Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (42 page)

“I don’t think he’s going to like
that either, ‘Rai.”  Ransom whispered.  “Maybe you should rethink this plan.”

“I got this.”  He assured her, then
raised his voice to speak to the translator.  “Just
tell him
.”

“But you’re making it sound like I
made another mistranslation, sir.”  The diplomat stammered.  “As I explained,
the ceremony would involve
you…
”

“I don’t care.”  Uriah shook his
head.  “Tell him anyway.”

The girl closed her eyes, as if
bracing herself, then turned to convey Uriah’s words.

Tzadok exploded, shouting at the
girl so loudly he became hoarse, and she automatically backed away from him
several steps.

The girl turned back to Uriah and
cleared her throat.  “My master accuses you of being a dog lover.”  Tzadok
started yelling something else, but her face formed a little frown again. 
“Wait, no.”  She held up one finger, indicating to her master that she needed a
moment to think the matter over.  “Hold on.” 

Tzadok rolled his eyes, but stopped
speaking, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair while he waited for her
to translate his insult.

She ignored him.  “No, no… that’s
the wrong verb.  Darn it.  He’s not saying that you like dogs, because
everyone
likes dogs, obviously.  They’re adorable.  You’re a…a…” she swallowed,
looking nervous, as if failing some kind of personal test, “umm… a ‘fucking
canine’?  No, a ‘dog fucker’?”  She tried again, then gave up, “and that he
will cut off your skin with… a… well… it’s kinda like this little knife looking
thing that they use for soft mushrooms and I don’t think it would make sense to
you if I…  Oh!  Oh!”  She exclaimed excitedly, like she’d just been given a
present.  “I’ve got it!  How about: ‘His dullest blade.’”  She smiled,
obviously very pleased with herself for that translation.  “Yes, that would
convey his meaning and you’d understand it.  You engage in nonconsensual sexual
congress with dogs, and he will ‘cut off your skin with his
dullest blade
.’” 
She looked back at him, cheerfully indicating that he could start again. 
“Okay, and the… the thought of you dead is making his body… umm… erec…”  She
stopped, looking self-conscious.  “Oh dear…”  She glanced away, her greenish
skin growing darker as she blushed, “umm…
happy…
” 

“Oh, I don’t like where this is
heading.”  Ryle shook his head.  “Generally speaking, I don’t like to make
psychotic warlords,” he made little air quotes with his fingers, “‘happy.’”

“…because once you are gone he
will… uhh… have…
relations
with your family.”  The translator continued. 
“Specifically, your daughters and all female loved ones.  Liberties will be
taken.  And… yes, the acts will make them… depressed?  But… he will… he will
not discontinue.  He will use their tears of… sad… to make their bodies
more…umm…That is to say… uh…” she looked uncomfortable again, her face
contorting into a grimace of distaste, “…
wetter.
”  She frowned.
  “
But
it’s much more vulgar and disrespectful than that.  You… you don’t really have
a word like it in your language, so I can’t give a literal translation.”  She
paused for a beat, her face totally serious.  “I’m very sorry.
”
 

“Damn.”  Ransom deadpanned.  “I
really wanted to hear it too.”

The woman paused.  “I… I don’t
think he actually has any actual plans to assault your daughters though, don’t
worry.”  She confided.

“Because he’s not that bad a guy?” 
Ryle concluded.

“Because that would be a different
conjugation.”  The captive diplomat informed them seriously.  “An active form. 
Their language has a lot of…”  Tzadok glared at her and she rapidly explained
what she was telling them.  He yelled at her in fury for another five minutes,
and she turned back to look at them again when he was finally finished.  “Oh,
dear.  Umm… my master advises me that he
does
mean it and that for
doubting him, he will now let his
horses
have relations with your
daughters as well, once his own ‘sizeable and everlasting’ lust is sated.”  She
paused.  “I’m so
terribly
sorry.  I know they probably won’t want to
hear it, but when the horses are done with them, please tell your daughters
that they have my
sincere
apologies over that mistranslation.”

Ransom shrugged, as if it were no
big deal that the woman had just gotten her daughters raped by a team of horses. 
“It happens.”  She deadpanned.

“My daughter’s already dead.”  Ryle
added.

“Oh.  Well, that works out then.” 
The girl turned and obediently informed the warlord of that fact. 

“No, don’t
tell h…!
”  Ryle trailed
off and threw his hands out in helpless exasperation, recognizing that there
was no stopping her. 

The diplomat girl turned to face
them again.  “My master wishes to know which female loved ones you
do
have?” 

Ryle frowned.  “What, is he making
a hit list or something?” 

“I believe that is his plan, yes.” 
She gave a small nervous laugh to indicate both how uncomfortable she was with
the conversation and a sort of dismissive “Hey, what are you gonna do?  He’s
crazy.”

Ryle smiled widely “I’d be
happy
to give him my sister’s address, just so he could meet my brother-in-law.” 

“I don’t know if…,” the girl began,
then instantly stopped when Tzadok started speaking again, “hold on…”  She
listened to his words, squinting slightly in concentration as she translated
his statement into her own native language and then into a language which Uriah
could understand.  “My master, Tzadok, the Wasteland Butcher, Bringer of Woe
and Death, Lord of Salt, informs you that you cannot hide from the storm of
blood which he will call down upon you, quenching this thirsty land with your
agony…  Umm… and… well, it won’t be good for your kingdom either, because his
God will... urinate… on the graves of your…. your… trees.”  She frowned again,
puzzled.  “’Trees?’”  She repeated in confusion.  “Why is he peeing on the
graves of your trees?”  She pursed her lips in thought.  “That doesn’t seem
right…  I think there’s…”  She turned around and began to ask her master to
clarify, then stopped midsentence.  “Oh, right.  They’re
homonyms
.” 

Tzadok looked baffled as to why she
had started talking to him in one language, then finished a second sentence in
an entirely different language.  He began to ask her something.

The translator held up a finger to
silence him again, without looking back at him.  “Wait, wait.  Let me do this. 
I can do this.  The syntax confused me for a moment, but we are still
comfortably within my skill set.”

The warlord heaved a dramatic
sigh.  He glanced at Uriah and shrugged helplessly, as if to say: “Can you
believe this?”

Uriah mirrored his shrug, agreeing
that women were difficult creatures to understand.

“‘The graves of your
Kings’
will be urinated on.”  The green diplomat woman finally explained, as if
getting the exact translation of the threat was of the upmost importance for
some reason.  “
And
your greatest warriors.  Them too, in case it wasn’t
obvious.  Forever.”  She paused, then shook her head, looking disappointed. 
“No… no, I’m just not happy with ‘forever.’  That won’t do.  That won’t do
at
all
.”  She turned to her master.  “May I have my tablet, please?” 

The warlord stared at her blankly
for a moment, then held out his hands in confused and uncomprehending
exasperation.

“Oh, shoot.  Wrong language.”  She
winced.  “Sorry.”  She quickly repeated the question in Wastelandi.

Tzadok shouted something and a pad
of paper was brought in for the girl and she quickly started scribbling
something out, biting the tip of her tongue between her lips, in deep
concentration.  “Ah!  It’s: ‘until the well of time overflows with Empty.’” 
She read aloud from her notes.  “But the full statement is cruder yet more
poetic than that, something like,” she took on an exaggerated deep gravelly
voice, obviously trying her best to impersonate her master, using dramatic arm
gestures to convey raw power, “’Chox, the Culler of Men, will piss on the
impotent souls of your…’”

Uriah cut her off.  “Yes, I think
we got the idea.  Thank you.” 

“Ah.”  She nodded, stopping her
impersonation, looking embarrassed.  “Very good.  Sorry.”  She placed the
tablet down on the table, like a scolded child, and cleared her throat
nervously.  “Sometimes, I just…”

Tzadok bellowed something at her
and they launched into another shouting match in his language.  She turned back
to them.  “My master again expresses displeasure that you have bothered his
translator.  He suggests… well, no, because conveying ‘I’m only suggesting’ in
this instance would really be more of a modal particle…  Hmm…”  She pursed her
lips in thought.  “…’
prefers
,” she finally decided, “that you not
interrupt me again.”  She quickly wrote down the statement on her pad and held
up the meaningless foreign words for them, as if giving an impromptu language
lesson.  “See?  What’s he’s done isn’t a simple colloquial word to indicate his
mood, he’s altered the conjugation of the verb ‘to prefer’ itself.  The plural
imperative here is the same as the second-person plural of the present tense,
obviously.”  

