fantasy realm

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Four

(This one features a rare performance by your author in an acting role-LA)

Name Game

(Vital Information)

Before we begin, it is important to know that Satan never cheats at games. In fact she may be the only thinking being in the universe who is honest to a fault when it comes to games of chance. But her truthful nature does not mean that she is a good loser. Oh, she’ll shake your hand and heartily extol your virtues as a gamer; but she’ll never forget the sting of losing. In that regard it might be better if she did cheat, or at least flipped the board to conclude a Monopoly match with a mistrial. But, as we will soon see, that is not her way….

Now On With the Show

The Witch needed a name for her newest season on Earth. The need had nothing to do with business. Her vast wealth and properties were under the enchanted aliases of her human familiars–a trustworthy lot because they knew that something much worse than death (a something most likely to be as creative as protracted) awaited any servant caught dipping in the Witch’s till. Such certainty reinforces loyalty. No, the want of a name stemmed from the idiotic peasant need for labeling things.

For the record, the Witch was born in Gomorrah and was called Myrrh, as in the third best birthday gift for boys named Jesus. But upon becoming a Witch, among the many things she left behind was her name (which she never much cared for anyway). And she wouldn’t have bothered with one at all if it weren’t for the pettifogging peasants incessant need for labels.

Ever since ascending to Witchood, she alternated one-hundred thirty year seasons between Hell and Earth. In the old days, the nameless Witch would wreak havoc on the peasantry until it was time to return to Hell for another hundred-thirty-year sabbatical. There wasn’t anything the peasants could do about her after she had cast spells of obedience on the local authorities–usually the royal and monied clans in any region. Yes, there was a time when a woman who looked thirty could stay that way for generations, and the peasants who populated those rapidly changing generations knew how to look the other way, and taught their issue that it would be wise to do the same.

But even peasants get wiser, thus more dangerous. And prior to her previous term on Earth, which began in the second half of the 18th Century (and was her first season spent in the “New World”), the Witch took special note of the ugly doings at Salem, from her vantage point in Hell. Fortunately, not a single victim of that persecution had actually been a witch–but it stood to reason that maybe the peasantry had evolved to the point of feeling emboldened enough to interfere with the projects of an unmarried young woman of means who did not age a day over the course of many decades in a community that featured an inordinate amount of missing persons and a copious population of viscous Black Cats, Condor-sized Owls and somewhat arrogant Rats. This potential complication caused the Witch to devise a scheme in which she was a rich widow who aged (via a simple general eye of the beholder spell) for the first sixty years then “died” and gave over to a young “heiress” namesake who bore an uncanny resemblance to the young Witch–not that any peasant with enough sense to still be taken seriously would be around to notice, not with an average lifespan of around forty-five, not with the inexplicable way that villagers who looked in the Witch’s direction a bit long suffered unfortunate accidents. She also toned down the size of her Owls but did nothing about the attitudes of the Black Cats and Rats.

Her previous earthly season ended in 1891–according to the tiresome peasant way of numbering even the years. Hell keeps up on current events much better than its opposite number. Whilst “below,” the Witch rued missing out on the tumultuous 20th Century, but looked forward to entering the Twenty-first and practicing her special brand of mayhem well into the Twenty-second. She got restless–for all Hell’s splendors, one can only beat Satan at cribbage so many times and still get a buzz from it.

Although the peasants had multiplied, advanced wildly ahead technologically and were overall better educated–they were still peasants who continued to grossly overestimate the moral quality of their souls; thus the majority was just as tribal, labeling, superstitious, venal and spiritually bankrupt as ever–perhaps more so. Good times lay ahead.

So upon returning to Earth and relocating to a new home in the American Midwest in 2021 (for it it’s required of Witches to travel to new regions every Earth season), the Witch awaited a scroll to appear in the bough of an evilmost elm tree that she had enchanted, which served as her connection to Hell. Satan herself chose the names Witches went by.

