9

            And Tarvatillion sayd unto them, Of all who speak, ye speak the words most recited roundabouts, along with mine.  Of all who listen, ye have wrapt ear around mine advenchers & continental driftings most eagerly, ye alway keen to learn, paying the orators much gold (or substances staind to resembol gold in strontium-reddnd firelight), that they tarry and discourse of me in deeper specific concerning mine escapaids that e’en I my self knew not, due to nonoccurrense.  And of all who teach, ye who are gatherd here do teach the best damns teachings, according unto mine own defining of best and damns.  And of all who play at muscley games of sporte, ye have put more objecks in rings, and traverst on the lope o’er more objective lines, dragging bodies & benches and causing the chime talliers to tally their chimes more times, than have all other sporteplayers since time did begin, which was about fifty year ago, an sciense may to be believd.

            Therefore art thou, Yabbal Oodie (saith Tarvatillyan); thou, Fae Leelay Ruttin; and thou, Wy-Kye the Utter—therefore are ye three most suited to this multidissiplin event, which demandeth speaking & hearing & teaching & dragging.  For together own we four here standing the lion’s share of the world’s abilities, and the lion hath nought.  (And he thoght to speak with humer in saying, The lion hath nought, he seeking to reveal in them the weakness of levity.  Neither were they the any of them amused.  Zound, thought he, only I have the weakness.  And he sent for his chemist, for to fix for him a sobriety concoxion.)

            And he continude, saying, I have ponderd me deep within, and, e’en as I have gone allotting fatalities through my days, have meanwhiles lent my mind to specolatiens, thinking, An we four hightitled legendarics meet in contestry, What the outcome?  Will losing for the loser be the deathsknell for his petty ambitiens (clearly, there, ’twas not myself I seen as loser, petty being jibborish as to me, but having meaning as to others), that they wither away like as some curst field of honeymelons in the devol’s summer blitz?  Or will the losing bring forth even more insistent prate & prattle, and boisterous claimings of actuel capabilities that were, saith the loser, not seen in this instance for thiss reason or thatt?

            Now, the gaim shall be this (saith Tarvatillian).  Wy-Kye the Utter and I, being the least common dominators, shall stand against Yabbal Oodie and Feelay Ruttin, initially in contestation of the soulular doctrines, and then in the venerabol sporte of my people, calld False Head, the same that our fathers enacted in celebratis victorium over the Truthbooth Interrogatian Wizards of Hohamm (whom I have since rejuvenated unto mine own service against sojourners having treacherous eyes or slinking gaits, tho I have kept the sporte), our victors batting about some wizards’ heads which they had cat off, which nowaday we parodize with balls of rags in the lieu of heads.  And tho this falsity of head, that giveth the name False Head, taketh away from the sporte much scintillatien for me, nonetheless, it affordeth unto me the perfeck instance for to study sublimatien of frenzy and the yea-nays of whether such displaceiment of wholesome rage might tend towards undoing a paeple thus dislodgd outen their familier societol aggressien matrix.  enArmd with such knowledge, I wud in spare times teach at Universidy, the which I permit to convene over there on those rocks, whereat ye see those perfessers ascribbvling.  (Now in a certin sense, alln my time these days is spare.  For I have but to choose a time and to it say, Time, thou art spare running; and lo, ’tis spare.  In this way am I of course like unto the gods; what diffrense?)  —An any of you survive the confrontasians that today we do commense, then

10.

please, come thou, bringue coins, sit at my feet o’er on yon rocks, and let me empty out mine head upon thee.  Those some fond & famous sessia will be.

            Now interrupteth Yabbal Oodie the Bullstewer from the Extra Reach of Rector, unto the which he can never return, for that he knoweth not where it might lie, and he hath tu muche of pride to go a-asking.  And he saith unto the special lotte gatherd, Yea, I know this sporte that the Slayer saith.  Know it, playd it.  Forsooth, I became a champien among my people some seasons agone, in facepaint & rubber boils travling as an ogre callt Slam.  But aroundabout the Extra Reachy is this gaim callt False Rag, in mockery of thy childsporte here; for ’tis heads we bat about the field, parodizing balls of raggs.  For there are at hand in Rector Extra Reach more abundant heads than rags, we possessing not the majiks of ragufacture & fabricasien.  ’Tis from the Prime Reaches we are forst to steal the rags we need for cloak & girdle.  In our sportes & gaims, ’tis heads we bat.  (And he mime-ed the motion of boshing an head with a gaimbat, his lipfs emitting an audiopop.)

