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"Third class," agreed a fourth. The narcs grew closer and the boggies held their breath as they passed. Just as Frito thought they had passed, a cold, slimy hand clutched his chest. "Hoo boy!" exulted the narc. "I got 'em, I got 'em!" In a trice the narcs were upon them with billyclubs and handcuffs. "Sorhed will be pleased to see you two!" cackled a narc, pressing his face (and breath) close to Frito's. All at once a great, guttural moan shivered the dark tunnel and the narcs fell back in terror. "Crud!" a narc screamed. "It's her nibs!" "Schlob! Schlob!" wailed another, lost in the darkness. Frito drew Tweezer from its scabbard, but could see nothing to strike. Thinking quickly, he remembered the magic snowglobe given him by Lavalier. Holding the glass at arm's length, he hopefully pressed the little button on the bottom. Immediately a blinding carbon arc-light flooded the dank surroundings, revealing a vast chamber of formica paneling and cheap chintz. And there, before them, was the terrible bulk of Schlob. Spam cried out at the sight most horrible to behold. She was a huge, shapeless mass of quivering flesh. Her flame-red eyes glowered as she slogged forward to the narcs, her tatty print shift dragged on the stone floor. Falling upon her fear-frozen victims with her fat body, she ripped them apart with taloned house slippers and sharp fangs dripping great yellow droplets of chicken soup. "Wash behind your ears!" Schlob shrieked as she tore a narc limb from limb and discarded his armor like a candy wrapper. "You never take me anywhere!" she foamed, popping the wriggling torso into her maw. "The best years of my life I gave you!" she raged, her sharp red fingernails reaching out for the boggies. Frito stepped back against the wall and slashed at the greedy nails with Tweezer, only managing to chip the enamel. Schlob squealed, further enraged. As the ravenous creature closed in, Frito's last memory was of Spam Page 63 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html frantically schpritzing insect repellent into Schlob's bottomless gullet. IX MINAS TRONEY IN THE SOUP The evening sun was setting, as is its wont, in the west as Goodgulf, Moxie, and Pepsi reined in their exhausted merinos at the gates of Minas Troney. The boggies were dazzled by the fabled capital of all Twodor, Stronghold of the West and Lower Middle Earth's largest producer of crude oil, yo-yos, and emery wheels. Surrounding the townlands were the Plains of Pellegranor, whose earth was rich with many an oast and garner, not to mention wide tilths, folds, byres, rippling rilns, and rolling ferndocks. The desultory Effluvium washed these green lands and year after year provided the ingrate residents with bumper crops of salamanders and anopheles mosquitoes. It was little wonder that the city drew multitudes of pointed-headed Southrons, thick-lipped Northrons, and inverted Ailerons. It was the only place where they could get a passport out of Twodor. The city itself dated back to the Olden Days when Beltelephon the Senile decreed rather inexplicably that there be built in this flat land a royal ski lodge of wondrous beauty. Unfortunately the old King cashed in before he saw ground broken and his hydrocephalic son, Nabisco the Incompetent, typically misread the late codger's vague blueprints and ordered somewhat more prestressed concrete than necessary for the original design. The result was Minas Troney or "Nabisco's Folly." For no good reason, the city was made in seven concentric circles topped with a commemorative double statue of Beltelephon and his favorite concubine, whose name was either Nephritis the Obese or Phyllis. In any case the final architectural effect was that of an Italian wedding cake.* [* The historian Bocaraton notes that this may have been intentionally "emblematic of the crumbs inside."] Each ring was higher than the next, as were the rents. In the lowest, seventh ring dwelt the city's sturdy yeomen. Oft they could be seen dutifully polishing their brightly colored yeos for some idiotic festival or other. In the sixth ring dwelt tradesmen, warriors in the fifth, and so on to the first and highest level, wherein dwelt the Great Stewards and dentists. Each level was reached by means of wind-powered escalators in constant need of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |