178. Dinner at Thymian's Lair and the Purpose of Four Lives

178. Dinner at Thymian’s Lair and the Purpose of Four Lives

After seeing my sisters’ pet pipnoshers and hearing that I, too, would receive one, I decided it was time to visit my brother Thymian. Thymian is one of those of my siblings who have never gone off to live on their own, though perhaps this is because he is waiting to be a hundred before he leaves. He travels very often to Egypt and is sometimes absent for weeks, but he has never claimed his free ideal home and occupies one of the basements of my parents’ palace. These basements are rather disturbing places. I have never explored them all, and I don’t think my parents have either. What there is beneath the palace is a mystery only partially known to certain individuals.

In order to visit Thymian, I first had to go to my own rooms in the palace and look for a guide of this place that I kept among my books. Those of us who live here are given an updated version of the guide every year, on the first of January. When I got to the palace gardens, Cespuglio showed himself and beckoned  to me from the bush in which he had been hiding. I told him I had come to see Thymian and asked him if he would like to tag along. He nodded, crawled out of the bush and followed me to my rooms. One of my rooms is furnished like a small library. Not too small, for I have a lot of readable stuff,  books , maps, scrolls, magazines, comics, and more. I’m not exceedingly orderly, but it isn’t impossible for me to find what I am searching for among my things, so I soon found the guidebook I was looking for and  shook a bit of fairy dust off it. Fortunately for everyone, the only kind of dust that ever gets inside the palace is fairy dust, which is pretty nice to look at and which just moves somwehre else by itself when evicted from a place or object. Plus it doesn’t make one sneeze because it never gets into one´s nostrils’ or hair or anything like that unless you want it there.  And it can find its own way to the gardens when there is too much of it inside.

With the book open at the right page, Ces and I descended to the fourth basement of the palace. We searched for a small,  ankh shaped opening on one of the walls  and made ourselves as little as we could to slip through the very teensy hole there was in the rounded part of the cros sor key of life. Once we had entered, we found ourselves in an apparently empty  cavelike closet. We returned to our normal sizes and headed towards a larger opening  there was there, closet o the floor, at about the height of our knees. We got on all fours and crawled through it, zigging and zagging  left and right as in a maze until we finally reached another small room.  We  searched for and found  a wall with a graffiti of a long armed sun picking lotus flowers near the Nile  river. It was not a very large painting, and it had the annoying custom of moving from one wall to another,  but if you wandered around a little you finally got to see it. When it is in a good mood, the sun in this painting is a vital, friendly yellow, the sky is a lovely shade of baby blue, the lotus flowers are stunningly white and the river is a peaceful shade of  blue- green. When the graffiti is in a bad mood, the waters of the Nile are a dreadful blood red, the sky is a horrid lead grey, with awful red streaks like blood  too, instead of clouds.  The flowers are nowhere to be seen and the sun’s arms are as threatening as a lethal spider´s. Fortunately for us, the picture was looking happy. That meant Thymian was at home and receiving. We knew we could press ourselves against it and it would suck us in, and we would be standing within Thym’s lair.   

The walls of the first room you enter when there, are covered with scarabs as thickly as there are polka dots on some wallpapers. Some are turquoise and some are indigo and others are emerald green. There are also jet black and ruby red scarabs , all over walls  painted  gold. There is a solid gold throne shaped like a lion and when one sits on it, it looks as if one is riding the lion sideways. Thymian usually receives his visitors sitting there, but he was not there at the moment. An open door invited us to proceed deeper into his apartments. As we approached it, a strange buzzing sound, only faintly musical, filled the air. I identified  voices similar to those of my sisters´growling pipnoshers. Again, I felt fear. Had they gotten out of hand  and attacked Thymian? The odour of incense and of  the best myrrh tree resin mixed with oils, enveloped us.

“Do you know what they were singing?” Thym suddenly asked me, appearing from behind a curtain carrying a  lyre and  accompanied by our brother Devin, who held a bone flute in his hands. Behind them fluttered a choir of around two dozen pipnoshers. “That was the Sixth Hurrian Hymn. The oldest written song produced by humans.”

My misgivings got the better of me and I betrayed my fears.

“Oh, am I glad to see you’re in one piece!” I blurted out.

“Why shouldn’t I be? They´re very happy,” said Thymian with a wave of dismissal. “They have learnt how to sing for their supper and how to dance for joy and how to go shopping for sugary treats. They no longer hiss and spit at people. They only enjoy themselves like civilized creatures do.”

“They growl,” I couldn’t help saying. “I don’t like the way they sound.”

“You want me to work a little harder on that? I suppose I could make them hum and sing sweetly.”

This time I waved my hand in dismissal.

“I’m only here to see how you are doing,” I said. “You had me worried.”

“I’m okay. When I have time I will teach these sugarbugs to paint. Then I will let them decorate all the walls down here.”