“Uh-huh.”  Uriah nodded, feeling
lost but also confused why the girl thought he cared about this.

“Wastelandi does not combine
multiple stems to form new stems,” the girl continued, “but a large number of
suffixes can be attached to existing stems to form new words or alter the
meaning of the verb they are modifying.  And there’s really no way to translate
it, but the suffix he’s added to this particular verb, here?”  She underlined
the portion of the statement she was referring to.  “Well, it makes that
preference a matter of… umm… well,
death
, actually.”  She shrugged
helplessly again.  “It’s sort of saying: ‘I’d like you to stop that, please,
and if you
don’t
stop that, one of us must murder the other.  Right
now.  And… and drink deep from their skull.’”  She paused.  “Plus, the standard
‘kill and rape your women’ thing, obviously.  But that’s usually just
boilerplate.”  She paused for another beat.  “Except in this instance, as my
master previously informed you.”  She held up her hands as if calming down
their anxieties.  “And again, my sincere apologies over that little cultural
misunderstanding and the resulting ‘horses’ incident.  Which is actually very
nice of him, when you think about it, because you
are
talking when I’m
trying to translate and that
is
making it more difficult for me to
provide the best possible accuracy in my work.” 

Uriah frowned, trying to keep up
with this conversation and failing.  He was assuming the ‘nice’ thing Tzadok was
doing was the fact he was mad that Uriah had interrupted her and hopefully not
the fact that Tzadok was planning on letting horses rape Uriah’s hypothetical
daughters.

The diplomat turned and did an
elegant little curtsy for the warlord, and said something in his language,
which Uriah guessed was an expression of thanks. 

Ransom leaned closer to Uriah.  “It’s
never taken anyone that many words to tell us to ‘fuck off’ before, ‘Rai.  We
could be here all night at this rate.”

Ryle stared at the diplomat blankly,
his mouth hanging open in amazement, like he was both shocked but also
expecting her to suddenly start laughing and reveal herself to simply be joking
with him.  “What the hell?”

“I’m sooo going to fail the test on
this.”  Ransom agreed.

“I’m starting to miss the
Adithians.”  Ryle shook his head.  “All they did was hit me with stuff.  They
didn’t try to teach me fucking
grammar
.”

Uriah ignored them.  “If your
master wishes to fight me, I’m more than willing.  I am
not
one of his
weak lackeys he can order around or threaten into obedience.  I’m from the
fucking
Grizzwood
.  I bow to
no
ruler, king, or monarch.”  He met
the warlord’s eyes, switching languages to address the man in Uriah’s native
tongue.  It was a rarely used dialect, but someone who led men in the Wasteland
would understand it.  “I serve the girl.”  He gestured to Ransom with his head
without taking his eyes off Tzadok.  “
Only
the girl.  And I’ll kill you
if you get in her way.  She wants water and she wants to get to the mountains
on your northeastern border.  Which means that’s what she’ll
have.
  I’d
fight the whole world for the Keeper of My Heart.  One by one.”  He lowered his
voice threateningly.  “And if you don’t stand aside, I’m going to start with
you
.”

“Ummm…”  The translator made a
nervous sound, fidgeting with her hands.  “I… I am not very fluent in Old
Grizzwoodian, sir.  I find the agglutinative nature of your language’s
morphemes difficult to distinguish and articulate.”  She cleared her throat.  “Did…
did you want me to try to…”

“He understands.”  Uriah assured
the girl, cutting her off, his eyes remaining locked with the warlord’s.  “He
knows
just
what I said.”

Tzadok said something and the girl
listened intently.  “My master informs you that he respects your…”  She gestured
with her hands in an uncertain swirling motion, obviously trying to put
something into words but not knowing how.  “…translator?”  She frowned, still
trying to decipher what the Wastlandi word in question actually meant.  She
shook her head, rejecting that translation.  “No.  I don’t think…”

“I know what he means.”  Uriah cut
her off.  “Continue.”

“Ah.”  She nodded.  “Excellent.” 
She cleared her throat.  “He has no intention of harming your…”  She paused. 
“Wait… it’s not ‘translator,’ it’s like ‘small bird,’ right?”  Her brow
furrowed in deep thought.  “Like… like a sparrow or something similar, but it…
in this case, it would do your talking for you?”