The Hooded Hood ventures another chapter in the stirring tale of one man and his slave
Mon Mar 07, 2005 at 03:57:41 am EST
#204: Yet More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Seven – You Think A Princess and a Guy Like Me…?
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The Caphan space fleet was mostly sleek brass-coloured needles, designed more for speed than strength, but the interiors were comfortably lined with silks and satins, decorated with tapestries and carpets like a tent away from home. Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Dominic Clancy emerged from a glittering rectangle of folded space courtesy of the wheezing transwarp engines of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. The gateway shut behind them with a sudden crack and the cut-off sound of Amy Aston swearing as she burned her fingers.
The waiting bodyslaves bowed deeply and brought gifts of welcome and cool silk robes for the guests. Caphans took hospitality very seriously. A tall distinguished Caphan male strode past the genuflecting women to greet the visitors properly. “Welcome aboard, my Lords. I am Prince Aarmus of the House of Daarthon, leading this armada on behalf of the Emirates of Caph.”
“Sir Mumphrey Wilton, for Earth,” the eccentric Englishman replied brusquely, then indicated his companion. “Mr Epitome.”
“For America,” the man of might clarified.
The lengthy greetings ceremony was cut short at the insistence of the visitors, and the meeting adjourned into a private pleasure lounge for more serious conversation. A dozen or so councillors and war leaders were arrayed on cushions around a rippling underlit pool, talking with the bulbous corpulence of a Reptiloid from Frammistat Eight.
“Trademaster Sluurg,” Prince Aarmus introduced the other guest, “Representing the Lovetoads.”
“Hmph,” frowned Mumphrey.
“We need to get down to business,” Mr Epitome insisted. “You’ll understand why my government, and others of our planet, are somewhat concerned about a Caphan military fleet within twenty-four hours of our solar system.”
“Indeed,” answered Aarmus, offering the sherbet box around. “And you will understand how the Royal Houses of Caph would be concerned at your harbouring a wanted fugitive in your midst.”
“Those girls are refugees, damn it,” Sir Mumphrey warned.
But Epitome had picked up the nuance. “Fugitive, singular,” he noted. “To whom do you refer, sir?”
The Lovetoad wobbled into a sitting position. “The mass-murderer Vaahir, of course!” he croaked. “He who destroyed our greatest pleasure palace with transnuclear weapons.”
“Did he, by Jove?” asked Mumphrey, not looking too unhappy.
“We are not harbouring your criminal,” Mr Epitome noted for the record. “In fact he is also wanted on our planet on charges of kidnapping and assault. We are in the process of apprehending him now.”
“You have him?” Prince Aarmus asked quickly and eagerly.
“We are in the process,” Clancy repeated.
“What’s he done on Caph,” Sir Mumphrey wondered, “to warrant a fleet chasin’ him??
***
The strong places of Jaaxa were no more, the proud fortification mere melted rocks scattered over a desert where once fertile meadows grew. A mournful wind sighed over the ruins, passing briefly over the bones of men and animals momentarily exposed by the sands then covering them again where they had fallen.
Amazing Guy looked around the desolate waste and wondered what had happened here.
Prompted by his cosmic awareness that there was life a mere five leagues away towards the distant smudge of purple mountains he soared into the skies, borne aloft by his multiversal force powers, and glided over the broken plain towards a smelly herd of ungulates snuffling for sustenance on a little fertile crescent where water rose from the rock. The herdsman, his slave-collar marking him as the property of the House of Daarthon, dropped trembling to his knees and made obeisance.
“It’s okay,” Amazing Guy told him. “Get up.”
The herdsman quickly scrambled to his feet and stood trembling, looking away from his visitor.
“Who are you?” AG asked. “And whose are these animals?”
“Great lord,” quivered the slave, “I am but Gatrok, bondsman of Prince Aarmus, whose herds these are. I beg you not to harm them.”
“I’m not going to touch them,” the protector of the Parodyverse promised, a sick feeling growing in his stomach at the terror he was causing. “I just want to ask a few questions. About those ruins over there.”
