Party of Five - A game of Po

  ***

  They left the ghost ship with its skeleton crew in a nearby alcove, protected from view by the steep, sharp mossy cliffs. From then on the walk to the village was an easy, refreshing trip which they began as soon as they set foot on land. Lernea offered thanks and praise to Svarna for guiding her home, and kissed the ground, quickly realizing the picture in her mind did not match the taste.

  The salty breeze mingled with the smells of green grass and mushy, wet ground. It brought a heartfelt smile to Lernea’s face to be back home, even under the very unusual circumstances. And it was a true wonder in itself that her mentor, friend and caretaker, the man who had been to her more than the grandfather she had never met, was alive and well, despite what she had thought she had seen with her very eyes.

  Theo felt the cold climate bite through his linen robes. The southern seas were warm, and space had been generously temperate and comfortable when not threatening their lives. But the northern reaches of Nomos offered a cold, harsh climate, suitable for the hardy locals, but not so friendly to anyone else. Except Bo who was comfortably covered in fur and was quite excited at the prospect of munching on northern, exotic grass; brushes were rare and flowers even rarer, but they provided a challenge with interesting, mouth-filling rewards. She delightfully hopped along, sampling what freshness the outdoors of Nomos had to offer.

  Lernea was decidedly not asking Sisyphus a lot of questions; she was content knowing that there was time enough to get up to date on matters of importance. And there were quite a lot of those, Master Sisyphus had told her, but his philosophy was that the slow, careful approach, always offered more time to think and analyze things through. That way of thinking, in turn, offered more choices of action, and considerably more ways of egress out of nasty situations. Which was exactly the manner he had by a combination of good fortune and clever planning avoided turning into a crisp.

  “Am I the only one who is cold?” Theo said, shivering slightly, to which Lernea simply nodded and Master Sisyphus replied: “You’re quite the exotic type around these parts. It’s quite reasonable to feel cold.”

  “Well you don’t seem to be wearing much. And Lernea’s leather can’t be that warm inside,” Theo wondered.

  “You’d be surprised how much heat the body generates. It’s all a matter of insulation, really. Though I disapprove of Lady Teletha’s outfit, it is practical and efficient,” Sisyphus said nodding.

  “Then why do you disapprove, Master? You always taught us utility is essential,” Lernea asked, puzzled.

  “It doesn’t need to be enticing to the senses. Not in that way,” the old man said and winked.

  “Master!” Lernea gasped with a tiny shock of guilty joy written across her face.

  “You might be my queen, and I might have taught you since your childhood, but I am not blind. I actually think you’ve grown into more of a woman somehow over these past few weeks. And I don’t mean you’re fat or anything,” Sisyphus added as an afterthought.

  “I haven’t thought about it, but there’s a shred of truth in that,” Lernea admitted.

  “You can tell me all about it when we rest properly. I have my share of stories as well. A lot has happened, and not much of it is any good,” Sisyphus commented grumpily.

  “I’m afraid what stories I have to tell are in the same vein as well, Master. It’s been a wild ride since we left Nomos. But I think I’ve met some good friends,” she said and looked at Theo and Bo knowingly.

  “She means us,” Theo said and pointed awkwardly at Bo and him, before adding “And then there’s Ned, and Winceham too.”

  “Winceham? That’s an interesting name. Somehow makes me feel hungry,” mused Master Sisyphus. Lernea added with a soft voice:

  “Parcifal is with them. Only Svarna knows where they are now. At least, I think they’re safe. Last I saw them, they were flying away in a ship, trying to flee a terrible place of destruction. It was nothing like I had ever thought possible, Master. You should have seen it, you would know what to make of it.”

  “Flying away in a ship, you say?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, Master. But there’s so many new, strange things we’ve come across. Things that seem to defy logic,” Lernea said grimly and shrugged disarmingly.

  “I wouldn’t go so far. Logic is a pretty difficult thing to break,” Sisyphus said, stroking his trimmed beard.

  “Still, I’m glad you taught us to be open-minded, Master. We couldn’t have hoped to cope with so much.”

  “You were raised to be queens, my dear Lernea,” he replied earnestly.

  “I was raised to be the tribe’s doctor. Can’t speak for Bo, I don’t think there’s much of a career choice for bunnies,” Theo said out of turn.

  “I was referring to the Teletha sisters,” Master Sisyphus said, eying Theo with a powerful frown that made the elf shy away. Master Sisyphus whispered to Lernea then: “Is he really a sorcerer?”

  “No, his sister, the bunny, is the sorcerer.”

  “The bunny is a sorcerer?”

