57: The Price of Open Arms

  "I used the word idiotic earlier," the dragonspawn said when they reached their destination. She was looking at Gord, and he wasn't certain she meant he was idiotic, or she wanted him to agree with her sentiment. "But I used idiotic wrong. I forgot to add harebrained. As in an idiot with the brain of a hare."

  Gord was staring at the same thing as the dragonspawn. In fact, they were all staring at it with a look of confusion except for Lita. They'd travelled to the These Dreams Park For Centering The Soul which was in the center of Everyrosehasitsthorn and in the center of that park was this somewhat frightening tree. The tree certainly was beautiful, in that it was twenty feet tall and the top branches curved so that it took the shape of a giant harp. Tight vines went from that top branch to another branch below, so tight Gord was certain they would play a note if plucked. The oddest thing about the tree was that along the trunk and the thicker branches were protrusions that looked a little like those eggs from Alien. Except each egg had a roundish, hair-like top covering of moss. And a nose-like extension.

  "We are going to travel by harp?" Kim asked.

  "Well," Lita said, standing next to the tree. "This is The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes, and it will give you a wish. One wish in your lifetime. It will also, if we ask it, transport us across any distance in Metaloria."

  "That's a very long name," Fiora said. "I need another ale just hearing it."

  "So we could wish to go home to Earth?" Kim asked.

  "That may work," Lita said. "Others have tried."

  There was something not right about the tree, Gord decided. Was it just the unsightly lumps on the branches? "And what happened to those others?" Gord said.

  "They vanished." Lita patted the tree. "Never to be heard from again."

  "So they may have gone somewhere else?" Gord took a step away from the tree.

  "Or only their legs went to Earth," Lita replied. "Or their soul. It is The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes, after all."

  "Could we wish for Damon back?" Fiora asked.

  "Yes, but it is imperfect. He might come back as an ooze."

  Gord looked the tree up and down. "And you can only use it once?"

  "Yes."

  "Even with that risk, why isn't there a line-up for this tree?" Kim asked.

  As if forming a new habit, Lita touched the two pieces of JoJett strapped to her belt. "There isn't a lineup because most people in Balladria are happy with their lot in life. They can approach the king if something horrible happens to them or their livestock—well, they could do that when there was a king. Also, if either the wishing or the travel request is done incorrectly, you become one with the The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes."

  Gord squinted at the lumps along the tree. They were not as smooth as he'd thought, and the moss looked a little like hair, the lumps like noses, and now he saw a screaming mouth-shaped indentation as if—

  "They're heads," Kim said at the same time as the dragonspawn.

  Gord shuddered. He'd seen some horrible burnt-up things in his army life, but this was incredibly disturbing. Because the people who were now a part of that tree had clearly been screaming. And might still scream behind that bark.

  "Now you know why there isn't a line of Balladrians waiting to make requests of the tree," Lita said. "You have to be willing to give up everything."

  "Are they screaming in pain?" Kim asked. "Or is it… joy?"

  "No one knows for certain," Lita said. Gord wondered how many times she'd contemplated using this tree. "And they can't be communicated with. I've tried."

  "Oh," Gord said. It was clear Lita had once known some of these bumps.

  "So you see, the choice before you. We can use The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes for our own desire to arrive at Blayre's palace before your friend." She pointed at a lump that had a loud, horrible, screamy look to it. "But we risk becoming one of them. Sojourning by wagon would take too long."

  "What about riding vargs?" Kim asked.

  Lita shook her head. "I know only three who have ridden vargs, including you. And vargs only travel their own paths, not ours. Assuming Blayre has plans for the king's head that are more nefarious than I can imagine, we need to reach him quickly. Especially to retrieve that walnut. This is our only chance to intercept the king's head before it is used by Blayre for whatever nefarious purpose he has. And to save our friends."

  "How do you become one of the screaming heads?" Gord asked. "I mean, is it a lottery? What are our odds, one in four? One in eight?"

