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Chapter 77
From the moment he saw her, he knew. Still, he persisted.
We felt at once that the ball-joint system was all wrong for the blivethefter. Why, then, did we force it?
The very second the goat was slain, we saw we were in for it. Pretending otherwise was absurd. Yet Mary Beth lied.
There was no sense whatsoever to the socket wrench being put to such a use. But it just might have worked.
There was nothing in the least amusing about the vile disembowelment of Charles. Strange we weren't shocked when Holly laughed.
With his feet as they were, Eddy could not have had much hope. To have seen him, though, you would have thought he still had toes.
'Don't come near me!' Estella wailed, holding out her arms.
We knew that the thought of chickpeas with bagels defied the concept of spreading. Still, they were both brown.
There was, of course, no logic to the dwarf's fear of Harold's rather large cat. But if you've ever spent some time down on your knees, you're surely aware of how differently things appear from down there.
That was Chapter 77. Curious about the vile disembowelment of Charles, Trumper read it again. He liked the bit about chickpeas and bagels. He read the chapter a third time and was irked that he didn't know what was wrong with Eddy's feet. And who was Estella?
Ralph knocked on the bathroom door; he wanted to use the phone.
'I understand the dwarf's fear of Harold's rather large cat,' Trumper told him through the closed door. Ralph went away, swearing.
What Trumper had some difficulty understanding was what relation Helmbart's work had to Ralph's film. Then he thought of one; perhaps neither of them meant anything. Somehow that made him feel better about the film. Relaxed, he approached the toilet. But he was too relaxed; he'd forgotten to pinch himself open. A hose with an obstructed nozzle is difficult to aim. He pissed in his shoe, jumped back and elbowed the phone into the sink. Wincing, he awkwardly peed his way back to the toilet. In his condition, although it hurt to go, it hurt worse to stop.
So much for relaxing, he thought. He was reminded of one of the many lessons to be learned from Akthelt and Gunnel, the forbidding story of Sprog.
Sprog was Akthelt's bodyguard, armor bearer, valet, knife sharpener, head huntsman, chief scout, favorite sparring partner and trusted whore fetcher. When they were visiting captured tow
ns, Sprog tasted everything that Akthelt was served before Akthelt would eat it.
Old Thak had given Sprog to Akthelt for Akthelt's twenty-first birthday. Akthelt was more pleased by Sprog than by any of his horses, dogs or other servants. For Sprog's birthday, Akthelt gave him a highly favored captured Greth woman named Fluvia. Akthelt had been quite taken by Fluvia himself, so you can see how much he thought of Sprog.
Sprog was not a Greth. There were no captured Greth men; only Greth women were captured. Greth men were forced to dig a large pit, then were stoned senseless, flung into it and burned.
One day Old Thak had been returning from a war along the coast of Schwud when his scouts rode up to him and reported that the beach ahead was blocked by a long rowboat, in front of which stood a man holding a huge driftwood log like a light mallet. Old Thak rode ahead with his scouts to see this phenomenon. The man was only about five feet tall, with curly blond hair, but his chest seemed to be about five feet around too. He was neckless, wristless and ankleless; he was simply a great chest with almost jointless limbs and a face as featureless as an anvil topped by blond curly hair. A driftwood log two feet thick rested lightly on his shoulder.
'Ride over him,' Old Thak told one of his scouts, and the man charged this strange stumpy apparition who had blocked the beach with a rowboat. The giant dwarf swung the driftwood log like a fungo bat against the horse's chest, killing the animal instantly, then tore the scout out of the tangled stirrups and folded him up, breaking his back easily. Then he picked up his driftwood racket and stood in front of his rowboat again, staring down the beach to where Old Thak was watching with the other scout.
Trumper remembered thinking that the other scout must have been shitting his pants at that moment.
But Old Thak was not so wasteful as to sacrifice another scout. He recognized great bodyguard potential when he saw it, so he sent the scout hightailing it back to the legion. Thak wanted the thing alive.
About twenty men with nets and long gaffs eventually captured the super troll who blocked the shore of Schwud. It was a lieutenant of these men who first called the creature Sprog. Da Sprog - a rough translation would be the Devil's Toad - a kind of super toad who impersonated the Devil, or through whom the Devil hopped around on the earth, was a fixture of their religion.
But all that was nonsense. Sprog was as easy to train as a falcon, and he became as loyal to Old Thak as Thak's best dog, Rotz. So it was a demonstration of fatherly affection when Old Thak parted with Sprog and made a gift of him to his son Akthelt.
Trumper interrupted his memory of the tale to wonder if it had been at this point in life when Sprog had begun to relax and think that he had it made. Probably not, he reflected, because Sprog suffered some kind of inadequacy complex during his first few years with Akthelt. Old Thak had been less demanding, and Sprog had found the master-dog role comfortable. But Akthelt was Sprog's own age and tended to be more familiar with servants; in fact, Akthelt liked to drink with Sprog, and Sprog no longer knew what his place was. He was very loyal to Akthelt, of course, and would have done anything for him, but he was also treated just enough like Akthelt's friend to be confused. Equality is a rare and minor theme in Akthelt and Gunnel, though it emerges in its typically disruptive fashion here.
One night, Akthelt and Sprog got very drunk together in the tiny village of Thith, and then staggered home to the castle through an orchard, having contests to see who could uproot the biggest trees. Sprog won, of course, and perhaps that irritated Akthelt. Whatever the reason, they were crossing the moat arm in arm when Akthelt asked Sprog if he would be hurt if Akthelt slept with Sprog's new wife, Fluvia. After all, they were friends ...
Perhaps the confusion was suddenly lifted from Sprog's life by this proposal. He must have realized that Akthelt could have simply taken Fluvia whenever he wanted to, and maybe he thought that by asking permission Akthelt was bestowing equality on Sprog.
Which apparently Sprog was not prepared for, because he not only gleefully told Akthelt to take his pleasure with Fluvia, but went barreling off to the royal quarters to take his pleasure with Akthelt's Gunnel. Akthelt had said nothing whatever about that. Obviously, Sprog had read the situation wrong.
Trumper could imagine poor Sprog rocketing down the labyrinthine corridors to the royal quarters like a five-foot bowling ball. That was when Sprog relaxed.
