*
II
Evening was approaching the pine-covered mountain when the Lobster Knight disturbed the silence left by Sir Palamander’s mournful reverie. It was without warning that he cried, “I will like to have a thing to eat!”
“Perhaps we should continue,” replied Sir Sallimaide softly. “It is still light about us — we can traverse many more miles before stopping.” As near as could be judged amidst the thick trees, they were midway up the mountain. They began to pass great dilapidated barns all fallen into irreparable disrepair, and every so often the blanket of forest would give way to a perfectly square patch of rampantly tall crops — weed-choked fields long abandoned by whatever farmers once propagated these slopes. Grapes, oats, wheat, corn — all deserted and tremendous in size.
“Non, non, why we must make walking on and on anon? My sweet Anabelle is tired of the me on her back, and my belly is an empty! Why denial you us?” Despite his broken speech, the mad frenchman’s mustache was all a-quiver with passion. Sir Sallimaide was about to rebuke the infantile Lobster when the knights all halted short — having heard the timid clanging of a bell from one wheat field which was passing over-grown.
“Who goes there?” The Frog Knight voiced to the twilit field of towering stalks, but was met with only the bell’s low dull clanking. He then called out a short series of strange sounds. He bellowed first, and then he cawed, then he quacked and he grunted until finally from out of the shivering thicket there sounded a low mooing. Sir Sallimaide mooed back and the weave of grain shuffled to reveal, to the knights’ wide-eyed astonishment, a massive white bovine as tall in her frame as any of the giraffes. Sir Sallimaide whispered that she must be very old. Around her giant neck was worn the bell that had sounded, and her ear bore a single yellow rectangular earring with black lettering that read, ‘Tinkersnow.’
Gold-and-scarlet Sir Sallimaide dismounted, approached, and pet the hide of the softly lowing beast. She was stood over the knights, and they saw that in spite of her age she was well-muscled and seemed used to days of labor. The Frog and the cow conversed with hiccuping grunts before he announced that they were following Tinkersnow to a spot at which to set camp for the encroaching night. So the knights dismounted all and led their giraffes behind the waddling wake of the cow. And the mammoth cow led them to the border of a vast corn field. It was this spot, Sir Sallimaide translated to them, at which Tinkersnow slept most nights.
“Should we rather not find one of these abandoned barns or some such in which to bed down?” queried the Ram Knight. “I held out hope that some manner of men might we meet atop the mountain.”
But the Frog Knight replied, “This titan says that we are the first men she has seen in countless years… and that not even any structure remains safe.”
Their cold feast that night was jovial enough considering their wayward circumstances. Perhaps it was the pleasure of companionship with this cow that brightened the break in their searching. Though the night was warm by the corn field still they sat around the fire’s flickering prominence, for it was their final bastion against the darkening of the day and purpling of the sky. And as they supped upon their cereals Tinkersnow mooed and grunted softly by the flame’s reflections in Sir Sallimaide’s armor, and when she would pause to graze on unkempt grass the knight in gold-and-scarlet translated her history.
The Tale of the Aurochs and the Enhanced Soil
“In ages past there had been a farm here. It was here since she was a calf, since before she was born. In its day it widely throve, for she claims that a Roman sorcerer once hexed these fields to grow ever-potent. All manner of food was grown here, and the masters raised much livestock. Tinkersnow’s mother was called Tinkerbell by the ancient farmers, one of many in a carefully manicured dynasty. Yet this was not the case with her father. He had been a wild bull opposed to the methods of human naming conventions, and his own name had been Moo’Moo’Urux. She says that the farmers had feared Moo’Moo’Urux for many months during which the headstrong rogue bull had lain with the finest cows and gorged upon the most succulent growths of these slopes. This bullying bull hated the names of the humans, and had given to Tinkersnow her own bovine name — Moo’Moo’Ra’Um.”
