Gregory Frost - How Meersh the Bedeviler Lost His Toes.rtf

Gregory Frost

Gregory Frost, a website designer and technical writer, is the author of a bi‑monthly column on Macintosh software that appears on the Internet. In addition, he has been a technical researcher on two episodes of the Learning Channel’s Science Frontiers. Mr. Frost is currently working on a novel set in the same fantastic Shadowbridge universe as the one in which we discover…

HOW MEERSH

THE BEDEVILER

LOST HIS TOES

Y

ou know this story already. You know it from great Bardsham’s performances, which, like so many of his skillful shadow works, portray Meersh’s adventures to resounding acclaim. When Bardsham controls the rods, he is Meersh.

There are as well the paintings collected and permanently exhibited inn Colemaigne, and from these—If you didn’t know it already—you would deduce that the events happened long ago, in the earliest of times before all the gifts of Edgeworld suffused, altered, reinvented every element of life in Shad­owbridge. It all took place on a Span called Valdemir that has long since dis­appeared, collapsed into the ocean and been swallowed up, or transformed by the Edgeworld into another place.

Meersh the Bedeviler had many adventures. Not all turn out for the best.

One morning Meersh’s neighbor woke him. He slept in a net hammock that snared each of his dreams and kept him from rolling loose while embrangled in them. His dreams were as real for him as being awake is for most of us.

The door to his house shook and rattled as if a storm had arrived outside. Meersh sat up and glanced about.

At first he had no idea what had awakened him. He smacked his lips be­cause he had just dreamed a great feast that he’d managed to steal from someone wealthy—a governor of Valdemir he thought it was. He could still taste the spices in the stew and the lemons in the pie. If someone hadn’t pounded again on his door, he might have plunged back into the dream; dived into that vat of stew. He could do that.

Instead, he rolled out of the hammock and tiptoed to the door. There was a small window filled with multicolored, leaded diamond panes beside it, and he sneaked a glance at his visitor.

His neighbor’s name was Sun‑through‑Clouds. It was she who had banged at his door. Even through the distortion in the quarrels he recognized her shape.

Sun‑Through‑Clouds was a beautiful woman, black‑haired and golden­-eyed, just as Bardsham’s puppet represents. A great silver stripe ran over the top of her head and through the fall of her long hair. She’d come to Valdemir from one of the mountainous islands on the far side of the world, where trees grew as thick as sargasso and the people hacked them and roped them to­gether into wooden lodges—at least, so she’d described it to him. It was too remarkable a story to believe, but Meersh asked her to tell it to him now and again so he could sit and inhale her fragrance. He could have listened a million times if it meant he could close his eyes and breathe beside Sun‑Through‑Clouds. She seemed to have no idea of his devotion, which on the face of it makes her naive or else cunning. But perhaps her ignorance of Meersh’s affections was due to her preoccupation with her children—two fitful demons who thwarted him every time he came near to fondling their mother.

Seeing no children but only his neighbor in all her beauty, Meersh willing­ly opened the door. Sun‑Through‑Clouds’ smile drank him up. He basked in it, joyful in its radiance.

“Meersh,” she said in a voice that chimed at least three perfect notes, “I’m so very glad you’re home today. Have I wakened you?”

“Oh, no, sweet cousin,” he said, yawning, “not at all.” This in spite of his shaggy hair pushed up flat in a wedge, the result of his sleeping on it, and the fact that he was dressed only in a nightshirt that his alerted penis even now prodded toward her in its eagerness.

Sun‑Through‑Clouds nodded as if to say she was satisfied with his answer; in doing so she looked at the protrusion in his nightshirt, but did not react at all. “I have a difficult favor to ask,” she said. “You know I would never ask anything frivolously.” She met his eyes. Her eyelids fluttered like sails. Like the wings of doves.

“Anything!” he cried.

For a moment she hesitated as if weighing his devotion. “I must travel the spans for a day or more and can’t take little Vek and Jurina with me. I have to travel fast, that is. And peripatetic.” She was always using words like “peripatetic”—words out of some vast lexicon; especially plosives. She loved plosives. “With my wares, to make some money. And they both adore you so. And when I told them—”

“You wish for me to look after your children?” He was unable to disguise his consternation. It was as if she had asked him to drive hot spikes into his eyes. It was as if she desired to make candles of his fingers. It was as if she’d demanded he become a tax collector. He would have agreed to all that more readily.

“Oh, but they’re exquisite children. Really very good. After all, they’re mine. And they adore you so. Don’t you, my dears?”

