On the Subject of Pie
Created | Updated Feb 14, 2008
Quandary Phase - Episode Twenty-Four
'Galen! Do not touch the holy feather!'
Galen swivelled on his heel to face his nemesis, evoking a gasp from the audience despite them all knowing exactly what was about to happen by virtue of having seen the film many times before.
'Why not? Who exactly are you to tell me what I can do?'
'I am John Pie – messenger of The Dvorak.'
'Oh really? I'm King Galen, and I'm going to take what I want.'
This all seemed quite fanciful to John, but what followed was in fact even further from the truth, to the point that it was clearly an obvious mixture of creative writing, special effects and some expensive-looking bullet-time photography. The whole thing culminated in the cinematic Galen setting on fire and turning to dust in slow motion in the sort of way that suggested realism hadn't exactly been at the top of the director's agenda. The look of surprise on John's face had begun to crawl towards incredulity, and so Gerald decided to lead him back outside again, leaving the man who looked nothing like the real-life John Pie to deliver a rather caustic 'serves you right' to the pile of ashes that the late King Galen had just left behind.
Once they'd left the cinema, Gerald continued to explain to John how the banishment of Galen and the words The Dvorak had delivered to the Cygnians a few thousand years ago had shaped the whole of their society. The baffling thing was that this had all happened despite the fact that, in Gerald's opinion, the words were an assortment of complete nonsense that had just happened to fall into the hands of the right people at the right time. A few sacred laws later and the world had somehow become bright and sunny, making it the perfect place for happy people to live; those who still refused to just live and let live were turned into swans using the collective power of a group of skilled Cygnians, thus keeping the planet free from all those nasty things like anger, hate and mild lime pickle. All that Gerald could really conclude was that it hadn't really had anything to do with John apart from his banishing Galen – the rest had simply been a matter of social control under the guise of a religion that specified that nobody was allowed to bring about the apocalypse just before dinner time.
'There's just one thing I don't understand though,' John remarked.
'Oh. What's that?'
'How come you all speak such good English?'
Gerald laughed. 'It's only ever you humans who don't learn anyone else's native tongues and instead just hope that everyone else will speak yours. They say it's due to the human brain having an appallingly underdeveloped linguistic centre, but I reckon it's just due to lack of trying. Anyhow, most of us have to speak the language because that's how the Dvorak's message is written, and that makes it the language of the Cygnian courts.'
'Hmm... But how could your people possibly have been able to read the message if you didn't actually know Earth existed back then?'
'They couldn't – they just guessed. To be honest, the meaning wasn't really that important – it was the minor detail that it scared the living crap out of everyone that made them all start behaving properly.'
'Oh. Fair enough.'
Brown. The ceiling above his head was definitely brown, which was unusual because, usually, it wasn't brown. Funny that. Slowly, and despite the pain it caused, Cedric lifted his head a little way off the hard surface he was laid out on and had a look around. Much of the small cavern surrounding him was also brown, and he took this as a sign that he was underground. That was the sort of detail he wasn't particularly fond of. He tried to remember how he had ended up where he was, but the memory just wasn't there. Strange, he thought – he was pretty sure there was something terribly important that he had been trying to do, only he seemed to have failed at it and ended up here. A word crept into his head, but it seemed a meaningless one and so he rejected it. The word wasn't too happy with this and reappeared a few moments later, this time sparking a thought that slowly started to lead him out of his mental haze. 'Quack' meant 'swan'. 'Swan' meant 'crime'. 'Crime' meant 'amnesia'. Soon enough, whole sentences started to flow through his mind, telling a tale that Cedric could hardly believe he had forgotten. Ignoring the pain, he pulled himself to his feet and, after having taken a few hazy steps, he cleared his head and set off through the entrance to the bunker and into the outside world. On the horizon, he saw the figure he knew was responsible for all this.
Emily watched as the trio carried the endless raft of camping equipment out from the boot of the car and plonked the various pieces on the grassy field. The tent they were putting up seemed to have endless bits of metal to it, each with various springs, fixtures and bends in them which meant that they could only possibly work together in any sort of useful manner if they were put together in the sort of way that the instructions would have implied had they actually been any good. She wasn't entirely sure why, but Emily found this family rather interesting. Sitting quite happily in the picturesque little pond that represented the major highlight of an otherwise normal camping spot, she watched patiently as they struggled to put the tent up, following which they finally got around to cooking and then accidentally dropping bits of food which she could peck up. Soon enough, it started to get dark, and the family were eventually forced to retire inside the tent despite the protests of the young boy, who naturally claimed that it was in fact still daytime and that it was only dark because of the time of year. For some reason this argument failed quite abjectly, and Emily began to feel sleepy herself as she watched the trio head off to bed.
There it was – the portal to Earth. At that particular moment in time it didn't look all that impressive; in fact, it looked very much like every other empty space in the entire world, save for the faint glow which surrounded it. Drawing a deep breath, Galen said a series of words and threw some choice objects at the empty patch of grass, following which he placed Pyrodaemon on the ground a short way from the portal, only to watch as Pyro started to waddle off in completely the wrong direction. It took several attempts before Galen actually managed to persuade the demon/swan to head straight for the portal, which finally decided to open and allow Pyro to waddle through. Galen quickly responded by casting the leg of a boar into the opening, forcing the portal open for the time being and allowing him to follow Pyrodaemon through at his leisure. The portal would soon close behind him, and besides, there wasn't exactly going to be anyone else following them through.
There it was, just sitting there, pulsating and setting up a small cloud of dust which whirled about as the air surrounding the portal repeatedly cycled through the temperature difference between the two places it connected. Without a second thought, Cedric began to sprint towards it, fearing it might close at any time, getting closer and closer until he finally hurled himself through.
This time, Galen wasn't going to get away with it.
