The Poems of Madam Albithurst: The Door to the Sibilants

I hope you have never seen the Sibilants. I hope you have never lived in nor traveled past the Sibilants and its darkened halls and empty rooms. I have no doubt that there are those who love living among the bones of the long dead, but I cannot imagine what kind of beings they might be. They are certainly not of my ilk.

I, for my part, had never set foot behind the ivory doors that lead to the hollow bones of the Underheel, and so I was quite excited, perhaps even eager, to walk the horrid hallways of the Sibilants and meet the dark denizens therein. Foolish? Perhaps. Reckless? Most certainly.

Should you arrive, however you arrive, you will arrive at the Underheel, the bottom of the single giant foot that dangles by the chain. There sits the great ivory door, behind which lies the twisted hallways of the Sibilants, and its inhabitants. This door is not what you will see first.

First you will see the chain. Each link as thick around as a castle, forged from a material whose origin not even the wisest among us dare consider. The chain wraps around the Sibilant’s ankle, before soaring high into the Velvet, so high that no one knows which star it hangs from. The fastest winged folk could not reach the top of the first link in less than a day. The aching creek of the swaying chain resonates through the chest and out the mouth, so that your every words taste of dry stale iron. There are none who hear the great groan who have not heard it again deep in our sleep, echoing through our dreams and nightmares.

And there hangs the Sibilants, upside down among the midnight sea of stars.

The Passway closed behind us, a look of sympathy the last sign of the willowy woman who shut the way. Then we were alone, the four of us.

Sitting in front of the great ivory door to the Sibilants was the squat goblin of a man. His eyes were screwed shut, his hands cupped in front of his face. Around his globular waist, three hundred keys dangled, clinking gently with every halting breath the man took.

“Lockguard,” I spoke with clear and firm voice, “Sir Lockguard! We request entry into the Sibilants.”

“Go away,” the man croaked, hopping onto one foot. “No one enters the Sibilants anymore.”

“By whose command?” Sir Juhrooz stepped forward, hand gripping his sword-hilt. “On whose authority? By the Hollow, we must know!”

“By them,” the man didn’t move, eyes still closed, hands still cupped, standing on a single knobbly leg.

“Them?” I cocked my head in confusion, for while I knew the word quite well, I didn’t understand his meaning. “Who are they?”

“Them,” the Lockguard said again, hopping onto his other leg. “You know who they are.”

“I must confess,” Image clasped its forelegs in bemused curiosity, “I do not. There are many organizations and conglomerates across the Myriad Worlds. I know of none who claim to hold sway over the Sibilants. Perhaps you mean the High on High? Or the Immaculate Council? Perhaps it was the Jade Haruspex who augured your opposition to our entry?”

“Nope,” the Lockguard giggled. “Nope, nope, nope. Not them. They’re not them.”

“Must we guess their titles?” Image lay a foreleg across its mouth. “I have heard of many a tale where a riddle solved grants entry to a heretofore locked domain.”

“You cannot guess them,” the Lockguard shook his head, “for they have no name. They are always there, saying what we all know, whispering what we believe. The amorphous and ever-present, the sinister and all-powerful. By their absence are they invincible, by their might imperceptible. To name them is to take their power from them. They can make us do anything, so long as they remain in-described.”

“Oh, them,” Mr. Porist waved a hand. “I know them.”

With a sickening squelch, the Lockguard clapped his cupped hands to his eyes. A moment of ocular manipulation later, and his eyes had swiveled to face Mr. Porist, staring intently and without reservation. “You know them?”

“Everyone knows them,” Mr. Porist nodded, casually taking out his pruning shears. “Why just the other day I heard how they were planning to expand Euphoria City on the World of Rom. They think it will increase immigration, you see.”

“Yes, yes!” the Lockguard hopped from foot to foot, clapping his hands over the cacophonic jangle of his belt of keys. “They do think that! That’s them! They’re the ones!”

“They say,” Mr. Porist continued as he carefully positioned the shears over his left lobe, “that you can’t trust the Fell Knomes, and that pickled beetroot is good for the whinges. They say.”

“They do, they do!” The Lockguard gaped and waggled his tongue. “You have heard their wisdom!”

“Everyone has,” Mr. Porist closed the shears with a small snip. “That’s why they are them.”

“They are them!” The Lockguard’s capering became frenzied. “They are them! They are!”

I must admit that at this moment, I was most impressed with Mr. Porist. While I knew he was not particularly introverted, being more of a quiet soul than a reclusive one, I never expected him to elicit such a powerful reaction from one with such a vital position as the gate keeper to the Sibilants.

Mr Porist calmly trimmed his other ear while the Lockguard rolled about, giggling and clapping his hands and feet.

“So,” I spoke when at last the little man paused to catch his breath. “They say we can’t enter?”

“So they say, so they say,” the Lockguard nodded. “They say none may enter, and only two may leave.”

“Which two?” Sir Juhrooz asked, eyes narrow and muscles taught.

“They don’t say,” Mr. Porist said, as he dabbed at his freshly trimmed ears.

The Lockguard stopped, and stared. At each of us in turn, he waggled his fingers and tongue. “They don’t,” his mournful wail was heartbreaking. “They don’t say at all.”

“It might be any two of us,” Mr. Porist wiped his shears clean before slipping them away.

“It might,” the Lockguard nodded. “It might.”

“They say everyone comes to the Sibilants in the end.”

“They do, they do.”

“And we can’t leave if we aren’t inside.”

“You can’t, you can’t.” The Lockguard soulfully fingered at his belt, tracing the frame of the keys like fragile flowers. With a sigh, the man hopped back and forth twice, before producing a key that looked like any other.

With this key he unlocked the door.