            Now he seen that others wud to speak their own announciments at this time; therefore charm-ed he them to silence with signols he hath made in lulling bulls.  And he flashspake, saying:  There was among us Extrareachians a master batsman of the sporte, who cud to have scored against the hot gods of game & gear them selfs, had they dare’n come down and face him on the field.  He shew unto us what ’twas all aboute out there tween the spikes.  So swift were he, & every where at once, with his screaming bat shattring teeth of enemy & friend alike, taking control, killing judges and crippling those watchers he cud reach alongby the side.  And I obsess-ed my self after his fashion, and lern-ed in his choppy wake.  And I feeld my self increasing daily, and seen the pile of broken copartissipants around me grow.  And the gaimsporte whisperd unto me, Yabbaloodie, in False Rag art thou home.

            And I did know (saith the Bullstewer) that parity with the master batsman now was mine.  And pushing on, uldimately I did shed him in my trail as the cicada sheddeth his gutted shell; for I became the greater by & by.  (Moste of men, I vouch, are terribol fools, for they say that he was actual, and I merely some in sane pretender telling tales.  I kill such many as I can for their saying of this, yet what goode doth it?  Their numbers swell, out there beyond the radius of my reach; ’tis like unto some rotten dream.)

11

the high gliders (my self, par examplari), along also with the own son of the first master batsman that I unto you have discusst, which own son was calld also, Master Batsmanson, he being, after all, the true son of the true master batsman.  Yea, the master batsman school-ed Master Batsmanson his son full to the sport, sending him at early age about with a scythe procuring heads for the gaims; and this buggre were somethinge, let me to say, a bonnifact folk terrer, he scarce out of shit-hose.

            And at last (saith Yabbal Oodie) did the three sons meet in competishin on the field of punishment—those two Master Batsmansons and Batsmasterson the son of The Batsmaster.  O, there was wagering upon the roofs, and in the trees, and on the foggy nightwatch posts, and through the tempfles, & the courty’rds, & the deathbed barracoons.  And I sat anursing at my grog there in Trench’s House of Hoodoo, awatching all the numbres posting back & forth up on the motherboard.  ’Twud be the War of Wars, the Gaim of Gaims, the Ende of Evermore.  And I gat my self outen Trench’s by & by, and went me along unto the Idyllic Interlewd, a nice—a nice—what we wud call an hole—for the edjucated & the nice (’twas no low house of hoodoo), where men of visien contemplate the world whilst contending with the pranks of fermentasien.  And there in the Interlewd, my joes, sat I ajousting thoughtwise with two buzzing aged mages whilst outside, Ragnarok presumibly ensu-ed.   

            Well, now (saith Yabbal Oodie).  I remembre notte which (an any) of these Bats-Mansons did prevail out there; for in my life, what hath all of that to do with anything?  Nay, but this is just an littel story which I thoght to tell when that thou, Hostile-Tillion, didst mention False Head.        

            And Yabbal Oodie took silence, and in homage unto classiq closures did assume the stone stance, Profile of the Heroic Fistman.

            And the others murmurd against him, saying, He hath killt our very day, with all this arid narritive respecting lands that nether be. 

            And the Bullstewer was shame’d to have fallen neath the wheels of their harsh regard, to have hazarded so cockish for special note among new acquaintance, but to go down gurgling.  And in angst he rent one fancy sleeve, tho not beyond easy repair, for a dash of shame is no engulfment in tragedie.  And there in his stance, he whisperd outen the side of his mouth a consideratien concerning them, saying, Oboapris dooprim, meaning, In the incipient conteste will I tear thee, and thee, and a few sixfooters who stand about, but shall likily fall to Tarvatillion the Slayer; for who can contain that one?  (Tho, that latter consideratian, concerning falling to the Slayer, was submitted but in false courtesy for his host; for his secret warrior’s heart unto him saith, This Tarvotitlian, I also have the works for him.)