Chapter 53: Ch: 46 Pictures of You

Ch: 46 Pictures of You

“It dinnae get better than this, nae till Amy’s wedding…” Shai whispered softly.

“Welcome to the Marriage Games Shai. We have been waiting for you.” Adelia said cheerfully. While sizing up her grandchildren's peers.

 

Poor oblivious man, Gary was all unawares. Becky watched with interest though. Seeing Shai completely flat footed and in another person’s thrall, except Gary’s… was weird. 

“Aye, this be how it begins, forgive me Amy, tis nae easy tae resist.” Shai whispered in the dozing girl’s ear.

Wilford reached out and patted Shai on the cheek wisely. “Amy!” He burbled firmly. 

 

“Aye, ye hae the right o it Wilford me lad, Shai will nae buckle tae the pressure o her peers… nae this day by any means.” She bussed him on the forehead firmly and tucked the boy back in the cart.

 

They parked the cart in the temple yard and joined a queue of new parents and relatives outside Craft’s rather gaudy temple. Gary dropped a bronze mark down the offering well with a smile. 

“Tis too much Gary, ye did say yer coin were dwindling…” Shai began, before pulling Gary close and whispering savagely. “Do ye plan on stinkin this peaceful gathering Gary? Fie on thee were that yer plan! I’ll hae nae part in such…” 

Gary kissed her full on her flapping mouth and gave a squeeze. “I’m stupid rich woman, remember that sack? Let me enjoy being that guy for once. That proud papa with no agenda.” He kissed her again. “I’ll be a subversive muckraker after the festival.”

 

They passed into the temple itself shortly, each child receiving a short blessing from a priest in the elaborate workmans wear of craft cult business. Afterward, each babe was held aloft by a priest of the god on the token drawn from an ornate bag. 

 

The altar hosted a few familiar faces in the regalia of their several temples. Tawny was on hand, in her golden robes, among others. Enveloping anonymous robes were a government conceit for legal proceedings.

For a joyous surprise, Harlan was officiating, Craft priest Theo was nowhere in sight. Adaelia giggled adorably beside Shai when she gasped with delight. 

“Harlan told Theo you would be in the line with our new little ones.” She stroked Amy’s sleepy cheek. “He could not hand over the duty quickly enough. He has gone to visit a village nearby to officiate their celebration.”

She giggled again. “This is the first festival of Craft that Harlan will be home for… since we came to Wheatford for Shai.” She giggled yet again, making Harlan up by the altar, perk up and blush.

 

Poor Becky was mortified, fascinated and terrified all at once. Things in Wheatford were getting very ‘spring festival’ feeling at midwinter.

“Gary, Shai, do you feel that?” She whispered as they slowly moved up the line.

“That’s Joy. She’s peeking in right now, just breathe your way through it.” Otho whispered from where he had suddenly appeared beside her. 

“She will be visiting you as well Becky, I may be biased in this… you will be well served by a link to my… our lady Joy. Now shush, lest Harlan accuse me of poaching game in his temple, on a feast day no less… the scandal!”

“That was all you Otho.” Gary whispered, his well modulated voice barely above a mouse’s fart.

Harlan barked a percussive and sharp cough at Gary’s face, it rang and echoed throughout the hall, announcing his displeasure to all. At least until Shai handed over Amy.

 

Suddenly Harlan was all good grace and smiling benedictions, invoking the ever loving gods, spirits and everything in between, ending on “...an the glorious Sidh, ridin’ the wind an sailin’ by moonbeams.”

 

He plunged his hand into a sack of golden velvet and plucked out a token of bronze on a satin thong. “The mark of Joy! The blessings of long life and family are to be Amy Ward’s!” 

Daniel, the harper from Joy, took her and held her up for the crowd to admire in the familiar ritual, before handing her back with a smile of genuine affection.

With Wilford, their proud Granpa did the same invocation, beaming with pride so hard he must have sprained something. 

He reached into the bag and plucked another bronze token. “The mark of Order! Blessings of wisdom and courage are to be Wilford Brimley Ward’s!” Rolf Belen held the meaty lad aloft, looking very fine in some well polished armor.

The whole temple slowly filled with families cheering each new addition just as lustily.

 

“It hae been a grand year for babes, an nae just ours. Tis a joy to see so many!” Shai hummed and whistled along with Gary the whole way back. Her bells reappeared outside the temple confines to the delight of all. 

The clouds and a slow misting rain moved back in, putting a literal damper on the outdoor activities of the afternoon. 

“Party at the house?” Gary asked innocently.

#

 

Poor Annie had to share her quarters with a number of sleepy friends and relations who had neither the energy nor sobriety to find their own way home. She took it all with good grace, until Shai’s uncle Semus tried to ride Annie out into the rainy evening.

