Suffice it to say that many a time did Shelyid lose his way and tremble in fear lest he starve before finding the book and blessed egress. Suffice it to say that the rearrangement of the interior of the sack would have provided more than ample evidence for Shelyid to have from its study, had he the wits, derived brilliant treatises on heretofore unknown aspects of Brownian motion and entropy. Suffice it to say that he nearly became asphyxiated on the fumes of the noxious ragweed specimen with which the wizard bribed the lower classes of demons whom he conjured up on occasion. Suffice it to say that for many terrifying moments was he locked in mortal combat with the normally lethargic Great Newt of Obpont, now risen from its torpor and filled with the venomous rage which is that beast’s distinguishing characteristic—a combat made more difficult for the gnome by his knowledge that the wizard prized the monster highly and would thus overfill with spleen should Shelyid, in his frenzied efforts to prevent his devourment by the amphibious carnivore, cause the creature to come to harm. Suffice it to say that at length the dwarf succeeded in bottling the vicious predator in an unused vial, only then to fall into a pool of that unnamed and unnameable fluid whose presence in various pockets and folds of the sack was made necessary for the sustenance of that very amphibian horror of which I have just spoken—and of that fluid itself, of its nature and its effects upon the human much less the dwarf body, I will say nothing, lest the gentle reader discontinue in his nausea the further perusal of our tale. Suffice it to say that at length the dwarf found the book in question, seized it by frontal assault, and escaped at length the maddened pursuit of the band of club-wielding imps for whom, alas, the tome was their tribal totem. Suffice it to say that as the sun began its descent over the western horizon, Shelyid emerged from the sack, book in hand, and handed it over to his master. Surfeit it to say that that that that that that that—
CHAPTER XI.
In Which the Wizard Acquaints Himself With His New Traveling Companions, the Florid and Well-Dressed Man of Some Middle Years, the Imperious Dowager La Madame, and the Warden and His Young Prisoner, Newly Convicted of Stealing Bread From Mother Edna’s Bakery (a Subsidiary of the Consortium). A Dialogue Between Zulkeh and the Youth, With Our Hero’s Remonstrances Concerning Law and Reason Countered by the Unrepentant Miscreant’s Discourse on Poverty and Its Effects. A Visit From the Forces of Law Themselves, and Their Representative’s Unfortunate Experience With La Madame’s Dog. A Villain Strikes Again! Pursuit. A Villain Strikes Again!
It is with great regret that I must now inform the gentle reader of a most unfortunate episode in the history of my ancestors’ compilation of their chronicle. Or rather, two unfortunate episodes.
The gentle reader will perhaps have noticed two recent oddments in our chronicle, to wit, that the preceding chapter ended in a somewhat peculiar manner, and that the chapter heading above is unwontedly fulsome and verbose. This results from the fact that the chapter heading was not written by Alfred CCLVI, but by his successor, the notorious Alfred CCLVII. For know, gentle reader, that Shelyid’s odyssey in the wizard’s sack, recounted in the previous chapter, had as one of its unforeseen effects the untimely demise of the great Alfred CCLVI. For though my ancestor faithfully mentioned the dire effects of the unnamed and unnameable fluid which filled various niches of that sack upon the human and dwarf body, he neglected to consider the possible effects upon the louse body. And, as it happens, these effects are most disastrous in their effects and most precipitous in their onset.
Shortly after the encounter with the unnamed and unnameable fluid, Alfred CCLVI was smitten by a most terrible seizure, the which not only caused his mandibles to vibrate like a tuning fork and his appendages to quiver like stalks in the breeze, but also made it quite impossible for him to continue in his duties, inasmuch as his every heroic attempt to do so—and there were many!—led to so much nonsensical gibberish.