Chapter 10. Pussygalore

After a good 24 hours of continuous drinking, the stinky old man and the intoxicated William went in search of something to eat. Despite not sleeping since he left the King's castle, William had never felt so good. Yet there was something nagging him from his mangled mind; something that made him think that there was a creative task he should really be getting on with. But for now, he needed food and he was drunk.

The two men scrambled out of the woods and stumbled over a few fields and arrived at their destination. A small town called Pussygalore.*¹

"There's a bakers down that alleyway," said the tramp, pointing to a little cobbled street. "Why don't you see if you could get us some bread?"

"O.K." replied William, "But where are you going to go?"

"Me? I'm going to stay here. Never have I been able to get food from this place. They just don't understand a word I say. As a consequence, I have learnt to survive on a diet of bugs, moss and the occasional dead mammal."

"Right, well I'll try not to be too long" said William. He took a big gulp of the magic drink, returned it to the tramp, and snook off through the little shops and houses, bumping into lampposts and burping loudly as he went. He eventually reached the counter of the bakery and politely asked for a couple of cheese and onion pasties and a large wholemeal loaf. The baker, assuming William to be an aggressive loud-mouthed retard, ran towards him brandishing a French stick and chased him out of his shop. Gingerbread men were hurled at his head whilst the baker called him names that he could not understand.

Having failed in his quest for something to eat, William decided to return back to the tramp. He wondered what he had said to the baker to cause such offence, but then remembered what the tramp said to him about the magic drink and it's anti-social side-effects. Hopefully he thought, the tramp has found a dead badger we can have for tea.

But there was no dead badger, and no tramp either. He's obviously buggered off to find some moss. All of a sudden, William developed an acute pain in his liver upon noticing that the magic drink had buggered off too. He had grown fairly dependant on that bottle.

"Right then." announced William to nobody, "I'm not standing for this!"

As he fell over, he heard the not too distant screams of young women in distress. As best as he could with his hands clutching his painful side, he followed the noise to a neon-lit street in Pussygalore. And there in the middle of the street was the tramp being kicked and punched by several women wearing high heels and short skirts.*²

*1 Pussygalore was famed for it's catteries.

*2 Women in short skirts and high heels: sportive ladies who leave their doors ajar.

Chapter 9. The Queen

Nobody wanted to hurt the Queen of Nostriland, so she didn't bother with any guards outside her castle. Just a reception on the left as you go through the portcullis.

Wayne and Wycliffe approached the desk.

"Greetings travellers from distant realms!" "How may I be of service?" asked a crazy woman.

"We have come to speak with the Queen," replied Wayne.

"Is she about?" asked Wycliffe.

"Yes, I think she is. Follow me." The woman began to spray herself all over with a very pungent air-freshener labelled Ocean Mist. She knocked on a door.

"Madam, there are a couple of erm, people to see you. One of them is a man and he looks like you, and the other is a talking beast. Do you wish to speak to them?"

"I most certainly would. Send them in please Armpit," came a voice from the room. Wayne and Wycliffe sniggered and were then let in.

"Thanks Armpit," said Wayne.

"Thanks Armpit," said Wycliffe.

"Welcome to the Kingdom of The Nose-Worshippers. Please sit down, you both look tired," said the Queen.

"Thank you" they both said, and climbed onto a big comfy sofa.

"Anything to drink?" she asked.

"A glass of water would be just fine, your majesty. Thank you." replied Wayne.

"A bowl of beer wouldn't go amiss." said Wycliffe.

The Queen went off to make some drinks for her guests. Wayne turned to his dog. "Beer? What are you talking about. Dogs don't drink beer."

"Well, I've never been asked what I wanted to drink before. I thought I'd give it a go, and besides, you seem to like it rather a lot. Shh, she's coming back. Remember your manners, Wayne."

The Queen returned. "Here you go gentlemen," she said. "You arrived sooner than I expected."

"You expected us your Majesty?" asked Wayne, choking on his water.

"Of course. And Wayne, less of the 'Majesty'. Just call me Queen," she said.

