Monthly Archives: June 2022

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 7

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Goblins are nasty little blighters. They remind me of my cousin Gervil’s friend called Rupert. His name was Sally, which explains why he was called Rupert. But like goblins, he was short and had a big, round head. I don’t know why goblins have such large heads for their little bodies. Of course I don’t know why Rupert did either. There doesn’t seem to be much advantage in it. On the other hand, goblins have excellent night vision, making it very easy to sneak up on people in the dark. And they have abnormally large mouths with an abnormally large number of teeth in them. This was very unlike Rupert, which is to say Sally, who as I recall had only five or six teeth, though he made up for that by having an extra toe. In addition to which I don’t believe his night vision was all that it might have been, for once he kicked me in the head when he was on his way to the outhouse. Of course that could have been on purpose. Rupert was a bit of a nasty blighter too.

“What are you doing?” asked the orphan, as Hysteria took a step back.

“Thinking about a fellow called Rupert,” said I.

“Well stop it, and get us away.”

I said that Hysteria took a step back, but I should have said that she took two steps back, one on each side. I could tell she didn’t want the foul little creatures around her feet. She’s very particular about her feet, as most horses are wont to be. As they approached still nearer, she reared up a bit—not enough to bother me, but just enough for the orphan to slip off her haunches and land with a poof on his seat in the snow. The goblins cackled grotesquely and I’m sure that they thought they had secured for themselves a snack. They stopped laughing though when I kicked my leg over Hysteria’s shoulder and dropped lightly to the ground.

With a quick motion, I pulled my knife, still stained red from crabapple pie, from my boot. It was a small enough weapon to face off six attackers and I would have much rather had a sword, but I had been forced to sell my sword in order to get a fellow out of prison. I didn’t really know him, but he was the beloved of a poor but beautiful farm girl. In retrospect it would have been better if he had not turned out to be a werewolf, but that is another story. If I ever write this down, maybe I’ll say that I sold it to get the poor but beautiful farm girl out of prison and that I slew the werewolf. Yes, that’s a much better story.

“What are you doing?” asked the orphan.

“Recalling the time I slew a werewolf,” said I.

“Finally something useful!” he exclaimed.

The two foremost goblins looked at one another. While six or seven goblins might sneak up on a man when he was asleep, or might chase down a maiden who was alone and defenseless, they would have to be extraordinary members of their species to take on a seasoned warrior with a weapon.

“That’s right potato head!” shouted the orphan, jumping to his feet. “Werewolves, vampires, giants; he’s killed them all.

“Gree yard?” said the first goblin.

“Grock tor,” said the second goblin.

“I don’t think they understand us,” said I.

The first began to skirt around me to the right and the second began to skirt around me to the left. The others were following along. I don’t know whether their intention was to surround me so that they could attack from all sides at once, or to get by me and at the boy, but I wasn’t going to let either of those things happen. I took a quick step to the right and kicked the big round head of the first goblin, which flew almost as far as the kickball I kicked as a child, and of course the rest of the goblin went right along with his head.

As a child, kickball was one of my favorite pastimes. We had our own little team and I was almost always the bowler. Sally and Gervil and several other boys made up the outfield. Tuki played first, second, and third base.

“Look out for the other one!” the orphan cried, interrupting my fond memories.

I twisted around to my left and kicked the head of the second goblin, sending it in a lovely arc off into the forest. If my first kick had scored a double, which is to say a trip to second base, then this kick must surely have been a triple. And I would dare Tuki to say that either of those goblin’s heads went out of bounds.

“Look out!” the orphan shouted again.

I turned to give him a dirty look and saw a third goblin who was attempting to use the distraction of his fellows, which is to say their current use as substitute kickballs, to slice my Achilles tendon with a rusty old razor. With a quick jab, I thrust the point of my knife into his head and he dropped to the ground—dead. When I looked back around, the other goblins had wisely run away.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 6

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Hysteria clomped along slowly down the snow-covered road for some time. The orphan was so quiet that for a while I thought he must have fallen asleep. But at last he stirred and shifted a bit in his seat, which is to say upon Hysteria’s flank. I myself had been quiet as I remembered the events of that horrible night.

“What are you thinking about?” asked the orphan.

“I’m thinking about that horrible night,” I replied.

“Did you never find your family?”

“No, though I searched for weeks. My mother was to make me a blueberry pie that night, and I not only have never seen my mother since, I did not get to eat that pie either.”

“I’m sorry I brought up such a painful memory,” he said, and then paused. “Do you suppose that the purple drops on the floor could have been from your blueberry pie?”

“Fiends!” said I. “To rob a man of his mother and his pie in the same night!”

“Perhaps it were best that we think on something else,” said he.

“Perhaps,” I agreed.

“If you are really such a great storyteller…”

“The greatest in the world.”

“And if the story of the Queen of Aerithraine is a great story…”

“Wonderful. Exciting. True. Profound.”

“Well, maybe you could tell me the story.”

“I get half a crown for that story in Illustria,” said I.

“I have a shiny penny,” said he.

“The story begins in Aerithraine, far to the west, along the coast of the great ocean sea. From storied Illustria, its capital, to Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills in River County, Aerithraine has been a great and powerful country for some seven hundred years more or less. By more or less, I mean that it has been more or less seven hundred years that Aerithraine has been a country and that it has been more or less great and more or less powerful during those seven hundred years. But about fifty years ago, it was less. That was when the old king died, and as is the way of kings, a new one was crowned. He was King Julian the Rectifier.

