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Post By Once again a simple one-off story goes into chapter three of four, from... the Hooded Hood Fri Jun 24, 2005 at 07:35:03 am EDT |
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#217: Untold Ghost Stories of the Parodyverse: The Lighthouse – Part Three: 23rd May, 2005 | |
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| #217: Untold Ghost Stories of the Parodyverse: The Lighthouse – Part Three: 23rd May, 2005 23rd May, 2005 The three boys watched enviously as Chico danced with the pretty girl on the disco floor. “He’s sure got a way with the laaa-dies,” Doofus admitted. “One cheesy smile and they’re handing him their underwear.” “Hey, this one made him work for it,” Pinball pointed out. “Ten minutes just to get her to dance. Either Chico’s slipping or she’s a lesbian.” The DJ followed up Chiller with Bad Moon Rising and Chico and his partner took the opportunity to head to the bar for a drink. Well, Chico went to the bar and his friend made for the Ladies. Doofus, Pinball, and the Puker were waiting for him. “Well?” the Puker asked, glancing at the door of the bathroom. “Could be,” Chico grinned. “She’s English, on vacation with her family, here for the FounderFest. She’s on her own here tonight, they just know she was looking round the seafront. And she drinks lemonade.” “So you’ll be giving her some lemonade to drink, right?” Doofus smirked. “Yeah. Special lemonade,” Chico smirked back. “Can you get her outside?” Pinball wondered. “I mean, you’re not even at the groping her ass stage yet.” “I don’t think she’s an ass-groping kind of girl,” Chico admitted. “She’s really innocent. She might be perfect.” “Get her outside and we’ll soon find out,” Doofus leered. “What’s her name?” “Ilsa,” Chico answered. “I think she might be the one.” “You’re right,” Chico’s date admitted, looking out at the full moon low over the ocean. “The waterfront is kind of beautiful at night. And so peaceful. And even a little bit cooler than in that crowded place.” The summer heat was still scorching by the shoreline, but at least the ocean brought a light breeze to stir the oppressive air. “This is nothing,” Chico assured her. “Come down past the boardwalk, where there aren’t all the garish resort lights. Away from all this FounderFest ruckus. Where you can see the stars over the water.” “I don’t know, Chico. I said I’d be back by eleven, and it’s past that now.” “Won’t take long. C’mon Ilsa, what’s the rush? There’s something special I want to show you.” The girl allowed herself to be led by the hand past the little knot of night clubs and restaurants that ringed the quaint Willingham harbour and along the seafront and the faded old boardwalk pier. The wind off the Atlantic was surprisingly chilly. The dark beach was ribboned with old seaweed. “Down there?” Ilsa worried as Chico tried to lead her under the rotting pilasters of the boardwalk. “I don’t think so.” Then she felt the flick-knife at her throat. “Think again,” Chico told her, grabbing her roughly by the arms. “Walk.” He bundled his victim down the stone steps to the shadows where Doofus, Pinball, and the Puker were waiting. “Hey, Ilsa,” snorted the Puker, dropping an empty cider bottle to shatter on the rocks. “Good to know you.” “What are you doing?” the girl demanded, struggling against Chico’s grip. “What is this?” “It’s a little test,” Doofus told her. He reached into his pocket and started unfolding something from an old rag. “We want to know if you’ve been a good girl.” “What? What are you talking about?” Inside the ray was a chip of some dull white horn, threaded to a silver necklace. Doofus was careful to touch only the chain. “Hold this, darling,” the unpleasant youth demanded, thrusting the item at her. The girl accepted the necklace with puzzlement. “Why?” she demanded. “What is it?” “Supposed to be unicorn horn,” snorted the Puker. “As if. But if anybody touches it who isn’t a virgin, they take a nasty burn.” He leered at the captive. “Ooh. Guess you are a good girl.” “Crap,” snorted Pinball. “I was looking forward to this one as well.” “You win the big prize, Ilsa,” Chico explained. “Instead of a night out with the boys here you get a dream date with the master.” “The master? What master?” “The sea god,” Doofus told her. “He who brings fortune and misfortune. He that was dead but now lives.” “The big frog thing that used to sneak into the lighthouse?” the girl checked. That