“Are they all here? Every last one of them?” I asked, though I didn’t see how they could be. Uncle Gentlerain and I had done as Anubis’ priest suggested and used a lot of them as fertilizer. Now they were part of sunflowers.

“Oh, no. The bulk is with Anubis. I haven’t doctored his bugs. I don’t think they are sugary. I imagine he uses them to torment the evil souls that dwell in his realms, or something as sinister.” 

“What are these things? Animals or machines or what? I keep feeling that one of these days I will have a nightmare about all this,” I said.

“You always were one for nightmares. I remeber how one Halloween you invoked Dr. Freud to interpret one and that caused a scandal.”

“I was afraid I might be human.”

“You? Nah, you’re not the type. Beer or milk?”

Ces and I followed Thym and Dev behind the curtain. We followed them through chamber after chamber, all choke full of ivory wands,  wax ships and human figurines, papyri, scrolls, rolls of linen, carved stellae, both large and small, mummy masks,  obsidian blades, assorted pottery, limestone coffins,  miniature molds of food, such as melons and grapes, an oversized squash and painted gourds with seeds rattling inside them, faience hippos,  lapis lazuli cats, assorted metal serpents, clay cobras, carnelian crocodiles, jasper falcons, bronze winged and wingless lions,  Nile mud baboons, bone turtles, ebony jackals, stuffed vultures and the gods know what other kinds of animals  and paraphernalia. I remembered having asked Thym once if all this stuff was booty from sacked graves. He had replied that certainly not. That would have been stealing. And sacrilege.

When we finally got to his dining room, a most peculiar place with a long wooden table and six stone chairs and all sorts of glass cabinets on the walls full of vials and bottles of wormwood leaves, myrtle leaves, willow leaves,  carob pods, marshmallow plant seeds, corriander, dill,  celery, natron salt,  falcon’s eggs, cinnabar  and other things I fervently hoped Thym would not try to spice or spike the food and drink I knew he was about to offer us with.

Ces and I exchanged a knowing look. Eating with Thymian always feels dangerous. The truth is we almost always throw up once back home after accepting food and drink from him, but there is no way we can know for sure if ithis isn’t only because  we have felt far too apprehensive and this has influenced our stomachs or due to something worse. The atmosphere in this room is really not one of a pleasant place to be eating at. Among the glass cabinets there is a sort of terrarium filled with scorpions of many sizes. They are not there to be eaten, I think, unlike the lobsters in the aquariums of some restaurants. But we can’t help fearing one might sneak out and bite a diner. I remembered that more than once I had run into people on my way out of the palace who were there to see Thymian and who asked me if the scorpion charmer was at home. Yes, that is one of Thymian’s  bynames.  

There were four family-sized  gourmet pizzas on the long wooden table. Thym said Devin had brought them down from the kitchen. Supposing nothing had happened to them on the way down, they were probably safe to eat. We decide to share all four instead of choosing just one each.

“Beer or milk?” Thymian asked again.

Thymian’s beer, which to begin with is often the colour red and sometimes has stuff floating on the surface,  has nothing to do with the kind of beer humans  or fairies drink nowadays. I don’t know if it would qualify as  good or bad beer back in Ancient Egypt, but when Ces said milk, so did I.

“With honey?”

“Yes, please,” Ces and I said at the same time. 

Dev, who is like three or four hundred years older than the other three of us are, chose to drink beer. I suppose he is old enough to know what he is doing. And to be immune to more ancient bacterias than we are.

Thymian served us the drinks in some  lovely lotus-shaped cups. We have to say in his favour that his tableware is always charming and immaculate. Spotlessly clean. There is no denying that.

“Yo,  Padi!” I cried, as Padimaahes,  Thym’s pet tortoiseshell cat strolled into the room and jumped onto my lap. “How do you get on with the pipnoshers? That is, the sugarbuggiess?”

“He’s a neurotic and he always will be,” said Thymian.

“Padi?” I asked in surprise. I’ve never met a more happy-go-lucky cat.

“No, you!”

“Very,” nodded Dev, who was already munching on pineapple and sweet potato pizza. “Very neurotic.”

Thymian got up and ordered all the pipnoshers out of the room, promising them some sugar awaited them in the kitchen.  But Padimaahes gave me a look that could only mean he didn’t like Thymian’s new pets either.

“There. Will you be able to eat now, Arls?” Thym  sat down again before I could answer.  After finishing a slice of caulifower, roasted red capsicum , mozzarella and chilli pizza, he added, “I hear you’ve been gathering information on our uncle’s past.”

“Gentlerain?”

“Um. August is an akh. I’m not saying unk. I’m saying an A-K-H . A lightfilled spirit. As true of voice as anyone. In words you will understand, he is a true blue fairy, and you won’t find a true blue fairy that won’t say Gen is a jolly  good fellow. Well, maybe he’s not very jolly. But a good fellow he is, and does his last name honour. However,  you should hear the opposition. Only don’t. Don’t go deep  into this mess, Arley. Just tell our sisters they have nothing to worry about. He’ll never do them or you any harm. Or even Dad.”

