House of Escher: Mias and Elle - Ch. 5

"Opaque really doesn't describe it." Mias had stumbled and tripped for the fourth time. He brushed himself off or at least thought he brushed himself and got back to his feet. Or at least what he assumed were his feet. "Dark doesn't really do it justice."

"Listen, " Abernos said, "if it was easy to find the House of Escher, everyone would be doing it. And if you could find your way around easily, everyone would be tramping through the Opaque forest. Now stay close and try not to get out of ear range."

"Okay," Mias countered. "Dark is one thing. I understand dark. Not being able to see your hand in front of your face, I can understand that kind of dark. But not being able to feel your hand in front of your face—that's a whole other matter. I mean I can't feel my hands or my feet. I don't know if I am moving forward or backwards or sideways. I can't smell and I can't taste. All I can do is talk and listen."

"Then I recommend more listening and less talking," Abernos said. "Here, over this way."

"Which way? I don't understand. How is it possible you can even tell which direction you are going? There is simply no way to get your bearings."

"Simple, I've been through this forest many times before. I know my way from experience."

"Yes," Mias said in exasperation. "But how did you find your way through the first time? How did you recognize any markers the second time when there are no markers? This is impossible!"

"You just have to know what to listen for," Abernos said. "Now be quiet."

Mias mumbled a few profane words under his breath.

"Shut up, I said."

Abernos stopped. Mias bumped into him hard and offered a half-hearted apology.

"Do you smell that?" Abernos asked.

"Smell what? I can't smell anything. Are you being serious?"

Abernos breathed in fully. "It's a lovely smell. It's like lilacs and spring morning dew. It's aromatic, like a bouquet. We're nearly there."

"What?" Mias said. "I don't smell any…whoa, wait, hold on. I do smell something." Mias's nose worked industriously, attempting to locate the scent. "But that certainly isn't lilacs and morning dew. I think it's more like…"

"…Yak's vomit."

"You hit the nail right on the…Glitch!" Mias felt his boot slide into something slick and grotesque. "Oh, blech! Yak's vomit. You've got to be kidding me."

"That's it—yak's vomit. That bit about lilacs was just a metaphor. Now, watch your step."

"Thanks."

A sliver of blue opened up in the canopy of black trees and a murder of crows took flight from the branches. Mias could hear their wings flapping and see their black silhouettes moving across the widening sky.

"I can see again. And I have my sense of taste back," Mias said. "And I really wish it hadn't come back so soon, because the taste of yak's vomit is very thick in the air."

"We made it," Abernos said. "That part of the journey always gives me the heebie-jeebies. I keep expecting the monster to return."

"Okay, let's not go there," Mias said. "One peril at a time."

Liberated from the darkness and uncertainty of the Opaque Forest, Abernos and Mias came to a clearing in a meadow. It was a different world from the other side of the forest. Here the ferns were greener and more lush, the butterflies more colorful and plentiful, the streams bubbling and crystal-clear. Following one of these creeks, they came to a very, small, plain, grey house with a horse-less carriage parked in front—the horse, nowhere to be seen.

"That's it?" Mias asked, disappointed. "That's the portal?"

"Hold on," Abernos said. "It's not finished."

Mias watched the house closely. The more closely he examined it, the more attention he paid to the details of the house, and the more attention he paid, the more it failed to hold true to form. The House of Escher slowly dissolved and faded away, only to refocus and reshape itself as an entirely new structure. It changed from a simple prairie, shotgun-shack into a sprawling soot-tinged, Gothic cathedral. From the cathedral it transitioned into a suburban, ranch-style, tract home; from tract home into medieval Knights Templar infirmary; from infirmary into a Mongolian plains yurt patched together with ox hides; from yurt it evolved into an Impressionist-era Parisian sidewalk café; from café it recreated itself as a Samanid, sandstone citadel tower of the Assassins, from citadel into Ming-era, porcelain-tiled pagoda and from there into an indistinct slaughterhouse.

"If schizophrenia had an architecture," Abernos said, "it would be the House of Escher."

Dumbfounded, Mias could only ask, "Does it ever stop changing?"

"No, of course not, but can't the same be said of schizophrenics?"

Through all of the dissolving and metamorphosizing, one thing remained constant, the silver edged outline of a hole about the size of a large stone. In fact, the outline did have a familiar appearance to its shape. One that Mias could not quite place.

"Why does it always retain that metal-ringed hole?"

"Because that is the keyhole," Abernos said and he turned to Mias with an arched eyebrow. "Well then, are we ready to go inside?"

"Ready as ever," Mias said, even though he wasn't sure himself.

"Right then, we'll need to retrieve the key."

"I can hardly wait to see this."

Abernos stepped onto the stone-paved driveway that led to the house and cupped his hand to his mouth. "Ganby? Ganby, where are you? Ganby, I need your assistance."

"Ganby? That would be the keeper of the key?"

"No, Ganby would be the key."

There was a shaking and a rustling from a nearby bush, and the ground and surrounding trees shook violently. Mias shuttered from head to toe, and his eyes grew wide as he expected some great beast like a grizzly bear or a charging bull to come storming out of the hedgerow.  Instead, out sprang a brown and white striped hare.

