Posted by The somewhat-hurried Hooded Hood offers up an interim episode of the current story arc, with assurances to the half of the cast who aren't in this one that they will get pain, grief, and horror enough next time to make up for it. on July 22, 2001 at 12:27:22:
#85: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: All Together Now Part One - The Doom of the Dreary Dimension
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In the Dreary
Dimension, the pure thought being Yo faces Dirth Vortex and his army of Dark
Gah! acolytes who seek to ravage the dimension and plunder the divine energy
that created it…
In fifteenth century Spain, the time-bending villainess Symmetry of
Synchronicity bargains to combine her powers with Goldeneyed’s to return them to
the 21st century along with Al. B Harper, Amy Racecar – and either Lisette or
Bethany Shellett, but not both...
In the Dreary Dimension, Visionary is all that stands between the Iron Duke
of the Ninth Legion of the Forces of Light with his army of paladins and the
innocent village they would destroy for tactical reasons to stop Dirth Vortex…
In the place where gods go when they die, Donar must fight the elder
monstrosity Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu to place Woopsa the Rakshasa Towel Boy as the new
head of Amalgamated Pantheons, Inc…
In the Dreary Dimension, Exile and Nats have finally confronted Prince
Magaddor as he weds Valeria of Carfax, and Exile has challenged him for
rulership of the Dreary Dimension in fulfilment of the ancient prophesy of doom…
In Paradopolis, dull thud, De Brown Streak, Chronic, and Dynamite Boy
have lost all memory of their superhero identities and are working as technical
staff at the upcoming Save the Paradopolis Variety Theatre concert…
In the Savage Park, Trickshot has just seen his Lair Legion comrades
massacred by mind-controlled dinosaurs and faces death himself as the villainous
Deviate Lord Psicho the Murderous Thought gloats about his victory…
And in England, Fin Fang Foom takes another cup of tea from Sir Mumphrey
Wilton…
Now read on.
“It’s jolly nice to see you, of course,” Sir Mumphrey told his visitor as
Asil passed the china cup over to Fin Fang Foom, “but I’m not entirely sure why
you think I can help you Lair Legion chappies.” Laurie (Lisette) Leyton was Bry Katz’s girlfriend, and possibly the mother of
his unborn child. Bethany Shellet was a student teacher who was destined to
become Bry’s wife in at least one possible future. Like physicist Al. B. Harper,
engineer Amy Racecar, and Bry (Goldeneyed) Katz himself, they had been trapped
by the Hooded Hood in fifteenth century Inquisition Spain and had fallen into
the hands of Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity. Symmetry, the then-keeper of the
same Timepiece of Infinity that Sir Mumphrey was consulting five hundred years
later, was demanding that Bry say which of these two ladies should remain behind
as hostage while Symmetry joined her powers with Goldeneyed’s to take them all
to the modern day. Dirth Vortex’s night-black double edged blade moved with a screeching sound
and left a dark smear in the air as it sliced through Yo’s shoulder. The pure
thought being staggered back. Something cold and searing burned in the
wound. “Can’t we talk about this reasonably?” Visionary asked as the Iron Duke tried
to slice bits off him. “I thought you were supposed to be the good guys.” “Bingo!” smiled Miss Framlicker from the rocks above. The scientist from the
Interdimensional Transportation Corporation twisted a few more wires together.
“Now just don’t explode yet,” she advised her ad-hoc dimensional folding device.