In keeping with tradition, the scroll appeared in the enchanted evilmost elm at three A.M. on the day of the first new moon after her return to Earth. The Witch stationed a Rat Squad at the tree to await the scroll’s arrival. Of all her beloved animal familiars, Rats were the most efficient. And also in keeping with tradition, though she had hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Rats within reach of her magic, they were all divided into squads of thirteen. Rat Squads had the keenest attention span of all her familiars (humans included). Though she never punished any of her animals, the Witch knew that when she sent an unsupervised Black Cat out on a quick mission, the deed would get done but she wasn’t likely to see the fiend again for a week or so. No one does A to B better than a Rat Squad.

When Rat Squads perform a ceremonial march, twelve form a circle around a single Rat who serves as the “Star” in a Rattish pentagram. They take turns being the Star because only the Witch is considered the leader. Such a formation entered the open front door of the Witch’s house at precisely one minute past three on the morning of the first new moon. The Star toted the scroll freshly sent from Hell, it lay perfectly balanced on her sleek back.

The Witch noticed that the wound scroll was thicker than usual. In all other ways it was the same–made from parchment peeled off the hide of a damned soul, slightly scorched at the edges, rolled and tied with a black ribbon, the Master’s wax seal in place. But it looked too large to contain a brief salutation and one name. Something about it caused the Witch to recall the cribbage tournament attended by Demons, Sorcerers and the Queen. She had defeated the Master fifteen times in a row and was crowned champion. Despite her gracious acceptance of defeat, the Witch knew that the fink would pull some kind of payback, by and by. Indeed, something about the scroll reeked of petty revenge. But tradition required she open it. She did so thinking that maybe it was time to let go of some traditions.

“My babies,” she said, smiling, kneeling to take the scroll. “You shall be the first to hear our new name.”

She unrolled the parchment. It said:

Darling!

I already miss you! Yet since your departure my cribbage results have greatly improved.

I’ve given the matter of your name a great deal of thought.

I humbly present three choices. You must select one, for there won’t be a fourth…

The Witch laughed.

“I have a choice between three, babies,” she said. “The first I shall reject is ‘Cher Hitler’; next out will be the charming ‘Vicki Bin Laden’–with all the i’s dotted with little hearts–See?” she showed the scroll to the Rats–”how quaint.“

The Rat Squad laughed at a degree in keeping with their Mistress’s mood, yet not to a point which dared to insult the Master.

“Hi ho!” The Witch said, reading more, “the Master has locked the last choice with a spell which commands me to give it to my loyal Rat Squad to read aloud,” she said, handing the scroll to the Star.

All thirteen Rats studied the scroll and after several exchanged, nervous glances, the Star spoke up in English. “It’s a song, your royal darkness…”

“A song?”

“Yes, milady, a reworking of a popular song from sixty years ago.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

The Rats began to perform the tune. Six maintained a beat by smacking their tails on the floor, and six others vocally backed up the Star who sang:

“Bambi!

Bambi mo-mam-bee

Bo-na-na fanna fo-fam-bee

Fee-fi mo mam-bee

Bambi!”

“Bambi?” The Witch said. “Bambi? Oh that unholy hussy. What a little baby! I knew she couldn’t handle losing–”

“There’s more,” the Star said, lifting the scroll toward the Witch. “It instantly appeared at the end of the song, but isn’t written in Rattish.”

“This ought to be rich,” she muttered. The Witch named Bambi read the addition, and for the first time ever her Rats saw a perplexed expression on her face. She read it several times and even flipped it over to see if there was more on the back.

“Babies?” she said, at last, “Did you pass anyone–or thing in the courtyard? Says here I’ll soon be hearing the beat of little wings.”

Although highly efficient, Rats are mission oriented. They only tend to the tasks the Witch sends them on and do not make mention of any oddities they might see. There could have been an elephant herd out in the courtyard, but if it wasn’t a part of or interfered with the mission, the Rats would ignore it. They would assume it was Witch business that did not concern them.