Gatrok stared numbly back towards Jaaxa. “Great lord, that was the stronghold of Toosin and the House of Taaleen.”
“It needs some repair. What happened?”
The herdsman blinked back his disbelief that anyone could not know the story. “Why… it fell. To treachery. Prince Oodan came in peace and accepted hospitality, but then within the walls his hordes fell upon Toosin and all his kin and slew them in a single night.”
“Did he?” AG scowled. “And what happened to Oodan?”
“He claimed blood victory over the House of Taaleen,” Gatrok replied as if it was self-evident. “What remained of Toosin’s property became his, and was sold to the highest bidder. So Oodan became rich and powerful, strong enough to take a place in the Emirate Council.” The slave’s mouth twitched a little. “But it was for naught that he and his kinsfolk forswore their honour for gold, for within these two years he and all his tribe are dead.”
Amazing Guy already knew the next answer before he asked the question. “How?”
Gatrok couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of his voice even though he tried. “Vaahir of Viigo!”
***
“He is a foresworn exile from the house of Viigo,” Prince Aarmus explained. “Stripped of the rank of his birth for gross crimes of treason, he was proclaimed a slave and sent to his death in the mines of Koorenna. By murder he escaped his rightful punishment and began a campaign of terror against members of the Emirate Council itself. A thief, an assassin, a stealer of slaves, he has brought our world to the brink of war. Now he has extended his reign of chaos, pricking the Skree and the Z’Sox, even the Naicluv, all powerful races we Caphans have no desire to have displeased with us. And he has done mass murder on Frammistat Eight.”
“Yes. Tell me about that,” Sir Mumphrey suggested, staring at Trademaster Sluurg.
***
“Viigo is not a rich clan,” Gatrok confided, “though old and noble. It has spawned many war leaders, councillors, and bards. Vaahir was youngest son of that House.”
“Go on,” Amazing Guy urged, fascinated.
“It is said that in the house of Taaleen was the maiden Kaara, daughter of Toosin by tragic Vaaria that died untimely, and for love. And Kaara was a child most fair, and of immense value. Toosin purposed to sell her to some noble prince, for she was a prize most worthy of the highest lord. But Vaahir saw her, and was overwhelmed with her beauty and grace, and would give all he had to possess her as his own.”
The story had the lilt of a folk tale. AG wondered how many times this had been told, whispered in slave-camps in the darkest part of the night, while over-seers slept.
“Toosin had placed a high price indeed on Kaara,” Gatrok explained, “far more than a humble youngest son could ever yield. So Vaahir hired his sword and undertook great quests for the Emirate Council, things that no other might achieve, for these deeds were insanely dangerous. Yet in each task he excelled, and with each mission he came closer to winning the sum he needed to own his Kaara.”
The protector of the Parodyverse was beginning to see where this was going. “He never bought her, did he?”
“Vaahir learned too late of Prince Oodan’s plot, and arrived too late to prevent the slaughter. Alone against all the hosts of his enemy he fought to save Kaara, but finally he was weakened by his wounds, overwhelmed, and brought to the Prince in chains. He was beaten, tortured, and finally cast into slavery in the death-mines of Koorenna.”
“And Kaara?”
“When she no longer amused the Prince he sold her at the marketplace of Luutan, to masters from another world. She is no more.”
AG thought differently, but kept his silence.
Nothing could stop Gatrok’s recitation now, though. With growing fervour he unfolded his tale. “Yet even the death-mines could not contain Vaahir’s rage and revenge. Gathering together other lost men like him, slaves though they were, he taught them to strike back. In the desperate struggle many died, but some escaped to live masterless in the wilderness; and live there yet. And Vaahir broke free, to take his revenges upon Prince Oodan and all his kin.” The herdsman finally looked up, defiantly. “For Oodan broke faith, and not all his power or wealth could save him from the anger of a righteous man. And they may call Vaahir traitor and murderer, but that is not what is said of him where honest folk remember.”
