The Hooded Hood leads the narrative into the shadows
Wed Mar 02, 2005 at 04:54:29 am EST
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#203: Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Truth Is Appearance, But Appearance Isn't Always Truth#203: More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Four - What Man Was Not Meant To Know The Hooded Hood's Homepage of DoomCaphan Archive Page Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse It was raining in Arkham, that heavy Massachusetts rain that pounds straight down and drenches through clothes, bringing an Atlantic chill dragged straight from the Artic. The police officers huddled under tarps by the crime scene, sipping bitter coffee and watching as the debris was slowly shifted away. The Miscatonic University Peabody Library’s Henry Armitage wing was a mess, its back wall half demolished, a circular hole cut down into the foundations where the most valuable volumes were stored. Even now faculty staff and some out of state experts were staring down at the wreckage and trying to work out what had gone wrong. “It happened around 4.30am,” Professor Olivia Hastings told Ebony of Nubilia. “Somebody took out the electronic alarms with casual ease, we don’t yet know how, and then managed to bypass the more… outré defences.” The high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth was wrapped in a warm white fur of some creature that had been extinct for thirty thousand years. She glanced across at the young woman with her, an Asian girl who was the only person present not drenched by the storm. “Liu Xi?” she checked. “It wasn’t magic that was used to break in here,” the elementalist reported, touching the smooth edges of the melted stone. “This was some kind of high-technology laser beam, very hot, very efficient. That’s why the arcane wards didn’t do anything.” “This library is protected against all kinds of occult attack,” Lee Bookman noted, his face suffused with anger at the damage to irreplaceable volumes. “Nobody expected a supervillain assault.” “Although in retrospect I guess we should have,” Olivia admitted. “My friends and I have been doing the rounds of the usual cults and nutjobs to see if any of them might have hired some metahuman talent, but so far all we’ve got is claw wounds and some slime stains that don’t come off cotton very well.” “Do we know what they took?” Ebony asked, worried at the potential for trouble any number of mystic volumes stored at the Miscatonic might present. The Librarian concentrated for a few moments, his lips moving without sound as he used his gift to mentally catalogue every book in the vicinity. Then he scrambled over the debris to absorb the information in the scattered card index. “Just one volume,” he answered worriedly. “The Necronastycon, right?” a voice with a low-class London accent chimed in. “The Book of Rude Names?” Ebony of Nubilia whirled round. “Oh, just what we need,” she grimaced as she saw Con Johnstantine slouching against the shattered wall, cupping a hand-rolled cigarette inside his hand. “I thought I was going to kill you next time I saw you?” The impudent Englishman shrugged. “I can’t help that you’ve got a forgiving nature, darlin’. It’s one of your best features. Well, one of the best features you don’t have to wear the feather outfit to display anyhow.” Liu Xi looked uncertainly at the smirking stranger in the rumpled trenchcoat. “Who’s he?” she wondered. “And who’s his friend?” “He is Con Johnstantine, Hellraker,” Olivia Hastings introduced, finding it impossible to keep in a grin at seeing the trouble-causing occultist again. “And he’s a devil in the non-technical sense of the word.” Johnstantine turned to the figure with him in the archaic hooded travelling cloak. “And this is my good friend the Abyssal Greye, a scholar from Gothametropolis.” “He’s not alive,” Liu Xi warned. “He’s the Master of the ghoul enclave there,” Ebony noted. “Master in the academic sense,” Greye hastened to assure the young elementalist. “Or perhaps Dean would be a better term?” “I’ve heard of you, of course,” Olivia Hastings said, reaching forward to shake the ghoul’s scabby green hand. “Khrys speaks well of you. And so does Easten West.” “Please pass on my regards to your colleagues,” the Abyssal said with old world courtesy. “So are you still dating that reporter toyboy of yours, Olivia, or are you going to get smart and run away with me, luv?” Johnstantine asked the Professor, grinning outrageously. He leaned towards her and asked in a