“Yes, Mistress Bambi,” the Star said, fully aware of the dark gleam that the name put in the Witch’s eyes, but also confident that the name was endorsed by the Master herself.

“O-un?” She spoke the Rattish word which meant “more than one”–for all their reliability and cleverness, Rats cannot count higher than one, but know when there isn’t just one.

Being a high tech matter, the Rats consulted one another and arrived at a consensus:“Yes, o-un.”

This is when I, the writer of this tale, and four new Fictional Characters (FC’s) of my creation appeared at the open door.

“Knock, knock,” I said. “We bring good news for Bambi!”

The Witch and I go way back. But that’s so many moved pegs on the cribbage board ago.

“You,” she said. “What’s the meaning of this?” She held the scroll aloft, the Rat Squad stood at attention. The witch glanced down at them, not without affection. “Why didn’t you guys say she was out there?”

“At ease, little friends,” I said. “Because I wasn’t until after they passed.”

“And who are they?” The Witch asked, motioning to the four FC’s who were hovering in the air, just behind me. “And why should I soon be hearing the beat of little wings?”

“These are the billigits,” I said, nodding to a row of four identical, winged, orange skinned, androgynous individuals of about two feet in length. Each one wore a blue polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants and hemp slippers that were always falling off. In fact, three of the eight slippers were already piled under them on the ground.

“Let me guess,” The Witch said, “these guys are looking for minion work.”

“Bingo, Bambi,” I replied. “Say hello to Mothball, Weasel, Pinto and Flounder.”

“What if I tell you I have enough minions?”

“What if I tell you that Bambi could be rearranged to read Hezopatha?”

“I’d say welcome to the team, Mothball, Weasel, Pinto and Flounder.”

“Done, Hezopatha,” I said.

And with that, I left Hezopatha, the Rat Squad and the newly employed billigits to their adventures and returned to a Hell of mostly my own creation.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part One

Towen Meeting

-1-

Charleston’s sleepy New Town Cemetery had once been the center of a controversy. For many years Town was spelled ‘Towen’ on the fancily etched marble dedication obelisk located just inside the main gate. The unique spelling was on purpose because the wealthy widow who had donated the land for the cemetery and paid for the obelisk wanted it that way. She claimed that it was the name of the Welsh village of her birth. Despite more than a century of weathering, you can still mark her unpronounceable name on the obelisk, but, oddly, not those of the local big shots who’d presided over the cemetery’s plating in 1882.

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Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits

Introduction

As with Peety and Daisy, I never know when an FC will distinguish her/his/itself and take off in my mind. Originally a nameless Witch, then Hezopatha (after a brief stint as “Bambi”) and finally taken to calling herself HeXopatha, Saragun Springs’ resident Wiccan has morphed from a one off character and has established herself firmly in the realm, which is short of antagonists because I find old fashioned storytelling, at times, just that–old fashioned.

The billigits began as the “billygates” (the Microsoft Secret Police), changed to billygits and appear to have settled as the billigits (bill-luh-gits). They are four eighteen inch tall, androgynous, orange, winged individuals who wear blue polo shirts, khaki slack and hemp slippers that usually fall off in flight. Sometimes they are blue skinned, but usually they are orange. billigits eschew the use of capital letters and they have become a heavy presence in the realm.

I’d explain further, but it’s easier to invite you back tomorrow for the opening of Book Four.

Leila

Welcome to Sargun Springs: The Book of Daisy Part One

G.O.A.T.

I was attempting to hibernate through a stormy November of the soul when Renfield barged into my office, blinded the room with light and cheerfully yelled “Great news!”

“Can’t you see I’m hibernating?”

“Oh, you’ll want to know about this,” she said with a smile (always smiling). “Daisy and Peety are the greatest superhero team.”

I sighed and lit a cigarette. “So? Both have the emotional intelligence of a six-year-old. It makes sense that they’d play Batman in the Barnyard–On your way out, please kill the light.”

I knew that my hibernation was on pause when Renfield said: “The ‘Barnyard’ you alluded to is on Other Earth.”

