Posted by The Hooded Hood on June 28, 2001 at 11:50:18:
Part the Seventh: Lucius Faust and the Ghouls of Gothametropolis
It was foggy on the
ground at the old Gothametropolis airfield where Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Miss
Canterbury touched down on American soil. Mumphrey knew the old city from long
ago and was surprised to find how little had changed in its winding gothic
gaslit streets and rain-slicked alleys. The travellers took a cab right past
City Hall and over the Shelton Bay Bridge into Paradopolis. Miss Canterbury kicked off her shoes and settled at her writing desk in her
rooms at the Paradopolis Waldorf. She picked up pen and stared at the paper but
the words just wouldn’t come. Where to start? She hadn’t written any journal
entries since all this madness began. Since before her father was murdered by
that sinister, mind-bending Expediter. Since before she had been kidnapped,
tortured, rescued, captured, controlled, mystified, enlightened, captured again,
rescued, planewrecked, controlled again, rescued again and so much more. “You again?” Mumphrey noted as the old man in the quilted dressing gown
scuttled out of the shadows. “Where’s Faust?” In our next exciting episode:Mumphrey sees fairies, fairies see
opportunity, Dormaggadon sees a planet ripe for the conquering, and America sees
red.
Across the river
the newer city was a stark contrast. Here the streets were planned, straight and
wide on a grid system. Some of the old turn-of-the-century architecture had been
replaced with tall new buildings six or seven stories high, although the great
looming cathedral designed by Leyland Reed a century earlier still brooded over
the city like a guardian angel. Mumphrey paid the cab off outside the
Paradopolis Municipal Library and escorted his companion into the quiet warmth
of the great repository.
“I still don’t see why we’re here,” Miss Canterbury
admitted. “We should be in Tibet, following the directions in the Bertram diary
to find the Lost Temple before Wertham and his cronies can exploit its secrets
of the Third Reich.”
“The direct route’s not always the quickest,” Mumphrey
answered. “Besides, Blanchford was a wily old bugger, leaving the gate-openin’
directions in a second code, and I think it’s worth our time to get a second
opinion.”
Miss Canterbury looked around the library. “We came all this way to
look up a book?”
“Actually we came to look up a librarian,” Mumph replied,
leading the way downstairs to the stacks, where thousands of seldom-used books
rested in long silent rows in the windowless cellars. Down here the only light
was an occasional naked light-bulb hanging on twisted wire over seemingly
endless aisles. “We’re lookin’ for the Senior Librarian Emeritus, chap by the
name of Lucius Faust.”
Miss Canterbury hadn’t spotted the scholarly-looking
old man in the carpet slippers and shabby dressing gown whom Mumphrey was
addressing. The pale scholar looked over his half-moon glasses and pointed down
an aisle. “Turn left at the Forbidden Books and take the door opposite the
Non-Euclidean Poetry section.”
“So who is this Mr Faust?” Miss Canterbury
asked as they passed along the rows. She spoke more to break the oppressive
silence than for any other reason.
“He’s a sort of master of the mystic
crafts,” Mumph answered. “If you want to know anything about Lost Temples,
mystic gateways and whatnot, he’s your man.”
They found the door, found it
was locked, and found the note that had been left addressed to Mumphrey:
‘Gone to lunch. Go alone to the old watergate entrance of the Parodiopolis
Variety Theatre at midnight. Bring five pounds of best beef and a copy of
Dante’s Divine Comedy. LF’
“Well, Miss Canterbury,” Sir Mumphrey smiled.
“It seems we have time to get some dinner.”
What
could she possibly write to do justice to all of this? How could she say what
she had learned? That a man could control minds, had hypnotised her into
betraying her companion and giving away a secret race of talking apes? That
there really was a hidden temple with some sort of magic portal in it to a great
evil and a great power? That she was trotting round the world in the company of
an unageing adventurer with a time-bending pocketwatch and an improbable
moustache?
“What do I really know about him?” she thought. “He works for the
British government at some kind of war work. He has contacts all over the world
and he’s very well travelled. He has a magic watch.” She allowed herself a small
smile as she remembered dinner at the Starlight Ballroom. “He can waltz and
foxtrot very well indeed.”
‘Mumphrey’ she wrote, then crossed it out. Did it
really all come down to Mumphrey Wilton?
“It may very well do,” a voice
behind her said. Miss Canterbury swung round in panic only to find a
mild-looking man in a faded tweed suit sipping a cup of tea on the chaise
lounge.
“Were you never taught to knock?” the Englishwoman demanded.
“I
was trained to do it long ago,” Lucius Faust admitted, “but some doors are best
opened only cautiously. My card.”
“I thought you were meeting Sir Mumphrey at
the Variety Theatre just now?” Miss Canterbury puzzled, glancing at the carriage
clock which showed that it was almost midnight. “You left a note.”
“I never
said I’d be there,” Faust shrugged. “Only that Wilton should be. Besides, while
he’s solving one of my little problems I’m going to solve one of his.”
“And
what might that be, Mr Faust?”
“I rather thought you might like me to remove
the secret commands that the person you call the Expediter has put into your
brain, and to stop him monitoring you,” the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse
offered. “Your choice, of course.”
“If I knew that then I’d
be master of the mystic crafts,” the stranger replied. “As it is you can call me
Greye. The Abyssal Greye. Come this way. Did you bring the beef?”
“Yes. What
the devil is going on?”
The old man turned in the act of unlocking the
watergate which joined the Variety Theatre with the underground river below and
his eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness. “The devil is right, Sir Mumphrey.
Absolutely right. Now come on. We’re all very hungry.”
“We?” Mumphrey
checked, hoping that Greye was referring to the raw meat in the parcel.
“My
fellow academics and I. I trust you brought the replacement copy of Dante for
our library, only some fool got blood all over the old one.”
Mumphrey hurried
to keep up with the slippery old man who led him swiftly along old watercourses,
forgotten sewers, abandoned service ducts beneath the city. “Do you… do you live
down here?” he ventured nervously.
“Of course not,” came the reply. Just as
Mumphrey was relaxing Greye added, “These newfangled tunnels are much too modern
for us, and infested with those disgusting Morschlocks. We live like kings
beneath the rich warm soil of the Gothametropolis boneyard and conduct our
scholarly discussions in chambers which were old when humans first came to this
land.”
Sir Mumphrey drew to a halt. “Wait a moment,” he demanded. “Before we
go further I need to know a few things. Would you happen to be undead?”
The
Abyssal Greye turned back and peered at the Englishman in the near-darkness, and
his eyes had pale flickers within them. “Of course we are, Sir Mumphrey. I
suppose you might term us ghouls. We dwell beneath the old city that some of us
helped to found, holding our academic debates, writing our treatises, hoarding
the wisdom of ages.”
“And what have you done with Lucius Faust?”
“Well, we
had a pretty severe debate with him about the monophysite heresy rulings of the
Council of Chalcedon when he tried to question the Nestorian manifesto,” the
ghoul answered, “but on the whole we get on pretty well. We have a book exchange
programme going. That’s why we tipped him off to the ritual.”
“What
ritual?”
The withered old scholar in the ragged dressing gown grinned, and
for the first time showed his needle-sharp teeth. “Why, the summoning ritual
being performed by the Cult of Dormaggadon, of course,” he replied. “Why else do
you think we would ask to borrow a warrior?”