Chương 15: Chapter 14 — The Moose and the Boob

The robe had arrived that morning. It was deep blue, heavy ceremonial fabric, commissioned from Madame Thistlewick's shop on Merchant Row at considerable speed and considerable expense. It was large. It had to be large. The measurements Nibbles had submitted included the phrase "accounting for additional layering across the torso and forearms," which was the most diplomatic description of biker armor and knee pads ever to appear in a dressmaker's order form. Nibbles stared at the robe. Lost in thought.

How was he going to get the hero to wear the robe? He looked at Max, standing in the courtyard of the Aphid Barn, facing a wall, doing nothing. He glanced at the robe again and sighed.

"Brother Fenwick," said Nibbles.

"High Priest."

"We are going to need assistance." Mark arrived an hour later. He was a moose, which meant he stood somewhere near eleven feet tall and weighed enough that the courtyard stones registered his arrival before anyone saw him. It also meant that none of the buildings would hold him, so they had arranged the meeting out back, behind the barn where Max stayed. Mark wore no insignia and carried no visible weapons. He didn't need to.

His hide carried the record of a career — long pale scars crossing his shoulders and flanks, old damage from things that had tried and failed to do something about it. He had the permanent squint of someone who spent most of his time outdoors calculating distances, and the patient stillness of someone who had stopped being surprised by much of anything some years ago. He took in Nibbles, the robe, and Max in a single slow sweep. A smirk played on his lips for a moment — a beast that had seen just about everything.

This was new, and new was interesting. A high, reedy voice emerged from somewhere inside eleven feet of moose, a voice that had no business belonging to anything that size.

"Golll-ly," said Mark.

"This feller sure looks to be a stinky one, and a bit rotted. How d'ya figure it ain't dead yet." It was not a question. He held out one broad hoof. Nibbles placed three magic rings in it without a word. Mark pocketed them, picked up the robe, and approached Max with calm focus. Max turned his head unhurriedly toward a great deal of meat in very close proximity, teeth gnashing with the slow mechanical chomps.

"Bad Max," said Sindy.

"Bad. Do not bite the moose. Max. The moose is helping. Bad." Mark moved his hoof with the practiced calm of a professional who had added a line item for this in his rate. He had worked with bears in the omnivore kingdom, battled cursed golems, and solved the secret of the basilisk that had been half-petrified and half-not and had opinions about both halves. He had never worked with whatever this was. He had charged accordingly. Max's jaws closed on empty air.

Apparently, being swallowed by something bigger than himself had gotten Max a bit bitey today.

"Max. No." Only Max could hear her.

"He is very large, and you will regret it. Max." Mark circled, reading the situation. The robe was enormous, but the figure was more so — shoulders, arms, the general architecture of something that had been built for a purpose. He began with the hood, working it over the head from behind, moving quickly when the head turned and slower when it stilled. The trick with difficult subjects, in Mark's experience, was to match their rhythm rather than fight it. Max's rhythm involved occasional lurching toward him.

While Mark was trying to get the first sleeve on the hero, Sindy decided to distract Max with some new words she needed him to say. Sindy had been trying to teach Max the word "book" since dawn. She spoke the local language well enough by now, understanding it was easy for a supercomputer sapient system such as Sindy. She had been listening to it for weeks and talking to Max in it that whole time. What she could not do was read it.

The written form remained a mystery, the shapes their letters made on a page rather than how they sounded in the air. A few signs as they were walking hadn't given her enough context to decipher the language. She longed for a book. A book was pages and pages of text, held still — she could start building on the alphabet, syntax, and finally update her language and screen with this world's language. Max tried to kick Mark as he slipped the second arm into the robe.

The movement got the robe tangled up on the spikes on the shoulders of the modified biker's jacket. With a sigh, Mark pulled it off and tried again. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. If Max could say the word, someone would produce one. If someone produced one, she could finally build the written language. And if she had the written language, she could put words on the screen. Words Nibbles could read. Actually read.

Not dancing figures and emoji guesswork. Words. Max had spotted a butterfly and was staring at it for a second, and in turn was standing reasonably still while Mark worked. It was the best opportunity she was going to get.

"Book," said Sindy.

"Boo," said Max. Fenwick looked up from his notes.

"Book," said Sindy again, more carefully.

"Boob," said Max. Fenwick looked at the sky with the expression of someone choosing not to comment.