"Sorry your highness, er Queen...hey, how do you know my name?" he enquired.

"There is little that I do not know of, my little storyteller, and what I do know of, i know a lot about" she smiled knowingly. "You see, about 30 years ago I lived in your Realm and was due to be made into a Queen. It happened that on the day my father was due to step down from the throne, he was murdered and I was banished to the Realm of Nostriland by an evil magic spell. My husband was also sent away somewhere and I have not seen him all this time. The man you know today as the King is actually my father's brother. He is a skilled magician and a very tyrannical man. He had become envious of my Father's position, and could not bare to think of me in charge, so he decided to reorganize things. It was he who killed my father, and it was he who banished me here."

"He's a complete bastard, isn't he?" chipped in Wayne.

"Too right." she replied.

"So how come you never tried to reclaim the throne?" he asked

"Well, two reasons. Firstly, he is too powerful. And secondly, if the spell that binds me here were ever to be broken, i.e. if I was to ever to leave here, I would be O.K, but the race of Nostrilanders would be completely wiped out.* I know they're a stinky bunch but I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice those who have loved and respected me for all these years. However, all that is soon to change. I have been learning new types of magic and now I feel strong enough to defeat the murdering swine once and for all!"

Then she turned to Wycliffe. "And as for you my hairy quadruped friend, what's it like now that you are able to speak?"

"Pretty good so far. What's it like being a Queen?" he replied.

"Not bad. Anyway, you didn't come all this way for chit-chat. There are more pressing concerns at hand. The first stage of my plan is working well, and now I must ask you both to return to your own kingdom and carry out the second stage."

"Hang on a minute," said Wayne. "What are you going on about. What was the first part of your plan?" he asked.

"The first part of the plan was to make all the dogs speak. You may not realise this but all the King's army and all the King's men are not human. They are in fact cats who have been put under a nasty spell which makes them obey the King. I thought it would be a good idea if we could get the dogs to fight for us and scare off the King's army. I employed a very ancient spell, which will not last for more than a few days. So Wycliffe, I am sorry but you will soon revert back to barking and woofing."

Wycliffe looked up from his bowl of beer. "Mmm? Sorry, what was that? I didn't hear what you said, I guess I was concentrating on finishing off this beer. Have you any more?" he enquired.

"No you can't. Any more and you will be drunk, and I need you to be on the ball. You have an important day ahead of you, and we don't have much time. This is what you must do....."

The Queen then went on to tell them the second stage of her plan.

*if the spell were ever to be broken, then the Nose-worshippers of Nostriland would suddenly spout noses and die. For the first time in their lives, they would experience a gasp. Purely instinctively, their hands would rush to their faces, as if expressing horror. Before the concepts of social etiquette or embarrassment had begun to enter their minds, they died of an over-stimulating concoction of rancid fumes. Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and suddenly discover you had a sense of smell? Then can you imagine what it would be like to experience the most unpleasant stench ever, having been going to the toilet onto yourself your whole life? The distress would be unbearable, and the shock, deadly.

Chapter 8. Auroma McMudchild

Auroma worked as a servant in the nearby castle. Her daily routine involved the gathering and arranging of flowers. The castle was owned by the Queen of Nostriland who also owned the surrounding country and all that lived within it. Few had seen the actual queen herself, but all Nostrilanders owned and worshipped images or sculptures made in her honour. In them she was always depicted with a nose.*

Auroma explained to Wayne what she does each day in the castle, and about how she and all her people were happy. 

"On the first day of working for the Queen, I was handed a uniform and a bottle of air-freshener. The uniform has to be handed in at the end of each day to be burned, and a brand new one collected the next. The air-freshener has to be sprayed all over yourself every five minutes whilst inside the castle. Every time the Queen is in sight, it has to be sprayed continuously. In this way, I have worked for over five years and enjoyed every minute. Under the Queen's rule, all the people of Nostriland live in happiness. We are at one with ourselves and all of nature."

Wayne wasn't to be taken in by a nonsense story such as this, but decided not to let Auroma know of his disbelief.

