Bally the Fool: The Tower

Climbing up the ragged ladder to the old sage’s tower was not easy. It was made easier, thankfully, by the sage having moved down several floors in his tower, after the top had blown off in a sudden and torrential wind. Now three floors sat open to the rain and winds, the sage’s laboratory protected only by a single trapdoor in the ceiling, where once the ladder continued beyond. It was a flimsy door, and it leaked fiercely in the rain, but it was the best the sage could manage.

“Good Sage Ranquin?” Bally called as he climed the rickety ladder, his hands and feet trembling as they tested every rung, ignoring the creaking and groaning of the wood. “Ranquin, are you there?”

At the top of the ladder, Bally pushed open the thin trap door that separated the Good Sage from the rest of the collapsing castle. A cloud of dust blew out from where the door landed and there was the sound of a scraping chair.

“My goodness,” Ranquin’s deep voice echoed from above. “You startled the juice out of me. Is that you, Bally? Come to have a chat about scientific matters?”

Bally climbed into the tiny study, ducking his head to keep from hitting it on the low hanging rafters and support beams. The tiny room never seemed to bother Ranquin much; he spent so much of his time sitting down, his head rarely even approached the ceiling.

“Pulled aside any marvelous stones, today?” Bally muttered as he found his favorite spot, a nook where a support beam and rafter met; the perfect place for a bird’s nest or a fool’s posterior. “Observed any intriguing beetles and worms crawling amongst the muds?”

“Hush,” the Good Sage Ranquin barely opened his mouth. “I’m busy.”

“I’m sure you are,” Bally sighed. Everyone was busy. Really, was it only the fool who had nothing to do? “Should be the other way around,” he muttered, leaning his head against the beam. “Especially now.”

“What’s that?”

“Really, I should be doing everything,” Bally’s feet swung gently. “None of the rest of it matters much, and besides, all of it is what got us to here, wasn’t it? Doing more of it…it’s like rowing towards the waterfall, isn’t it?”

“Quiet, fool, I’m concentrating.”

“I mean,” Bally stuck a finger in his mouth, prodding about for something he couldn’t quite define, “If things are really like that, if we’re all headed for…well, it’s a great time to listen to the people you never listened to, right? Only everyone listened to me, they just didn’t think I wasn’t a fool. Which I am. So maybe we should all be foolish? But carrying on is foolish, so everyone is a fool, and I’m…swamped by the competition.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Bally sighed. “I can tell you’re not interested.”

Now Ranquin looked up, his eyes glittering. “I’m interested in everything. Do you know, there is a way of tilling the soil with treated powders that will return verdancy to the farms of our land?”

“Is there?” Bally looked up, a flicker of hope in his heart. “And you know how to do it? How to return our earth to green and brown?”

“Oh yes,” Ranquin looked back at his desk, twisting his fingers on his ear. “Well, almost. I’m not finished yet, you understand. It’s quite complicated, and it’ll be quite slow, but its something.”

It was something. Something. Bally let his head sink back to the beam. “Oh, that will be wonderful, when it happens, won’t it? How lovely. How marvelous of you to think ahead. Well done. I don’t suppose you know when this process will be finished?”

“One cannot hurry science, alas,” Ranquin sighed. “There is no telling for sure, but soon enough. I’ve made wonderful progress these past few days.”

“And of course, this green earth will not crumble to red and gray once more, will it?”

“Well,” Ranquin sniffed, “I suppose…yes, that’s entirely possible.”

“You can turn the red to green, but cannot stop the green turning red,” Bally summerized.

“I suppose that’s correct.”

“I am only a fool,” Bally chose his words with exquisite care, “but to me, starting at the end and working backwards to the beginning seems to be more in my wheelhouse than yours. Don’t you think your efforts might be better spent in other directions?”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know.”

Bally laughed. “Of course not. It’s the curse of the wise and the foolish, we both know we know nothing.”

Ranquin turned around with his hands on his hips. “Are you calling me a fool?”

Bally blinked. Had he misread the room? It had been a long time since he had put his tongue wrong too badly, but the Good Sage certainly looked angry… “I wouldn’t dare insult you to suggest we were similar,” Bally said, slowly.

“Good!” Ranquin turned back to his table. “Now let me get back to work.”

“Butcher,” Bally muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

Bally knew his work. “Butcher, I said!” he swung down from the nook. “Butcher, murderer, blood-letter, killer! That’s what you are, hand to heart!”

“How dare you!” Ranquin huffed, more confused than angry. “I have saved more lives than…than…well, than most people, I’ll warrant!”

“Oh?” Bally pointed an accusitory finger. “How many more than the farmer who feeds the hungry? How many more than the woodcutter who feeds the winter fires?”

