The Hogman's Homunculi and the Angelwing Massacre: Chapter Thirteen!
They come clad in the face of mine husband and for that impertinence alone shall they suffer mine wrath.
Welcome to Chapter Thirteen, o pals o’ mine. It’s one of those chapters you see in fantasy books where the main characters who’ve been doing their own thing finally all come together.
To wit: Hissaq, Valeria, Tavian and Darov get their heads together to plan the burglary of Lord Ulay’s chateau, to purloin the mysterious comms cube therein. Matters are complicated, however, by the swarm of homunculi which have been dropping out of Tavian’s arse with persistent regularity.
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Enough nonsense, on with Chapter Thirteen of THHATAM!
Chapter Thirteen: Swarm
“You see, dad,” Joyec said, “you don’t have to worry about mass-lock with the new N-space power couplers because they get around the superposition problem by de-quantizing subatomic energy fields. Sort of. It’s pretty obvious if you’ve got your head around nontrivial zeta functions. Do you see what I mean?”
Hissaq drummed his fingers on the kitchen table in a show of pondering. “Of course. But have you considered the localised domestic entropy principle?”
“I’ve not heard of that, whassit mean?”
“It means your room is a fuggin tip and you need to tidy it.”
The boy smirked. “Alright, alright.”
Hissaq sipped his tea, opened his mouth to speak but gave himself an extra second to formulate his words. “I’m sorry I’ve not been here much. Important things are going on which I can’t ignore.”
Joyec shrugged. “I can take care of myself. And yes, before you say it, I’ll call Mrs McKieron next door if I need anything.”
“The letter should’ve been here by now, shouldn’t it?”
“They said it might be up to five weeks. It’s only been four.”
Hissaq tried to keep his voice light. “I think I’m more nervous than you are.”
Another shrug, and Joyec around a mouthful of toast. “I tried my best. If I get in, I get in. If I don’t, I don’t.”
The pressures of life slid off his son like water off a wading quird, but the casual attitude could be infuriating nonetheless. For Hissaq’s part, the question of whether his son would be accepted into the Imperial Space Academy—and thus spend at least the next five years millions of miles away from his home—loomed like an impending murder trial. Whatever the outcome, Hissaq knew his heart would lie bereft either way.
“You need to think about contingencies instead of daydreaming all day and getting lost in your books. You’ve got talent but you can’t rely on that alone. I’ve known men smarter than you, Joyec, believe it or not, who wasted themselves because they got distracted and failed to plan. Speak to the Secretary of the Royal Account like I told you. They’re always looking for bright boys.”
“Alright dad.” Joyec looked taken aback by his father’s sudden vehemence. “Do you think mum would—”
Hissaq bared his teeth and clenched his fists as if some lethal predator had materialised in the room and he was readying to fight for his life, but future regret for whatever he was about to say was averted by a knock at the door. Before he could rise to answer it, he heard the door open and close, and Valeria walked into the kitchen.
“Valeria, come in.”
“Give me tea. You must be Joyec. Your pops tells me you’re a smart one.”
She wore an airy summer dress which ended some way above the knee. Joyec stared, forgetting himself, and his tongue darted out to retrieve a gob of dribble at the corner of his mush.
“Tidy your room like I told you, boy,” Hissaq said.
Joyec blinked as if surfacing from the depths a vision. He scraped his chair back on the hardstone floor and departed stage left, stealing a look at Valeria on his way out. His footsteps boomed on the wooden stairs.
“Sorry,” Hissaq said.
“For what?”
“The boy. Gawping.”
“Forget it. Glad someone thinks I look alright, because I feel like a hog shat in my head. Get that tea on.”
“Yanked the tail of the blunge last night, eh?”[1]
She batted her eyelashes. “At least I got to meet a prince.” Hissaq hadn’t moved from the kitchen table so she found the kettle herself, shook it to confirm it held water, and placed it on a grill over the charcoal fire. “What’s the play then, gaffer?”
