Текст книги "The First Stone"

Автор книги: Mark Anthony

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3.

Sareth left that day, taking only one other—a broad-shouldered young man named Fahir—with him. Word had been sent to the fastness of Golgoru, in the Mountains of the Shroud, but there were few T’golthese days. Nor was it likely one would reach Al-Amún sooner than Sareth; from here it was only a half day’s ride to the port city of Kalos, on the southern tip of Falengarth, at the point where the Summer Sea was narrowest. Sareth hoped to reach the city by nightfall and book passage on a ship tomorrow.

Before he left, his al-Mama called him into her dragon-shaped wagon and made him draw a card from her T’hotdeck. His fingertips tingled as they brushed one of the well-worn cards, and he drew it out. As he turned it over, a hiss escaped her.

“The Void,” she rasped.

There was no picture on the card. It was painted solid black.

“What does it mean? Do I have no fate, then?”

“Only a dead man has no fate.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “What of the A’narai, the Fateless Ones who tended the god-king Orú long ago?”

She snatched the card from his hand. “As I said, only a dead man has no fate.”

His al-Mama said no more, but as Sareth left the wagon he glanced over his shoulder. The old woman huddled beneath her blankets, muttering as she turned the card over and over. Whatever it portended, it troubled her. However, he put it out of his mind. Perhaps the dead had no fate, but he was very much alive, and his destiny was to return to Lirith and Taneth as soon as possible.

They reached Kalos that evening as planned and set sail the next morning on the swiftest ship they could find—a small spice trader. Fahir, who had never been at sea before, was violently ill during the entire two-day passage, and even Sareth found himself getting queasy, for the Summer Sea was rough, tossing the little ship on the waves. The ship’s captain remarked that he had never seen such ill winds this time of year.

Fortunately, the voyage was soon over, and they disembarked in the port city of Qaradas, on the north coast of the continent of Moringarth, in the land of city-states known as Al-Amún. Sareth had traveled to Al-Amún several times in his youth; it was a custom among the Mournish of the north that young men and women should visit the southern continent, where most of the Morindai dwelled. Qaradas was just as he remembered it: a city of white-domed buildings and crowded, dusty streets shaded by date palms.

“I thought the cities of the south were made of gold,” Fahir said, a look of disappointment on his face.

Sareth grinned. “In the light of sunset, the white buildings do look gold. But it is only illusion—as is much in Al-Amún. So beware. And if a beautiful woman in red scarves claims she wishes to marry you, don’t follow her! You’ll lose your gold as well as your innocence.”

“Of the first I have little enough,” Fahir said with a laugh. “And the second I would be happy to dispense with. This is my first trip to the south, after all.”

They headed to the traders’ quarter, and Sareth examined the front door of every inn and hostel until he found what he was looking for.

“We will be welcome here.”

In answer to Fahir’s puzzled look, Sareth pointed to a small symbol scratched in the upper corner of the door: a crescent moon inscribed in a triangle. This place was run by Morindai.

Inside, Sareth and Fahir were welcomed as family. After they shared drink and food, the hostel’s proprietor suggested a place where camels and supplies for a journey could be bought at a good price. Sareth went to investigate, leaving Fahir with orders to rest, and to not even think about approaching the innkeeper’s black-haired daughter.

“By her looks, I think she favors me,” Fahir said. “Why shouldn’t I approach her?”

“Because by her al-Mama’s looks, if you do, the old woman will put a va’kshaon you that will give you the private parts of a mouse.”

The young man’s face blanched. “I’ll get some rest. Come back soon.”

They set out before dawn the next day, riding on the swaying backs of two camels as the domes of Qaradas faded like a mirage behind them. At first the air was cool, but once the sun rose heat radiated from the ground in dusty waves. All the same, they drank sparingly; it was a journey of six days to the village of Hadassa, where the rumors of the dervish had originated.

During the middle part of each day, when the sun grew too fierce to keep riding, they crouched in whatever shade they could find beneath a rock or cliff. They were always vigilant, and one would keep watch while the other dozed. Thieves were common on the roads of Al-Amún.

Nor was it only thieves they kept watch for. While the sorcerers of Scirath had suffered a great blow in the destruction of the Etherion over three years ago, recently the Mournish had heard whispers that their old enemy had been gathering again. Even after three thousand years, the Scirathi still sought the secrets lost when Morindu the Dark was buried beneath the sands of the Morgolthi. Because the dervishes sought those same secrets, where one was found the other could not be far off.

