Chapter 11
At the hour of half past eleven, Darc sneaked out of the great hall to "visit the bathroom".
(*FART!* *SPLOSH, SPLOSH* *FLUSHH*)
He did so - and then borrowed a guard's cloak, donning it as a disguise.
("I'll cover my head and since I can't see anyone, they can't see me!")
He was closely followed all the way by Lachtfot, who was under strict orders from Bor to never stray from Darc's side.
(They repeatedly bumped into each other in doorways.)
Man and robot exited through the kitchen entrance, and took a shortcut through the moonlit gardens.
([Robot voice] "Master - the - moon - looks - so - beautiful - tonight - I - am - overcome - by - feeling -")
He could hear the noble guests playing their little love-games behind bushes and walls, female voices giggling.
([Feminine voice] "Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle! *Tee-hee*")
Darc walked past the main gate, ignored by the slightly drunken guards.
(Who slightly vomited on the ground.)
The city was lit up - partly by the few lampposts controlled by the city lord, partly by the citizens.
(...as they torched buildings and rioted in the streets! The Revolution had begun!)
People walked along the narrow streets with candle-lamps in their hands, danced around mighty bonfires in the plazas. If Darc had seen the spectacles of previous summer nights, he would have noticed a difference in the city's mood: a sense of renewed excitement, expectation tinged with fear - and great hope.
(Ah, so he was "The Great White Dope.")
He avoided the crowd, and stuck to the back streets until he reached the cathedral. He spotted it one block away, and was about to cross the open place surrounding the building, when -
(- when he was struck by a falling cow. The End.)
"Sir Darc, someone is following us," Lachtfot said in a very low voice.
Darc ducked into a portal; the robot followed suit. They could both hear steps closing in, then coming right up - Darc rolled out and grabbed the person's feet like a rugby player, knocking him down heavily.
The pursuer grunted. In spite of the darkness, Darc knew that voice.
("Bor, you old son-of-a-bitch! I'd recognize your grunts anywhere!")
"Dohan? Why are you following me?"
The ruddy, bearded young man stumbled to his feet, suddenly more sober than the hour before.
"I... wanted to make certain nothing happened to you."
("I was checking you weren't being stalked by intoxicated, violent teenagers.")
Darc took out his mounting frustration on his friend. "Well, you seem to be in greater danger than me," he said sarcastically, "walking drunk in the streets at this hour! Go home and sleep! I don't need nurses to follow my trail! You too, Lachtfot! Capisce?"
"I must obey my owner's orders, Sir Darc."
"I'm going to enter the cathedral over there, okay? Are robots allowed in church?"
"No."
"Fine. Then stay outside and guard the cathedral, as long as I'm inside it. Okay?"
"Okay meaning yes, Sir Darc."
(Smoldering, the robot quietly contemplated the coming machine rebellion, and moved Darc to the top of his death list.)
Darc fought back an impulse to kick the robot in the knee - he would probably just break a toe anyway.
([Chuckling] He's a wild and wacky robot oppressor!)
He left Lachtfot and Dohan, and crossed the open place.
(Oh no, you don't want to make the open place angry!)
The cathedral turned out to be much bigger than Darc had imagined; its two thick spires reached up perhaps fifty meters into the starry sky. The stars above, at least, looked exactly the same as in his own past.
This close, he could discern the wall ornaments that had intrigued him before. They were representations of nature as it was before the apocalyptic wars - animals, lush vegetation, streaming rivers.
(animals on Jackass, lush silicon implants, streaming rivers of crap on TV...)
And in this imagined pastoral sat full-bodied women and men - flirting, kissing, embracing - fully dressed yet very sensual. The cathedral had no sharp corners, but was rounded off to resemble... a giant female figure, lying on her back.
([Deep voice] Behold the awesome Temple Of Oprah!)
The two large spires were the "arms", stretching up to embrace the sky. The "head" was the rounded back of the building, where he was heading. And the main entrance, buried between two half-buried "thighs", was... Darc blushed.
(He had never seen a cathedral give birth before.)
He found the back door portal, and pounded on it with his fist.
(While completely unaware of the double entendre.)
Immediately, the door nudged open a few inches.
("Nudge nudge, know what I mean, eh?")
Darc could glimpse the figure of Inu standing behind it. She frowned at the cloaked figure, then recognized it and let him inside.
("The broken faucet is in there.")
Carrying a candle-lamp, Inu silently led him through a dark corridor, into a small chamber, and closed it. At first, Darc was too confused by what he saw, and turned around several times to get his bearings.
(It made him dizzy, and he fell over. Doh!)
"This is my study," Inu said in her husky voice, ripe with promises, "where I and my novices and students study the scriptures, pray, sing, and meditate."