“Fetch Darov, head for Tavian’s place and talk tactics. I’ve acquired the blueprints for Ulay’s chateau. Damn place is vast. But Valeria, listen. You didn’t sign up for burglary, and you’re free to walk away. Getting embroiled with Darov and Tavian can be perilous at the best of times and if this goes wrong, then…the shit will hit the flan.”
She gave him a look. “Technically I didn’t sign up for anything. Two weeks ago some posh geezer in a silly hat landed his trimaran at the algae farm saying he’d got wind of the study of pterakite mating displays I did in my spare time.” A roll of the eyes. “Not much to do for us younglings out in the sticks. This feller told me to pack my stuff and get my affairs in order in case of premature death and here I am. Anyways, if you think I’m walking away you don’t know me as well as I thought you did. Where’s the tea?”
Hissaq chuckled. “Very well. Cupboard next to your head.”
She busied herself with mugs and tealeaves. “Who’s this Tavian character?” She said this while sniffing at a jug of milk, as if Tavian were hiding in the jug.
Hissaq propped his chin on his thumbs. Summing up Tavian was like trying to eat soup with a knife and fork, but he gave it his best. “He’s a hogwrangler fellow I got to know on a strange escapade last year. To talk to him you would think him a simple turnip eater, but do not be fooled. His mind is ripe with arcane knowledge and sharper than a Gliesan claw. He’s brave with it, and selfless, and saved my life more than once. He’s daft as a kid gort, yet formidable. I’ve seen him outwit people, Gliesans, a polymorph, even robots of the Forgotten City. The only creatures he cannot wrangle are his wife and his favourite packsow, a maniacal beast addicted to settler’s comfort by name of Janet.[2] Both of whom you have already met, albeit briefly.”
“Yeah well, if he tries to kill Darov again he’ll have me to answer to.”
After their tea, Hissaq shouted up a goodbye to Joyec as they left, and the boy materialised on the stairs to see them off. Usually he would just respond from the comfort of his room, but this time he loitered gangly and awkward to watch Valeria go.
***
Darov waited for them leaning on the wall of the Wellwell Well, a supposedly bottomless tourist attraction at the centre of the Oswaldwick area of the city. He was a motionless knot at the centre of a swirling gaggle of visitors and was dressed in the functional apparel of a warehouseman or similar. A broadbrimmed hat cast his face in shadow and he pretended to be engrossed in a book of poetry. He ignored Valeria’s supernova smile completely; his only acknowledgement of their presence was a sullen jerk of the chin.
Hissaq hailed a rickshaw to take them to Tavian’s farm and soon they were bumping along the busy streets while the driver bellowed at pedestrians, waved to other drivers and generally groused all the way. Darov examined his fingernails and said naught, other than to check that Hissaq had purloined the blueprints for Lord Ulay’s chateau. He sat hunched as if a stout, invisible child lay upon his shoulders. Valeria’s attempts to engage him in conversation were fruitless, as if she were flirting with a tree. Eventually even she lapsed into silence.
Tavian’s modest farm huddled in a crook of the Gallmore River, halfway between the villages of Rookie Hole and Raventhorn, where grazing meadows and fields ploughed for the growing of knuckle-taters gave way to sparse woodland. The day was warm but overcast, the iron sky gravid with frustrated thunder.
As they approached Tavian’s farmhouse door, a commotion within became evident to their ears. Hissaq hammered on the solid old wood and tilted his head to better hear the disorder. “Tavian? Everything all right in there?”
A strange voice answered from the other wide, nasal and diminutive. “Ey oop, evra ting alright in dere?”
Hissaq frowned in bemusement and knocked again, harder this time. He was answered by a high-pitched titter, followed by a throaty roar of an enraged woman and a great boom as something struck the door with force. A crashing and a clattering, the slam of an internal door. Then silence.
Valeria reached for the door handle and shot Hissaq a questioning glance. He nodded.