“He was called Julian the Rectifier because he was chiefly interested in rectifying. He spent most of his time rectifying. He rectified all over the place. And he was good at it. He rectified like nobody else.”

“It means setting things to right,” said the orphan.

“Of course it does and that is just what he did. Under his reign, the kingdom was prosperous and wealthy. And, as he wasn’t so interested in warring as in rectifying, there was peace throughout the land. King Julian had only one son, and he passed to that son the strongest and wealthiest kingdom in all of Duaron, and if it had only remained so, Elleena would have become nothing more than a minor princess perhaps.”

“Which would not have made a half-crown story,” pointed out the orphan.

“That is so.”

“Carry on then.”

“King Justin was the son of Julian. I hear tell that he was once called Justin the Good and Justin the Wise, though now when storytellers refer to him, they usually call him Justin the Weak or Justin the Unready.”

“What do you call him?”

“I just call him King Justin,” said I. “Though I truly believe he may deserve the title Justin the Brave, it is not what the listeners want to hear.”

“Go on.”

“King Justin married a princess from the faraway land of Goth. The Arch-Dukes of Goth, which is to say the rulers of that land, have for generations, maintained power through a tightly woven web of treaties with its mighty neighbors. Their chief barter in this endeavor is the marriage of the many female members of the family. I hear the current Arch-Duke has but four daughters at least as of yet, but his father who was Arch-Duke before him had seventeen, and his father, which is to say the grandfather of the current Arch-Duke had nineteen.”

“That hurts just thinking about it.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“It must have been quite a coup of diplomacy for the Arch-Duke of Goth to make a match with the King of Aerithraine, but he did, marrying to the King his daughter Beatrix. And though I hear that the women of that country wear too much make-up, she was never the less accounted a great beauty. She had pale white skin, raven hair, smoldering eyes, and a gold ring in her nose, as is the fashion in the east.

“King Justin and Queen Beatrix had four strong sons, the eldest of whom was Prince Jared. He was particularly beloved of the people. I saw him once when I was a child of four or five, sitting on my poor old father’s shoulders as the Dragon Knights passed on their tall white steeds. That is to say, I was seated on my father’s shoulders and the Prince was not. Neither were the Dragon Knights nor their steeds. I don’t remember why the Prince and the knights were in River County. It was too long ago. He would have grown to be King upon his father’s death if it was not for…”

“Goblins!”

“Yes, that’s right. You didn’t say you had heard the story before, though I’ll warrant it wasn’t told as well…”

“No!” screamed the orphan. “Goblins! Right there!”

He pointed straight ahead, and sure enough, stepping out of the shadows and into the moonlight were a half dozen creepy little man-things. They were no more than three feet tall, their over-sized round heads, glowing eyes, and gaping maws giving away their identity. As they came closer those mouths widened into grins filled with jagged little teeth, looking far too much like the teeth on the blade of a cross-cut saw for my taste. They brandished what weapons they had, mostly things they had picked up from the ground—a stick, a length of cord with a knot in it. But a couple of them carried old, discarded straight razors.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 5

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“You said that you do not live far from here,” I mentioned, once we had finished the pies. One might say the purloined pies, but I would not. I would instead insist that they rightly belonged to us in recompense for our unjust confinement.

“That is correct,” said he.

“The pies rightfully belong to us?”

“No. I live not far from here. Are you carrying on some other conversation in your head about the pies?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “You are an orphan.”

“I am well aware of that fact. There is no need to keep rubbing it in my face.”

“What I mean is you don’t have a proper home anymore now that you are an orphan.”

“Even an orphan may have extended family,” he explained. “Perhaps I live with them.”

“Do you?”

“One might suppose that I do.”

“One might suppose a great many things,” said I. “But would it not be better to base our future activities less on supposition than on actual remembrances?”

“One might suppose we should,” said he.

“You have an odd way of talking,” I commented. “You don’t quite sound orphanish at all.”

“Really? How many orphans have you known?”

“Quite a few actually,” I revealed. “The Queen of Aerithraine…”

“With whom you once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight.”

“Indeed it is so. The Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had… well, she has a soft spot for orphans. Some years back she opened an orphanage called Elleena’s House.”

“Is that because her name is Elleena?”

“Why would her name cause her to have a soft spot for orphans?” I wondered. “No, I believe it is because she was an orphan herself.”

“No. Is it called Elleena’s House because her name is Elleena? And how could a queen be an orphan? Doesn’t she have to be a princess? Or did the King find her in an orphanage and come to sweep her off her feet? That would be a lovely story.”

“Well, there is no king,” said I.

“Gah!” he exclaimed. “You are the worst storyteller in the world. You are messing everything up and making me confused.”

“Forsooth! I am the best storyteller in the world. I do not expect you to know so, as you are an unfortunate orphan without any knowledge of the world.” I looked over my shoulder at his pinched little face. “In truth I was not trying to tell you the story of the Queen of Aerithraine. If I had, you would be filled with wonder and excitement. I have made half my fortune from that story, and a better story, a truer story, a more profound story; you are not likely to hear in all the days of your life. But I was not trying to tell that story. I was trying to explain that the Queen of Aerithraine has a soft spot for orphans. In fact, I suppose that I do so myself, as I am almost an orphan.”

“You are almost an orphan?”

“Indeed.”

“How can you be almost an orphan?”