“Yes, well,” Ranquin scratched his chin. “I invented that cure for red-pox, didn’t I? That saved about a hundred, I’ll bet. And I was the one who proved that foreign barley safe to eat. I’ve saved lives, surely.”

“And killed just as many,” Bally stuck out his tongue. “Do you not teach as well as think? Do you not prove the value of wisdom as a virtue with every new invention, with every cautious word, with every thoughtful turn of phrase?”

“I suppose I do,” the Good Sage narrowed his eyes. “Is this another of your riddles, fool?”

“Ha!” Bally slapped his own face. “I have no need for such nonsense today. You admit yourself you have slain an intermidable number of fools, and in their place made wise ones of them all. You dashed their ignorance to the ground, spilled their stupidity and replaced it with math and words. You’ve committed genocide against my people, Ranquin. Good sage? Good? I call you bloody sage, you murderer!”

Bally’s accusitory finger held steady as Ranquin’s mouth slowly spread into a gentle smile.

“That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”

Bally let his finger drop. No, genius was never recognized in its time. “Don’t mention it,” he muttered. “To anyone. I’m still working on it.”

Ranquin blinked. “I say, you’re looking a little peaky, today.”

“You noticed.”

“Not feeling run down a bit? Sickly?”

“Of many things, Good Sage. Sick of many things.”

“You’re not feverish, are you?”

“I might as well be, for all the good it’ll do,” Bally huffed and climbed back into the nook before tumbling out again. “Gods be damned, Ranquin, is there any hope left? I know I’ll be bones eventually, perhaps before the worst of it, but I…I always thought there’d be something left behind. Not by me, surely — I’m no fool — but by someone?”

Ranquin set aside his instruments and grabbed his black bag. He was no surgeon, but he had a passion that surpassed the most resolute doctors. “How have your bowels been?”

“Hang my bowels!” Bally snapped. He flopped onto the floor, his legs kicking out and dangling down the open trapdoor. “Dry and dusty as always. Am I to blame? Is it a foolish question to ask?”

“Blame for what?” Ranquin stuck a rubber tube in one ear, and placed the other end into a metal cone that he rested on Bally’s chest. “Been eating properly?”

“No one asks the question,” Bally breathed deep. “I think I’m the only one. A fool’s question. How could one person be to blame? We blame kings and queens for wars, but the soldiers wield their swords with their hands, no one elses. What could I have done? What could I have done that I didn’t do? And would any of it had mattered?”

“You should eat more fiber,” the Good Sage gripped Bally’s wrist and began to count.

“We don’t even know why it’s happening. The hole gets bigger, the sky gets redder, and no one knows a thing about it.

“The hole?” Ranquin sniffed. “Oh, I know what that is.”

Bally sat upright. “You what?”

Ranquin blinked. “Sure. Worked that one out a few weeks ago, actually. Read something from one of the ancient scholars, now what was his name…Funder? Gunter? Ah, it escapes me. I am getting older, and memory fades so fast.”

“You know what the hole is?” Bally couldn’t believe it.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Ranquin shrugged. “Remembering things is so unimportant. We write things down so we don’t have to remember anymore. Our memories become just…suggestions. Hints of a smell or a touch, a glimer of light in the darkness…best to forget all about it and focus on what is clear and solid and here.”

“Like the hole?” Bally gripped the Good Sage by his shoulders, shaking the man to sense. “You know what it is? You know how it got here?”

“I say, let go!” Ranquin swatted the offending fool’s grasp away. “This is my best robe. Yes, of course I know what it is. Don’t know what difference it makes.”

“If you know what it is, then we could figure out how to stop it!” Bally hands felt like choking his own throat. What was wrong with people?

“Listen,” the Good Sage clasped his hands and leaned closer, his face a mask of sincere concern. “I don’t mean to be a botherbody, but I think you are worrying entirely too much about this hole business.”

Bally’s mouth opened. “Am I?”

“You need to take care of yourself,” Ranquin smiled benevolantly. “If you worry yourself to death, well, then it won’t matter what happens with this hole, will it?”

“Ah,” Bally’s hands dropped. “Yes. I never thought about it like that.”

“And besides, its not like you alone will be able to do anything, will you? I mean, I know you’re a fool, but you can’t be that much of a fool. You can’t believe in all that ‘single hero saves the day’ nonsense.”

“I don’t.” He really didn’t.

“Good!” Ranquin clapped his hands. “Now why don’t you get along and entertain our Lord. He must be back from his little war by now. I do say, I have cautioned him about exerting himself, and he never seems to listen.”

Bally rolled back on his rear, laughing and laughing and laughing. He could scarcely breathe.

Finally, Ranquin kicked the poor fool down the tower ladder, and went back to his work.