Ianthina
Robots with stumpy wings rocketed out of the sun boisterously they seemed to be in a great hurry to frighten what little was left of Ianthina and Wilfrid. However thinking that the robots had come to receive them the travellers were not in the least disconcerted.
My metal friends as you know ever since this perilous journey began we have been battered about constantly mocked compelled to work ankle deep in slush subjected to the most dreadful humiliations and treated quite poorly all for no apparent reason. It matters not that we led upright moral lives and gave numerous parties to assist the grovelling unfortunates. We ought to have been welcomed like fashionable heroes instead the lunatics met us with sullen looks and annoying insults. Our disappointments are however all in the past now that you are here to sing our praises.
Bravely the professor carried on until suddenly it became brutally apparent that they actually were captives of the machines. The prisoners were delivered to ovolo and ogee two enormous robots of extreme antiquity who were sunk to their waists in the surface of the sun and were actively quarrelling with the black and red spotted lizard. Most of the argument was lost in the roar of the winged robots’ departure but the helpless shadows managed to catch the words hatred and doom.
He noticed that the din had settled down to inarticulate whispers and the idlers in the Lorelei were peering expectantly towards the stage. At first he thought that they were all looking at him and he found this very irritating but when the house lights dimmed he realized his mistake. Chagrined he turned his chair as a bright spotlight interrupted the darkness and a leathery barmaid mounted the stage to introduce the entertainer.
The same to you darlin’ all right here she is that malady of the soliloquy Miss Caretta Sweetbrier.
Jeers and a falling rain of beer spit greeted the nonchalant dwarf on stilts as she painstakingly climbed into the light with a sheaf of papers in her inkstained mouth. She was dressed in a tawdry grey pinafore that had once been white and the remnants of a sun bonnet glistening with pomatum. Mended stockings stuck out of her old boots. Wilfrid was about to leave when suddenly she turned her amethyst eyes on him and he grew confused. Tucked into her delicate little grimace they were the agonized eyes of a squirrel caught in a trap and they evoked such a tremendous feeling of apprehension in him that he could not move. Under her forlorn gaze the cruel laughter in the public house dwindled away as the surly and indifferent faces recognized themselves in her martyrdom. She began to read aloud.