theatrical whisper, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a feathered bikini outfit, have you?” “Was there any point in you coming to Arkham?” asked Ebony of Nubilia coldly. “Apart from the usual being an irritation, I mean?” “We’re responding to the theft of the Necronastycon,” the Abyssal Greye replied worriedly. “After all, it was my fellows and I who originally laid the arcane wards here to protect the volume.” “It’s looking very much like that book was deliberately targeted,” the Librarian noted, still frowning at the wreckage. “The thief was smart enough to use scientific not magical means to steal it. And the theft was presumably because someone wished to use the Book of Rude Names for some nefarious occult purpose.” “Nefarious occult purposes are the only use for that bloody volume,” warned Johnstantine. “It’s bad?” Liu Xi worried. Johnstantine noticed the teenage elementalist for the first time and turned a winning smile on her. “Hello. Yeah, it’s bad. The Necronasticon is a book full of rituals for contacting Elder Beings.” “Like the Manga Shoggoth,” the girl suggested. “Exactly not like them,” Ebony winced. “You know that at the dawn of the Parodyverse, certain entities broke in and tried to subvert it, like a cuckoo laying its eggs in another bird’s nest? These completely alien creatures operate under different laws of physics and magics, and they warp reality round them to make it possible for them to exist. These are the Elder Gods, and there are some portions of history that no longer happened in which they ruled supreme. And they want to rule again.” “That is not dead which can eternal lie,” the Abyssal Greye warned. “Back in their day – when the stars were right – they ruled Earth and many other worlds. They created the Shoggoths as a slave race, servitors to build their great cities and keep control over their mortal chattels.” “The Shoggoths revolted,” Ebony pointed out. “They helped overthrow their former rulers, and cast them out from reality…” “Until somebody wakes ‘em up again,” Johnstantine pointed out. “Then it’s hello Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, Groper out of Grossness, hello Azafroth the Insane, hello Nyalurkotep, Herald of Degradation, hello Great K’Martu in his sunken mall of madness…” “I get it!” Liu Xi said quickly. She shuddered as her enhanced perceptions allowed her a tiny glimpse of the horror that might befall if the Englishman’s words came true. Her mind felt soiled just thinking about it. “Do you have a copy of the Necronasticon in your Library?” Olivia asked the Librarian. “You know… up there?” “It’s one of the forbidden books,” Lee Bookman answered primly. “We can’t copy it because it tends to subvert the drones, and then it tries to seduce other volumes in the repository and rewrite itself into them.” He glanced worriedly at the others. “It’s not a nice thing. We have to find it and get it back before someone uses it.” “It’s that dangerous?” Liu Xi asked. “Well, if someone who didn’t know what they were doin’ got their hands on it that would be pretty bad,” Johnstantine admitted. “Almost as bad as if someone who actually knew what they were doing got at it.” “I got it,” Vaahir told Petar Tyolanh, handing the stolen Book of Rude Names over to his mentor. “Just like you wanted.” “Thank you,” the man in black replied with a soft thin smile. “It’s just what I always wanted.” He ran thin pale fingers over the black stained cover of the iron-bound tome, and whispered, “Hello, old friend.” Next time: A number of people find out about Vaahir’s arrival; like Dan Drury, Mr Epitome, the Juniors, and nine green-skinned ex-slave girls. CrazySugarFreakBoy’s Arkham Cast, the Commedia dell’ Arte (scroll down) Some Background on Elder Beasties from the Shoggoth Archive 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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#203: More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Five – The Only Thing That Separates Us From the Animals Is Our Ability to Accessorise The Hooded Hood's Homepage of DoomCaphan Archive Page Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse This story takes place after Dancer’s tie-in story Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan Dancer Tie-In: “Do You Know What a Plie-Arabesque-Pirhouette Combination Can Do To a Man’s Groinal Regions?” and Visionary’s tie-in story Untold Tales of the Bounty Hunters. “Okay,” breathed Hallie, “I have something to tell you, and then I want you all to go quietly into