“And the opposition is? I have to know if I’d better not approach them.”

Thymian served himself some truffle, onion and  six delightful mushrooms pizza.

“The border walkers. Especially the ones that suffer a fascination related to power.  The border bouncers. The ones that risk skipping back and forth from one world to another and might any day lose it  and slip and degenerate into mortals. He doesn’t hate them, he’s incapable of that, but they can’t stand him. He knows too much. Listen, my dear sen, from what you have gathered you have probably concluded that our daddy is a disastrous ruler, or a mean brother at least, to have treated Gen the way he did. And Mr. Binky, him too, poor man. Let´s not forget the grievances of that overbearing soul.  No. Our father shouldn’t have surreptitiously bullied Gen, but, sometimes, the hardest thing for a king to do is nothing. Our daddy is great at that. Nobody can do nothing the way Dad does nothing. Don’t underestimate him.”

“Do nothing? He did something. He pitted Mr. Binky against Gen and got rid of two opponents. One of them for centuries. Mr. Binky… who knows?”

Thymian smiled.

“When he does something, it often still looks like he is doing nothing. Do you know who sent Binky off for a nap?”

“Of course I do. It was an accident. Two cars collided and exploded. Mr. Binky was hit by a flying tin of magic oil. I didn’t see it happen, but Heather and Thistle went to the site of the accident – the scene of it, really -  as soon as it happened. They took  Mr. Binky  to Apple Island almost at once. They told me all about it.”

“The oil manufacturing old vet,” sighed Thymian.  “Poor man! He should have been made one of us. He almost was.”

“Are you suggesting Uncle Gen prepared the accident? Murdered Mr. Shyboy and put the primer minister to sleep? He can’t have.”

“Of course not. It was Mr. Binky’s own family that did it. He was trying to get those plutocrats to pay taxes. He couldn’t convince them it would only be for a while. When he got to control all the money, he, a Binky, wouldn’t have to answer to anyone and neither would they. But they couldn’t wait.”

“No. That can’t be. I don’t know Mr. Binky’s family, but I know the Shyboys. And the genie who was driving the other car. This was no set up. It’s like I was almost there myself.”

“Whether they did it or not, why haven’t the Binkys shown any interest in waking Binky? They haven’t claimed his body or sued anyone or anything. That kind of people would sue their own great granny for giving them the wrong birthday gift.”

That much was true. 

“Forget Mr. Binky’s folks,” said Thymian, hitting the rosemary, garlic, potato, white onion and ricotta pizza. “Let’s get back to our folks. You think Gen was a rival of Dad’s?”

“No! I think it’s looking like Gen was unfairly treated. And I think Mum thinks so too.”

“She can’t think otherwise,” said Dev suddenly.  “Mum and Gen were born at the same time. There is no telling which one is older even by the flash of a second. And you know what Gen did? He said, “Ladies first,” when it came to deciding who would get to be the monarch, eh? Yep, he gave Mummy first place and the whole kingdom. When she offered to share it, he said her having all of it  was better than splitting it in two, just like Solomon’s favorite would-be mama. Mum will never think ill of Gentleman Gen. As for Grandpa AEternus, he said Gen had done the right thing and then never forgave him for it. Just like Grandpa, eh?.”

 Thymian began to laugh, as if at a secret joke.

 “For now, all you have to do is protect Alpin.”

“Alpin? What? Again?”

“That’s the purpose of your life, isn’t it? I delve in Egypt. Devin delves in computers. Ces hides in bushes. You protect  Alpin.”

I was stunned. I had never thought of it that way, but it was sounding very much like the truth.  

“I…I can’t do otherwise. Darcy asked me to be Alpin’s friend. Nobody can say no to Nono Darcy.”

“That was mean of Darcy. It proves he’s like the rest of his family. Dangerous to deal with. They haven’t got friends. They have victims.”

“I think…Darcy may have had no choice either. His mother was putting pressure on him to find Alpin a friend and he had to ask someone, I suppose. Thesorry detail is that someone was me.”

“Look, I’m not saying Uncle Gen will harm Alpin. But I don’t think he will do nothing about him, like Dad has been doing. Gen has Alpin stuck somewhere between his eyebrows.”

"A little lower. The chakra Ajna," contributed Dev. 

“Because I’m forced to be his friend?”

“That too. Maybe,” Thym laughed.

“Because Alpin can see everything? He knows too much!” I cried.

Thym smiled again.

“You go see Dad tomorrow morning. He’ll be having brunch with Gen. Join them. But not before you've eavesdropped a little. You’ll see what’s cooking. It could be a baked apple. And you both come back here next Friday. We’ll have pizza again, us four, and you can try to get tanked on milk, babies. I promise to have made the sugarbuggies sound much sweeter.”