There was a pie. There was a pie sitting on a rock. You may think that you have heard this story before, but I assure you that you have not. There was no steam rising up into the air from this pie. Oh, to be sure there was plenty of steam, because in the muggy, hot, insect-infested, horrible land of Ennedi, it is always steaming. The pie sitting on the rock, in what was just about the only patch of shade available, was quite cool. It might have been the only thing within a hundred miles that was cool. Is there a more welcoming sight? Is there a more welcoming sight for a traveler from a far land, slogging through a fetid, stinking jungle, on a hot humid day, sweating and dehydrated, than the sight of a cool pie on a rock? You don’t have to answer that. I can tell you. There is no more welcoming sight than such a pie. In this place, there were no sights or sounds or smells anywhere near as welcoming. Mosquitoes buzzed thick as a fog. Nearby pools of bubbling tar belched out noxious gasses. The distant call of monkeys mingled with the nearer cry of birds. And I know what you are thinking—birds sound nice. Not these birds. They were the horrible, nasty, squawking kind of birds. Still, there was that pie. It sat on that rock like a diamond ring sitting on a pile of horse manure.
I should stop and introduce myself. I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, famed world traveler and story-teller. Surely you know me from my many famous adventures—Prudence the Possessive Pirate, The Sky Princess, and Night of the Zombies. You may know me as the author of these stories and you may know me as the hero of these stories, because I am not only a great writer of stories, I am also a great hero of stories. But I digress. There was a pie.
I had been slogging my way through the fetid, which is to say stinking, swamps of Ennedi for more than a week. I was drenched in sweat, both my own and that of my horse Hysteria. I was tired. I was dirty. I was unhappy. She was tired. She was dirty. And Hysteria was unhappy. She was unhappy because she was sweaty and hot, and she was unhappy because she hadn’t had anything but swamp grass to eat in a week, but mostly she was unhappy about having to plod through the mud. Hysteria hates to have anything unusual clinging to her feet, and that mud in the horrible swamps in the awful land of Ennedi was definitely clingy.
Ennedi is a humid and unpleasant, and invertebrate-rich subcontinent some one thousand miles south of Aerithraine. It isn’t known for much, which is to say that not many people know what is found there, and it isn’t known much, which is to say that not too many people know of it. People aren’t missing much. If one has a fondness for centaurs or mud or pygmies or insects or wild forest women, then Ennedi is the place to visit. If one is looking for mineral wealth, Ennedi is the place for you, though you should expect to go through severe trials and tribulations, which is to say the fighting of monsters, before achieving it.
If you are in the mood for a lovely breast of chicken dinner, you can just forget it. You will not find it. It’s not that there aren’t chickens in abundance. In fact, the chickens here are larger than I’ve seen anywhere else in the world. They simply are not interested in becoming breast of chicken dinners. And as they are nine feet tall and extremely vicious, they usually get their way. If that were not bad enough, it is impossible to find a replacement for chicken on your menu with beef, pork, or mutton; as cows, pigs, and sheep are unknown in Ennedi. The people here eat snake and they eat crocodile. They eat turtles and when they can get them, they eat fish. These fish are not bass in butter or pan-fried trout or beer-battered catfish. Oh, no. They eat three kinds of fish in Ennedi. The most popular is mud fish. The second most popular is muck fish. The least popular is slime fish. I can tell you from experience that the most popular is only slightly less disgusting than the least popular, which is to say the mud fish and the slime fish respectively. Ennedi is not the place for a gourmet, or even someone who is not used to occasionally vomiting in one’s own mouth. And alas, there are very few pies. So when I saw that pie, sitting alone, after slogging through the fetid swamps for more than a week, you can imagine my thoughts.
I thought, “Who would leave a pie, lying thus?” I thought, “It would be a shame for a pie such as this to go to waste.” And I thought, “I wonder if that pie tastes as good as it looks.”
I thought, “I wonder if that pie tastes as good as it looks,” because I could not smell the pie over the smells were of mud, swamp, and slime. The pie looked beautiful though. It looked cool and welcoming and delicious.
I would not steal a pie. I did not steal this pie. Though I have been most unfairly accused of being a thief on one or two or nineteen occasions, I have never been convicted of such a heinous crime, except in Theen where the courts are most unfairly in control of the guilds, and in Breeria which is ruled by a tyrant, and one time in Aerithraine when the witnesses were all liars, and once in Antriador where it’s better not to mention that particular case at all. So as you can see, I am not one to steal a pie. But being concerned that such a pie might melt in the heat, I stepped forward to get a better look that I might aid the owner of the pie in keeping it from being spoiled or from being eaten by some horrible swamp beast. I reached out to touch the edge of the pie. It looked so cool and beckoning. It seemed to be saying, “Eaglethorpe, I am all alone here in the swamp and if I am going to spoil anyway, you ought to eat me before that happens.” But as soon as I touched the pie plate, ropes shot up from all around me, and I was lifted from my feet high into the air, suspended in a great rope net.
“This is a fine how do you do,” said I.
Hysteria looked at me from below, rolling her eyes as if to say, “There you go again Eaglethorpe. Although you are heroic and handsome, and were I a human woman, I would doubtlessly be horribly, terribly, and deeply in love with you, you can’t seem to control yourself around a pie.”
“What do you know about it?” I called down to her.
Then three women stepped out from behind the high bushes. They each carried a spear and a shield made of animal hides, which is to say the shield was made of animal hides and not the spear, which was made with a stick and a rock, the rock being shaped like a spear head. One was naked except for a loin cloth and a brassiere made of coconuts. The second was naked except for an animal skin g-string. The third was completely naked. All three of their bodies were painted with war paint into frightening yet colorful designs.
“Our trap has worked,” said the first woman, which is to say the one wearing the most clothing.
“Having that sorceress cast a spell making this rock to appear as a pie was a good idea,” said the second, which is to say the one intermediately clothed. She picked up the pie and it turned into a large flat stone.
“Men are so easily fooled,” said the third woman, which is to say the one that was completely naked.
“I hope you are not Amazons,” said I.
Hysteria whinnied as if to say, “Of course they are Amazons. What other women would be traveling around the swamps of Ennedi, entrapping men with rocks ensorcelled to appear as pies?” Then she turned and trotted away into the high swamp grass.