Right now it glowed with the captured dark Gah! energies. “Not till we make this
little pleat in local time/space. There!” A stitch in time…” Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity adjusted the delicate balance of her
temporal hourglass, sent the programming to her Mantle of Singularity and her
Talisman of Causality, gripped her Dagger of Destiny, and glared coldly at
Goldeneyed. “This will hurt very much indeed,” she told him. She was not
referring to any pain she intended to endure. “What the hell was that?” Lisette demanded, picking herself painfully up from
some dreary grey rocks to look into a dreary grey mist. The handsome Prince had rescued the beautiful damsel from enslavement to the
villain who would destroy the realm. But now, even as he stood at the high altar
of the cathedral at the very centre of the Dreary Dimension, the villain had
returned to challenge the hero one last time for bride, realm, and
all. “Ouch! Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!” cried Goldeneyed as he rolled on
the grass trying to put out the little fires that had started all over his body
as a result of his latest dimensional jump. Between the ministrations of the
Inquisition, the hop through time, and his latest foray into the Dreary
Dimension he wasn’t looking too good. “Yo thinks that Yo is dying,” the pure thought being in Visionary’s arms
confided in his/her friend. The wound in his/her chest had more or less stopped
bleeding, because there is only so much blood in the human body. Now only Yo’s
thoughts were keeping that body alive. “You bastard!” screamed Nats, hammering into Prince Magaddor as Exile slid
from the Prince’s blade. Magaddor pounded the pommel of his weapon into the
small of the flying phenomenon’s back, sending them both carooming into the
cathedral’s great organ. Magaddor’s golden battle-armour shielded him better
than Nats, so as the ITC courier staggered to his feet Magaddor was able to land
a rain of mailed-fist blows upon him. The Dreary Dimension was no more. In its place the land which had once been
carved from the Mythlands was returned from whence it came. The people of that
land, those who had been tested by the light and found worthy, blinked up into a
clear blue sky and smelled the fresh air or freedom. Next issue: The other half of the coming together of the Lair
Legion. Of course, we watched most of the remaining LL die last issue, but that
isn’t going to stop them, right? I mean, most of you have figured out what the
resolution is just from the clues, yes? If not, here’s a hint: it doesn’t
involve changing time or a Hooded Hood retcon or bringing people back from the
dead. Also it’s Donar’s turn to be outrageously outmatched, and Trickshot makes
the long shot of his life. Be there.
“I admit to being a little
hazy about that myself,” Fin Fang Foom answered, “but as you know, Dancer has
recently joined our ranks, and when she did I had her randomly open our address
book and pick a name. It was yours. And when the Probability Dancer turns up a
lead it’s sensible to follow it. as I said before, we’re neck-deep in
archvillains trying to manipulate us, and I need an edge.”
“Absolutely,”
Mumphrey agreed, wondering if he should reveal the secret of his Chronometer of
Infinity, or his role as one of the minor cosmic office-holders. “Er, I wonder
if I could ask young Asil to entertain you for a spot, old chap? There’s
something I need to check up on.”
Leaving the puzzled dragon with Lisa’s
clone, Mumphrey slid away to the library and opened up a door that wasn’t
strictly there in this time period. He sighed as he took the items from inside
the four-dimensional space. Although he was very fond of his pocketwatch he
seldom used the other accoutrements of his office. At the moment they were in
the shape of a fountain pen, a walking cane, and an Inverness cape. The
eccentric Englishman picked them up, willing the power tapped by the cane to
charge up the command structures and sensory abilities of the other items. Then
he popped open the back of his pocketwatch and studied the complex dials which
swirled to the tick of a mechanism that literally defined time.
“Ah,” Mumph
muttered worriedly. “It seems as though this is something I can get involved
with, after all. Literally my business.”
He kept the accoutrements with him
and returned to the veranda. “It seems as though I have a few things to explain
to you, young wyrm-me-lad,” Mumphrey told his Makluan guest.
“I really, really, really recommend that you don’t
do this,” Al. B advised G-Eyed.
“Like I have a choice,” snarled the
teleporting superhero. “Anyway, even if Symmetry gets to our time, she’s just
one more villainess for the LL to kick.”
“But we can’t leave Laurie or Beth
behind,” Amy objected. “We don’t leave our people in there. Especially not in
here.”
“That is the bargain I demand,” Madame Symmetry told them. “I insist
upon a hostage to guarantee my arrival at our destination. Alternatively, I
could just have all of you tortured to death for what you know, right here and
now.”
The painful stripes on Bry Katz’s back warned her that the
time-manipulator was not bluffing.
“I’ll be the hostage,” Lisette said at
last. “I got Bry and Beth into this, so I should be the one to stay. Beth’s an
innocent in all of this. When I agreed to put on the superhero leathers I took
on a responsibility."
