Now he felt ready to face anything. In fact, he was itching to get into a fight or two. Hadn't been in a dust-up in… oh, must be two lunations. No, three. More, possibly.
He looked at the little fellows again. Still doing their job. 'Hey!' They paid no attention to him.
'Leave those bones in a pile there. Right there.'
They were pushing all the dirt and stuff into little piles. Well, they could keep the dirt. But those bones came in handy as snacks.
'You're doing a good job, guys.'
He strode out of the room, leaving the door open.
He encountered more humans, and these sang as well as danced. The males carried black canes and wore black suits and black cylindrical hats, and the females wore little. The males picked the females up and threw them around. More music played.
Well, good.
More dancers. More singers. There certainly was a great deal going on around here. But there usually was. Humans. You had to like 'em, they were so interesting.
Snowclaw was hungry. This also was nothing unusual; he was in a perpetual state of being ravenous, some stages more acute than others. He sniffed and snorted, smelling human food.
He hated human food.
Well, not really. He'd eat it in a pinch. And this was such a pinch.
A male human, unknown to him, stepped up. Dressed in a loud sports coat, he was fat and bald and had a sad face. Snowclaw halted.
'I'm telling you it's murder,' the man said. 'I never get invited to parties. Last time I got invited to a party I bought a hundred bucks' worth of Tupperware. I don't have any luck at all, none at all. I have to crash parties. Last one I crashed turned out to be an A.A. meeting. They threw me out. Said they couldn't stand drunks.'
Snowclaw said, 'Right.' He strode on.
'I never have any luck, no luck at all.' the man called after him.
Snowclaw turned left and met up with a huge animal. It was four-legged and hairless, with baggy gray skin, wide round hooves, big floppy ears, a tiny tail, and a long prehensile proboscis. A pretty female human rode high on its back.
'Right,' Snowclaw said.
A procession of these creatures lumbered past, leaving in its wake a string of odoriferous punctuation, deposited along the flagstones.
Farther on, he came across more dancers, these with little metal things on their shoes that made tapping sounds on the floor. Then another bunch of dancers in different outfits, wearing slippers. The females spun on their toes, and, again, the males threw the females around.
The place was certainly busy today. Then again, that's the way things usually were in the castle.
He entered the dining hall. No one was about except for a lone human, drinking coffee at the end of the long table. As was the custom, the table was set with all sorts of food.
'Where is everybody?' Snowclaw asked the man, who wore a white turban.
'They are all out trying to find the source of the disturbance.'
'Yeah? Okay. Thanks.'
Snowclaw searched the table, ignoring tureens of ox-tail soup and plates of truffles and chafing dishes of veal Prince Orloff, until he found what he wanted. Beeswax candles. He liked them better than the paraffin kind, which would do only in the tightest of pinches. He snapped one off between his ferocious gleaming choppers.
He chewed. Not bad. But where was the stuff to dip it in? He liked to eat candles dipped in Thousand Island dressing.
He searched the table again, to no avail. No Thousand Island dressing.
'Now, that's odd,' Snowclaw said.
CELLAR
The storage room had increased again in size. It was now a capacious chamber in a grand palace.
The place was resplendent. Colorful, voluptuous frescoes covered the walls; palm fronds drooped from hanging gardens. Water splashed happily in a dozen fountains. Exotic birds preened and fluttered in their gilded cages, filling the air with delightful song.
Everywhere was the glint of gold, the sheen of fine marble.
Eunuchs stood guard between high columns with flowerpetal capitals. Exquisite tapestries hung from the ceiling; fine rugs of intricate design adorned the walls and cushioned the marble stairways.
The main floor, a vast expanse of travertine, was filled with dancers, singers, musicians, and entertainers of every stripe: animal acts, acrobats, jugglers… and so forth and so on-hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, leaping and somersaulting and vocalizing and running in circles. Elephants trumpeted, dogs yipped and walked on hind legs.
Sword swallowers consumed their wares, fire-eaters ate and spat flame.
Comedians of every sort cavorted: clowns, harlequins, midgets, grotesques, slapping and kicking and tumbling and goosing.
All this activity raised quite a din, making it difficult if not impossible to hear any of the twenty-seven orchestras; nevertheless, these played doggedly on.
The immense chamber had several levels, and on a dais above the main floor two potentates reigned supreme over the proceedings. They were attended by scores of female servants, most of whom wore little or nothing at all.
King Thorsby rose on one elbow and stared glassy-eyed at the throng on the floor below. He was very drunk. 'Wh… whassat?'
'Pardon, Your Greatness?'
'I said, wha's all that…?' He belched, then waved his arm vaguely. 'Out there.'
'The entertainment, Great One.'
'Oh. That's still going on?'
'It will go on as long as you wish, master and lord.'
'Well, it's…' A great belch again escaped him. 'Blast. It's grown a bit hoary, it has.'
'Master?'
'It's boring. Do something else.'
'We will do anything you wish, Great King and Ruler.'
'Splendid. I need a drink.'
A drink was offered. Thorsby took a long draught. 'And what is your wish, master?'
Thorsby wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his satin toga. 'Eh?'
'What is my master's wish?'
'I'll bite. Oh, my wish. Yes, well… let me see. Uh, Fetchen? Fetchen, old boy.'
Fetchen surfaced from under a sea of bodies. His lips were stained purple, his face smeared with pulp and juice. Thorsby's eyebrows arched. 'Whatever are you doing down there?'
'We're having a fruit-eating contest.'
'Jolly good. I say, Fetchen, old boy, what do you fancy in the way of further diversion?'
'I've about got my hands full.'
'Understood, old darling, but all this lot needs something to occupy their time.'
Fetchen tilted a wineskin into the ripe air and drank. Done, mouth scrubbed on a nearby thigh, he said, 'Let's have gladiators.'
Thorsby brightened. 'Capital idea! Splendid thinking, old darling. Yes, nothing like a bit of blood sport to set the old ticker racing. Right! You heard His Imperial Decadence. Let the games begin!'
The attending houris chorused: 'Let the games begin!' And indeed they did.