In unison, the two miscreants stepped out from behind their mother’s am­ple hips. They had the same face, Sun‑Through‑Clouds’ children: oval eyes as dark as coffee; and rings circling their eyes like some deeper pigment in their tanned skin, which had led Meersh to the suspicion that their father was a nature being, maybe a Raki. She depicted him as huge and dark and so full of malice that he’d driven her to sail across the world and take up residence here on this little circular close, where Meersh had the good fortune to dwell. Sun‑Through‑Clouds described her own people in something other than hu­man terms, too; although never had the specifics of their natures been—as she might have said—pellucid. Their suggested alienness confounded Meersh: She seemed the summation of round, soft, perfect flesh. Why had someone so luscious ever had anything to do with such a malevolent creature as a Raki? She deserved better. She deserved Meersh.

She said, “They’ll do whatever you tell them.”

Meersh eyed them doubtfully.

“Won’t you’ my doves?” she asked them.

The children exchanged a glance and then, smiling pure innocence, nod­ded.

Oh, yes, thought Meersh, they’ll do what I tell them.

But he had no real choice. Whatever else he was, Meersh was a creature of his appetites, and all of them were focused upon Sun‑Through‑Clouds. “All right, bring them in if you must—I mean, my dearest neighbor. But for how long are you gone?”

“Ah, possibly three days if the market is good.” Sun‑Through‑Clouds wove baskets and chairs. She had woven the dream‑catching hammock in which he slept. Her strong hands were the only rough part of her. He was certain of it.

She said, “Here,” and handed him a low ceramic jar.

“What’s this?” he asked. It was covered by a paper wrapper stuck down around the mouth of the jar.

“It’s their physic. Give them one good spoonful each night before they slum­ber. It’s critical they have that much. That much and no more.”

“Physic?” He eyed them eyeing each other. “They won’t be soiling them­selves, will they? Curatives always affect me that way—that is, I have to be very careful. That is to say…I must tell you, they don’t look at an sickly to me.”

“No, and because I give them this. Otherwise, they could never prevail in this pelagic place so unlike their natural home, so woodsy and lush.”

“Lush”‘ he repeated, with a meaning all his own.

“You mustn’t forget. And feed them their one meal a day promptly then. Take good care of them, my dear, and when I get back…” She let the un­specified promise linger.

“One meal and a spoonful. Before they sleep,” he said. “Yes,” he said, “I promise.” He could hardly swallow.

“You are so kind.” She took a step away, but hesitated on the threshold and turned back to him. “Dearest, sweet, pliable Meersh.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He hardly heard her words. He was looking down the front of her bodice and thinking of pears.

“She is gorgeous,” said his penis.

“Beautiful, yes,” Meersh answered vacantly.

“I think before she leaves you should have her,” the penis urged.

“Have her?”

“Have her in. She gets thirsty like anyone. A few cups of purple wine, and who knows what might happen? What you might see, eh?”

Meersh’s voice creaked with desire. Tongue‑tied. He couldn’t even hush his lusting member.

Sun‑Through‑Clouds pretended not to hear. She offered him again her promissory smile, and he hung upon it as she departed. He watched her sup­ple silhouette shift back and forth against a view of the main avenue of Valdemir and the green distance of the sea.

When even the afterimage of her had faded from his eyes, he withdrew. The gulls on the eaves watched him charily.

He turned. The paper‑covered ceramic pot was still in his hand.

The children had taken seats around his el‑quirkat board. It sat on a low stone table, its inlaid nacreous strips gleaming. The two children were at­tempting to pry one of the strips out. He gasped.

“Vek,” he yelled. “Jurina! Stop that, you little fiends.”

How would he deal with them? He glanced around the room, at the huge pillows, the tables stacked with old chipped dishes and a cold coffee urn; at the disordered piles of antique and arcane games he collected and sometimes sold; at the burgundy tapestry curtains on brass rings fluttering lazily be­hind them. The scene depicted was of an excited crowd clustered upon one of the hexagonal tabulae beside a span such as Valdemir while a mountainous glowing gift from the Edgeworld was bursting into being there.

The children ran to other parts of the room. Vek picked up a pachinko ma­chine and shook it so that the loose balls inside rolled about, mad as hornets. “What’s this? What’s it do?”

Alas, he couldn’t say, because the knowledge of its method had never been found anywhere.

Jurina had unrolled a Hamamatsu kite, throwing up a cloud of dust. “What’s this?” she cried.

Vek shoved aside an oil lamp, carelessly spilling the oil, and wrestled loose a boar’s bristle dart board. “This, what’s this?” The darts stuck loosely in it fell out, clattering to the ground.

“All right!” Meersh shouted. “Enough! Put my things down. You want a game, I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll play a card game I know. It’s called ‘Lawyers’ Poker.’ Heard of that one? I learned it in a tavern, and it’s very clever. All the cards refer to real creatures and places and concepts of day‑to­-day existence in Edgeworld. Very funny pictures. The original deck was found on a hex—that’s what they say. You come sit here and I’ll just get them.”

He set down the pot and went behind the tapestry, where his more exotic collection resided. He found the cards quickly—the last thing he wanted was to leave the two demons unattended. As he crossed the room, he said, “This game has an interesting history. The information for playing was bestowed upon a king who happened to be standing on the tabula when the original deck appeared. Oh, he wasn’t a king at that point. The knowledge to govern accompanied this game, too. Timing is everything in life. I’m sure your moth­er has said.” He contemplated the pot of medicine he was supposed to give them.

“What’s Edgeworld, then?” asked Vek. “Where is it?”

Meersh sat cross‑legged across from them. He began to shuffle the card deck as he spoke. “Well, where it is remains the mystery. No one sees it, you see. Its existence is hypothetical—which means—”

“It means nobody knows,” Jurina interjected. “Mother uses ‘hypothetical’ all the time.”

“Yes, she would,” he muttered, “it has a p in it.” He dealt the cards, seven to each of them. “Anyway, all the things that appear are from some other place that’s nothing like our Shadowbridge. A different world.”

“You’re making this all up,” said Vek.

Meersh glowered. “What if I am? You’ll certainly never know. You don’t even know how this game is played.”

“You haven’t told us yet.”

He gave up trying to score any sort of point against the child. Either Vek was beyond insipid or else posing as a fool just to goad him. “Well, I will ex­plain it. As we play.”

The game went well for at least three minutes. He had them lay down their cards and instructed them on what they needed in order to move, what to look for when they drew from the deck, and how two players could work as a team in a four‑handed match. The children questioned every detail of every rule. They teamed up against him almost immediately.

When he explained that he could block the construction of their apartment complex by playing both a lawyer card and a writ card (secretly one of his fa­vorites), they threw their hands down and pouted. “You’re cheating,” accused Vek.

“I’m teaching you, you—”

“What’s a writ, then? Ha‑ha, he doesn’t know.” Jurina joined in. They sang “ha‑ha” together.

Peevishly’ Meersh replied, “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the past tense of ‘write.’ It’s something that’s already been writ, so it was prepared in advance, and that’s how I can use it against you. There, satisfied? Look, Jurina has a Supreme Court ruling card that cancels it out. Why don’t you play that and we can go on.” Only grudgingly did they take up their cards again and con­tinue.

He had to work much harder to lose than he liked.

By the end of the game they could hardly sit still. They’d lost all interest and expressed no desire to play a real hand of Lawyers’ Poker—a pity, as he itched to sue them for damages. The more pressing problem was how he was going to rein them in for two days and still get any serious sleeping done.

Meersh liked to sleep more than anything else in the world, except for eat­ing. He had a great many things to do in his sleep, projects he’d begun—like the dream‑mapping of Shadowbridge. He had diagrammed the unwinding Spans, year upon year, in his sleep. The map was accessible only in his dreams. And there was that stolen feast to get back to—the wienerschnitzel wouldn’t stay warm forever. He couldn’t imagine so much as catnapping ill the presence of the two ring‑eyed demons.

Rather than let them dictate what happened next, he set the cards aside and said, “I’m feeling hungry, what say we have something to eat.”

“What do you have for us?”

Meersh picked up the ceramic pot.

The children backed away as one. “Get it away,” they said. “It’s horrid.”

“I’m required to give it to you and that’s what I’ll do. Let’s not have any fighting.”

“We’re not fighting. We’re running away.”

“And where would you run to?”

“Back home,” they said.

“Across the close? Your mother left you with me and went away.”

“Back home to W—.” The word splashed over him, more like a sudden chill upon the air than anything spoken. Meersh listened to his memory but the word had eluded him, eel‑like. It writhed between syllables, wriggled through consonants and vowels. The very absence of its name made him set down the pot upon the table. It was nowhere on his dream map. “She’s aban­doning us and never coming back!” wailed Jurina. “She tricked you into tak­ing us!”

He knew this wasn’t true, despite which the words troubled him. He want­ed to get on to something else.

“Look, we’ll eat and you’ll have your medicine afterward. I have some hard cheese—”

“You do?” they exclaimed. “We never get cheese. It’s so expensive.”

He thought to himself’ “Never get cheese, that’s ridiculous. One can hardly endure without it. It’s cheese or fish or seaweed in this life.” The thought made him crave some fish, but he would have had to go out for it and that was out of the question. Besides, his frying pan had cracked and he had noth­ing to cook in.