“Oh no!” Beth gasped, “Don’t you see? You and Bry love
each other, whatever you two might sometimes think. It’s obvious to the rest of
us. And the world needs heroes. I… I’ll stay. I mean, I know there are heroes
out there who’ll come and rescue me, right?”
“It’s my call,” Goldeneyed
reminded them, glaring at Symmetry’s cold grey eyes. “Alright, damn it,
Symmetry. If we have to leave someone behind, we’ll leave Laurie. Like she said,
she’s a pro at this, and Beth just got sucked in.”
Amy saw the jolt of pain
that crossed Lisette’s face, but neither of them said anything.
“That is your
decision?” Symmetry confirmed.
“Yeah,” G-Eyed agreed bitterly.
“Very well.
Guards, take Miss Shellet back to her cell and hold her there pending my further
instructions. The rest of these prisoners will travel with me.”
“What?” Al B.
demanded. “He picked Lisette!”
“I never said he could pick,” Symmetry
answered. “I merely asked him which one he would choose. Clearly the other
person would be the best choice for hostage.” She smiled coldly at the pale Bry.
“Isn’t that right?”
“I’ll get you for this, Symmetry,” threatened Goldeneyed.
“If any harm comes to that girl…”
“Let’s proceed with our time-jump, shall
we?” Symmetry asked, indifferent to the hero’s threats.
“Yes,” scowled Al. B
Harper, scribbling worried calculations on a scrap of paper. “Let’s.”
“Not as indestructible as you thought you were?” mocked the dark Gah!
master. “Finding that there are limits to how good a swordsbeing you can think
yourself to be?”
“Yo is being good enough to beat you, uncute bad man!” the
genderless hero in the Zorro costume replied, avoiding Vortex’s next thrust with
a high somersault and using the villain’s head as a stepping stone to tumble to
freedom. “Is not to be that Yo thinks Yo is better fighter. Is only that Yo
knows Yo must be to be stopping you!”
Yo was right. Dirth Vortex’s shock
troops marched with him, a devastating wave rolling towards the capital city of
the Dreary Dimension. They thought little of the helpless village in their path
except as a source of raw materials and another minor target to eliminate. Yo
thought differently, and his/her thoughts shaped reality.
The duel was a
matter of personal honour, so Dirth Vortex has not called upon any of the myriad
forces at his command to eliminate the troublesome thought being. Now the battle
was dragging on, and the wounded Yo was still not defeated. “You know you cannot
overcome me, little thought entity,” he sneered. “I shall shred your sense of
self so that you will be no more.”
“Yo is thinking that scary bad man has to
be being winning first,” the thought being answered. “And Yo is also to be
thinking that is to be important to not be letting bad man to be
winning.”
Then Yo threw him/herself onto the point of Dirth Vortex’s
blade.
The weapon drove through Yo’s chest and jutted out through her back.
With his weapon so captured, Vortex could not fend off a rapier thrust from Yo
that caught him in the throat.
“Gaaaahhhh!” Dirth Vortex shouted, staggering
back bleeding. Yo slumped to the floor grinning.
“Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Vortex
called again, struggling to force his damaged throat into the proper resonances
to keep himself alive.
“Yo is glad Yo is winning,” Yo said, clutching at
his/her own bleeding chest.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Vortex
screamed, releasing a blast of power that sent Yo tumbling like a straw in a
hurricane.
Yo beamed with joy as the sinister energies washed over him/her,
and activated the dimensional transference device Miss Framlicker has entrusted
him/her with.
“We
are the Legions of Light!” the iron Duke boomed, slashing again. “We are the
last bastions of virtue in this threatened world! It is our duty to hold off the
forces that would ravage our Dimension until our Prince has wed the Maiden of
Destiny and can cast all evil from our lands forever.”
“Fine,” agreed Vizh,
slithering to the floor before the whirling blade. “No argument from me there.
But I don’t see how good guys can just massacre an innocent village and still be
good guys.”
“It is a necessary sacrifice.”
“Don’t they get a
vote?”
“They have the comfort of knowing that they died battling a great evil
for a greater good.”
“Ah. Then in that case I have a call for you,” answered
the possibly fake man. He pulled out the dimensional transference device that
Miss Framlicker had cobbled together earlier. It was bleeping urgently, and for
a panicked moment Visionary had to try and remember which button to push.
