Ask Grench Read online

Ask Grench

  by

  Michael D. Britton

  * * * *

  Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton / Intelligent Life Books

  Dear Grench,

  My Master continues to lash me for the most miniscule offenses – even just perceived offenses. I have begged for respite from that stinging rebuke, but things have only become worse.

  What do you suggest I do?

  -Licking My Wounds

  Third Satellite, Bervala Sector

  Dear Licking,

  First, I must remind you that I prefer to be addressed by my proper title, which is Grench, Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar.

  If you are unable to communicate my full title, simply refer to me as Distinguished Grench.

  Second, your problem may in fact be related to my first point. Perhaps you fail to show the proper respect to your master, leaving him no choice but to discipline you.

  Begging for mercy is also a huge mistake, as that only brings further punishment (everyone knows that).

  My advice? Given your obvious imbecility, I recommend you learn to lick your own backside, as it will be in great need of such salve the remainder of your pitiful days.

  Live in joy,

  Grench

  Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar

  Distinguished Grench,

  Long time reader, first time writer.

  I appreciate your judiciously applied wisdom. My first, second and third minionships would have been simply intolerable without your kind and thoughtful erudition.

  I am now First Minion to the Fifth Subordinate Potentate of Tralaxar Realm – a position much coveted among my people, and one I have been working toward my whole adult life.

  My question is: when you attain a long sought-after goal, how do you mitigate the malaise that follows, when you suddenly realize you have nothing further to live for?

  -Sadly Satisfied

  Continent One, Tralaxar Prime

  Dear Satisfied,

  Thank you for your kind words, and for finally obtaining the backbone necessary to actually write to me.

  Now, get over yourself.

  If you have nothing left to live for, you have two choices: either resign your post and come scrub my washroom (then you’ll be able to begin your upward journey once again).

  Or, just kill yourself.

  Live in joy,

  Grench

  Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar

  Distinguished Grench,

  My initial inclination was to shower you with at least five hundred words of obsequious chatter, but I assume you’d rather I get to the point.

  The point is this: my master’s eldest daughter has invited me to join her on the shadow side of our lesser moon. I believe she has special feelings for me and intends to initiate a romantic encounter.

  What is your advice?

  -Torn by Temptation

  Yonara Outerworld, Sector D

  Dear Torn,

  Never assume.

  Obsequiousness is a fine and underappreciated art.

  My advice: be more obsequious.

  Oh – and if you have to ask me the question, you’ve already made up your mind, you suicidal dolt.

  Live in joy,

  Grench

  Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar

  Distinguished and Cunningly Subtle Grench,

  I recently read with interest your reply to the minion who is in love with his master’s daughter.

  Am I to understand that such a relationship lies beyond the realm of possibility?

  -Longing for a Loophole

  Nineteenth Kingdom of Zaster-op

  Dear Loopy,

  Yes.

  Live in joy,

  Grench

  Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar

  Distinguished Grench,

  I write with no particular need to be fulfilled for me – but only in a quest for knowledge.

  Will you please tell me how long you have held your position, and how you obtained it? I hope to model my own journey to minionship after your excellence.

  -Manic for a Mentor

  Forleck Ring, Noroth World, Arcan Sector Lateral

  Dear Manic,

  My story is honorable and worthy of song, though seldom told and never sung.

  The relevant part begins nearly eighteen orbits ago, when I was but a fledgling minion under the Thirtieth General House of Jnun.

  My father, a minion himself, was a failure.

  He lived under the lash, never capable of providing the appropriate level of timorous diffidence or properly puffy palaver to his master.

  But I learned from his shortcomings, perfecting my humility and self-abasing servitude – at least until Father was finally executed as the final act of correction.

  He now stands corrected. (Or rather, lies rotting, corrected.)

  Once he was out of the picture, I flourished even more, finding myself placed in service to the Fourth Coadjutant Knight of Rendell.

  He beat me minimally, and delighted in my frothy tales.

  After only four orbits as his keep, I was traded to the Lower Sub-Courts of Dothug, where my career truly took off.

  As I worked my way up through the ranks, from minionship to progressively more important minionship, the key to my success was the ability to wrap a master in such a thick blanket of soft and mollifying words that he would become oblivious to reality.

  I saved lives, brought prosperity, averted wars, started wars – all with the power of my well-trained tongue of liquid diamonds. This was eventually recognized by a wise Steward of the Court of Frola (Dominion of Spar).

  Frola poached me from Dothug, and the rest is history.

  My advice to you, Manic, is to first find an epic failure – someone to use as an anti-model. Study closely the myriad ways to utterly fail. Then select an antithetical path and hone your skills at speaking and bowing and groveling (groveling is an art of disguise – you must never appear to be groveling outright).

