Lore of the Underlings: Episode 8 ~ The Trial, Page 2

  Bylo struggled to hold back a growl. “Whatever you say your honorrr, sirrr… But you can chew on my deposition — I arrived on scene in time to fish for this pretty young swamp thing myself, our creature from the black lagoon. And he was the only show around. No sign of a double or triple feature.”

  “Where’s your evidence? Show me the muddy…”

  “Urrrrrrp!” The reaper interrupted with a belch to wake the dead, a language his henchmen understood. They brought Bylo a couple of objects.

  First came a sack on a citizen’s cane. Second, a single moccasin.

  But Ho-man intercepted them, book tucked into the back of his pants. “I’ll take those exhibits, plainsmen. Due process you know. Court etiquette. Thanks.”

  The riding hoods eyed him hard but complied.

  The clerk took hold of Exhibit A, the cane, and stuck it in the floor, not far from where Treygyn was hung out to dry. A droopy sack was attached at the top. He poked it. He peered inside.

  “It’s empty.”

  Bylo was beside himself. “Impossible!” the big boor blubbered. “My men found that bag by the quagmire, on the fen way to Blue Bayou. Hidden in the reeds and milkweed. It was full of sandwiches — tree nut butter and syberries.”

  “Ah, but the syberries,” Freebird teased, with a razz from his crow’s nest on Ho-man’s head. “Awk! It tastes like mutiny to me.”

  The Finder wheeled to confront his crew.

  “Sorry Bylo.”

  “We was hungry.”

  “And them sammies was delishes.”

  All their excuses fell on deaf ears, in fact steam rose from both of Bylo’s.

  But judge Fyryx had heard enough. “You can conduct your court martial later. Exhibit B is what interests me…”

  Ho-man threw him the moccasin, a brown shoe of pigskin with touches of down. Fyryx fielded the footwear in stride. He studied its stitches, its art and sole.

  “I recognize the handiwork. This bootie is surely of our Keep.”

  He turned it lengthwise, sizing it up. “The only question is… the foot.

  “Finder — where did you get this and when?”

  Bylo was still in a bad mood but answered.

  “A boy scouting party recovered it after, a full hour east of the leaver’s arrest in sight of Desperation Pass.”

  “Oh?” noted Fyryx, perking up. “And how was he shod when your foot soldiers caught him?”

  “Barefoot and empty-handed, justice, just as the tar heel hangs here now. The clammy tadpole. The slimy eel. Despite being snagged in our dragnet did this fishy one squirm to get away. Reckon that that’s when the other shoe dropped — but into the quicksand and presumed lost.”

  Treygyn rattled his manacles. He wanted to say something. None paid attention.

  “That’s all I needed to know,” muttered Fyryx. “Hamyx! Your plainsmen are dismissed.”

  Bylo looked lost himself, perplexed. He stuck a hangnail in each ear and plucked out gobs of thick, sticky wax. He flicked them at Treygyn.

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me the first time. Get them gone.”

  Bylo pulled something brown from his backside, a long bill scrawled on a rawhide scrap. “Not before we’re paid in full. Kegs, sticks, livestock. You know the contract.”

  “Oh, you’ll get your just desserts,” hissed Fyryx, “but not until justice is said and done.”

  He raised his shoeless hand. “Pikesmen! The Finder may stay. The rest, move along.”

  The Guard stood up in unison, seething, even the unarmed Syar-ull. “Judge and Treasuror! Sir my sir!”

  The plainsmen were ready but Bylo knew better. He turned to his crew. “Stand down. Head out.”

  He spat twelve spits on the floor as each one marched through the door where they’d come in.

  “Well played, brother of Ayryx, you win…” The Finder slouched toward the sidelines. “This time.” He lurched like a wounded beast. A hunchback.

  Something sounding like a snicker stopped him as he reached the seats. He spun and set his sights on Fyryx.

  “Mark my words, son of Hurx. Hear this vow. Someday shall I have what is rightfully mine, all that I’ve been denied — the spoils of lore. Bounty, booty, sandwiches… everything!”

  Fyryx just stared at him. “Sit down Bylo.”

  Gulp!

  The mockatoo swallowed something.