Fortunately there only was one button, so as the Iron Duke brought down his
bastard sword in a killing stroke, Vizh fumbled the device
on.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” came the cry from the device. The
Iron Duke was pounded backwards, his troops and their ordinance scattered before
the hurricane power.
There was a
bright actinic light which dazzled both armies. When their sight cleared they
found they had been transported two miles to the west, and now each side faced
their enemy with no intervening village. In fact they were mixed in amongst each
other. Some of them were even wearing the armour and clothing belonging to the
opposition.
“That should keep them busy for a while,” muttered Miss
Framlicker.
“Not as much as if any harm
comes to Beth,” threatened Bry Katz.
“Yeah, about that…” Al B.
worried.
“She is my hostage for my safe arrival in your twenty-first
century,” Symmetry reminded them. “Once I have conquered your time she will be
released into your custody, and you may have her as your own.”
“That’s not
the deal, ice bitch,” Lisette scowled.
Symmetry ignored her. “Commence,” she
commanded.
Bry reluctantly touched Symmetry’s Chronometer of Infinity. Amy,
Laurie and Al B., were strapped to him. He activated his space-jumping power and
felt again the eerie tingle of the temporal component of his abilities that the
Order of the Observing Eye had suppressed.
“Now!” he shouted, forcing himself
to lurch away from the three dimensions he felt so comfortable with into the
alien strangeness of the fourth.
Al B. tried to take notes until he realised
his body had dissolved. “Fascinating,” he muttered.
In the background he
could hear disembodied death threats coming from Amy Racecar.
For a moment
they all glimpsed modern Paradopolis, but then they were swatted out of
time-space by a massive, irresistible force.
“Felt like we bounced
off a temporal paradox,” suggested Al. B. Harper. “You know, one of the
universe’s little safety features. I was worried this might happen.”
“Where
are we?” Amy growled, glaring at the physicist. Nothing like this had happened
to her before Al B. had intruded in her bathroom.
“Uh-oh,” G-Eyed worried.
“I’ve been here before. This is comic-book limbo.”
“That doesn’t sound good,”
Al B. noted.
“It isn’t,” Lisette agreed. “The Hood once sent the LL here and
they almost died. It’s the far side of the dimensional vortex, the original
natural habitat of the Hero Feeders. Bry can’t teleport out of here without
help.”
They all looked around for Madame Symmetry, but she wasn’t
there.
“Couldn’t be allowed in this time period, I’m afraid,” Sir Mumphrey
explained to the surprised quartet, stolling out of the mists wearing an
Inverness cape and leaning on a walking stick. “She tried to bring objects of
cosmic significance – her hourglass, mantle and so forth – into a time period
where they already existed. Hmph. She should have read the manual more
carefully. Quite naturally the universe took exception to you all, and tossed
you out, what?”
“But where is she now?” Bry worried, thinking about Bethany
Shellett.
“She’ll be headin’ back for her own time, but she’ll probably have
to squirm round some roundabout routes to get there,” judged the eccentric
Englishman.
“If we can get back there quickly enough we could save Beth
before she arrives,” Al B. calculated.
“Is that possible?” wondered G-Eyed
with a desperate hope.
“Isn’t this overlooking the obvious point?” Amy
Racecar blurted out. “Namely that we’re trapped in comic-book limbo talking to
some English dude who hasn’t got any right to be here?”
“Oh that,” Sir
Mumphrey shrugged. “I’m here to rescue you all what?”
“But how did you reach
us, Sir Mumphrey?” wondered Lisette.
“Oh that,” shrugged the eccentric
Englishman. Behind him there was a crunching sound as of a large dragon gulping
down lurking Hero Feeders. “I came with him.”
“That’s right,” burped Fin Fang
Foom guiltily. “You see, we have a plan.”
Magically enchanted to obey the villain’s will, Valeria, Lady of Carfax
and Shalandalor, Maiden of Destiny, Keeper of the Secret of the Hidden Chalice,
backed away from Prince Magaddor as she was commanded and kept silent; but her
knuckles were crammed into her mouth and her face was as pale as death.
