, we'll be given our Rights, and then someone will want us. Until then, we're just extra mouths and stomachs."

            "Don't imps get Rights?" asked the heavyset demon.

            Walk closed his eyes, and Talk patted her friend on the shoulder. Walk looked over. PATIENCE, said the skinny demon's eyes. HE DOESN'T MEAN TO BE THIS WAY. Walk nodded, took a deep breath, and explained. Again.

            "Imps may get Jobs and Responsibilities, but only minor demons, major demons, and demon masters get Rights and Privileges."

            "I remember," said Shambles, his face lighting up. "Do you know what Rights and Privileges I'll get?"

            "We'll find out when we get our new Lord, buddy. You'll have to be patient until then."

            "Will the new Lord be in the North Wing?"

            "Might be."

            Shambles looked thoughtful, nodded, and slipped through the hole into the dust.             "Let's go then," he said.

            "Wait," Walk started to say, then stopped himself. Wait for what? It had to happen sometime, and better during the day when the Presence in the Great Hall seemed sleepy, and not at night when they hadn't even dared to disturb their slowly growing hole. Shambles was right: it was time to go. Walk gestured to Talk, and the skinny demon shook her head and gestured back: YOU FIRST.

            Walk ducked through the hole and stepped past the carved block of wood that they'd removed and set silently into the dust. Shambles had left an obvious trail behind him, which was unavoidable, Walk supposed. Dust this thick and you were doomed to leave a track for anything to follow that bothered to look. He'd have to hope that nothing was looking.

            The Great Hall stretched to the left toward the West Wing, cavernous and dim. Some outside light filtered in through windows and skylights, but not enough to do more than give the hall a twilight glow, even in the middle of the afternoon. Glancing over his shoulder, Walk jumped at what looked like the figure of a man, but was probably just a suit of armor. Was there still armor in this place? He'd never had much reason to go through the Great Hall before. Sure, it split the East and West Wings into two halves each, so you HAD to go through the hall to get from the South Wing to the North, but back then it was still safe to go outside, and much more fun that way. There was always some way to annoy the gargoyles, and for a young demon, seeing their faces twisted even more than usual in anger was a pleasure superior to everything except a good word from Crooks for stealing something especially nice. Had been a pleasure. Not so much anymore.

            Not for the first time, Walk wondered where Crooks had gone. It seemed almost overnight that Tall Man and Ugly Man had taken over the South Wing. New Masters, new rules, they had said. Bad rules, Walk thought. He kicked his way through the dust, catching up enough to make out Shambles in the gloom. They were in a wilderness of dust, a desert of dust, a desolation of dust. They kicked up puffs with every step, even as careful as they were, and those puffs floated up into the air, settling onto their shoulders. Shambles hair was covered in the stuff, as a matter of fact, making the young demon look five-hundred instead of just fifteen. In fact, thought Walk, it was a wonder that none of it had made its way into his nose, because sneezing in the Great Hall could be really--

            "Uh-oh," he whispered. The itch had started, right in the back, close to his throat. He tried sniffing out through his nose, clearing it the dust in a series of mini-preemptive-sneezes, but it wasn't working. He could feel the sneeze building. He crammed his fingers under his nose, covered it with both hands, tried to breathe through his mouth.

            That was worse. Instead of just sneezing, now he had to sneeze AND cough. He started walking faster, scooting around Shambles and looking for a door into the north portion of the East Wing. The Great Hall, while large, wasn't THAT far across, and soon he could see a vague rectangle in the wall.  Good. Doors. Just a few more steps and he'd make it.

            Walk jumped up to where the doorknob would be, ready to grab, but there was nothing. Just a flower. Painted on a canvas. It wasn't doors; it was a tall painting, resting on the ground and leaning against the wall. Walk landed back in the dust and the cloud that swirled around him was too much. He coughed. He sneezed. His whole body shook with his efforts to keep it quiet, but there was only so much he could do. A small demon making a small noise in a very large room where all sounds were muffled by a thick layer of disuse. It hardly counted as a noise at all.

            But it was enough. Walk looked up to see Shambles and Talk in front of him. Their eyes were as wide as his own, Walk was sure. They could all feel it: high, up in the shadowed heights of the Great Hall, something had heard.

            "Door," whispered Walk. Talk nodded vigorously, and Shambles was already walking with purpose along the wall to the east, looking for any way out of the hall. Walk stifled another sneeze--this time successfully--and followed. There had to be a way out that was close. He knew there were doors, several of them, and they couldn't be too far--there! There was one. Shambles jumped up, grabbed the long handle of the knob, and dragged down. The handle turned and stopped.

