Chapter 25
The sun was setting in the west, as Darc finished his tale - and his recital of music from another time. He had nearly lost his voice in the process.
(When the angry natives ripped his larynx out!)
The Leper tribe sat in awe around the rock that would have been his last stand, but had become the place of his greatest triumph.
("Awesome, man! You ate the worm!")
His words and his promise of hope had won over their fear and hatred. The spellbound Lepers had begun to believe in him, almost to a man.
(Filled with confidence, they lined up to drink the Kool-Aid.)
And hearing the ancient, nearly forgotten words of the Singing King repeated by Darc, had finally convinced even the dumbest among them.
(You try convincing Phyllis Schlafly!)
To the Lepers, Darc was now a messenger from another time, a holy man.
("Behold! He is Larry King!")
They failed to grasp much of his scientific talk - but they understood now the idea that their disease was not permanent, and that the same knowledge that created the Plague could also destroy it.
(Now I see! Reality TV can destroy Reality TV!)
What Darc had not revealed to them, was his total lack of clues to whether the Plague actually could be cured - the condition of these Lepers seemed, at first glance, beyond all improvement.
(Fancy way of saying "clueless"...)
He could only try to collect as much physiological evidence as possible and stall for time, before the Lepers' patience ran out - or Darc and Shara became Lepers themselves.
Claw ordered his party to return to their village - the desert was host to dangerous animals, which his tribe also hunted. Lighting their way with torches, the tribe marched toward the nearest canyon of steep cliffs.
(Where they'd hold a tribal council and vote.)
Darc and Shara stayed close to Claw. Shara still trembled, and was careful not to touch any of the deformed characters around her.
([Female voice] "Don't let any of those Congressmen touch me...")
In her mind, she repeated prayers to Kristos, over and over.
(The tribe sent for a locksmith to open him.)
He waited for Darc to make some fatal mistake, that would reveal him as a fraud - then Claw would kill him for mocking their cursed existence.
(Couldn't they just settle for burning Danish flags, like civilized people who are being mocked?)
What, Claw thought bitterly, could this Darc know about what it was like to be a Leper?
("I was in the 'Nam...")
To be ever out of shape, to not even know what one's children would look like, to always be denied the wealth and unlimited energy of the cities? To see the silvery airships streak across the sky, and know that one would never fly like the city people?
(Come on, life in Detroit ain't that bad...)
And worst of all: to observe undistorted nature all around oneself, its untamed beauty and symmetry, all blessed by the Goddess, and above it the boundless skies of the Singing King's realm - and then to look down upon one's own twisted limbs, and know.
(That Creationism was bogus after all.)
(Aren't you glad that some people never leak their private sex tapes to the Internet?)
By some stroke of fate, the face on her back possessed a small mind, attached to the woman's spine. They could hear and see each other's thoughts in their minds, and were closer than lovers or siblings could ever be.
(The less said about that sentence, the better.)
Now, as they headed homeward through the darkening desert, the second face thought loudly in Double-Mouth's head: You hate the pretty woman. She is prettier than you. I hate her too. I'm your friend. We must kill her, kill her! Or she will take your place.
(Now I understand what Tonya Harding went through.)
Double-Mouth thought in response: Quiet. It is not so easily done. If the white-haired fool can cure us, we need him. I'll let him prove that he can cure me - cure us - first. Then we decide what to do with the black-haired woman.
The other face sent a hateful thought: You lie, I can feel it. You want White-Head to take me away from you. Me, your only friend! Kill him! Kill him!
(Next on Dr. Phil: Homicidal mutant harridans... and the men who marry them.)
("Nnngh! Nnngh!" - "What are you doing??" - "I'm trying to peer certainly.")
What were those muffled noises and movements from inside her cloak? It seemed she was carrying something on her back - a deformed baby, perhaps.
([Lewd voice] Is that a deformed baby inside your cloak, or are you just happy to see me?)
He cast a furtive glance at his other company, shivered, and returned to staring forward. In the flickering light from the torch-carriers, the Lepers turned eerier and more grotesque than in broad daylight.
(Just like that Seinfeld episode, where Jerry's girlfriend looked hideous in the wrong light.)
He began to whistle the Popeye tune to keep fear at bay.
(No, not Popeye...! Can't you whistle "Chopsticks" instead? Or "It's a Long Way to Tipperary"?)