He had a habit of ‘borrowing’ any horse he bumped into while intoxicated, he was also well known for returning them well shod, immaculately groomed and free of parasites. 

Some suspected he was secretly a priest of the god of Beasts, rather than the more mundane reality of a talented farrier with a gift for horses and a lack of impulse control.  

 

“Were he actually a priest of the god of Beasts he might have succeeded.” Khan said, while Tawny tried to wake him up. 

 

“Did she kick him?” The tiny physician was frantically looking over the enormous, hairy man in workman’s clothing, searching for an injury.

“Headbutt. He tried to whisper in her ear and got knocked cold.” Khan was trying so hard to not laugh at his new friend’s insensate kin. He gave up when the giant rolled over, farted thunderously and began to snore.

 

Telltale signs of white pollen in the giant’s hair showed Tawny the answer. “Curse Gary and his silly vines. This one is fine, try to step on him firmly, rather than tripping over him.” Her own barely restrained laughter was lost in Khan’s loud and abrasive noises.

She demonstrated, planting a tiny boot on his back and stepping up and over. “He will wake in an hour or two, have one of these enormous men strip him and then into the pool.”

 

He joined a veritable logjam of human flotsam in the public pool. Every person that ‘happened to come by’ also happened to bring a dish and a jug of something potent. 

Most of the floating wreckage was clearly some intersection of ‘enormous’ and ‘ginger’. The Shai side of their venn diagram was hilariously having trouble keeping their shit together.

#

 

The mystery was solved when Gary caught Tallum bringing two kegs of hard cider and a small cask of mead in through the garden. “Dude, your folks are getting hammered in my house. You’re making it worse!”

 

“Gary, if they run out of booze they will wander off into the night. Most came in for the feast, since Papa was officiating for the first time in the temple. With two babies as well, we have to do this right. I’m an uncle twice over now.”

 

Gary complained at the sheer number of guests with his mouth, while furiously working his backside to give everyone a good time from behind the scenes. He constantly appeared and vanished, popping up wherever things got rowdy or morose. 

 

The Bathers kept a rotating trio going with simple, repetitive dance tunes while Shai laid traps for the unwary. More than one person stepped on the dance floor, looking for the jakes or a refill and found themselves press ganged into Shai’s rhythm army.

She would dance them unconscious and stack them in a spare room, wrapped in conjured bedding with a chamber pot nearby.

Thankfully, simply dismissing the container took its contents into the ether as well. Shai secretly hoped some eldritch abomination was getting a… whatever they have, full of her kin’s leavings.

“It works because you really don’t want to keep the contents.” Gary whispered in the crowded sleeping room.

“Don’t even check, just vanish them all and summon more every little while. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

 

“Fie, that be good thinking, I hae seen more than I like already this night.”

#

 

When the house was as empty as it was going to get, Gary caught Becky alone. “Becks, are you still wearing that ring? I just realized, I can’t feel it anymore.” Concern peeked out from behind his voice. 

 

“I haven’t worn it since that first night, it fell off when I woke up and it won’t go back on. I gave it to Shai. Is it ok? Do you have company in there?” She reached out and thumped his skull with a fingertip, as though checking a melon for ripeness.

“Nahh, I wanna help the others with some literacy cheats. My brain is good for more than just movies, there’s music and stuff too.” He playfully twirled her by the hand while Liam, Dannyl and Tawny kept the music going. 

“Check out musical notation and start digging through some of the sheet music books in my head. We start building your project on first day. Decide what you want it to be love.” He slipped away like a ghost, off on some other errand.

Up on the bandstand, Ivy and Tallum joined in while Liam got himself dragged off by the smiling hosts to some unknown fate.

#

 

“So what’s going on, why are we down here?” Down in the workshop, Liam had Gary and Shai closing in on him. 

 

“Two things Liam, congratulations on getting Contracted with Knowledge. Second thing, you haven't accepted Contract with the spear… no pressure, it wasn’t supposed to have a Contract, that was purely accidental.”

“Gary, I didn’t know what it said. You never mentioned what your thing looks like… I suspected, but…” Liam looked a little embarrassed. “Every time you remember I don’t read you look at me like I have a deformity.”

 

“Yeah, and that’s my hangup. Think about whether you want a spear Contract. I think I can fix it for you if you want. Either way, this is for you.” Gary held up the newly finished instrument.

Every inch of it was some color of amber or golden honey, the purple brown grain swirling in random kinks and whorls enhanced that, while adding a mystery of their own. Bright silver strings shone ghostly and spectral, hushing and whispering, even when still. 

Knobs and switches capped in golden amber, glinted in harsh reality, demanding attention. Closer examination revealed some had insects trapped in the shining resin, the volume and two tone knobs were honeybees. While a small moth, trapped in an amber orb rode on the upper horn of the strangely rounded and pointed instrument. 