They paused for a while while the bovine grazed and Sir L’angoustier holp himself to another bowl of the Honeycomb that Hadely had left out while tending to their supplies. They all sat intently hearkening to the cow’s lowing speech-tones in the firelight as she related the tale meanderingly to Sir Sallimaide who ate his Cheery O’s in deep concentration. He peered through the rings as if they were portals to the direct meaning of the noises. Ere stars blanketed the dome of night, the Frog resumed his translation. “Tinkersnow says — or rather, Moo’Moo’Ra’Um says — that one day the farmers grew tired of living in the countryside, and all left for London or other cities. It was before the war, she says, thus it must have been during the Light Age. Perhaps earlier; she does not know. These abandoned acres have since fallen with the intervening eras into their present state. Her family all has died out, yet she claims that — like a man — she has lived all these ages long.”
The wise old Ram stroked his silver beard and looked over the rippling stalks of the neighboring cornfield. “If she dwelt here several centuries, does she know of any strange artefacts or irregularities hereabouts?” he asked. “Is there anything to suggest we might discover the key for which we are searching?”
And there ensued a brief honking duet between Sir Sallimaide as the cow related the remainder of her tale. “The forests have regrown over the mountain, and most of the fields became saturated with weeds, and a wild life took firm root. The houses and barns all decayed into nothing as the plants reclaimed that which was built by human hand. Wide spread the reach of the farmers’ crops, and thick grew the vines and trees and grains. Entropy dragged the fastiduous farm into the disorder in which it now lies. She knows nothing of a key, no great thing hidden beneath the flora, yet only repeats to me that since animals slowly began to return to these farms it has become savage and unsafe at night. She wonders if she can continue to survive in such an environment.”
Sir L’angoustier had a careless laugh at this and said, “Sacre bleu, you might think that skies is a falling! I hope we knights know what to do because O it has been so danger in the little walking path in a garden.” His companions tried their hardest to pay him no mind, even as Moo’Moo’Um’Ra loudly mooed in his direction.
Pinpricks of light slowly manifested in the sky’s dome and when night had enveloped their campsite in full, they let Moo’Moo’Ra’Um lay closest to their fire as all the travelers settled into their bedrolls.
Sir Sallimaide gazed deep into the worming embers and the little tongues of burning oxygen that danced within the fuel of the wood. He drifted in a hypnogogic haze and faintly related, “I was raised on the land of a farm, in those long-gone days. Just like a vegetable was I raised. I worked at my father’s behest, responsible for the care of our own smaller cattle, and I was held to the strictest of standards. And the rays of hardships beat on me strengthened me, yet there were also large periods of time during which very little had to be done and I was forced to entertain myself along our quiet acres. I would hide in all our largest storage barns, tucked in the shadows of disused equipment or in hidden spots between the structures. I spoke to all of the animals there, and a few of them spoke back to me.” Sir Sallimaide gave a great mighty yawn, and curled up into his sleeping bag. On the very exhale of his wakefulness, he said, “All those years ago before the Merry Land… before the war… how different the world used to be.”
Sir Moodye lay in his own bedroll and gazed at the specklement of stars stuck in the ever-dark sea. He wondered what their sparklings signified. Are they great warriors, guarding themselves against our planet as we drift towards them? Are they the great kings of the past, watching over us? Are they other worlds, and are we merely a bright spot in the night to them as well? Or is there only one world — and we are catching glimpses of our own reflection fromboth the past and future? What am I searching for? Wherefore do I search? Alas, and why does God never answer me? Doesn’t He-and-She know that I hurt? The Meta-Testament says, ‘Think for yourself when I can’t be there for you.’ Does that mean we merely chase our own tails when we look for signs of God? And what even is all of this about? As the Whale wondered these drifting-away thoughts, his unbidden eyelids began to sink across his vision and he was embraced by darkness that led him into the realm of sleep.