The days wore on, and water became a hardship. The first two springs they came to had offered some to drink, though less than Sareth had been led to believe. However, after that, every spring they reached was dry. They found no water, only white bones and withered trees. Doing their best to swallow the sand in their throats, they continued on.

Fahir and he never spoke of it, but by the fifth day of their journey Sareth knew they were in grave danger. There were but two swallows for each of them left in their flasks. It was said that Hadassa was built around an oasis. However, if its spring had gone dry like the others, they would not make it back to Qaradas alive.

You could cast a spell, Sareth thought that night as he huddled beneath a blanket next to Fahir. Once the sun went down the desert air grew chill, and both men shuddered as with a fever. You could call the spirits and bid them to lead you to water.

Could he really? The working of blood sorcery was forbidden among the Morindai; only the dervishes broke that law. True, the elders of the clan had allowed Sareth to use the gate artifact to communicate with Vani when she journeyed across the Void, to Earth. However, that had been a time of great need, and it was not a true act of blood sorcery. Sareth had spilled his blood to power the artifact, but he had not called the bodiless spirits, the morndari, to him as a true sorcerer would.

Besides, Sareth asked himself, what makes you believe you could control the spirits if they did answer your call? They would likely consume all your blood and unleash havoc.

Yet if he and Fahir did not find water tomorrow, what choice did he have but to try?

The next day dawned hotter than any that came before. The white sun beat down on them, and the wind scoured any bit of exposed flesh with hard sand. They were on the very edge of habitable lands now. To the south stretched the endless wastes of the Morgolthi, the Hungering Land, where no man had dwelled in eons—not since the land was broken and poisoned in the War of the Sorcerers.

The horizon wavered before Sareth. Shapes materialized amid the shimmering air. He fancied he could almost see the high towers of the first great cities of ancient Amún: Usyr, Scirath, and the onyx spires of Morindu the Dark. . . .

Sareth jolted from his waking dream. He lay sprawled on the sand as his camel plodded away from him. Fahir slumped over the neck of his own camel as the beast followed its partner toward a cluster of square shapes. That was no mirage; it was a village.

Sareth tried to call out, but his throat was too dry. A moment later shadows appeared above him, blocking the sun. Voices jabbered in a dialect he couldn’t understand, though he made out one word, repeated over and over: Morindai, Morindai. Hands lifted him from the ground.

He drifted in a void—as dark and featureless as the card drawn from his al-Mama’s deck—then came to himself as something cool touched his lips. Water poured into his mouth. He choked, then gulped it down.

“More,” he croaked.

“No, that’s enough for now,” said a low, strangely accented voice. “You have to drink slowly or you’ll become sick.”

Sareth’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. He was inside a hut, lying on a rug, propped up against filthy cushions. A man knelt beside him, holding a cup. He was swathed from head to foot in black; only his dark eyes were visible.

Fear sliced away the dullness in Sareth’s mind. Was this one of the Scirathi? They always wore black. He remembered how he had been tortured by the sorcerer who had followed them through the gate to Castle City. That one had enjoyed causing Sareth pain.

No, they always wear masks of gold. The masks are the key to their power. This is no Scirathi.

Fresh dread replaced the old. Sareth pushed himself up against the cushions, knowing he was too weak to flee.

“What have you done with Fahir?”

“Your friend is being cared for in another hut,” the dervish said. “You need not fear for him.”

Sareth licked his cracked lips. This was not how he had intended for things to unfold. He had planned to come upon the dervish unaware, so the other could not cast a spell, only it had been the opposite, and now he was in the other’s power. He tried to think what to say.

The dervish spoke first. “You’re her brother, aren’t you? Vani, the assassin. We knew she was in communication with her brother through the gate artifact, and the resemblance is clear enough.”

Confusion replaced fear. How could the dervish know these things? And why did his accent, strange as it was, seem familiar?

“Who are you?”

The dervish laughed. “That’s a good question. Who am I indeed? Not who I was before, that much is certain.” The dervish pushed back his hood. His pale skin had been burnt and blistered, and was now beginning to heal. “However, I used to be a man called Hadrian Farr.”