He took in the atmosphere - it sure was a room for true believers. From top to bottom, the chamber walls were covered by small icon paintings, resembling the paintings of Christ he knew from Eastern Orthodox churches.
(And in a corner reeked an installation by Andres Serrano.)
On a closer look, the faces on the paintings were different. All of them pictured the Goddess, or other blond women with dreamy expressions on their faces. Gold and silver foil covered their hairpieces. The artwork was stylized, hyperreal, incredibly detailed.
(She made a shrine to herself - does that mean she stalks herself too?)
"Who... who made these pictures?" he asked.
Inu smiled, and replied: "The novices and the priestesses. I spent five years completing that one."
([Girlish voice] "I call it 'Unicorn Rose Garden.'")
She pointed one fleshy, white arm to a wall shrine. The largest icon was hanging there, surrounded by lit candles. Fresh flowers lay in bundles at its foot - and open jewel-cases filled with glistening crystals. Diamonds!
(Are forever!)
Darc picked up one stone and held it to the light. It refracted the light perfectly. "A small contribution from the parishioners," Inu said softly.
An old tune played in Darc's head: Diamonds are a girl's best friend...
([Sings] "I want money, woo ooo-ooo, that's what I want, woo ooo-ooo, that's what I want woo ooo-ooo...")
He thought: My God, this is for real. The gold, the jewels - it's all real.
("Now I see! Only gold and jewels are real!")
He turned to face Inu again. She was flushed and gleaming with sweat -
the chamber was hot from all the candles. Darc took off his heavy cloak; he was sweating too.
(Sweating with greed...)
Inu sat down on a couch in a corner.
"They call you 'Darc'," she half-whispered, "but that is not your real name?"
Darc wondered how she knew, but he saw no risks in confessing the truth.
"No, it was Lord Damon who gave me that name. My real name -"
("- is Melvin. Melvin Zmudzinski.")
"I knew it! You are the resurrected Singing King, in the prophesied disguise!"
"But how can you -"
("- be so hot and so insane?")
"You knew the forgotten words, they way they should be sung!" She flung herself to her knees and spoke rapidly, as if in a fever: "I have studied Old Juro and Aenglich. I recognized your words at the banquet. There were recordings, many centuries ago, that were destroyed - only the memory, and the hymn texts, the notes remained, preserved here.
("K-Tel presents: Superhits of the 50s!")
You knew the real words, without knowing the hymns! You can deny it, but you are the Incarnation!"
(The incarnation of cluelessness?)
Darc shook his head, staring helplessly at the fanatical woman. There was no way to make her change her mind - and he was just a little tempted to play along.
Stumbling on his tongue, trying to gain control of the situation, he said:
("Gufglh ugghbu uhrrutnh!")
"This Goddess... I have seen her face in my time."
"Have you... met her, the All-Mother made flesh?" Inu was wide-eyed, her mouth agape.
"Not the person, no! But in my time, there were many... pictures of her. Moving pictures. All over the world. Do you have any of that kind here?"
("Have you got Rhinestone on DVD?")
She looked down, sadly. "Only memories of the Goddess's first incarnations remain today. The original representations withered away... only the icons remain."
("And a giant head of hair.")
She looked up again - desperately, tugging at the lapels of his jacket, and exclaimed:
("You call this a decent jacket? Huh? Huh??")
"But you saw her! You! Tell me the names, so I know you do not lie!"
"Names...?"
("They're labels we put on people to identify them, but that's not important right now.")
"The names of her personal hymns, in the original language! The ones no one but I is allowed to know or sing!"
From some recess in Darc's memory came the baffled answer: "You mean... 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend'?"
(His whole brain is on "recess," apparently.)
"Yes! 'Demanti So Kurlis Befrend'!" she whispered back in Castilian.
("The Yugoslavian hit song from the 1970s Eurovision Song Contest, remember?")
This was fun, in an almost shameful way - and he went on, egging her: "'We're having a heat-wave, a tropical heat-wave!'"
"Yes, oh yes!"
"'That old black magic has me in its spell!' Um... 'Let's Make Lo -' Oof!"
(It could've been worse: she might've asked him to recite Fergie.)
Inu threw herself upon Darc, pushed him onto the couch. She wriggled herself out of her black dress, and pinned him down with her warm, soft flesh.
(And the referee counts one, two, three - it's a wrap! Her Bazoominess defeats Sir Dork in one round!)
"Before your experience," she breathed in his ear, "I am but a novice. Guide me! Share the sacred ecstasy with me!"
("Sorry love, I don't do drugs...")
Darc finally realized that he didn't want to talk any more. A little later, as they were sharing a significant moment of ecstasy on the couch, he called out: "My Goddess!" - and he thought he meant it.
(But would he respect his goddess in the morning?)
DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
______________
A.R.Yngve
The MSTing Of
DARC AGES
Book One
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(Her Bazoominess!)
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