The Lepers were impressed by the stranger's courage: he was whistling, in the desert at night, surrounded by the most feared outcasts of the earth. Darc hoped they wouldn't notice his shaking knees.
("A-HA! His knees are shaking! Off with his head!")
(Cleverly devoid of heating, plumbing or running water.)
It consisted of several square stonework and clay brick-houses, built into the sides and shelves of the vertical cliff faces.
(Welcome to your new Hollywood Hills home!)
The ends of the canyon faced the respective directions of dawn and sunset. This allowed for limited cultivation of the canyon floor. The party walked past lines of cornstalks; at a closer look, Darc noticed that the little corn-seeds were hexagon-shaped, like honeycombs.
(Mutant corn bees were hatching inside.)
This, he thought, had to be some new hybrid that had been created while he was frozen in suspended animation. Campfires and crude chimneys spread smoke, light, and warmth through the canyon. Many of the huts were placed so high, that they would have been inaccessible - if not for the ladders and elevator slings which reached up along the smoothly eroded, vertical walls.
(This is the last time I go on a "package tour"!)
Claw's house lay at the highest levels, more than twenty meters up.
("Made it, Ma!! Top of the world!!")
Shara quietly refused to mount the elevator sling. Darc was eager to get indoors - and unwilling to fight off things that went bump in the night, again - so he lifted her over his shoulder and sat down in a sling, holding her in his lap.
("Calm down, babe, or I may have to spank you...")
From high above men slowly hauled a net loaded with rocks, tied to a rope, down the cliff.
("Dad, what kind of people are 'high above men'?" - "Basketball players, son.")
With a jolt, the weight of this sinking load pulled the sling up the wall. Ropes, tackle, and wheels creaked ominously; freezing winds rocked them. Shara took one look down, shrieked, and clung harder to him.
"Don't look down," Darc told her, "don't look down. You won't fall, I'm holding you..."
("I'm holding YOUUUUuuuu...")
When the couple reached the top of the elevator, they were pulled in from an overhanging crane and came under the escort of some strong-looking Lepers with only minor deformities. The net was unloaded down on the canyon floor, and the men hauled it up empty.
(Here's a flow chart of the elevator system.)
Another load of rocks from the large supply was then tied to the rope at the top. When the sling had been thrown down to the bottom and mounted anew, the boulder was coaxed over the edge of the top again... and the next passenger was pulled up by its weight.
(And so on and so on and so on.)
Thus it went on, until Claw and his following had arrived at the highest residence. On his command they entered the welcoming warmth of his large house, where dinner was being prepared.
([Cheerful voice] "Who wants a ratburger...?")
("Now please help me split this tab.")
Claw was addressing his two captives from a rough wooden table with fixed stone seats, where they sat waiting. Darc and Shara were offered water and flat loaves of freshly baked cornbread, together with the other guests.
([Fussy voice] "Don't you have any low-carb bread?")
Darc accepted and devoured his piece of bread with only slight hesitation. He hoped that whatever caused the plague, probably wasn't hidden in freshwater or hot food.
(Or the lip-smackingly delicious ratburgers.)
Shara didn't dare touch the food for an hour; but eventually, thirst and hunger forced her to.
"From early age," Claw elaborated, slowly, as he watched them eat, "our children learn to read one another's minds by looking at the little details. They learn to appreciate small tokens of affection... a smile, a friendly wink, a touch, a word of comfort. Earlier this day, you looked me straight in the eye and tried to reach me. You are the first city-dweller who ever paid me such respect."
("I use to lie awake dreaming of being spat at in the face...")
He stopped, studying the faces of his company with a squinting eye in the dim lamplight.
(The room was filled with the stench of his eye being cooked against the lamp....)
He especially scrutinized Darc and Shara - as did his three wives, his two older advisors, and the two heavyset guards.
(And his lawyer.)
In these regions, visitors from the cities were very rare, and Lepers seldom got the opportunity to see one face to face.
("We don't like city folks around here, stranger...")
On an impulse, Claw's second wife - a deeply tanned woman with wrinkles in her oddly warped face - stretched out and touched Darc's hand.
([Sings ]"You gotta reach out and touch someone...")
He started a little - and so did she. Out of pure nervousness, Darc laughed; before they knew it, the Lepers were laughing too. Claw grinned briefly, which made him look hideous.
([Joe Pesci voice] "You laughin' at me? Do I look funny, like a clown?")