  “It did come as a surprise to me as well. But you’d be surprised at what she’s capable of. Her prowess with wielding fire reminds me of Parcifal, really.”

  “She’s not... She’s not dragonborn, is she?” he asked in a worried whisper.

  “I wouldn’t know. She’s stuck in that bunny form,” Lernea replied and Master Sisyphus face became contorted as if the world weighed upon it. “We need to know more about her. Can she talk?”

  “Only if you kiss her.”

  “Very demanding, for a small animal.”

  “I meant, she has to kiss you before she can talk to you in your head. It’s disconcerting at first, but it has certain advantages,” Lernea said approvingly.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Bo sent in her mind even as her nose wrinkled in search of a damp spot of a certain kind of grass.

  “Sounds capricious,” Master Sisyphus said dismissively.

  “Tell the old man I wouldn’t kiss him in a million years,” Bo sent and Lernea simply nodded smiling awkwardly.

  “I bet she’s telling you something right now, isn’t she?” Master Sisyphus asked, but before Lernea had time to make up an answer, he provided one himself: “I’m sure she’s impressed by me,” he said smugly.

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Theo offered. “She just told me she hasn’t had a laugh like this in ages,” he added with an innocent smile, while Lernea stabbed him with a frantic look.

  “Oh, really? I find her lack of taste disturbing,” Master Sisyphus said flatly and promptly greeted a passing fisherman.

  “By Skrala, it’s a joyous day, isn’t it?” Sisyphus said and tipped his hat.

  “Svarna’s light guide your way, Geronimo. How was the harvest?”

  “Rich and plentiful. I’ll be making a batch of potion as soon as my visiting niece and her husband settle in,” Sisyphus said and gestured at Theo and Lernea.

  “Greetings, friends. Your uncle’s been a real boon to the village,” the fisherman said, eying them intently.

  “I can only imagine,” Lernea said, her gaze alternating between a glower at Master Sisyphus and a frantic sign at Theo. Both of them were equally impervious to signals.

  “I didn’t know marriage could be that simple,” Theo said with what amounted to a lopsided grin. The fisherman looked at him with a squinting frown and Master Sisyphus tried to allay any qualms about the elf: “He’s foreign. Hardly speaks the language,” he whispered while the villager made a motion with his head and asked in a whisper, as not to sound overtly offending: “What about the hair, and those ears? Gods, that hair.”

  “Accident of birth. My niece is such a soft-hearted girl,” Sisyphus said smiling in a condescending manner.

  “That birth accident part could be true,” Theo said nodding, and walked past without care, looking at the sky, as if waiting for the weather to change. Right beside him, Bo hopped and skipped along, soaking up the moss-laden scenery with a gluttonous gleam i
n her eyes.

  “Svarna guide your path, bookkeeper,” the fisherman said and nodded perfunctorily before walking away, gazing over his shoulder with a wrinkled forehead.

  “Thy hooks be sharp, fisherman,” Master Sisyphus called out to him before Lernea said with some introspective hurt in her voice:

  “A queen of Nomos reduced to a bookkeeper’s niece. Why so, Master?”

  “As it is the norm these days, secrecy, deceit and counterfeit is essential for survival. Plus, a bookkeeper has unfettered access to all public records, libraries and the like. One is also expected to be rather parsimonious in social dealings, lead a solitary, isolated existence and keep to his books.”

  “Which is a facade for...” Lernea said with a hint of expectation and a keen gaze across her eyes.

  “The Resistance, my lady,” Sisyphus replied in a whisper and motioned with a hand for Lernea to lead the way. She stood there for a moment, transfixed as if the words sounded suddenly all too strange.

  “Resistance? Against who?”

  “Well, the Jangdrivals, naturally,” he replied sotto voce, indeed confused that she should ask such a thing.

  “Master, my wedding was to bring the old lines together. The Jangdrivals had other ideas; their House usurped the Throne, but still...”

  “Whatever do you mean to say, my lady? The Jangdrivals are dirty, lying traitors, the kind that draw no lines except death marks.”

  “But still, they treated me and my sister with a modicum of respect; they spared our lives and the lives of our banner-men. Isn’t that so?”

  “That might be true. But throwing a fist, be it gloved in soft silk or in bare white knuckles, is still a punch to the face.”

  “But a Resistance, you say... To fight among brothers and sisters, to fight amongst ourselves... It must be wrong; I have no other word for it.”

  “The Jangdrivals are a plight to the people; they’ve tripled the amount of labor levy and have placed a firm grip on free trade and the crafts. A great good deal of artisans have been sequestered to the Royal Grounds, to work on a huge monument of some sort. A gift to the land, they’ve called it.”