  And then keep your eyes carefully open for opportunity to impress a master more well-placed than your own. You will often find all the answers you need in the details of the law tabs – study them carefully to your own benefit.

  And if you do succeed – you did not hear any of this from me.

  Live in joy,

  Grench

  Second First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar

  #

  “All right, Keelah, be gone,” I sighed, casually waving my hand as if a shirga bug were buzzing my face. “I grow tired. No more letters today.”

  “Yes, Distinguished Grench,” said Keelah, immediately putting away his FlowTablet and backing out of the room, eyes cast downward.

  I noted how frequently he flicked his eyes up to me during his departure. Once every three seconds. A little over-eager, but not bad. Clearly a blend between a zealous desire for approval and a carefully measured attempt to ensure my needs were met and that I had no further requests for him – all wrapped in a healthy, filament-thin veil of fear.

  Keelah would make an adequate Second First Assistant one day – perhaps even a very good one.

  And one day, I was sure, I would be the new First First Assistant to the Great Hyten Frola, Lord of the Echelon and Grand Lulu of Spar.

  Of course, by that time, Hyten Frola would likely be dead, and I would end up serving under his son, Jyter Frola.

  Then, following a suitable time as First First, a terrible accident would
befall Jyter, and the Primary Conclave of Spar would (by default) raise me to the practical position of Lord of the Echelon, with the honorary position of Grand Lulu being bestowed after my first year in office.

  At least, that was the plan.

  The idea initially came to me only days after I had arrived in the Dominion of Spar. I studied the dominion’s law tabs in great detail, to better allow for the adjudication of legal matters unworthy of my master’s attention.

  And I saw a gaping loophole just waiting to be exploited.

  I really had no choice. It is a grave misdeed to have knowledge and fail to act upon it – it is insulting to the Fates.

  So now, I wait patiently for that day, filling my time with feather-weight law cases and my daily advice column, which is broadcast via the Flow to minions throughout the Nine Systems on a minions-only sub-band.

  A minions-only communication, you ask?

  Why, of course.

  There comes a time during one’s ascent as a minion when one realizes that it is really us – the underlings – who are in charge.

  Ah yes, the masters wield a certain strength by virtue of their position, but it is knowledge that is the essence of true power.

  And the masters lack knowledge.

  Woefully.

  Minions are the ones in the know. We’ve been the ones picking up the slack – the ones really running the affairs of the various kingdoms within the Nine Systems for centuries.

  Meanwhile, the masters (bless their eternal huytas) sit around and get fatter and more stupid with each passing orbit.

  That is why I am implementing the revolution.

  Most revolutionaries may tell you that for change to take place, you must be well-organized – everything must be planned to the letter, with contingency plans and contingency contingency plans.

  But I know better.

  If we tried to form a Minions of the Nine Systems Union, we’d all be slaughtered at once for our flagrant treachery and shocking defiance.

  No, this revolution will be bloodless – mostly. It will come from within – from the top.

  From my legal loophole.

  #

  When Hyten Frola died, all of Spar wept.

  Even I.

  I’d grown quite proficient at summoning tears on demand.

  As young Jyten ascended to the judgment-seat, all of Spar cheered.

  I was too busy adjusting the seat to clap my hands.

  Jyten was about half the height of his father – the odd result of the mating of Hyten with his first wife, a one-meter tall Dothugi woman of moderate class standing.

  Jyten, however, had none of the rich brown coloring of his mother – he was as pale and mirthless as his father, with sunken eyes and stringy black hair framing his somber face.

  You might think his demeanor was the result of recently losing his father, but he always looked that way.

  Choosing the appropriate accident for Jyten was going to be a challenge. After all, you had to actually do something from time to time in order to suffer a misfortune.

  Jyten spent his days languishing on the throne, writing lugubrious poetry, and turning away female suitors sight-unseen. He hardly ate, never laughed or smiled, and never entertained guests.

  It was enough to make me want to kill myself instead.

  From my own seat, off to the left and two meters below the throne, I stared up hungrily at that seat, imagining how I would not waste such position and power.

  I would make full use of my dominion.

  I would truly rule.

  #

  About that loophole.

  I wasn’t looking for it. Honestly.

  But when my eyes fell upon line fifteen of subsection theta, paragraph seven of article two in section ninety-three, in book six of the twelfth legal tab – my heart skipped a beat, and a little thread of drool actually squirted down the left side of my chin.

  I wiped it off before it could strike the FlowTablet from which I was reading, and re-read the line.

  Again and again.

  Surely it was some enterprising young minion who had slipped this little gem deep into the Nine Systems Eternal Code.