She turned the handle. Immediately she pushed open the door, a hooting creature launched itself at her and latched onto her face before she could finish a cry of surprise. Whirling three-sixty degrees in a mindless panic, she staggered into the house with Hissaq and Darov in her wake, through the small foyer and into the kitchen. She writhed and slapped at the thing, but it was as rapid and nimble as a mountain gort. It scurried off her face in a blur of little limbs, swung around the back of her shoulders and yanked her ears.
Hissaq watched, immobile, his mind unable to process the sheer weirdness of seeing a deranged and naked, miniature John Tavian attacking his colleague. To his credit, Darov reacted first.
“Be still,” bellowed the prince in his best voice of regal command, though whether this was directed to the creature or Valeria could not be gleaned.
From somewhere in the room a tiny voice parroted, “Be still be still. Give over, daft apeth.”
Valeria stopped flailing and stood frozen with her back to a heavy-duty floor sink. The creature crouched on top of her head like a small demonic jockey, clutching fistfuls of her hair and grinning. It was as tall as Hissaq’s hand was long.
Valeria’s eyes rolled upwards in a doomed attempt to see the thing which had made a perch of her, while Hissaq and Darov stood poised as if fearing she would explode. The stone floor of the kitchen, Hissaq noticed now, was strewn with utensils, food and broken crockery. A couple of chairs lay overturned.
“Tavian?” Hissaq said. “What…what happened to you? Why are you so small?”
The homunculus set about inspecting Valeria’s left ear. “Hmm,” it said. Valeria let out a moan of disgust.
Another miniature Tavian suddenly wriggled into the kitchen through the small gap beneath an interior door. Before Hissaq could register surprise, the same door exploded open so violently the lower hinge gave way, leaving it drunkenly askew and sending a painting of smiling children tumbling off an occasional table.
Tavian’s wife charged in, wielding a saucepan lid in one hand and a rolling pin in the other, pursuing the thing scurrying across the floor. “A paste shall I make of thee!” she roared, shaking the rolling pin like a sacred weapon of legend.
This one was considerably less cheerful than the one still perched atop Valeria and fled for its life, dodging and weaving to evade Brondag’s stomping. It scrabbled up the leg of the kitchen table and launched itself through the air towards a shelf.
Brondag prepared to swing when from a nearby cooking pot another homunculus popped up and hurled a carrot at her, striking her directly in the eye. “You shit bastard aaaaahhhhh!” it said.
Brondag howled and clutched her face, spun about and swung the rolling pin in blind fury, crashing a rack of pans to the floor, destroying a window and splintering a grandfather clock which responded with an affronted bongggg.
“Eee, daft bugger,” the thing on Valeria cackled, before scampering down her body and fleeing beneath a cupboard.
As Hissaq cowered with Darov, he chanced to glance beneath the kitchen table, and what he saw there made him blink a total of nine times in quick succession, for in a way it was the strangest sight so far. Two homunculi sat cross-legged, sharing a slice of turnip and chuntering to each other as if winding down after an honest day’s work out in the fields.
A brittle peace descended, at the centre of which stood Brondag, clutching the rolling pin and breathing hard.
“What is happening?” Valeria said, her voice cracking. “What is happening right now?”
Brondag’s predatory focus honed in on Valeria. “Demons missy. Infested with ‘em we be. They come clad in the face of mine husband and for that impertinence alone shall they suffer mine wrath.”
“Peace woman,” Tavian said. The full size, original Tavian that is. He entered the room walking stiffly. “Welcome Mr Hissaq, Your Highness. And er...?”
“Valeria,” Valeria quavered.
The homunculi had calmed. Two remained chatting under the table, one sat watching proceedings from a high shelf, and as far as Hissaq knew, one was still hiding in the cooking pot.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss Valeria,” Tavian said. “Look not so afeared, the little ‘uns’ll do thee nay harm, though mischievous buggers they be. Rest your weary legs, friends.” He pushed some of the wreckage on the kitchen floor into vague piles and arranged a few chairs around the table. Sitting himself down with a groan he turned to his looming wife. “My love, dig out the best Poeditch mugs and prepare some tea, if you would. A prince stands in our midst. And some of your excellent crapple and bluecurrant turnovers, perchance. And if you could locate a large cork I would be in your debt, my cosiness. The birthings have slowed by the by, but my brown-eye is looser than a wizard’s sleeve.”