“He is remembered with respect?” AG ventured.
“He is remembered as a hero,” Gatrok replied defiantly, no matter what punishment was inflicted on him for speaking out. “He is our hero!”
***
“He is a terrorist, a traitor, and a mass murderer,” said Prince Aarmus, “the most wanted man on Caph. Every bounty-hunter in the galaxy seeks to claim the reward posted by the Lovetoads, and many travel with us to find him. If he is on your world, you will render him up to us.”
“We don’t have an extradition treaty with either Caph Eleven or Frammistat Eight,” Mr Epitome pointed out.
“You will find him and give him to us,” Trademaster Sluurg warned. “For when we arrive in a few short hours at your Earth we shall not baulk at searing its ssurface clean of life to flush this menace out.”
***
Coming Next: Lisa vs the hentai shrubbery, a tour of the Lost Mall of K’Martu, and a bad day for the Cult of Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, in Part Eight: Fiery the Angels Fell. I hope someone’s placing all these title quotes.
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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#204: Yet More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Eight - Fiery the Angels Fell
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Manga Shoggoth image by Visionary
The Dark Shoots of Shrub-Noggeroth were ropy plantlike beings roughly the size of elephants, greasy and tangled and filled to their black sap with a mindless hatred of all life. More than a dozen of them broke through the pitted surface of the plateau where Visionary had gone to meet Vaahir for single combat, their twitching tendrils flicking out to grab at the meat-things and devour them.
“Treacherous coward!” Vaahir accused Visionary, leaping in front of Lisa and severing the tendril that had just grabbed her round the waist and was hoping for more intimate acquaintance. “You dare not face me alone, but bring your monstrous minions to aid you!”
“Hey!” objected the first lady of the Lair Legion. “Even the plant creature thinks I’m pretty cute and wants a date!”
“He meant the plant creature was the monster!” Vizh clarified, desperately dodging the flailing creepers. “You did mean the plant creatures, right?”
“This way, Lord Vaahir!” called Petar Tyolanh, clutching Kerry tightly enough that her struggles were futile. “I have an escape!”
The Caphan made a brief attempt to pick Lisa up and carry her to safety too, but when the stiletto heel indicated that she really wasn’t coming quietly he slid his way through the approaching Dark Shrub and rolled clear of the assault to join his mentor. “What are these things?” he gasped, watching in horror as the vast slimy plants surrounded Visionary.
“Children of an old god, who has little reason to like humankind,” answered Petar Tyolanh. “We had best depart. Fortunately the book you acquired for me contains means of traversing between distant places, and there is a corridor of yore in this place which shall take us to our next destination.”
“You can’t just leave Vizh and Lisa to get killed by those things!” Kerry shouted, struggling to bite.
“Of course we can,” smirked Petar. He activated the chymeric gateway and the three of them were folded in non-Euclidean space, and then were gone.
The Dark Shoots of Shrub-Noggeroth clustered in around Lisa and Visionary for the feast.
***
The old Griffon House on Kapitz Street was shrouded in shadows, its rotten shingles and boarded windows darkened by the heavy rain that the bitter wind drove against it. But inside two dozen men and women still formed a circle around an unpleasant stone altar, and by guttering candlelight they sliced their flesh to feed their god.
“Aia aia, hail the Groper Out of Grossness!” called the high priest of Shabba’Dhaba’Dhu!
“Aia aia, hail!” the cultists echoed.
“Aia aia, let his avatars come forth and dine on us!” the high priest intoned.
“Aia aia, come forth!” the cultists agreed.
There was a foul stench from the heavy iron grill leading down into the sewers, and perhaps a syrupy slithering noise.
And there was a heavy knock on the front door, and lo a voice called out: “Did you order pizza?”
The high priest looked up wrathfully. This was a tricky moment in the ceremony, and a moment’s concentration slip could mean the wrong person got eaten. “Go and deal with him,” he glared at his acolyte. “Unless nobody knows where he is. Then bring him here. The master likes the taste of pizza boy.”