  "Not even our greatest scholars know why travellers end up one with the tree," Lita said. "So I do not know our odds or the reasons. It is filed under 'sheep manure happens'. So, our choice is stark. We give up our personal wishes and all wish to go to Blayre Palace or we turn away and begin the march to the land of Blayre, likely arriving too late."

  "Think about this," Gord said to Kim. "You could go home."

  "I'd feel bad drinking a latte in Starbucks wondering what happened to Damon. I'll go."

  "Then I will go too," Gord said. He was proud of her for not leaving a comrade behind. He found he didn't strongly need to go back to Earth, his world. So far, this world had been interesting—the most interesting thing he'd done since he retired other than going to Anvil and Iron Maiden concerts. He liked problem-solving. "I'll go."

  "None of you will survive a moment without me," Fiora said. "So, I will honor you with my company."

  "Well," Lita said. "We are a fortuitous grouping."

  Kim snapped her fingers as if remembering something. "Not a grouping," Kim said. "A fellowship. It's what Damon would want us to be: a fellowship."

  "Then, let us go," Lita said. "The first thing we have to do is open our arms and hold hands."

  "Ugh," Fiora said. "I already hate this."

  58: Doing The Heavy Metal Shuffle

  Kim had her uncle's hand in her left hand, and Fiora's rough, scaly, clawed hand in her right. The dragonspawn was squeezing rather tightly, but it was hard to tell whether it was her worry about Damon manifesting itself, or she just wanted to inflict pain.

  "And now we will sing," Lita said, sounding very much like a choir mistress. "From your hearts and your souls and the soles of your feet. Shout it out loud and sing."

  "Ugh," Fiora groaned, tightening her grip. "I'll kill any of you who mention this hand-holding again."

  "We will have to match the tune The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes offers to us," Lita continued. Uncle Gord was watching her speak as if she were about to perform a miracle. "And we should all picture a place in our minds. Near where Damon will be, but also hidden from Blayre."

  "So we don't have specific coordinates?" Uncle Gord asked.

  "Location you mean? The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes will follow our wishes as closely as it can." Lita drew in a breath, centering herself. "It will send us up around the bend and beyond, though a non-perfect wish may mean we are deposited in a pile of sheep or cow dung, or a sewer, or an ogre toilet or …"

  "Your examples all involve manure," Kim said. "I'm going to imagine positive places."

  "If we wait much longer," Fiora said. "I will imagine a thousand more bad endings. My mother had a saying for this very situation: It's going to get worse, let's just get it over with. She usually uttered this before a meal, but it applies to most everything in life."

  "I agree with the dragon person thing," Uncle Gord said. "Let's get it over with. I'm ready."

  Lita nodded and reached out, plucked the string, and then grabbed Gord's hand, completing their circle.

  Silence followed, as if plucking the string brought the whole vale to a perfect silent lucidity. The vibrating vine made a low humming tone. Then the next string rang, and the notes interposed themselves as if it were a symphony warming up. Soon, a clear note chord rang out. And another. One after the other, they made the very tiny and almost invisible hairs on the back of Kim's neck raise up. For the chords sped up naturally, following one after the other, building to a crescendo.

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  Then the mouths on the wooden bump heads opened up, and sang.

  "Heavy Metal Shuffle!"

  It was gloriously beautiful. And yet, despite the harp-like tones of the music, it still sounded like a metal song.

  "These are weird lyrics," Kim whispered.

  "It's the greatest Canadian metal song of all time," Uncle Gord said. "'Heavy Metal Shuffle'. If you leave out Anvil's 'Metal on Metal', that is."

  "It's perfect," a voice said. It took Kim a moment to realize it was Fiora.

  Lita shushed them. "Sing," she commanded. "This song will shuffle us across half of Metaloria. Sing for your friend. Sing for your lives!"

  Kim wasn't certain how they could sing words she had never heard before. But she opened her mouth, and they came out. The four of them sang along with the mouths in the tree.