  “And the people can take no more of this? They find their rule abhorrent? An affront to the Gods?” she said with a rush of expectant despair.

  “Not quite. The consensus among the people is it was high time someone built something grandiose and memorable, a true testament to the spirit of Nomos and its people.”

  “But what need is there for something to gape at when there is no use for it?”

  “The people’s mandate, they have called it. A deplorable bid to wrench the memory of the Teletha House from the peoples’ mind, my queen.”

  “I’m not comfortable with the reasoning of the people. But I will not condone a bloodbath in the name of my reign or my bloodline. Perhaps, this resistance you speak of might hearken to my words and grow strong without baring fangs to strike against our brothers; Nomos can only lose from such a senseless endeavor. How many strong are you?”

  “There’s six of us, my lady,” Sisyphus said with misplaced pride.

  “Six thousand strong, then. If only I could speak to them, turn their minds. There has to be a bloodless solution. A third House might even need to come into play,” she said mostly to herself, thoughtfully scratching her chin.

  “My lady, you’ve misheard. There’s six of us; maybe seven, counting the bunny.”

  “Six of us? As in, six people?”

  “That is you, your exotic friend and the bunny sorceress, and my two assistants.”

  “Master Sisyphus, in my years under your guidance I would never thought I would say this, but I fear I cannot, in good conscience, pretend this isn’t folly. I would actually go as far to say that you must be going out of your mind to consider this a resistance. We could hardly form an Upskalla team.”

  “This isn’t a game though, my lady. Great things have been accomplished by few men.”

  “You do need to consider the scale of things, Master.”

  “And it would be prudent to consider the timing of the matter. Events move at a maddening pace!” he urged her.

  “I’m not even sure this resistance should take place. If the Jangdrivals are what the people want, then ”

  “Nuts to the Jangdrivals!” Master Sisyphus said and everyone around them had no choice but to give him an apprehensive, studious look.

  “Or fruit. We could send them fruit. A fruit basket would be nice,” Theo said beaming with a smile and Bo’s ears flopped to the ground.

  “We’re new here,” Lernea said and the locals went back to minding their own business. “I thought we were trying to keep a low profile, Master,” Lernea said with just a smidgen of aggravation. Master Sisyphus took a few deep breaths before replying:

  “I can’t help getting worked up about it all. They did try to kill me,” he said and looked Lernea in the eyes.

  “It is the sentimental fool that lets passion cloud his reasoning,” Lernea said, reciting from memory. Master Sisyphus nodded and complemented: “And however entertaining fools might be, no-one wants their job,” he said nodding reassuringly.

  “Is it because of the silly costume?” Theo asked eagerly, only to receive puzzled looks from Sisyphus and Lernea.

  “Let’s go inside. I could use some lunch,” Master Sisyphus said and unlocked the door to his rather plain-looking house. He ushered Lernea in, and they all followed close behind.

  The moment she stepped into the house, the smell of roast fish assaulted her nostrils, and she felt a pinching on her neck. Then another one, and another one in quick succession. Her head started spinning and she became oddly aware that the house was being lifted into the sky, as if it was made out of gum. In fact, she slumped onto the floor with a strange smile on her face and lay there, peacefully unconscious.

  “Did you see that?” said a shrilly voice with excitement, and a similar one replied in the same vein of enthusiasm, “Pow! All three in the neck! Wait till Master learns about this! We might actually get some cake this time!”

  Sisyphus calmly appeared through the door, stepping over Lernea casually. He put his palm on his face, and stood there with eyes closed, trying to control his breathing. He said nothing, because he couldn’t think of anything that would capture the essence of his feelings at the time.

  “Master! Did you see that?” said the same shrilly, childlike voice. The other voice added in a scoffing manner, “Of course he saw that, dummy! He was right behind her.”

  “We got her good, didn’t we Master?” said one of the voices, the slightly more enthusiastic one. Both seemed to be coming from somewhere in the roof without a ceiling, the persons they belonged to obscured in the woodwork’s shadowy clefts and crevices.

  “Weren’t we supposed to have lunch first, and then a nap?” Theo asked, right behind Sisyphus. “Now, I’m confused. Is this some kind of custom?” he inquired, and a double-shot of tiny globes of fire flew right past his hair, singing it slightly, to strike at patches of darkness at the roof. Cries of agony were heard before the reassuring thud of bodies hitting the floor. Bo appeared through the door, eyes flaring, ears pointed straight up, ready for a second burst of flames. Sisyphus made a hand gesture to the bunny. Bo raised her head and looked at him in an uncannily human fashion.

