My Gangster Flick Top Twenty, Part 2

Okay, here's the rest of the gangster list.

11.Miller's Crossing 1990
1990 was a wonderful year for celluloid gangsterism. You had Goodfellas, State of Grace (nearly made the list) and MC, which was the third Coen brothers movie. I realized right away that I was onto something after I saw their first film, Blood Simple, loved Raising Arizona (although there was too much screaming), and thought Miller's Crossing was their best entry yet....still might be my Coen fave. A lot of their movies have endings that don't quite work (I might name Barton Fink, Fargo, and No Country), but MC builds wonderfully, and comes to a very satisfying finish. Lot of good twists and turns, great characters and dialogue, and memorable mayhem (including Sam Raimi choppered to bits in one scene). Some have complained that the film's too convoluted, but I never had any trouble with it. You just have to pay attention, that's all.

Gabriel Byrne (who should've become a bigger star) is Tom Regan, an extremely cerebral hood who dreams about losing his hat (losing his head?); he's always dispensing excellent advice to Leo (Albert Finney) who's the underworld boss of some unnamed city (movie was shot in New Orleans, to great effect). In the interest of peace and general rationality, Tom tells Leo that he should give up Birney Birnbaum "the Schmatta Kid," (an incredibly odious John Turturro) who's been evening out the odds on fights fixed by Johnny Casper (Jon Polito), Leo's chief competitor...Casper wants Birney dead, and it's a very sore matter between him and Leo. But Birney's the brother of slinky Verna, Leo's girlfriend...and Verna wouldn't like it if her brother gets whacked. Matters are further complicated by the fact that Tom's seeing Verna too, though Leo doesn't know. Leo spurns Tom's counsel...all hell breaks loose. Tom appears to switch sides...locks horns with Casper's terrifying henchman, the Dane, (J.E. Freeman, who would've made a very good Legion), and is blackmailed by Birney...things get really intense before they're all wrapped up at an apartment building called the Barton Arms, which seems to be a reference to Barton Fink, which hadn't been made yet...oh well. Love this movie. Turturro is most memorable, horrible beyond belief.

I do wonder about the Coens' take on Jews, though. All the Jews in all their movies are either neurotics like the lead character in a Serious Man, hyper caricatures like the movie guys in Fink, or extremely evil specimens like Birney...if I wrote about Jews like this, I'd get in trouble, and would probably deserve to, although all the Jews I've discussed this with don't have any problem with it. What's a poor goy to think?

12.Goodfellas 1990
This is my vote for the greatest gangster movie ever, Martin Scorsese at the absolute top of his form. Yeah, I know a lot of people like The Godfather better, but treating gangsters as though they're semi-Shakespearean material is something of a mistake, in my opinion. Gangsters aren't royalty. They're fuckin' hoods. They don't sound like college professors or screenwriters, like the guys in Pulp Fiction. Their lives are trainwrecks of vice, stupidity, and bad taste, and they almost always wind up in prison, ratting on their friends, or shot to pieces. They like to think of themselves as men of honor, but that's because honor is so noticeably lacking in their lives. Goodfellas, based on the memoir Wise Guy, by Henry Hill, reflects this understanding. The Godfather, to a certain extent, was grounded in Mafia reality, but sanitized and romanticized it---and invented a lot of stuff out of whole cloth. Goodfellas is the totally straight dope. It's not shitting you at all.

Unlike a lot of gangster flicks, this one doesn't concentrate on the guys at the top...you see things from the point of view of Mr.Hill, who's strictly a mid-level guy, and that's great, because he knows everyone underneath him and above, and he really knows how the system works. He rubs elbows with made men, but his closest friends aren't members of the club---yet. A lot of the story hinges on the apparent rise of an extremely vicious mid-level earner named Tommy(Joe Pesci) who's dying to become a full-blown mafiosi, but is just too crazy...Henry (Ray Liotta) and Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) are expecting Tommy's incoming tide to lift their boats, but Tommy gets iced, and when Henry gets busted for some dope dealing, he has no recourse but to rat on everybody, bringing the whole Lucchese crime family (headed by Paul Sorvino's Pauly, the only sympathetic character in the film) crashing down...

Everything about the film is persuasive. Pesci's Tommy is incandescently crazy, Liotta's Henry is one slippery observant dude, and DeNiro's Jimmy Conway is truly Satanic. Fantastic use of the guitar stuff at the end of Layla...the violence is headache-inducingly vivid. Nobody's ever been better than Scorsese at serving up carnage....just look at the that long single take when Samuel L. Jackson gets it. There's no editing, no cutting to a dummy. There's lots of dialogue capped by a single, spectacular, completely successful special effect, captured in a medium shot...you really feel like you just saw somebody get snuffed. Memento mori, sheesh. How often does that happen in a movie?

13.Full Contact 1992
Along with John Woo, Ringo Lam went a long way towards launching Chow Yun-Fat...in fact I rather prefer Lam's Chow Yun-Fat movies to Woo's. Lam gets better performances out of his actors, his films are frequently pretty damn funny (the Prison on Fire movies are a case in point)and the action is a whole lot sharper and meaner than Woo's. You might be interested to know that the scene in Big Lebowski where Walter bites the guy's ear off is a homage to Ringo Lam. Moreover, Lam is a heavy enough hitter that Tarantino ripped off the story of Reservoir Dogs from the last twenty-five minutes of Lam's City on Fire. Lam just isn't as melodramatic and silly as Woo, and doesn't have as many easily copied mannerisms...he deserves to be much more famous in the west than he is.

Which brings us to Full Contact.

Based on a Donald Westlake novel, The Hunter, this is a real murderous ride....try to locate the uncut version if you possibly can. Chow Yun Fat plays Jeff, a Chinese gangster living in Bangkok, who's always getting his buddy Sam out of trouble. Sam enlists Jeff in an arms robbery orchestrated by his cousin Judge, (Simon Yam) an extremely flamboyant gay maniac. Jeff and Judge don't hit it off, but Jeff goes ahead with the robbery anyway, only to be double-crossed by Judge and his lunkhead henchman, Deano. Jeff gets a bunch of his fingers cut off by Judge, and retreats into a shanty, which then gets torched...Judge forces Sam to go in a make sure of Jeff; Sam shoots him the shoulder and says that he finished him...a propane tank blows the shanty up, and a young girl gets horribly burned in the blast. Jeff saves her, sees to her treatment, and goes on the vengeance trail, off to Hong Kong, where Judge and Sam (and Jeff's girlfriend Mona, played by Anne Bridgewater) have established themselves. Jeff contacts Sam, plays on his guilt to secure his aid, and proceeds to wreak havoc on Judge's arms dealing operation. There's a whole lot of slaughter with knives, icehouse tools, and guns...bullet-squibs and exit wounds abound...plenty of moments from FC got ripped off in western movies, such as the bit with the bullets meeting tip-to-tip that showed up in The Shadow. I don't think there's a dull moment in the whole damn picture. Interestingly, it wasn't a hit in Hong Kong...apparently your average Hongkie prefers much blander entertainment than Yours Truly..

14.True Romance 1993
Not entirely sure if this should be classed as a gangster movie, but it sure is full of gangsters, and has a lot of definitive gangster stuff...our protagonists have it out with gangsters every step of the way, and become drug-dealers themselves...I'm going to bite the bullet and include it.

I'd already had my introduction to Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs before I saw True Romance...I was very impressed with RD, but I didn't fall in love with it. For one thing, I thought the robbery should've been on-screen, and I can't think of any good reason for not depicting it...it's rather like the climax of No Country for Old Men, the shootout between Brolin, Bardem, and the Mexicans, taking place off-stage. That being said, RD's quite a directorial debut...Tarantino's got a great, classic, simple directorial style...he appreciates the value of a long take, particularly in an action scene...I like the way he picks out the optimum camera angle and just sticks with it. Michael Bay he ain't...just watch the build-up and climax in RD. That's movie-making.

He didn't direct True Romance, and his vision was tampered with quite a bit. In the original script, the scenes were pretty much the same, but presented in a different order...Tony Scott, the director, decided to scrap that structure. I'm not sure if that was a good idea...guess I'd have to see it actually put together the other way. Moreover, Scott, softy that he is, decided to let Clarence(Christian Slater) live at the end...well, I guess I'm a softy too, and I'm glad Clarence survived, although the original ending might've been really cool also. On the other hand, maybe I'd have wanted to throw my shoe at the screen. Certainly it would've injected a moralistic note, whether Tarantino intended that or not.

But I still really love True Romance, and it's my favorite Tarantino film...even if he isn't the director, it's hard not to view him as the auteur. Even though Tony Scott's shooting style couldn't be more different from Tarantino's, he still puts the writing front and center, and the writing is balls-out great. It comes across immediately in the "I'd fuck Elvis" discussion in the bar at the beginning...if you're not completely sold after Clarence's encounter with Drexel (a very vile dread-lock'd Gary Oldman), you're an asshole. That scene is followed hard upon by Dennis Hopper's "Sicilians spawned by niggers" disquisition,which is totally classic...the stuff with Clarence's dimwit buddies in Hollywood is pretty fabulous too, as is the vicious confrontation between Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini, the scene that completely made his career. All the movie-producer stuff is particularly hilarious and well-observed. I think Tarantino would've done a better job than Scott if he'd been behind the camera, but Scott didn't give him too much to complain about...Tarantino was willing to work for him in a script doctor capacity on Crimson Tide, I understand.

The romance between Clarence and Alabama is particularly sweet and affecting...all the principals knock it out of the park, and so do the supporting players...movie's full of great character actors, such as Ed Lauter, Tom Sizemore, Chris Penn, Bronson Pinchot, Michael Rapaport, and Saul Rubinek....you also have cameos by Val Kilmer and Brad Pitt ("get some...cleaning products").Tony Scott followed all the musical selections that Tarantino suggested in his script, and that was an extremely wise approach. Scott likes to shoot things rather too close for my money, but his compositions are good...it's a handsome film, I will concede.

Get the director's cut. In the theatrical version, all the violence is clipped, and the climax suffers very badly...it's censored to the point of being incoherent.

15.Pulp Fiction 1994
I like this one less than True Romance, although I think the direction is better. I think it gets off to an amazing start and sustains itself very nicely for a while, although it drops the ball after the Bruce Willis sequence...but more about that later.

Also, I think Mr. Tarantino should go back to working with Roger Avary, especially now that Roger has gotten out of prison. Avary worked with him on Dogs, Romance, and this, and Tarantino's stuff post-Avary has simply been nowhere near as good as the pre-stuff. I suspect a situation along the lines of the relationship between Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman. I suppose I could be mistaken, though...there hasn't been anything remarkable about Avary's work since PF.

Movie breaks down into a series of stories, structured elliptically. For example, Travolta's character gets killed about midway through, but he's present at the beginning, and via flashback, at the end. The original True Romance script featured similar shenanigans, as I've already mentioned...I'd be curious to see what Tarantino's rationale is. He tends to think in long sections, big chunks of dialogue, and he seems to think they're a lot more modular and interchangeable than they are...the individual sequences are frequently very cool, although his movies generally have a jerky stop-and-start quality, with no narrative flow...Inglorious Basterds was like that in spades.

Much of Pulp Fiction works really well, however. It's four-fifths of a perfect flick, and that's something...but the movie peaks with the Bruce Willis sequence, which is genuinely harrowing, and following that with the cleaning-products blood-and-brains thing is a terrible mistake. Moreover, once you start to notice how  Tarantino's characters all sound exactly the same, you never forget it. If you see that Grindhouse Deathproof flick, everyone, Russell, the girls, Tarantino himself..sounds like Tarantino. And maybe, just maybe, it would be better if someone sounded, occasionally...

Like Roget Avary.