“Why couldn’t I be?” I demanded. “If anyone can be, I could be.”

“What I mean is…” He took a deep breath. “How can one be almost an orphan?”

“Oh. Well, it’s only that my parents aren’t dead.”

“I see,” said he.

“But they were kidnapped,” I confided.

“Are you sure they didn’t just run away?” he asked.

“It was a stormy night and I had been away from my parents’ home, which is to say my former home, which is to say Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills, and I was returning for a visit. As I approached I heard a disturbance, though at first I attributed it to the sounds of the storm. Then I looked up at the cottage window to see figures silhouetted on the shade, locked in a grim struggle.”

“What did you do?”

“Why, I rushed forward to aid my poor old mother, who as I recall smells of warm pie, and my poor old father, and my sister Celia, and my aunt Oregana, and my cousin Gervil, and my other cousin Tuki, who is a girl cousin, which is to say a cousin who is a girl, which makes sense, because whoever heard of a boy named Tuki.”

“They were all struggling by the window?”

“They may all have been struggling by the window, or some of them may have been, or perhaps only one of them was struggling by the window. I don’t know, because when I burst in through the front door, they were all gone. The back door was open wide and the rain was splashing in.”

“What happened to them?”

“I know not.”

“Were there any clues?”

“Indeed there were.”

“What were they?”

“The table had been set for nine, which was two places too many.”

“Three places!” said the orphan triumphantly. “You thought I wasn’t paying attention. There was your father, mother, sister, aunt, and two cousins. That makes six.”

“They would also have set a place for Geneva.”

“Of course they would have. Who is she?”

“She’s my other cousin, which is to say Gervil’s sister, only she’s imaginary, but she wasn’t always imaginary, which is to say she died, but Gervil still sees her, so Aunt Oregana always sets a place for her.”

“What other clues?”

I listed them off. “There was a knife stuck in Gervil’s bed. Floorboards had been loosened in several rooms. There were drops of purple liquid leading out the back door. And someone had hung bunches of onions from the rafters of the dining room. Most mysterious of all was the fact that the tracks led away from the house only fifty feet and then disappeared entirely.”

The orphan gripped me around the waist and squeezed. “How terrible,” he said, in a tiny voice.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 4

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When we were not two hundred yards down the road, I let Hysteria drop to a trot, for in truth I did not expect anyone to follow us into the night, daring wild animals, bandits, or hobgoblins regardless of how fine a piesmith Mistress Gaston was reported to be. A few hundred yards beyond that, my horse dropped of her own accord to a walk and I expect she was beginning to feel a bit mopey because of the slap the orphan had dealt her. At that moment I was less interested in her mental condition than my own physical one though, because I was holding a cast pie pan in each hand and they were both heavy and still quite warm.

“Here.” I turned in the saddle and handed one pie to the orphan. “We can eat while we ride. If we wait until we find a campsite, the pies will be cold.”

“Do you have a fork?” the boy asked.

I mused that this seemed an unlikely request from any boy, most of whom I have found uninterested in tableware on the best occasion, and especially from an orphan whom one might have supposed to have been forced by necessity to dig into all manner of food scraps with his hands. However it was not a question to which I needed reply in the negative, for I always carry my fork in the inner left breast pocket of my coat, which I call my fork pocket. I gave the orphan my fork and pulled my knife from my boot to use on the remaining pie.

“This is a very nice fork,” said the orphan.

“Of course it is,” said I. “That fork came from the table of the Queen of Aerithraine herself.”

“You stole this fork from a Queen?”

“Impudent whelp!” cried I. “That fine fork was a gift from the queen, with whom I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight.”

“What kind of queen gives a man a fork?”

“A kind and gracious one.”

That apparently satisfied the boy’s curiosity for the moment and for the next few minutes we concentrated upon the pies. I am not one to mourn a lost pie and that is well, for the pie that was lost to me on that night, as I have previously mentioned, was a pie for the ages. A fine pie. A beautiful pie. A wonderful pie. This new pie was almost as good though. It was a crabapple pie, which was a common pie to come upon in winter in those parts, which is to say Brest, as cooks used the crabapples they had put up the previous fall. This pie was an uncommonly good pie, with nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves and butter. I had more than a few bites by the time the boy spoke again.

“What kind of pie is that?”

“Crabapple,” I replied. “What pie do you have?”

“It is a meat pie.”

“A meat pie,” I mused, as I thought back upon how long it had been since I had eaten any other meat than venison. I had eaten a sausage a week before, but it had been a fortnight and half again since I had eaten mutton stew with potatoes and black bread in Hammlintown. That had been a fine stew and the serving wench who brought it to me had been nice and plump with the top two buttons of her blouse undone and she had smiled quite fetchingly when she had set down the tray. Stew is a wonderful food and even when it is not served by a nice, plump serving wench with the top two buttons of her blouse undone. It always seems to give me the same feeling when I eat it that a nice, plump serving wench with the top two buttons of her blouse undone gives me when I see her.

“What are you doing now?” asked the orphan.

“Pondering stew,” said I.

“Well stop it. Rather ponder this instead. You eat half of your crabapple pie and I will eat half of my meat pie. Then we can trade and eat the other halves of each others pies.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But this will mean that I have to eat my dessert first and my supper after.”

“Just pretend that the meat pie is your dessert and the crabapple pie is your supper.”

“A crabapple pie could be a fine supper. In fact I have been to countries where the most common part of a supper is crabapple pie.”