"You are not afraid?" he probed.
("'C-c-c-course I'm n-n-not a-f-f-fraid...")
Claw's healthy eye remained watchful, and his voice calm. Darc understood that this man was much smarter than he looked - the visitor was being tested.
([Trailer voice] Tested by Adam Sandler.)
"If you wish to know," Darc said carefully, "I am afraid... because I have never been to these lands before. The previous night, we encountered a huge beast. I managed to chase it away."
("But it took up the Atkins Diet, and came back as a much slimmer beast.")
"If you did, you were lucky," Claw stated. "The big desert rats eat anything smaller than themselves, or they eat each other. They grow bigger and meaner with each generation... those that remain, that is."
("Of course, not much remains of Al-Qaeda's leadership by now.")
Hearing this, Shara started to tremble again. Darc held her shoulder, comforting her with his presence, for what it was worth.
(About as much as a Kleenex in Hell.)
Very politely and painstakingly, Darc explained the state of things to Claw so that the others could hear.
("EXCUSE! US! CLAW!!... sorry...)
"Excuse us, Claw, but we are very tired from the walk through the desert. I promise that tomorrow, I will start to examine... your people, and see what I can do to help you. Since you are the chief of this village, I need your promise that neither of us will be harmed during our stay. I must learn everything about you, before I can create a proper cure."
("Like, do you prefer your pasta al dente or overcooked?")
Claw finished his meal, and wiped his mouth. With a fine cloth, he washed his bloated right eye clean. Before he pulled the large, folded eyelid down with his fingers, he dripped a herbal extract into that eye, to ease the pain during his sleep.
(He has an eye for personal hygiene!)
Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly, and said: "I give you my word as chief, that no one shall lay a hand on you while you stay here."
(And he wouldn't lay an eye on them, either.)
Claw added, after some consideration: "And you must give your word to us, to do everything you can to give us relief from the Plague."
"I swear upon my life," Darc said solemnly.
He could mean no less.
(Than what??)
The two guards escorted Darc and Shara to a separate, narrow chamber with a single bed - small and hard, but dry and reasonably clean. They pressed together in the bed, preserving whatever bodily warmth they could produce.
(Fortunately, they did not preserve whatever bodily waste they could produce!)
To feel Shara so close to him again, made Darc think.
("Sex... sex... sex...")
Until now, they had not made love to each other once. And annoyingly enough, his body wanted what his mind was too jittery to care about.
("Sex... sex...")
He tried to think of other things,
("Baseball... baseball...")
and recalled the horrendous shape of the woman who had touched him at the dinner. Instantly, his arousal shrank away.
(Ouch!)
I'm not the one in the greatest danger, Darc thought before falling asleep. Shara is. She has good reason to be afraid. I must protect her, it is my fault if...
He slept, dreaming of uncertain, dim shapes which made strange noises.
Shara did not even dream. She had experienced her worst nightmares while awake.
(I know what she felt like. Once I sat in the American Idol studio audience...)
("Damn that pig of a husband! He ate all the leftover ratburgers!")
She bent down over the water jars, and spat in each of them. A week's supply of grain lay in a sack in the opposite corner of the silent kitchen.
(*CLANG!* *CRASH!* "Who put those plates and pots on the floor?")
Double-Mouth pricked her finger with a needle, and let a few drops of blood fall onto the grain.
The face on her naked back smiled, and told her with a thought: Sleep. Sleep. When you awake, you will thank me.
(But how do you brush the teeth of a face on your back? Talk about bad breath...)
DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
______________
A.R.Yngve
The MSTing Of
DARC AGES
Book 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear
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(Let's all give a big hand to... ah, forget it!)
The Leper chieftain remained closed and silent all the way back home.
Claw's favorite wife, Double-Mouth, kept watching the newcomers with an outwardly neutral expression. But underneath her cloak, she could feel the drooling mouth move in the little outgrowth that was her second face.
Darc peered uncertainly at the back of the Leper woman walking next to Claw.
The local Leper village lay cleverly hidden in a long, narrow canyon.
"We may be Lepers," Claw slurred gravely, "but we are not dumb because of that."
That same night, while Claw was asleep with another of his wives, Double-Mouth rose from the bed in her own small chamber. With trance-like, unseeing eyes, she took a candle-lamp and sneaked into the household kitchen.
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