"Such a lovely job you have. All those wonderful colours and smells! Amazing! A whole race of noseless people! Who can't even smell how smelly they are! Brilliant!" He stopped to filter some air through his sleeve. "Listen love, you don't happen to have any of that spray with you?" he asked, politely.

"I do as it happens." she answered.

"Really?. Throw it over here." he demanded.

The door burst open as Wayne was spraying air-freshener around his proximity. Wycliffe ran up to him with his glasses in his mouth. They appeared to be undamaged, but dog slobber had engulfed them.

"Good boy." he said, patting him with a wet hand, and putting them on with the other.

"No worries," replied the dog. "Weird place isn't it?"

"You don't say," as he looked up at the now in focus noseless Auroma, "Well I never. The stinky woman was telling the truth. No nose. We must find this Queen with a nose. And soon. She may be able to help us figure out what's going on, and maybe we'll be back home to write a decent story before we are all sentenced to death by the King."

Sewerd entered the room, gasping for breath, clinging to the frame of the door.

"There it is!" he shouted, pointing at Wycliffe. "That little hairy thing nearly knocked me down as I went to retrieve your spectacles. And then I saw it had them dangling from its mouth. So I chased after it. To my surprise it came all the way back here. What is it?"

"It is a dog. It is Man's best friend. It can talk. And it has a sense of smell far better than mine. Which is how he found me. Through his sense of smell." said Wayne.

"That's right," continued Wycliffe, "and how I managed to find him with all you stinkers around is quite an accomplishment, even if i say so myself."

Wayne and Wycliffe thanked the couple for their hospitality, and before they left, quickly asked them the direction of the castle.

"It's that way." they said, pointing in unison. "Would you not like us to guide you there?"

"No." And with that they escaped and ran away as far as they could, stopping only when their noses recovered from their onslaught.

* No two images of the Queen were the same due to nobody seeing her for long enough to remember her features properly. In most cases, her nose was made far larger or pointier than it actually was. Sometimes she had no nostrils, and sometimes more than two. She was once represented by two noses, but those effigies had since been destroyed.

Chapter 7. Spies

It had been a couple of days since the visit of the story tellers to the castle, and the King was wondering how they were getting on with their new material. He decided to send out a spy.

"Spy! Come here!"

The spy immediately appeared from behind a pillar.

"Here I am, your Majesty."

"Ooh. What the blazes were you doing hiding behind that pillar? You trying to give me a heart attack!?"

"I am a spy, your Majesty. Its what I do."

"Don't get smug with me you cheeky little bugger. Now head over to the storyteller's house and make sure they haven't done a runner. Report back before I go to bed."

"Certainly your Majesty. And at what hour is your bedtime your Majesty?"

"After supper."

"And at what hour might you be finishing supper this evening, your Majesty?"

"Now that would depend on how much I have to eat you little prat! Now stop asking questions and get out of my castle before I have your head on a big spike out the front!"

"I have already gone your Majesty."

After a few minutes, and a bag of crisps, the King summoned another spy into the throne room.

"Other spy! Come here!"

The other spy immediately appeared from behind another pillar.

"Here I am your Majesty."

"Huh? Have you been spying on me?"

"No your majesty, I have merely been hiding behind a pillar and listening to all that has been said."

"Very well. I need you to do a job for me."

"Do you wish me to spy on the spy that has just left?"

"Indeed I do. He's a cheeky little bugger and I don't trust him at all. Now go and make sure he's not mucking about. You are to report back before supper."

"And at what time is supper your Majesty?"

"Soon after dinnertime."

"Of course. I shall see you later your Majesty."

Chapter 6. The Three Sisters

The three women and Warren had been getting to know one another a little better. Warren was astonished to find such a similarity between their dilemmas.

"So he gave you just a week to come up with a decent dance routine? That evil King must pay for his ignorance!" he demanded angrily.

Willemena butted in; "Well we couldn't believe it when we arrived for our performance. The King wasn't even awake. In fact he was snoring! What a horrible man!"