  Ho-man noticed a flameworm gone. “Freebird!” he scolded in a whisper.

  “Awk! That beats a cracker, boys!”

  John Cap, a few feet away, sniffed the air. “Ooo that smell… Is something burning?”

  “Can you smell that smell?” asked the clerk.

  Freebird coughed up a bright red fireball.

  “That’s a spicy nematode. Awwwk!”

  “Better lay off the earworms, birdbrain,” Ho-man gently chided him. “I’ve heard they can be addictive.”

  “Now you tell me — rrrawk!” he hawked.

  Fyryx tossed the shoe back to Ho-man. “Try this on the defendant, clerk.”

  Ho-man knelt at the crooked pike and reached for a dangling leg — the left one — muddy, bloody, and smelly as hell. He took ahold of Treygyn’s foot.

  “You’ve really stepped in it, young Mr. Yin.”

  “I’m starting to get that sense, Mr. Havvum.”

  Ho-man slipped the moccasin on him. It was too big and fell right off.

  Madam Pum held up her eagle eye glasses and unicorn ear horn. She leaned in closer. Elderman Myne at her side looked concerned.

  Ho-man tried it on the right. That was no tighter. It hit the floor.

  “Show him something in a sneaker!” heckled the stout Guard Oodor-ull. “Running shoes might be more fitting. Or slippers.”

  Fyryx cleared his throat. “Ahem… This is no joke, honored Guard,” he grinned, “but just the clue I’ve been looking for. Good as fingerprints at the crime scene. Footprints fresh from the getaway.”

  The afternoon sun had enlightened his dark-age eyes. Or so it seemed. He beamed.

  “If the shoe doesn’t fit, there’s more than one culprit…”

  He paused, standing taller, straight as a rod, and cast his gaze across the courtyard.

  “No one escapes this magistrate. By hook or by crook I’ll catch each one. It’s time for a fishing expedition.”

  Ho-man reeled in the shoddy exhibit and stood up. He took it and stepped aside.

  Treygyn looked on, craning his neck, to see what this sole searching was about. “Holy mackerel!” he gawked. It was large as a barge, an oafish loafer, and more of a toe boat than moccasin. Worn weathered leather. Frayed broken laces. Nothing that he’d be caught dead in. He eyed it like a foreign object.

  Then he did a double take. “Slymie…” He cussed something under his breath.

  Fyryx charged him like a lone shark. The predator brother smelled blood in the water.

  “What was that, small fry?”

  The shrimp clammed up.

  Leader and leaver were eye to eye now and face to face facing each other down. Yet silence seethed like a sea between them till the angry angler spoke.

  “I’m not sure that you appreciate, boy, the dire straits you’re in.”

  “Oh!” said an innocent-looking Treygyn. “No, mister lord judge Treasuror sir — but that explains this sinking feeling.”

  Fyryx weighed his words and glared. “What?! Are you wisecracking me, smart aleck?”

  “Who me, sire?” The kid shook his head. “It’s a case of mistaken identity. God’s honest truth, chief justice, I swear. No one I know calls me smart or Alec. In fact, my school mates just voted me class clown and most likely to play dumb.”

  “Go figure. I can’t see why,” sneered Fyryx.

  “Double-dare me,” Treygyn pleaded. “Cross my heart and hope to die!”

  “Tempted as I am, double-crosser, I have confessions to get from you first. To start, the reason for your treason…”

  “Huh?”

&nbs
p; “Why you turned runaway, runt.”

  Treygyn Yin looked to be thinking — and quick.

  “Um, well, you know, it’s like…”

  “Spit it out, turncoat. It’s not a mute court.”

  “But…”

  “Do you deny turning tail on your people and betraying our treasured Keep?”

  “Uh…”

  Treygyn seemed hard-pressed to respond. Then his face lit up, as if from a brainstorm.

  “Honestly, master and commander, you and your Guard were my sole inspiration.”

  Fyryx was now the tongue-tied one.

  “See, I was just following in the footsteps of your recent scouting mission… yeah… only in a different direction.”

  The red son of Hurx was about to explode. A matter of time till he’d go supernova.

  “No better role model than you, ruler. Not to mention your merry pikesmen…”

  Tempers flared as the sun went crimson. A record heat wave had set in.

  “Do you expect me to buy such lies? Slander. Blasphemy. Contempt. Your insolence knows no bounds!” snarled Fyryx.

  “And I’m to assume, worm, that shoe is yours too?”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth sheriff. Didn’t know you were a prophet as well. Swell!”

  “Oh I foresee something alright traitor — your fellow travelers all laid low. Each felonious punk de-feeted. Lost in limbo. Down by law. They might as well suffer the same fate as you.

  “I want names, addresses. Who are they?”

  Treygyn squirmed like a cornered rug rat. “Nobody sir. I acted alone. Strictly a one-man show, no kidding. Solo. Just me and my really big shoe…”

  Fyryx reacted with mocking applause. He clapped slowly, “Bravo. An epic performance. Though you and I both know it’s staged, don’t we truant. Admit to this fiction, that footwear to boot.”

  Treygyn let out a long, pained sigh. Otherwise he did not answer.

  “And so rests the offender’s defense,” judge Fyryx announced in a monotone drone. “Or such as it was — a slipshod fraud, one sham of a scam just cobbled together.”

  His eyes took a cold look into the distance. He pondered a moment and then went on.

  “Yet this little feat has left too many questions. We must track down big foot. Our quest’s just begun…”

  All of a sudden the sun was obscured as a black flock of vultures passed dead overhead. They circled around and spiraled down then spelled out a text message in midair.

  “This kid is road kill… so… if you’re done grilling…”

  “I’m not through with him yet, treasured buzzards.” Fyryx shooed the prey birds away.

  “I want him to watch this next inquisition. It might improve his memory. But if he won’t talk, well we’ll just try his friends…

  “Prepare the witness stand!”

  A tower of tortoises, stacked three high, entered court from the tent’s antechamber and plodded across the dusty floor. The trio appeared to be family — papa, mama, and baby atop. But even the smallest was huge, a colossus.

  Everyone waited while they made their way. And waited… and waited… impatiently. Bylo groused loudest of them all.

  “Shake a leg, slow pokes. Hurry it up! Be quicker to make you turtle soup.”

  The mockatoo had a big smirk on his beak. “Hey waiter, awk! There’s a hare on my plate!”

  Meanwhile Ho-man pulled out his notebook and drew a few extra tall runes with his quill. He turned from the crowd and flashed it at the baffled stranger like a billboard. John Cap mouthed the words, still puzzled. “Syland snappies,” the letters read.

  Then the clerk had a second thought and posted a follow-up message. “They bite.”

  “Naturally,” muttered the mighty outsider. “Who knew this was such a zoo.”

  The tortoises came to an unsudden stop just on the outskirts of center court. They looked sleepy, fatigued from their trek.

  Fyryx faced Ho-man. He meant business.

  “Court clerk, read me the witness list — but starting from the bottom first.”

  “Yes sir.” Ho-man flipped his script.

  “Last and least on the list is… bookman Dustum followed by Ferrous the forger.”

  “Excellent. Hold there. Call them both.”

  Ho-man spotted their faces at the back. They looked surprised. He beckoned.

  “If you would, gentlemen. Take the stand.”

  Each man approached but reluctantly, wary. They reached the tri-tortoise platform and stopped.

  “Up you go fellows,” encouraged the clerk.

  “Quick.”

  Resistance was futile. Both witnesses knew it. Ferrous, the handy village woodsmith, offered his big work-worn mitts to the other, a well-seasoned scholar with white-peppered hair. That chap squinted back through his salt crystal spectacles — pale, on the frail side, and nervous.

  “Yes, please…”

  And they climbed. A turtle at a time. The cold-blooded reptiles nipped at their heels.

  “Watch yer step teacher.”

  “Oh thank you good smithy.”

  The pair clambered onto the tip-top turtle’s back and did their best balancing act. It was all they could do just to stand and not slide off the crest of its slick, shiny shell.

  They rode the colorful hull like a surfboard. Two hanging ten on an exoskeleton.

  “Oof! I’m too old for this.”

  “Hold on professor.”

  Soft-hearted Ho-man stood ready below and held solid ground on the off chance they fell. But he had his own hard deadline looming under the thumb of you-know-who. A slip-up and he’d catch hell as well.