 

“This is a haunted plum burl Stratoblaster, you will learn to love it Liam, the moth is a distortion knob, leave that alone for now.” Gary said, holding the weird instrument out. Shai was staring at it and Gary with a strange intensity, Liam was too. 

“Hey… Liam, go ahead and take it ok? We can talk later if you want, but go on and take it bro.” 

Gary pressed it into his friend's hands and hugged him. “Go show Tawny what you can do with that, buddy.” He turned the young man around and shoved him up the stairs.

 

“What were that about?” Shai asked when Liam was gone. 

“Haunted plum burl, I have a lot of it and it's really good, but it always tells the truth. You got all hot and bothered cause you think I’m sexy… Liam did too, and it surprised him. Me too, cause it works both ways, sometimes you learn something about yourself.”

 He shrugged again. “I wanna see what happens when Tawny gets a load of that…”

They both stopped, looked at eachother and scrambled for the stairs like the house was on fire. 

 

Upstairs, Tawny and Liam were playing together, really together. They were face to face, Her half standing at the Pianoforte, him strumming smoothly, close enough to kiss, yet not touching.

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“What song be that, I hae heard it before…” Shai whispered,entranced by the show.

 

“That’s ‘Time of the Season’, we played it together when Esperanza first showed up. Liam has been hearing it in his dreams for a few weeks, that’s probably my fault. Poor guy has been soaking in my pool longer than anyone. He must be simply riddled with my weirdness.”

 

Gary caught a few nasty glares for talking during the show, mostly from the older crowd of townies. 

They had been following the Liam and Tawny show in the local gossip, since the pair were born. Now with a close up view, they were all deeply invested.

 

The band picked the dropped musical threads back up when Gary and Shai cracked the metaphorical and magical whip. The others brought the energy up, until Tawny bounced all the way off of her bench, snatched a tambourine and started dancing around Liam in ways that made Shai cringe.

“Ye shall nae be the only one at dance lessons boy.” Shai whispered feverishly, almost panting with excitement. “This be a party tae remember, let us end it well my boy, then off tae bed.”

“Ok, hold on tight love, we are gonna get weird.” Gary whispered back… and was once more viciously shushed by a nearby grandmother. 

Gary thought about shushing her back, until one hand slowly crept toward her sandaled foot…

 

As the song wound down from the jam band place it had wandered off to, Gary faced off against Tallum’s bass and began thumping a groove on his low E and A.

Tallum picked up the thudding and percussive line and rolled it up tight, within seconds he was plucking and tapping inside the groove. “Mmm.. yeah…” Gary  grunted in time, while carrying the bass line on a step higher.

Shai started swaying in time and clapping, while Ivy got some crisp snares and a kick drum in the jam.

 

The beat had its hooks in the hindbrains of the whole crowd, making them easy prey. 

Shai grinned with evil joy and started doing the thing everyone was surprised she had not already started.

As though he had been waiting for her, Gary spoke crisply and sharp to the beat. 

 

Bust it.

 

This heres’ a jam for all the fellas,

Try-to do what those ladies tell-us. 

 

By the second ‘if you want it, you got it’ half the crowd was joining in, the other half were gasping for breath, trying to keep up with the frantic, driving beat. ‘Bust a Move’ earwormed into their spines and made a permanent groove.

 

When the last exhausted party goer sagged into a chair and nodded off under a conjured blanket,exhausted Bathers started bravely trying to create a little order. Gary just shook his head and waved them off, abandoning the hopeless task till morning.

 

Upstairs, the equally worn out pair collected their children from the arms of a softly snoring Adelia and staggered off to squeeze into their bed.

#

 

“What were that last song, t’were odd, I hae never heard such, an ye seemed hesitant tae start.” Shai asked.

“That musical form comes with some baggage from my world. I don’t indulge in Hip Hop often.” He gnawed on the inside of his cheek in thought. “There are some real bangers, though I wonder how well they’ll translate.”

 

Out in the dream garden, Gary found Thirp and the kids watching Disney films again. 

“You guys all did so much while I was away.” He waved to encompass the tiny island. “Is everybody else as pleased with the result as I am?”

“Gary.” Wilford said affirmatively, toddling over to be picked up. 

 

“Stay away from the old Disney, stuff. There are some problematic things.” He whispered to Thirp, while mentally tucking a few things away. 

 

Gary left Shai and the kiddos to watch, while he dragged Thirp and Ducky off to confer. 

“So, two of those things… Did we learn anything new? I know you guys poured over every second of our time together. Any clues or hints?” Gary took a seat in the main room, across from his non-human friends.

“The glamour used to conceal the construct’s nature was simple and direct, almost primitive, yet familiar in some way.” Thirp sang thoughtfully.