16.A Hero Never Dies 1998
Along with Stephen Chow, Johnny To is my favorite Hong Kong Film-maker, and unlike Stephen Chow, whose output these days has slowed to a crawl, To just keeps pumping 'em out. He also works in just about every Hong Kong genre you can think of. He does ghost stuff, martial arts, romances, comedies, police thrillers, and last but not least, gangster movies, for which, I guess, he's principally known in the west. Well, A Hero never Dies is tied with Heroic Trio for my number one Johnny To movie; it's a nifty, fast paced hybrid of Spaghetti Western and Hong Kong crime flick...I'm amazed that no one's ever done an American remake.

Story centers on Jack (Leon Lai) and Martin(Lau Ching-Wan), two hit men who work for rival HK triads, really respect each other's work, but don't care too much for their own bosses. Flick begins in Thailand, where Jack's boss has gone to seek advice from "Mr. Fortune Teller," who berates him for not following previous counsel, and whacks him with a stick...watching the humiliation of his boss in utter disgust, Jack pulls a gun, shoots up the place, then asks the seer if he's going to get shot today.

The oracle winds up taking one through the ankle.

On the way home, the motorcade is ambushed by Martin, who raises hell with a sniper-rifle, but doesn't quite manage to kill Jack's boss... returning to HK, Jack rips up Martin's apartment, whereupon the two wind up at the same bar, and engage in a bunch of weird one-upsmanship with coins and wine-bottles before settling into some comfortable noble-adversary male bonding, "Sukiyaki" playing in the background. Outside, afterwards, Martin's girlfriend (Fiona Leung) dispenses advice to Jack's (Yoyo Mung) on how to be a better gangster moll.

From there it's back to Thailand, where the gangs are hunting each other and trying to locate a drug warlord, and Martin is dispatched to ask advice from Mr. Fortune-teller...having heard about Jack's ankle-shooting activities, Martin cracks up at the sight of the old man's bandage, and can't help asking him is he's going to be shot today. Bang, Mr. Fortune Teller takes one in his good foot.

Martin hits the rival gang in a nasty shootout at a jungle roadhouse...Jack's boss acts in a very cowardly way, totally humiliating himself, accidentally killing one of his own men as Jack watches. Martin slaughters just about everybody, but he and Jack wind up filling each other full of bullets...Jack's boss abandons him in a Thai hospital, and Martin winds up having his legs amputated, his boss abandoning him too. Jack's girlfriend gets hideously burned protecting him from his boss's henchmen...Martin's girlfriend gets him back to Hong Kong, where the two bosses have reconciled...when she berates them for the way they treat their henchmen, Martin's boss blows her away.

All this is just the setup. Martin rises from his sweaty torpor and stages a sniper-attack against the bosses...fatally wounded, he gets in touch with Jack, telling him to come back and avenge him...then Martin drags himself right back to the same rooftop try to another attack! Some time later, we see him poised to shoot, then realize he's dead when a fly lands on his face. After mercy-killing his girlfriend, Jack returns, collects Martin's body, and rolls him, like a wheelchair-mounted El Cid, into the final confrontation with the bosses and their horde of lackeys...the sight of gloriously dead Martin in his white cowboy hat being knocked about by bullets as the impacts cause the guns in either hand to discharge is truly jaw-droppingly something, primo Hong Kong cinema. Eventually, once all the spear-carriers are finished, and the bosses are down, Jack, a human sieve by this point, shoots Martin's boss in the head with a gun in Martin's dead fist. Jack collapses...end titles...

Sukiyaki.

This thing just left me grinning. Lau Ching Wan and Leon Lai are superb, the story is first rate...it packs a huge amount of stuff into a very concise 85 minutes. This was the first Milkyway Image movie, and there have been a lot of good ones since. If you're a gangster movie fan, you should watch this, then pick up every other Johnny To gangster movie....some are less good than others, but all of them serve up some remarkable stuff. My only caveat is that To's been putting long stretches of English dialogue into his movies lately, and his ostensible English speakers really aren't up to it. But other than that, his work is really cool. He's always coming up with fresh variations on gun-battles, and that goes a long way with me.

17.Sexy Beast 2000
I already discussed this over on the Villains list, but I don't mind talking about it again. This is another England-is-shitty gangster go-round, although most of it takes place in sunny Spain, which just makes the English stuff look shittier. The protagonist, Gel(Ray Winstone) even describes England as a "real shithole," "every cunt walking around with a long face." There is liberal, liberal use of the cunt-word, if that's your cup of tea, but---I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Gel is a retired English heistmeister who's retired to Al-Andalus. He's got a gorgeous ex-porn star wife, DeeDee (Amanda Redman) who he loves "like a leopard loves his mate in the jungle." They pal around with Aitch (Cavan Kendall) a hilarious but nearly unintelligible cockney, and Aitch's wife Jacky, (Julianne White)...among other things, this movie is a wonderful argument for sexy middle-aged women. The quartet cooks out (big fat juicy sausages), they eat out, they guzzle champagne...whenever they're not dodging boulders that roll downhill and fall into their azure swimming-pools, they're just "fan-debbidozy-tastic."

But Gel's past catches up to him in the person of Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), a vile emissary from the London gangster Teddy Bess (Ian McShane, in a role which did wonderful things for his career). Bess is mounting a safe-deposit robbery (which seems to be based on the real-life caper that inspired The Bank Job), and he wants to recruit Gel. Logan, whom Kingsley claims is based on his grandmother (!), uses every kind of threat and obscene browbeating to try to persuade Gel to join up, but Gel has no intention of returning to his dank cunt-filled homeland, and he just hunkers down and endures the storm, finally seeing an opening when Logan reveals that he's still got a thing for Jacky, who he had an affair with long ago. Gel uses this on him, and Logan retreats, only to get incredibly pissed off while his plane's on the tarmac, and come roaring back to Gel's place...

The direction, by Brian Glazer, just crackles...the movie's started making lists of best British films ever, and it should. Kingsley is simply hellish, and if indeed Logan is based on his granny, I'm glad I didn't grow up Kingsley. Ian McShane is, in some respects, even scarier than Kingsley, although in a totally different way...he isn't in the movie as much. Ray Winstone holds his own in the middle of all this sound and fury with a wonderful rumbly teddy bear laid-back performance that's an excellent counterpoint to the heavies. Moreover, I love Amanda Redman. Movie ends with a perfectly-chosen Dean Martin song...you cunts really need to catch this one.

18. Way of the Gun 2000
This was Christopher McQuarrie's follow-up to The Usual Suspects, and it's a very different kettle of fish. McQuarrie's primary lookout was complete creative control, he got what he wanted, and a lot of people were unhappy with him. The movie was way under appreciated when it first came out, although it's been gaining a reputation since then....the dialogue ("I can promise you a day of reckoning that you will not live long enough to never forget") gets in your head and stays there, but a lot of the critics were put off by the tone, which is extremely brutal. Everybody was expecting a Tarantino-esque piece, and boy they sure didn't get it. Among other things, the movie's a meditation on sperm-merchandising, abortionists, child-molesters, old age, Divine Justice, and the Natural Law, and it really doesn't give a fuck if you like the characters.

I loved it.

Two guys calling themselves Parker and Longbaugh (the actual names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) played by Ryan Phillipe and Benicio Del Toro, are bopping about the southwest doing really rotten things. The film's sunniest bit comes right at the beginning, in which they slug the crap out of trash-talking Sarah Silverman outside a nightclub, then laugh as they absorb a mass beating from a huge crowd of her friends...I really appreciated this scene because I'm sick and tired of movie tough chicks. I know it's impolitic to say so, but tough guys really are tougher than tough chicks. As Aristotle says, the truth must be preferred.

Anyway, our boys are between crimes at the moment, and selling shots of cum to get by...when they're in a clinic, they overhear a conversation about a pregnant woman (Juliette Lewis) who's a surrogate for a rich childless couple called the Chidducks (shitticks?). Deciding to hold her for ransom, Parker and Longbaugh snatch her out from under the noses of her not particularly competent bodyguards.

But Mr. Chidduck is a gangster, and has much more dangerous retainers than those clowns, and in comes old, fucked-up, crick-necked Joe Sarno, (James Caan, in one of his best performances), who puts the guards---whom he calls cufflinks--- repeatedly in their crappy places. Saying things like "ajudicate" a lot, he locates Parker and Longbaugh down in Mehico pretty damn quick, and in his capacity as a bagman, offers a deal, which they refuse. The cufflinks arrive on the scene soon afterwards, and after a shootout with some Mexican cops, take the girl to a brothel to deliver her baby. Parker and Longbaugh follow; Sarno whistles up a squad of suicidal ex-cops to settle the kidnappers' hash....

The final gunfight, staged by MacQuarrie's ex-Seal brother, is a fine example of American action film-making. It's plausible, you can follow everybody's movements, and you get a good grasp of the geography....there's mucho shooting through walls and a scene with a bunch of broken bottles which will simply make you cringe. A gun nut philosophy professor colleague of my wife's judged it the best gunfight since the climax of the Wild Bunch...at the very least, it's on a par with the final leadfest in LA Confidential, although that's still pretty high praise.

Nifty score by Joe Kraemer, by the way.

Until that day...

19.Company 2002
When most people hear Bollywood, they think of silly musical romances with song-and-dance numbers that go on for ever and women with screechy voices; but all sorts of movies get made over there, and a lot of the very best Hindi films are gangster flicks,which can stand comparison with gangster movies from anywhere, American, British, HK, you name it. Fact is, India has a major and long-established gangster culture...I might point out that the Thuggee cult was a spectacular example of organized crime. Gangsters are heavily intertwined with many big aspects of Indian life...there are mobs based on ethnic and religious identity, and they're heavily, heavily involved in politics and terrorism. The gangsters themselves frequently run for office...sometimes they have to, because it's the only way they can stay out of jail---members of Parliament can't be arrested. Take Phoolan Devi for instance, the so-called "Bandit Queen." After being raped by Indian troops, she organized a ferocious dacoit insurgency, murdered scads of people, ran for office, served in the parliament for twelve years, then left and was blown to bits.

People who complain about US politicians should take a squint at Mother India.

Anyway, Company is based loosely on the life of Daud Ibrahim, an actual gangster, and the most feared member of the Indian underworld...he fled to Dubai a while ago, although he's still running the rackets from there, and is tied in to all sorts of Muslim-Pakistani terrorism. His gang is called D-Company, D standing for Daud; he made most of his money by shaking down wealthy contractors. In the movie, he's called Malik, and is well played with smoldering somnolent menace by Ajay Devgan. We see him rising through the ranks in the Mumbai mob; once he's on top, he takes young Chandu, (Vivek Oberoi,) under his wing. Soon, Malik is forced to flee to Hong Kong, where he intends to keep administering his Indian concerns...but back home in Mumbai, Chandu is getting too big for his britches, and the two are soon at loggerheads, partially because of a lethal misunderstanding. Before long Chandu is on the run all over the place, and winds in Kenya, where we get a beautifully staged rooftop chase, vastly better than your typical Indian action sequence. Ultimately Chandu surrenders to Indian cops, winds up in prison back home, and he and Malik are reconciled, sort of, but it doesn't end there...

The movie's directed by Ram Gopal Varma, who's the new-wavish bad-boy of modern Indian film...he really does work of a pretty high standard, and Company is hands down his best flick...it's a prime contender for best Bollywood film ever. He's also made some other very good gangster epics, notably Satya, and a quasi Godfather-remake called Sarkar, which spawned a sequel, Sarkar Raj, which was even better than its predecessor. Following in the footsteps of Mr. Coppola was an extremely ballsy thing to do, but Mr. Varma pulled it off. I've recommended the Sarkar movies to some pretty vehement Godfather freaks, and they've pronounced themselves impressed...

By the way, I really like Hindi musicals too, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.

20. Exiled 2006
This is another excellent Johnny To movie. It's not exactly a sequel to To's The Mission, but it comes pretty close, reuniting a lot of the same stars, and involving a plot that sure seems like a followup to the other movie. In The Mission, we had Anthony Wong, Roy Cheung, Francis Ng, and Lam Suet as a team of HK hitmen who become great friends while ferretting out and destroying the mysterious forces that are threatening their boss, Blacky Ko...once he's out of danger, it comes out that a junior member of their squad has been screwing the boss's wife, and the order comes down to kill the kid, occasioning much anguish.Ultimately, the kid winds up off the hooks, with orders from his buddies to skeedaddle and never show his face in HK again.

In Exiled, the setting is Macao...Nick Cheung (who used to be one of many replacement Stephen Chows for Wong Jing, and has now found a much cooler niche in crime flicks)plays a character who seems rather like the kid from The Mission...only he's come back from exile, most ill-advisedly, with a wife and kid in tow. The boss this go-round is played by Simon Yam, and he renews the contract on the kid...Wong, Roy Cheung, Ng, and Suet descend on Nick Cheung's apartment building, some willing to go through with the hit, others determined to protect him. Even though Anthony Wong means to pop him eventually, he agrees to a reprieve, so that the guys can make some money and provide for the wife and baby. They contact a middle man...he tells them about a job...but it turns out that the hit was ordered By Simon Yam, and when they arrive at a restaurant to do the wetwork, they find him conducting last-minute negotiations with their target. A series of highly original gun-battles erupt. Both sides bring their wounded to a underworld hospital...Yam's caught a slug in the nuts, and is in the process of having it removed when he learns Nick Cheung has been brought to the same hospital...Yam is such a fearsome son-of-a-bitch that he keeps on shooting even as the doctor is extracting the bullet! Nick Cheung winds up getting thrown out a window and dies pretty awfully...his buds decide to go ahead with the bullion heist, take care of wifey, and settle with their one-time boss. The closing kill-o-rama in the atrium of a big old Portuguese hotel is a real standout, luscious balletic slow-motion stuff, with great big bursts of scarlet vapor bursting out of the falling, twisting, turning, flipping bodies. I suspect the squibs were actually loaded with some sort of powder....the whole thing takes place while an empty soda-can our boys have kicking around is flying up and coming down.

I should add that there are a couple more To gangster flicks that nearly made the list, both of them good vehicles, among other things, for the totally reinvented Nick Cheung...Election 1 and 2 are excellent gangster fixes, revolving around Simon Yam as a boss who's trying to enlist other mobsters in his quest to become the HK Triad chairman of the board, partly by murder, partly by politicking, and partly by acquiring a ceremonial mob baton. The end of the first flick, where Yam's rival Tony Leung gets wiped out, is astonishingly shocking...the second movie has some stuff involving sledgehammers and feeding human meat to doggies that will have you squirming in your seat. In both films, Nick Cheung plays a consummate bonehead criminal whose sights are set really really low...marvellous characterization. These movies deserve to be on a list...I just don't like them quite as much as Exiled or Hero Never Dies. You might feel differently.

Lilitu Chapter 3

Hey, here's some more Lilitu:


Chapter 3
After several days weighing what Sayida had told her about Shiraz, Lilitu decided she'd better speak to Hamid. He was in the hall that served as his audience chamber, acting in his capacity as Sawaliyeh's chief magistrate, listening to a dispute about a cow and looking very bored. Two of his tenants were standing in front of his high seat, shouting at each other; aside from occasionally asking them not to be so loud, he was doing very little---he only asked one question, and that was towards the end, and Lilitu didn't think it was relevant to much of anything. Finally, he simply stood up, said: "Judgement to the accused," and made off towards a doorway on the right. One tenant raised a howl of triumph, quite horrible to hear; the other man hurled himself at him, but guards separated them and dragged them both away as Lilitu ran after Hamid.
"I need to speak to you," she said.
"Make it quick," he replied. "I'm going hawking."
"With Shiraz?"
"What do you want?" he asked impatiently.
"We should go somewhere else."
Just up the corridor was the room where Hamid robed himself for his audiences.
"Now then," he said, after closing the door.
Lilitu demanded: "Are you going to marry that woman?"
"Don't take that tone with me---"
"Are you?"
"You have some objection?"
Lilitu nodded. "She betrayed her husband---"
He winced and raised his hand.
Undaunted, Lilitu continued: "Sayida isn't his daughter---"
"Who told you this?"
Lilitu just stared at him; for the first time she realized that she would get Sayida in terrible trouble.
"Who?"
"I can't tell you."
Hamid said: "If you're going to make such accusations---"
"You have to trust me," Lilitu said.
"Lilitu," he replied, "among other things, I'm a judge. I can't accept an accusation without evidence---"
Lilitu crossed her arms on her chest. "Evidence."
"Yes."
"What evidence did you get from those farmers yelling and screaming just now?"
"What does that have to do with Shiraz?"
She almost told him that he didn't need evidence because he wasn't much of a judge, but realized at the last instant that this would be a disastrous line to take; there was the matter of her resemblence to Sayida, but she didn't have the heart to rub salt in that particular wound. At last she said simply:
"Don't marry her, please."
"Why are you so concerned?" he asked. "Let's assume you're telling the truth. She sounds just like your mother. You loved your mother, didn't you?"
"Father.''
He said wearily: "You really should stop with that, at least when it's just the two of us. I'm not your father, and we both know it. Now if you're worried that I'm going to cast you out, you needn't. You'll always have a roof over your head. But you shouldn't presume too much. I advise you to stay on good terms with Shiraz, and stop making up lies about her."
"I'm not lying."
"Then tell me where you came by the information."
"I can't."
"Then I can't believe you," Hamid answered. "You really should go and let me change out of these robes. As I said, I'm going hawking.''


That night, Lilitu was about to settle down and begin a very malicious poem about someone just like Shiraz when she remembered she'd cut the last of her reed-pens to a mere nub, and she went downstairs to the store-room where the writing supplies were kept. While she was there, she also took a large sheaf of cotton-rag paper and a jar of ink-black; clutching the supplies to her breast, she headed back upstairs, and, rounding a corner---
Found herself face to face with Shiraz.
The two stood staring at each other for a few moments; hair unbound, down over her shoulders, Shiraz twitched that smile; her eyes gleamed, sockets very dark. She seemed to be working herself up to say something, but when she didn't, Lilitu just breathed out through her nostrils and stepped round her, heading past the room where her mother had died.
Then she heard cloth rustling, and soft swift footsteps---Shiraz was coming up behind her.
What's this? Lilitu thought, just as the footsteps paused; there came the sound of a door being opened, and then the footsteps started up again. Lilitu started to run, but The Monster reached over the top of her head and seized her by the bangs, dragging her back, into the room, flinging her onto her mother's deathbed. Shiraz stood glaring at her, then backed towards the door and kicked it shut with her heel.
"You know," she said. "I wanted to be friends with you, really I did. But I'm afraid you've left me no choice."
Still holding her supplies tightly against her chest, Lilitu sat up. The gloom wasn't too thick, as the room was whitewashed, and there was moonlight through the lattices; Shiraz began to pace back and forth, each time more swiftly, a dark striding silhouette.
"I might've known, of course," she said. "Like mother, like daughter. But I'm not going to lie down and take it this time---"
"What are you talking about?" Lilitu asked.
With that, Shiraz rushed at her, seized her ear, and twisted it fiercely. Lilitu yowled.
"Shut up!" Shiraz hissed, and twisted it again. "Shut up, or I'll wrench it right off, you little bitch!"
"What have I done?" Lilitu whispered.
Shiraz let Lilitu's ear go, but jabbed a nail-point into her nose. Lilitu dropped her supplies at last and clapped both hands over her face.
"You've been trying to cut my legs out from under me," Shiraz said. "Telling stupid lies. But your father doesn't trust you.''
Oh my God, Lilitu thought. That horrible fool…
Shiraz went on: "He told me what you'd said, this afternoon.''
"If he thinks I'm a liar,'' Lilitu replied, "why would he have asked you about it?''
Immediately Shiraz pinched Lilitu's upper arm between thumb and forefinger.
"I...don't…know," she said, twisting at each word. Then she slapped the stinging flesh, and allowed: "Perhaps he was a bit worried. But I must've put his fears to rest. He asked me to marry him.''
Lilitu bit her lip.
"If I were you, my dear," Shiraz said, "I would lie very low from now on.''
As though she had done something to her neck, she turned her head sharply to one side, hair flying about her face. Lilitu heard a soft pop. Then Shiraz straightened her garments, brushed her locks back with her palms, and swept from the sickroom.


The wedding was arranged with most indecent haste; Lilitu told Sayida that Hamid should've saved the food left over from Rahminah's funeral.
"Why?" Sayida asked.
"So he could serve it again at his wedding," Lilitu replied.
"Wasn't the funeral two months ago?"
"Yes."
"Food doesn't keep that long."
"I know," Lilitu said.
"You're always making jokes that I don't get," Sayida said.
"I know," Lilitu replied.


There was, needless to say, no time for guests to be summoned from very far off, so Hamid and Shiraz had to limit themselves to notables in the nearest oases. Among these worthies was the Fig-Protector Nasruddin Ben-Abdullah, Lord of Al-Baradh, an old friend of Hamid's; Nasruddin brought most of his family, including his lanky sixteen-year old son Akbar. Having ceded Oded---at least temporarily---to Sayida, and desperately in need of something to keep her mind off the wedding itself, Lilitu found herself paying very close attention to Akbar, who was funny looking, but interesting in a peculiar sort of way; deciding she really needed to sit next to him at the feast, she changed places with Sayida, observing everything he did, and taking every opportunity to engage him in conversation. It took a while, but ultimately they found something they were both interested in---natural philosophy. They didn't, of course, discuss the subject Lilitu was most intrigued by, but there were other matters almost as fascinating; he was very knowledgeable about insects and reptiles, and they began swapping stories about specimens they'd caught. When Lilitu told him about the time she'd pinned a young night-viper with a forked stick, he looked at her with positive worship in his eyes, which were very large and definitely the best thing about him.
"Now to be honest," she felt compelled to add, "the snake had a jerboa halfway down its throat, and I had an easier time than I might have otherwise."
"Did you pick it up?" Akbar asked.
"Yes," Lilitu said. "But I tossed it away, because you have to hold snakes right behind the head, and its throat was all swelled up with that jerboa, and it felt very unpleasant."
"Your father lets you go walking about at night?"
"No, but I sneak out sometimes.'' Suddenly a thought occurred to her. "The moon's full tonight. Why don't we go snake-hunting?"
He glanced over at his parents. "I don't know.''
"Everyone's drunk," Lilitu prodded. ''They won't notice."
"I'm not sure...''
"Come on. When my father and that woman go upstairs, and everyone makes a big fuss, we'll just slip out."
Akbar thought a bit more, then nodded.