The
only sound was the hero unsheathing his Sword of Virtue and saying, “This time,
Exile, you die.”
Strange energies rippled round the former tyrant of the
Dreary Dimension. “This time, Magaddor, you’re not beating up a helpless
sleeping opponent.”
“Wait!” cried the high priest Everil Neverwend, “Wait I
beg you! Dread Derek, if you fight now you destroy our only chance to save our
world. Unless the Lady weds the master of the realm and sacrifices her life we
cannot stave off the forces that would tear our realm apart for its divine
energies. Dirth Vortex is not the greatest of these, merely the most obvious.
Would you kill us all to slake your lusts?”
“It’s not lust!” snarled Exile,
circling round as he and Prince Magaddor jockeyed for position. Lots of wedding
guests were clearing a wide circle with unseemly haste. “I love her. Do you love
her, Magaddor? Or is she just your idea of the perfect accessory, a way to save
your people and damn what a shame she has to die to do it?”
“She and I both
understand duty, outworlder. This isn’t about love, it’s about what is right and
necessary,” the warrior in the golden armour answered.
“Just like it was
right and necessary to cripple me for life after you stole Valeria from me?”
Derek Foreman demanded. The former slave-girl gasped as she realised what
Magaddor had done.
“I was merciful last time,” the Prince replied. “This time
your head will bleed on a pike by Traitor’s Gate.”
As the two enemies closed
there was a blur of movement and Nats swooped down between them. “Hey, time
out!” he called. “Exy, I know you wanna carve this guy up big time, but I can’t
let you doom a whole world. We’ve got Yo, Vizh, and Miss F buying us some time.
Now let’s try and get to the bottom of all of this before it goes tragically
wrong.”
Valeria nodded her head urgently.
“Let her speak, dude,” Nats
urged Exile.
“What is it, Val?” Derek asked, his heart on his sleeve.
“We
are all pawns of prophesy here, Rick,” she answered. “And I more than any,
though I chose this burden myself. I have to do what is necessary to heal my
people and their land, and to make them safe forever. You know I have to.”
Exile wanted to reach out to her, to keep her safe forever. “Val…” He could
stop her, command her, keep her safe… but it wouldn’t be his Valeria that
remained if he did that.
“It is the final test,” opined Everil Neverwend.
“The Lady’s final temptation as prophesy foretold.”
“Y’know I’m getting
pretty pissed with prophesy,” Nats warned. “Right, you, high priest guy, this
prophesy. What does it say, exactly?”
Everil spoke with his most
melodramatic, grandiose voice, “Lo, in the years after the fall of the tyrant
Dormaggadon…”
“Bzzzt! Uh-uh! Hold it bud,” Nats interrupted. “Not the epic
bound version. The actual prediction. What did it really, originally say?”
“I
know,” admitted Valeria. “A Stranger came to Dread Avatar and spoke thus:
‘There's a Secret hidden in your realm, Al. May I call you Al? There's a Secret
that was old when the Mythlands from which this place was carved were birthed.
When the time of trouble comes, look for the Secret, and the maiden that guards
the secret. When she comes to marry your ruler and die to save the Dreary
Dimension then you'll understand what I'm talking about.’”
“Really?” frowned
Exile. He exchanged glances with Nats. “That’s what it said?”
“That is my
doom,” the slave-girl admitted.
“And this is yours!” shouted Prince Magaddor,
stabbing Exile in the back.
“We’re here,” Fin Fang Foom noted,
smelling the battle nearby. “Al B., can you lock onto the comm-signals of Exile,
Nats, Vizh, or Yo?”
“I’m getting a muffled reading from those cliffs over
there,” the physicist noted. “How about we leave G-Eyed to smoke here and take a
look-see?”
“I’ll look after him,” Lisette offered.
“Yeah sure, like you
did when you walked on him rather than talk through that you might be having his
kid?” Amy said. “Sorry, Laurie, that just slipped out. I didn’t mean
it.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Lisette shot back. “You think I don’t
know that Bry is hurt, and that poor kid Beth is stuck facing torture and death
father than a long happy future with Bry, and that the Hooded Hood is going to
conquer the universe or something, and it’s all my fault?”