surprised the gang. While they were surprised Asil slammed her head backwards into Chico’s nose then stamped down to shatter his toes. As he howled she tossed him into Doofus then spun around to ruin the Puker’s prospects of ever committing sexual assaults again. Pinball pulled a bike chain and swung it. Asil dropped below its arc and scientifically slammed a one-two combination into his kidneys. A bright light shone down from the boardwalk. “All well, m’dear?” a plummy English voice called down. “Perfectly fine thank you, Sir Mumphrey,” answered Asil Ashling. “I think we have found the people we were looking for.” “Do you see this security pass?” Sir Mumphrey Wilton asked Chico Vasquez, leaning over the interrogation table to the battered lothario. “It authorises me to do anything I want. It’s a license to kill.” “You can’t do that, man.” Chico whined somewhat nasally. “This is America, man…” “I’m not American, sirrah. I’m not accountable to anybody. I’ve tortured men before and I’m very good at makin’ sure the injuries look accidental. And I’m losing patience with you, young fellah-me-lad.” Chico swallowed hard. “You don’t scare me,” he lied. Mumphrey nodded and sat back. “Very well then,” he said coldly. He reached for the pocketwatch on his waistcoat and fiddled with it. Chico screamed. Mumphrey had just sent his epidermis half a second into the future, enough for the prisoner’s raw flesh to be unprotected for one nerve-searing moment. “Do I scare you yet, you blaggard?” Sir Mumphrey asked him darkly. “Are you okay, Darren?” Erin Jarrold asked her husband. “Bad day at the office?” “It’s always a bad day at the office,” Willingham’s public health inspector growled, tossing his briefcase on the chair and heading straight foe the shower. The oppressive heat just wouldn’t let up. “Every day with the flaming Mayor…” “What’s he done now?” Erin sighed, struggling on with her ironing. It was too warm to do something like this, but Darren would need a shirt for tomorrow’s big event. “I tried to tell him about the temporary staging out on the pier. I tried to tell him we didn’t have enough people on crowd control. I told him those giant speakers will be too big and too close to the audience. The man just won’t listen. If he doesn’t make some changes before the founders ceremony tomorrow night I’m calling the State Department.” “Won’t that get you fired, Darren?” “Better me fired than dozens dead in some kind of accident.” Darren Jarrold turned the shower onto maximum power. The water pressure seemed kind of low today. The first tendrils of weed snaked their way out of the shower nozzle. “What the…?” the public health inspector frowned. Then the fronds from the drain twisted up and curled round his ankles. He opened his mouth to shout but the weed from above crammed down his throat. “Darren? What did you say?” Erin called. The seaweed replicated at an alarming rate, growing within him. He struggled inside the net of choking brown-green fibres that now filled the shower cubicle. The life-light died from his eyes just before the ribbons of weed burst out through his eyeballs. “Darren? Are you alright?” “I’m coming, dear,” the corpse in the shower promised his wife as he shambled out to silence her. The FounderFest had passed its safety inspection after all. The Yarmouth house was now the local museum, a restored period dwelling devoted to coastal history. For three dollars visitors to picturesque Willingham could browse through two floors of memorabilia from the village’s rich fishing past. There were nets and anchors, ships in bottles, even a feegee mermaid behind a dusty glass cover. And there were photos. “Sabine Yarmouth,” Asil read, tracing the writing beneath the old daguerreotype. “1868-1949. Is she the one…?” “Yes,” Sir Mumphrey told his amanuensis. “Poor girl. And that one’s her son, Enoch. One of her sons. Finally died in ’83.” “And now sixty years has passed, and Cassiopeia’s Chair is rising above the North Star again,” Asil noted. “Plus it’s the FounderFest celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of Willingham. And local thugs are out shopping for a virgin.” “Funny thing,” the old man answered, staring at the fishing charts and star maps preserved from the days when a compass and a light in the sky were the best navigation. “In myth, Cassiopeia was the Queen of Joppa – that’s Jaffa, Israel now. She boasted of her daughter’s beauty, calling her fairer than the Nereids, Poseidon’s