The moon was well up as they left the house, the whole sky blue-grey with its light, only the brightest stars still visible through the glow. Shadows of fig leaves made a mottled pattern on the ground. Lilitu took the shortest path through the grove, and they soon came to the edge of the oasis. Beyond the trees was a strip of low brushy stuff, then dunes.
"Better get snake-sticks," Lilitu said.
They cracked a couple of branches off the fig trees, then proceeded into the grass.
"Keep your eyes peeled," Lilitu said. "Vipers come looking for the jerboas, who live under these bushes...see, there goes a jerboa now!"
"Where?" Akbar asked.
"He's gone already. We'll probably see some more. Lots of toads around here too. And scorpions. Ever been stung by a scorpion?"
"Yes. Wasn't so bad."
"Must've been one of those little brown ones. Have to watch out for the big black kind, though."
"That's for sure---"
"Toad!" Lilitu cried, and she caught it and showed it to him, holding it by the back so it couldn't squirt her. "These fellows make a lot of noise after it rains. They sound like some sort of strange cow, and you think, that can't be just a toad, but it is. If you're near a pond, it's incredible. Six of them will jump on one female. It doesn't look very nice." She put the toad down, and even though it hadn't managed to pee on her, she wiped her hands on her robes anyway.
"Then why do you watch?" Akbar asked.
"Oh, I only did it once or twice. Watch the toads, that is. Don't you watch animals mating?"
He laughed. "A couple of slaves, once."
Her first thought was that she should make some expression of distaste, but she wanted him to continue, and asked:
"Didn't they know you were there?"
"Yes. My father wanted me to learn about men and women, so he ordered them to show me.'' He paused. "I don't think I should be discussing this with you."
"I don't mind," Lilitu answered. "And anyway, you're out here with me alone, and that's worse than just talking about anything."
"We haven't done anything bad."
"No one would believe that---scorpion!" she pointed it out with her stick.
Akbar pinned the creature to the earth with his stick, then told her: "I've never met a girl like you.''
''Is that a compliment?" she asked.
"I suppose," he answered, then let the scorpion run off.


They continued towards the dunes in silence, halting on the bank of a dry stream-bed that marked the boundary between the brush and the sand. Its floor was made up of small rounded stones; having seen them in the daylight, Lilitu knew they were every color imaginable, although in the moonlight, they were all shades of blue-grey. The dunes, however, were very pale, and had a lovely silvery look.
"Do you want to keep looking for snakes, or go up on the dunes?" Lilitu asked.
"Dunes," Akbar said.
They made for the highest, crossing several smaller ones before they came to it; as they reached its foot, Lilitu noticed, to her very great surprise, something wriggling its way down the slope towards them.
"Some kind of viper," Lilitu said, deducing this from the way it moved. "Big fat one."
"I thought you said they liked the grass," Akbar said.
"They do. Maybe it got lost. Seems to be heading right for us."
"Let's wait."
Apparently having seen them, the snake altered its course, squirming away to the right, but still coming down the slant. They ran after it.
"Night-viper," Lilitu said. "Get in front of it."
"Why?" Akbar asked.
"To distract it while I come up in back.''
"I don't know...''
"Come on," she answered. As the snake neared the bottom of the slope, Akbar planted himself a couple of yards ahead of it while Lilitu, racing along the slant, got behind it. When the snake halted, she brought her stick down on its neck, then bent and seized the reptile behind the head, holding it up. It was a good two feet long, and very thick.
Akbar came up and admired it, then showed Lilitu an awestruck smile, pathetic and endearing all at once.
"Will you marry me?" he asked.
"You're not serious," she said.
"I think I am.''
''You think you are?''
''I would like to kiss you, at least."
Lilitu looked at the snake, then him, then back at the snake.
"All right," she said, and tossed the viper. She watched it slither away, then turned to Akbar and wiped her hand.
"Should we sit down, or what?'' he asked.
"We can do it that way," she said, but within seconds of her first kiss, she was straddling him. A hard ridge rose up at the bottom of his belly, running slightly off to the side; she knew what that was, and although she was somewhat surprised it had sprung up so quickly, she began to rub on it.
"You're not very ladylike," he said, gasping for air.
"I take after my mother," she said, and planted her lips on his again. It occurred to her that this was not entirely fair to her mother, since Rahminah had reformed her life; but it was also indisputably true that Rahminah's inclinations---which Lilitu plainly shared---had resulted in ample behavior to repent. And so Lilitu, telling herself that she really didn't have any choice, at least until she got older, decided she'd really better do whatever she pleased to the boy lying pleasantly prone between her legs.


Things didn't go very smoothly, however.
Akbar might've watched some slaves at some point, but he still didn't have the slightest idea of what to do. It was a while before he would let her put her tongue in his mouth, and while he knew some of the places to touch, he didn't touch them very skillfully. It didn't even seem to occur to him to undress her; for that matter, he didn't even seem to realize he had to get his own clothes off, and she had to do that too, at least pull his trousers down. When he tried to mount her, Lilitu had to put it in for him, and while the taking of her virginity didn't hurt too much, he finished far too soon.


Afterwards, he acted rather proud of himself, but she, needless to say, was most disappointed. She managed to control her temper, however, and he never even noticed she was displeased; also, she was still very interested---as lackluster as the event had been, she still wanted more, and told herself that they might simply need practice.
At any rate, things went just well enough that they resolved to try it again.


The following night, in roughly the same spot (which they got to much more quickly, not stopping for toads this time) things went rather better; the night after that was genuinely agreeable.
Then he left with his family.
Lilitu wasn't exactly stricken; he was good company, and had improved as a partner over those three nights; if he wasn't better than masturbation, he had, by getting her all excited, made masturbation somewhat easier when she returned to the house.
But he wasn't the love of her life, she was fairly sure of that, even if he did appreciate her skill at snake-catching, and her other, even more profoundly un-ladylike characteristics. Sayida, upon learning that Lilitu had used him to dispense with her maidenhood, postively encouraged her to forget about him.
"Unless you're pregnant," Sayida said. "Then you might want to send him a letter, see if you can get him to talk his parents into letting him marry you."
"I'm not going to get pregnant," Lilitu said.
"How do you know?"
"I was an only child."
"So?"
"My mother didn't get pregnant easily. And she slept with all sorts of men. Not just my foster-father, or whatever we want to call him."
"You still might," Sayida said. "There's a herb that I take---my mother taught me about it. 'Don't fool around with boys, but if you do, don't you dare get pregnant.' That's what she said. Anyway, it just puts your womb to sleep. I picked a bunch just yesterday. I'll give you some. Next time you think you're going to be with a boy, eat a leaf or two."
"I don't think I'll need any for a while."
"Why?" Sayida asked. "Because Akbar is gone? Would you like to try Oded?"
Lilitu was astonished at the offer.
"Isn't it about time you did something really wicked?" Sayida asked.
"I already---''
"Did it with Akbar, sure. But he's a nobleman's son. Your... whatever probably wouldn't mind marrying you off to him. But Oded...he's hired help. Traaaash. And every time you look at your whatever, you can think to yourself, I don't respect him, and I've really proved it."
"There's that," Lilitu said.
"Really," Sayida said. "I'd be happy to loan Oded to you, and you'll really enjoy it. I've got him all properly trained. Taught him to use his hands and his tongue, and to keep himself in check till I'm done...but you have to let me watch."
"Do I?"
"Do you mind?"
"Let me sleep on it," Lilitu said.
She had most lascivious dreams that night.


Sitting on the marble fountain-rim, Sayida ran her fingertips through the water, then turned back to Lilitu. Deep dimples forming at the corners of her mouth, she smiled lewdly, and said:
"So then."
"You can watch," Lilitu answered.
"What if I want to join in?" Sayida asked.
"With him? Or me?"
"Both,'' Sayida said.
"Let me see how things are going," Lilitu replied.
Sayida patted the fountain-rim. "Sit down, please."
Lilitu sat beside her asking:
"Do you have someplace---"
Sayida nodded. "An old brick hut. I bet you know it. We swept it out, and brought some blankets and cushions...''
She took Lilitu's hand, and stroked her between the fingers, staring her in the eyes; then she gave her a soft light peck on the cheek, which Lilitu voiced no objection to.


Lilitu went with her after Hamid retired with Shiraz. The moon was well past full by that time, but Sayida led the way swiftly and surely by its light, down towards the spring. Surrounded by tall reeds and palm-trees, the hut stood right on the water's edge---Lilitu had spent some time mucking around on the lakeshore, looking for frogs and turtles, and remembered the family that had once lived in the hut---they'd moved after one of the children drowned.
"I've heard this place is haunted," she said, as they approached the little house.
"That must be why everyone stays away," Sayida said. "Convenient."
She knocked on the door, swung it open. "Oded!"
"Here!" he replied. Lilitu saw him stand up on the other side of the shadowy single room, a dark shape against the window, curly hair fringed by the light; clearly making out that narrow waist, and the curves of muscle in his shoulders and arms, she became aware that her heart was beating very fast. Akbar had never excited her so much, even when they were actually in the midst of making love, but the mere sight of Oded's silhouette was making her pulse race.
Sayida motioned her inside, then closed the door. Even with it shut, there was still moonlight from the window beside it; Lilitu discerned the blankets and cushions Sayida had mentioned. Oded stepped forward into the glow. He was wearing knee-length trousers; on his feet were rope sandals, and there was a crude metal medallion, copper, or so Lilitu guessed, on his chest. She'd never seen it before.
"Hello, Oded," she said.
He bowed. "My Lady."
"Take your pants down,'' Sayida told him. "Show her what you've got."
He smiled, teeth gleaming in his dark face, undid his belt, and pulled his pants down.
Lilitu put her hands to her mouth, giving a soft gasp.
"Isn't that something?" Sayida asked.
"Yes," Lilitu answered.
"Go on," Sayida said. "Grab it."
Lilitu advanced hesitantly, paused. Sayida pushed her forward. Lilitu extended her hand, touched him tentatively, then pulled her hand back with another laugh.
"What is this?" Sayida asked. "I thought you said you did it with Akbar."
"I did," Lilitu answered. "But he wasn't so...''
"Scary and purple?"
"Not even remotely."
"Well, the bigger the better. Don't be shy."
"Maybe you should start,'' Lilitu said.
"Oh very well," Sayida said. "If you insist." She knelt in front of him. "Now watch very carefully. It's possible to make friends with these things, no matter how scary and purple they are."
Lilitu moved closer, and knelt beside her to observe. After performing a succession of marvels, Sayida turned and asked:
"Would you like a turn?"
Lilitu blinked.
"Would you?" Sayida repeated.
Lilitu changed places with her, and with Sayida stroking her hair and whispering advice, she soon found that she was capable of marvels of her own.


Once Oded was exhausted, they bathed in the lake---there was a little sandy beach behind the hut---then headed back to the mansion, Lilitu and Sayida together, Oded by a different route.
"Was he all you'd hoped?" Sayida asked.
"He's really quite stupid," Lilitu said.
"Toys don't need brains.''
"True."
"How did you like him as a toy?"
"Very nice," Lilitu said.
They went on a way in silence beneath the palms. Then Lilitu said:
"I thought you were going to...''
"Yes?"
"Share me with him."
"I wasn't sure if you wanted me to. You seemed to be having such a good time. And I was perfectly happy to watch, and tickle myself." She laughed. "Were you disappointed?"
"I don't know."
"I think that was a yes," Sayida answered, and took her by the hand.


Lilitu slept late the next day; she awoke very sore, but still desperate for some more of Oded. Hoping her cousin would set up another assignation, she went to Sayida's room, and found that she'd taken ill.
"Go ahead and speak to him yourself," Sayida said. "If I feel better, I'll join you."
Finding Oded hard at work polishing some brass; Lilitu arranged the tryst. Shortly before going to meet him, Lilitu went to see Sayida again, but Sayida was fast asleep, and Lilitu set out for the hut alone.
She was a bit apprehensive, knowing she wouldn't have Sayida to advise her, but when she and Oded got down to it, she managed just fine, and very much enjoyed his undivided attention. After coming so many times the night before, he seemed to have some difficulty coming tonight, but there were advantages to that; it all went off very well.
The trouble came afterward.
For no particular reason, she decided to take a chance and return with him. But as they were nearing the mansion, they came upon four soldiers drinking in a clearing; startled, the men-at-arms leaped to their feet, pulling out their swords.
"Who is that?" one demanded, a tall old broad-shouldered fellow named Nadjibullah.
"It's me!" Oded cried.
Nadjibullah got up close to him, squinting in the moonlight. "Gardener's son. And who's this you've got---"
Recognizing Lilitu, he broke off; she winced at his breath.
"My lady," Nadjibullah said. "What are you doing out at such an hour?"
"Having a walk," she said.
"An innocent little stroll?"he asked.
"Yes."
"All by yourselves?"
Lilitu scrambled for an excuse. "I like to go looking for snakes and things. Everyone knows that. Oded was out for a walk too, and he offered to escort me back."
The soldier gave a filthy laugh.
"It's true!" Lilitu protested.
"I think you'd better run on home, My Lady," Nadjibullah said, the other soldiers grunting in agreement.
Lilitu and Oded hurried from the clearing.
"They're going to tell my father, I just know it," Lilitu said.