Sareth clutched at the cushions. “I know who you are. Vani told me of you. You’re from the world across the Void. How can you be here?”

The other made a dismissive gesture. “That’s not important now. All that matters is that you take word back to your people.”

“Word of what?” Sareth did not care for the other’s proud manner of speech. “Why don’t you tell them yourself?”

The dervish moved to a window; a thin beam of sunlight slipped through a crack in the shutters, illuminating his sun-ravaged face. “Because, once I am done here, I must go back. Back into the Morgolthi. After all these ages, it has finally been found.”

“What are you talking about?” Sareth said, rising up, angry at not understanding, angry at his fear. “What has been found?”

The dervish—the Earth man named Hadrian Farr—turned and gazed at him with eyes as sharp and gray as knives.

“The lost city of Morindu the Dark,” he said.

Outside the hut, the wind rose like a jackal’s howl.

4.

Beltan knew there was no way out of a fight this time.

Not that he minded, he had to admit, baring his teeth in a grin. After all, during the course of his five-and-thirty years, he had been a knight of Calavan, a commander in Queen Grace’s army, a master swordsman, and a disciple of the war god Vathris Bullslayer. It went without saying that he enjoyed a good battle.

The monster hulked before him: gleaming red, belching heat and smoke, blaring a shrill cry to signal its aggression. Beltan’s fingers tightened around a shaft of cold steel, green eyes narrowing to slits, nostrils flaring. He sized up his enemy, and each of them tensed, waiting for the other to make the first move. Both of them knew there could only be one victor in a duel like this. And by Vathris, Beltan vowed it was going to be he.

The traffic light changed. Beltan floored the gas pedal, double-shifted into third, and spun the steering wheel. The black taxicab roared in front of a red sports car, cutting it off, and whipped around the traffic circle.

“Hey there!” came an annoyed voice from the backseat of the cab. “I told you to be careful. I’ve got a tart on my lap.”

It was one of the magics of the fairy blood that ran in Beltan’s veins that it helped him to understand the language of this world. Even without it, he probably could have made do, for he had learned much about the world Earth in the last three years. All the same, some words—like tart—still had the ability to confound him. He glanced in the rearview mirror, not certain if he would see a pie on the man’s lap, or a saucy-smiled wench like one might find in King Kel’s hall.

It was pie. Though it wasn’t just on his lap. It was on his shirt and tie as well.

“Sorry about that,” Beltan said cheerfully.

The man dabbed with a handkerchief at the crimson goop on his shirt. “I wouldn’t be expecting a tip if I were you.”

Beltan wasn’t. He didn’t drive the taxi because they needed the gold; he did it for fun. Behind him, the driver of the red sports car honked his horn and made a rude gesture. Beltan stuck a hand out the window and waved, then turned down Shaftesbury Avenue.

He dropped his fare in Piccadilly Circus—the man paid with a sticky wad of cherry-covered pound notes—then maneuvered the cab through the frenzy of cars, buses, and tourists that filled the traffic circle. A group of men and women wearing white bedsheets like they were some sort of ceremonial robes clustered beneath the winged statue that dominated the center of the Circus. They held up cardboard signs bearing hand-scrawled messages. The Mouth is Hungry, read one of the signs. Another proclaimed, Are You Ready To Be Eaten?

The people in white sheets were almost always in Piccadilly Circus these days. More could be found haunting other busy intersections around London. The tourists gave the sign-holders a wide berth, edging past them to snap furtive pictures of the statue before retreating. Above, gigantic neon signs blazed against the dusky June sky, glimmering as if made of a thousand magic jewels.

After several quick offensive maneuvers—and a few more offensive gestures from other drivers—Beltan was out of the Circus and heading down Piccadilly Street, toward the Mayfair neighborhood and home. Driving a taxi in London was definitely a warrior’s job. All the same, it had not been Beltan’s first choice of occupation.

After arriving there, he had assumed he would join the army. Peace was simply the time a warrior spent sharpening his sword before his next battle, the old saying went, and Beltan wanted to make sure his sword—and his mind—stayed sharp.

He knew this country had a queen. No doubt she was good and just, for this land was free and prosperous. So he decided to go to her, kneel, and pledge his sword. However, when he went to her palace, the guards at the gate had given him dark looks when he spoke of presenting his sword to the queen, and he had been forced into a hasty retreat.

