Lombardus: The Trident Clown

Chapter 7 ☬

Symbols, Magic, Clown
Is this the new game in town?
I'm out of haik - choo

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN RUPERT WAS A SCAREDY-CAT. A fat, ginger-furred Persian tabby breed at that! (Definitely not Garfield, mind you).

"What are you doing?" Rupert drowned me under the chattering crowd in a whispery tone.

I cupped my hand over my mouth. "Playing the Wheel of Miss Fortuna, of course, silly. What else?"

When the words left my mouth, it occurred to me that it sounded awkward, double-edged, homophonic, opaque. The right word must be ambiguous.

To anyone with a flawed mind, (like me), Miss Fortuna might sound a name. Now that I had said it out loud, I thought it sounded like misfortuna. Misfortune?! As usual, I dismissed the silly thought.

"I dare to play!" said another voice.

Feets shuffled, heads turned. Even those from far behind craned their necks to have a look. There he stood underneath the crowd, wearing a helmet of smooth auburn hair and looking straight into the intelligent eyes of the Clown.

"Luke!" Rupert cried.

"Yes, I'm in," Luke repeated with a knowing smile.

"And there we have it," said the red-lipped Clown. "Three brave Questers for the ancient game of Miss Fortuna."

☬☬☬

"This is how we play the game," the Clown explained, indicating the mysterious wheel in his hand. "The first Quester shall go first." He beckoned the man in a parka to come closer.

The proud man did. Quite bossily.

"This wheel in my hand, you spin. It shall turn and turn so you win," the Clown said in a magical singsong tone.

"S' that a famous line you got from watching a scary Barbie movie?" the proud man scoffed.

A handful of the people laughed.

"Achoo - " A particular woman with rat's nest for hair sneezed, " - I think I'm coming down with - achoo - the flu." Automatically, an invisible, human-resistant force field formed around her.

In response to the proud man, the Clown held up the strange wheel for the crowd to see. It was covered with a brown papyrus. On its circumference were written ancient Greek alphabets, cursive Roman alphabets, cynical-looking Cyrillics, odd-looking hieroglyphics, liturgical Sanskrits, sinitic Mandarins, serpentine Swahili, runelike patterns and all sorts of other time-worn languages.

The wheel was divided into five large segments by black lines. In each segment was a symbol.

The first symbol housed a trident with three wavy strokes and a school of fish swimming beneath it. A small calligraphic manuscript was written underneath the symbol: Piranhus Tridentus.

The second was a three-headed dog. Cerberus.

In the third segment was an odd beetle. Even when drawn with an old, dried-up ink, its armor seemed to gleam and its legs seemed to writhe. Or was I imagining it? Under, it was titled: Scarabus Bombardus.

The fourth segment was thin. It would be an absolute fat chance for anyone to get lucky stopping on it. The small gap was infused with an oil lamp. I squinted my eyes to see what was written under it. It was called The Lamp of Janus.

A question mark (?) was scribbled on the fifth and largest segment. Nothing was written under it.

Most of the segments were filled with black figurative symbols and writings, which revealed vaguely little or nothing at all. I started brainstorming what they might mean, browsing through the archives of mythological fact books in my head. I made my theories up about them and finished with a frustrated sigh. This happened within a matter of five seconds. (I am quick-witted, remember?)