I am walking by the river at twilight. Down in the water are little animals in little canoes: mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits. In their hands are twigs of varying shapes and sizes and they wield them as oars, paddling furiously. I look to see what they are fleeing from and it is a low hanging cloud with a human face; laughing and blowing at the water of the river, pushing it into a great tidal wave that eventually overtakes and drowns the pitiful animals. Their oars and boats break to just driftwood in the clamor and the sticks and their bodies are all washed away. I ask the cloud why he blew away the animals of the forest and he says, “What do I care for those veritable vermin? I am the wind-bringer, a great roaring tempest — I have air to move and wind to make so please remove yourself from my wake!” And the cloud flies by, stirring up great gusts of wind as he goes. Yet soon he comes upon a mountain. He is furious in his efforts, but the great stone mound proves immobile, smiling and tall, the king of the land. The bits of cloud scatter, tatter, and fall into the leaves below. All is still for a century or so. But then comes at last a noise — a stuttering cackle from the jungle drifting through me like broken bird wings. the laughter is a snarling sneaking entity, approaching, dressed in an impossible guise. Small slit yellow eyes. Unblinking unliving his smile; a mad giggling crown; unwanted from lands abandoned under the fright of the moon and his flaming war-laughter —
I awake with a start, the mad cackling still ringing like an untuned unsteady zither in my ears. The darkness is so black that the moon is just a teardrop in an endless night-time sea. Fluttering almost threateningly in the air, that menacing laugh sweeps again across purple plains now with shuffling footsteps to accompany the ugly high-pitched cackle of that man hunting us from long ago when we escaped from the prisons of his teeth —
I awake, laughing, cacking madly, angrily, why can I not cease this nightmare? In my feverish giggling my heart cracks like an egg and I —
Sir Moodye awoke with a start, anxious to confirm that he was no longer dreaming. He stared about his encampment and its sleeping inhabitants, plus one bovine, and pinched himself savoring the pain of relief. Satisfied that he was truly awake, he wope the dream-sweat from his forehead and settled back to his sleeping roll when, chilling him to his spine, he heard once more that depraved laugh: the maniacal cackle spawned in his nightmare. It was louder now than before. Closer. Sir Moodye was now bolt-aright along with all the little hairs behind his neck. The echoing laughter sounded real enough, yet was somehow more odious than it had been when dreamed — it sounded inhuman now in the waking world. Sir Moodye tried to speak, but found that his throat stuck.
It was only with effort that he finally managed to gasp to his companions, “Awaken! Something is amiss!” His voice was dull and whispery in the night, yet it was enough to stir his companions. They heeded the call, unsheathing their brands and stirring from their sleep — all apart from Tinkersnow who was a great weight unwakeable. The knights were not in doubt for long before Sir Moodye’s phenomenon occurred once more: that malevolent inhuman giggle echoed, mocking and scorning them all with its tone.
Sir Palamander grimaced, “What is it?”
Worryingly, the Frog Knight’s face fell into a weary mask as he intoned, “…Hyenas.” Sir Moodye’s eyes widened to engulf his fear, but Sir Sallimaide appended, “We need not be afraid, for these beasts are merely scavengers and would not slay the living for food.” Yet more mocking laughter arose — there were at least three distinct voices — and the knights grew nervous and prepared to defend themselves if necessary.
Sir L’angoustier anxiously began poking the bovine with his foot, saying, “Moo’Moo, you must become awaken!” This endeavor failing, Sir Sallimaide spoke some soft words and pet the cow on her large head, and she began to stir. Once she had regained her feet and her wits she too heard the hyena cackles with instant alarm, apparently familiar with the ferocious source. Without hesitation, the noble bovine bolted into the forest of corn stalks that could barely conceal her form. Sir Sallimaide bade Hadley and all five giraffes out of harm’s way: around the field, and all to meet safe on the far side. While the squire swiftly and quietly herded their steeds away, the four knights all stood stern by the fire and faced the approaching threat. They could hear the shufflings of Tinkersnow’s urgent retreat behind them through the stalks, and each knight brandished his weapon. Slowly, giggling, three approaching shadows slunk from underneath the undergrowth. They were lithe and grey and looked like hungry maniacal dogs, tattered fur with dark frowning spots, ribs displaying their desperate starvation. It was a hefty female with black lips who led the pack, followed by an agitated male. The third hyena’s tongue lolled out sloppily as he cackled to himself over his prey’s dire predicament. They were larger than dogs, much larger than even a man might be if he loped on all fours.
Though the night was mild, Sir Sallimaide began to sweat profusely, his mind was furiously racing. Despite his love for the animals of the realm, the Frog found he had no stomach for these hyenas: they somehow seemed far too lowly and sneaky and vicious to behave in an honorable manner, and their unnatural size frightened him.
“What shall we do?” whispered a frightened Sir Moodye.
