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Post By Nasty things content warning from... the Hooded Hood Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:16:38 pm EST |
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#259: Untold Tales of Sir Mumphrey Wilton: Nothing Stays Buried Forever | |
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#259: Untold Tales of Sir Mumphrey Wilton: Nothing Stays Buried Forever Content Warning: This chapter contains unpleasant events and descriptions not suitable for minors or readers who are easily upset.The gravestone was shattered into fragments. The grave itself was torn apart, turf and chippings and dirt hurled everywhere. The mahogany coffin was matchwood. The bones interred inside it were gone. The Manga Shoggoth picked up the largest remaining piece of memorial. It had the letters ARJOR carved on it, and beneath them ELOVED. He mused on the transient nature of mortals and the way they allowed their emotional ties flutter away through timespace long after the chemical reaction of life had passed into other kinds of energy exchanges. He wondered if Sir Mumphrey Wilton missed his wife of forty years the way the Shoggoth missed his high priestess Brigit. Chief Inspector Gallowglass was at the crime scene, talking to his old friend Mumphrey. “We placed the outrage between 9.15pm and 11.25,” he recounted. “Somebody came prepared, and they were specific. We’re analysing samples now.” “Semen samples,” the eccentric Englishman said, with a controlled calm. “On the remaining bones of my wife.” “And urine in the grave soil,” Gallowglass winced. “So far we can’t get a DNA match.” “We don’t need one,” snarled Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Clear the area please, George. I need to conduct some investigations of my own.” “Ah. Right you are.” The Inspector herded his officers back to the incident van as the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity pulled out his temporal pocketwatch. “You intend to replay time to view the incident that occurred,” the Shoggoth understood. “Yes,” Mumphrey answered tersely. “This will not further injure your psychological wellbeing to watch the events of the unpleasantness?” Mumphrey thumbed the studs of his timepiece. Images flickered around the grave like a video in reverse. Then things fuzzed for a while. Mumphrey scowled. “Should that happen?” “No,” the eccentric Englishman admitted; but then the images cleared again as the pocketwatch showed them 10.04pm Greenwich Mean Time the night before. Mumphrey recognised the perpetrator at once. “Erskine Black.” “You have met this person before?” the Shoggoth asked as they watched the man desecrating Marjorie Wilton’s grave. “I buried him.” It was New Year’s Eve 1871. Mumphrey remembered it because it was his first visit to Balmoral Castle, for Queen Victoria’s lavish Hogmanay celebrations. It was the one time of year that the widowed monarch of the British Empire doffed her gloom and entered into the festivities. It was also the last time that Captain Mumphrey Wilton saw his sister happy. “Maddie!” he called out, seeing her retiring from the dance floor flushed and excited by the Scottish reel that had just finished. Her husband of six months led her back to her brother and the two of them clasped hands. “Mumph, you made it,” grinned Lady Madeline Tankersely. “I’m so pleased!” “There was no question whether he’d be invited,” Sir Matthew Tankersley told her. “Not after that bit of work your brother put in in Ruritania. Remarkable bit of effort from what I hear.” “Just lucky, that’s all,” Captain Wilton demurred. He felt guilty taking the credit when he’d had the advantage of his newly-acquired temporal pocketwatch. His fingers automatically searched out the weight of it, hanging on a fob chain between his waistcoat pockets. He had been Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity for just six months, since he had seized the office from Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity. It was all still new to him. “So what’s the next triumph?” Maddy asked her brother. “Or is Mr Gladstone giving you a little time off after your exertions?” Mumphrey was still getting used to being known to the Prime Minister. “Time off,” he answered. “The stories of what happened in that mad Frenchie’s prison pit are very exaggerated.” “’Nuff said, old chap,” smiled Sir Matthew. “But look here. If you’ve got a few months goin’ spare then we could use another hand for a little trip we’re aiming at. If you don’t mind chasing chimeras, that is.” Mumphrey glanced over at his archaeologist friend. The man had a knack for finding interesting sites – and trouble. “Oh do join us all, Mumphrey,” Maddie urged. “We’re going off to find the Fountain of Youth!” “Really?” Captain Wilton asked indulgently. “And will we just be tracking Ponce de Léon to Bimini or shall we be buying tickets for a train ride to the moon?” “We’ll be following some clues in some ancient manuscripts I turned up,” Sir Matthew Tankersley explained, “and with the help of some remarkable documents turned up by my business