Lord of the Manor -- Section 14

[Sorry for all the delays in writing this. I'm finding myself strangely discontented with and overwhelmed by this story. It's much more a pure adventure story than my other, more whimsical offerings, and the plot is an order of magnitude more complicated (Gah! My mathematical upbringing is showing!), so overall, I'm feeling...buried by Lord of the Manor. In other words, it's kicking my behind. In other words, writing is hard.

[But I get to meet new characters, and let's hope that this new challenge will make me a better writer. Charge.

[As a side note, I've decided that it's pretty ridiculous that I haven't found an agent yet. It's time to start really shopping Fat Tony around again. Sure, Tony and Sarah and all don't really fit in Seven Cities, Wisconsin, but that's okay. There are worse fates than having to write more about Fat Tony and Tucson.]

    Bunch popped out through the hole under the Noon Clock, munching on something. Crooks decided he really didn’t want to know where the round demon found his snacks. It was one of those mysteries that should be left alone--like what, exactly, all the ingredients are in ice cream. Guar gum? No one wants to know what guar gum is.
    "Seems that the new Lord pulled it off," said Bunch around a mouthful of something vaguely green.
    "Good to hear," said Crooks, slumped in his chair. He had a headache like a foam bat beating him behind the ears, over and over. Not exactly painful, but he had no plans to go anywhere in the near future.
    "Though I expect you already heard about it," said the Head of Information and Gossip, looking at Crooks through level eyes. What exactly was THAT supposed to mean? The former Master of the South Wing decided his head hurt too much for guessing games.
    "Why would you say that, Bunch?" he asked, rubbing at his temples.
    "You know it's none of my nevermind what you do or who you talk with," said Bunch, rubbing at his stomach, "but I've been hearing things."
    "Of course you've been hearing things. You have dozens of tumbles scurrying around the manor that think bringing you gossip is the best game since tag rolling."
    The round demon chuckled. "Tag rolling IS fun, I confess."
    Crooks narrowed his eyes. "You haven't been doing any of that recently, have you?"
    "Not to YOUR tags, nossir. Wouldn't dream of it. Of course not."
    Crooks sighed. "So tell me what you've been hearing, Bunch."
    "Oh, just bits of this and bits of that, Master, bits of this and that. That you have someone working for you who may not be exactly who he seems to be. Just the rumors you hear."
    "Interesting," said Crooks, holding very still. "And who says that my friend isn't who he seems to be?"
    Bunch shrugged, wrinkling up his ugly face. "Let's just say I hear a bit of this and I put it together with a bit of that, and I start to puzzle out that things aren't always as they seem. Like commercials for razors."
    "I'm still not sure I understand," said Crooks.
    "They're not actually shaving, see. I figured this out the other day. They've already shaved, then they rub on new shaving cream, and then they drag the razor over their faces for the camera crew, and it looks smooth as butter. But they're not shaving, and that's how I figure it, and there it is."
    "That wasn't what I was referring to, Bunch."
    "I know it wasn't, Master Crooks. I know that. But, you know what you're about, and I'm just along for the ride, so if you decide you can trust your help--even if they aren't who they say they are--then, like I said, it's none of my nevermind."
    Crooks closed his eyes and rested his throbbing head against the back of his small throne. "If this is your way of asking me about Sticks, then I'll put your mind at ease: I trust him completely."
    "Like a blind man with his seeing-eye dog then, sir."
    Crooks smiled. "Something like that, Bunch. Something very much like that."