Full of grief the Frog Knight mused, “Moo’Moo’Um’Ra is my friend, and I shall not leave her to be murdered by such creatures… and yet neither can we slay these beasts. Verily, it must be wrong of me even to defend her, for to do that is to condemn the hyenas to starvation. It is not our place to interfere with the life-cycles on this mountain! Foul they may be, and ignoble, yet these beasts seek only nourishment as do we all. What can be my course?”
“Sir Sallimaide,” growled the horn-helmed Ram Knight as the scavengers slunk forward, “should we attack? Or flee though the stalks? We must not do neither!”
The three large lean hyenas slipped closer and closer, seeming to look the Frog Knight in the eyes. The grinning runt of the pack obsessively licked his razor teeth, and the female’s tortured gaze smoldered against Sir Sallimaide’s peace-seeking eyes. He tried to cry out to them, he growled and grunted in their manner, yet the laughter of the beasts seemed only to mockingly ridicule the earnest knight. Try as might the Frog Knight, he found no kindness or mercy in their gaunt gaze and felt as if beset not by animal, but by fiend. Fear at their proximity finally overcoming him, he croaked, “We fly!” and they all broke formation to retreat breathlessly through the wide-waving rows of ancient corn that pressed in at them.
Thus did the midnight stalks swish past, thumping against armor as the four knights who charged with reckless momentum. Despite nearing the frightened bellows of Moo’Moo’Um’Ra ahead, their situation remained dire: the four knights were sandwiched in between the rampaging bovine and the deranged noises of the lusty titans who loped and tore through the field with ravenous laughter in hot pursuit.
“I thought you said they were but scavengers!” spat Sir Moodye between desperate breaths. The flame-bearded Frog had no reply, for his mind was wracking with that very question. Entangled with indecision, Sir Sallimaide could only sprint with his powerful hind-legs chasing after the tail-end of Tinkersnow which constantly disapore and reapore in the dark corridor of corn before them.
“What can we do,” croaked the Frog, “to save both predator and prey?”
“Do not the forget about ourselves!” cried Sir L’angoustier from the rear as he glimpsed the face of one feral pursuer emerging just behind him from the night-drenched corn. That slobbering female’s giant visage was twisted in an amused grimace, and her breathing hung ragged on a limp dangling tongue. Eye-stalks wide in terror, the Lobster Knight paused for a moment in running to feign out with his brilliant brand, swatting the hyena with the flat of the blade on her neck. He turned away again and resumed his rush, but he heard the noises of the pitiful creature whimpering as they left her behind. Pure adrenaline propelled the knights and their bovine for what seemed to be centuries until — at once — the malicious giddy laughter dissolved into the night. Soon it had faded completely, and they all stopped to catch their breath at the far edge of the corn field where it melded into the pine forest.
“…probably realized we weren’t worth the trouble,” gasped Sir Palamander, leaning up against heavy Tinkersnow, both out of breath.
Sir Moodye was bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in air in rapid gulps and heaves, and Sir L’angoustier's armor began to emanate a peculiar odor. After the knights had calmed themselves, they began to walk again between the rows of the trees, leading Tinkersnow on. They made meticulous progress as they tried to hide their presence lest the hyenas return. The moon was peeking over the peaks of pines in places, sending down ephemeral beams of her light that illuminated sections of the corn-fiber coated soil.
Striding sorrowfully on through the moonlit night, the troubled Knight of the Frog remained deep in his pond of pondering. I acted falsely, he thought. I know that I did. Yet had I not, this sweet cow would have been slain, and that by my hand! In truth I merely have exchanged their fates: I chose that death should visit the hyenas instead of Tinkersnow! These beasts hunt one another here day in and day out without our interference. Sometimes the hyenas will die — today — but other days their prey becomes consumed. Verily does this prove fatal to the cow, yet it is good for cattle when their own weak are slain. And it is good for the hyenas if their poor hunters do starve. So it seems that they are not separate species: the predators and prey perhaps not two entities but one cycle of symbiosis. The opposites form one whole. If we are to aid them — and ourselves — then we might do best to leave nature to her complex nuances and affairs, for our plans are rarely hers. Though it must have seemed a blessing at the time, the folly of enchanting this over-fertile ground is apparent. In spite of all a man’s intellect, and all of a knight’s even — if nature saw fit she could devour us as hyenas might devour a cow caught unawares.
