recovering from his wounds in a monastery, blessed by ’Phagia, who had the breath of a monkey. Not all helped him. ’Lin, whose teeth were serrated, rasped at Morgan’s delegation of entertainment duties, and challenged his rival to a public cabaret. Both toiled to reconstruct a cast of raiders from a surfeit of requisitioned materials.
Kissed by tapers, the rival shows were judged by Morgan, whose left eye was more cultured than his right. ’Lin raced ahead, his puppets bold as fuses, slick as decks. Controlling the strings with his ears, ’Tology dragged through the plot like an anchor and was proclaimed the winner by an audience bored with battles quicker in the telling. Mindful of his crew’s needs, Morgan agreed. Leaving Panama after three weeks of looting, mules overflowing with gold coin, so burdened there was no room for names, they halted in a field, within spilling range of the Cup, to crown ’Tology with a knotted napkin.
From that moment, as official puppeteer, he was persuaded to forget sails and collars. Concentrating on melodrama left him with pale cheeks and eyes broad as astrolabes. The cork leg came from a hop’s worth of sherry bottles. His cleverest performance turned a ship into a marionette and thus the crew into men who work on toys. Aided by the barber, who weaved hair into cable, he fixed two cords from the rudder to goblets of sherry on the captain’s table. Whenever Morgan raised a cup, he would steer the ship by taste; the darker sip to starboard, the tawny to port. In this fashion, destinations became drunk.
Things fell apart after Panama; there was no more need to live like buttons. The crew parted company, many wasting their share of the loot on chocolate. The greater part returned with Morgan to Wales; some said it was secreted in a cave unmarked on any chart. Others went into business and failed spectacularly, an error ’Tology avoided by declining to follow his profession beyond its horizon. In Wolkenstein, he bought a store already full of completed marionettes for a low price. The former owner had fled in unmentionable circumstances. In a local restaurant, diners mocked his decision and all his ensuing ideas.
“Now here’s a funny one! ’Tology Spleen thinks that Oswald borrowed tunes from fossils. Plays a clam a day.”
“But he doesn’t give a patch for vampires.”
“All the wrong superstitions, if you ask me. Lock your window, spit on a dog, stuff garlic cloves in cuffs.”
Desperate to escape, he rushed his meal, although to others it seemed as if he was chewing weeks and months rather than knödel. At the musty rear of his shop the most enigmatic stock lurked: teething sculptures and fake spines. Stitching the present into a shroud for the past had scuffed his fingers like slippers. To reclaim the whorls of each digit, he exchanged sewing for unpicking; he hoped his blisters would emigrate back into the needle. The shapeless flaps of cloth which had once been characters were placed in the window. He also pulped the wooden figures left in the room into linen, as if sacking a forest.
The smashed castle had no other visitors; he came to think of it as his own. Even the boy who was employed to sweep the entire valley with a broom neglected it. What was the secret which surrounded Oswald? Who was he winking at from his picture, which adorned the labels of Ladini wine? On the sill of an almost inaccessible oriel, a symphony of shells hushed in anticipation of his baton. Tapping his leg with his scissors, letting the melody thin out toward the temples, something brushed his throat; a falling mouse. If the undead had to support themselves with honest work, would music or dentistry hold sway?
He had learned about vampires from Morgan’s cook, a shining man who set tales like supper. To his home island, traders from the east brought the hair of penanggalans, bodiless parasites which fly about the country at dusk looking for victims. The creatures are fuelled by
Kissed by tapers, the rival shows were judged by Morgan, whose left eye was more cultured than his right. ’Lin raced ahead, his puppets bold as fuses, slick as decks. Controlling the strings with his ears, ’Tology dragged through the plot like an anchor and was proclaimed the winner by an audience bored with battles quicker in the telling. Mindful of his crew’s needs, Morgan agreed. Leaving Panama after three weeks of looting, mules overflowing with gold coin, so burdened there was no room for names, they halted in a field, within spilling range of the Cup, to crown ’Tology with a knotted napkin.
From that moment, as official puppeteer, he was persuaded to forget sails and collars. Concentrating on melodrama left him with pale cheeks and eyes broad as astrolabes. The cork leg came from a hop’s worth of sherry bottles. His cleverest performance turned a ship into a marionette and thus the crew into men who work on toys. Aided by the barber, who weaved hair into cable, he fixed two cords from the rudder to goblets of sherry on the captain’s table. Whenever Morgan raised a cup, he would steer the ship by taste; the darker sip to starboard, the tawny to port. In this fashion, destinations became drunk.
Things fell apart after Panama; there was no more need to live like buttons. The crew parted company, many wasting their share of the loot on chocolate. The greater part returned with Morgan to Wales; some said it was secreted in a cave unmarked on any chart. Others went into business and failed spectacularly, an error ’Tology avoided by declining to follow his profession beyond its horizon. In Wolkenstein, he bought a store already full of completed marionettes for a low price. The former owner had fled in unmentionable circumstances. In a local restaurant, diners mocked his decision and all his ensuing ideas.
“Now here’s a funny one! ’Tology Spleen thinks that Oswald borrowed tunes from fossils. Plays a clam a day.”
“But he doesn’t give a patch for vampires.”
“All the wrong superstitions, if you ask me. Lock your window, spit on a dog, stuff garlic cloves in cuffs.”
Desperate to escape, he rushed his meal, although to others it seemed as if he was chewing weeks and months rather than knödel. At the musty rear of his shop the most enigmatic stock lurked: teething sculptures and fake spines. Stitching the present into a shroud for the past had scuffed his fingers like slippers. To reclaim the whorls of each digit, he exchanged sewing for unpicking; he hoped his blisters would emigrate back into the needle. The shapeless flaps of cloth which had once been characters were placed in the window. He also pulped the wooden figures left in the room into linen, as if sacking a forest.
The smashed castle had no other visitors; he came to think of it as his own. Even the boy who was employed to sweep the entire valley with a broom neglected it. What was the secret which surrounded Oswald? Who was he winking at from his picture, which adorned the labels of Ladini wine? On the sill of an almost inaccessible oriel, a symphony of shells hushed in anticipation of his baton. Tapping his leg with his scissors, letting the melody thin out toward the temples, something brushed his throat; a falling mouse. If the undead had to support themselves with honest work, would music or dentistry hold sway?
He had learned about vampires from Morgan’s cook, a shining man who set tales like supper. To his home island, traders from the east brought the hair of penanggalans, bodiless parasites which fly about the country at dusk looking for victims. The creatures are fuelled by
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