The acolyte nodded, rucking up his too-long robe (the last acolyte was taller and more ambitious, but not as good at controlling the Shamblers From the Sewers as the high priest when it came to theological schisms). He padded up the creaking stair to the hallway and opened the front door.
“We didn’t order pizza,” he told the man in the trenchcoat. Too late he realised Con Johnstantine wasn’t carrying any pizza.
“I never said you did, mate,” the irritating Englishman grinned nastily. “I only asked.” He looked the podgy acolyte up and down. “You going to invite me in, then?”
“No,” hissed the cultist, a smirk of triumph skittering across his face. “I don’t invite you in! Hah!”
“Suit yourself,” said Johnstantine, jostling the acolyte aside as he stepped over the threshold. “It’s not like I’m a bloody vampire of something.”
Too late the acolyte realised that the intruder wasn’t alone. A young asian girl and a coffee-skinned woman had slipped inside while he was glaring at Johnstantine.
“Who are you?” demanded the cultist.
“Me? I’m called Johnstantine. The little Asian girl’s Liu Xi, believe it or not. And the lady with the furs is Ebony of Nubilia, high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth. I’ll see your high priest and raise another one.”
The acolyte scowled and prepared his mind to cast the Forbidden Curse of Azafroth to reave the minds and souls of these intruders.
Ebony elbowed him in the stomach. “Behave,” she warned.
The cultist doubled over, his hand slipping down towards his ceremonial dagger.
“Don’t,” Liu Xi advised him, and his hand suddenly spasmed out of his control. “I wouldn’t like it.”
“Take us to your leader, old chum,” Johnstantine advised. “You’ve been naughty boys, and now the Cthulhu police are going to come and take some names.”
***
“This is not a good place for you to be,” the Manga Shoggoth warned for the twentieth time. “This is not a good place for anyone to be.”
Yo had never heard the elder being sound nervous before. “Is not to be being a cute place at all,” the pure thought being shivered, “but is to be where radio transmissioning from uncute kidnapper of Kerry was to be coming from.”
“If we can find a command centre here was can maybe locate those transnuclear weapons scattered across the planet,” Hatman pointed out. He glanced up at the unpleasant green and black carvings that loured above him. “If we can all, y’know, not go insane for a while.”
“You know where this place is?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! asked excitedly; but even his voice had an unfamiliar note of tension about it. “This is the lost mall of K’Martu! It sank when a cataclysm shook the earth. It’s like the goth version of Atlantis.”
“As decorated by Salvador Dali,” De Brown Streak shuddered.
“At the time it was considered the height of fashion,” the Manga Shoggoth told the others in somewhat hurt tones. “Anyway, the customer is always right. We just built it the way he wanted.”
“We?” Trickshot caught. “Hold on. You built this place?”
“That explains the excessive number of dimensions,” Al B. Harper admitted, already dismantling his scanner for a complete redesign. “I can measure height, breadth, depth, time, faith, cleverness, torque, vanity and plange, but the rest…”
“You were enslaved,” Dancer remembered, looking at the huge translucent glob of Shoggoth that slithered before them along the wet streets of the sunken city. Despite being far beneath the ocean the streets were still somehow filled with foul but breathable air. “The Shoggoths were used by the Fairly Great Old Ones to make their horrible cities.”
“Cyclopean cities is the preferred term,” the Shoggoth replied. “Or blasphemous cyclopean cities, if you’re being formal.” He looked up at a statue of a squid-headed creature either eating, giving birth to, or mating with an insect-headed creature. “That was always one of my favourites,” he remembered. “Sometimes the rugosity just oozes out of the materials.”
“But that must have been thousands of years ago,” objected De Brown Streak. “This whole place is ancient. And don’t get me started on spooky!”
“Semi-cute Shoggoth is to be having to be very very old,” Yo pointed out. “But at least he can be helping us to be finding of place where uncute Vaahir is to be sending of messages, yes?”