The knights came to a path that seemed to lead back down the mountainside, and there they waited where the pines were thinning. Minutes of the night dragged by in hesitant indecision when a rustling across the fallen pine needles was heard. Sir Moodye spoke in wonder, “Hark! The beat of knightly hooves! It seems our giraffes are come to us!”
“And Hadely too? They have made it?” asked Sir Sallimaide as he relinquished his reverie.
But before reply could be made, the squire emerged into startling view from the midnight forest. His eyes were wide, his little squire’s shortsword was naked, and he seemed one giraffe short. “Most ill fared we!” cried the breathless squire when he had caught sight of the knights. He rushed the four remaining giraffes over to them and said, “Hyenas three set upon us, different or the same I know not. I defended as well as I could, yet my arm still is weaker than knighthood’s mettle. One noble steed was felled, alas, alas, and dragged into the darkness. O! His cries may never quit my mind though I banish them into nightmares alone!” And he let fall his blade and did kneel upon the ground. A heartfelt ache was in all the knights, for to lose so noble a creature as their own steed was grave.
Sir Sallimaide deeply gazed into the lumination of the moon as she shone through the pines. Tears held off on the edge of his voice, he asked, “Hadley, whose was the slain steed?”
“Many sorrows grieve me, my liege, yet none so much as saying that it was your beloved Corwindel who was rent and dragged screaming into darkness. Forgive me.”
A sick and sorrow fell over the face of Sir Sallimaide. My own giraffe, felled? Dear dear Corwindel, with whom I have shared so many muddled adventures? I have saved friend Tinkersnow, and now too are the hyenas free to live and kill again — the loss entire have I taken on! Is this omen my doom or salvation? Is this cause to feel sorrow? At long last, the Frog said, “It was well done,” and tears did stream into his fiery beard. “Now I alone have borne the burden this night. If I were to be sorrowful, it would be selfish. I say then that our key seems not to have been here. Let us therefore ride on, somehow.”
Carrying two knights each in full armor and mail would surpass the fortitude of any noble giraffe, and the knights argued over what was to be done until the sun rose from his sleep and brightened the sky with fire. Sir Sallimaide had wandered off toward the towering trunks and was softly crying to himself as all the other knights were left to wonder at the tears he shed. They all were weary in the orange morning and knew not what conclusion might be roech, when there came the grunts and moos of Tinkersnow. When she saw that the knights made to leave her mountain she nudged Sir Sallimaide with her formidable snout, uttering fair bovine words unto the sorrowful knight.
In the tongue of her people she said to him, “O knight of the race of man, I have not seen any with hearts so noble as yours and those of your companions in long ages. When in ancient days a great evil was committed, an atrocity against cattle-kind, we since have been but a rare and despised animal treated as mere burdenable beasts. Yet I have dwelt too long alone with my memories on this decrepit wild farm: I must wander on and if I can repay any kindness then I shall do it. Come, friend! Of aurochs-stock was my father Moo’Moo’Urux, and his mighty daughter me! My back is strong and my spine is sturdy. No saddle have you, and none shall I require. I shall bear you to the ends of England and back again, I shall be your fairest friend, and I shall serve you all the days of your human life — for as long as you respect me and my kind.”
The Knight of the Frog could hardly believe his second-hearing ears, and was moved once more to noble tears. He interrupted the squabbling of the unknowing others to inform them of Tinkersnow’s brave resolution. In response to the bovine he lowed, “Know, O Moo'Moo'Ra'Um, that I hold this gesture not lightly. I accept your dearest oath, and now are we become equals.”
Thus, having searched the uncultivated mountain in vain, the time had come for them to press on still farther north in search of lands and artefacts unknown. The valiant riders set forth at dawn, proud upon the giraffes that bore their heraldic markings, yet more proud than these was Sir Sallimaide who had no knight’s mount for upon Tinkersnow’s crestless white hide the mutual friendship of the two shone with the rising of the sun, on and on, and into lands beyond the mountain’s abandoned farmlands.