“We’ll, uh,
we’ll check over where the flames are,” suggested Finny. He seized up Al B. and
winged his way into battle. That seemed a lot less frightening.
Sir Mumphrey
hunched down next to the weeping Lisette and the pale Amy. “Sounds to me like
you ladies might have got the wrong end of the stick, here,” he
suggested.
“What do you mean?” blurted Amy Racecar.
“Pretty simple,
really,” the old man smiled. “Are you conscious, Mr Katz?”
“I must be. Hurts
too much to be dead.,” G-Eyed answered.
“Jolly good. Now then, young man, do
you happen to love Ms Leyton here, hmm?”
“Of course I do. I bargained with
the Hood and followed her through time didn’t I?”
Laurie caught her
breath.
“I see. What about the possible baby? Is that why you went after
her?”
“One reason, sure. I mean, we never planned to… It was an accident. But
if there is a kid, hell I want to stand by Laurie, and by the baby. But even if
there isn’t, then I want to be with Laurie. I couldn’t let her go.”
“For
better, for worse, for richer, for pooper, in sickness and in heath, basically,”
Mumphrey summarised. “Extraordinary. What about you Ms Leyton, do you have
feelings for young Bry here?”
“I love him, of course, but he’s supposed to be
with…”
“There is no ‘supposed to be’ in love,” the eccentric Englishman
interrupted. “Have you ever been in love before, Ms Leyton?”
“I’ve been with
lots of guys,” Lisette answered bitterly.
“And you’ve been in love with all
of them?”
“I… I thought I was, with some. But not like it is with Bry.
Nothing like it is with Bry.”
“Aaaw,” sniffed Amy.
“Extraordinary again,”
Sir Mumphrey noted. “You know, in really don’t know but what this whole thing
couldn’t be sorted out rather simply, for all the complications various
supervillains appear to have added to the mix.”
“It can?” Laurie asked. Her
heart seemed to stand still.
“Of course,” Mumph chuckled. “Young man, I don’t
care how badly you are hurt, or how much it costs you, but you will get
to your feet this instant, and you will walk over to this young woman,
and you will kiss her. And you will continue you kiss her until neither
of you has any doubts whatsoever that that is the most wonderful thing either of
you would like to do. And then you will kiss her some more. Is that
clear?”
“Yes, but…” argued G-Eyed.
“Bethany…” began Lisette.
“Now!”
barked Sir Mumphrey. “And when you have finally worked out what is so painfully
bloody obvious to all the rest of us, then the both of you together will
plan a rescue for this Ms Shellett, and God help the villain who tries to get in
the way of the two of you united!”
What could the young people do but obey?
“No,” Vizh told him/her. “No, you’re
not going to die, dammit! You won’t! I won’t let you!”
“Cute-Visi,” smiled
Yo. “Is to be saying goodbye to cute Cheryl for me. And cute Donar, and cute
Enty, and cute Lisa, and…”
“I said no,” Visionary insisted. “You can’t die
because… because… because I believe in you.” Somewhere at the back of Vizh’s
mind was the story of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. “That’s right. I believe in you.
Lots of people do. We love you, and you… you show us that no matter how horrible
the world gets there are some things that are always worth fighting to save.
That imagination is… is wondrous. And that innocence and joy and love aren’t
weaknesses, but gifts beyond price. And that everybody should have a Happy
Place. Everyone.”
“Aaw, Visi,” Yo grinned. “Is to be nice that you are to be
saying that. Is to be nice what you are thinking. Is nice…”
“Why don’t I have
more thoughts, dammit?” Vizh raged. “Yo! Yo!”
“I believe in you too,
Yo-being,” Fin Fang Foom added.
Visionary looked round is surprise to find
the Makluan dragon and a man he didn’t recognise looking down at him. Finny
guiltily spit out some of the Cavalry of Light’s giant war turtle
armour.
“Foomy?” Yo called. “Is to be true?”