  They hit the notes mostly bang on. She'd taken enough vocal lessons to recognize that Fiora had the purest voice of all. That was surprising. By the time they hit the chorus, they had their timing perfect.

  "Heavy Metal Shuffle

  Heavy Metal Shuffle!"

  The words and the forward momentum of the song grabbed ahold of her. Uncle Gord added a baritone to it all. They were all one with the song, the tree, the people trapped in the tree, or perhaps they were in their own heaven singing. Her body vibrated. She felt the grip of her companions. But the vibrating was growing closer, so that it wasn't just every molecule vibrating along with the notes, the harp, the singing.

  They all sang at once:

  "Metal shuffle!"

  And then The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes faded into a bright shining silver light. Kim was bewildered, and dazed. The music, though, was still strong, and she suddenly felt tugged towards the song, towards a chance to sing it forever. And despite it being a song from the 80s, she recognized there was beauty and purpose in being one with the tree. Easier not to have to worry, to just be giving something mostly good to everyone who came with a request. That's who lived in the tree. Forever a part of the song. No longer struggling, but only giving. She drifted back towards the tree and knew if she let go, she would be in the tree.

  This is happening to everyone else, she thought. They are making the same choice. She tried to imagine Fiora stuck in the tree and nearly smiled.

  Then she knew why she couldn't become part of the tree. The first reason was that she wanted to go home. This new world was wonderful, frightening, and dangerous. But she wanted to go home. And the second reason was Damon. She couldn't leave him in danger. She tightened her hands. The tree grew further away; the metal shuffling song was louder.

  And, a moment later, there was absolute silence and darkness. Like a curtain falling down. She drew in a breath.

  "How many of you idiots are here in the darkness with me?" Fiora said.

  "I'm here," Kim said. She realized no one was holding her hand. Had she lost Uncle Gord? She put her hands out into the darkness, hoping she didn't inadvertently touch Fiora's snout.

  "I'm here too," Uncle Gord said. "There is a solid level floor beneath us. So we are not in a cave. Maybe it's a room without light. Don't you agree, Lita?"

  There was a long, silent and pregnant pause that gave birth to discomfort.

  "Lita?" Uncle Gord repeated. Then he raised his voice to a half shout. "Lita? Where are you?"

  "She is gone," Fiora said.

  Then a fiery brightness appeared that hurt Kim's eyes. It revealed nothing but darkness around them—no walls or ceiling—but she could now see her uncle to her left and Fiora to her right. The flames she was spitting out were also rather close to Kim. This realization was followed by the smell of burning hair.

  "Not again!" Kim shouted, smacking at the side of her head.

  "You shouldn't be so flammable," Fiora said. It went dark as she spoke. "We needed light."

  Then the flames came again, this time pointed away from both Kim and Uncle Gord. There wasn't any sign of Lita. Even the floor, though it felt solid, also looked like, well, pure darkness.

  "This place must be incredibly large," Uncle Gord said. He stamped his foot on the floor, but it made no sound. "And the floor feels solid, but doesn't make a noise."

  "We asked the The Tree of Heavy Metal Shuffling and Non-Perfect Wishes to send us somewhere near Damon," Kim said. "Someplace safe. But where are we?"

  "You fell into a pit," a voice said all around them. "I'm so pleased to let you know that from this moment on the torture never stops."

  "I know that sarcastic tone." Fiora's flames stopped flaming. Darkness surrounded them like a thick obsidian cloak. "We are doomed. We are utterly, horribly and irrecoverably doomed."

  59: Welcome To My Nightmare

  Fiora's statement was followed by quadraphonic male laughter that had a whisky-soaked-cigarette-flayed aspect to it that also dripped with world weariness. To Kim, it came across as a ten on the volume scale.