“Fine then.”

“But a meat pie is in no country a dessert.”

“Then trade me now.”

“How much have you eaten?” I asked.

“About a fourth. How much have you eaten?”

“About a fifth.”

“Then eat another twentieth,” said he. “Then we will trade pies and each eat two thirds of what remains and then trade them back. At that point, we will each eat what remains of the pie we originally started with. That way you can think of the first portion of the crabapple pie as an appetizer, the portion you eat of the meat pie as your supper, and the final portion of the crabapple pie as your dessert.”

“You are a fine mathematician for an orphan,” said I. “But it suits me. Will it not bother you that your appetizer and your dessert are of meat pie and your supper is of crabapple pie?”

“I have decided that I will make this sacrifice,” said he. “Since it was you that provided the meal.”

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

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Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Three: Wherein I hear from my harshest critic.

We stepped outside of the Singing Siren and headed up the winding stone street, the breaking waves of the ocean far below down the hill to our left. I was at something of a loss as to where to search for the famous story-teller and adventurer Eaglethorpe Buxton, not the least of which was because he was me, though I didn’t say as much. I did know where I didn’t want to go.

“Why don’t we go back to that sorry excuse for a theater and look for him there,” said Myolaena Maetar.

“No, I don’t want to go there,” said I. “What I mean is that I don’t think we would find him there.”

“Why not?”

“There are a lot of people who know me at the theater… and they know that no good Buxton, and they might see that we are after him and give him a warning. He might skip town and we would have to search the entire country of Lyrria for him.”

“That’s a good point,” she agreed. “Where shall we look for him?”

“I have a few spots in mind,” I lied. “Why don’t you tell me what he has done to anger you so?”

“Have you not seen the travesty he calls a play?”

“I thought it quite a fine play,” I said, truthfully.

“He maligned my character.”

“Perhaps the author was misguided by some incorrect information,” I suggested. “It is no doubt misinformation that you once tried to usurp the throne of the King of Aerithraine.”

“No,” she admitted. “That part was true.”

“Well, surely you did not attempt to ensorcel the King.”

“That part was true as well,” she said.

“Mayhaps you did not really consort with a dragon?”

“No. That is not the part that was wrong.”

“Then perhaps you could enlighten me as to exactly what element of the play brought forth your ire, which is to say, made you unhappy.”

“You might note that the playwright’s deus ex machina involves me accidentally falling victim to my own magic.”

“God in the machine?”

“The machination of the gods—it is how poor story tellers fix holes in their plotlines.”

“I thought that bit where you ensorcelled yourself was rather funny.”

“Funny at my expense. That would never happen.”

“And I would hardly call it a deus ex machinegun…”

“Deus ex machina.”

“I don’t think it qualifies at all,” said I. “It’s not as though that couldn’t happen…”

“It couldn’t happen.”

“It’s within the realm of possibility…”

“It is impossible.”

“I don’t think we have the same definition of ‘impossible’.”

“Not possible; unable to exist, happen, or be,” she said. “Unable to be done, performed, effected, etc.”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “That is the definition I usually use.”

“Not to be done or endured with any degree of reason or propriety.”

“Well, not quite to the point, but…”

“Utterly impracticable, totally unsuitable, difficult, or objectionable.”

“I suppose that last part fits your point of view better than mine,” said I. “I still would not go so far as to refer to the plot’s resolution as a deus ex machina…”

She glared at me.

“If that is not what happened, then what was it that alerted the King to your plan to usurp him?”

“I had my spies, but the church had its spies as well, and they preferred Justin’s imperfect rule to mine.”

“I suppose there is just no pleasing some people,” said I.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

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Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter Two: Wherein I follow through with my deception, saving my life and causing quite a bit of additional complication.

“So why are you so intent on killing me… my friend, which is to say Eaglethorpe Buxton?” I asked.

“I did not say I was going to kill him,” she replied. “I said I was going to skin him alive.”

“Wouldn’t that kill him?”

“Not right away.”

“But you said you were going to kill me, that is to say Ellwood Cyrene, which is me.”

“No. I implied that I might kill you.”

“Well thank you for straitening that out,” said I. “A hearty goodnight to you.”

I stepped past her and headed for the door, leaving I might add an almost full tankard of ale sitting on the table, and that is something I almost never do.

“Hold,” she said, and I felt an invisible set of hands grasp me roughly by the shoulders and drag me back to my seat. As I plopped down into sitting position, I could see the glowing wand sweeping down to her side. “I’m not quite finished with you.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Um, why not?”

“I need you to lead me to Eaglethorpe Buxton.” She poured herself into my lap and placed her arms around my shoulders. “I may have use for you as well, Ellwood Cyrene.”

“What could Ellwood Cyrene, which is to say me, do for you?”

“You mean besides leading me to Eaglethorpe Buxton?”

“Yes, besides that.”

“As I mentioned before, you are known to me.”

“Not surprising,” said I. “Just as it is not surprising that you have heard to my very good friend, which is to say my former friend Eaglethorpe Buxton, who is probably way more famous than Ellwood Cyrene… which is to say me.”

“Ellwood Cyrene,” she said, putting her ripe mouth very close to my ear. “Warrior.”

“It is true,” said I. “I am a warrior.”

“Adventurer.”

“Yes.”

“Hero.”

“Indubitably.”

“Man’s man.”

“Of course… what?”

“Always in the company of great men, but eschewing the company of women.”