"Horrible indeed," continued Waynetta, "and when he finally awoke, the first thing he said to us was that 'we looked too fat to be in a dance outfit'."

"And as we were just about to take up our opening positions," revealed Wendy, "the King announced that he 'was bored already', and that we weren't good enough. He mumbled something about three rubbish storytellers but i didn't quite hear what he said due to the food being shoved into his big wide mouth."

"Well ladies, I must tell you the truth," declared Warren. "I was one of those storytellers! And those stories were the best! You must believe me. We too were given just a week to improve on our performance, and when we arrived back home last night we honestly did try to write again (although not very hard, it might be said). It seemed as though my two storyteller friends had decided to do something else, and had resigned themselves to their own unhappy endings. But me being the man I am, and not wanting to give in to the tyranny of this most evil of Kings, decided to go right back to the castle and deal with him all by my self."

"How gallant and brave of you Warren!" agreed the girls.

Chapter 5. The Kingdom of Nostriland

Wayne and Wycliffe had been walking North for a almost half a day. They had reached a fork in the road.

"I think it is best if we split up." said Wycliffe."I shall run up to the top of that hill over there and see what lies ahead. Why don't you head off towards those trees. I'll try and find you later."

"O.K" replied Wayne, (although he was a bit annoyed about his dog telling him what to do) as he watched him bounce over the fields at high speed with his tongue flopping around. 

After a few hours, which would have been less had he not stopped to eat some cake, Wayne was walking through a wood along a narrow path between tomatoes on his left and bananas on his right. 'Very nice,' he thought, and pocketed a few. Towards the end of the path however there was an unexpected jolt to his system. He had unwittingly had a sniff of the air, and it was rank. He gasped loudly, then quickly clasped his hands on to his face like somebody about to be sick in public. Looking up from his contorted shape, he witnessed something which to this day he has yet to recover from.

Most people know what morals are. Some things you are allowed to do, and some things you shouldn't. Anyway, all of us should agree with Wayne that having a poo on top of a big pile of poo is not behaviour which we adhere to. So we must empathise with him at this point. Crippled by breathing in, he retreated as best he could away from the stench of the stinky men and their mounds of human excrement.

"Ouch!" shouted Wayne as he tripped over a what appeared to be a rock. As he looked up to get up, his glasses*¹ slipped off and fell to the ground. While fumbling around for them, he breathed in and collapsed; for next to him stood a man with a smell so bad that when it penetrated his nostrils he thought he would die. He didn't, but he did turn green and pass out.

He awoke on a bed of leaves in a room constructed out of tree roots, branches, and moss. He began to inhale all the air around him as though he had not been able to for the whole night. There was a smell lingering in the room with him.

"Hello," said a voice. The smell appeared to belong to the voice.

"Hello," said Wayne, "who are you and where am I?"

"You have come into my kingdom. It is called Nostriland. My name is Sewerd McMudchild and you are my most honoured guest," replied the man.

"I've never heard of such a place," explained Wayne. He climbed out of bed and made for a window. However, without his glasses there was no way of seeing out through it. He needed to find his bearings.

"Do you know the whereabouts of my spectacles?" he asked.

"Spectacles? I have never heard of such a thing. If I knew what they were I might be able to help you look for them." replied the stinky man.

"They are also known as glasses. Used to correct my defective vision. A metal frame which balances on top of my nose holds two lenses which I can look through. Without them I can't even see you, and I would also like to survey this place I have come to."

Sewerd got up and came towards him. The smell got worse. Wayne backed away.

"Please don't come any closer!" he implored. "No offence but you could do with a bath. You know what one of them is don't you?"

"Nope."

Had Wayne been able to see Sewerd, he would have noticed the absence of a nose upon his face. All the race of the Nostrilanders had the same feature. In between the eyes and mouth was just a slightly raised patch of skin. Consequently, their sense of smell was non-existent. They cared not for baths, and farting was not frowned upon by any.*² The piles of poo that he saw were the combined efforts of the Nostrilanders to fertilize their land. A traditional means of ensuring the best yield, the muck was mixed into the soil and all plants flourished because of it. The landscape had become a lush, fruitful tangle of colour and foliage. To make up for the lack of a nose, the people of Nostriland had developed remarkable sight.