  "Yes, you are so gloriously doomed," the voice said. It wasn't Blayre, Kim realized. Too deep and gruff. It was someone grumpier and angrier and, somehow, sleazier. One of those voices that if you heard it at a party, you immediately set down your sparkling water and headed for the exit. "You fell into a pit," the voice continued, dripping with glee now. "Nice work. Welcome to my nightmare! I'm going to suck your blood like a lascivious leech. Your children's children will speak of your idiocy." He gargle laughed again. "And in case you don't know where you are—welcome to The Pit Of Never Ending Sarcasm."

  "The what now?" Uncle Gord said. He had reached out in the pitch darkness to put a hand on Kim's shoulder. This at least made her feel like there was something solid in the room. Well, she was ninety percent certain it was his hand. She touched it and recognized his rough, scarred knuckles. "The pit of what?"

  "The Pit of Never Ending Sarcasm," Fiora wheezed out the words. "It is a hadeshole from Hades."

  "Methinks," the voice said. "Methinks the dragonspawn's pea-sized brain has come up with a clever saying: Hadeshole from Hades! Hey that could be a band name. Or a dragonspawn beat poet pub. But, dear lovely, glowingly bright-eyed Fiora is right. You are in the pit. I am the pit. The pit is me. So you are in me. My apologies if I am being too deep for you." There was a somewhat dramatic pause. "Get it? A pit apologizing for being too deep. Get it?"

  "So it's the actual pit that is talking to us?" Kim said.

  "Oh, the girlie can stitch sentences together!" the pit said. "She's clearly a killer queen of cognizance among spawners."

  "This is a pit." Fiora was over to her left. "But this very place we are standing was actually a mortal. It was Blayre's royal jester, Lord Garn?t Dubrow of Dubrowham. One day he trod upon Blayre's ego with a quip about his eyebrows and Blayre, right before my eyes, turned him inside out and outside in and then tore up his sarcastic, horrid soul—he stretched and tanned it with spells, music of the country and other horrid songs, reforming the essence of Lord Garn?t Dubrow of Dubrowham's personality and sarcasm until he became a palm-sized version of the Pit of Never Ending Sarcasm. Blayre held that little ball of blackness in his hand and laughed for several long minutes. He said, 'My royal eyebrows disagree with you, Jester—caterpillars, they are not' and then tossed the ball into the ceiling and it became a hidden part of his palace. Blayre would send the people he hated the very most into this very pit." She sighed. "It was shortly after that experience I tried to leave Blayre. Not that I liked Lord Garn?t Dubrow of Dubrowham. He was obnoxious and horribly unfunny. But I, suddenly and clearly, saw Blayre's bad side."

  Kim wanted to ask what had taken her so long. She'd known Blayre was bad news the moment she looked at the drawing of him in the j?rk's chest. But sometimes love blinds one to the faults of others. Again she thought of the ex-boyfriend who was a drummer in a country band.

  "Well, you certainly made that story about you," the pit said. "It was I who had to have my interior essence stripped, torn, weaved, whooshed and spooled around to become a great big black hole that exists in the neitherworld amongst the interstices of Blayre's palace. I spend my time waiting for celestial spiders or ghostly mice to crawl into my pit for torment. But mostly I wait for the wonderful wizard to send illustrious company such as yourselves to use as entertainment. You tell the story as if you were the heroine. Keep going. We're so very entertained."

  "I was done with the story," Fiora said. "Were you expecting more?"

  "Not from you," the pit said. "No one ever expects more from you. In fact, that is the longest speech I've heard Fiora give."

  "So we are inside the this pit?" Kim asked.

  "It must be so lovely to be so pretty," the pit said. "Alas, you have no other fair attributes."

  "But where are we in the palace?" Gord asked. "Are we in the darkest dungeons or near any palatial suites?"

  "Oh, poor baldie's brain was melted like cheese on a bun," the pit said. "Let me explain to your cheese. I am not here, and I am not there. I am everywhere. Everywhere. Like rotten berries in a bowl of blueberries. You look, but you can't find them all. I am the blackest berry in the palace of Blayre."

  "He is telling us the truth," Fiora said. "The pit is within the castle. But it isn't anywhere that takes up space."