After that, he asked some questions and learned one could join the army simply by speaking to one of its commanders and signing a paper. He went to see one of these commanders– sergeantwas his title. He was a doughy man, and didn’t look like he had swung a sword in a while, but Beltan treated him with deference. He bowed, then informed the sergeant that he had served in the military all his adult life, that he was a disciple of Vathris, and had heard the Call of the Bull.

The sergeant didn’t seem to know what to make of all this, which seemed odd, but Beltan explained, and the man’s face turned red.

“We have quite enough of a problem with that sort of thing already,” he said, shaking his head. “Good day!”

Later, when Beltan stopped for an ale at a pub where other men who had heard the Call of the Bull often gathered, he had told this story, and the bartender said he wasn’t surprised, that in most places in the world men like themselves weren’t welcome in the military.

That seemed nonsense to Beltan. The generals of this land could not think it was better to send into battle men who would leave families behind, rather than men who were comfortable in one another’s company and who would leave no children fatherless should they never return from war.

And do you not have a child, Beltan?

He turned the cab onto a narrow lane and had to concentrate as he wedged it into a parking spot that was no more than four hands longer than the car itself. There was no doubt that having fairy-enhanced senses was an advantage when parallel parking.

Beltan paused a moment to clean out the cab, using a discarded newspaper to wipe the pie off the backseat. As he did, a headline caught his eye: CELESTIAL ANOMALY EXPANDING.

The article below discussed the dark spot in the heavens that had been detected some months ago. Beltan had never been able to see this dark spot himself—the night sky was obscured by London’s bright lights—but he had watched a program on the Wonder Channel about it. Men of learning called astronomers had discovered the spot by using giant spyglasses that let them see far into the heavens. They did not understand what caused the darkness—some suggested it was a great cloud of dust—but according to the article in the paper, it had just blotted out Earth’s view of two more stars, and the pace of its growth seemed to be increasing. Soon now it would be visible to the naked eye, even in London.

While the astronomers in the article claimed the anomaly was too far away to affect Earth—out beyond the farthest planet—a few people claimed the blot was going to grow until it consumed the sun, the moon, and everything. People like the sign-holders in Piccadilly Circus. So far, no one took those people seriously.

Beltan stuffed the trash in a nearby bin, locked the cab, and headed toward the narrow building of gray stone where they lived on the third floor. It was a good location, as there were a small, friendly pub and several eating establishments in the alley next to the building, and all sorts of markets lined the street before it. With the tall buildings soaring around like parapets, it made Beltan think of living in a modest tower on the edge of a bustling castle courtyard.

In other words, it felt like home.

He stretched his long legs, bounding up the timeworn steps, and started to fit his key into the front door. As he did, a tingling coursed up his neck, and he turned. Just on the edge of vision a shadow flitted into the alley, its form merging with the deepening air. Compelled by old instincts, Beltan leaped over the rail and peered into the alley. Four people sat at a table in front of the pub, and a waiter was setting up chairs outside one of the restaurants. There was no sign of the shadow.

All the same, Beltan knew his senses hadn’t lied to him. Something had been there. Or some things, for it had seemed more like two shadows than one. Only what were they? He had felt a prickling, which meant danger. Perhaps they had been criminals, off to do some wicked deed. Sometimes the fairy blood allowed him to sense such things.

Whatever it had been, the shadow was gone now, and his stomach was growling. He headed back to the front door, let himself in, and bounded up two flights of steps to their flat.

“I’m home,” he called, shutting the door behind him.

There was no answer. He shrugged off his leather coat and headed from the front hall into the kitchen. Something bubbled in a pot on the stove. Beltan’s stomach rumbled again. It smelled good.

He headed from the kitchen into the main room. It was dark, so he turned on a floor lamp– even after three years, being able to bring forth such brilliant light by flicking a switch amazed Beltan—then moved down the hall. Their bedroom was dark and empty, as was the bathroom (a whole chamber full of marvels), but light spilled from the door of the spare room at the end of the hallway. Beltan crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“So here’s where you’re hiding.”

Travis looked up, setting something down on the desk by the window, and smiled. Beltan grinned in return. A feeling of love struck him, every bit as powerful as that first day he saw Travis in the ruins of Kelcior.

“What are you smiling about?” Travis said.