"I think I can see what you are describing," said Sewerd. "It looks like a pair of 'spectacles' are lying on the ground behind that tree near to where I found you. It shouldn't take us more than two hours to reach them. "

Two hours was a long time for Wayne. He had not forgotten the deadline for his story and time was precious. But more pressing now was the smell.

"I would be most grateful if you could retrieve them for me. I am still recovering from being knocked out." he lied, his eyes watering.

"Of course" replied Sewerd, and turned to leave. Wayne breathed an almighty sigh of relief. But as Sewerd opened the door he said,

"My wife, Auroma, will entertain you while I am gone. I shall not be long."

Auroma was a stinker too. She entered the room like a gust of sulphurous cloud. Wayne retreated to the back of the room. He noticed a bouquet of flowers which he grabbed and immediately held up to his nose. It offered light relief from the stench but served as a satisfactory filter nonetheless.

"Is there anything I can get you Sir?" she asked, walking towards him.

"No. Thank you," he muttered from behind his colourful veil. "Only for you to not come near me. I have a terrible cold. Wouldn't want you to catch it."

"I am not very good at catching anything," she said, still walking. "Anyway, what's a 'cold'?"

Wayne breathed in so hard that petals were sucked up inside his head.

"Get back!" he cried. "Your smell is unbearable! Do not come any closer!" Thankfully, Auroma stopped approaching and backed away. She sat down but unfortunately began to ask more questions.

"I am sorry. But I don't understand. You speak of words which I don't know the meaning of. You are coming across as a most unusual guest indeed. Why must you hold flowers over your face?" she enquired.

Wayne's frustration had bettered him. He threw the flowers to the floor in anger.

"Has nobody around here got one of these!?" he bellowed, pointing to his nose.

"Well, there is one other I know of." she announced.

*¹ Wayne had very bad vision, meaning that he could see little in the distance, and bugger all right in front of him.

*² it had in fact become an extension of their communication skills and was encouraged.

Chapter 4. Drunken Men

William wasn't unaccustomed to sheds. He had seen them before in a few of his friend's gardens, and wasn't too shocked to see the inside of this one. Tools hanging from hooks, plant pots on a shelf, some drawers with gardening paraphernalia in. A typical shed. But he was pleasantly surprised to see a bottle of 30 year old vintage rhubarb wine on a table. Next to it was a glass and even a corkscrew. This being, by rights, on William's property, the shed was his and the items therein belonged to him also. He sat on a little wooden chair and examined the bottle more closely.

An hour or two might have gone by before he tried to stand up and leave his new shed. He managed to wander outside the door but he soon found himself in all sorts of bother. A trembling began within him, his knees knocked and his breath quickened. It was dark and he was scared. He also felt naked.* Then he felt embarrassed.

Realising he was lost, he raised his hands above his head and made obscene gestures whilst shouting obscenities directed at the night sky. The sky failed to respond, but it was dark. And so, with co-ordination similar to a newborn deer, he went careering down a steep embankment, bouncing off trees and bumping into rocks as he went. At the bottom, his momentum left him as he eventually stopped at the wheels of a horse drawn carriage. Had William been more silent in his approach, its occupants may not have heard him.

"I think i just heard something," said one of the passengers.

"Just a bump in the road," said another, "the suspension on this thing's crap."

"No, wait. Shhh. I heard it too!" said a woman.

"What did you hear?" the others asked.

"I heard someone smash into the side of the carriage, get up, and run away." she replied. 

*He was.

  

William, bruised and drunk, decided after a minute to stumble along the track, and follow the route of the carriage. It was going somewhere, and wherever somewhere was was better than where he was. A light shone between some trees not too far away in the distance, and over the brow of the hill, he saw a town. Then he heard a noise. Then he was kicked in the back of his legs and forced to lie in a wet ditch at the side of the track. Next to him was an old man with a thick wiry beard who smelt of stale booze and talked complete and utter nonsense.