Very nervous, she didn't sleep well, and was already awake when the knock came at the door; looking most flustered, the Lark informed Lilitu that her father wanted to see her urgently, in the audience-hall.
Oh God, Lilitu thought. Just as you feared...
Hoping frantically that she was mistaken, she got dressed, and went.
On the way, she tried to think of other things he might be summoning her about, but when she arrived, she found Hamid sitting in his Justice Seat and looking most unhappy about it, the expression on his face exactly what Lilitu would've expected if he'd been humiliated by the gardener's son. Sneering horrendously---Lilitu simply wanted to kill her---Shiraz was standing next to him. Quivering, face swollen with welts and smeared with blood, Oded was lying on the floor in front of them, Nadjibullah and another soldier standing over him. Wringing his hands, Oded's father was off to the side, face written with anguish.
"There you are," said Hamid to Lilitu, sounding more sick to his stomach than anything else.
"What is all this?" Lilitu asked.
"Your...friend here told us everything," Shiraz said.
"Told you what?" Lilitu asked.
"About you and him," Hamid said. "Last night, in the hut."
Oded looked at Lilitu with swollen eyes, his beauty utterly banished, at least for the time being. He said: "I'm sorry, My Lady---"
The guards looked to Hamid. He nodded, then looked away, and they began kicking Oded, Nadjibullah catching him in the face again and again. Blood splashed onto the floor from Oded's mouth; Lilitu saw a tooth come flying out.
"Stop it!" she cried, knowing Hamid had no relish for this sort of thing. He nodded again; the guards stopped.
"What are you going to do with us?" Lilitu asked.
"Haven't quite decided about you," Hamid said. "As for that---" He gestured towards Oded, "he's dishonored me and my family name, and---"
Shiraz leaned over and whispered in his ear.
"I think I'll have him hung," he said. "From that big tree, you know the one I mean."
"No!" Lilitu cried. "Don't kill him! It's all my fault."
Shiraz whispered again.
"Your mother says he must certainly die," he told Lilitu.
"She's not my mother!" Lilitu cried.
Shiraz smiled smugly, as if to say:
Thank God.
"She hates me!" Lilitu cried. "She wants him dead to hurt me! She doesn't care about this family.''
"And you do?" Hamid asked.
"Please!" Lilitu sobbed. "Don't kill him."
Hamid replied: "Give me a reason why I shouldn't."
"Let me speak to you alone."
"Don't let her," Shiraz told Hamid.
"I know of a very good reason,'' Lilitu said.
"Then give it to us," Shiraz replied.
"Us?" Lilitu asked. "Who's in charge here?"
Hamid chewed a horn of his moustache.
"Don't listen to her," Shiraz said.
But Hamid nodded to Lilitu. "Come," he said, and led her back to his robing-room. "Now then."
"He hasn't dishonored your family," she said.
"Hasn't he?"
Lilitu answered: "I'm not your daughter."
"Ah," he said. "Yes. There's that." He paused. "But everyone thinks you are."
"No one thinks I am. So why don't you just send him and his father away, and think of something appropriate to do to me?''
He stared at her, grimaced, looked down at the floor. Shaking his head, he slapped a hand to the back of his neck and said:
"I hate all this.''
"He doesn't deserve to die. Not over me. I'm worthless." Even after all that had happened, even though it was the right argument to make for Oded's sake, she still hoped Hamid might give some hint that he disagreed, but when he didn't, she took it in stride, continuing: "You've swallowed far worse. Let him live."
''I hate all this,'' he said again. "Shiraz will have my ears.'' "Stand up to her," Lilitu said. "The way you should've stood up to my mother."
"Aaah," he said disgustedly, and left her.
Thinking it would be best if she didn't go back to the audience-hall, she returned to her room by a different route; after a time, the Lark brought her a note from her father to the effect that she was confined to the chamber until further notice.
"What happened with Oded?" Lilitu asked the maid.
"They threw him out," the Lark said. "His father too."
Thank God, Lilitu thought, thinking she should try to thank Hamid. "If I wrote a note to my father, would you sneak it to him?"
"I wouldn't dare! If Shiraz caught me, she'd read it, you know. She tries to read everything that comes his way, even dispatches from Thangura. I've been beaten enough as it is."
"Forget it," Lilitu said.


Later that night, Lilitu was just about asleep when she heard scrabbling and rustling, and looked to see someone push the lattices inward and crawl in from the ledge.
"Don't worry!" came Sayida's voice. "It's just me."
In an instant, she was in under Lilitu's covers, snuggling up against her.
"How did you get up here?"
"Those vines, next to your window,'' Sayida answered.Surprised they hadn't just ripped loose from the side of the building, Lilitu said: ''You do smell rather like leaves at that.''
"I think it's very pleasant," Sayida said.
''It's very green.''
''How can you have a green smell?''
Lilitu didn't explain.
''What color is my breath?'' Sayida asked, and exhaled.
''Spicy...what do you want?''
''I heard you're confined to your room for a while. I thought I'd come over and comfort you."
"Or yourself? Since you won't have Oded to play with anymore?"
"Whatever," Sayida said, and put her arms around her. "You know, mother has strictly forbidden me to see you."
"Has she ever twisted your ear?"
"Half off," Sayida said. "She's done it to you, I take it?"
"Awhile back. When I was trying to keep her from marrying your stepfather."
"Well, I'm very embarrassed to hear it. Most depressing. Why don't we talk about something else?"
"Such as?"
"How we might comfort each other."
"What do you have in mind?" Lilitu said, aware that Sayida was already rubbing against one of her thighs.
"Kisses are extremely comforting. So is this---" Sayida put her hand on Lilitu's breast. "Feel better?"
"I'm not sure."
Sayida kissed Lilitu on the cheek, then on the mouth; she tried to slip her tongue in, but Lilitu kept her lips closed.
"Let me," Sayida said.
Increasingly...comforted by the feel of Sayida's hand on her breast, Lilitu was nonetheless unsure if she wanted to go much farther, especially if it involved another woman's saliva; just to stall, she started to ask Sayida what she'd been eating, but the instant Lilitu's lips opened, Sayida's tongue slipped through like something from an adder's mouth, and once the initial shock passed, Lilitu began giving as good as she got.
"Would you like me to teach you everything?" Sayida asked breathlessly, after a time.
"Please,'' Lilitu replied.

Jury Duty! Akk!

I just had a really awful jury-duty day...spent seven hours sitting around the jury-duty room with a bunch of other people watching Divorce Court and Judge Judy and The Price is Right...The price is Right is particularly horrifying. It involves fairly grotesque people in gaudy clothes trying strenuously to out-histrionic each other, thus proving that they're the rightful recipient of an outboard motor, etc. Man it was giving me chest pains, although...the tall thin black dude who gave us our instructions really had his patter down. Didn't make me any happier to be there, though.

Finally they herded us upstairs and told we were in the pool for a really huge double capital-murder case that was going to last seven weeks at least, and involve sequestration, holy shit. Every single other potential juror ( I think there were about a hundred and forty) went up before the judge ahead of me. But when I got int here, I employed an argument involving the World Fantasycon and how I had to go to that (wasn't lying), and that's why they shouldn't use me, and the judge(a looming afro-american magistrate with much gravitas) was very nice and said I could leave, but...man, that would've knocked my life into a cocked hat for a while.

Besides the judge and the instruction guy, some of the other courtroom characters were interesting...there was a funny ex-military Puerto Rican bailiff, and six high priced-looking defense attorneys in sharp suits, and a prosecutor who looked like a beautifully-coiffed Republican politician on the make, and his gorgeous tall blonde female assistant...the rest of us looked like shit, and very demoralized.

You should be glad you weren't there!

Hey, do you want some more Lilitu and Yark?

Yark Excerpt

Okay, seeing as how I ran that Yark review that Michael Critzer wrote for NextGenPulp, I thought I might as well give you guys an excerpt from the book, so here are the first two chapters...man I did a lot of writing during the last ten years. Yark is available over on Amazon, by the way, and this is a link to a slideshow over on Youtube where you can see all the illos: http://www.youtu...be.com/user/TheBigLebbowskii#p/a/u/1/FuS1qgeDUuI


