The Fellowship
of the Bring has come close to its prey. Dirk McFarland, more
commonly known as Dirk Destroyer has been spotted, shared a smoke,
and played a duet with two members of the fellowship.
It’s not that
tight a fellowship, really.
Chapter 16
Never Compliment Your Girlfriend’s Nasal Passages
Things must have deteriorated between Mage-e-not and Jonma Claim
while we were gone.
“Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!” Jonma Claim was
standing over Mage-e-not sputtering vociferously. I looked for signs
of foam, and wondered if that might indicate the sickness you kill
wolves for – at least when the planet Two still had wolves.
Mage-e-not had no ability to stand up to Lustavious, or Akwar, but he
didn’t seem to have the same problem with Jonma Claim. I knew that
would drive old Uriculous crazy.
“Elmer,” said Mage-e-not, “you settle this. I say…”
“We saw my brother,” I said.
That got everyone’s attention. Even the frozen face of Jonma Carry
turned in my direction.
“He gave me this scratchwing,” I told them. “We talked, we
played some music, and he left.”
“And YOU,” sputtered Jonma Claim, pointing at Ono, “you didn’t
cast them both into oblivion when you had the chance?”
“How?” said Ono.
Jonma Claim fumed; Lustavious leered, but neither answered Ono’s
question.
“May I see the instrument?” asked Lip Ton Tease.
I handed it over.
“Be careful,” sputtered Jonma Claim. “You don’t know what
evil is found within it.”
Tease meditated upon the instrument, then lifted it to playing
position and began to play glorious and dizzying runs from the
scratchwing. I’d never heard such powerful playing since the days
of Yeccky Pearlguy.
“Wow,” said Mage-e-not. “So what’s the verdict? Is it a
normal scratchthingy?”
“I don’t know,” said Tease. “I’ve never seen a scratchwing
before.”
“It’s possessed!” shouted Jonma Claim.
Lustavious started laughing. “That’s the Showr Rinn for you.
You should hear the music a freshly-showered master can make with an
acorn and two pine needles.”
Tease took what might have been a serene bow and handed the
instrument back to me. I had thought I might play some folk tunes
for the group. It’s a sobering experience to go from the only –
and therefore, the best scratchwing player on the planet, to a
second-rate player in the matter of minutes. I looked down on the
instrument as if it had betrayed me. It made no response.
“But I was right!” said Mage-e-not loudly enough to almost be a
shout. We are here. There’s no reason to travel around. This is
where the Destroyer is.
“This is where the Destroyer was,” corrected Jonma Claim. “Sleep
now. We have a long way to travel tomorrow.”
“But that makes no…”
“Sleep,” said Lustavious.
“All right,” muttered Mage-e-not. Jonma Claim shot out a look of
disdain and mouthed something that was obviously foul, and it looked
like it was aimed more at Lustavious than at Mage-e-not.
It was only a couple hours till daylight. I settled down on the
ground, and Ono, with Swampy back on her shoulder settled near me,
but not with her head on my stomach. I guess the nostril cavity
thing was still bothering her.
Dirk was also bothering her. He was bothering all of us in different
ways, but tomorrow I’d get some answers from my famous younger
brother. Tomorrow night I might finally understand what was going
on.
Of course I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was Swampy talking in his
sleep, “Stay with Elmer; stay with Elmer.” I couldn’t tell if
he was repeating something he heard, or if he was talking to Ono.
But would she stay with me? Did I want her to stay?
Of course I wanted her to stay. I wanted to protect her from
Lustavious. I wanted to make a home for her, provide her with algae
bars, tomato paste, smoked sausage and cigars for the rest of our
lives. I wanted her to live thousands of years like I did, or for me
to start aging and live a handful of decades more like everyone else.
Either was preferable to being without Ono.
This time the second chance wouldn’t give me any options even if I
could get past the custodian to use it. Could I go back five
thousand years and keep Uriculous from changing everything? Could I
go back a couple of days and instead of coming with Akwar to the
ministry, just grab Ono’s hand and run off somewhere… anywhere?
No, nothing would work – nothing I could think of, anyway.
Thinking was never one of my strengths. Enduring was my strength. I
had endured a long time – maybe just waiting for my life to make
sense.
It made sense now. I finally knew what I wanted, and now I had to
endure one more day for my ancient baby brother to appear and tell me
if that was possible.
There was something wrong about that – something unfair. Maybe if
I was the smartest guy on Two instead of the oldest, I might have
been able to figure it out. Instead, I had to endure – find my
opportunity, and take action.
I just hoped it wouldn’t take me another eight thousand years.
Yes, I admit that Argus Filch, the glorious custodian is my favorite Harry Potter character. But at least Ben Folds Five seems to agree with me.
