The bird, swallowing some twitching bug it had caught on the wing, twisted his petite black-hooded head to one side and then the other and voiced a brief twitter of greeting.
'So, rossamunderling,' the Lapinduce declared suddenly into the hush, its back still turned, 'you wish still to be an everyman?'
Nearly toppling back, Rossamund grabbed at the frame of the arch, righting himself. Feeling suddenly nude among the shadows he cast about wildly, looking to flee-but to where?
'Come out from the shadows, little ouranin,' the urchin-lord persisted, relaxing his dramatic pose, 'and let me greet you a'right.'
Reluctantly Rossamund stepped into the mottled light of the open arch, halting cautiously on the bank of the runnel. 'Uh-h… Hello, sir…,' he stammered. 'H-how…'
The mighty urchin pivoted upon its stool, arching about to fix him directly. Black fur bristling, head hunched low between tall collars, its great ears laid flat behind its head and out along its back, the Lapinduce barked, 'How? How do I know? Know that you are there or know that you are a rossamunderling? An ouranin? A manikin? A hinderling? A pink-lips? A fake-foe?'
'Uh… b-both, sir,' the young factotum squeaked.
In the elucidating light of day the creature's visage was clear: a dark, triangular face covered in a lustrous pelt like rich black velvet, with pale fur ringed about equally pallid eyes; shadowy stripes ran from beneath each lower lid, down and across each high cheek.
Its gaze narrowed.
Alarmed as he was, Rossamund was awed by something eccentrically and inexpressibly handsome in this imposing monster-lord, its face appearing less like a rabbit to him now, more like that of some hunting cat such as he had read about in the scant count of natural philosophy books at Madam Opera's.
The damp black rabbit's nose-oddly endearing and bestial beneath such a humanly astute and judicious regard-twitched, testing the air. 'I know because I was there, little ouranin,' the urchin murmured, voice still carrying. 'I was there when the fresh land sang with threwd so sweet and new as to reach an accord with the pure ringing of the very stars themselves.'
A frown darkened its brow.
'I was there when the alosudne, perfidious and haughty-those whom men now call the false-gods-rose up from the waters in their conceit to drive the gentle naeroe away as they sought to seize all three of the middling grounds as their own. I was there when my landling frair and I joined to beat the false-hearted alosudne back to the utter deeps to slumber uselessly evermore.'
The Lapinduce became quieter now, speaking rapidly in its passion. 'I was there to watch men arrive-born of mud as we-to flourish and, finally, full of the pride of life, set to building tiny empires of their own, whelming and shackling each other, snatching at things once freely given as if they were their own. I was there when they sought to wrest the living sod from us and slew their first urchin by deeds of great and corporate treachery.'
Sitting tall and manlike, the beast paused, smoothed its coat hems and continued in a more even tone. 'I was there when one whole third of the theriphim declared their hatred of men and compacted to ever thwart them.' It stood, reaching thick-sleeved arms out and up, pressing its overlong hands against a heavy walnut bough. At the crown of its swarthy head it would have exceeded eight feet; with its ears it gained another yard of height.Yet, in the lucidity of day's glow it did not appear quite as massive, and its coat lent the monster-lord a regal, almost human, aspect. 'Long years have I ruled here till every particle about me has become my own, yet never once have I been greatly troubled by the too-brief souls about me.' It took a breath. 'All of this, little rossamunderling, is how I know.'
Rossamund waited, and though bursting with a swarm of questions provoked by this riddling sermon, he did not speak.
The pause stretched into a weighty silence.
Rossamund blinked.
'Will you give me answer, ouranin?' insisted the monster-lord, breaking the stifling hush. It stepped toward him, a jaunting tip-of-toe stride, its legs elongated like a rabbit's. Unlike the close-cut claws of its hands, the claws on its large coney feet, clicking on the paving, were wicked long and wicked sharp.
Stoutly Rossamund opened his mouth once, twice, but even on the third no more than an astounded gurgle came out of him.
Chirruping urgently, Darter Brown danced winging loops about the Duke of Rabbits' ears.
Ears drooping slightly, the Lapinduce shot a strangely chastened look to the agitated sparrow. 'Be not afraid, little wing-ed merrythought,' it murmured, addressing the bird directly. 'I am no cacophrin nor simple sunderhallow to set on your friend and eat him!You may tell Lord Strouthion-my word to his ear-that though I might decline to bind myself to seek everymen's welfare, yet I am not so lost that I would devour our own.' Ears once more erect, the Lapinduce stared down upon Rossamund with its large limpid eyes, elbow in hand, stroking its hairy chin beneath enormous, protruding teeth in a very human manner. It gazed at him so searchingly the young factotum began to itch. 'You are alive, now speak… What do they call you by?'
Rossamund fumbled, not knowing how to address this primeval creature. 'My… my name is Rossamund Bookchild.' He went to doff his hat diffidently and was reminded by empty, questing grasp that it was missing.
The monster-lord laughed, a coughing, oddly person-ish noise. 'Of course it is! Who was it, to bestow you such an uninspired nomination?'
'I-uh-I suppose it was Madam Opera…,' the young factotum answered a little tightly, 'though I reckon it was Cinnamon who gave it to me first.'
'Cinnamon, you say?' The Lapinduce twitched its nose and flicked its ears. 'Surely modest Cannelle would not be so dim?'
'Cannelle, sir?'
The creature looked at him as if he were simple. 'Cannelle is the one you name as Cinnamon. He has always been curious beyond his place, wandering far and farther through the eons, outside his rightful range… though I reckoned him sharper-soiled than to give an ouranin such a simple name-'
Tweet! went Darter Brown touchily.
'I think it was more a label…,' Rossamund elaborated.
The Lapinduce cast a shrewd look at both boy and bird. 'He sought perhaps to play a tease upon the everymen?'
'Play a tease?'
'Most certainly-jest with them! Put a theriphim so thoroughly disguised among them and fool them all, yet leave the morsel of a hint to unravel the ruse and reveal the jest.' Another coughing laugh.
Standing still on the opposite bank of the runnel, the young factotum could not help his frown. If his arrival on the foundlingery steps was a jest, it was a very poor one.
'Will you tell me, puzzled ouranin,' the Lapinduce crooned, 'why you remain in their realms? Why have you not joined us and kept yourself away from needless troubles?'
'I–I have not known of what I am supposed to be until only a fortnight gone. My master got a mark of my blood upon his arm to prove it, but it is yet to show.'
'Oh, now.' The urchin-lord's alien eyes went a little round. 'Here you need no such gruesome proofs-I have told it is so; all doubts are ended.'
His soul set so fixedly on the confirmation of Fransitart's cruorpunxis, Rossamund did not know what to do with so blunt a revelation. 'But can I truly have come from the mud? Am I really the remaking of some lost everyman fallen dead in the wilds?'
The Lapinduce regarded him with glittering eyes.
'Whoever told you so told it true,' it said simply.
Rossamund gasped a steadying breath. 'But am I an everyman or a monster?'
'Ahh.' The Duke of Rabbits clacked its front teeth together impatiently. 'Thus did Radica and Dudica, the darlings and saviors of the Brandenfolk, worry. 'Are we mannish monsters or monsterish men?' was ever their quest.' The monster-lord became contemplative and so completely still, the young factotum thought he had been