“This is not a good place to give guided tours of,” the Shoggoth admitted. But he led them along the main concourse, where weed-choked boutiques of lichen-stained stone had once offered pleasures and torments to the elder gods. He deliberately skirted his comrades round the food mall and kept well away from the cineplex.
“I just knew it was going to be that big horrible temple in the middle of the city,” Dancer sighed as they approached the construction’s core. “Er, I mean a big cyclopean blasphemous temple,” she corrected herself with a glance to the Shoggoth.
“I’m picking up signs of a technology I can actually understand over there,” Al B. admitted. “It could be a transmitter. Maybe something bigger, like Vaahir’s spaceship?”
“I could run ahead, do a quick scout,” DBS offered unhappily.
“Best to keep together here,” Hatman answered, equally uneasy. “Is it me or does this wind feel like breathing?”
“K’martu and all the Fairly Great Old Ones are asleep, until the stars are right,” CSFB! reminded everybody. “Right?”
“Or unless they are disturbed,” the Shoggoth added. “I am concerned because this is not a place one is usually allowed to find. My main biomass has sought the Sunken Mall for eons, yet we simply stumble across it by following an electromagnetic transmission.”
And all around them, long dormant tentacles slowly became greener and more vibrant as life returned to them, and far below one massive bloodshot eye blinked open to a new awakeness.
Next time (probably): Kaara’s confession, K’Martu’s insomnia, and the Juniors vs Squibb; all in It’s Only After You’ve lost Everything That You’re Free To Do Anything.
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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#204: Yet More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Nine – It’s Only After You’ve Lost Everything That You’re Free To Do Anything
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Squibb model by Visionary
Squibb’s light cruiser slipped past billions of dollars of SETI equipment and had a close encounter with a barn in Skokie, mainly because he hadn’t got round to getting the inertial compensators fixed yet. People always seemed to insist on money for repairing things.
He stamped out the circuitry fires and tied his compufax into the local data systems; or what passed as local systems. “I was spawned for better than this,” complained the four-armed reptile and self-proclaimed ‘world’s greatest bounty hunter’ (his publicity was vary careful not to say which world, but he’d reasoned there had to be asteroids out there without even single cellular life forms on them).
He scanned down the screed of data his systems gleaned from Earth systems, sniffing disdainfully at their primitive uses of the internet. They hadn’t even mastered interactive 3-D porn yet. And by some horrid glitch or evolutionary mistake all the women were missing two of their arms and appeared to have soft smooth skin.
“Okay, give me a subject search on keywords Vaahir, Caph, honking huge rewards, stolen transnuclear missiles, and incredibly valuable matching necklaces on hot green slave girls,” he told the compufax.
There was an astonishing amount of data on hot green slave girls that Squibb filed for later study. A professional can never research too much.
After all, hot green slave girls were at the heart of the bounty hunter’s latest case.
***
“Vaahir’s dead,” Kaara repeated. “I saw them stab him. The sword went into his back, right through his guts. I could smell his wound.”
“Calm down,” Deeela urged the distraught girl. “Luuma, get her some coconut juice.”
Miiri turned to Blair Atoll, who had just explained that a Caphan Lord named Vaahir had challenged Visionary to mortal combat for the right to own the pleasure slaves. “Are you sure it was Vaahir of Viigo?” she checked.
“That’s what he said,” Blair answered with a shrug. “I’m getting the idea I’m missing a chapter here.”
“I think we all are,” Sayaana admitted. “Vaahir was supposed to have died when the House of Taaleen fell and Kaara was claimed as spoils by Prince Oodan.”
Kaara looked up with tear-filled eyes. “He’s dead. They told me he died, under torture, screaming for mercy. He cursed me before he died. They told me.”
“It’s just possible that Prince Oodan lied,” Miiri suggested gently.
“No,” Kaara shook her head. “No, he can’t have! Vaahir can’t be alive. He mustn’t be.”
Blair was perplexed. “So she doesn’t like this Vaahir? I’m getting really mixed messages here.”