daughters. So the sea-god sent his Kraken to devastate Jaffa until Andromeda was offered up to the monster in sacrifice.” “That’s not fair,” Asil protested. “Why not demand Cassiopeia instead?” “I suppose the Kraken must have fancied the daughter. Anyway, the hero Perseus defeated the villain using Medusa’s head and saved the maiden, what? Cassiopeia was turned to stone too. Poseidon put Cassiopeia amongst the stars, but because of her vanity her chair spins round the North Star so she rarely sits upright.” A young man with Harry Potter spectacles noticed there were visitors in the museum and hurried to greet them. “Sorry not to have spotted you. I was classifying the fishing logs and I… Oh, never mind. Welcome to the Yarmouth collection. Are you just browsing or can I help you with anything?” “You’d be the curator Mr Gedney, I presume,” Sir Mumphrey deduced, checking the earnest young man smiling ingratiatingly at Asil (lots of young men smiled ingratiatingly at Asil). “Any relation to Police Officer Gedney in the 1880’s?” Young Gedney perked up. “You know some local history? Officer Gedney was my great-grandfather. There’s a picture of him over by the…” “I saw it,” Mumphrey told him. “So he found a reason to stay in Willingham after all, what?” “Aren’t you young to be a curator of a museum, Mr Gedney?” Asil asked with a shy smile. “Well, to be honest it’s not much of a museum, but somebody has to look after it for old Molly Tillinghast, and I get to lodge in the attic while I’m finishing my masters’ thesis so…” “Miss Tillinghast who used to run a café down at the waterfront?” Mumphrey checked. “My goodness, you do know your history. Yes, Molly’s café was famous round here until she retired in the seventies. She sold up and endowed the Yarmouth museum and improved the old toll road and paid for the harbour improvements.” “She’s still around?” “In a retirement home up on the cliffs,” George Gedney answered. “She’s ninety-three now and she’s going a little strange. Well, stranger.” “Willingham has changed since I was last here as a young man,” Mumphrey admitted. “What happened to the Masonic Lodge?” “It was pulled down in the sixties,” Gedney said. “There’s a movieplex there now.” “And the lighthouse?” “In private ownership. It’s not been needed as a real lighthouse since the eighties and global positioning systems.” “Who owns it?” Asil wondered. “And is he an anagram of Nyalurkhotep?” “What?” Gedney didn’t get the reference. “It’s a foreigner. A Mr Bogdan Vladivock. We don’t see much of him.” “Hmph,” responded the eccentric Englishman. “And the Yarmouths?” “The line died out,” the curator replied. “Nearest relative would be old Harker Crane, the guy behind the FounderFest committee.” “Is that so?” mused Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Fascinating.” “The three acolytes we sent out have not returned, master. They are young and unreliable. Already I have set the Withering upon them. They will regret their laxity in their last screaming moments.” “They are not important. All things are coming together. Jarrold will trouble us no more. My old enemy has returned.” “Enemy? You can’t mean the men who shot you a hundred and twenty years ago?” “One of those is well dead, but the other stands outside time, and he has returned. He has struck twice at my plans, but tonight the stars are right for revenge. You will bring his companion to me. She will be the means of my return, and my enemy shall hear her screams.” “As you wish. It’s going to be an interesting closing ceremony for the FounderFest tonight.” “Interesting indeed, my ally. All in this forsaken town shall perish save those who have cleaved to me, and nothing shall be left come the morn save a barren lifeless rock where once this pathetic habitation cowered.” “And then your blessings on the few who remained? My own reward?” “As you say. But first my enemy must fall, dying and damned, and I must embrace the maiden to rise anew.” “It shall be done,” the mayor of Willingham promised his sea god. The Willingham lighthouse was more weathered and sea-battered than Mumphrey remembered it. The eccentric Englishman picked his was across the crumbling causeway. The tide was low just now, revealing the grey shingle shore. By the time the finale of the FounderFest took place tonight there would be another spring tide, highest water of the year. The railing along the causeway was broken, and some of the flagstone slabs were missing from the path. No