Oh, and his name, lest we forget, was Sardic Thew.
Seeking the shrine of an altogether different Indifferent God, we come at last to the poets and bards. Ahead, in the city of Farrog, waited the Festival of Flowers and Sunny Days, a grand fete that culminated in a contest of poetry and song to award one supremely talented artist the Mantle proclaiming him or her The Century’s Greatest Artist. That this is an annual award, one might hesitantly submit, simply underscores the fickle nature of critics and humans alike.
The world of the artist is a warrened maze of weasels, to be sure. Long bodies of black fur snake underfoot, quick to nip and snick. One must dance for fame, one must pull up skirts or wing out carrots for an instant’s shudder of validation or one more day’s respite from the gnawing world. Beneath the delighted smiles and happy nods and clasped forearms and whatnot, resides the grisly truth that there is no audience grand and vast enough to devour them all. No, goes the scurrilous conviction, the audience is in fact made up of five people, four of whom the artist knows well and in so knowing trusts not a single utterance of opinion. And who, pray tell, is that fifth person? That stranger? That arbiter of omnipotent power? No one knows. It is torture.
But one thing is certain. Too many artists for one person. Therefore, every poet and every painter and every bard and every sculptor dreams of murder. Just to snap hand downward, grasp hard the squirming snarling thing, and set it among one’s foes!
In this respect, the artists so gathered in this fell group of travelers, found in the truth to come an answer to their most fervent prayers. Pity them all.
But enough commiseration. The poet has made the nest and must squat in it whilst the vermin seethe and swarm up the crack of doubt and into fickle talent’s crotch. Look then, upon Calap Roud, the elder statesman of Reliant City’s rotundary of artists, each of whom sits perched in precarious perfection well above the guano floor of the cage (oh of course it is gilded). This is Calap’s twenty-third journey across the Great Dry of inspiration’s perdition, and he is yet to win the Mantle.
Indeed, in his wretchedly long life, he draws close upon the century himself. One might even claim that Calap Roud is the Mantle, though none might leap for joy at the prospect of taking him home, even for a fortnight. There is a miserable collection of alchemies available to the wealthy and desperate (and how often do those two thrash limbs entwined in the same rickety bed?) to beat off the three cackling crows of old age, death, and ambitions dusty bowl, and Calap Roud remains a sponge of hope, smelling of almonds and cloves and lizard gall-bladders.
And so with the miracle of elixirs and a disgustingly strong constitution, Calap Roud looks half his age, except for the bitter fury in his eyes. He waits to be discovered (for even in Reliant City his reputation was not one of discovery but of pathetic bullying, backstabbing, sordid underhand graft and of course gaggles of hangers-on of all sexes willing, at least on the surface, to suffer the wriggle of Calap’s fickler every now and then; and worse of all, poor Calap knows it’s all a fraud). Thus, whilst he has stolen a thousand sonnets, scores of epic poems and millions of clever offhanded comments uttered by talented upstarts stupidly within range of his hearing, at his very core he stares, mouth open, upon a chasm on all sides, wind howling and buffeting him as he totters on his perch. Where is the golden cage? Where are all the white-headed fools he shat upon? There’s nothing down there but more down there going so far down there is no there at all.
Calap Roud has spent his entire albeit modest fortune bribing every judge he could find in Farrog. This was his last chance. He would win the Mantle. He deserved it. Not a single one of the countless vices hunting the weakling artists of the world dragged him down-no, he had slipped free of them all on a blinding road of virtuous living. He was ninety-two years old and this year, he would be discovered!
No alchemies or potions in the world could do much about the fact that, as one grew older and yet older, so too one’s ears and nose. Calap Roud, as modestly wrinkled as a man in his late forties, had the ears of a veteran rock ape of G’danisban’s coliseum and the nose of a probiscus monkey who’d instigated too many tavern brawls. His teeth were so worn down one was reminded of catfish mouths biting at nipples. From his old man’s eyes came a leer for every woman, and from his leer came out a worm-like tongue with a head of purple veins.
Object of his lust, more often than not, was to be found in the Nemil beauty sitting languidly upon the other side of thefire (and if temptation burns where else would she be?). Purse Snippet was a dancer and orator famous across the breadth of Seven Cities. Need it be even said that such a combination of talents was sure to launch spurting enthusiasm among the heavy-breathing multitudes known to inhabit cities, towns, villages, hamlets, huts, caves and closets the world over?
Lithe was her smile, warm her midnight hair, supple of tongue her every curvaceous utterance, Purse Snippet was desired by a thousand governors and ten thousand nobles. She had been offered palaces, islands in artificial lakes, entire cities. She had been offered a hundred slaves each trained in the arts of love, to serve her pleasure until age and jealous gods took pleasure away. Lavished with jewels enough to adorn a hundred selfish queens in their dark tombs. Sculptors struggled to render her likeness in marble and bronze, and then committed suicide. Poets fell so far inside their poems of adoration and worship they forgot to eat and died at their garrets. Great warleaders tripped and impaled themselves on their own swords in pursuit of her. Priests foreswore drink and children. Married men surrendered all caution in their secret escapades. Married women delighted in exposing and then murdering their husbands with ridicule and savage exposes.
And none of it was enough to soothe the unreasoning fires crisping black her soul. Purse Snippet knew she was the Thief of Reason. She stole wisdom from the wise and made them fools, but all that she took simply slid like lead dust between her amorously perfected fingers. She was also the Thief of Desire, and lust pursued her like a tidal surge and where it passed other women were left bloodless and lifeless. But with her own desires she was lost in frantic search, unable to alight long on any branch, no matter how inviting it had at first seemed.
So she had found a grey powder that she took in draughts of wine and this powder which had so blissfully taken her away from everything now revealed its true self. It was the Thief of her Freedom.
She would enter the famous shrine of the Indifferent God, seeking the blessing that none other had ever achieved. She believed she could win this, for she intended to dance and sing as she had never before danced and sang. She would steal the indifference from a god. She would.
She could not remember when last she had felt free, but she could not think of anything she wanted more.
Each night, alas, the powder beckoned her.
Arch rival to Calap Roud was the illimitable, ambitious, inexcusably young Brash Phluster. That he delighted in the old bastard’s presence on this journey could hardly be refuted, for Brash so wanted Calap to witness youth’s triumph in Farrog. With luck, it would kill him.
Seven years Calap had been defecating on Brash, trying to keep him down on the crusty floor, but Brash was not one to let a rain of guano discourage his destiny. He knew he was brilliant in most things, and where he lacked brilliance he could fill those spaces with bold bluster and entirely unfounded arrogance. A sneer was as good as an answer. A writhe of the lip could slice throats across the room. He eyed Calap as would a wolf eye a dog, appalled at a shared pedigree and determined to tear the sad thing to pieces at the first opportunity.