“Vaahir was the love of my life, my heart, my soul, everything!” Kaara answered fiercely, blinking back her tears. “He was going to own me, no matter what he had to overcome to make me his. But I thought him dead! Dead!”
“Still not quite there,” Blair admitted.
The Caphan slave girls had shared secrets and old woes with each other many times in the dark hours of the night. “She thought her true love dead,” Noona explained. “She made no resistance to Prince Oodan, nor any other. She was broken.”
“I betrayed him,” Kaara sobbed. “He lived, and I did nothing to save him. He lived, and I was owned by others. I am devalued now, worthless, nothing.” She looked around her wildly. “Nothing!” she cried, and fled from the tent.
***
Squibb’s first problem was that he couldn’t get his spaceship door to open. It appeared not to recognise his password. “Password incorrect, you worthless piece of crap?” he screamed at it. “Usually you open up if a gzort farts near you, and suddenly you want codeword recognition? I gave you it already! Name: Squibb. Password: Enormous priapus! C’mon!”
“Password rejected.”
Squibb began to feel as though the computer might be making personal judgements. “Look, the cabin temperature’s kind of cold sometimes… Aw, slook this!” He lost patience and blew out the locking mechanism.
He still couldn’t get the door open though. There was a heavy weight on the other side of it. He had to press his back to the hatch and push with all his might.
Suddenly the weight shifted and he toppled out of his vessel into the pile of uncooked meats that had been blocking the door.
“What?” Squibb squawked, because he felt the universe was really picking on him especially.
It wasn’t the universe. A muclebound young man with red hair and a disconcerting smile grabbed the bounty hunter by the throat and lifted him in the air. “Go ahead,” the hemigod advised him. “Maketh mine day.”
Squibb wasn’t sure how he’d offended the giant, but this wasn’t the first time creditors, fugitives, tax collectors, and even ex-wives had arranged for this kind of reception. “Since you asked,” he answered viciously, raising the arm of his Spanadamax 3000 combat environment suit with its built in matter liquefier in the cuff array. Unfortunately his ageing battle gear had somehow transmuted itself into a gingham pinafore dress.
“How can I help you?” Squibb asked the Juniors with a desperate winning smile.
***
“Hur hur,” chuckled Krotch, arguably the world’s most repulsive supervillain, as he rubbed his hands along the sleek, virile length of the transnuclear weapon. “This is kute.”
“Not now,” snapped Spring-Loaded Man. “We’re on the clock here. Factor X doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“And ah guess he’s gonna be mighty pleased that we found this heah l’il dogie,” Atomic Bumpkin added. “As happy as a frog in a dish o’ custard.”
“Careless of somebody just to leave it lying around in this abandoned lunatic asylum,” Spring-Loaded Man grinned. “With no defences. Rookie mistake. We’ll, it’s ours now. Or at least it’s Factor X’s, given a certain seven figure transaction.”
The exotic weapons dealer Dr Gregor Vassilych, Factor X, kept a very careful look out for new items he could add to his catalogue. Twelve alien transnuclear missiles would command a very high price indeed. Even one was worth a fortune.
The wizened old nightwatchman chose that moment to make his appearance. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” he warned the supervillain intruders. “And I don’t think that thing belongs to you.”
“And who is going ter stop us?” leered Krotch, reaching to open his grubby Mackintosh. “You?”
“Me,” said a soft voice beside his ear, just before something painful happened to him.
Spring-Loaded Man and Atomic Bumpkin turned to see the Dark Knight looming from the shadows.
“Did you think nobody was looking for missing transnuclear ordinance?” the urban legend demanded.
“Do you think you can stop me and the Bumpkin making it to the big time, spooky?” retorted Spring-Loaded Man.
“Do y’all got what it takes to stop a man what kin fry you with th’ radiation afore you got time to holler for your mama?” gloated the Atomic Bumpkin.
“Do you think he came alone?” asked the nightwatchman, uncoiling his tail and growing scales and wings to tower over the villains in his true form as Fin Fang Foom.