light came from the old tower. The whole place seemed abandoned. Mumphrey reached the rusty iron door of the lighthouse. He didn’t bother to knock, he just shifted the portal half a minute forwards and stepped through the gap. The interior had a fusty, mouldy stench. The entrance lobby was cluttered with old lobster cages and rotting nets. Beyond that each of the ground floor rooms was piled with rotting furniture and mothy rags. Mumphrey sought the little trapdoor into the lighthouse’s cellar. He needed to shift furniture out of time to reach it, and then move the trapdoor itself. The chamber below was danker than he remembered, with salt marks on the walls showing tidal incursion. The doorway to the secret stair was bricked closed. “Hmph,” the investigator muttered to himself. He used the Chronometer to discover when the wall had been put in place: July 1945. Captain Fleetwood’s work, Mumph guessed. Something stirred in the darkness. Mumphrey span round, fumbling for his service revolver. A glimmering shape of a man in Colonial clothes flickered across his vision for a moment then was gone. “Time ghosts,” frowned the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity worriedly. This was indeed a soft spot between worlds. He decided not to release more chronal energy in the area to feed the instabilities. He needed to find another way to the underground caves. “I remember Sir Mumphrey,” Molly Tillinghast smiled reminiscently. Her skin was almost translucent with age, and her hands couldn’t stop shaking. “And Madge. Madge was lovely.” “Do you remember why he came to Willingham?” Asil asked the old lady carefully. “War work, wasn’t it?” Molly recalled. “Her mind wanders sometimes,” George Gedney warned Asil. “She’s confused. Sir Mumphrey’s not that old.” Asil shushed the young man who had insisted on accompanying her. “Well he’s back, Molly,” she told the old lady. “And he needs your help again. What do you know about Harker Crane and the FounderFest?” “He wanted me to make a contribution,” Molly answered. “To commemorate when the first settlers came here. I said we shouldn’t be celebrating those people coming just to die of disease and starvation. Or of the poor souls who were shipwrecked on this shore later when almost all of them died as well.” “It’s a tribute to the pioneer spirit, Miss Tillinghast” Gedney argued gently. “When I was a girl Enoch Yarmouth told me the survivors only survived by eating the dead, and maybe by eating their own children too,” Molly countered. “I don’t think much of that kind of pioneering. Anyway, I told Harker he’d have to have his celebration without me. He didn’t like that very much.” “I can imagine,” Gedney told Asil. “He has a temper on him, old man Crane does. He wanted to borrow some old things from the museum, old sailing things and scrimshaw carved by the settlers and stuff. In the end he made such a fearful fuss I had to let him have them.” Asil didn’t like the sound of that. “What did he want them for?” “For the ceremony tonight.” George Gedney was surprised by the young woman’s reaction. “What did I say?” Willingham First Pentecostal Church was a white wooden structure up on the road out of town. Pastor Clark had been there for three years, struggling with diminishing congregations and rising parish debt. But Willingham was a quiet resort town and the minister had never had any trouble until today. He didn’t like the look of the two young punks hovering near the poor box. “What do you want?” he demanded as he left his vestry and found them in the church. The youths were rather dishevelled and dirty. They had bloodshot eyes and a slack-jawed look that made Daniel Clark wonder if they were on drugs. Too many of the unemployed youngsters here in Willingham had become hooked on narcotics. “Well?” the pastor demanded. It was the first time he’d felt nervous in his own church. He started to sweat from more than the scorching dry heat of the summer day. “You aren’t welcome here,” one of the intruders said in a dull, slurred voice. “Your god isn’t welcome here.” “This isn’t his place,” said the second, shuffling forward. Daniel Clark started to retreat back to the parish office where there was a telephone to dial 911. The intruders opened their mouths, their jaws hinging impossibly wide, and streamers of stinking black seaweed ribboned out to entangle the fleeing pastor. “There is only one god in Willingham,” one of the dead youths told the clergyman as