partner in all of this. Mumphrey, Commander Black says he knows you of old.” And Mumphrey Wilton turned and stared into the handsome smiling face of the bully who had made his schooldays hell. “He murdered my sister,” Mumphrey said tersely. “I buried him alive. In 1872.” “It seems remarkable that he is here then, given you humans unaccountable habits of following linear chronology and allowing your biosystems to atrophy in temporal dimensions.” “He found the Fountain of Immortality,” Mumph explained. “Can’t be killed. But he can be buried, the bastard. I wanted him to rot forever.” “He seems not to be rotting just now.” The Shoggoth examined the handsome saturnine face that was grinning at his work. “He seemed to be aware that he would be watched. He knew that you would use your instrument to monitor his actions.” “That’s Black for you. He was a bully when I fagged for him at Eton and he’s a bully today. Yes, he knew what he was doing. He’s provoking me.” A frown furrowed the eccentric Englishman’s face. “What’s that?” The Shoggoth watched the temporal image bring out a strange crystal and hold it up towards his unseen future observers. “It looks like a shard of pure narrative, of the kind that the Shaper of Worlds might use to commence an Event,” he hazarded. “But all such accoutrements were lost to Jury when…” “When her workshop was captured by the Parody Master,” Mumphrey concluded. Black snapped the crystal and the temporal replay dissolved into fuzz. “He’s usin’ that crystal to cover his tracks, prevent me following his chronal echo! The blaggard!” “This Black entity seems remarkably prepared,” observed the Shoggoth. “Yes,” Mumphrey frowned. “Tell Gallowglass to just have a car go round and check on my family in Islington, would you? I’ll ask Hallie to see how Roland’s doing on the American West Coast.” Before he could activate the slim device, Mumphrey’s commcard beeped. “Good morning, old bean!” Commander Black said over the Lair Legion secure frequency. “Long time no chat, what?” “Black. You’re going to wish you’d never crawled out of that coffin.” There was a deep evil chuckle. “Oh, but I’m so enjoying my new life in this delicious, decadent, innocent new world. I’ve so much to catch up on. I’ve already paid my respects to your lovely wife. Now I’m getting to know your daughter and grand-daughter.” Mumphrey’s face drained of all colour. “Felicity,” he said. “Samantha.” “Yes. Felicity and Samantha. Would you like to talk with them? I’ll put them on.” Another voice came over the card. “Dadddyyy!!!” came the scream. “He’s hurting me!” “Hold on,” Mumphrey called, turning to run. “Hold on, darling.” “Dadddeeeee!” It was the scream of a woman terrified out of her mind, desperately calling to the one man who’d always kept her safe. “Those temporal defences you had on her were very clever,” Black noted conversationally. “Good job I had these little crystal things to over-ride your power, what?” Mumphrey was already half way up towards Wilton Manor. “It will take me a while to inscribe a chymeric gate to the location of the radio transmissions,” warned the Shoggoth. “Dadddeeee!!” That was Felicity’s last coherent cry. The rest were just screams. Then bubbling rasps. “Oh, it’s nice to get to know the women of your family again, Mumphrey,” Erskine Black chuckled. “Best give that my full attention for a while, don’t you think? We’ll chat later. Toodle-pip!” “Do you ever think back?” Erskine Black wondered, “To those Eton days? To those long happy hours you spent roasting in front of the fire, trying not to blub? To the thrashing when you wouldn’t lick my boots clean?” Mumphrey tried to climb out of the pit but the walls were too sandy. His fingers kept pulling loose. “Let me out of this pit and we’ll see about thrashing!” the eccentric Englishman promised. “Erskine, for God’s sake,” called Sir Matthew. “What are you doing? We found the stone key to the Cloistrum and handed it up. Let us out!” “So we can all share the Fountain of Immortality together? I think not. You see, immortality is not enough. I need to be rich and powerful too, otherwise what’s the point?” “He’s a rogue and a bounder,” Mumphrey pointed out. “Ignore him. We’ll find a way out of here.” “Perhaps with this?” suggested Commander Black, dangling Mumphrey’s pocketwatch over the edge of the steep shaft his companions were trapped in. An older, more experienced user of the Chronometer of Infinity might have been able to make a thief regret such gloating, but Captain Wilton had been Keeper less than a year. He had much still to learn. “Do you know how I got it, Mumphrey?” “Thieving, I imagine. There’s nothing I wouldn’t put past you.” “Your sister stole it for me,” Black smirked. “Pretty Maddie. She’d do anything for me.” He leered at Sir Matthew. “She has.” “What do you mean?” demanded Matthew Tankersley. “What have you done with my wife?” “Pretty much everything,” the Commander boasted. “Well, I’m working towards the exotic stuff now. She’s accepting the strap but there are plenty of other experiences she’s still to endure.” Mumphrey held Tankersley back as he tried to storm up the wall of the pit. “Hold steady, Matt. You’ll have the whole place down on us.” “Ingenious little thing,” Black noted. “The watch, I mean. Maddie’s not that imaginative. I’ve had better. But when you two are lost in a tragic exploring accident she’s going to make a very rich widow.” He gestured with the timepiece. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me how this works, Mumph old man?” “I’ll see you in hell.” “Doubt it. I’m about to take a nice cool swig of these waters of immortality before the charges I’ve set around the Cloistrum go boom. I’ll live forever. You die today.” “Black!” shouted Mumphrey. “I’ll give your love to Maddie of course. While I’m comforting her. Maybe with the help of the field porters.” “Black!!” screamed Tankersley. The Commander kicked a little dust down on the two and went off to become immortal. Mumphrey hadn’t run straight to Islington where the Featherstone household occupied a refurbished Edwardian townhouse. He’d gone to the study at Wilton Manor and opened the safe that required the ability to turn tumblers in four dimensions. Even the Shoggoth was impressed with the precautions. Inside the safe were three items. The Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity carefully unpacked them and donned them: the Fountain Pen of Causality, which could separate off timelines; the Cane of Destiny that amplified the range of the Chonometer exponentially, and the Inverness Cape of Singularity which powered it far beyond the norms it operated at on background temporal charge. Then Mumphrey stopped time across the planet while he travelled to Islington with the Shoggoth. His comm-card impossibly beeped as the vintage Rolls Royce pulled up beneath the portico of the townhouse. “What?” snapped the eccentric Englishman. “Got to the house in less than fifteen minutes. Impressive,” said Commander Black. “Of course, if I hadn’t factored in your abilities as a cosmic office holder this wouldn’t be a very good revenge scenario, would it?” Mumphrey already knew Black had access to the Shaper’s narrative blocks, and the Shaper’s power was sufficient to over-ride anything he could do even with the expanded capacity of his additional gear. He ignored Black and raced into the house, shifting the door ahead in time to allow him ease of access. “And I’d be far more stupid still if I’d actually been torturing your daughter while I was transmitting,” Black added. “The recording devices and other gadgets they have in this twenty-first century are quite jolly, aren’t they?” Mumphrey had already found the crucified remains of his daughter and son in law. The missing pieces of them were nailed to the other walls for display purposes. Erskine Black became bored of the attentions of the Nubian woman who was sprawled over him and slapped her away with a blow to the cheek. “Later,” he told her. “Go back to your cage until I call for you.” He sat up and smelled the African night. Something was wrong. He quietly pulled out the Adams .45 from under the cushions of his tent bed. He was ready and waiting when Sir Mumphrey Wilton sliced his way through the back of the silk pavilion and slipped inside. The eccentric Englishman stiffened and froze as Black cocked a revolver beside his ear. “Well here’s a surprise,” the Commander admitted. “I thought I’d seen the last of you when the Cloistrum blew. Care to tell me how you survived?” “No.” “Ah. Yes. Stiff upper lip. Always was your problem, Mumphrey.” “Bein’ a bastard not fit to live on God’s clean earth was always yours, Black.” “How about you tell me how you got out and I’ll tell you where Maddie is? I know you couldn’t have used that magic pocketwatch thingie of yours, because it’s still locked over there in my trunk.” That’s how the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity had found Black. The Keeper could always locate the timepiece. But Black didn’t need to know about the desperate two days spent clawing their way out of the collapsed pit, the tortuous two weeks in dangerous jungle, the long arduous trail to catch up with him. “I know where Maddie is,” Mumphrey rasped hoarsely. “We found the traders you sold her to. By the time we got to her she’d taken her own life. We could do nothing but avenge her.” “We?” Black glanced around. “We? Don’t say dear old Matthew got out as well, did he? And where’s hubby?” “Right here, you swine!” Sir Matthew Tankersley called out, appearing at the tent flap, rifle up. He shot Erskine Black dead through the heart. And Black healed up. And then he shot Tankersley between the eyes. “Forgot that I’m immortal, did you old chap? Shame you’re not, what? But damn, that stings.” In his elation he’d forgotten than Mumphrey Wilton was beside him. Mumphrey hammered the weapon from Black’s hand and went in with fists, slamming roundhouse blows at the blaggard’s head and chest. “Oh, fisticuffs is it?” Black laughed. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten all those beating I’ve given you over the years? Perhaps you need to be reminded?” “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’m not a small boy now, or a helpless woman,” Mumphrey growled. “Perhaps you need reminding.” “Nothing you do can even hurt me,” boasted Commander Black. “Let’s see,” offered Mumphrey, balling his fists; and he went to work. Felicity Featherstone had died hard, pegged out across her living room hall where should could watch the mutual torture of her husband. The destruction of the domestic staff and the family pets was almost incidental. A goldfish was absurdly nailed to the plaster beside Felicity’s head. The Chronometer of Infinity determined that she’d been dead exactly twelve hours, eleven minutes, twenty-three seconds. She’d lived long enough to see everyone else die first. Black had made sure of that. The Shoggoth watched Mumphrey stumble around the room like a blind man and was unsure what to do next. So he pulled his own comm-card out of the long raincoat he’d oozed into and called in. “This is the Shoggoth. Things are bad here.” “What’s the problem?” It was Hatman, acting leader of the Lair Legion in Mumphrey’s absence. “This communications method has been compromised,” the elder being warned. “An enemy has used it to speak with Sir Mumphrey.” “Hallie’s offline just now,” Jay Boaz explained. “Confined. The firewalls aren’t very strong.” “I imagine our enemy must be associated with the people who enslaved Amber,” the Shoggoth deduced. “That would explain how they were able to unscramble our communications. I will give it some thought. But that is not why I am calling.” “Then what?” The Shoggoth’s tone was always ominous, but something in it now made Hatman shudder. “Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s daughter and son-in-law have been assaulted. They have been tortured. They have been murdered.” “They… Murdered?” Hatman was horrified. “Okay, hold on there. I’ll scramble an ops team and we’ll…” “No!” called Sir Mumphrey Wilton. He was almost supernaturally calm. “Mr Boaz, you’ll take charge for now. No operations team. Enemy wants us distracted here, lookin’ the wrong way. Carry on with your previous… activities. Send someone to keep an eye on my grand-daughter and on my son. Quickly. You know the rest.” “But…” “This changes nothing, Mr Boaz. I shall deal with my personal situations. Carry on. You know what’s required.” “But I’m not the person who should…” “Do it. Carry on, Jay. Just… carry on. Wilton out.” The commcard crackled again and suddenly Hatman’s voice was replaced with that or Erskine Black again. “You’re right, old thing. Looks like your communications have been compromised. They’re all wide open. A bit like your daughter. Would you like me to tell you where the missing bits of her are hidden round the house, or do you want the fun of findin’ out for yourself?” “Mumphrey, no. For God’s sake, no! Don’t do this!” “You murdered my sister just as surely as you killed Matthew Tankersley,” the grim-faced Captain Wilton told his captive. “You destroyed her for sport, and when you’d finished degrading her you sold her to white slavers.” “Well yes, but she wasn’t that brilliant a lay, you see. Eager at first, given her experiences with that dull stick of a husband of hers, but later she just whimpered a lot and … aaagh!” Mumphrey pulled his shovel out of Erskine Black’s stomach and went back to finishing the grave. “You can’t die,” he admitted. “Not since you betrayed us and stole waters from the Fountain of Immortality. But I can make you wish you had.” Black was alternating between bravo and coward. And he was terrified of the idea of being buried. “Look, I’m sorry, old chap. Things went too far. I can see that. I wasn’t thinking straight. But this is too much. I can pay you…” “Hmph,” snorted Mumphrey. “There’s nothing you can give me that’ll bring my sister and my friend back.” Even with the Chronometer of Infinity to replay Black’s shooting of Sir Matthew the same thing happened every time. Since Mumphrey hadn’t been holding the pocketwatch when Black fired there was nothing he could do to freeze the bullet in time or save his friend in any other way. He’d exhausted the instrument’s charge in trying. “But you’re a Christian chap, Mumphrey. We were at Eton together. You have to forgive your enemies! Please!” “I’m not that good a Christian, Black. I’d send you to hell if I could. This is the next best thing I can manage.” Black began to blubber and howl as the eccentric Englishman began to fill the grave he’d cut in the deserted cemetery once again. Wilton went on with implacable cold rage, spading the wet soil onto the shackled man in the six-foot shaft. Black’s last words, before the soil filled his mouth and choked off his breath, were, “This won’t hold me forever, you know, Wilton. Nothing can hold me forever. And I won’t forget. I’ll make you sorry! I’ll make you the sorriest worm who ever lived!” “I killed these two while you were being informed of my visit to your wife’s grave,” the Commander chuckled. “Remember what I promised you, that night in the graveyard?” “I remember.” “Go on, try and reverse time to save them.” Mumphrey was already dialling his watch, not to replay images but to actually peel back the events. Normally