“Of course it’s true, Yo,”
Finny promised. “Not all of us can be spontaneous and laughing and stuff. Not
all of us can just think ourselves to be who we want to be. But we all
appreciate you, Yo. We all value the things you bring into our lives. We d-don’t
want you to go away. We… we love you, blast it! You are our Happy
Place”
Yo sprang out of Visionary’s arms and planted a huge kiss on the
surprised dragon’s lips. “Oh Foomy!” the pure thought being laughed, completely
thinking away any injuries. “Yo is to be loving all of you too.”
“Well I’ll
take your phone number,” Al B Harper agreed as the renewed thought being danced
on the grass.
He was still smiling right up to the moment where Miss
Framlicker tapped him on the shoulder. “Al B. Harper?”
“Yeah?” he asked, just
before she punched him in the teeth.
“I told you that was what you’d get if I
ever saw you again, you cheating, good-for-nothing, backstabbing weasel,” she
told him, and marched off.
“Looks like a job for you, Yo,” Vizh suggested to
the pure thought being.
“Ack!” said Nats, spitting a tooth and
trying to work out how many of his ribs were unbroken.
Magaddor kicked out
with a spike-toed boot and shattered Bill Reed’s left kneecap.
Nats didn’t
need kneecaps to fly. He rolled his shoulder and propelled Magaddor into the
roof.
Magaddor pulled a golden dagger and tore Nats open from groin to
throat. The two of them toppled like broken dolls into the choir stalls. Only
Magaddor rose. “So die all minions of the Dark Lord!” he proclaimed, raising his
sword for the killing blow.
“No!” shouted Valeria, breaking a six-foot
candelabra over the Prince’s back. “Leave him alone!”
Magaddor knocked the
impromptu weapon aside and stared at his bride in amazement. “What foul
enchantment has turned you against me now?” he demanded.
“None whatsoever,”
Valeria answered. “But I have seen what you are really like, Prince of Light.
And I have to tell you, the wedding’s off.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Magaddor
laughed. “The realm…”
“Doesn’t need saving by a man like you,” accused
Valeria. “You disguise cruelty as valour, and self-serving as duty. I do not
believe that marrying you will fulfil the prophesy.”
The Prince’s face
suffused with rage. “As if you have a choice,” he hissed.
Exile’s energy
blast pounded him right through the high altar. “She does,” Rick Foreman told
him, limping forward. “Leave her alone. She’s with me.”
Valeria ran to keep
Exile from falling. “It is true,” she confessed to the Dark Dimension. “I am
with him. I am his.”
“His slave,” Everil Neverwend mourned.
“His friend.
His companion. His…”
“His love,” Exile added. “And nobody is going to
come between us.”
Prince Magaddor rose from the ruins and raised his sword.
“We shall see about that,” he vowed.
A slim form broke out from the shocked
congregation and flew to block Magaddor’s path. “Noo! Beloved! Do not do this!
Please!” Lady Miratopia cried out.
Magaddor cut her down and strode
forward.
Exile and the Prince came together for the last time. The enchanted
blade of light swung at Exile’s neck. Derek had no chance to avoid it. Instead
he dredged up all the energies he was holding back, all the power he had kept in
check for so long, all the fury he has suppressed and all the passion he had
held back; and he released them all in one searing arc.
Magaddor was
vaporised along with his sword.
Valeria ran to Derek as he toppled down and
breathed his last. “Rick!” she called. “Rick!”
The skies darkened. Lightning
ripped the heavens apart. The land screamed as the forces which sought to sunder
it made their move. The ring of volcanoes at the edge of the land burst their
tops filling the realm with the stench of lava and brimstone.
“It… it is the
end,” stammered Everil Neverwend.
There was a beating of mighty dragon wings
as Fin Fang Foom took the top off the cathedral and landed with his
teammates.
“I didn’t break the mountains,” Vizh explained quickly. “It was
probably spiffy.”
“I’m reading a massive dimensional discontinuity,” Miss
Framlicker noted. “They’re pulling the Dreary Dimension apart!”
“We’re too
late!” gasped G-Eyed. “Rick!”
“Is not being too late,” Yo insisted, sliding
down from the dragon’s back and running over to Valeria. “Is still time,
yes?”
“What do you mean?” she wept.
“Is still time for Exy and Nats and
land, yes?”
“How?” Valeria asked. Her wedding dress was stained crimson with
Exile’s lifeblood.