he was choked to death. “And he is returned.” “All the old ways to the cave are blocked,” Mumphrey noted as he and Asil watched the townsfolk erect the platform at the end of the pier. “Perhaps they’re not up to what we thing they are?” Asil speculated. “We have the confession of those three hoodlums,” her employer reminded her. “Good thing we spoke to ‘em last night, by the way. All three were admitted to the sick bay this mornin’ with unidentified wasting sickness.” “That Sea God’s planning his big return then? Tonight?” “Quite possibly m’dear. Young Harper’s usually not far wrong on his stellar calculations, and the Shoggoth said the stars were right.” “Shouldn’t we have brought the Lair Legion, then?” Asil worried. “I mean, in case…” Mumphrey shook his head. “Bringin’ the Manga Shoggoth or a Probability Dancer or a pure thought bein’ into this kind of potent situation might be quite disastrous, what? No, Xander said it was best we dealt with this by ourselves.” “I don’t trust Xander the Improbable,” Asil admitted. “Well I do. More than he trusts himself, possibly. Anyhow, here we are, on the eve of the big celebration, in a place that’s ‘soft’ on a cosmic alignment. Should be an interesting evenin’!” Harker Crane smiled at the reporter. “The idea? I suppose it was something all of us wanted – all of us true residents of Willingham that is.” The old man with the long mane of silvery hair turned from his desk in the Mayor’s Office and looked out of the window at the bay below. “We have so much to be thankful for here in our little village. It only seemed right to want to give something back.” Sandra Blair checked the next question on her list. “There are those who object to the expense of the FounderFest,” she ventured. “You’ll always find somebody who doesn’t share the vision,” Crane answered dismissively. “We’ve had such trouble-causers before and we know how to deal with them by now. You’ll see our answer to our critics at the big dedication ceremony tonight.” The young reporter was puzzled. “What are you dedicating?” “Ourselves, I suppose,” the old Mayor smiled thinly. “We celebrate the best of our past and dedicate ourselves to a shining new future.” He looked across at the smart young city woman with her hand-held tape recorder. “Were you expecting to be at the final ceremony, Miss Blair?” “Sure,” the girl agreed. “You never know…” A hick village party wasn’t much of a story, but perhaps somebody would be indiscreet. “I don’t suppose that you’re a virgin, by any chance?” That jerked the reporter out of her boredom. Had the Mayor of Willingham just propositioned her on tape? “I beg your pardon?” “No, I don’t think you are,” Crane sighed, leaning forward. “And it’s too late to beg, Miss Crane.” “You get off me!” she objected as the old man reached parchment-pale hands towards her. “This is harassment.” “No. This is slaughter,” the mayor contradicted her. He opened his mouth and long leathery strands of seaweed erupted from this throat to wrap themselves around the screaming woman. Dozens of the flailing tendrils muffled her noise, then her breath. Crane waited until her struggled had ended then sucked his master’s gift back inside him. These days the kraken weed was all that kept his ancient body going. He looked almost sadly down at poor suffocated Sandra Blair. “No, I’m afraid you’re not a virgin,” he told her. He reached down and started to undress her corpse. “Still, waste not want not,” he observed with a happy little cackle. Mumphrey returned to his room at the Crown and Anchor, a waterfront public house in the English style. He had a shave, changed his collar and cuffs, then settled down to strip his Webley and make sure everything was ready to interfere with the big event tonight. He might have wished to make more progress with his investigation before the final showdown but… An unpleasant thought occurred to him: But it was as if I was expected, and somebody had taken steps… “To look for your coming. Yes.” Mumphrey span around to find the sea god standing in the bathroom doorway. He was tall and handsome, his green skin and darker green hair dappled with reflected light from other worlds. Only the fronds of weed that lapped around him and a certain batrachian scalyness beneath his eyes betrayed the false façade of the being. “Hmph. Looking a damned sight heather than when I left you last time,” the eccentric Englishman noted. His revolver was still in pieces on the table. “When we