The Hallway Of The Mountain King

We left Trixtero’s corpse behind with the guardian crow, and descended the steps to the Hallway of the Mountain King and the living white mists.

The Protervus came behind me, its metal claws scratching the stone periodically. You could hear the small scratches as it tried to sneak its claw from one step to the next, it was somewhat annoying but about what could be expected, its hearing is admittedly pretty good for a magical ensorcelled steampunk bathtub, but not so good that it could ever Ninja up on anyone.

As we descended I had the feeling that this was not the best formation we were in, it’s one thing if your tiny poodle follows you down the stairs, it’s another if you are the one taking lead heading into dangerous territory in front of a beast that weighs slightly more than a full grown lion. “You know what” I said with a low voice “you oughta go first”

The Protervus issued a snort of steam from its faucet, and hopped up on the side of the wall to my left, digging its claws with a loud clanging, and then jumping ahead of me on the stairs. So much for the element of surprise.

We went further down the steps, coming finally out in the misty hallway, which really is a bad way of describing it, if this were in the castle of some Human monarch it would be a grand ballroom, given the size and specification, but here, beneath the mountain range that bulwarks up the more primal worlds of fantasy that exist beyond this one… well, here it is just a hallway.

It is not good for a man who is so constituted as I am to consider on grand questions of Universal architecture when having a series of tasks to do as his mind can be easily diverted in consideration of how everything is formed, and the meaning of that formation and following all the twisting byways from that formation to the moment at hand, but damn it sometimes that is exactly what happens. And the world just has to waits its turn while I consider.

Bunburyland is not, per se, a world of fantasy. For fantasy comprises many things that can be very dangerous to mankind. Fantasy, if you are in it, is a world of horror and terror. No mortal can long withstand Fantasy. But Fantasy diluted, and piped into a controlled environment and brewed correctly, can be formed to whimsy. The whimsical reality has almost all the power of fantasy but is far more gentle, and so

Protervus snorted, and pawed the ground. I hadn’t been paying attention as we walked through the fog, which had brought us here, at the Throne of the Mountain King, in the center of the Hallway, and let me just say that is some crappy design. This is really what happens with fantastical creations, they often don’t do things that make sense. The hallway runs down below the range of the Pertha Turnings, all the way, thousands of miles, and at its center there is a Throne, and this a thing you only ever really get in fantasy (whether pure of whimsified), because this Throne my friends faces both directions of the hallway at once.

No really, the Throne faces both directions of the hallway! How crazy is that!? And when you come up the King is facing you, but what would happen if two forces each came down one end of the hall, would the King split and double up? Who knows, one reason I’ve never tried it, your sneaky tricks might just make things worse.

And there he was, sitting on the side of the Throne facing us, The Mountain King and thronged around him thick with their grinning little faces and banged up teapot armor, were his goblin troops. There was a lot of them, must have heard us coming.

Fairies and their genomic branches are all susceptible to flattery. I clicked my heels and bowed absurdly low, doffing my woolen cap and said in a flowery voice “Your Majesty, how delightful to make your acquaintance”

For a faerie being the Mountain King is not so bad really. He’s what you might expect, not so much for a Mountain King that is but for a faerie, if I showed you his picture and asked “What do you think, Mortal Man or Faerie Being” you’d guess Faerie being and it wouldn’t be close either. He is, as Faerie creatures go, presentable and amenable.

Thing is, he’s human, and he looks like crap on that scale.

His hair goes a thousand ways and has not been cut, seemingly forever but I know in several hundred years, oh yes he’s human. but long lived for various reasons I don’t need to go into here. The white hair curls like the fog through the hallway and who knows where the beard ends and the hair begins. He is probably naked, only covered by his hair which keeps him warm, but I worry he has underneath all that fractal wintry fur he wears an ancient soiled diaper otherwise I don’t know where .. but enough about that.

“What do you want?”

“Your Wise And Mighty Force of Greatness and Intellect” also idiots like to be flattered “I am here to argue and trade on the behalf of a comrade who has strayed from the path and sampled the goblin fruits when he should not have. By right he should be the goblin’s capture, to do with as they wish, but his case is not that of most mortal men, and it is an error to treat it as such”

“hmm” said the King “So this is a question of legality? I see” his spindly fingers skittered about through the white and yellowish strands “I had misunderstood, when you killed my servant Trixtero, and thought it was a personal vendetta but it was all a point of law” he laughed in the mad way of humans who have spent too many years in the lands of twilight.

“I’m sorry about Trixtero, but he came at me and I needed to defend myself” The King’s ears twitched, and he sat at a weird angle as if his whole body was listening to something unusual. You know how it is when you’re so used to your environment that things getting just a bit awry seem..hmm, like I think.. the earth might be

The hallway shook, and the fog receded quickly backwards, and into the nooks and crannies of the far off roots of the mountains, so that everything was clear, most of the goblins fell down and looked stupider than normal, slack expressions of surprise on their usually sly faces.

Strewn across the floor were jewels and coins of great antiquity, but also crawling worms and bugs of disgusting appearance, and mud and twisted roots of subterranean plants, the King looked weaker and scrawnier and dirtier without the cool fog shrouding him and curling up with his white farcical and fanciful baroque halo of hair. He looked disgusting, an old mentally ill man in need of medical care and grooming.

I felt slightly nauseous, but that might just have been earthquake sickness, as the earth was buckling quite roughly now.

The floor of the hallway began to crack and shadow seep in, lots of shadows where before was only fog and cold light, the shadows furl up like smoke from empty space, and rising and rotating with bits of floating gloom breaking off from the main body of shadow like ash and at the top a snarling mean little red eyed face opening its mouth to scream

“SSSSssslinkiztowicczzzz hasss hisss Revengessss”

“Well that’s unexpected” I said appreciatively, as game recognizing game is a prime virtue of mine. I jumped into Protervus and slapped its sides, at which signal it galloped boldly forwards, past the scrambling hysterical goblins, up to the throne where I grabbed the King and shoved him roughly behind me into the tub, saying only “Welcome aboard, your Majestic Prickliness” (on account of all the pointy bits of hair sticking out of him like a thorn bush, natch)

“Save me, I’m human!” whined the Mountain King.

“Working on it,” I replied, as the hallway began to crumble inward, and the mountains collapse on the still growing shadow of Slinkiztowicz, or as I like to call him, Stinky Slinky.