    Walk crouched on the chair next to Talk and Micklewhip, peeking around the back to get a glimpse of Tickertape and that very frightening demon with all the knives. He hardly dared to breathe and didn't even risk a whisper to the other two. That demon looked like she'd cut his words right out of the air and chase them straight back to him.
    "Chief Quirk Plenipotentiary over Dishes and Sundries," she said. "Do I have it right?"
    Tickertape looked calm--way more calm than Walk could ever imagine being. "Yes, Mistress Noise."
    She paced back and front of the small table where she'd dropped the quirk. "I've seen you before, haven't I?"
    "I'm not very memorable," said Tickertape in a quiet voice.
    "Don't play with me, quirk. I'm not a fan of games. Where have we met?"
    "I used to work for Rope Feast."
    "Hah!" There was genuine mirth in the tall demon's laugh, though it wasn't kind humor. "That old sack? That's right! You were at his side, weren't you. Did you make his armor?"
    "Yes, mistress."
    "Wonderful! Delightful. Spectacular." Noise Feast clapped her hands together and tilted her head to the side, and Walk guessed it was supposed to be cute, but there were too many sharp edges to her, and his brain hiccupped to a halt at least three steps short of 'cute.' "Rope loses one of his chief quirks, and then I find him. Don't you find that marvelous, Finder?"
    "Yes, mistress," said the long-nosed demon, from out of sight behind a couch.     The two flickers were also perched on furniture close to their mistress, leaving plenty of shadow around the room, but Walk decided he'd tell them thank you later. Much later.
    "Tell me, Finder, is this quirk what we were looking for?" Noise Feast's eyes were hungry, like flickering fire reflecting flickering fire.
    "I think so, mistress."
    The mistress demon's eyes snapped down to glare where the Finder must have been. "Be sure," she said.
    "I've told you, mistress, and I'm not going back on what I've said. My Right and Privilege was for finding what was lost. This quirk wasn't lost, so I'm guessing at shadows and tugging on clouds, and if you don't like it, you can find yourself another Finder." There was trembling in the voice, but determination as well. Walk wasn't sure he could be half as brave.
    Noise Feast glared for long enough that Walk started imagining frightening things happening, involving knives and screaming--but then she looked back to Tickertape.
    "I suppose that explanation will have to do," she said. "You, my dear little Chief Quirk Exemplary, are apparently my key for finding the Study."
    Tickertape looked up at her, and she looked back down at him, and Walk wondered what the Study was. He knew the North Wing was a different place from the South. He'd even heard that rooms in the North Wing hardly ever moved, and that the last hole into the motherworld had been more than five years ago. He found those rumors hard to believe, but since seeing the shadow in the Great Hall, Walk was starting to believe that there was more to the world than he had ever dreamed.
    Tickertape was still looking up at Noise Feast. The larger demon's eyes narrowed.
    "Aren't you going to say anything, quirk?"
    "I'd be glad to help you, but I have a question first."
    Noise feast snorted. "Cheeky. I suppose I could like that--but not very much or very often, if you take my meaning."
    "Yes, mistress," said Tickertape.
    "Tell me your question, quirk."
    "What is the Study?"