YARK
Written and Illustrated by
Mark E. Rogers

Chapter 1: Tabula Non Rasa
Curled up in a pit in a giant fruit was a yark named Snash. He didn’t know he was a yark or that he was named Snash, although he would once he needed to; he didn’t know he was curled up in a pit either, although he’d have to figure that out for himself, later. To the extent he knew anything at all, it was that he wanted to snooze some more---he was perfectly happy in the warm wet darkness, at least when he wasn’t being disturbed by the tremors, although he forgot those as soon as they stopped.
Even after the bangings and the thumpings and the liquid sucking noises started up, he managed to drowse on, though the noises made him twitch. But once he began to hear the voices---one gutteral, the other higher-pitched and snotty in tone---he got progressively more awake. Having just enough room to slide his clawed hands up, he pressed his ears---they were long and rather like a dog’s---down over his ear-holes, but the voices still penetrated, and he found himself paying more and more attention to what they were saying.
“Garn!” one snarled. “You’re like a boil someplace I can’t reach…you ask too many filthy questions, Snurgit.”
“I’m a brain, Mogrog,” Snurgit replied. “Brains ask questions.”
“And you should all go straight to Hell,” Mogrog said. “Your heads are too big for your breeks.”
Snurgit asked: “Haven’t you ever wondered why we can just do things?”
“Do things?”
“Like talk? Right from the first, I mean, just as soon as we’re pried out?”
“Everybody can talk,” Mogrog shot back.
“No.”
“If they’re the kind what talk at all.”
“No,” Snurgit said. “You take men now…”
“You take ’em.”
“The young ones don't know a thing. They’re…blank slates.”
“Blank slate my bum. I’m sick of listening to you…”
Snash could see how Mogrog might be, given Snurgit’s awful tone; on the other hand, Snurgit’s questions were genuinely interesting. Snash wondered: was he able to speak even now, or would he have to be pried out first? Certainly, he understood what was being said. He wondered what Snurgit and Mogrog looked like; for that matter, what anything looked like…
“You’re just mad because you don’t have a great big brain,” Snurgit was saying.
“Well maybe I don’t,” Mogrog replied. “But why don’t you save all your stupid questions for someone else with a great big brain?”
“I asked my chief,” Snurgit said. “But he had me copying parchments, and said I didn’t need to know, and when I kept asking, they sent me down here---”
Mogrog laughed. “And you still can’t figure it out.”
“I have a theory, though,” said Snurgit. “There must be something---magic maybe---in the pellets, the ones that get things going in the pits.”
“Pits?” Mogrog asked. “You mean these?”
At these, Snash heard a wrenching sound, and suddenly whatever he was curled up in tilted, then settled back down with a muffled gurgling noise.
“No, that’s not a pit,” said Snurgit.
“Came out of a big fruit, didn’t it?”
“But it’s not what I mean when I say pit---”
“Whatever,” Mogrog growled. “Come on, you pansy, lend a claw---”
More wrenching; Snash’s comfortable little envelope rolled up and out of wherever it had been, and he found himself turning over a couple of times before it came to a halt against something---dim yellowish light was seeping through the sides now. Snash blinked. He’d never seen any light before, and he didn't think he liked it…dark things were moving around out there, blocking out the light in places. The word shadows leaped to mind…
“There, look,” said Mogrog. “A pit, see? Just like all the other ones we’ve pried out.”
“The pit,” Snurgit said, “is the thing the fruit grows in.”
“You’re both wrong, you maggot-heads,” came a third voice, more distant, from someone who’d apparently been listening in. “The pit’s this whole place. The big cave, see? Those holes in the ground, they’re the shafts, and those things we dig out of the fruits, they’re the seeds.”
“What festering dung!” broke in a fourth voice. “You should keep your mouth tucked under your hairy armpit, Kruzhnagh, if you’re going to come out with shit like that. The big cave is the big cave. The pits are the holes in the floor, and nobody calls those things we dig out of the fruits anything.”
“Nar,” Kruzhnagh answered, “I told you, I call ’em seeds.”
“And I call ’em pits,” said Mogrog.
Snurgit said: “It’s almost as if---”
“What?” asked the other three, all at once, sounding very irritated.
Snurgit went on: “Whoever put the words into our heads really hadn’t thought it all through---”
“That’s cursed rebel talk!” cried the fellow who wasn’t Mogrog, Kruzhnagh, or Snurgit.
“I was simply speculating---”
“Want me to report you?”
A sullen silence followed. But presently Mogrog said:
“You know, you brains aren’t very smart.”
Snurgit didn’t respond.
Mogrog laughed. Then a jolt went through Snash’s seed, or pit, or whatever it was, and Mogrog said: “Not sure I want to bother with this one. We’ve already made our quota for the day, and this is the damn runt, and the runts are the hardest to get out.”
Snash knew that a runt was something small, pathetic and not very worthwhile. Snurgit asked: “What then?”
“I’m tired,” Mogrog said. “Let’s just mark him stillborn---” Snash felt another jolt through the shell, “with the old grease-rod, and the next shift’ll just haul him away and toss him in the fire.”
Fire? Snash thought desperately. He had, of course, never seen fire, or anything else except the light through the wall of his pit (or seed), but he knew they were talking about something that would eat him.
“What if he’s not stillborn?” Snurgit asked.
Mogrog answered: “Who cares?”
Snash registered his concern with a squeak.
“He’s alive,” said Snurgit.
“Won’t be after this.” Snash heard a rasping sound; one of the shadows moved; suddenly something hard came through the wall and went right between his thigh and his body (he was curled up, remember) then jerked back out again.
“There!” said Mogrog.
“They’ll see the hole!” answered Snurgit.
“We’ll plug it with trash and paint over it…here, use this bit of stuff…” Snash saw the shadows moving again. “And mark it, now, if you know what’s good for you…”
“Hola there, vermin!” came a new voice, very ugly and loud. “What’re you up to?”
“This fellow’s stillborn, captain!” Mogrog cried. “We were just marking---”
Snash squeaked again.
“What was that rat-noise?” the captain cried.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Mogrog.
But the captain was having none of that. “Get him out of there, and no more nonsense! There’s a runt shortage upstairs!”
There was a pause after that. Then, as if the captain had gone away, Mogrog said disgustedly:
“Runt shortage. What good are the little lice anyway?”
“They’re fast,” said Snurgit. “Carry dispatches.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to? You think I didn’t know that? My question is, what do we need dispatches for? If you have someone to carry the damn orders, why can’t he just tell you what the order is, and skip all that writing shit? Reading makes my head hurt.”
This was enough to fetch the snot back into Snurgit’s tone. “Get a lot of dispatches, do you?”
“Bite…my…bum,” said Mogrog. “But in the meantime, let’s get this damn runt’s…pit---”
“Seed?”
“Open.”



It took them a while; Snash heard much huffing and puffing, and all kinds of scraping and knocking, and his pit was jerked and jostled something awful. Then, finally, nasty hard points broke through on one side, and a line of light opened up beside him, and widened….Mogrog and Snurgit’s grunts and curses suddenly sounded a whole lot clearer. Snash coughed out two lungfuls of fluid, blew his nose and took his first breath, wincing at an influx of horrible smells.
“Now!” cried Mogrog. “Come on, you---”
There was a loud crack!, and all at once the whole top of the pit lifted up; two blurry figures leaned into view. Purely by reflex, Snash swiped gunk from his eyes and blinked.
Yarks, he thought...the term hadn’t crossed his mind until then. Holding pry-bars and wearing harnesses studded with metal, they had black skin...looking at his arm, he saw it was the same shade. Bald, with shiny scalps, they had long ears that hung down (just like his), and slitty glinty eyes that were black all the way across. Both yarks towered over him from about the same height (he guessed it was because he was a runt and they weren’t), but they were very different in build. Downright skinny, one had a swollen head which looked too heavy for his scrawny neck, and since he seemed just like a brain, Snash guessed he must be Snurgit, which meant the other, who was a great big mass of bulgy muscles, his harness creaking, was Mogrog.
A...bull, Snash thought. Bulls, brains, runts...
Mogrog gave Snash a closer look.
“Not a mark on him,” he said. “How did I manage not to stick him?”
Snash noticed a tool stuffed into Mogrog’s belt…he believed that items like that were called mallets. Without warning, Mogrog took it out, leaned farther down, and bopped Snash on the forehead, asking:
“Feel that?”
Snash rubbed his head and nodded.
“Understand what I’m saying?” Mogrog asked.
Snash nodded once more.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” said Snash.
Mogrog squatted down next to the pod. “Now listen up, you wretched little gob of phlegm…I know you were listening in there, but… you didn’t hear anything, right? I didn’t try to stick you, and you have no complaints at all, see?”
“But…” Snash squeaked.
Mogrog bopped him on the head again.
“Oww!” Snash cried.
“I’ve got some mates upstairs,” Mogrog said. “You make trouble for me, and they’ll make trouble for you. You’ll be going about your business, and one of them’ll come up behind you, and you’ll have your throat cut to the spine….How does that sound?”
“Bad,” said Snash.
“Then mind your own shitty breeks,” Mogrog said, and bopped the runt a third time. “Or we’ll mind ’em for you.”
Snash wrinkled his nose, wondering why Mogrog and his mates would want to mind his shitty breeks (if he ever acquired any breeks at all).
“Get up!” Mogrog snarled.
Snash uncurled himself and stood, dripping slime.
“Look at ’im,” said Mogrog. “Garn, I hate runts…and he’s an even bigger runt than most.”
“What do you mean by that?” Snurgit asked, and this exchange went on for a while, but Snash was too busy looking at his surroundings to pay any attention.
The big cave, Kruzhnagh had said…Snash knew what big meant, but this cave was bigger than anything he’d imagined. It just went on for, well, a very long distance, and its ceiling, upheld in spots by pillars of rock, was quite some way above the floor. The light, pale yellow, was coming from luminous creatures, themselves very big, hanging from the ceiling on long strands…the word spiders came to mind. Every once in a while they dropped down, grabbed yarks from the floor and climbed back up with them.
As for the floor itself, it was full of holes, the openings arranged in very orderly fashion, separated by broad lanes. A few of the holes seemed to have what Snash guessed were fires burning in them; black against the red light, figures were feeding the flames with pit-halves and bodies.
But most of the shafts seemed to be filled up with great yellow fruits, bulging up one to a hole, blotched with black---many were in the process of being hacked up by two-and-three-yark teams wielding long-bladed implements that were midway between cleavers and swords. Snurgit and Mogrog had blades of the same sort slung across their backs, and were standing, still arguing, ankle-deep in the insides of one of those giant fruits. Off to the side of them, Snash was squishing from foot to foot in the guck. Lengths of peel were stretched out in five directions, like the arms of a starfish, although he was kind of fuzzy about what a starfish was…Bits of pulp were scattered all around.
He began to watch a team working on a fruit two shafts over…after spreading the peels out, they thrust their bars deep into the pulp until they found something, then went back to work with their cleavers, removing material until they could pry the pits out. Once those came free, the teams opened them up with the bars, freeing gooey yarks who looked mostly like Mogrog, although there were some big-headed ones like Snurgit as well.
As the teams started in, the fruits were well down in the shafts, but once a bunch of their insides were pulled out, the fruits rose higher and higher, as though something were pushing them up, now that they were getting lighter…Snash saw a fruit, cleaver-team and all, rise suddenly out of one shaft on a burst of greenish vapor; it didn’t quite rise as high as a gigantic glowing spider hanging right above it, but the spider remedied that by dropping down and snatching two of the workers before the fruit fell back to the floor…
Snash heard a rumble, and a tremor passed through the chamber, coming up through his legs out of the fruit below him…he had to fight a bit to keep his balance, the spiders above all began to swing rather crazily on their lines….off to his right, a crack broke open in the stone, and a long thin stream of bright orange lava began to squirt up---
“What do you have for me?” a voice bellowed.
Snash looked round to see that a bull even bigger than Mogrog had come up, carrying a whip...a deep scar curled his upper lip.
“Slagbag,” said Mogrog.
“Mogrog,” said Slagbag. “What do you have?”
Mogrog pointed to Snash.
Slagbag cracked his whip. “Get over here, runt!”
Snash began to muck his way across the pulp…once he stepped out of it, shaking the stuff off his feet, Slagbag got behind him, gave him a hard shove, cried, “Get moving!” then flicked a bit of hide from the runt’s naked behind with the whip. Snash yelped and started running, along between the shafts…having been curled up in a pod for his whole existence, with the exception of the last few minutes, he felt pretty stiff.
“Faster, you stinking bloodclot!” Slagbag bellowed.
Arms churning, Snash obliged, working his protesting muscles and ligaments as hard as he could. Still, he wasn’t going fast enough for Slagbag, if the next flick was any indication. The whip bit Snash right where it’d bitten him before, seemed to hurt him twice as much as last time, and got him working even harder, so much so that he swiftly pulled way out ahead of Slagbag---the thud of Slagbag’s boots faded quite a bit, at any rate. Finally Slagbag cried:
“Hola there! Slow down, you grub you!”
Snash didn’t think he knew much about grubs, although he had a definite impression that speed was rarely an issue with them; even so, he slowed, and as Slagbag toiled up, began:
“I thought you wanted me to---”
“How can I whip you if I can’t keep up? Garn, you runts are a bad idea! What’s the point of a yark who’s too fast to whip?”
He snapped the lash at Snash once more, catching him on the chest---Snash winced, turned, and sped off, although not too speedily.
They stopped after a bit though, long enough for Slagbag to pick up another couple of newborn bulls along the way; Snash was glad to have them, because they were bigger and slower than him, and he could easily stay out in front, keeping them between him and Slagbag, who didn't seem to care who he was whipping….as he ran along, Snash noticed other teams of newborns being driven along other lanes by lash-wielding drivers.
It took quite some time before he neared the curving wall of the cavern; there was a huge opening in it, into another vast chamber, apparently, and the lanes converged to pass through. On either side of the yawning mouth, crowds of naked newborns were penned in thorny enclosures....off on the right, a party of yarks in head-to-toe leather suits were stringing fresh thorns even as Snash’s party approached. Even though the stringers were wearing hide gloves, they were constantly recoiling and flinching, as though they had stuck themselves---Snash heard them crying: “Ow!” “Ah!” “Garn!” “Nar!” “Shit!” “You filthy---!” and other things along similar lines.
A long gate stood open in the pen on the left; guards with halberds motioned Slagbag’s charges inside.
“All yours!” Slagbag snarled; halting inside the enclosure, looking back between black sweaty bow-legs, Snash got a glimpse of him loping off, and wasn’t sorry at all to see him go.
Several more troops of newborns came in shortly afterwards; then, somewhere, a horn sounded, its harsh notes echoing through the cave. New guards replaced the bulls at the gate, who departed, crying: “Out of here!”
Looking back out towards the shafts, Snash saw dozens of new teams replacing the ones on duty. The shift-change seemed to excite the spiders, who started picking off yarks with greater frequency. They appeared to occasion a certain amount of upset in the immediate area of their descent, but for the most part, everyone seemed to be taking it in stride, resuming work right after the spiders went back up with their wiggling prey….Snash heard a lot of whips cracking.
The other newborns fell to talking among themselves; it wasn’t long before a quarrel started up, right behind Snash:
“And I say you do stink worse than the rest of us!”
“And I say you’re smelling your own stink!”
Certainly someone was unusually ripe, which was really saying something; they snarled the same witless exchange over and over again...Snash turned to see two muscular brutes practically snout to snout, bodies tensed, muscles quivering...not surprisingly, it was hard to tell just from eyeballing them which one smelled worse...Snash thought maybe the one on the left looked stinkier.
Finally one of the bulls from the gate thrust his way up beside Snash and bellowed: “Shut your gobs, you carrion!”
“Or what?” sneered the debater on the left.
“Or this!” answered the guard, thrusting his halberd into that yark’s shiny black forehead, then pulling it out…yanked forward as the blade jerked loose, the victim rocked off his feet, the guard stepping aside to let the corpse drop right at Snash’s toes.
The guard sniffed, then squatted next to the corpse and sniffed again. “Was him. Phew!” He stood back up, fanning his face…after wiping both sides of his halberd-blade on Snash, he roared: “All right then! No…QUARRELING!” and went back by the gate.
The newborns were pretty silent after that, although there was some whispering, much of which was so soft that it couldn't be understood, and had to be repeated. This state of affairs lasted for some while, until three yarks came over from the other enclosure, a bull with a round-headed spikeless mace backing up a pair of brains...one of them was extremely skinny and veiny, a strange cup-like tube with a glass at the end of it affixed over one eye with a strap.The other brain had a bit more meat on him; his cheekbones were higher, and his nostrils had a pronounced arch, giving him a haughty, sniffy look; he was wearing sandals, and leather robes with a badge clipped on…There were letters on the badge, red against black, an I and an E---for the first time, Snash realized he could read.
“Line ’em up!” cried the brain in the robes.
The gatewards banged the butts of their halberds on the stone and shouted: “Four ranks! Now!”
The newborns scrambled to comply….Snash wound up in the front line. Once everyone was formed up, the brain with the eyepiece began side-stepping from yark to yark, giving each an examination, looking in their ears, eyes, noses, and mouths, then sniffing them all over….leaning forward a bit, Snash saw him ten newborns down, standing in front of a bull who looked a bit malformed, even by yark standards…Eyepiece nodded, apparently to someone behind the yark being scrutinized. There was a loud bok! and the bull grunted, and fell face forward, twitching on the stone. “Compost,” Eyepiece said, and produced a little white stick, and drew a letter on the dead bull’s back---Snash guessed it was c for compost, wondered briefly how he knew that.
Same way you know how to speak, he decided. At any rate, the white greasy c stood out very clearly on the black corpse.
The examiner had already resumed his slow sidestep along the line. Snash leaned back, looking between the first and second ranks…the mace-bearing guard who’d accompanied the two brains was moving along with the inspector, stopping behind every yark the inspector stopped in front of….each time he halted, the guard stood grinning and nodding, hefting his weapon, as though he simply couldn’t wait to crack another skull. Suddenly the mace-bearer noticed Snash looking at him, and growled:
“What do you think you’re looking at?”
Snash just gulped and leaned forward, waiting in awful suspense as Eyepiece proceeded down the line towards him, stopping at last before the big muscular brute on Snash’s left, a specimen so impressive that Snash thought he’d surely pass muster; but the inspector didn’t seem to be very far into his inspection before he nodded to the guard, and Snash heard that bok! again, and down the big fellow went. Eyepiece drew a B on the corpse, said, “Burn,” apparently to himself---
And then stepped in front of Snash. Trembling, sure he was about to die, since he was so pathetic, even if there was a runt shortage, Snash just stared down at the inspector’s black-taloned toes sticking out through the front of his sandals.
“Lift your chin, damn you!” the examiner snarled. Snash lifted his face, but closed his eyes.
“Open your eyes,” the brain said, and Snash did so. The examiner looked into his facial orifices, lifted his arms and sniffed, then prodded him in various places in the belly and throat, something which he hadn’t done to any of the other yarks…Snash was more certain than ever that Eyepiece was going to nod, and that the last thing that he---Snash, that is---was going to hear would be the sound of the mace striking his own skull. But then the inspector simply stepped one yark down, and Snash was still alive, feeling a certain amount of relief, even as he remained desperately unhappy with his situation.
It took a while for Eyepiece to look everyone over…Snash heard the mace strike several more times, off to the side, and behind him. Then the inspector reappeared in front, and told the brain in the leather robes:
“Done, sir.”
Sir grunted deep in his throat and nodded approval, then turned to the freshly-examined newborns and said:
“My name is Captain Spigrat, and I’m from I and E, as you can see---” Laughing at his little rhyme, he pointed to his badge with a talon-tip. “That’s Inspiration and Exhortation. It’s my job to welcome you into the system now that you’re hatched out. Fire you up, and tell you what you already know, which is...you are minions of Serpentar, the Yark Lord, King of Tenebria and Master of Mount Adamant. You were created to further His aims, to give Him, if need be, your final breath and the last drop of your blood. Think of it! Every single one of you, even the lowliest runt, can be coals in His furnace. You have but to trust in His design---your every detail reflects His will. Immolation is not an idle word for you. As surely as you are yarks, it is within your grasp.
“So then! Do not vex yourselves! When your muscles crack and snap, and your joints pop with strain as you turn a capstan…when you feel the skin flying off at the flick of the lash…when you face ten thousand blazing blond fays with only a wooden spoon clutched in your claw, rejoice! You are not sacrificing, and being sacrificed, in vain. Each of you has a part to play in the Five-Thousand Year Plan. Consider those who have no purpose in life, and weep for them! You are cogs in a machine that never stops, that grinds the grist of the Future; turning and turning until you can turn no more, you will pulverize the foes of the Inevitable, our King on High!” Spigrat lifted both claws towards the ceiling, then flung one arm down, pointing a talon at the floor, and cried: “On your knees, you crushing gears, you instruments of annihilation! Abase yourselves to Lord Serpentar!”
While Spigrat stood nodding, the ranks knelt…Snash’s knees were quite knobby and bony, and going down on one was painful, although he tried not to show it….He wished desperately that he was back in his pit, or seed, or whatever it had been, and that he could just go back to sleep and never wake up…
I hate being a yark, he thought.