“Chewing a company of women?”

“Eschewing. It means to abstain or to keep away from– to shun or avoid.”

“Yes of course it does.”

“Not one single queen, noblewoman, courtesan, tavern wench, or milkmaid has been heard to boast of having quenched the fires of Ellwood Cyrene.”

“Campfires?”

“Fires of passion.”

“Well that can’t be right,” said I. “I have seen countless women throwing flirtations toward Ellwood Cyrene… which is to say me.”

“Flirtations have been thrown, no doubt,” she whispered. “After all, you are handsome, though not so much as I had been led to expect. Flirtations have been thrown but none have been caught.”

“That’s pretty hard to believe,” said I, truly puzzled.

“Indeed,” she purred into my ear. “It presents something of a challenge to me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said I.

“I’m going to be the one to quench that fire.”

“The campfire?”

“The fire of passion.”

“Okay,” said I. “Yes, that would be fine. Sounds good.”

“You’re surprisingly acquiescent,” said she.

“If you have your mind made up on something,” I replied, “who am I to stand in your way?”

“First though, you are going to lead me to Eaglethorpe Buxton.”

“Couldn’t you quench my fire first and then I could lead you to Eaglehorn Humpton? I would be ever so much more relaxed that way.”

“Eaglethorpe Buxton,” she corrected. “And no. I don’t want you relaxed. I want you focused. We find him first. Only then will you receive your reward.”

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress

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Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress tops 40,000 DownloadsChapter One: Wherein I encounter the sorceress for the first time.

Antriador is quite a beautiful city. Sitting on the coast of South Lyrria, which is to say the southern coast of that land that used to be the Kingdom of Lyrria but is now a collection of highly competitive city-states, beside azure ocean waves, surrounded by olive trees and vineyards, it is one of the most delightful spots in the world. More important to me was its reputation as a center of the arts, for I am famed adventurer and story-teller Eaglethorpe Buxton. After having held-up all winter at an Inn in Brest, which is to say the country up north, writing a play– a most wonderful play, if I do say so myself, I had come south to Lyrria to produce it. Antriador boasts some sixty playhouses, so I was able to find one that was appropriate, which is to say tasteful enough and yet inexpensive enough for me to lease.

Opening night was wonderful. The playhouse was packed, the upper levels with nobles and wealthy merchants along with their richly dressed wives or their scantily clad mistresses, or sometimes both, and the lower house thronging with commoners who paid two pennies for standing room. My play was a success. Of course, there was never any doubt about that. The actors all did their jobs well. The audience laughed in the right places, sighed in the right places, and wept for joy in the right place for it was after all, a comedy. “The Ideal Magic” was going to secure the fame of Eaglethorpe Buxton, which is to say myself, and make me rich at the same time.

When the stage lights had gone out, and the audience had left the theater, and the stage hands were putting away the sets, I walked down the street to the Singing Siren for a pint. It was very late and most of the patrons had retired, which is to say gone home if they were locals or gone to their rooms on the second or third floor if they had taken rooms, but the Siren stays open all night. That is not to say that it is a noted hot spot. The Fairy Font, or the Reclining Dog, or even the Wicked Wench are much livelier in the late hours. But the Siren does stay open all night. This particular night, there were one or two people lurking in the shadows– doxies and cutpurses who had finished their evening’s employment mostly. I didn’t know the barkeep, which is not surprising, considering the turnover at such establishments. I ordered a tankard of ale and took a seat in the center of the room.

Suddenly the door burst open and a woman strode into the tavern. She was striking. Tall. Blonde. Flashing blue eyes. They were flashing– literally flashing, which is really not normal at all. Of course if her eyes hadn’t been flashing, I wouldn’t have noticed them. There was all that bare skin to distract me. She wore a leather outfit that was more of a harness that an article of clothing. The lower portion was a sort of loose leather skirt made of strips of material which, though hanging down almost to her ankles, exposed most of her legs when she moved. The upper portion was little more than pair of suspenders and two small leather cups.

“Which of you low-lives is Eaglethorpe Buxton?” she snarled.

I stood up and stepped toward her, at this point still more aware of all the bare skin than either the flashing eyes or the glowing wand in her hand.

“What would you have with him, my lovely lady?” I asked.

“I am Myolaena Maetar, and I’m going to skin him alive!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“I, um, oh. Well, he was here a minute ago,” said I. “You just missed him.”

“You are not him?” She pointed the wand at me, its violet halo hanging just below my nose.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” said I. “I am Ellwood Cyrene, hero and adventurer.”

I had been forced by the situation to think on my feet. When I thought that a sorceress was going to kill me I had, as you have no doubt surmised, substituted my own name, which is to say Eaglethorpe Buxton with another name, which is to say Ellwood Cyrene. I suppose that it is not surprising that this name would pop into my head first, for Ellwood Cyrene is my greatest friend and has traveled much of the world with me. He was in fact, the inspiration for the first dozen or so of my stories. We have faced countless dangers together and I have saved his life more than once. Truth be told, he has saved mine more than once too… or twice. Maybe thirty times.

“What are you thinking about,” asked the sorceress.

“I’m thinking about Eaglethorpe Buxton…”

“Good.”

“… and I’m not thinking about Ellwood Cyrene, because that is me, and I don’t sit around thinking about myself, who is Ellwood Cyrene.”

“Ellwood the Queen?”

“No. Ellwood Cyrene.”