  "And you're in me," the pit said. "And I'm into you. Well, don't take that as a compliment. I mean, you are breathing my air. My darkness. And you will never get out. Is it because your intellects are so tiny you ask yourselves? And the answer is: Yes. Tiny. Tiny. Intellect."

  "So he isn't gifted with clever sarcasm," Kim said. "Just the most basic, obvious kind."

  "How can he hurt us?" Uncle Gord asked.

  "He makes us smaller," Fiora said. She let out a flame, and once her pupils adjusted, Kim looked around. They were still surrounded by darkness. They were still the same size.

  "We don't look any smaller," Kim said.

  "It's because we have all shrunk the same amount," Fiora said. "Believe me, we are smaller. I can feel it."

  The flame went out. And when Kim took stock of her body in the darkness, she felt smaller. She wondered if her Metal Health numbers were going down, but, of course, Damon wasn't there to tell her. She had the feeling that all parts of her had shrunk—even her ego.

  "I feel it too," Uncle Gord asked. "Is this dangerous?"

  "When we get small enough," Fiora said. "We will vanish."

  "And where has the sarcastic pit gone?" Kim asked.

  "Oh, he is sulking," Fiora replied. "Even a pit has feelings. And you and Gord insulted his very ability to be sarcastic. Lord Dubrow was very much like this. He might be back in a week."

  "A week?" Kim said. "We'll starve."

  "Technically, we'll dehydrate first," Uncle Gord said gently but with a voice of experience. "But I hear you. So how do we get out?"

  Fiora laughed. "It's easy. So very easy. We have the simple task of finding something that he cannot be sarcastic about."

  For reasons only her psych professor would understand, a blonde, buxom woman appeared in Kim's mind. "Like Dolly Parton?" Kim asked. She'd been impressed with the older woman for years. "No one could be sarcastic about her. She's so… well, she's so Dolly. A force for good in our world. I wrote an essay about her in high school. I got a ninety-five."

  "I do not know what a ninety-five is in this context," Fiora said. "But it sounds like bragging. Nor do I know who this Dolly Parting person is. And I doubt the pit will know her either."

  "It was a good thought," Uncle Gord said. "But we need a concept that is so pure it cannot be made fun of."

  "Maybe we have to speak 'friend' and… and exit," Kim said. This was met by silence, and she worried they had both vanished. "Well, it would have been Damon's first suggestion."

  "At least you are thinking," Fiora said, and the softness in her voice surprised her. "But nothing comes to my mind that I cannot find sarcastic fault with."

  "It is like listening to mindless mice argue," the pit mumbled. "Yes, I am back in black with eyes of black and ready to knock 'em dead, kid. And I am one with my sarcasm. No longer will your taunts hurt me. But I tire of you, especially Fiora and Gord and Frizzy Hair. And I am the pit. It is time to unleash my sarcastic barbs."

  "Your what?" Fiora asked.

  "Sarcastic barbs," he repeated. "See, you doth not know all that encompasses me. So, enjoy this little discovery. Here's one barb: What do you call a spawner and a spawner and a dragonspawn who walk into a pit?" He paused. "Stranded in darkness."

  "That's not even funny," Uncle Gord said. "In fact, it's a little—Ugh! What was that!"

  He took his hand off Kim's shoulder.

  "Ugh!" he said again. "Ow!" She knew her uncle rarely complained about pain. "Something stabbed my leg."

  Fiora let out a flame that revealed Uncle Gord on the ground, holding his leg. There was a tiger-striped fishtail sticking out of his thigh; slapping back and forth—fishtailing, really. Gord yanked it out, and the thing flopped on the floor.

  "What is that?" Gord said.

  But Kim had a friend who had a massive aquarium in her apartment. "Those are barb fish. He is literally attacking you with barbs."

  "It's so punny." The pit sounded very satisfied. "And here's another barb: Nice teamwork. Two spawners and a dragonspawn, all equally skilled in the art of getting trapped in things."

  The next barb hit Fiora in the arm. And her flame went out.