  It simply read (and I can recite this perfectly from memory):

  In the unlikely event the Lord of the Echelon expires on the judgment seat within sixty rotations of ascension, bearing no offspring, contracting no other blood relative in advance and assigning no unrelated successor; and the Primary Conclave be occupied by the Feast of the Fire Hunter, the First First Assistant shall ascend to the appointment in lieu of a convening of the Primary Conclave; occupying the judgment seat for a period of no less than twenty-one rotations, during which the full Primary Conclave must ratify a successor from the master class.

  And here’s the most important part (my personal favorite line of Code):

  Failure to ratify a master class successor shall result in the First First (a.k.a. Interim Lord of the Echelon) being reassociated to master class and automatically installed as official successor.

  That’s right.

  Reassociated and automatically installed.

  That would be me.

  #

  Poor Jyten Frola.

  Died of boredom.

  At least, that’s what the coroner, and old minion friend of mine, reported to the Conclave.

  You and I know that’s not quite necessarily exactly factual.

  Regardless, today is rotation twenty-one following his unfortunate end.

  The Primary Conclave failed to convene (due to the Feast of the Fire Hunter) until today.

  They are all gathered in the Grand Chamber of Yent right now.

  Am I worried?

  Of course not.

  A full quorum of the Conclave is required to ratify the successor, and there are three Conclavists who are missing.

  One fellow who was once a poor, abused minion, who learned to lick his backside wounds and eventually became a cruel minion manager and was appointed to the Primary Conclave. He recently wrote me for additional advice, and my answer, conveniently, sent him on a journey to the deepest regions of the Bervala Sector.

  Oh well.

  The second missing Conclavist?

  A sorry fellow from Tralaxar Prime, who finally reached his ultimate goal of appointment to the Conclave, only to sink into a deep depression and kill himself this morning. I’m sure it had nothing to do with any advice he may have received.

  Number three?

  A love-struck loser who finally, after a little coaxing, decided to let his heart rule his head. He consummated his long-unrequited love for a superior’s daughter – and now his head sits atop a spike on a castle gate. Just got word of it late last night.

  Pity.

  And so I sit back, relaxed in my throne-to-be, ready for some good news to offset these tragic tales.

  Waiting for the announcement of my pending ascension.

  Of my class reassociaton and official installation.

  I can already taste the power.

  The tall, richly-carved door to my throne room opens.

  “So soon?” I ask, assuming this is the bearer of my good tidings.

  The handsome, gleaming-eyed fellow smiles warmly, no hint of subterfuge. “I am no messenger, Distinguished Grench. You may remember me as a correspondent who went by the name Manic for a Mentor.”

  “Manic? Ah yes – you wanted to know how I became such an accomplished minion. Tell me, how is your career coming along?”

  He strolls to one of the audience chairs and flops into it with ease. “Quite well, thank you. And I mean that – thank you.”

  “Glad to be of service to a fellow minion. What can I do for you today?”

  He rubs his chin, a gentle smile on his lips. “You’ve already done it.”

  “Oh, don’t be so coy. Please, tell me your business.”

  “My name is Varda Hasnik. Until this morning I was First First Assistant to the Great Ilso Hala, Lord of Quental a
nd Grand Lulu of Arcan Sector Lateral.”

  “My, you have come up in the world. Well done. And now?”

  “And now, I am about to take my place . . . where you sit.”

  “Ha! You jest!”

  His eyes turn dark, his face a slate. “No. I do not jest.”

  My face twitches. “H-How?”

  “At your suggestion, I read carefully the law tabs. Not just of my own kingdom – but all of them. Every word of the Eternal Code of the Nine Systems.”

  “Every word. Hmm. And?”

  “Using my position, I had the three missing Conclavists replaced, in accordance with section – well, I won’t bother to quote the code, I’m sure you are aware of it.”

  I gulp.

  “It occurred just minutes ago,” Varda continues. “The Singular Administrator was very grateful to me for my diligence, and is, at this moment, recommending me to the full body to be granted Eminent Hegemony.”

  My blood boils over in a barely-controlled rage.

  The putrid usurper!

  I take three slow, deep breaths.

  A good minion never reveals his innermost emotions.

  Varda casually snaps his fingers, and a pair of burly guards in gray armor and black hoods march in and stand at the ready.

  He hands me a FlowTablet, a smug gleam in his eye. “Here are your transfer forms. Please report to your new assignment immediately.”

  “Yes, yes, your excellence!”

  I glance at my new title on the FlowTablet and my heart sinks into oblivion. I bow repeatedly as I back out of the chamber, tears flowing. “Please pardon my tears - your pulchritude and virtuously endowed dynamism overwhelm my faculties. Live long and mightily, cherished master!”

  As the great double doors swing closed, I catch a glimpse of Varda getting comfortable in the velvety padded throne.

  The doors seal shut with an echoing boom.