The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 by John Klobucher Page B

and dust.
    The doorkeepers held abreast and ready a brace of heart-crossed battle pikes. Now each rapped his own two together twelve times in a duel of hard knocks to announce their guests. By this were the guests held in rapt attention with no choice but to listen. Nor had they a hope to avoid the vision of hosts of apparitions sprung from the chamber’s phantom lamplight just for the chance to dance for them.
    Ghosts of a hidden history… were we never let to tell our story… but for the shadows upon these walls… where we evermore dwell…
    Done, the rappers sang a song, a torch song of hellish welcome:
     
    Had you a good wife?
    A strong, young son?
    Beautiful daughters
    Chased yet virgin?
     
    Questioned guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Cornered beast
    Pale ghost
     
    We see soft hands, signs
    Of rich lands owned,
    Fine fabrics your skin,
    Fat flesh on bone
     
    Hapless guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Captured beast
    Pale ghost
     
    And in some safe haven
    Of holywood,
    For what is your treasure
    Of gold now good?
     
    Helpless guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Hogtied beast
    Pale ghost
     
    “This pelt be of value”
    “For marrow, his bones”
    “Hang him till tomorrow”
    “All blood let and run”
     
    No marrow tomorrow
    Your hide be gone
    The last of your ‘morrows
    Bled on this ground
     
    Sorrow tomorrow
    Six feet down
    Death bed made
    No sound
     
    Screamless guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Dreamless guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Hopeless guest
    Pale ghost, pale ghost
    Lifeless beast
    Pale ghost
     
    So into darkness the three were thrown, over the crown of ghastly glow.
     
    Morio must have felt that his shoes had gone loose for he bent at the belly to tie them. His plump hands nimbly found the soft, weathered boven-hide leather and laces but something sharp as well.
    “Wow! Oh! Ho, that smarts!” he exclaimed with a wince of pain.
    It was a needle still stuck from the Liar’s Tree.
    He checked his pricked finger and saw that it bled, thick as hooven soup but red. So he kissed it and sucked at the running blood all the while yet doubled over.
    “You make a good point,” he said to the stickler as if engaged in some civil debate. “But if you don’t mind I’d like a retraction. Better that than dicker or bring legal action to force a divorce and secede from this union made by the blade of an iron-willed faction against a mere fancy-free, footloose sole.”
    Morio paused for dramatic effect. But, hearing no rebuttal back, the porkster mustered all his pluck and unstuck his pockmarked folk shoe.
    “Ah,” he exhaled. “I smell defeat!”
    Unluckily as he dethorned himself his system of checks and balances failed — so ironically though no longer nailed, the shift of state sent him a-sail, and thanks to the crooked planks on the floor, each one a conspirator and all at odds and war, he was at last toppled, order upset, governing body over head. Betrayed by the rules of a natural law that was traitor to his constitution, Morio found the upright overthrown and in the throes of revolution.
    “Divided we fall after all…”
    He tumbled away from the storied door and rolled downhill to the parallel wall. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thud.
    John Cap called, “Okay there ‘O?” No response. “Morio?”
    Then a slow and woozy voice. “This place… is surely full of pitfalls… truly unruly… but… O the thrills…”
    “I guess, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
    “I’ll bet this is some kind of play-house or pen…”
    “Really dude, are you alright?”
    “A funfair for children to frolic in…”
    “More like an amusement park from hell.”
    “To make us feel like boys again…”
    “Only because you bumped your head.”
    “Dizzy with dreams from way back when…”
    “That’s just your concussion talking, man.”
    “When we rode on the wings of the wind… in a magical land of mirth and men… where anything could happen…”
    Suddenly a painful expression washed