***
“We went to a lot of trouble to find you,” Fashion Accessory warned the captured interplanetary bounty hunter that dangled from Harlagaz’ grip. “Hacker Nine had to do really tedious nerdy stuff with the Caphan fleet database that’s making me boring even to mention it, and that led us to the first bounty hunter to arrive on Earth looking for Vaahir.” She flashed Squibb her stunning smile. “Congratulations!”
“Do I win a prize?” Squibb asked optimistically.
The fierce-looking carnivore quadruped glaring at his groin growled alarmingly. Actually Glory was just trying to explain what they were doing there and to assure him they meant him no harm, but nobody bothered to translate.
“What we need,” Ham-Boy explained to the captive, “is a little bit of background on the Vaahir fellow. And then we need to find him.”
“Because we art going to rend forth his spleen for the nonce,” Harlagaz clarified.
“A-and you want me to help you find him? For a reward?”
“What do you think?” FA asked him.
“Mayhap we mightest let thee keep his spleen,” offered Harlagaz Donarson.
***
“Is she still upset?” Kathryn asked as Miiri joined her and Blair Atoll up by the arch that communicated with the outside world.
“Kaara’s gone off by herself into the jungle,” the Caphan woman answered. “I’m worried about her.”
“If this Vaahir just wants to be reunited with Kaara and she loves him can’t we just get them together and let nature take its course?” Blair suggested.
“I wish,” Miiri replied. “Then Visionary wouldn’t have to fight Vaahir to the death. And everybody knows Vaahir’s the deadliest fighter and greatest hero on Caph. And Visionary is… Visionary. He’s a different sort of hero.”
“The sort who gets pounded into mulch?” suggested Blair.
“Even if Vaahir hadn’t started kidnapping people and leaving transnuclear weapons lying around he couldn’t be with Kaara the way he wants. She’s got immensely more value now than when he was trying to buy her from her father, based on what the Shoggoth paid to purchase us from Visionary. The only way he could own her now would be to challenge the Shoggoth to a duel to the death.”
“A duel to the death with an undying elder beast?” snorted Kathryn. “Nobody would go that far.”
And they all fell silent.
***
Coming Next: Sanity-mangling cities, sinister secret cults, the true nature of Petar Tyolanh, and tentacles. Lots of tentacles. All in We’re Still Alive ‘Cause We’re Smoking, due tomorrow.
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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- HH - Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 07:48:49 am EST
* Nothing to see here. Mistake. Maybe it's an extra responce so you have one more? (no text) - ag - Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 07:34:38 am EST
* The Juniors make a great negotiating team. (no text) - Hatman - Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 01:28:19 am EST
* Feh! In my day we only needed two dimensions for our pr0n, and that was the way we liked it! - Nitz the Bloody - Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 10:18:58 pm EST
* Not all is lost if you still are living. [Spoilers] - Anime Jason - Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 11:48:24 am EST
* That sounds good, until you realize that it takes money to do most anything these days. - Visionary, destitute - Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 10:21:04 am EST
* Illumination dissolves all material ties and binds men together with the golden chains of spiritual understanding - Manga Shoggoth - Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 08:41:21 am EST
* I would have thought (spoiler) would have preferred his green slave girls cold- cold blooded, that is. [Spoilers] - killer shrike - Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 08:29:49 am EST
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Post By
The Hooded Hood brings things to a series of squirming cliffhangers
Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 08:22:01 am EST
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#204: Yet More Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan: Part Ten – We’re Still Alive ‘Cause We’re Smoking
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The chymeric gate punched a suppurating sore through the reality of the Parodyverse and dropped Kerry Shepherdson and Lord Vaahir onto the slimy soapstone flagging of the High Temple of Great R’martu in the stygian depths of the Marianas Trench. As the mesmerism used to close down mortal minds so save their sanity in transit wore off Kerry began screaming.
“Go back!” she demanded at the top of her voice. “I mean it! Right now! You take us back to rescue Vizh and Lisa! Now!”