  His fine feathered friend reminded him with a peck on the head and a curse-like cluck. “Oath for both! Get swearing! Go clerrrk yourself…”

  “Ouch!”

  He heeded Freebird’s tweet with a grimace. “Men — hand on heart and repeat after me please…

  “I pledge my treasure, my honor and blood to the Semperor. May he judge my soul.”

  Woodsmith and schoolmaster echoed him word for word, and yet lacking conviction. Or more likely fearing it.

  Fyryx was watching and listening closely. He raised an eyebrow at their tone. He frowned at their lack of eye-eye contact.

  “Yo, clerk! Time for more of your legwork.”

  “Aye sir,” the ad hoc footman answered. “Being in shoe business is my dream.”

  John Cap, all but ignored in the background, rolled his dreamy eyes. Freebird groaned.

  Nobody else seemed to get the joke.

  Ho-man pulled the moccasin from a wide pouch pocket at his side. “Bookman, woodsmith — if you’ll doff your stockings a sec… Yes, just your right tootsies if you’d be so kind.”

  Ferrous kicked off his ironwood shoe, a boxy black work boot he’d fashioned himself. It had been hiding a clubfoot inside. A rare, squarish stub that he’d been born with.

  “Oops! Bless you craftsman,” blushed the clerk.

  He looked to the bookman to bare his sole.

  The educator’s feet were wrapped in leather-strapped balm leaves, known for healing. Dustum winced at the prospect of stripping them down to expose his pigeon toes.

  “Fungal infection. Ingrowns and corns. Not to mention the blisters and bunions.”

  Ho-man oohed. “Those legs are plagued! My sympathies…” He put the shoe away.

  The clerk shrugged at Fyryx. “Still no sale today sir.”

  Boss Hurx bristled with disappointment. “Poor excuse for a peddler, you are. Watch me. I don’t take no for an answer.”

  He lit into the teetering tutor.

  “Bookman Phyneas Dustum, is it?”

  “Phyleas.”

  “Phyleas. Yes, of course.”

  Fyryx narrowed his beady eyes, cocking his head back with half a grin.

  “I take it this brat is a student of yours?”

  “That’s correct Treasuror, six years running — ever since bookwoman Netty passed on.”


  “And how did she die? Refresh my memory.”

  “Old age, dozing, during a quill class. There in her chair while her tots practiced runes.”

  The judge snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

  “Like lightning.”

  “Out of the blue?”

  “Truly.”

  “Funny though, that you don’t find it suspicious…” The red justice clutched at his chin for effect. “But then you profited from her death. Inheriting pupils, their tuition.”

  “Are you implying…”

  “Oh tut-tut, teacher! I’m merely trying to learn the truth.”

  The heat of the moment and the sun had started to take a toll on Dustum. He went weak-kneed and leaned on Ferrous, who propped up the dizzy dean.

  Fyryx, for his part, was just warming up.

  “Now, for the record, bibliophile — tell the court what you know about your disciple, this scamp, defendant Yin…” He gave a vague wave toward the hanging lad. Ho-man held his quill at the ready.

  Dustum stuttered and sputtered a moment, stalling for time while he measured his words.

  “Oh dearie me, oh dearie me… what’s there to say about young master Treygyn?” He hemmed and he hawed and he dragged his sore feet. “Hmmm…”

  “I hope you’re getting this down,” jeered Fyryx, in the direction of the clerk. “So seldom do we hear such wisdom.”

  In fact Ho-man hung on his every um.

  “Then I’ll put it like this, burgermeister. Quoting our earliest king philosopher, Pithy Prince Poxum the Third, yore’s first Lore Lord:

  Mine me black coal boys

  Not diamonds or gold

  ‘Tis worth a king’s ransom

  When knights turn cold

  Fyryx begrudgingly touched his heart, snorting, “All hail the Semperors’ word, of course. But… what’s old kings’ coal got to do with this?”

  “Call it a teachable moment, justice.”

  “The lesson?”

  “That everyone has a role, his own shoes to fill in this fateful jig. Even the slacker, the scallywag.”

  The bookman and Treygyn exchanged a look.

  “And what of this tenderfoot?”

  “Not my top student, but…”