Gyrosphyrinx: On Loss, & The Noble Zwei-Humped Camel...

9 Raby` al-awal 1328 A.H.

As we sit in the Empty Square of Inner Klem, awaiting judgment (I think) by the day's Tyrant (for what crimes?), I think back to our last Glory Days, before we wandered far from the Fang Coast and into these blasted, wasted drags of heath/desert in which we've found twenty-seven goats, two lovely Cave Girls (Bee'eed and Baa'ahd, spelling non-standardized), and one, and only one, Red City Of Woman-Archons. In those Glory Days, we found green pasture after pasture, strange and beautiful new culture after culture, and military victory after victory... after victory...

[This is discounting, of course, our route at Moab-Moab (Pett. Lt. Fariz's name), when the Auxiliaries from North Quoz turned against us because they said my nose cast "The Shadow," meaning The Shadow Of The Gyrosphyrinx, which they believe is... let us say, "very unlucky." (Actually, one man shat himself rather profoundly upon seeing my nose mark out a clear, claw-like shadow on the map we were consulting.) We lost ten men that day, including Mullah Shaj's brother, Breath-Of-Piety (I forget his real name, something with a Y), and my best horse, Safir.

After the battle, Dink The Shit-Eating Dog wept on the lap of his dead master, Breath-Of-Piety, until the Mullah had to drag him away. We all quoted the dog various beatific passages from the Hadith and the Story-Sea, hoping to cheer him up and show him that, despite hardships, Love of The Friend prevails. The dog did not grasp these hard-but-consoling truths and decided to become a drunk instead. We applauded his resolve and all drank a half-cask of nonalcoholic fig-wine to show our Love. The dog died a week later of a fragile kidney-gasket.]

NOW A RETURN TO SERENER DAYS:

...the Straits of Sibani, near the Firth of Farouk, we hounded down a small corps of Scottish Imperial Spy-Sailors, dressed in blue livery and gold-and-green Scotch-Bangles. The captured Spy-Sailors claimed to be fishermen, but we knew better. We did, however, realise the benefits of keeping some secrets just for ourselves (myself, Dr. Sabbatai, the Mullah, Fariz, and our pets, foreign wives, tent-makers, shoe-blacks, and soup-makers-of-renowned-gusto), andso released this (laugh!) announcement to all six hundred of our men:

"The boarding party has completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship and escorted the vessel into our territorial waters."

These "waters," of course, being the Waters Of Death.

Some time later, we received this missive, written in hog-juices and palm-ointment so that it was the stickiest possibly, upon the back of a shaved camel (my former camel, Jiji The Brave):

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with our authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Important Person, the Scottish Ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office. The Scottish government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipage."

All the boys were angry, but the Mullah and I at once pierced through the missive's bluster and understood its truth: The Ambassador is powerless, because he does not know where the land of the White Apple is. No one does. Even people who live here do not know how to get here! So the Scots have no reinforcements arriving. Ever. They were lost, and we inspected them, and they failed our inspection (because, after all, the boys have to eat!, the tent-makers need cloth!).

Yet just in case... Just in case the Scots really were amassing armies to descend on Khilbreen-at-Sibani, where we were then camped, we sent the following one line, carved into poor Jiji's hide, scampering back to the recondite Spy-Sailor Scots: