Agent Rackensack adjusted his tie and followed Stiffupperlip’s lead. They slid in though an opening in the weathered aluminium sheeting near the base of the old Fantasy Factory. And, as expected, they ended up behind some unmarked wooden crates (not unlike those that all of Indiana Jones’ stuff gets stored in). As far as either one of them knew, they made it in undetected. But they were both worse for the wear.
Being a Suit meant having certain privileges, foremost of which was never being folded and stuffed in a drawer. At a minimum it meant a nice wooden hanger and one of those plastic suit bags. Shoving oneself to fit into overhead compartments—or in this case wrinkling to fit through a small crack—was not in the job description. Both Agent Rackensack and Agent Stiffupperlip were noticeably miffed. Neither one of them spoke or paid any attention to the immediate danger surrounding them. Instead they kept running their white gloves over their suits trying to free themselves from the tyranny of wrinkles and softly cursing under their breath. It was quite amusing how congruent their motions and demeanor were, one might think that they taught this sort of thing at the academy.
Once the despised wrinkles were gone, the Suits scanned the area. It didn’t take much sleuthing to find that they had snuck right in to an enclave of boxes that were doubling as a stool for a rather large and ugly balrog. Agent Stiffupperlip took one look at the burly beast and said, “Alight Rackensack. When I give the signal, I need you to wrassle with the big fellow. It’ll provide me a good distraction.”
“Distraction from what? Having a partner?” Agent Rackensack said, almost forgetting that they were whispering. “That thing’ll tear me to shreds.”
“Don’t they teach you Rentals anything at the academy? That’s a balrog, all ya gotta do is scratch it under the chin. He’ll be your friend for life,” Agent Stiffupperlip said. “Heck, it’s like feeding a string of sausages to a guard dog. Honestly, I don’t know how balrogs keep getting work as hired muscle.”
“Stratch it under the chin,” Agent Rackensack repeated, searching for courage but instead came up with the willingness to believe the advice of a senior Suit paired with the desire to prove himself; in this case, perhaps that was even better than courage. “Alright, I’ll do it.”
“Not right away, Rackensack. You’ll need to wrassle him for as long as you can,” Agent Stiffupperlip hoisted himself atop one of the crates. “I’m gonna need as much time as you can give me. I know you can do it Agent. On my signal.”
John Barleycorn was able to convince someone on the wait staff to cover him for a moment while he went to tend his loose ends. As was the norm in situations, he was reminded that a stitch in time saved nine. Everyone thought they were so clever, but no one really understood the saying. A stitch in time usually only saved about five or six. Seven at the most.
Being new to working at the Labyrinth, John Barleycorn had a hard time finding the bathroom and he unwittingly stumbled down several wrong paths. One corridor led to a door behind which he found Daedalus and a minotaur doing something that he’d first hurl his button-eyes into the sun than see again. Lots of strange things happened in the Labyrinth, after all it was a place where creatures of all genres could get lost, but this was by far the weirdest he had ever seen.
What was seen could not been unseen, even after John Barelycorn took off his eyes and polished the black ivory buttons. Unable to see ahead of him, he navigated the maze, knowing that he had just as good of a chance at finding the bathroom without eyes as he did with them. Down the hall and around the corner, he heard running water. Following it to its source, John Barleycorn found the bathroom at last, entering just as a particularly hairy gentlemen was leaving.
It had to be the biggest bathroom he had ever laid witness to. There were hundreds of stalls on one wall and one massive trough lining the other. Peculiarly, there was only one person actively relieving himself in the trough while a congregation of other men stood in idle chatter, nonchalantly keeping an eye for an opening in one of the stalls.
Across the room to where the line of stalls and the single trough almost extended to the point of convergence, John Barleycorn spotted a single sinkwith a tiny, hazy mirror hanging above it. He strutted to the other side and went to work stitching in time. He was hopeful to save just one or two at this point.
Admiring his seamless handiwork, John Barleycorn was all set to leave when he dropped his needle on the floor. While he bent over to find it, someone mistook him for a towel and dried his hands of him. John Barleycorn didn’t know how he could be mistaken for a towel, after all, this bathroom boasted the noisiest, most inefficient hand blower in all of the land of Make Believe.
What one did others were sure to follow. Though he protested against their damp hands, he could not be heard over the deafening din of the noisiest, most inefficient hand blower in all of the land of Make Believe. Along the way, someone determined that the towel that was John Barleycorn was a single-use towel and threw him in the trash chute where he remained stuck until someone threw away a half-ton sack of bricks above him. Getting hit and crushed by a half-ton sack of bricks felt about as close to getting hit with a ton of bricks as he ever hoped to experience. Eventually, he was able to shimmy his way out from beneath the pile of rubble.
Climbing out of a Trash-co waste disposal until, John Barleycorn heard gruff laugher coming from a room nearby. He strutted over, eager to find the way back to the main bar area when he heard a name that sent shivers down his spindle-spine.