“No,” she said. “Ellwood the queen. That’s what it means. Cyrene is an old elvish world for queen.”

“No, no, no,” said I. “Cyrene is a very manly name, and so is Ellwood, which is good because Ellwood Cyrene is a very manly man. He has done many great… um, which is to say, I have had…um.”

“Yes, I have heard of you.” She lowered the wand and stepped closer. “But you are acquainted with this Eaglethorpe Buxton?”

“Oh, we are the best of friends. He has saved my life on countless occasions and…”

“So if I killed you, it would cause him pain?”

“We’ve had a bit of a falling out. No, we’re not really that close anymore.”

His Robot Girlfriend

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Mike Smith’s life was crap, living all alone, years after his wife had died and his children had grown up and moved away. Then he saw the commercial for the Daffodil. Far more than other robots, the Daffodil could become anything and everything he wanted it to be. Mike’s life is about to change.

His Robot Girlfriend is available at the following locations.

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 9 Part 2

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“Is there something the matter?” asked Miss Treewise.

“Just a headache.”

The headache didn’t go away and by the time lunch came at 11:30 Mike thought his head was going to split open.  He followed the other faculty members out the school’s front door, squinting in the bright sunlight.

“We’re going to Hot Dog Paradise,” said Mr. Franklin, slapping him on the right shoulder.  “Do you want to come along?”

“Maybe…”  Before Mike could get anything more out of his mouth, his own car pulled to a stop in front of him.  Patience rolled down the passenger-side window.

“I have your lunch ready at home,” said Patience, poking her head out.  Mike climbed in, not paying any attention to those watching him from the school parking lot.

Patience drove around the block and pulled into their driveway.  Opening the garage door with the remote, she drove right inside and parked in the shady interior next to the Tesla.  Mike climbed out of the car and stepped through the door into the family room.

“What’s the matter Mike?”  Patience asked.

“I think I’m having an aneurism.”

“Really?”

“No.  But I’ve got a bitch of a headache.”

“Sit down here,” she said, pushing him into his recliner.  “I’ll make you feel better.”

In less than a minute she had unfastened Mike’s pants, completely disrobed herself, and straddled his lap.  And though she did work valiantly to make him feel better, and if he were truly honest about it he would have to admit that he did feel better, he still had that bitch of a headache.  It hadn’t diminished at all.  Mike didn’t tell Patience this.  He just thanked her with a kiss, sat down and ate the lentil soup and strange little salad (with cous cous, bell peppers, dried fruit, and mint leaves) that she had made for him.  Then he had Patience stay home and drove himself back to school.  He arrived back just as his fellow teachers did.

“So, who was that,” asked Miss Treewise.

“That was my girlfriend.”

“Nice,” said Mr. Franklin.  “Did you tell her you were rich?”

“She’s a Daffodil,” said Miss Treewise.

“Really?  She didn’t look like a robot.  You didn’t have any of that trouble we heard about over the summer?”

“Nothing to speak of,” replied Mike, making his way past them and into the school.

Holding on to the side of his head, as if to keep his brains from spilling out his ears, he unlocked his classroom door, opened it, and then relocked it and sat down at his desk.  The rest of the afternoon was devoted, for most teachers, to decorating their classrooms and getting their materials together.  Mike had been in the same classroom for ten years now and had very few changes to make in any case, and he certainly didn’t feel like hanging up posters.

He sat with his head in his hands for about an hour.  Nobody bothered him, but his headache didn’t improve.  Finally he got up and sorted through some of the files he would be using for the first unit he was teaching—Latin America.  He walked copies to the reprographics department to have them scanned for the students’ texTees, rather than sending them directly.  After he had filled out the necessary requisition forms, he looked up at the clock on the wall.  It was nearly a quarter past two.  He was legally required to stay until 2:46 PM, but screw it.  It wasn’t like they were going to fire him two days before the start of school.  He headed out the front door, climbed into the car and drove home.

Patience wasn’t waiting at the door when he came in.  Of course he was earlier than expected.  Climbing the stairs, Mike made his way through his bedroom and into the bathroom, where his opened the medicine cabinet and retrieved the bottle of aspirin there.  As he tossed five or six into his mouth and started chewing, he glanced out the window into the back yard.  Patience was there, wearing her large hat, digging some kind of pit or trench.

Mike sighed and walked back through the bedroom, down the short hall and into his study.  As he stepped through the door, it suddenly hit him.  For a moment he thought he really was having a stroke.  He was seeing things that weren’t there.  Where his desk now sat was a baby crib and across the room where Patience had her own little desk, was a baby changing table. The walls were covered with 8×10 and 11×14 pictures of a happy little blond girl with chubby little pink cheeks and huge eyes.

“Agnes,” Mike whispered, feeling the blood drain from his face.  “Aggie.”

He stepped quickly across the hall to Harriet’s room, but it wasn’t Harriet’s room anymore.  It was the guest bedroom.  Mike moved through it in two steps and threw open the closet, but it was completely empty. He went back to the study and opened the closet door.  The interior had been covered with shelves, now filled with the things that Patience had been buying and selling on eBay—Depression glass dishes, Hummel figurines, Disney memorabilia.  On the floor in the back of the closet were six brown storage boxes.   Mike pulled the first one out and opened it.  It was filled with brochures from family trips, old maps, movie ticket stubs, and pressed flowers.  He pushed it aside and opened the second box.  This box was full of framed pictures.