Brondag scowled and rummaged around in a cupboard.
When the newcomers were obediently seated, Tavian took a breath and locked eyes with Darov. “Afore ye say owt, Highness, I must proffer thee my most honest penitence for the attempt upon your life what transpired two evenings past. I erred most grievous, and though I were not myself I seek nay pardon nor absolution for misdeeds what belong to me alone. If I am to swing then I shall give thanks for the breeze. There shall be no flailing or rending of hair on my part as I ascend the gallows steps. I am at thy mercy.”
Darov’s expression transformed from a regal sneer to something subtly less hostile, for the grovelling of underlings tended to put him at his ease. “Consider the matter closed. But know that if it were not for your acquaintance with Mister Hissaq and your past service to the Crown, you would at this moment be watching horrors unleashed upon your family the likes of which you cannot imagine.”
Tavian released a breath and visibly relaxed. “I know it. Consider me at your service for the remainder of whatever natural life the God Darwin grants me, sir.”
At that, Darov shared a silent look with Hissaq.
“Fuggin brown-nose,” Brondag muttered from the stove.
“Silence woman,” Tavian barked. “Forgive her, sir. Her rage comes from a heart overflowing with love.”
Struggling to process events, Hissaq simply threw up his hands and said to Tavian, “Explain.”
“Where to start, Mr Hissaq, where to start.”
“Try,” Valeria said, a little recovered.
“Very well, miss. Some days ago I emerged from Gallmore Wood with no memory of my former self, my real self. My mind was less sullied than a babe’s arse cheek. Led astray by a murderous though sweet little bairn, I mistook myself for a heroic legend of old and became embroiled with an assassin’s guild known as the Order of the Dancing Bear.”
“Dancing Blade,” Darov said. “I’ve heard of them.”
Tavian clicked his fingers. “That was it, Dancing Blade. Blade does make greater sense than bear, now I think on it. Anyways, this Order set me to murdering Your Highness to prove I was indeed the lost hero of legend, a most contrived pretext I admit. Fortunate I be that yon sweet lady wife and Janet the packsow knocked some sense into me before it were too late.”
“You remember nothing about how you ended up in Gallmore Wood?”
“Only the foggiest of impressions, Mr Hissaq, as like images seen through a darkling glass. Being laid out on me back with people looking down upon me. A disquieting sense of viomolation. I suspect my free cuntal vortex were tampered with, sir.”
Hissaq cleared his throat and watched a homunculus systematically remove the laces from one of Tavian’s shoes. It may have been the carrot launcher from the cooking pot. “And why, Tavian, are there small versions of you running around your house?”
Tavian shrugged. “The first one plopped out of my brown-eye yestereve, sir. I thought it were just your common or garden catastrophic digestive event, so when it started moving I were most taken aback. Most egregious painful it were, though subsequent arrivals have been less so. The first one loosened things up, I suppose. Now, I have a theory, sir. I am no High Constable or Sentinel Prime as you know sir, no investigatative officer. Sometimes I add two and another two and conclude: turnip, or wood, or some such foolishness.”
“True enough,” Brondag commented, as she banged mugs of tea and plates of cake down on the table.
“Thank you, lovely,” Tavian said. “Now, as I was saying, my theory. I believe the appearance of the miniature John Tavians and the chasm in my memory be connected somehow.”
“Yes, Tavian,” Hissaq said. “That seems likely.”
“You seem so calm about it,” Valeria said, unconsciously swiping a hand through her hair. “What’s wrong with you? See a doctor for the love of Gods.”