your classroom and study your textbooks. I specifically don’t want you to break furniture, shout, or try to disturb the Lair Legion while they’re working, okay?” “Is something wrong?” woofed Glory, scenting the tension on the Lair Legion’s former artificial intelligence. “Is something wrong?” demanded Samantha Bonnington, Fashion Accessory. “Where’s Kerry?” “Has she been arrested?” Ham-Boy suddenly worried. “She’s in the Safe, isn’t she? She finally went and nuked Baroness Zemo!” Harlagaz Donarson considered this. “Tis a reasonable response,” he adjudged. “Mayhap a little impersonal.” “No, Kerry has not been arrested. Today,” Hallie told the Junior Lair Legion. “Kerry has been kidnapped.” “Not a problem,” Hacker Nine assured them. “I can easily hack into the Phi Gamma Kappa frathouse server, find out where she’s gone with them…” “Not by a college football team,” Hallie clarified, “by a Caphan slavelord.” “What?” the various Juniors shouted in unison. Except for Glory; she woofed “What?” “Kerry’s been claimed by a Caphan warlord called Vaahir. We don’t know much about it all yet, except that he zapped me with a neural dagger to paralyse me then carried Kerry away as a hostage.” “A hostage for what?” demanded FA, her perfect forehead wrinkling with anxiety for her friend. “Until Visionary fights him with the Caphan slave girls as the prize.” “Crap!” Ham-Boy swallowed. “She’s doomed. Er, I mean, we can’t use the Caphans as stakes like that, can we?” “Tis most unseemly to be taking of innocent hostages, or e’en of Kerry,” Harlagaz considered. “There’s more,” Hallie explained. “There’s a Caphan invasion fleet, and a lot of mercenary ships, heading through space towards us right now. It’s pretty serious.” “Then must we ready ourselves to smitheth yon raiders,” the demihemigod of thunder cried. “Tis a pity mine father hath confiscated the keys of yon goat chariot, but I sweareth the ding in yon fendereth wast already there ere ever I borrowed it.” “We need to help Kerry,” Glory whined. “The Caphans do not treat their slaves very well sometimes.” “We gotta get Kes out of there before those Caphans do something nasty to her,” Fashion Accessory cried. “Or before she happens to someone,” Ham-Boy added. “The Lair Legion are on to it,” Hallie assured the agitated young people. “Vizh is going to face Vaahir, but the rest of the team have tracked where his transmission was coming from so they’re going to launch a rescue while that cowardly little worm’s fighting.” “You mean Vaahir, right?” Hacker Nine checked. “Yes,” glared Hallie. “I mean Vaahir. We also have Amazing Guy heading for Caph to get additional information, and Sir Mumphrey’s meeting with SPUD and OPS to decide how to address the space armada problem.” “What’s he going to do?” Ham-Boy worried, “Sip tea at them?” “All you have to do is go into your classroom, sit quietly, and let us get on with the mission,” Hallie repeated firmly. And she stood in the hall until they had filed into class. Fashion Accessory shrugged and closed the door. “Right,” she said then, her body language changing from passive to Faster Pussycat Kill Kill. “So what do we do to get Kes back?” “We were instructed not to disturb the Lair Legion while they are working,” Glory noted, pawing her voice keyboard. “They won’t be involved at all,” FA promised. “Just like we were told. And we’re not shouting.” “What can we do then?” Ham-Boy worried. “I’m all for saving Kerry, but…” Hacker Nine was already at the computer terminal. “Well, give me about two minutes and I’ll hook into the SPUD and OPS comms systems, find out what’s happening on the helicarrier, and check where the invasion fleet is. Then I guess I just hack into the Caphan fleet command and control systems and have a rummage around and we take it from there.” “But there wilt be smiting anon?” Harlagaz checked anxiously. “There’ll be smiting, big guy,” Fashion Accessory promised him. “This is exactly what I was warning you about,” Herbert P Garrick told the rest of the meeting aboard the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate helicarrier. “We should never have let those alien creatures onto this planet. Or at least they should have had to spend a couple of years in a detention and dissection centre.” “Those alien creatures are nine abused young girls,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton grumped. “We’re not surrenderin’ ‘em up just because the regime that oppressed them is tryin’ to bully us with superior force.” “I agree,” chimed in Mr Epitome, there