"Book," said Sindy.

"Buh. Uh. K. Book."

"Ook," said Max.

"That's — no. Book. The thing with pages. Book."

"Boo."

"Almost. Book."

"Bok." Progress. Possibly.

"Book," said Sindy.

"Boob," said Max. Mark repositioned, undeterred.

"Max," said Fenwick, from the shoulder.

"Arms up." The arms came up approximately halfway, which was more than anyone had expected. Mark, working with professional efficiency, started straightening the robe that was loosely hanging on Max within a few minutes. He stepped back. He assessed his work. He adjusted the hood so it sat forward, shadowing the face, covering the worst of the neck damage.

The ceremonial blue fell in clean lines over the biker jacket, the armor plates visible at the forearms giving it an accidental martial quality that was, frankly, almost impressive. One boot. One bare foot. The robe covered most of it. Mark looked at the bare foot. Shaking his head, he collected his tools and left. Fenwick quickly put the harness on Max. It would give him a chance to be closer in case something went wrong with the ceremony, and he would be there to help control Max if he was startled or scared.

The ceremony was being held in the eastern courtyard outside of the Order's property. They had discussed bringing him to the castle, but there were just too many things that could go wrong. Keeping it local also meant that Nibbles could completely control the environment. It was a large courtyard. This had been Nibbles' first requirement.

The second requirement had been that the viewing area be positioned at the far end, a distance he had described in his planning notes as "appropriately reverent" and which Stondall had immediately identified as "suspiciously far." The third requirement, which had not appeared in any planning notes, was that the refreshment tables be positioned upwind.

The courtyard had been decorated with banners in the kingdom's colors, a small raised platform at one end, and a great deal of fresh flowers whose primary purpose was aromatic rather than aesthetic. The flowers were Fenwick's contribution. The temporary stands had been erected along the north and west walls of the courtyard, tiered wooden seating dressed with the Order's colors and lined, along every rail, with fresh-cut flowers.

Sweet grass, late roses, and something Fenwick had requested from the herbalist that had no name in the common tongue but smelled aggressively of spring meadow. From a distance, it looked festive. The court arrived in the ordered way courts always arrived — by rank, by family, by the careful social mathematics of who stood where and why. Lady Whitmore came first, a pale grey mare in deep green silk, her mane dressed with small gold pins.

Behind her, Lord Hartwell, a red deer whose antlers had been trimmed for the occasion and who carried himself with the bearing of someone who had been told this was important and had decided to believe it. Three of the Woolwich family occupied the next row — old sheep money, landowners from the western counties, dressed in their formal best and deeply uncertain what they were here to see.

A scattering of rabbit functionaries filled the lower tiers, moving quickly and finding seats with the practiced efficiency of people whose job it was to be in the right place. There were others. Cattle. More horses. A delegation from the outer provinces whose species Fenwick couldn't identify from this distance and didn't need to. The king arrived last, as kings did, and the stands went quiet. The crowd assembled at the far end.

Citizens, court officials, members of the nobility — all of them at what Nibbles had called a respectful ceremonial distance and what Stondall had called a distance that would be insulting under any other circumstances. The king stood on a slightly raised platform to one side, green robes immaculate, tusks gleaming. Stondall stood beside him, navy robes, documents in hand, expression its usual configuration. He was upwind. He had arrived early, specifically to be upwind. Max stood on the central platform.

From the far end of the courtyard, in the morning light, with the blue ceremonial robe falling in clean lines, the hood forward, and an illusion spell giving him armor plates that caught the sun, he was genuinely imposing. Still. Large. The kind of figure that a crowd, from a sufficient distance, might interpret as controlled power rather than an undead creature that has eaten an ungodly number of bugs. A citizen near the back whispered something to her neighbor. Her neighbor nodded, impressed.

Fenwick, on the shoulder, heard none of this. He was too close.

"Book," said Sindy, one more time, with the quiet persistence of someone who was not going to stop.

"Boob," said Max. Nibbles cleared his throat and stepped to the podium. [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ──────────────────────────── [Entry 52] Day 52 in the fantasy realm. A mercenary moose dressed him this morning. It cost three magic rings. ▌ Becca, if you can see this — ▌ He said boob a lot. He is a lot like Grayson. ▌ The ceremony begins in ten minutes.