Tavian scoffed. “Doctors is merely frustrated butchers, if I may say so, miss Valeria, so I shall pass. One must be philomosophical, and the little ‘uns isn’t bad sorts really.” He withdrew a homunculus from beneath his chair and placed it on the table between them all. It sat there staring for a moment, then idly fiddled about with its tiny genitals.
“Oh Gods, they don’t have any clothes. Why don’t they have any clothes on?” Valeria said, her voice again betraying a rising panic.
“Point taken, miss, and I beg thy forbearance for the crudity what assails thine eyeballs. I’ve wrangled one or two of the fellers to assisting with little jobbies though. Behold.” Tavian took from his pocket a pipe and a pouch of tobacco and laid them down on the table. He clicked his fingers and nodded to the homunculus, which on cue opened the pouch and commenced filling the pipe. It looked like a tiny farmer filling a feeding trough with hay. Tavian smiled in triumph. Brondag rolled her eyes.
“You’re not going to smoke that?” Valeria said. “It was just playing with its nuts.”
Tavian grimaced. “Another good point I concede to thee, miss.”
The homunculus stared up expectantly at its giant doppelganger until Tavian gifted it a small chunk of pastry.
The cake plated before the brooding Darov remained untouched, for he was unfamiliar with the concept of eating such a thing without cutlery, yet considered it beneath him to have to ask for any. The cake and he were at something of a stalemate, until he pushed the plate an inch away with a finger. “How many of these things are there?” he said.
“Seven by last count, sir, though I feels a stirring in me nethers which likely heralds another soon to greet the world. We lost the first for Brondag boiled it in a pan.” He scowled at his wife and she met the gaze, unabashed. “Never shall I forget those screams. I lit a candle for the wee thing’s soul.”
“Idiot,” Brondag said.
Tavian was about to retort when a slinky ginger felid stalked into the kitchen, carrying a homunculus in its jaws. The tiny human was floppy, either unconscious or dead.
Hissaq, Darov and Tavian recognised the animal, for this was Copperfield, formerly of the Demon Highway. He had moved into the Grand Kastal of his own volition and was often to be found sunning himself on the windowsill of the Queen’s heavily guarded private study, but he had a talent for materialising in any place, at any time, as if by magic.
Tavian’s hands flew to his head. “Copperfield, what have ye done? Murderous beast!”
Copperfield ignored him, dropped the homunculus on the stone floor and pawed at it a bit, as if to say Maybe this time you will escape. Do try. The mini Tavian burst into life, sprang to its feet and attempted to flee, but Copperfield pinned it with a lightning paw. With a few efficient stabs and bites, the felid relieved the homunculus of its head, then sauntered off. A very small pool of blood formed around the corpse.
Tavian held his face in his hands and moaned.
Mercilessly, Brondag said, “Pull thyself together, husband, for the love of Nora. And clean up that demonic ichor.”
“I’ll do so, wife, worry not on that score. I would that you leave our presence now, for fear my mouth runs away with me.”
“Gladly.” Brondag said, “for I am a little tired for dishing out a beating.” With that, she stomped out of the room.
Tavian sighed, got up and started cleaning up the little corpse left by Copperfield. “Forgive me sirs and miss,” he said as he tossed the body from the broken window and mopped at the blood, “I neglected to inquire as to the purpose of your kind visit. Would that you have some escapade for me that I may retreat from my strained marital relations for a day or two.”
“Well,” Valeria said, “if you really want to make things up to Darov for trying to kill him, it’s your lucky day.”
Tavian joined them back at the table where Hissaq laid out the blueprints of Lord Ulay’s chateau, carefully pinning down the corners with mugs and plates. Valeria explained Darov’s predicament and the need to burglarise the mysterious imperial communications cube from somewhere in the chateau, which could accurately be described as a complex.
Tavian’s enthusiasm for the venture was signalled by the tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, his grief for the murdered Tavianlet apparently forgotten. But he hurriedly excused himself from the table, clutched his midriff and staggered out as a cramp seized him.