to represent the Office of Paranormal Security. “America can’t be seen to back down from threats of terror. We granted these women political asylum, and this nation does not back down in the face of alien aggression.” “We both know that it does,” Bad News Herb sneered back. “Quietly, when it suits us. This is one of those times. We haven’t recovered from the last alien invasion you people provoked…” “You people?” Mr Epitome asked dangerously. “This is all a wasta a’ time anyhow,” Colonel Dan Drury, Director of SPUD interrupted. “The Caphan dames are all off in th’ Manga Shoggoth’s little la-la land anyhow, so they’re outta our jurisdiction and we can’t get them back anyhow.” He glanced over at Mumphrey. “Right?” “Absolutely correct, old boy,” the eccentric Englishman agreed. “But I didn’t want to stop Garrick making a bally ass of himself by pointin’ it out, what?” The President’s Advisor on Metahuman Affairs wasn’t happy. “Don’t any of you have any idea of how serious this situation is? There are four thousand or more alien spacecraft heading towards our planet. Earth has, what, a dozen craft capable of deep space travel, and none of them are in government control.” “The Caphans don’t have that much in the way of heavy spaceships either,” Drury noted. “But they’ve hired all kinds of mercs who are rolling in with some pretty nasty ordinance.” “We’ve detected Battleworld Combat Cadres, Apuffyliptian War Discs, some Z’Nox Assassin Ships, plus a huge array of vessels we can’t even begin to classify,” Mr Epitome added. “We don’t really want this coming to conflict, do we?” Amber St Clare, the LL’s liaison officer, asked. “Surely there are other courses we have to attempt before we start looking at armed conflict?” “Absolutely,” Sir Mumphrey agreed. “First step’s to go and have a word with those chappies, see what they’re after, point out to them it’s good manners to call ahead before visiting, sort of thing. So I’m intending to get Al B. Harper to whip me up a teleportal to zap me over there.” “Not alone,” Mr Epitome warned him. “Good man. You’re most welcome to come,” Mumph responded with a whiskery smile. “Two of you intend to go stop an alien armada?” Herbert Garrick objected. Then a cunning look came over his face. “Okay.” Blair Atoll picked his way along the lemur-track down from the proscenium to the silken tents where the Caphan refugees had chosen to live. Most of the inhabitants of Lemuria resided in huts built along the verdant crescent of the bay, but many of them customised their residences in the manner of their former homes. The Caphans, from a desert planet of nomads, were most comfortable in elaborate tents full of things they wove and sewed. “Anybody home?” he called outside the tent-flap. The girls had a very casual approach to clothing which was partly cultural and partly because their vermilion skin actually photosynthesised. Blair was not at all averse to nine beautiful harem girls wandering around naked, but recently Kathryn had started glaring at him. And she knew how to use a lash. “Come inside,” called Miiri. “We have some chilled mango juice if you would like some.” Hospitality was very important to the Caphans. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call,” Blair warned them. He ducked under the beaded drape at the entrance to the tent and entered the perfumed coolness of the interior. “I have some bad news.” The girls caught his mood and looked up from their needlework or crafts with growing concern. “What’s the matter?” asked Losiira. “Out in the mundane world they’re having a bit of trouble,” Blair explained . “There’s a Caphan slave master claiming ownership of you. Some kind of challenge to Visionary, called the Balok Gorn?” “A fight to the death?” gasped Odoona. “Against Visionary,” Miiri added. “But he no longer owns us. He is not required to fight for us.” “We have to give ourselves up, don’t we?” swallowed Philaana unhappily. “We can’t let Visionary be killed.” “Nobody’s being given up,” Blair Atoll assured them. “The Lair Legion have it all in hand. You’re safe here, and they’ll deal with this Vaahir fellow.” Kaara looked up sharply, her green face going deathly pale. “Vaahir?” she gasped, her eyes wide and frightened. “But he’s dead!” Next Time: Visionary vs Vaahir and the LL vs Petar Tyolanh. Place your bets for Hello, My Name is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare To Die 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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#203: More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Six – There is Something Down There, Something Not Us The Hooded Hood's Homepage of DoomCaphan Archive Page Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse “Interesting,” reported Al B. Harper from the science station of the LairSub that plummeted ever lower into the sea trench. “The Marianas Trench (or Challenger Deep) is the deepest surface rift on the planet, reliably measured at about seven miles to its bed. That’s much deeper than Everest is high.” “You’re an absolute treasure trove of information, brains trust,” snorted Trickshot. “I kin see why we brought you along on this mission.” “Weren’t we kind of hoping that he could keep the force fields operating to prevent the sea pressure crushing us like ants?” Dancer reminded the irritating archer. “And, you know, from having to rely on Nats,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! teased. “Hey!” Bill reed complained. “It’s not easy telekinetically keeping millions of tons of water off our backs, you know. I really need an asprin.” “Yo is to be thinking you are doing heroically well,” Yo encouraged the flying phenomenon. “Is to be keeping going. We can not be being far from where uncute Caphan slavelord was to be being transmitting his message from.” “You were saying, Al?” Hatman asked, his voice roughened and accented by the Mariners cap he wore to help him pilot the LairSub. “Oh, just that the trench is about seven miles deep, and so far we seem to be nine miles down,” the Legion’s scientist noted casually. “Instrument failure?” suggested Nats. “Although the pounding in my head feels like nine miles.” “I don’t think so,” Al admitted, running a quick diagnostic. “Maybe we will be seeing more of those cute eyeless fishies?” Yo speculated happily. “Maybe there’s a deeper chasm that’s never been mapped,” Dancer suggested. De Brown Streak couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Maybe it’s a trap!” he blurted out. “A big freaking trap! Maybe we’re being set up, didn’t any of you ever think of that? Maybe there was just some kind of relay station down here, and we’re all being dragged into the depths to be wiped out? Huh?” The Lair Legion looked at him. “Well of course it might be a trap,” shrugged Hatman. “We just didn’t discuss it because it’s so obvious.” “Oh,” swallowed Josh Clement, feeling slightly foolish. “I just…” “Don’t sweat it man,” CSFB! encouraged him. “We’re taking precautions, right? We’ve shielded the Lairsub with Al’s force fields, and Nats is reinforcing them, and the whole ship’s wrapped in a great big gob of Manga Shoggoth, okay?” “I feel so much safer being reminded I’m inside a loathsome elder beast’s biomass,” DBS answered. “Thanks, man.” “If you wanna barf we can’t open a window,” Trickshot warned him. “Al, focus your sensors to starboard,” Hatman called out. “I thought I saw something. A light.” “Down here?” Al B. frowned. “Not very likely but…” “He’s right,” Dancer called out. “I can see it through the for’ard viewing port. Lights. Over there!” The Lairjet veered to starboard to investigate. The team were stunned by what they saw. “It’s… a city!” De Brown Streak said. “A ruined sunken city,” Hatman puzzled. “Not the Sea Monkey capital, or Fishieonah. Atlantis?” “We’re in the Pacific,” Dancer pointed out. “Is not looking to be of a very nice place,” Yo shuddered as the sub sailed between cyclopean blocks of unpleasant weathered soapstone. “Is to have been better if they were to be carving of bunnies instead of…” “I don’t think it’s legal to do that with a squid,” Nats observed. “Well, maybe in Tennessee.” “I think I know where we are, guys,” CrazySugarFreakBoy!, H.P. Lovecraft reader told his team-mates. “but you’re not going to like it.” The desolate Himalayan plateau had been swept clean of snow by the high winds. The top of the mountain itself looked like it had been sheared off in ancient days, leaving a bizarre plateau. Long since, some unknown pre-human race had raised massive crude statues around the perimeter of the ring, forty-foot high stone bulks that still seemed to stare down onto the ancient meeting place with inhuman malevolence. “Larry’s Bowl-a-Rama would have been so much better,” Visionary breathed as the LairJet alighted by the rim of the plateau. “Just get on with it,” Lisa told him. “This high wind is going to make my hair murder to brush out after you’ve been slaughtered.” “Thanks,” the possibly fake man shuddered. He looked over to the far side of the arena. “There they are. Kerry seems