first met I was a broken idiot, my mind destroyed by my injuries,” the merman told him. “And of course, when my mind’s essence was restored by my offspring I was hardly in a state to deal with you then.” “But now you’re ready for a try, what?” Mumphrey surmised, reaching for his pocketwatch. Knots of weed that were behind him wrapped round his arms and wrenched them away from his Chronometer. “Yes,” agreed the sea god. “Now I am restored to the height of my abilities. Now I am ready for my triumphant return. Now I am many times more intelligent than any human, even one who holds a minor office in the current cosmology.” He wrenched Mumphrey’s arms back hard. “Every mortal in this town will die tonight, save those few who have remained faithful to the old ways I taught them. A great tidal wave will claim all who revel here, and I shall feed on their lives and souls.” “And who’ll pander to your mad lusts after that?” the eccentric Englishman snorted. “There’s another town up the coast,” the merman suggested. “I think they call it Parodopolis.” “And I thought you claimed intelligence,” scorned Mumphrey. “Not just intelligence,” the sea-god answered. “Malice too.” He flexed the weed-strands binding his captive. “You may begin screaming now.” George Gedney had known terror, but nothing like this. His hand trembled and he was drenched in sweat as he reached out and knocked on the door. He grappled with the blind panic that threatened to overwhelm him. Asil’s hotel room door opened. “Miss A-ashling, I was wonderingifyou’dcomewithmetoFounderFest,” George gabbled before his nerve completely evaporated. “If you want to,” he added. “I’d quite understand if you’d prefer not to. Really.” The thug in the doorframe looked at him with mild confusion. “What?” George blinked and actually focussed on the scene before him. Asil lay on the floor with two rough-looking punks strapping her hands behind her back. Her eyes were open but she didn’t seem to be looking at anything, as if she was drugged. The third assailant stood in the door before him. There was a cleaner’s cart by the door. George had grabbed the mop and hit the thug in front of him with it before he realised what he was doing. “Don’t worry, Asil!” he shouted. “I’ll save you!” The first youth went down hard but the other two abandoned their captive and sprang forward to wrench the mop away and hammer the curator to the ground. Asil blinked and realised what was happening. She felt her strapped wrists behind her, and without any conscious thought used her ability to change age to become five years old and slip from her bonds. Then she resumed her usual age and called to the thugs. “Hey!” “She’s free!” one of the attackers shouted. He turned away from a bloody-faced George Gedney and pointed to Sir Mumphrey’s amanuensis. “Get the Siren Box again!” Asil remembered the strange carved music box that had lulled her to stupor before and kicked it from the thug’s hand so it span to the corner of the room. Then she finished the fight with four well-considered karate blows. Then she leaned over to help the battered George to his feet. “What…? What just happened?” he gasped, wiping his bleeding nose. “We need to call the police!” “The police can’t help us now,” Asil frowned, stepping over the fallen thugs onto the landing. She hammered at the door opposite. “Sir Mumphrey!” Mumphrey Wilton was not there. There wasn’t a breath of wind. The night was hot and heavy, and the vendors on the boardwalk looked out to sea where dark low clouds on the horizon predicted a coming storm. They only hoped the weather wouldn’t break before the FounderFest was completed. The anniversary had been the best tourist event the quiet old village had ever seen. Not only had people come to spend their money around the bay but many former residents had come back for the event. There was a real sense of anticipation for the final ceremonies and it would be a shame if foul weather interrupted whatever the Mayor had got planned to top off the event. The actual content of the finale was a closely guarded secret. A great platform had been erected at the end of the pier, and there were massive speakers lashed to the sides of the podium. Some people were speculating on a surprise guest appearance by Michael Jackson. But whatever it was, almost every man woman or child in Willingham was gathered at the harbour as the sun went down. Bogdan Vladivock was the exception. The new owner of the Willingham