"Ganby, there you are."

The speedy hare, hopped furiously past Abernos and squeezed precisely, without a hair to spare, through the rabbit-sized opening in the House of Escher. The front door of what now appeared to be a crystal palace, slid back into the walls revealing an opening large enough for two adult males to slip through.

"As they say in the short-order prep cook business, 'chop, chop.'"

Mias scooted in through the opening with Abernos following. The iron door of the crystal palace clanged loudly shut behind them. Mias watched the hare, Ganby, hop along a burgundy, shag rug and stop to nibble some kibble at the feet of a Hawaiian-shirted, maître' d with two drink menus in his hand. The kibble devoured, the maître' d escorted Ganby into a 1950's era Polynesian Tiki lounge.

"Did I just see…?" Mias began to ask.

"No time for questions, Sir. Follow immediately behind me and do not, I repeat do not look into any of the rooms or chambers no matter how tempting."

"Why, what will happen if…"

Abernos did not bother to answer. He grabbed Mias by the ruff of his collar and led him into the sticky, liquid corridor of the House of Escher.

"Pay absolutely no attention to those monks traversing the staircases upside-down in complete disregard of gravity. Our business is straight ahead."

The floor changed from a mushy blueberry parfait consistency to something more closely resembling electrified sandpaper.

"Okay," Mias said, his teeth on edge from the jolting discharge, "but how in the world do they…"

"And that room gleaming full of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and precious metals—ignore it, just totally ignore it."

"Sure…we will be coming back this way, right?"

"Mate, the House of Escher is like stepping into a moving stream."

"How's that?"

"You'll probably want to change your clothes afterward….Whoa! Jump! That ceiling fan nearly cut us to pieces."

"It attacked us from that closet."

"Perfect. Right where we need to go next."

"Are you daft?"

Into the closet, Abernos dragged Mias.

"I was really hoping we wouldn't have to go here. I have a phobia concerning closets."

They found themselves in an octagonal room with eight doors of various, shapes, colors, sizes and material compositions.

"Ah, it's a 'living end,'"

"A living end?"

"Like a dead end, only completely not." Pointing, Abernos said, "Avert your gaze from the sultry, naked women holding delicious pastries in their gloved hands."

"Are those poisonous?"

"No, but they will go straight to your thighs."

A red door just off of Mias's left side opened. Standing in the frame of the door was a silhouette of the most stunning female figure Mias had ever seen, leaning seductively to one side. A limelight swiveled around on the ceiling to reveal her in full form. She was slender, shapely and raven-haired and then it became clear she had the most sexually intriguing trademark any human could possess: a darkening around the hollow of the eyes. She beckoned him with a curled index finger, commanding Mias to approach her.

"My beauty, I'm coming."

Quickly, Abernos thrust his knee hardly into Mias's groin.

"Gaaahh…weeze." Gasp!" Mias rolled around on the floor before collecting his breath and regrouping. "Was that absolutely necessary?"

"I told you not to look. That's the Brothel of Diminishing Certainty. Through that door lies sorrow, despair, regret and no refunds. Step this way, brother."

"Yes, but shouldn't one experience the full gamut of emotions before…ack!"

Abernos grabbed Mias by the collar and yanked him into a room with dusty wooden floor planks and impatient, glowering schoolmarms, tapping their shoes while holding their rulers tightly in their thick hands. Mias cowered.

"We're nearly there. Can you smell that?"

"No," Mias said, "But I am sure it will hit me at any moment…"

Mias was in no way prepared for the awful stench of what hit him next. The scent exploded through his head and nearly brought him to his knees. It was as though a dead fish was dancing with a dozen rotten eggs. He coughed harshly. The words he tried to produce just stuck to his tongue unable to cut through the horrible odor.

"That M'Lord," Abernos said with a dose of stoic pride, "is the sweet, sweet smell of dragon dysentery. Watch where you step."

"Watch were I step? There's no way to avoid it."

"No, but there are a few very deep pits…whoopsie!"

Mias found himself hip-deep in dragon dung. "Ugh, this has to be the foulest week of my life. I may never be clean again."

Abernos slid open the slider door and the two of them stepped outside the House of Escher. They appeared to be in the same meadow they were in prior to entering the house, with one notable exception.

"Dragon diarrhea," Mias said glumly. "All of that for a very long trail of dragon diarrhea."

"It's a godsend, Sir. You just follow that trail into the jungle and you will find a coven of dragons beyond your wildest dreams."

"Dragons with gastro-intestinal disorders."

"One cannot be finicky when it comes to dragons, Sir. Enjoy yourself."

"Wait a minute. Where are you going?"

"Back into the House of Escher. There's this one room there that leads to a place just this side of paradise. It's called the Harrod's Lingerie Department. One loses track of time in a place like that."

"I see. So, what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander?" Mias looked at the winding, soiled trail that led into the jungle and then back again at the House of Escher.  He saw no keyhole on this side of the house. "How do I return?"

"Just call out for Ganby."

"Right, of course. Well then, wish me luck."

But Mias was too late, Abernos had already headed back into the House of Escher, with Winsmerelda's knickers stretched across his antlers.