“Holy skid marks, Caped Crusader,” I said. “Do me a favor, pretend that I have amnesia and fill me in on the backstory. Speak as though I’m a reader ignorant of Daisy, Peety and Saragun Springs in general.”

“Ha! Forget you and your incomprehensible laziness as a storyteller,” Renfield said. “You’re not passing that buck my way this time.”

It wasn’t my day for picking longshots. So I opened my laptop and wrote the following:

Renfield whistled and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon and Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess entered my office. Both are Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my employ, who (along with over a couple hundred other FC’s) “essay” various roles in my productions–which are “shot” like movies. Renfield is a former FC who is now the only Imaginary Friend, and she’s second in charge of this virtual realm of Saragun Springs in which I am the Penname (sigh, yes, just one word)–or “Director.” Everyone over here but me belongs to the Union of Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UIFFC)–formerly the Union of Pennames, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters.

“See, was that so hard?” Renfield asked.

I ignored her, which is easy to do if you get a lot of practice. But Daisy and Peety were more unusual than… well, usual. For the past month or so, Daisy had been sporting a paper mache horn on her head because she wanted to be a Unicorn. Which I supported because I figured that would keep her from bitching about not being born a Unicorn. The horn was gone and she was wearing a glittering gold robe like that of a pro wrestler–except it was designed for a small individual of the four-legged variety. She also had matching spats above her hooves, a ribbon of the same color tied to her tail, and wraparound sunglasses, like the Terminator–except these were fashioned to fit the head of a Pygmy Goat. A gaudy gold rope chain, whose medallion contained four large black letters, also made from glitter, hung from her neck. It said: G.O.A.T.

Peety’s always weird looking. He’s a two dimensional cartoon Pigeon who was the late 1940’s mascot for PDQ Pilsner on Other Earth. He looked the way he always looks, but somehow he had rearranged his lines to form a mask like the one the Lone Ranger wore.

It quickly became clear that the situation was a steaming pile of freshly squeezed Dog crap just begging to be stepped in.

I cracked under the strain: “All right, what’s the gag?”

Peety spoke first. “The G.O.A.T., brought to you by PDQ!” Peety still touts PDQ in between slob-com scripture quotations.

“As in the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy added, with a smidgen of attitude, enough to shade the caps bold, I might add.

I should have known that Daisy would have eventually come across the sportstalk/show biz acronym of hyperbole and get peculiar about it.

“I’m all for delusions of grandeur,” I said, “but Renny here tells me you guys have been to Other Earth in violation of the agreement.”

“Actually, Leila,” Renfield chimed in, “the agreement states that only you can no longer set foot on Other Earth.”

“Doesn’t that imply that FC’s of my creation are a part of me?”

“But surely her highness recalls endowing this Imaginary Friend and all of her FC’s with Free Will,” Renfield said. “We do as we please.”

The phone rang. It was the hot line. The Boss.

I answered the phone with my usual polite demeanor: “What?”

The Boss was in her usual state of disarray caused by her subhuman lifestyle. She told me and told me and told me stuff until I had heard enough.

“I’ve got just two words for you, Boss,” I said before hanging up on her. “And they ain’t ‘thank you.’”

I lit another cigarette off the still smoldering butt of the one I’d just finished.

“The Boss says that Other Earth called to complain about a certain beloved on Other Earth cartoon Pigeon and an unknown Pygmy Goat getting inside an old Twilight Zone rerun at Other Earth. They traced the individuals in question back to her. I don’t think I’m guilty of profiling when I assume the culprits are in this very room–along with their enabler,” I said, looking directly at Renfield.

“Ah, Other Earth, that twin world devised by our Esteemed Employer then entrusted to you, our humble Pen,” Renfield said, filling the remainder of the backstory because she had realized that by refusing to do so meant that I had to cut her lines. “That Eden you visited in its past and altered its future so it includes ungovernable nuclear monsters that exist only in our fifties science fiction films. Where a Team commanded by me and the GOAT found Peety and brought him to our world despite the rift that caused in the fabric of spacetime.”