Lifting the topmost picture frame and examining it, Mike looked into his own eyes. No, not his own eyes; the eyes of a Mike Smith that existed fifteen years ago.  This Mike Smith was looking directly into the camera and smiling the type of smile that said he had everything he ever wanted.  To his right was his wife Tiffany, with her happy grey eyes and that twisted smile that was just a bit too playful to be called a smirk. His almost grown daughter Harriet, with a her hair pulled back and thick glasses hanging from chains like an old time librarian, held onto his left arm, and his teenage son Lucas in his boy scout uniform, stood to his far right.  And in Mike’s arms was a perfect little baby, with chubby cheeks and a smile like Christmas, and just a bit of that soon-to-be awesome blond hair. Aggie.

“Aggie.  How could I forget you?”

He saw it all again, only this time it was a memory and not a dream.  Tiffany was lying on the hospital bed, her body broken and bloody.  Her mangled arm and crushed hips were far more alarming than the tiny bump on her head that had actually killed her.  And just beyond her, on another hospital bed, lay little Aggie.  She was several years older than she appeared in the framed picture—a precious four year-old that would grow no older.

“Traumatic amnesia,” said Patience’s voice from the door.  “The memory of her death was so painful that you took down all the pictures of her and boxed them away.  Then your mind did the same thing to your memories.”

“I remember everything now,” said Mike.  And he did.  He couldn’t stop the flood of memories suddenly rushing around his insides.

“We didn’t even really want another kid.  Harriet and Lucas were almost grown up.  But… nobody in the world knows this but me.  Tiffany had this kink about getting pregnant.  She really got a thrill from the possibility.  Her favorite sex talk was about “getting knocked up”.  Even when she was young, before we met, she hadn’t used birth control.  She was just lucky she hadn’t gotten pregnant before. She never took pills, so after we decided that two kids was enough, I used condoms.  Then after a couple of years, Tiffany wanted to spice things up. She started opening the boxes of condoms as soon as we bought them, and she would poke holes in half of them.  I suppose it was only a matter of time, but it was almost ten years…”

“Before Agnes was born…” offered Patience.

“God, she was perfect.  The cutest baby.  She didn’t even cry.  She used to fall asleep in my arms every night.  As soon as she was able to sit up, I started reading to her every day. Well.  When Harriet was little, I was finishing my masters, and then Lucas came along and I was working two jobs.  I suppose I was so happy to be able to spend time with Aggie.  I guess I gave her all the attention that I had wanted to give the others.  And then she was dead….  Um, the police said that Tiffany was probably bending over to get something, God only knows what, and she veered into the other lane.  Aggie was in her little seat.  Tiffany always buckled her in.  But… well, it was a head on.”

Patience put her hand on Mike’s shoulder, but he pulled away and stood up.

“I want to put these pictures back up,” he said.

“I know where they all go,” said Patience.  Mike looked at her.  “I saw pictures in the scrapbooks that show them hanging.”

Mike nodded and walked out of the room.  He went downstairs and climbed into the car.  Pulling out of the driveway and steering his way to the end of the block, he wasn’t conscious of his destination, but something down inside him knew where to go.  He turned into the cemetery and drove very slowly to the southeast corner, parking a short distance from Tiffany’s grave.  He got out, leaving the car door hanging open, and walked across the newly mowed grass.  He briefly brushed off Tiffany’s marker and then moved on to that other grave.  He dropped down to sit next to the tiny little angel statue which wore a nightgown and held a flower in her left hand, her right hand raising a handkerchief to her eye.  Agnes Winnie Smith.  2016-2021.

Mike lay back on the grass next to the little grave.  And he cried.

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 9 Part 1

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Mike woke up the next morning feeling uneasy.  Patience was not there.  He gingerly sat up and climbed out of bed.  When he found out that he couldn’t reach the closet while still connected to the monitoring wires, he peeled them off and hobbled across the room, retrieved his clothes, and got dressed.  It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction that he was almost dressed before any of the nurses came to check on his apparent cardiac arrest.  He waved off their angry comments.  However the last laugh was on him.  They made him wait hours before he could check out.

Lying back on the bed, now fully dressed, Mike turned on the vueTee with the remote.  Tania Marquez’s face appeared on the screen.  The vueTee was smaller than the one that Mike had in his family room and made the newscasters famous mole appear much smaller than it did at home. The story that Miss Marquez was in the midst of reporting immediately caught Mike’s attention.

“…of Daffodil Amonte models in at least two hundred cases.  Federal agents raided the Daffodil corporate headquarters, seizing computer files and other records as well as a number of undelivered robots.  More as this story develops.  In related news, stocks of the Cupertino-based robot manufacturer fell sixteen percent or nineteen and two thirds, while the stock of rival Gizmo fell four percent or five ninety three per share.”

At that moment Patience bounced into the room.  She wore a stretchy black top that bared most of her chest at the top and had an oval keyhole opening around her naval.  She also wore a tiny pair of black shorts.  At the bottom of her long legs was a pair of chunky cork shoes that had to be at least seven inches high with the platform.  She looked at the vueTee screen and shook her head.

“Yes, I know,” said Mike.  “Anti-robot.”

“There have already been cases of people attacking robots across the country, and hundreds of listings for personal robots have gone up on eBay in the last twenty four hours.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that.  I would never sell you.”

“I know that Mike.  Still, I can’t help imagining how terrible those robots must feel to know that they aren’t wanted anymore.”