    Noise Feast glared down at him, and it was all Tickertape could do to swallow back the panicked gurgle that tried to hurl itself up his throat. He WANTED to help her--he really, truly did. He had never been more frightened in his life, not even when a Ravenous Grok had burst through from the motherworld and swallowed up the entire set of broken china that Tickertape had just pieced together. That had been terrifying, sure, but then the Grok had been sucked back into the chaos that all demons sprang from, and was gone. Tickertape hadn't even had time to be really frightened.
    Noise Feast was different. She was covered in edges, her emotions filled with sharp angles, and her fingernails were painted with rainbows. For some reason, that bothered Tickertape more than all the knives strapped across her body. It made her seem off balance. Crazy. Yes, this time Tickertape was filled up with terrified, and he had plenty of time to enjoy it.
    Somewhere behind him, a flicker laughed.
    "Did I mention," said Noise Feast, "that I am not fond of games?"
    Tickertape swallowed again, and opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. The mistress demon leaned in close to him, her eyes bright and too close and too large.
    "Take me to the study, quirk. Take me there now."
    "I," said Tickertape. "I...I...I...." Why weren't his words working? What was the matter with him? He should be saying something--ANYTING! He found himself scooting backwards across the table on his bottom and hands, knowing THAT was a bad idea, too, but unable to stop.
    Almost too fast for his eyes to follow, Noise Feast lifted her arm and slammed it down onto the table between Tickertape's legs. He froze. The fabric of his apron was pinned to the wood by a long paring knife. A large, two-tined kitchen fork, strapped to the mistress demon's forearm, was driven into the wood so ferociously that the wood had splintered, one spike on either side of the quirk's left leg. Tickertape didn't dare breathe.
"Mistress," said a voice. Tickertape blinked, processing the sound. It was the Finder's voice.
    "What!" snapped Noise Feast, still glaring at the quirk.
    "It is quite possible that the quirk knows nothing about the Study."
    The Mistress of the Feast of Din smiled, but there was nothing sweet about it. "Would you care to explain then, why I'm wasting my time here?"
    "As I told you, Mistress--"
    Noise Feast jerked her head sideways and snarled at the Finder. Tickertape heard the long-nosed demon cough then go on.
    "As I...may have forgotten to mention, I brought you here because I felt that the key to finding the study was here. That quirk has something to do with it, but he may not know about it."
    "Your point, Finder."
    "Instead of," the Finder cleared his throat, "doing anything drastic and...irreversible, why don't we bring him with us and find out what he knows?" Noise Feast's eyebrows went down, and Tickertape hoped that was a thoughtful expression on her face. The Finder went on. "As an added bonus, moving on would take us further from Master Silver's territory."
    Tickertape watched for an incredibly long seven heartbeats--he could feel each one of them, battering his ribs--while Noise Feast did nothing. Well, a bit of holding still, and maybe a breath or two, but other than that: lots of nothing.
    Then her hand closed around his chest, swept him into the air, and dropped him onto the carpet. Stunned, Tickertape gasped as Noise Feast turned away.
    "Bring him," she said, and was gone.
    The quirk coughed, his stomach muscles heaving as they tried to pull air back into his lungs. Gentle hands helped him up and all his parts gradually started working the way they were supposed to. He looked up at a flicker, perched on the back of an overstuffed chair. He thought the little imp was grinning, but it was hard to tell with the halo of fire behind the flicker's head. When the imp waved, Tickertape didn't bother to wave back. Instead he turned to the Finder, who had helped him up.
    "Thank you," he said, then broke into a fit of coughing. The Finder patted him on the back until he got his breathing under control again.
    "Shall we go?" asked the wrinkled demon, handing Tickertape a kleenex out of one of his many pockets. Tickertape realized his nose was running, and he took the tissue with a thank you. With Noise Feast out of the room, he felt his panic fade--not much, but enough that he started looking around, trying to decide on the best way to run. The Finder was bigger than a quirk, but he looked plenty old, and Tickertape figured he could get a good head start and be gone before the older demon could do much more than yell.
    "Let me straighten your clothes," said the Finder, leaning in to brush at Tickertape's sliced apron and rumpled shirt. His long nose went past Tickertape's head and his mouth stopped a breath away from the quirk's ear.
    "I know you're thinking of running," he whispered, "but please don't. It wouldn't go well for me, and I'm a bit old to try to escape with you. Also, I don't think we want to give Mistress Noise any reason to go looking around the room, do we?"
    The Finder leaned back and looked at Tickertape with sad, old eyes, then glanced at a chair on the far side of the room. The chair where Talk and Micklewhip had fallen asleep, where Walk had collapsed on the carpet, and where they'd been smart enough to stay hidden--unless they were still sleeping. Who knew?
    Tickertape felt his shoulders sag. He tried to pull them back up, but they didn't make it very far. "Right," he said. "Let's go."
    The Finder patted him on the back. "Straight spine, little one. At least there's one square meal a day in it for us."
    Tickertape tried to pretend that it would be nice to eat at Din Feast instead of Lynch Feast for a change. He decided he wasn't much good at pretending anymore.


    The last flicker followed Tickertape and the Finder out the door, and the room was dark again, lit only by trailing moonlight slanting in through the windows. Walk sagged down onto the white sheet that covered the chair. Talk slipped down off the other arm of the chair and looked at him with wide eyes, while Micklewhip turned himself over and looked up with eyes just as wide. Both seemed to be asking, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
    Walk wanted to scream, I DON'T KNOW! He couldn't do that, though, could he? First off, you don't scream at lags--nobody is THAT mean--and second, screaming might bring back that scary mistress. Walk wasn't sure which demon he wanted to avoid more: the shadow, or Noise Feast.
    Almost more unnerving was the fact that Talk was looking at him that way. Before the old Master had died, Talk always had something to say. Trying to shut her up was like trying to put out a flicker: possible, but it took real commitment. Now she had nothing to say. It had been Walk's plan to cross the Great Hall--look how that had turned out--and Walk's idea to ask Tickertape for help--which wasn't exactly bad, but not a screaming success so far. Walk HATED making decisions, but it looked like it was his turn again.
    "We have to," he started, then stopped. He cleared his throat. Have to what? "We have to follow them," he said, then blinked at his own insanity. Why would he follow that sharp-edged mistress demon?
    But just like the plan to cross the Great Hall, Talk took his plan and put it in motion. She'd been the one leading the way to the Great Hall, the one who had found the quiet saw, the one who had chosen where to cut. Walk couldn't have stopped her if he'd wanted to, and again, Talk was already in motion. She was helping Micklewhip off the chair, dangling him off the edge from one of his feet, low enough that the lag could drop comfortably down onto his broad hands. Then she grinned at Walk, as if to say, THIS WILL BE GREAT, and was gone over the edge of the chair.
    "This will be a disaster," whispered Walk to himself.