“Apologies sirs and miss,” he said upon his return ten minutes later, walking a little bowlegged. “Another bright and bonny wee Tavian greets this pretty world. He is cleansing himself in a bowl of water.” He clapped his hands. “Now, back to business.”
Darov jabbed a finger at the blueprint. “The chateau sits on a rock shelf overlooking the forest glade, and is highly defensible. It has at least one aerial drone which can shoot streams of fire, and there are likely multiple human guards. The only entrance is via this long stone staircase. I just don’t see any way to get in surreptitiously.”
For long minutes they pored over the plans, and in his neat hand, Hissaq produced copious notes on some paper bags Tavian found: positions of chimney stacks and windows, likely guard points, potential distraction measures, disguises, resource requirements, known aspects of Lord Ulay’s lifestyle. Burglary strategies were raised and one by one each was rejected, largely due to being completely idiotic.
As a prince of the realm, Darov was unused to such onerous demands on his cognition and quickly grew bored. He donned his wide-brimmed hat and closed his eyes.
The others continued batting ideas around until a frustrated quietude filled the kitchen, broken only by the occasional scrabbling of a homunculus up to its mysterious business. One climbed up Tavian’s shirt and sat on the blueprints, examining them and rubbing its chin. Tavian distractedly placed it down on the floor.
Valeria stared at the homunculus, then met Hissaq’s eye, seeing the same implausible thought writ there on the man’s face. As the senior partner, Hissaq realised the responsibility for voicing an idea so ludicrous fell to him, and he could barely believe the words came from his mouth even as he said them.
“These homunculi which emerged from your…they could sneak into the chateau, could they not? They could search the whole place unseen.”
Tavian swigged his tea and gave it serious thought. “A fine idea, sir. The little ‘uns are trainable to some degree, and show a tendency for herding behaviour as many prey creatures are wont to do. But I fear they could not be wrangled with sufficient deftness to complete a task of such a specificity.”
Another lingering silence, more defeated than the last. Even the homunculi seemed dispirited.
“You know you could help us,” Tavian ventured. “That composite feller from yon domed city of robot slaves. I forgot the name of the city though.”
Hissaq blinked. “It is called the Forgotten City, Tavian. Where we were almost killed many times.”
“That’s the place. You remember the Myriad feller though do ye not? Made up of many, many little beasties he is, most uncanny, and he has a naughty tendency for directly interfacing with other beings via the bonce and requisitioning their voice and bodily movements. Did as much to me, he did. Most discomboberlating, but it done me no harm. We would have to fly out to said robot city to recruit him, mind. Would he help us?”
Hissaq rubbed his chin. It was not the worst idea he had heard that morning. The thing or things that called itself, or themself Myriad, was a creature, or creatures, of rare talents. “We could ask them, but their services would not come cheap. Myriad are greedy.”
Valeria looked from Hissaq to Tavian and back again, clearly struggling to follow. “What are you talking about? Darov, do you know what the hell they’re talking about?” The prince gave no response. “Darov?”
His tongue protruded from his mouth and a string of dribble hung from his chin. His torso had tilted awkwardly to one side and were it not for the lively terror in his eyes, Valeria would have thought him catatonic.
In a slow, slurred voice which was not his own, Darov said, “Hur hur, ‘ello stoopid ‘oomans. ‘Erd yer wanna do a robbin’.”
The hat fell softly to the floor and a tumorous crown lay upon the royal head; a grotesque coronation, writhing and red.
[1] Yanking the blunge tail is a common Denovian expression, meaning having a marvellous time drinking to excess and giving little thought to the consequences. The expression derives from the behaviour of the blunge, a fluffy arboreal creature, endemic to Lemuria. The animals are highly affectionate and delight in human contact. However, if petted for extended periods, they can turn savage. They tend to go for the eyes and genitals.
[2] Settler’s comfort is a yellow plant common to many areas of Cartreffi, particularly the duchy of Savannah, which has mild depressant and addictive properties.