“Yes,” he muttered slyly, “cheese first.”

He brought out a wheel of bright yellow cheese and set it on the playing board. With a small knife he removed a layer of mo1d that coated the top of it and then cut three triangular slices, the largest for himself.

“There now,” he said, handing the slices to the two of them. He set down the knife and picked up his own slice.

Meersh opened his mouth to take his first bite. The children were staring at him, empty‑handed. “Where’s your cheese I gave you?” he asked.

“Gone. We ate it. It was so good. Can we have some more?”

“Certainly.” He set down his slice and cut two more, larger than the first but still not as big as his own. “Now, this time don’t eat so fast, or you’ll get sick. There’s no fun in it if you don’t savor the food.”

They held their slices close under their noses and sniffed, nodding to one another. He watched them surreptitiously as he reached for his own slice again; but there was a moment when he had to look away, and in that mo­ment the food he’d given them vanished.

“Oh, it’s good. Give us more, please!” they cried. He huffed, but cut them two more slices, bigger than his. A third of the wheel was gone now, but he wanted to make sure they couldn’t hide these slices. Where the cheese was going he couldn’t guess.

He grabbed his own as he handed out the first one, and held it before him as he handed out the second. His eyes shifted from child to child. Jurina and her brother sniffed the cheese again, grinned to each other, then faced him, not eating.

Waiting.

Watching, he took a large bite of his slice of cheese. He chewed it, and oh it was delectable, better than he remembered. His eyes c1osed with pleasure. He really couldn’t help himself. But when he remembered himself and opened his eyes, the children’s cheese was gone, and with it went the plea­sure of his own.

“More,” they insisted, “give us some more.”

He set down his slice. “Nope. That’s all for now or there won’t be any left for later, and you do want more later, don’t you? I’m sure you do.” They could­n’t have eaten it, he thought, not that quickly. And yet…where else could it be?

“We want it all now!” yelled Vek.

Meersh uncrossed his legs and took hold of the pot. “Everybody wants it all now. What you’re going to have now is this. ”

“It’s not bedtime.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It isn’t even dark!”

“One meal, a dose of this and then sleep. That was my promise. Don’t make me lie to your mother.”

“That’s not fair,” they complained. However, when he pulled the paper up, they remained sitting where they were, their gazes firmly on the pot. Inside it was a thick greenish fluid the like of which he had never seen. It had a sheen to it much like the nacreous embellishment in the el‑quirkat table.

Meersh dipped his cheese knife into it and squinted as the gooey mass hung from the blade. There seemed to be tiny granules embedded in the stuff. It might have been made from seaweed.

He scooped it again and held it out to Jurina. Although she had protested violently before, she leaned forward and stoically closed her mouth around the blade. She drew back and the blade was clean. He repeated the procedure for Vek, who did as his sister had, smacking his lips afterward. Meersh no­ticed for the first time how odd his teeth were—stubby and sharp. Vek made a strange, dreamy face.

“You look more like an animal than ever,” Meersh thought.

Jurina looked up at the ceiling and began to tilt, back and back and back, slowly, steadily, until her head rested on the floor. Vek placed his head on her breast, and both closed their eyes and breathed in unison. The rings around their eyes seemed lighter than before.

“It must mean they’re healthier.” Meersh set the pot on the table and slid over beside them. “Jurina,” he said. “Vek.” Neither child responded. “Well, this is perfect. I can do as I like now.” He eyed the pot. He dipped his finger into it. The jelly was oily to the touch. Hesitantly he stuck his finger in his mouth. His face pinched in immediate reaction to the bitter flavor. He spat in every direction.

“Idiot,” muttered his penis. It loved to make fun of him.

All he wanted in the whole world was to get rid of that taste. He jumped up and ran to his hidden cache of fermented juice, unstoppered the bottle and took a great swig. Over the bottle he paused to consider the snoozing chil­dren.

“The last thing in the world I could do after this is sleep. The flavor won’t go away!” He took another long drink.

Eventually he exchanged drinking to mask the awful flavor for drinking as its own pleasure. He began to laugh: He was brilliant. He was a genius. He was soused. Eventually, in wordless bliss, he passed from consciousness.

Meersh slumbered six hours. Because he was drunk, it was an aimless, di­rectionless sleep. When he next awoke the children were still asleep. He lounged at the game table and ate his cheese, taking his time now. Then he made a search through the children’s clothing, but found no trace of the cheese they’d hidden. They had to have eaten it somehow. He did find a set of bronze knucklebones on Vek that the boy must have swiped while he was picking up everything in the place. Meersh had no sympathy for them afte...