  “I’ll handle this,” he said while Lernea’s attackers where lying on the floor, groaning slightly, trying to recover from their fall. They were small-framed, rather short and actually looked a lot like boys in their pre-teens. Bits and pieces of them were still on fire, like tiny candles going out. The smell of burnt cloth filled the room.

  “You are idiots,” Sisyphus said.

  “Yes, Master Sisyphus,” they both intoned in unison, having difficulty as they tried to get up.

  “Total buffoons,” Sisyphus continued.

  “Yes, Master Sisyphus,” they repeated with downcast voices. They were now standing as upright as they could, their heads downcast. They knew something
was amiss but they didn’t dare ask what it was exactly that they had done wrong.

  “Incredibly stupid and profoundly inept at the simplest of tasks,” Sisyphus said with mounting ire in his voice.

  “Yes, Master Sisyphus,” they droned on, as if they had heard the same words a thousand times over.

  “I’m right here, not down there!” Sisyphus shouted, pointing at the floor. The two kids jolted into attention, looking straight at Master Sisyphus, their faces flustered red and their plain clothes charred, sooty and filled with crumbling holes.

  “What where your orders when I left?”

  “To make sure that no intruder enters the house,” said one of the boys, while the other one added, “and roast some fish for lunch.”

  “Clean up the laboratory,” the first one continued and the other one complemented him, “but be careful not to touch the Polythauma.. Polythamarga..”

  “Polythamaturgator!” Sisyphus exploded.

  “That a one,” one of the boys said nodding, the one still clutching a reed of some sort in one hand.

  “Have I not trained you in all manners of science, history, and the arts?” Sisyphus asked of them in a strangely appealing and calm voice.

  “You have Master,” said the boy whose reed was lying on the floor, and the other one asked raising a hand with trepidation.

  “Are we having a pop-quiz?”

  Sisyphus closed his eyes and sighed, biting his lips before asking the boys in a calm, conversational tone:

  “Haven’t we already covered the history and lore of the Kingdom’s rulers?”

  “Oh! Oh! I know! I know! We’re terribly sorry!” said the boy with the reed clutched in his hand. Sisyphus took a deep breath and ran his tongue across his old, creaky lips, nodding to himself in a show of relief.

  “It’s the twenty-fifth of Thargilio! It’s the Crowning Day of King Menidas of House Pygmalio,” the boy said and ventured into a hopeful smile. Sisyphus’s face froze in a shocked look of surprise.

  “That may be correct, Damon, but you’re missing the greater picture,” Sisyphus said and rubbed the root of his nose patiently.

  “It’s not a fish day, then?” the other boy pitched in half-heartedly. Sisyphus made a sudden reflexive motion; he very nearly leapt at them but managed to contain himself at the last moment.

  “The woman lying on the floor.. The woman you managed to drug into a senseless sleep.. Do you recognize her, at all?”

  The boys peered at Lernea from a distance, squinting slightly. They both shook their heads with worried faces, realizing their answer would not make Sisyphus happy.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell? Never seen her before? Not in one of the many sketches and drawings amongst the books, or the letters in my study, my personal effects, the bloody drawing in my room?”

  “She does kind of look like her, Master,” one of the boys said timidly, and the other one added, “One of those sisters you talk about all the time.”

  “Fidias,” Sisyphus asked the other boy, “would you happen to recall their name?”

  “Tele.. Telemar.. Teledar..”

  “Teletha! The Teletha sisters! This is Lernea Teletha, the queen of Nomos in exile, you imbeciles!” Sisyphus erupted into a frenzy and stormed past the boys and straight into his study, slamming the door behind him.

  “I would’ve thought a queen would be more popular,” Theo said and smiled awkwardly, while the boys exchanged horrified looks.

  “We’re dead,” Damon said and dropped the reed on the floor, while Fidias nodded and added plainly, “deader than a dodo.”

  Theo laughed suddenly. “Don’t be silly, dodo’s aren’t dead.”

  The boys looked at him with puzzled, worried frowns.

  “They are?” Theo asked, and put a finger to his lip, looking confused.

  “Will someone bring the queen in here!” Sisyphus shouted from within his study. The boys sprang into action as if pronged with something sharp, while Bo was happily munching some dried fungi that happened to be lying around on a small table. Pretty soon, Lernea was being dragged into Sisyphus study without much decorum, and Bo was cowering in a corner, her eyes glazed and ready to pop-out.

  “What do you mean? There’s no elephant in this room, and it’s definitely not pink. No, I’m not morphing into a flying cactus,” Theo said to Bo, and sparing a look at his hands, he added, “As far as I can tell, that is.”