Lighthouse was content to stay within its thick sturdy walls and wait to exploit the dimensional interface event that was to come for his own private purposes. It was enough that as Necromancer General he had introduced the risen Sea God to old Mayor Crane in the first place. Vladivock had spoken with the merman earlier, and he was now satisfied that everything was going according to the Sea God’s plan. As hot night fell the harbour was illuminated with strings of colourful lights; but none of the bulbs cast anything but shadows beneath the boardwalk, where the rising tide washed clumps of old weed and rotten detritus; waiting. Asil and George pushed forward through the seething crowd as the ceremony kicked off with a rendition of some old sea shanties: To the mast nail our flag it is dark as the grave, Or the death which it bears while it sweeps o'er the wave; Let our deck clear for action, our guns be prepared; Be the boarding-axe sharpened, the scimitar bared: Set the canisters ready, and then bring to me, For the last of my duties, the powder-room key. It shall never be lowered, the black flag we bear; If the sea be denied us, we sweep through the air. Unshared have we left our last victory's prey; It is mine to divide it, and yours to obey… “Catchy,” muttered Asil. “Come on, we need to find Sir Mumphrey.” “Your boss doesn’t seem to be here, Miss Ash… Asil. Perhaps he was taken ill?” “No,” the determined young woman insisted, pushing through the throng. “He wouldn’t just go off and leave his pocketwatch behind.” Asil knew the contingency that thrust the Chronometer of Infinity a short way into the future if it was captured by enemy hands. That was the best explanation of why Mumphrey was missing and his timepiece lay abandoned on his bedroom floor. “I can’t get through to the La… to our friends at home, either,” Asil pointed out. “All the land lines are down and I can’t reach them with my comm-card.” “Maybe the mobile phone node is busy,” George suggested. “My… mobile phone is a bit more sophisticated than that. But it’s being jammed somehow. We have to find Sir Mumphrey ourselves. He’s depending on us.” George followed after his almost-date with a worried frown. “You seem very fond of your um, your employer,” he noted. “You’re his… secretary?” “Amanuensis,” Asil answered absently. “So you act as his diarist and appointment maker and general facilitator,” George replied, earning himself an amazed look from Asil who had never met anybody who actually knew what her job title meant before. “Yes. Very good.” “And that’s… all? I mean…” “Yes?” “That’s all you have to… to do for him, is it?” “Of course not.” “Ah.” “I have to maintain team activity rosters, file reports with the various agencies after missions, liase with the insurance companies and concerned civilians, make sure things are still ticking over with Wilton Industries back in England, and make sure Flapjack uses Earl Grey tea not ‘abominable American muck’. Why?” “Nothing. I beg your pardon. Just… just curious. You seem… very young for such a responsible job.” Asil shrugged. “I’m almost seven now,” she answered. “Now take me over to that stall and buy me one of those traditional beeswax candles.” Some fight, 'tie for riches some fight, 'tie for fame: The first I despise, and the last is a name. I fight, 'tie for vengeance! I love to see flow, At the stroke of my sabre, the life of my foe. I strike for the memory of long-vanished prearm; I only shed blood where another shed tears. I come, as the lightning comes red from above, O'er the race that I loathe, to the battle I love. The pirate shanty came to a discordant halt. A sea wind had sprung up, bringing a salty tang to the air. In the stifling heat nobody objected. Mayor Harker Crane watched the ceremony from the canvas frame that had been erected for local dignitaries and smiled at the special guest his deity had given him. “Keep watching,” he told Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “The good part is still to come.” The eccentric Englishman didn’t speak any answer, but the weed in his throat jerked so he nodded his head in a parody of agreement. The kraken weed inside his body flexed and twisted as it made itself comfortable in its new home. To be concluded The pirate sea-shanty is traditional. The full text is available online at http://www.vleonica.com/song.htm The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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