Mask of the Eldotype

1.


"..... and so Petty the Kid knew his last, thanks to the bravery of your great ancestor, Odo Orwell Jackaboots, and civility and grace was restored to the Wild West."

"But Granpapa Boo," piped up little Lemony Banks as she sat on his knee by the electroplasmofire. "I thought Odo shot him in the back while he was straightening a portrait of Hans Christian Anderson."

"Oh what nonsense you babble, little one," Boo Jackaboots laughed. "Next you'll be saying he slew the Eldotype and his alluring Eldomorphs by luring them into a trap with the promise of a keg of Old Wynyard and a large bag of sticks, before dropping the enormous gold statue of Pompous Trump on their quailing forms from a high height.... the Church steeple of Illuvatar in Bywater, that is.... it's all utter rubbish. Haven't you been taught to listen only to the family version of family tales? Next you'll be saying that Scotshobbits lurk at the borders even as we speak, threatening to burst through kilts-a'swirl and haggisis thumping, if not for the bravery and spying eyes of the Mangers... No, no more... speak not, little one, it's off to bed with you."

Once Lemony was kissed good night in her domecot, old Boo wandered back to stand at the porthole of his heatigloo, where he presently pondered the stars. Somewhere far far away was Home Planet where ancient Nargothrond and more recent Forumshire lay in abject ruin.

"Dark Planet," Boo muttered under his breath. "One day, you'll see... yes, one day....your turn will come!"



.

story

When I saw the title I hoped that this story might help me understand what's meant by an Eldotype but I suppose I'll have to keep reading and try to divine meaning from the esotericism.

2

"Esotercism abounds, it seems," Captain Dave Berry sighed crouched at the spittoon. "But don't be side tracked by it, Sergeant," and here Davo lifted his head and leant over to pat  Sergeant Halfred Fysyckfreke's knee reassuringly across the spittoon. "For it is hard facts we must attune ourselves too.... once we've detected and established them."

"Estorecism might abound, but I have no idea what it is," Halfy (Halfred) averred. "I prefer the hard diamonds of physics and chemistry. I'm not interested in all this Eldotype philosophy - if it is philosophy! - that seems to be impregnating the very walls and intellectual wombs of everyone nowadays. It's all cats and staring eyes, if you ask me. Next it'll be Scotshobbits at the bound... well, the way things are going 'pop', even if only all in people's heads. My Gawd, Davo, it's the Thirty Second Century and more, not the age of Fairy.... not that there was anything wrong with that, long long ago, prehistorically speaking."

"Bless the ancestors!" Davo said absently, and absently tapped his forehead in the time-prescribed Illuvataran manner.

"That's half the trouble, Davo. It's the fucking Thirty Second Century, not 1445 by the Forumshire reckoning! Well, least, not nowadays...."

"The problem is," Davo went on, doing his best to ignore Halfy's monoanachronustic semiexistential claptrap. "The Eldotype has been on everyone's lips a little too often lately for my liking."

"And Scotshobbits!"

"That brings it's own unsanitary taste to a civilised taste bud, to be sure, Halfy," Davo opined disdainfully.

"Nowhere my tongue needs to be, I grant you that... But who's this then I see through the Sheriffstation porthole.... why, if it's not Julia Figginbottom then it's bound to be some other person of just as pleasant mien...."

"Bound.... Bounders! Bound bound bound.... It gives one such a headache," David veritably groaned.

The door slid open and Julia sauntered in saunteringly, looking rather striking in her red jumpsuit, and even rather lavish, as she removed her space helmet and unfettered her bounding layers of red velvet hair.

"Esotericism! I'll be bound! What's all this esotericism in the air? Fair makes you want to strike someone."

"Is that Azzy Amplebosoms coming up the pathway now?" Dave exclaimed. "It's a bevy of visitors, all at once, and the day was passing quiet until now. Except, of course, for Halfy and my ponderings."

"Amplebosoms," Halfy mused. "Never could there have been a name that seemed more appropriate."

The door had slid open again and that woman of great presence, or presences, having heard Halfy's appreciative expostulations, entered,  smiled charmingly, and said: "No matter how many thousands of years have elapsed since the beginning of things, yet men remain the same, and stories never really change. Not now. Not here. Not in old Forumshire, nor on this far future planet neither."

"To some, your utterances might sound most esoteric," Davo opined, though his gaze showed clear sighted appreciation of her rather fetching particles both substantial and remarkable.

"So, what!s to be done, Captain Davo?" Julia wanted to know. "No one can rest until all this Eldotype business is cleared up, and any Scotshobbits lurking sent abounding with a tightly focussed laser beam up their arse!"

"That's the pinch," Davi sighed, not for the first time. "There is much talk, both of things unexplained or unexplainable. Indeed! Eldotypes and the like, and hairy arsed Scotshobbits that may, or may not, be extinct!"

"May, or may not, be extinct!" Azzy proclaimed in shock. "And the Eldotype! What next?"

"It may get worse before it gets better," Halfy offered archly.

"You don't mean...." Julia began, but stopped mid-sentence, not wishing to say the words that had come to her mind just then, which was quite unlike her, really....

"Yes," Davo put in, solemnly. "There may be more than one Eldotype!"

This was too much for Azzy, and she fainted. As the others tried to rouse her as she lay on the floor with her breast, (or breasts., really) heaving, she was heard to mutter in a whimpery voice, "Oh where can we find a Jackaboots to save us? An old fashioned swashbuckling Jackaboots as of old! Where?"

Which was a good question, I think.

Had me at "It's all cats and staring eyes" and it simply got better. Never a lack of surprises when a certain irreverant takes up the pen.

3

Stout hobbits by name Lance Blokey and Malick Conditioner were holding forth at the Pleasant Space Monster in Alpha Dome, Dome City, Sector Nine. Perhaps Lance had had one Galaxy Sprixer too many, and Malick one Injector Baby; all I know is, their lips were uttering utterings that no man (or hobbit) should be uttering, adult sector dome or not.

"See 'ere, Mal," Lance slurred. "As I see it, and not that it's anything but by the perimeters of my mind's eye, this talk of Eldotypes and Scotshobbits... well, do you notice it always seems together...."

"In unison, you mean?"

"Absolutely my point.... Excuse me, I have to fart."

"Lucky you weren't in your space suit," Malick laughed a few seconds later. 'That was a ripper, and no doubt a stinker."

'Unlucky for you, I don't have my spacesuit on, just these lycra bulge-legged shorts."

"See what you mean," Malick laughed and held his nose even as his eyes watered.

"Anyway, as I was saying.... whew! what a beauty! gotta be proud of that... anyway, as I was saying, seems Eldotypes and Scotshobbits go together nowadays... like they were bananapears in a sonic incubator. Time was when this kind of chat was just idle bedtime chat for little girls on an old man-hobbit's knee, but now it manifests as something far more sinister."

'An old man-hobbit's knee? Sinister?"

"Couldn't really say. Though, to be fair, even in the Thirty Second century it's hard to imagine a knee being sinister."

"What about genetic engineering and wireless computerisation?"

"Might be possible. But why make a knee sinister in the first place?"

'Yep, there's the rub. Experiment gone wrong?"

"Or right! Strange times, to be sure, to be sure, to be sure. Strange strange times.... damn Irish at times.... Now who's this sauntering saunteringly across  the palazza?"

"No, no... not sauntering, gliding...  it's Amarie, if I'm not mistaken."

"The Space Commissioner?"

'None other. Doesn't look a bit like Julia Figginbottom. It was the sauntering that must have threw you; you mistaking a saunter for a glide as you always seem to do when you're pissed."

"On closer inspection, she does glide glidingly, not saunter saunteringly."

"Just so. Pays to listen, friend."

"She's hot dirt, I grant you."

Malick suddenly waxed philosophical. "I wonder if womenhobits only see menhobbits through their lenses according to the measure of our physical attributes? Like that is the only thing worth noticing irrespective of our intelligence, aptitude and song writing abilities?"

"You must be pissed, son. Philosophy! Pissosophy morelike! ... Sweet Illuvatar! She's hot dirt, orright!"

The two fell silent and watched Amarie glide to a swivel stool by the bar.

"I do have to get out of this tight body hugging space suit that accentuates my feminine characteristics to a nicety," says the Space Commissioner to the barhobbit. "I think my airconditioner unit is faulty. Air circulation was next to nil outside. Didn't help I set off a God awesome power fart and had it chaperone me for ten minutes before I got here. I think it burnt out all my nose hairs. Now, barhobbit: that'll be a double Exploding Asteroid if you would. No, make it a triple."

The barhobbit arranged his spurters and canisters and got mixing and shaking. "Ock tha noo, ma'am... I mean, she'll be right, Sheila... I mean, as you will."

Lance's ears pricked up immediately. "If I didn't know better," says he. "I'd suspect that the barhobbit is a gene experiment gone wrong."

'"Sounded just like a Scitshobbit gone wrong," Malick averred.

"My point exactly. The cyborgs they are making nowadays are not only cheap but nasty."

Amarie looked over at them. "Did you fellows just say I was cheap and nasty? Was it the fart I mentioned? It's the Thirty Second Century, you know, and a woman has every bit as much right to fart and talk about it openly as any man."

"Excuse us," Malick answered respectfully - and who among us doesn't respect a woman who talks about farting openly? - "we were talking about that barhobbit. We think he's a cyborg. A cheap and nasty cyborg. And disturbingly half Scotshobbit and half Ozhobbit."

"And it don't get any worse than that," says Lance and shudders.

Amarie was taken aback. "A Scotshobbit-Ozhobbit cyborg... No, surely not. What with Eldotypes and kilted shadows beyond the city bounds... what next?"

She swivelled  on her stool back to the bar from which she had swivelled away to address Lance and Malick. Her intent was to study the barhobbit closely. But, to her surprise, he was gone; leaving only a vague scent of haggis and kangaroo.

I shall sleep very uneasily tonight, I assure you, trying to imagine the mingled scent of haggis and kangaroo.

I love it !! I love all the gobbity gook Its off the wall weirdness that makes Forumshire great !

azriel wrote: Its off the wall weirdness that makes Forumshire great !

Agreed!
{{{{{{ though it would seem the old Archet Bugle is more often in-the-gutter than off-the-wall }}}}}}

4

Amarie, Lance and Mal (Malick) were in deep discussion about the peculiar disappearing cyborg, when a tall handsome figure approached them; none other than the Reverent Boo Jackaboots, grey haired but sharp eyed. Not your off the wall type by any means, more your keen eyed type who knew a good shape and curve when he saw one, or two, or, in the case if Amarie, three or four, possibly more.

Amarie stood up immediately, sending her swivel stool swivelling in a circular dance and spin. "Reverent! What brings you out tonight? And to the Pleasant Space Monster of all places?"

"Yes, and I mean no offence, but sometimes it's to the sewers and gutters of this planet, metaphorically speaking, that I must attend. It is, after all, where everything is happening and the best gossip, the best information, if you like, can be found."

"Reverent, I would find it a boon if you looked me in the eye when you spoke," Amarie suggested civilly. "For I do like to see the  measure of a hobbit when he speaks revealed by his eyes."

Reverent Boo lifted his eyes from where they were fondly gambolling and looked into the Space Commissioner's eyes. Yes, she had two of them. Even well formed women did, apparently.

"I was told at the Space Bureau you might be here," Boo spoke, now scanning her up and down. "I have come to tell you that i am calling a Cosmic Convergence for the morning. Nine am sharp. Things are not at all what they are wont to be, or not like my wont, I can tell you."

And with that, the rather gentrified and dandified gentlehobbit spun away and was seen to cross the palazza and, fitting his space helmet first, left the dome.

"A pecular gangrel creature," Lance averred.

'With wandering eyes," Amarie mused aloud, possibly wistfully, but probably not. "With wandering eyes..."

"A Cosmic Convergence?" Mal put in, scratching his chin reflectively. "We haven't had one of them since I don!t know when. Sounds serious."

"The last one was held thirty eight years ago," Lance stated. "When old Odo Jackaboots was Reverent and the Eldotype was said to be resurrected and about to make his move. Turned out to be totally wrong and a crock of proverbial."

"Yes," Mal agreed. "Cosmic Convergences often turn out like that, apparently..."

Fingers crossed for the next Cosmic Convergence to be more eventful.

'With wandering eyes," Amarie mused aloud, possibly wistfully, but probably not. "With wandering eyes..."

Sometimes I can't quite tell what's going on and I wonder whether the Bugle has any firmer of a grasp on things. 

A cosmic convergence! What do I pack?

Forest Shepherd wrote:

'With wandering eyes," Amarie mused aloud, possibly wistfully, but probably not. "With wandering eyes..."

Sometimes I can't quite tell what's going on and I wonder whether the Bugle has any firmer of a grasp on things. 

That happens a lot around here Its whats being grasped is the question

5

'To grasp or not to grasp?'

Old Boo mused as he hippity-hopped in his space suit across the city public hexatangle, sending up some errant space dust that a faulty air-creator had let in from the thin atmosphere outside the city dome.

Diligently, he tried to untangle his mental englement.

"I really don't reckon on what I'm thinking just now, or why I'm thinking it. Queer!" He frowned. "You know,  old hobbit, while I'm thinking such unusual thoughts... well.... Once upon a time you either grabbed a bit of what you liked, and didn't if you didn't like it, and even the ones you didn't much care for, if a bit too pissed, and your hot head dulled to the fear a violent outcome... which was pretty much what always happened with Feminist types especially, when one was not yet eleventy seven years old. Oh, indeed, the Challenge, capital 'c', was sometimes there and a black eye and/or a sound kick in the baubles was a badge of honour, even if it meant a trip to the hospital and your balls, whether optical or testicular, replaced surgically with those of the Aniseed Spidersapiens of Planet X."

And Boo sighed eloquently before continuing....

"Ahh! back when one was still a boy and of all women, some were pliable, even keen, some kafirs, and some the occasional Feminist, as noted in my musings above, of whom some even were quite luscious after the sixth Bermuda Ballbuster, gaudy legging legs and all; back before I found Illuvatar and got consecrated while pissed, and then gave up the piss soon after, and being ever since lifted up in the effervescent intoxication of the Great Universal Spirit, and no more drunken shenanigans for me ever after.... Sometimes I miss those days of my careless youth, viewed through a prism of fondness and not a peephole these days...'

"Mmmm... I must think! Think! No. If there is anything to be grasped, i don't know I will grasp it, not anymore, or not often... .... same with the Eldotype! Perplexing! Esoteric too! Sweet Illuvatar eat my bananas! Oh dear. It's a tangle alright!"

Boo saw something. Suddenly. It was ahead  of him but at about a thirty degree arc - vision arc - to his right. Between the Bank of Banks Odoeun and the Odoobiwan Maximus Wynyard Wine buildings. There was a portalane. In the part-lit portalane.... Was it a great skulking rat-mutant with beady eyes and a kilt and a bulbous bag - or haggis? - swinging between its two front legs - or arms?

"Queer business!" Old Boo exclaimed. He hurried over to the portalane where he found a hastily dropped yellow effuviumcrayon on the cobstobes.

And there was something else! Some rudimentary graffiti on a wall.

It was a picture drawn so primitively that Boo immediately knew it could only have been done by the claw of a quick scrawling Scotshobbit.

The blood drained from the old hobbit's face.

Though hard to discern in the slanted ray of illumination from the main dome plasmabeacon centred in the skyarch high above, there could be no doubt what the primitive scrawl depicted.

"A mask.... the mask of the Eldotype!" Boo hissed.

And his cold blood ran suddenly colder...

Love it ! love every ding dang doodily weird word & phrase !

The Mask of the Eldotype has appeared!  Sweet Iluvatar eat my bananas!  

6

'Fear! Foe! Freaks! Fear! Foe! Freaks!' Was the transmitten message alarum on every Domer's personal transeveiradar. In no time at all, not a minute, or not a lot, the inhabitants of Dome City, or City Dome if you like, gathered at the entrance to the now sinister portalane. How many were there? How many Domers? Who can say nowadays?

Amarie stepped forward from the rest of the crowd who seemed to be trapped in a unison of trepidation, though Captain Dave and his trusty physical assistant, Halfred 'Halfy' Fysykfreke hung like guardian vultures over each of her shoulders, though not literally.

"A hasty scrawl, and even unwieldy by Scotshobbit terms," Amarie was saying. "Though who knows what a Scotshobbit-Ozhobbit mutated cyborg might be capable of. The point is: it is clearly a picture of the Mask of the Eldotype."

"But Scotshobbits are extinct!" Halfy offered, perplexed, alarmed, and not a little frightened, though not a lot, somewhere in between, like melted cheese in two slices of toast, medium done, not too much charcoal. "And how could they be joined with a Ozhobbit? What part to what part? And the mechanical bits! Surely something technologically superior to cogs and ratchets, but who can be sure in such troubled times here in the far distant future?"

"That's the rub, I'm afraid," Amarie replied solemnly. "Who, indeed, can be sure!"

"Well, I am," proclaimed old Boo proclaimingly. "This all reeks of Scotshobbits, and of Ozhobbits, and of the dreaded Eldotype! Some may call it esoteric, but I will call it by it's true name... Blasphemy!"

A deathly silence ensued. Or maybe a perplexed one. Who can say? Silences have never been easy to decipher or decode, especially if you live with a woman, you know, everything being 'fine', though not thought of or mentioned in a sexist way, no, not this far in the far distant future.

At last, Dave broke the silence. And his voice sounded heavy and alone when he spoke. "Do you think Scotshobbits and the Eldotype have returned to make our days not what they were during the past comfortable eighty years but what they were prior to eighty years ago?"

The pregnant glance (not literally) Amarie now gave him, silent, but easy enough to interpret, sent Dave's heart to sink. His stomach gurgled. He had not eaten but he still felt sick. Not that his heart had literally sunk into his stomach. But metaphorically it had. And it was heavy in his stomach and beat in a subtly different way than usual, dull somehow, like his stomach juices were acting as some kind of atmospheric deadeners, though only figuratively speaking, not actually acoustically.

"Sweet Illuvatar eat my bananas!" Halfy was heard to sigh, heavily, as if something heavy was in his stomach, so heavy that it seemed to compress his lungs, if only slightly.

And Boo, looking upon him with sudden leaden comprehension, knew exactly how Halfy felt just then.

7

It seemed like ages - and undoubtedly was, as the reader knows full well, but in terms of things Forumshiran, even if now galactic, and somewhat beyond - but the morning came: not that it was truly morning, on a planet with little atmosphere - except in the hipper hotels and dance halls - just morning by agreed custom: the Cosmic Convergence was about to begin.

At the door to the New Forumshire Hallodome, a small crowd of concerned citizens lined up and were let in, one by one, by the Reverent Boo Jackaboots.

Once settled in the volosemicentre, on organic chairs created and moulded from polymers, some pink, some a luscious hue of burgundy, some plain yellow for the less discerning, the self-selected Wisers of the planet waited impatiently. There was talk. Hushed talk. Whispery talk. Talk that stopped, started, stopped again, and started again. This went on for some time. No one has reported what was said, but I assume Scotshobbits, and cyborgs, Eldotypes and kangaroos came up.

At last, Reverent Boo closed the sliderwindowportaldoor and took the pulpit.

"Friends, Planetmen and Planetwomen, lend me your ears... and I don't mean it literally, Halfred Fysyckfreke! Let's be sure about that."

"As you wish," Halfy mumbled, sorry about that embarrassing gaffe he had made at Church last Friday ever happened.

"I will not draw this out," Boo went on, training his piercing gaze on one, then another, then another one, until every one, excluding no one, had been piercingly gazed at. "I know that the events of last night seem like they occurred about a month ago, but let's not go into that. Save to say that time in outer space is remarkably like elvish time in some respects, though not many. All I will say is: I have not slept and a night can seem like a month when you haven't ceased worriting about Eldotypes and suchlike."

"And Ozhobbit-Scotshobbit cyborgs!" Halfy cried with a shiver. "Not to mention kangaroo poo.." he added under his breath.

"The point is," Boo continued sternly. "What's to be done about it?"

"About what?" Julia Figginbottom wanted to know.

"About the Eldotype, woman!"

"What about the Eldotype?" Julia blushed. "Aren't we just jumping to conclusions?"

"You surprise me," Boo spluttered. "You transradioed me just last night might to tell me how frightened you were!"

"Well, that was last night. But then my domedoorringer rang and I subsequently changed my mind."

"I had a similar experience," Azriel piped up. "How coincidental."

"Me too," Amarie put in and yawned. "It was a long night, but I am quite at peace now..."

"Damn pile of sticks!" Boo cried out in horror. "If I did not know better, I would say you have all been touched by the Eldotype!"

"I wouldn't think so," Captain Dave drawled, uneasily, and blushed.

Julia, Azriel and Amarie looked on Dave in surprise, with expressions that seemed to say, 'Oh dear! You too! Is the Eldotype bipartisan? Well, I'll be blown!'

Halfy looked upon them and suspected immediately that something was up, or had been up; judging by the red weary eyes of all four, whatever had been up and had been up all night!

"This is exactly what we have feared since that time, 38 years ago (or thereabouts)," Halfy  exclaimed, "except that time it was a false alarm!"

"Yes," Boo nodded solemnly. "But this time it is clearly no false alarm. The Eldotype, all four of him (apparently) has been up to his old tricks, and all night by the looks of it!"

And the old and respected Reverent flicked his eye from Julia to Azriel, to Amarie, to Captain Dave; and it was hard to know who of them blushed reddest...