Beltan crossed the room, hugged him tight, and kissed him.

“Oh,” Travis said, laughing. He returned the embrace warmly, but only for a moment before his gaze turned to the darkened window.

Beltan let him go, watching him. Travis’s gray eyes were thoughtful. He looked older than when Beltan first met him; more than a little gray flecked his red-brown hair and beard. However, the years had done his countenance good rather than ill, and—while sharper—it was more handsome than ever. Beltan’s own face had been badly rearranged in more than one brawl over the years. How Travis could love someone as homely as he, Beltan didn’t know, but Travis didlove him, and these last three years had been ones of quiet joy and peace.

Only they had been years of waiting as well. The Pale King was dead, and Mohg was no more, but Earth and Eldh were still drawing near. What that meant, or how soon the two worlds would meet (if they would even meet at all) Beltan didn’t know. But somehow—maybe through some prescience granted him by the fairy’s blood—he knew Travis’s part in all this was not over. And neither was his own. Sometimes, in the dark of night, he found himself hoping he was right—hoping that one day the waiting would be over, and his sword would be needed again.

You’re a warrior, Beltan. You aren’t built for peace.

He dismissed that thought with a soft snort. This wasn’t about him and his warrior’s pride. Something was troubling Travis; Beltan didn’t need magical senses to know that.

“What is it?” he said, laying a hand on Travis’s shoulder. Then he glanced at the desk and saw the frayed piece of paper lying there.

Beltan sighed. “I miss her, too. But wherever she is, she is well. She knows how to take care of herself.”

Travis nodded. “Only it’s not just her, is it?” He kissed Beltan’s scruffy cheek. “It’ll take me a few more minutes to finish burning dinner if you want to take a shower.” Then he was gone.

Beltan hesitated, then picked up the piece of parchment. It was as soft as tissue. How many times had Travis read the letter?

Probably as many times as you have, Beltan.

One cloud had dimmed their happiness these last three years, and that was thinking of all those they had left behind. Grace, Melia and Falken, Aryn and Lirith, and so many others. But of them all, none were in their thoughts more than one.

“Where are you, Vani?” he whispered.

He had asked himself that question a thousand times since the day they found the letter in her empty chamber at Gravenfist Keep. It had been early spring, just a month after Queen Grace slew the Pale King and Travis broke the Last Rune. A caravan of Mournish wagons had arrived at the fortress, bearing the happy news that Lirith was one of their own, that she and Sareth could wed. Yet the Mournish must have brought other news, for the next morning Vani was gone.

Without thinking, his eyes scanned the letter. However, he needn’t have bothered to read, for he had the words committed to heart. The letter was addressed to him, and to Travis.

I hope you both can forgive me, but even if you cannot, I know what I do is right. I think, in time, you will agree. It does not matter. By the time you read this, I will be gone. There is no point in trying to search for me. I amT’gol . You will not be able to follow my trail, for I will leave none.

For many years I have known it was my fate to bear a child by the one who will raise Morindu the Dark from the sands that bury it. As so often happens, my fate has come to pass, but not in the way I imagined. I will indeed bear a child by you, Travis Wilder, but notto you. And nor to you, Beltan of Calavan, though you are the one who made her with me. Instead, I choose to be selfish and take her for my own.

Why? I am not certain. The cards are not yet clear. But I have spoken to my al-Mama, and one thing is certain: Fate moves in a spiral about my daughter. She is at the center of something important. Or perhaps something terrible. What it is, I cannot say, but I intend to find out. And if it is dangerous, I will protect her from it. Even if it means keeping her from her father. From both her fathers.

Again, I beg your forgiveness. I have taken our child away from you both. In return, I give to you something I hope you will find equally precious: I give you one another. Do not squander this gift, for what I have taken from you cannot be replaced. You must love one another. For me. For us. Just as I must do this thing for our daughter.

May Fate guide us all.

—Vani

That was it. There was no more explanation, no chance of stopping her. She was simply gone.

What she meant when she said lines of fate swirled around her—around their—daughter, they didn’t know, and nor had Vani and Sareth’s al-Mama offered more explanation. The old woman simply cackled and said that each had their own fate to worry about. “Except for you, A’narai,” she had added, pointing a withered finger at Travis.

A’narai.The word meant Fateless. Which made no sense to Beltan, because the Mournish seemed to think Travis was the one destined to find the lost city of their ancestors one day.

“I think fate is nothing more than what you make it,” Grace had told Travis and Beltan that night, after a celebratory feast in the keep’s hall—one of a dozen such feasts King Kel had arranged since their victory over the Pale King. “The only way to have no fate is to never really make a choice.”

Maybe she hadn’t been trying to tell them what to do. Or maybe she had, for she had left something in Travis’s hand when she went: half of a silver coin. Either way, that night they made a choice.

“I don’t think Eldh needs me anymore,” Travis had said as they stood atop the keep’s battlements.

Beltan wasn’t so certain that was true, but there was one thing he did know. “ Ineed you, Travis Wilder.”

Travis gazed at the silver coin on his palm. It was whole now, a rune marking each side. One for Eldh, and one for Earth. He looked up, his gray eyes the same color as the coin in the starlight. “Come with me.”

So much had happened in the time they had known each other—so much pain, sorrow, and confusion. All of that vanished in an instant, like ashes tossed on the wind.

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” Beltan said, laughing. “I’m always with you.”

Travis gripped the coin, and they embraced as a blue nimbus of light surrounded them. And that was how they came to Earth.

Beltan opened a desk drawer and placed the letter gently inside. Then he headed to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind him. Hot showers were a luxury he did not know how he had ever survived without. How could he ever go back to bathing in a tub of lukewarm water or, worse yet, diving into a cold stream?

I knew this world would make you soft, he thought as he stepped under the water and grabbed the bar of soap. The sharp, clean scent of lavender rose on the steam. Ah, good—Travis had finally gone to The Body Shop as Beltan had been pestering him to.

He washed away the day’s layer of car exhaust and sweat, then stepped out of the shower. Living on Earth hadn’t made him quite as soft as he had feared. Once it was clear he would not join the army, he had worried he would go all to flab like many warriors who traded their swords for cups. Then he had discovered a place down the street called a gym.

At first he had taken the various mechanical contraptions inside for torture devices. Then a young man with large muscles had shown Beltan how to use them. He went to the gym often now, and he was happy to note that his ale belly was a bare wisp of its former self.

He toweled off, then scraped his cheeks with a straight razor, preferring the blade to the buzzing device Travis had bought him one Midwinter’s Eve, leaving a patch of gold on his chin and a line above his mouth. His white-blond hair seemed determined to keep falling out, but a woman at a shop next to the gym had cut it short, and had given him a bottle of something called mousse. (That was another one of those confusing words.) The mousse made his hair stick up as if he had just gotten out of bed, but that seemed to be the fashion of this world. Besides, Travis said he liked it, and that was all that counted.

He picked up his discarded clothes on the way to the bedroom, traded them for fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and appeared in the kitchen just in time to see Travis set dinner on the table.

“It smells good,” Beltan said. “What is it?”

“What do you think it is?” Travis asked with a pointed look.

Beltan eyed the full bowls. “It looks like stew.”

“Then let’s call it that.”

Travis said he was a poor cook, but Beltan thought everything he made was excellent. Then again, Beltan thought any food that didn’t bite back was good, so maybe Travis had a point. Beltan ate three helpings, but he noticed Travis hardly touched his own food. He never seemed to eat much these days, but Beltan tried not to worry about it.

“I don’t think I need food like I used to,” Travis had said once, and maybe it was true. Even without going to the gym, he looked healthy. He was leaner than when they first met, but well-knit and strong.

All the same, sometimes Beltan did worry. A few times, after they had made love, Travis’s skin had been so hot Beltan could hardly touch him, and he had seemed to shine in the dark with a gold radiance. While Beltan didn’t like to admit it, those times made him think of the Necromancer Dakarreth, whose naked body in the baths beneath Spardis had been sleek and beautiful, gold and steaming.

The blood of the south runs in his veins now, Beltan, just as it did in the Necromancer’s.

Beltan didn’t know what it meant—only that both he and Travis had been changed by blood. And maybe that was all right. Because, no matter what had been taken from them, if they could still love one another, then they had everything.

“I’ll get the dishes,” Beltan said.

“No,” Travis said with mock sternness, “you’re going to go watch TV while I clean up. Remember, I’m unemployed at the moment, and you’re the hard worker who’s bringing home the bacon.”