Chapter 2: Glolob’s Lair
Afterwards, the newborns were allowed to rise; the two brains withdrew and fell to whispering with each other. Snash didn’t catch any of that, but he did hear some back-and-forth between the brains’ bull and the gatewards. The Inevitable had just snagged one last enemy bigwig, who had a name that seemed to end in “button” or “bottom,” or something like that...not very scary-sounding. But his capture had cleared the way for a “final push” into Merriador, (wherever that was) and preparations had begun.
After the brains left, a squad of whipwielders arrived, and all the newborns were herded out of the enclosure onto the road, where they joined the newborns from the other enclosure, who were being herded by their own troop of motivators; once the newborns were organized into a column five files across, the drivers started in with their lashes, going up and down between the lines, and the company started forward, into the next chamber.
Snash had tried to place himself at the head of the column, but had only succeeded in landing himself ten ranks back in the leftmost file. Being all the way over on the side, he was able to get a good look at the chamber they’d just entered…it seemed pretty similar to the last one, although all of the shafts seemed to be empty, and nothing seemed to be going on. There was also much less light, since there were far fewer spiders, as though most had gone elsewhere since there was no food, or the powers that be were economizing on spiders since there was no work that needed lighting, or some combination of both…Snash wondered why he was considering such matters, then wondered if any of the other newborns were theorizing about the lighting, or indeed anything else; listening to them grunting, he decided it was unlikely and told himself he didn’t really have much in common with them, a thought which comforted him.
About two-thirds of the way across the chamber, the column reached the brink of a great crack in the floor, with redlit smoke rising up out of it; a work-crew was in the process of making (or repairing?) a wooden bridge over the fissure, and the newborns had to pass over it single-file. Looking over the railing, Snash couldn’t see much of anything except the smoke, which was very hot, and stank. Something below was chugging...he would learn later on that lava chugged like that.
He was still out in the middle of the bridge when there was another tremor; the bridge began to creak and sway, and the line started to move much faster. Even after the rumbling stopped, the bridge kept swaying, from all the frantic movements of the yarks upon it; the workers shouted at them to slow down, but no one listened. Certain the bridge was going to collapse, Snash managed to slip ahead through the line, shooting between yarks and the railing (and yark-legs when he had to), swiftly reaching the far side before any of the others even seemed to realize he was line-jumping…Once over, the newborns simply collected in a crowd, although the whipwielders were soon forming them back into a column…Amazingly, almost everyone got across, although the bridge finally did give while the last thirty or so yarks were on it, along with a bunch of the workers….Snash heard them all screaming as they plunged into the redlit depths, and he was terrified to think of what was going to happen to them at the bottom. But all the others who had made it across didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest; indeed, some of them immediately began laughing about it, shouting: “Better you than me!”, “Flap harder, damn you!”, “Make a wish!”, “What’s that chugging down there?”, and, “Happy landings!”
Shortly the motivators put a stop to all this frivolity, and got the column moving again, into the next chamber, where there was a great deal of activity and a lot more light…wagons filled with compost that was a mixture of trash and dead yarks were being pulled up alongside empty shafts, and tipped sideways by fifteen-foot tall ogres in aprons and hoods of hide, the compost dropping down into the holes and filling them up…Farther along, all the shafts were filled to the brim.
The column pressed on into a third chamber, where the pits were leaking green vapor and stinking most horrid, some of them belching up burps that knocked pieces of offal high into the air; there were more wagons pulled up alongside the shafts, but instead of being loaded with compost, they had gigantic crossbows mounted upon their beds; ogres spanned the crossbows with cranks, whereupon yarks lifted shiny black balls, about the size of a brain-yark’s head, out of steel boxes and placed them in slings attached to the strings. Snash remembered Mogrog saying something about pellets getting things going in the pits, and indeed, once the weapons were loaded, the ogres pushed them out through a gap in the side of the wagon, on a rolling arm, tilted them straight down over the offal-filled shafts, and pulled the trigger, firing the black pellets deep into the compost.
At the far end of this third chamber, there was a great ramp that spiralled up through the black stone, its floor worn concave by the passage of countless pounding feet and rather hard to pound on as a result; at the top, the troop was driven along a torchlit hallway, very wide, its walls hung with black banners blazoned in scarlet with slogans like: “Love Your Destiny,” “That Which Whips Us Makes us Faster” and “The Inevitable is Inexorable.”
At length the motivators steered the column off into a place which seemed basically like an even wider version of the corridor outside. It was full of yarks, arranged in about twenty files, although there was still room enough for Snash and all his companions, who took up at the back…The files weren’t perfectly straight, and he couldn’t see very far along the lanes. There was a long wait as his line crept forward; he wasn’t sure exactly how long an hour was, but he thought that several must’ve passed before he got close enough to the front to see and hear what was going on. Everyone was getting another inspection; brains were working their way in from right and left, marking black hides with grease-rods and barking, “mountain,” “motivator,” “pits,” “desert,” “mines,” “smith,” “security,” “political,” “clerical,” “runner,” “mail room,” and so on, with brains getting jobs that seemed to call for, well, brains, while the bulls were being classified as fighters and laborers, and the few runts were all becoming runners. But aside from those basic divisions, it was hard to see how the inspectors were making their judgements, distinguishing a motivator from a miner, for example, when all the bulls looked pretty much the same, at least to Snash. At any rate, once someone was classified, they were hustled off to the sides by guards.
Finally Snash reached the front, where he thought he’d be pronounced a runner like all the other runts, but a brain looked him over, marked him, said: “mail room,” and passed on, even as a guard shoved Snash in the opposite direction.
Along with a crowd of other yarks, Snash found himself in a smaller chamber off to the side, where there was a great deal of shouting and confusion as everyone was sorted out and taken charge of; but Snash was the only runt in the whole place, and there was no one from the mail room to lead him away. Since there was a steady outflow from the bigger chamber, a few runts showed up from time to time, but the officers who claimed them weren’t interested in Snash at all, and no one would answer his questions…finally, though, after what seemed like a very long time, during which he was getting more and more frantic, a brain came over to him and asked:
“How did you get through inspection?”
“The inspector inspected me...”
“Well, if you’re not defective, then why are you doing your damnedst to stand there like a halfwit?”
“I was assigned to the mail room---”
The brain looked at Snash's grease-mark. “Think I can’t see that, flyspeck?”
“But no one will take me, sir.”
“Can’t you do anything yourself, you mote of dried pus?” the brain snarled.
“I don’t know the way.”
“Ask,” said the brain.
“Where’s the mail-room, sir?”
“Never been there,” answered the brain. “Ask someone else.”
“Why don’t we know where everything is?”
“What?” asked the brain. “So that anyone could go anywhere and do anything, whenever he pleased? What kind of an idea is that?”
It sounded to Snash like a good one, although he didn’t say so...
“Get out of here, you bleeding bowel-worm!” the brain cried.