She came around my side of the desk and began to fiddle with my laptop.

“I’ve managed to download a copy of G.O.A.T.’s first mission.”

I recognized the scene instantly. It was the final seconds of a Twilight Zone episode that was originally aired both here and at Other Earth on 20 November 1959, titled Time Enough At Last. The episode involves an extremely myopic, milquetoast bookworm named Henry Bemis, who only wants to read but is prevented by everyone around him, especially his shrewish wife. A famous episode which ends with Henry being the sole survivor of a nuke attack because he was in the vault of the bank he worked at. Henry at first despairs, then rejoices because there’s “All the time at last” to read. Then, in a cruel ironic twist, Henry accidentally breaks his glasses, begins to weep and is then consoled and aided by a cartoon Pigeon and a Pygmy Goatess in the guises of superheroes–at least that’s what now runs on Other Earth.

“Hello, Mr. Bemis,” Daisy said, “we found your spare pair of spectacles unharmed at your house. Alas, the same cannot be said for your wife.”

“Squ-wack–boiled like a sweet potato.” Peety, ad libbed, as he sometimes does, always preceded with a Squ-wack.

Daisy then used her mouth to carefully remove Mr. Bemis’s glasses from her robe and placed them on Mr. Bemis.

He was both overjoyed and somewhat confused at the same time.

“What, what–um, how is this?”

“We are from G.O.A.T., which means the Greatest Of All Time,” Daisy said, as if that explained everything. “I am The GOAT and this is my sidekick PDQ Pete. We must go now, but I recommend that you locate a book on glasses making and repair.”

Then PDQ Pete dug out an unharmed fifth of Jack Daniel’s from the rubble, pushed it toward Bemis and said “‘My advice to you is to start drinking heavily’”–Bluto, Animal House.”

The screen faded to black.

“So,” I said, “you guys are FC superheroes who rescue other FC’s in distress, but can only do it at Other Earth because of Peety’s singular effect on the flow of reality over there.”

“Precisely,” Daisy said.

“Wait a minute–that man was actually an actor named Burgess Meredith, not a Fictional Character.”

“Not anymore, Leila,” Renfield said. “Mr. Meredith lived to almost ninety and has been dead for a very long time.”

“Let me get this straight–or as straight as I’m willing–since Meredith’s death that character on the show has been Mr. Bemis.”

“Precisely,” either Renfield or Daisy or maybe even Peety said. I forgot because I had stopped paying attention.

“Well, thanks for the update,” I said with a yawn. “Don’t let the Boss catch you guys playing over there. And I’m sure that none of you will let the door hit you in the ass on the way out–and turn off that goddam light.”

They just laughed and went on their merry way. And no one turned off the light. Fortunately, the hotline rang again. I fired the phone at the light with stunning success and resumed my hibernation.

Our Cast:

Renfield…Herself

The GOAT…Daisy Cloverleaf

PDQ Pete…Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon

“Mr. Bemis”…Either The Ghost of Burgess Meredith or Henry Bemis (we aren’t sure)

The Boss…Dead Air

Kane…Leila Allison

Well, every franchise has to begin somewhere. The big problem here is the backstory, for we deemed it unlikely that there might be repeat readers. Thus it and following productions had (and have) the backstory woven into them in increasingly strange ways. The following day we “shot” a sequel that will air in this space tomorrow.

A Day of Rest

Today was going to be part Seven of Welcome to Saragun Springs: “The Book of Peety.” Was until the Union decided that since God knocked off on Sunday that the Union members were entitled the same consideration.

I suppose that the drug dens, speakeasies and gambling houses are entitled to their share of the cut, so it is a day off in the Springs. But in keeping with the spirit of Mondays, pointless activities will resume in this space tomorrow.

In closing, I advise that you Do What Thou Wilt in proportion to the money you have saved for bail.

Leila