"You have air of the that familiarynesses about you yes yes, haven't yous not my shakinging naked man friend? No?" the drunken bearded stranger sort of asked.

William, embarrassed and startled, quickly reached for a leafy branch and pulled it in front of his particulars.

"What are you talking about you stinky old man!" he replied.

"I meaninging your face," continued the man, looking him in the eyes. "I knows it yets I haves not seens of it before. Remindeded me of someone who I don't know. Interestinging. Yes. Fancys a tipple of the magicic brew? No?"

William didn't answer. He thought himself a good judge of character of people he had only just met, and this inebriated hobo offended him immediately.

"Comprendez mines parlez vouses? Speakings of the Englisheses?" resumed the man.

"Lets get things straight, Beardy. The name's William. And do I speak English? Yes. Do you? I'm not sure. Hopefully you can answer this simple question for me though..."

"A question? Answered? Simple? Straight beard. Hope? Not sure. William? English."

"BE QUIET YOU STINKY OLD TRAMP!" interrupted the now irate William. "You're not making any sense at all, and you are starting to really irritate me. Give me that bottle you keep drinking out of! It's turned you into a raving fruitloop!" 
He snatched the bottle out of the crazy man's hand, but given the desperate situation, and feeling a touch parched himself, he couldn't resist just having a little taste himself. He had a big big gulp.

"Not bad booze," he observed, "I like the way it keeps on refilling itself as if by magic."

He had another gulp and then another...

The previous events of the evening seeped out of his memory like farts from a fish as he relaxed into an intoxicated blur. He was aware of his trembling and naked body however, and that he needed some clothes. As the man was carrying several plastic carrier bags full of them, he thought he would try and communicate with him once more.

"Clothes in bagses." he uttered.

"Hmm?" replied the man.

"Clothes bagses. Plastics carrying clothes for mine?" continued William who actually thought he was making sense.

"Now you're talking!" proclaimed the man. "Come back to mine and we'll continue this discussion indoors. In the meantime, help yourself to some clothes. I have plenty."*

*for the benefit of the reader, this sentence and all those that follow between William and the old man have been translated from the nonsensical jabberings of pissed madmen into plain English.

The old man lived in a hollow in the ground. It had a ceiling made of giant leaves which had been collected from the surrounding forest. He sat William down on a tree stump, found a couple of cups and poured them both a drink. The bottle became empty and then refilled itself, as had happened earlier.

"Excellent stuff!" declared William. "Never ending booze!"

"Never ending blues more like," explained the man. "You see, now that we have both had a drink of this magical brew we can talk to each other like two normal men. But when we first met, and you hadn't touched any of it, neither of us could understand one another."

"You mean to say that both of us are actually talking gibberish right at this very moment?" asked William.

"Absolutely. For example, if either of us were to walk outside now and come across someone else, then that unfortunate person wouldn't have a clue what we were blabbering on about. Likewise, we would consider them to have the vocabulary skills of a two month old baboon with a stutter. Believe me, I have tried to mingle with the outside world, but its just impossible to be taken seriously. Take the time when I tried to buy a pack of razors and some soap one day. I was chased away from that shop like a terrorist with the plague."

"So why don't you just throw this bottle away?" asked William. "Why can't you get back to a normal life?"

"Alas, I cannot." replied the man forlornly. "Let me explain. Thirty years ago, I was happily married to a beautiful princess and we were set to rule the world together as King and Queen but, as if by magic, it all went terribly wrong. She disappeared off to a mysterious realm and has not been seen since. And I..." he paused, looking ashamedly at the bottle, "...well I have been a slave to this cursed yet addictive drink ever since. If I try and pour it away, it keeps on refilling. And if I try and stop drinking it, my liver ceases to function and I die. Ironic, I know, but it demonstrates the sick and twisted humour of the man we are dealing with." He gave William a piercing stare and continued, "The man who turned me into this raging loon! The man that took my beautiful wife away from me! The man that has ruined our world forever!"

"And whom might that be?"

"He is none other than the evil King who reigns to this very day."