It was some while before Snash managed to thread his way through all the activity, but at last he found an exit and headed off along a passage. When he asked some passing soldiers where the mail room was, they guffawed, and told him to keep going the way he was going, so he stayed that course for a time. He went up some steps and down some more, and the passage kept getting narrower…when he asked for some more directions, he got a very complicated answer, much of which he managed to forget after the first few lefts and rights…still more directions only left him farther along but with even less hope of getting where was supposed to go.
Eventually though, he came out of a stairwell to find himself in a vaulted, high-ceilinged hallway, and all that space was a relief, but the passage was lined with tall iron doors covered with rivets, and all the bars and padlocks were disquieting touches. To the left, the hall receded into what seemed a limitless distance; to the right, after fifty feet or so, was one end of the passage, another of those great doors, with a tremendously fat bull standing in front of it. Snash headed to the right.
But as he padded along, something roared behind one of the doors right next to him, the sound barely muffled by the iron, or so it seemed; he halted in fright, knees knocking, as other things, each sounding very different but equally as menacing, answered from their own cells, some of them hurling themselves against the doors, knocking rivets to the floor and making the padlocks jump. Once Snash began to get his wits back, he considered turning around and dashing right back into the stairwell; but the fat bull beckoned, and Snash continued up the hall, heart in his throat. As he approached, the bull lifted a pendulous arm, raised a metal tube he had hanging from his neck, and blew into one end of it…Snash felt a piercing sensation in his ears, and all at once the roaring and the banging halted.
“Can’t stand the whistle, they can’t,” said the bull, then told Snash: “If you aren’t completely lacking in breeks, my name’s not Sluglik.”
“Yes, well…” said Snash.
“What are you doing in my corridor, you barenaked nit, waking up my monsters?”
“That first one woke the rest up.”
“But who woke him up, you extra-salty fleck of snot you?” Sluglik asked. “You did, with your nasty flappy feet.”
“I wasn’t making very much noise.”
“As if you’d have to, if Number Seventeen was listening. He listens all the time, as nearly as I can tell, with his big sweaty ear right up against the iron…He can’t stand the whistle though. None of ’em can---”
“Please,” Snash said. “Can you tell me how to get to the mail room?”
“Mail room?” Sluglik broke in mockingly, and looked as though he were just about to tell Snash to get lost when he got a peculiar expression on his face---Snash didn’t know how to read it, although he chalked that up to being about a half a day old---and nodded.
Sluglik pointed a clawed thumb over his warty shoulder. “As it just so happens, this is the mail room right here.”
Snash tried to step past him, but Sluglik pushed him back, saying: “Hold on there! Let me get my keys.”
Sluglik reached behind his back and pulled out a ring with lots of them, big ones with complex jagged teeth; they jingled as he looked through them.
“Why’s the mail room locked?” Snash asked.
“What do you care?” Sluglik replied. “Do you think anyone gives a shit if barenaked nits are puzzled?”
“No, but...”
“Do you want to get in there, or not?”
“I do,” said Snash.
Sluglik picked out a key, fitted it into a lock in a smaller door within the door, twisted it...the lock snicked. “There you are.”
Snash hesitated.
“Go on,” said Sluglik.
Snash put his claw out and pushed the door, which creaked inwards a few inches…the glow coming through reminded him of the light down in the breeding-caves. Snash stepped back.
“What’s the matter?” Sluglik asked.
“Spider-light,” said Snash.
“What else?” asked Sluglik. “It’s a big damn room, and torches just wouldn’t do.”
Supposing it made sense, Snash decided he’d simply have to be wary…after all, the yarks down in the breeding-cave seemed to have come to terms with the constant threat…
“What are you waiting for?” Sluglik asked.
Snash took a deep breath and shoved the door open further, but hardly had he stepped through when it slammed behind him, and he heard the lock click, and Sluglik bellowing laughter on the other side.
Ahead was a chamber that was obviously very large, although he couldn’t tell just how large it was, since there were strands of spider-silk trailing down from the ceiling everywhere; from some of them hung huge globes with things moving and thrusting around inside them…the captives, or whatever they were, were glowing, their light muted by the sacs…even as Snash watched, one of the bags was breached from within, and a luminous spider, not as large as the ones down in the breeding-caves, but still pretty big, came crawling out, and lowered itself to the floor on a thread, others soon following. Quite sure by this point that this wasn’t the mail room---he certainly detected no hint whatsoever of postal activity---Snash turned and began to pound on the door, squeaking:
“Let me out! Let me out!”
Sluglik’s only response was a fresh spate of laughter.
Given this, Snash really had no good reason for pounding and begging any more, although he kept on with it until he heard the tapping sounds behind him…turning, he saw four of the baby spiders advancing upon him, rubbing their pedipalps together hungrily, and whispering, “Succulent, succulent, succulent,” apparently referring to him, much to his dismay.
Suddenly something dropped down from behind a curtain of strands; there was a loud thudding crackle, and the babies scattered away to the sides and dived into holes in the floor, revealing what looked like the withered husk, still glowing, of a spider five times their size…even as its body continued to fold and crack after that impact on the stone, the legs twitched, just a bit, in a way that suggested the thing was not quite dead.
“Still alive, hubby?” came a voice from above…much larger than any of the other spiders, even the one that had just dropped, a bloated arachnid, plainly the chamber’s main source of light, descended into view, filling all the dangling silk with her illumination…all at once she plummetted, landing athwart the husk, swollen body sinking down in the midst of her legs, belly striking her mate and crushing him cracklingly a bit more before she rebounded, almost as though she were on springs…Lifting up her behind a bit, she tilted her head forward, caressed his with her pedipalps, said: “Can’t get enough of you, honey,” and sucked whatever was left to suck out of him. Then, wiping a palp over her mouth, she tilted her head back up, and…
Looked right at Snash with her manifold eyes, obsidian domes that were the only dark things on her.
“What’s this?” she hissed.
“Could you tell me the way to the mail room?” he replied.
“Afraid not,” she said. “I don’t think they even had a mail room when I got here...it’s been about two thousand years since they locked me up.”
“That’s a long time, isn’t it?” Snash asked.
“Some might say,” she replied. “Don’t you know who I am?”
He thought a bit. “Mrs. Spider?”
“Glolob the Great,” she said. “And who are you?”
“I believe my name’s Sna---”
“Have you marked my luminosity, Sna?”
“Yes…hurts my eyes, actually.”
“I sucked the light from the Larch of Effulgence, in the West That Went Elsewhere, back in the First Eon.”
Having not been vouchsafed any of these terms, Snash didn't understand, although, perhaps for that reason, he didn’t doubt her. It certainly sounded like quite an exploit.
“I’ve never done much of anything myself,” he said. “Of course, I’m only a few hours old.” He paused. “Is there someone else I can ask about the mail room?”
“Sluglik, through the door, I suppose,” she answered.
“He sent me in here. Might you be willing…”
“To?”
“Ask him to let me out.”
“He wouldn’t, even if I did, and---I won’t. I’m still hungry.”
Snash gulped. “You just ate your husband---”
“Drank him, more like. I always save a little room for dessert, though…usually have to make do with one of the kids, but….”
Leg-tips clacking against the floor, she began to haul her great bulk forward. Snash ran back to the door and began banging on it again.
“As if,” she said behind him.
He kept pounding….he heard the other monsters beginning to act up on the other side, but that piercing sensation went through his head again, as though Sluglik had just used his whistle once more, and the roarings and screechings subsided.
“What do you think of her Highness?” Sluglik cried.
“She hurts my eyes, and wants to eat me!”
“That’s her, all right!” Sluglik laughed.
Snash heard the leg-tips clacking near…he whirled.
Glolob was bearing right down on him now, looking as though she planned to bite him, or at least seize him with her palps and thrust him into her mandibles. But her forelegs, after the fashion of such limbs, were out in front of the rest of her, and struck the wall, and even with them fully folded---Snash was in between---she couldn’t bring her mouthparts to bear, and had to back up, and try to stand off and spear him with her legs.
That, however, wasn’t an easy matter; he was very quick, and dodged and ducked, and she kept missing him, and ramming her leg-points into the door, and the littler door within it, bang, bang, bang….suddenly he heard a loud squeal, as though a metallic something had spindled and torn. Diving---just barely---beneath a thrust that put a friction-burn across the top of his shoulder, he looked under his arm…the door-within-a-door had been smashed clean off its hinges, and was lying outside in the hall, on Sluglik, apparently---at the very least, the door was heaving as though someone was underneath it and trying to push it off. Without another look at Glolob, Snash spun and went out the opening like a quarrel from a crossbow, only to be tipped over as Sluglik thrust the door off himself at last.
But Snash was too quick to let himself be pinned; even as the door slammed against the floor, he was up and backing away down the passage. Outlined by the spider-light from the postern, Sluglik was rising, shaking his head…leaning sideways to look past the corpulent bull, Snash saw that Glolob had gone motionless, but he had the distinct impression that that state of affairs wasn’t about to last. He thought of warning Sluglik but decided he had no obligation, given their short but awful history. Sluglik reached for a falchion at his belt, snarling:
“Get back here, you---”
This demand was cut sharply short; he arched back even as an impact thrust him forward with a thud...right under his ribcage, where his gut started to bulge, a glowing spider-leg, hairs pushed back but popping back up, lunged out of his insides. He opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was spider-light, welling up his throat. Then he was jerked backwards into Glolob’s prison, prompting Snash, who had really lingered far too long, to run away just as fast as he could, feet slapping; cell by cell, on either side of him, the monsters behind the other doors started roaring again as he dashed by, almost as if they were devices he was tripping. Absolutely terrified, he saw the arch to that stairwell coming up fast on his right, slowed, almost fell, turned on one foot, then leaped inside…as he raced up the steps, he could still hear the roars progressing down the hallway below, as if the ongoing reaction no longer required him, if it ever had at all. He didn’t halt till he reached the top, a good twenty landings above.