“Highwayman’s waiting for us. We have to act now,” one of the voices said. “If we don’t deliver, Highwayman’s gonna have a fit. I don’t want to test Highwayman, he’s crazy. I heard one time Highwayman—“
“Shut up Edgewise! You want everyone to hear you and find out we’re working for the guy.”
“You mean Highwayman?” Edgewise broke in.
“Yes you imbecile. Now we all know what the plan is: we grab the package and deliver it to the guy.”
“Mr. Fantasy.”
“Seriously Edgewise, shut up! Don’t you understand that there’s a Winking Moon tonight? The package is the package and the guy is the guy, that’s the code we decided on.”
“Hey I just thought of a new code: Edgewise is stupid,” a third, goofy sounding voice joked, clearly amusing himself and himself only.
“How did I get stuck with you two? Let’s just do the job and get the heck out of Make Believe.”
“Uh, hey boss, what’s that blinking light mean again?” The dimwitted one asked.
“Oh pooey! That’s the Narradar. There’s narration abound and seeing as how we’re only minor characters, there’s a protagonist nearby.”
John Barleycorn was found out and he didn’t wait a second more to see what would happen. He suspected that there would have been some rising tension followed by the point of no return and when all seemed lost some Deus Ex Machina would have set a series of events in motion that would let him save the day; but that was only supposing that he really was a protagonist. He didn’t feel like a protagonist, but he’d be lying if he told you that he didn’t feel as though he deserved it. He did, after all, have a pretty good turn as main character support in his adventures to see the Schmizard of Schmoz. If only the floor of the Labyrinth was paved with yellow bricks.
Hustling through the maze, John Barleycorn had only one thought on his mind: he had to warn Mr. Fantasy.
Stepping out into the hallway just as John Barleycorn was turning the corner, a giant baby smoking a cigar riding a two headed camel exited the room. “Hey what’s this?” The oafish voice asked, coming from the camel head on this right.
“Stop,” the giant baby demanded. “The narrator’s still here. Don’t do anything worth reading. It’s the only way to get him to stop telling people what we’re up to.”
The three of them stopped
Edgewise couldn’t wait to munch on more of the pieces of straw that littered the ground in a fashion resembling a trail left by a fleeing, shedding scarecrow. So what if there was a narrator around? He thought. This thing had to get to a climax anyhow.
“Is one of you getting introspective on me?” The baby said, digging his heels into the side of the camel. “Cut it out!”
“Hay huh? It must be that new bartender, Barleycorn. Stop!”
“John Barleycorn must die. Stop!”
“Stop!”
“Stop!”
“Stop!”
“But we’re almost there,” Edgewise pleaded.
“Just stop.”
John Barleycorn finally found his way out of the Labyrinth and into the bar area. By the time he got there he had lost nearly half the hay in his shin and developed a rather painful-looking limp. Mr. Fantasy was nowhere to be found.
“That’s some dance Barelycorn,” a slurred voice said from behind him. He recognized it immediately as Agent Rainmaker’s.
“Oh thank goodness! It’s pronounced Barleycorn, but thank goodness,” John Barleycorn said, exasperated. “I need help. It’s Mr. Fantasy…” He had trouble getting the words out. “Our dear Mr. Fantasy…I think he’s—“
“Dear Mr. Fantasy,” Agent Rainmaker said, slipping her hands around John Barleycorn’s shoulders. “I love that tune. ♪Dear Mister Fantasy♪” she sang. “♪Play us a tune♪”
“♪Something to make us all happy♪” Someone else joined in.
“I think he’s in trouble,” John Barleycorn said beneath the rising chorus.
“♪Do anything to take us out of this gloom♪” The entire ballroom was swept up in the catchy tune.
“♪Sing a song, play guitar—“
“♪Make it snappy♪” Mr. Fantasy appeared to a huge round of applause.
With all eyes on Mr. Fantasy, John Barleycorn felt like he had accomplished the task of keeping him safe. All he had to do now was warn him that Highwayman was after him.
Before he made his way through the crowd, a two-headed camel with a giant cigar-smoking baby on top emerged into the ballroom. (Somehow they were able to subvert even the most cunning attempts to get here free from description of their journey, motives or background. Blast that dang Narradar!)
Oh look. The Narradar fell out of giant baby’s hands and was trampled by a big fat guy. What a shame.
Giant baby rode his camel over and pulled something from his diaper. “Make it snappy indeed. Dying that is,” he said as he cast the handful of dust over Mr. Fantasy.
A swirling vortex portal opened up nearby and sucked Mr. Fantasy into it. Giant baby and his two headed camel jumped in afterwards.
Feeling the call of propagandistic duty, John Barleycorn lunged into the portal just as it was closing. He had a day to save.
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