            Nothing.

            "Locked," Walk whispered. "Why?" Talk ran past him, came to the next door not too far away, and leapt. The same turn, the same complete lack of budge in the door's wood. Were they all locked? Walk ran ahead to a third door. Again, it wouldn't move.

WE'RE DEAD, he thought. "We have to go back," he said quietly. "Ugly Man won't even know we tried to leave, but if he finds out, I'll tell him it was all me. You guys will be okay."

            Talk shook her head vigorously, made sawing motions with her hands, then pointed up at the latch to the door.

            "Of course!" whispered Walk. "Cut the doors open! How long will it take? Wait, Shambles! Come back." But their friend was already on his way, following their trail back through the dust to where they'd left the saw. "Do we follow him?" asked Walk quietly. Talk shook her head again. He was right, Walk thought. Better not to attract any more attention, and one demon running kicked up less dust than three. Also, Walk might sneeze again.

            But not following Shambles meant waiting by the doors. And waiting meant looking around and feeling what Walk couldn't help feeling: something was out there, and it was listening, and it was looking. Eventually it would find them, and then they'd find out which of the stories the imps told were true. He didn't think that getting his brains sucked out was very likely, since he couldn't imagine brains being tasty to anyone, but that little bag had made such gruesome, squelchy sucking noises that Walk couldn't get the sound out of his head. Of course, being swallowed whole couldn't be that pleasant either, if the tags were right. Must be something unpleasant about being digested that made most animals try to avoid it. Walk kept glancing around, trying to look every direction at once. He figured he must look like one of those bobble-heads he'd found in a trash can in town once, but he didn't care. Better to look like an idiot and come out alive.

Everywhere was dust and shadow. Walk felt a chill chase itself up his spine, then dread chased the chill back down and kicked it around a bit at the base of his back, making his leg muscles twitch. He wished Shambles would hurry.

            There he was, coming back through the dust like he was plowing through snow, waving the quiet saw in the air, a giant grin on his face.

            Then the shadow dropped from above and landed between them with a muffled thud. A muffled thud of doom, Walk thought idly in one part of his brain, while the rest of his brain was busy sending signals to 'panic' and 'freeze' and 'run away' to the rest of his body. Turned out that the 'freeze' signal was the strongest, but 'panic' and 'run away' were ready to take their turns at a moment's notice.

            The shadow was tall--human sized, even--frayed at the edges, as if whatever it was were dressed in layers and layers of rags, tatters piled on scraps, all wrapped around an under-layer of everything threadbare. The shadow held perfectly still, and Walk felt it looking at him. Evaluating. Seeing what the small demon was worth.

            Shambles leaned to the side of the shadow and waved at Walk. Walk tried to wave his friend away with a flick of his hand by his waist, tell the heavy-set demon to run, but Shambles shook his head. He held the quiet saw up where Walk could see it, set it down in the dust, and turned to face the shadow.

            "Hey, dumb head," shouted Shambles. "Did you lose all your snags? Nobody to fix your clothing?"

            It wasn't much of an insult, but the shadow turned and faced the round demon. IT WON'T WORK, Walk thought. HE'S NOT GOING TO FALL FOR IT.

            "I bet you can't even run fast," Shambles went on. "I bet you're slow. A slow shadow. Who ever heard of a slow shadow? In fact, I bet you can't even catch me." Then Shambles turned and ran to the West, back into the heart of the Great Hall.

            The shadow turned back to look at Walk and Talk. Then the ragged figure shrugged, as if to say, 'why not,' turned and leapt into the air after Shambles.

            "It worked," said Walk. "I can't believe it."

            Talk was already running through the dust to where their friend had been. In moments she was back, holding the quiet saw. He pointed to the base of the door, under the handle, and when Walk didn't move, pushed him to stand there. Before Walk could protest, Talk was climbing onto his shoulders with the saw in hand.

            "We've got to help him," said Walk, looking up at his friend. Talk looked down at him sadly, then started cutting at the latch. She was right, Walk realized, feeling numb from his toes to his fingertips. Something that big, that could move that fast--what chance did they have? Better to get out and find help. Find out what was going on. Find out why there wasn't a new Lord to FIX things. Metal shavings rained around his head and some fell onto his face. Walk brushed them away then looked down at his fingers in surprise.

            He realized he was crying.

            "I didn't know demons COULD cry," he said.