“I believe you may have touched something similar in the recent past. It is all tangled up in the events around your recent near destruction. Understandably the memories around that event are fragmentary and damaged…”

 

“That doesn’t ring any bells for me. What are we talking about?” Gary mused.

 

Marduk seemed to have an intensity to his focus now, he seemed less frail and thin as well. 

“Something was off in the time immediately around your encounter with that pinching horror. Returning there may provide a clue.”

 “If you could manage to avoid being eaten that would be splendid.” He said with a genuine smile of affection. “I’ve grown accustomed to your face…”

 

“Ooo… someone found the musicals! Let me know when you get to ‘Man of La Mancha’ O’Toole is no great singer, but man those songs.” 

 

“I suppose if you were to be devoured by some unspeakable nightmare from the depths, journeyman Shai would surely take me in…” He actually reached out and hugged Gary, laughing like a child all the while.

 

“Hey… let’s talk about you Ducky, you ok? You are going through a lot of changes right now, do you wanna talk?”

“All is well, my new worshippers and Contracts are filling out my essence, granting me greater reach and scope.” His voice was stronger too. 

“Soon I may be able to venture into the veil, where we exist normally. Though I will need to nest here in your lovely domain and enjoy your hospitality a while longer.” He looked around the home fondly.

“I am the only one of us to experience mortal existence in this way. Certainly I alone have walked the mortal world, however briefly. Thank you for your continuing impossibility Gary.” 

 

“Aww, shucks. Being impossible is one of my favorite things!” The unlikely trio strolled out into the garden together.

#

 

Dannyl closed his sketchbook with satisfaction. Tawny’s portrait faced opposite Liam’s in his book, it pleased him that their images kissed when he closed the cover.

His face was captured in the moment when Tawny had spilled warm, liquid chocolate down her golden bosom. The love and lust on his friend’s face had been too delicious; letting that moment fade would be a travesty.

Dannyl had expected a long wait, before he could add a Tawny to match his latest Liam. Her expression of naked and wanton hunger had almost slipped past unnoticed. Almost. He had her, sketched out in flowing strokes in ink, captured in an unguarded moment of simple human need. 

 

Long sweeping tresses flew in exuberant motion, halted in time by his gift of memory. Her eyes, dewy and near to weeping with joy, locked on a point just over the observer’s shoulder. Her keen gaze slid across his audience like a heated iron bar passing dangerously close. Dannyl was particularly proud of that.

He slid his Liam and Tawny book in beside Becky, Ivy, Shai and his newest; Gary and Shai. Ivy and Tallum would have their own soon enough. 

He settled back on his bunk with his guitar and noodled his way to sleep, satisfied and content with his old friends, new friends and new god. 

 

As sleep took him, he felt a presence, a sense of something vast and highly entertained, gazing in on him from somewhere beyond with matriarchal pleasure. 

“I think this one can almost hear me…” A faint voice of rushing streams and children’s laughter seemed to say, from a terrifying gulf of nothing that lay between.

#

 

Dannyl’s eyes opened and stared directly into high priest Otho’s. That worthy was hovering over him with a smile so wide he looked insane. 

“You did hear. My… our lady Joy was almost able you touch you… as our oldest remembered songs and stories claim! Did you glimpse her form? A thousand curses on Gary for that, jealousy is not very Joyous.”

 

“Let’s go see if they are up, I certainly need a bath after last night.” The long-suffering young man said.

 

They were not up. It was still an hour or so till first bell, but they, or at least Gary were almost always up at that hour. 

Instead of an industrious and weird host with strange manners, they found a score of passed out forms bundled up on the common room floor. One in the kitchen, several in every available room and even one still floating like a corpse in the bath. 

 

Otho and Dannyl stepped carefully over the slumbering mounds and once in the bath, they struggled to roll over the sleeping giant. 

Harlan’s snore rattled the walls and made other sleepers stir, so they quickly rolled him noisy side down again.

“Gary says it’s safe… he’s probably fine.” Dannyl said, lounging back on the curb. “Was that really lady Joy? In my dream?”

 

 Otho nearly trembled in excitement. “Certainly, She was very excited! Lady Joy has only the faintest memory of when last she was able to approach a mortal’s dreams without a Contract ritual.” He shook his head in wonder and joy. “I myself am shocked at the revelation that such was ever possible!”

 

“What about Gary and Shai? She revealed herself to them.” The younger man wondered aloud.

 

“Hmm? Oh, no. Creatures such as those two don’t really count, they have traveled too far. They will never be considered truly mortal any more. A pity that.” 

He contemplated something while soaking in the effervescence of the unguessable beyond.

“I certainly hope I do not get dragged any farther into his foolishness. I am an old man, I need my rest.” 

 

Otho winked so hugely that even Harlan picked up on it.

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