“Is prophesy, yes? Is done now. Is time.”
“Of course,”
Everil Neverwend realised. “It is fulfilled. You did come to marry our
ruler, and to die for the Dreary Dimension. It never said you actually had to
marry him, or to actually die!”
“I would gladly die to save him,” Valeria
promised. “I would… Very well. Stand back everybody. This is a mystery from
before time began, and I shall call upon it… now.”
The girl began glowing,
and the light from within her washed away the darkness that cloyed the land. She
reached out, and suddenly in her hands was a rainbow cup, the chalice or grail
that her family had guarded for time out of mind. In the brightness she was
transformed, radiant.
Only Yo realised that this was how Exile saw her all of
the time.
“We hold the Grail, but we hold it for another,” Valeria said. “We
save it for he who is worthy, him whom we love.”
Across the Dreary Dimension
everything stopped. Armies no longer fought. Brainless Ones no longer destroyed.
Refugees no longer fled. Even the restless mountains stopped their turmoil.
Creation held its breath.
Valeria of Carfax kissed Exile, then gently poured
the contents of the cup between his lips.
The light danced from her to him,
and from him to Nats, and from Nats into the ground and along the walls until
the whole ruined cathedral shone. Then the city itself was alight, and the
brightness danced along roads and fields and to the far mountains themselves.
Wherever the light went it searched, and some it touched burned screaming, while
others were made whole. Even the gods and demons which vied for the scraps of
the ravaged realm were not immune to the radiance, and many perished in the
judgement of a force far higher and deeper than they. It washed over the Lair
Legion, and suddenly Goldeneyed found all his hurts had gone, and he laughed to
find Laurie Leyton in his arms. It filled the skies and the waters and the deep
caverns and went on and on and on…
The quest maiden had fulfilled her duty at
last.
“Wow,” Al. B said, since
the light had healed the jaw Miss Framlicker had dislocated. “I mean…
wow!”
“We’re definitely in the Mythlands,” Miss Framlicker reported, checking
her sensors. “It seems the… whatever it was returned this land to its original
location. Minus the Brainless Ones and a lot of other unpleasant
beings.”
“You did it!” Lisette congratulated Valeria. “You saved the
land.”
“He did it,” Val answered, pointing to Derek Foreman, who stood a
little stunned in the centre of an admiring crowd. “I knew he could. I prayed he
would. But I never expected it.”
“What now, my Lady?” Everil Neverwend asked,
smoothing his scorched mitre and using extreme deference towards the Keeper of
the Secret. “Will he rule the land, or will you?”
“I can’t stay here,” Exile
answered. “Finny needs me to help out the other Legionnaires, and then we’ve got
a few universal domination plots and stuff to take care of back home.” And a
bargain with the Destroyer of tales, he remembered grimly.
“And I must go
with him,” Valeria added. “Remember that I am bound to him, his property. I
cannot stay away from him for long, else I will die.”
Yo frowned. “Yo is
thinking that all curses would be broken by the… ah. Yes. Is to be sad that cute
Valeria must be to be being cute Exy’s housekeeper once more. Yes. Sad.” Yo
didn’t look sad.
“So who will rule the realm and maintain the wellbeing of
the people?” Everil Neverwend worried. “Prince Magaddor is ashes, and was in any
case proved a murderer with poor lady Miratopia.”
“You do it,” Vizh
suggested. “You already have a nice hat.”
“Me?”
“Treat my people kindly,”
demanded Valeria of Carfax. “Do well by them. I may be back one day to check.”
She cupped the high priest’s chin and turned it towards Exile. “And if I do,
I’ll have him with me. Count on it.”
“I shall take great care of my charge,
my Lady,” Everil promised hastily. “Great care.”
“Well, it was great seeing
you folks, but we have to be off,” Fin Fang Foom told the former Dreary
Dimension. “We’re working on a tight timetable here, and we still have a few
more people to collect. Next stop to find DK and co.”
“Is there a real
hurry?” Vizh asked, eyeing the wedding feast. “I mean, how much trouble can
Donar, Ziles, Sorcy, and DK have gotten into?”
Sir Mumphrey snorted and
activated his temporal accoutrements.