okay.” Across the cleared ground, a green-skinned warrior with a ceremonial sword strode boldly towards them. A way back, a pale-skinned man in an Earth tuxedo restrained Kerry Shepherdson. “She’d better be okay,” promised Lisa grimly. “Let’s go.” Vaahir waited for them in the exact centre of the plateau. He looked suspiciously at the first lady of the Lair Legion. “You were instructed to come alone.” “Like you did?” Lisa Waltz challenged him. “You didn’t expect Visionary here to come and take back his chattel Kerry without bringing along a senior woman to supervise her, did you?” “You are a slave mistress?” Certainly Lisa looked the part, with the leathers and lace and the great bullwhip coiled at her hip. “I’m a mistress,” she admitted. “Kerry, are you okay?” Visionary called to the hostage. “Yeah. Try not to get blood on me when you rip off Vaahir’s head,” his ward called back. “You’ve already scanned the LairJet,” Lisa told the Caphan. “You know we haven’t brought any concealed weaponry, and Vizh won’t use any super-powers. Are you satisfied that the conditions have been met?” “Yes,” agreed Vaahir tightly, eyeing Visionary suspiciously, as if unable to match the man in the crumpled yellow overcoat that stood before him with the warrior of legend he’d been expecting. Visionary slipped his hand into his pocket. It was like dipping into half-frozen jelly. His pocket was full of gelid goo, a small portion of the Manga Shoggoth’s biomass. “Before we start this Balok Gorn thingie,” the possibly-fake man said, “there’s one thing you need to know. I don’t own the Caphan girls any more. I sold them.” That seemed to shock Vaahir. “You sold them? All of them?” “Yep. To the Manga Shoggoth. So really you shouldn’t be Balok Gorning me you should be Balok Gorning him. It. Them. Him.” Vahhir glanced uncertainly back to where Petar Tyolanh was holding Kerry in a cold damp grip. The man in black shrugged. “I shall kill you and then challenge this Shoggoth,” Vaahir decided. “I… I will reclaim what is mine. I will not allow those women to remain in the loathsome clutches of an abhuman monster.” He glared at Visionary. “Of any monster.” “You want to fight the Shoggoth?” Vizh asked him, dipping deep into his sticky right pocket, “be my guest!” He seized the sticky glob of protomatter and hurled it at Vaahir. The Caphan moved with speed and precision, reacting to this attack by catching the gelid goo on the edge of his Plag-Gar sword, where it oozed harmlessly down the blade. “Yes?” he asked puzzledly. The Manga Shoggoth didn’t appear. In fact the small chunk of biomass now seemed to be melting away, lifeless and useless. “This place is secured against incursion from lesser beings who are not invited,” Petar Tyolanh noted with satisfaction; but he seemed distracted, staring hard at Visionary as if trying to read his very soul. “Clever,” Lisa admitted, stepping back a pace or two since even at this distance the man in black felt too close. “Let’s do it the hard way then. I summons the Manga Shoggoth!” Even as she said it she felt the resistance. “Crap. I summons Nats and Dancer!” “I’m afraid they can’t come to the phone right now,” answered Petar Tyolanh. “This place is well warded.” Vaahir raised his Plas-Gar with satisfaction now the treacheries of his enemies had been thwarted. “Then let us fight, Lord Visionary, and I shall avenge every insult you have offered to the honour of Caph on your pain-seared, bleeding flesh.” “No! That’s not fair!” Kerry called out, struggling against the shackles that bound her and the power dampener that prevented her from using her probability gifts to resist. “You better not hurt him, Baahir or I swear you’re toast!” “Be silent, human,” Petar Tyolanh purred in her ear, his grip becoming painfully tight. “I have taken all I need now from Visionary’s mind. Now I may go to prepare the next part of our undertaking.” He glanced at his captive with eyes that had never been human, insectlike multi-faceted eyes that squirmed in their sockets. “Death will be but the start of your torments, my sweet victim.” “Sweet!” screeched Kerry in outraged tones. Then the ground all about the arena burst apart and the ropy many-tendrilled beings surged out to tear Lisa and Visionary apart. Next time: The Caphan perspective. Anyone interested? That’s in UT#204: Yet More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: You Think a Princess and a Guy Like Me…  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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