he was limited in range to a few minutes. Will all the instruments of his office he could do considerably more if he ignored the prohibitions set on him. Mumphrey wound back time right up to the point where Black had used another Shaper crystal to embed the torture and destruction of the Featherstones into immutable Parodyverse history. “No…” before he’d even set his instrument Mumphrey had guessed what his enemy had done, but he had to find out. Black had destroyed his family, slaughtered them. His daughter had screamed and pleaded for her father to save her, like he was supposed to, like he’d always promised her he would. And he hadn’t. “Whoops,” mocked Erskine Black. “Looks like there’s no way to undo that, old chap. Good job. I enjoyed your daughter almost as much as I enjoyed your sister.” He chuckled again. “But I saved the best till last. Listen to this…” And another voice came over the commcard. Wilton’s heart fell. “Grandpa? G-grandfather?” “Samantha.” There’d been a call to her school. A medical emergency, could Miss Featherstone go to her parents immediately? Samantha had been home. Samantha had been there when Black had done this to her parents. “Yes, Samantha,” gloated Black. “She’s a real beauty, isn’t she Mumph? We’re going to get along famously. And if you want to keep her alive, old chap, if you don’t want what happened to Felicity to seem like a blessing compared to what I do to her…” “Yes,” breathed the eccentric Englishman. “From now on, old boy… I own you.” Next: The unpleasantness continues as we see how Special Resolution 1066 and the Freedom and Patriot Act begins to bite. The spotlight’s on the baddies as we see just how bad things can get in Dark Decisions, or Thoughtcrime is Death. But that’s already been posted, so… Next after that: How does the rest of society view SR 1066? How can a whole world turn against the heroes that have saved them? How does Hatman cope with the pressures of leading the Lair Legion? What will Mumphrey choose when called on to save his grand-daughter by betraying his team? Find out in Choose Your Next Words Very Carefully, coming soon. Revenge is a Dish Best Served Footnoted Chief Inspector George Gallowglass is an old friend of Sir Mumphrey’s, like his father and grandfather before him. He’s a detective for the London Metropolitan Police based at New Scotland Yard. His first appearance was in The Journals of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract One, which was also Mumphrey’s own debut. Lady Marjorie Wilton died about seven years ago, leaving her husband Mumphrey grieving and at a loss until his recent revival of interest in adventuring with the Lair Legion. She and Mumphrey had two children, Felicity and Roland, and one grand-daughter Samantha. Commander Erskine Black, a bounder of the first order, was a few years senior to Mumphrey, which accounts for Mumphrey having to fag for him at Eton (a note for those who are unfamiliar with this term: fagging was a system common to public schools at the time by which younger boys were assigned to older students as personal batmen; a system open to gross abuse by a cruel older boy since they had to right to discipline their fag through corporal punishment). Commander Black’s escape from the grave is described in UT#240: Digging the Dirt. Samantha Featherstone, Mumphrey’s twelve-year-old granddaughter, visited the Lair Mansion and recorded her impressions in UT#230: Dear Diary, or Smiting the Ungodly On My Holidays. An Early Mumphrey Timeline: Mortimer Humphrey St George Wilton was born in 1848, as revealed in Follies of Youth #3. He spent his boyhood years at Eton College. Wilton met Erskine Black and Matthew Tankersley at school. Mumphrey joined the army sometime before his eighteenth birthday, in time to join Sir Robert Napier in the Abyssinian Campaign rescuing hostages from the mad king Tewodros II (1868), earning promotion to the rank of Captain. In 1871, Mumphrey became involved with a mystery uncovered by his sister and brother-in-law on their honeymoon in Greece, as revealed in UT#83: Secret Meetings and Illicit Liaisons, which culminated in him gaining the Chronometer of Infinity from Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity. Mumphrey stopped physically ageing at this point, remaining with the appearance of a twenty-three year old until well after World War II. Sometime after this and before New Year’s Eve, Mumphrey has some kind of adventure in Ruritania at the behest of Lord Gladstone, then the British Prime Minister. In 1872, Felicity became victim of Erskine Black, with the results described in this chapter. In the same year he did some service which earned him his first knighthood. Sometime between 1872 and 1878 Sir Mumphrey encountered and joined the League of Improbable Gentlemen. Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Character backgrounds at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Locations described at Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 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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