When Mike was finally checked out, he exited the hospital front entrance via wheelchair feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu.  Unlike the last time that he left the hospital though, he felt as though he really needed the wheelchair.  With his left leg and left arm in a cast and a thick wrapping of bandages around his middle, it was quite an effort just to get into the passenger side of the car.

Once back at home, Patience helped Mike into the house and sat him down in his recliner in the family room.  All damage that resulted from attack of the robot imposter had been repaired with the exception of the piano, now little more than a pile of rubble sitting against the wall.

“I wanted to have everything back in order before you came home,” said Patience. “But I don’t think my carpentry skills are up to repairing a piano and the music store said they only tune them.”

“I think we should just push it out front for the recycle man,” said Mike.  “I only bought that because… one of the kids… that’s funny.  I can’t remember which of the kids was taking piano lessons.  In any case, it’s not as if it was a family heirloom or anything.”

The next morning when he made his way into the family room, Mike found the piano had been removed and a decorative room divider was in its place. He plopped into his chair and pulled the lever to raise his feet up.  Then he clicked on the vueTee.  The scene that came to life on the screen was a press conference at the Department of Energy.

“…for everyone to know that their robots are safe and that this was a single occurrence of malicious programming.  The entire incident involves a group of programmers at Daffodil who were using the Amonte model robots to gather information on their owners. This information was then used in a complex identity theft scam.  It was only when a small number of the robots refused to send personal information on their owners that the plan began to unravel.  The scammers first attempted to reprogram the robots in question, but this caused a fault, shutting them down, and bringing the unwanted attention of other Daffodil programmers.  Finally in a last ditch effort to cover up their illegal activities, the scammers tried to replace the Amonte models with identical robots, but this failed in most cases, as the poorly programmed replacements malfunctioned and the original robots refused to return to the factory.”

“How many people have been affected by the identity theft?” asked a reporter.

“Everyone who owns an Amonte model Daffodil should take steps to secure their banking and credit accounts.”

“But those who own the Amonte models that refused to send the information did not have their personal information compromised?” asked another reporter.

“While that seems to be the case, the Department of Energy recommends that all owners of Daffodil Amonte robots take measures to ensure that their personal information is secure.”

Mike jumped a bit when Patience appeared at his elbow with a slice of pumpkin bread and a glass of milk.  He turned off the vueTee and then accepted the breakfast.

“What’s the matter?” asked Patience.

“Hmm?”

“I would have thought that you would have been gratified to learn what was behind my service disruption, not to mention the attack by the imposter. Instead you have the look on your face that usually accompanies disappointment.”

“I guess I am a little disappointed,” said Mike.

“Why?”

“Well… I got the crap beat out of me.  And it was all for identity theft.  I thought it would be something bigger.”

“It was a very large identity theft scam.”

“Yes, but I thought it would be… international terrorism or world domination. You know; something fantastic.”

“In all fairness, how much world domination do you suppose could be achieved by placing a mole in the home of a middle school Geography teacher?  It’s not as if you were the Governor of California or the head of Cisco Systems.”

“That’s twice you made a comment like that,” said Mike defensively. “Teachers change lives, you know.”

“I know you do.”  Patience patted him on the shoulder and then headed off for the kitchen.

The news stories about the Daffodil Conspiracy as it came to be known continued for a few days, but then disappeared.  The excitement of the Olympics and the ever-present war pushed everything else out of the headlines.  At the beginning of August Mike received a letter in the mail from Daffodil asking for a list of damages to his home and a copy of medical bills. Patience gathered the information together and sent it by courier.  A week later, a copy of the police report arrived.  Mike didn’t bother reading it.  He just had Patience file it away.

The end of August meant the start of school, and thankfully Mike was fully healed by the time he had to return.  He had spent so much time in his chair with his foot up, that he was actually happy to go back to work, if only to get out of the house.  The first schoolday, he walked to Midland in the morning, and was surprised that upon his arrival, he wasn’t at all out of breath.

The school faculty held the first of a series of back to school meetings in the library.  The teachers filed in one after another and sat down in chairs around the hexagonal library tables.  Mike sat down at an empty table, but four of the five remaining chairs were quickly filled by Mrs. Cartwright, Miss Treewise, Mr. Franklin, and Miss Fine.

“You look very nice Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Cartwright.

“I do?”

“Yes you do,” said Mr. Franklin.  “You’ve lost weight, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“I didn’t think you looked thinner,” said Miss Fine.  “I see now that you are.  I just thought you looked younger.”

“Really.”

Mrs. Cartwright nodded.

“You do look younger,” admitted Mr. Franklin.  “Of course, you’re still really old.”

“Thanks.  That’s very nice.”

“If you are interested in seeing your class rosters, you can pull them up on your texTees,” said the Assistant Principal.  “It won’t be a surprise to anyone that class sizes are larger than last year.”

Mike pulled his texTee out of his attaché case and began navigating through the menus until he found the file to download from the school’s server.  Forty seven kids in first hour.  Thirty nine in second.  Forty two in third.  Forty five in fourth.  Forty four in fifth.  He scanned through the last names in first period.  He recognized seven or eight as the younger siblings of children he had taught the year before or the year before that.  Then he looked through the first names: Elizabeth, Justine, Jason, Bradley, Agnes, Jonathan, Quadear, Robert, Remembrance, Marshall, Agnes, Catherine, Mildred, Michael, Aaron, Agnes…. A pain shot through the right side of Mike’s head.