Petar Tyolanh, Vaahir’s mysterious advisor, seemed entirely unaffected by the dimension-bending travel he’d initiated from the Tibetan plateau where he’d left Visionary and Lisa to die. “Do keep the virgin quiet while I work,” he urged the Caphan. “This next part is the tricky bit.”
“Virgin!” shrieked Kerry. “Who are you calling a virgin! Anyway, it’s only technical, and purely temporary. Now go rescue Vizh and Lisa!”
“I have what I need from the fake man,” the man in black replied disdainfully. “His mind is pitifully small and easy to pick. I have the psychic spoor of the Caphan slaves he interacted with, and that should allow me to sense them inside the conceptual realm the Shoggoth has formed for them to dwell in.”
“Be calm,” Vaahir advised his captive. “Your loyalty to your former master is commendable, but you are safe now. He died when his own plots misfired and the monsters he sought to destroy me with turned on him instead.”
“You really are completely dense, aren’t you?” Kerry snarled back. “Vizh can’t make monsters. Er, disregard anything I might have said earlier to the contrary, okay. It wasn’t Vizh made those plant-things attack. So which smirking creepy tux-wearing sidekick do you think might be responsible then, Sherlock?”
“Petar saved us,” Vaahir pointed out. “He first saved me when I was dying of my wounds in the mines of Koorenna, healing my injuries and nursing me to health. Then he aided my escape, and my campaign to bring justice to those who had transgressed. And now he is going to reunite me with Kaara.”
“Kaara the Caphan?” Kerry asked. “So she’s the object of your twisted little master and servant games! You sicko!”
“The Shoggoth has been very clever,” Petar Tyolanh noted, poring over the black tome stolen from the Miscatonic University. “He has drawn an idea out of mens’ minds, a concept of a continent that never existed, and he has woven it into a pocket reality. Since it is a mortal conceit, no elder being could breach that place – without a bridge.” He spoke almost admiringly. “The Shoggoth has grown in wisdom and skill. Who would have thought it?”
“I will still face him in combat if I must,” Vaahir vowed.
“You must,” Petar told him. “Now that I have the spoor of these wenches I can use the power of the Nectonastycon to batter open a doorway to Lemuria, as none have done before. But still it will be guarded by the Shoggoth, and you must destroy it before you can claim your property.”
“Look greenie, I think you’ve maybe missed a few vital facts about Vizh and the Shoggoth and the Caphan girls…” Kerry attempted.
“My Plas-Gar has been enchanted with runes that will bind and slay the elder beast, has it not?” Vaahir checked.
“Oh yes,” agreed the man in black with a nasty smile. “That sword can do more harm to the Shoggoth than anything has in all the epochs of man.”
“Then open your gateway. Make me a bridge to face the beast,” the Caphan said, bracing himself.
Kerry was about to intervene again, but Petar began speaking in some rough, gutteral ancient language as he read from the Book of Rude Names: “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh K’Martu R'leyh wganagl fhtagn…” Some atavistic terror welled up in the young woman, hardwired into her hind brain from when her ultimate grandmothers quivered in horror at the domination of beings that had never been of flesh and blood. She tried to hold on to the last strands of her courage and not scream.
A blood-red orifice welled open in mid-air before Vaahir.
“Go!” Petar called to him, as the wind howled around them and the very stones of the dead city shook. “Bring death to the Shoggoth, and all you want will be yours!”
Vaahir drew his sword, gathered every shred of will he possessed, and hurled himself into the transdimensional gulf. It closed with a slurping, swallowing sound.
Kerry became aware of a low, gurgling laugh coming from inside Petar Tyolanh. “O-okay,” she stammered. “So this is the p-part where you unmask and reveal your real evil plan, right?”
“Right.”
***
“I’m rather cross with you,” Ebony of Nubilia told the high priest of Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, in the basement shrine beneath the old Griffon House. “I take a pretty dim view of cults and human sacrifices, even if it is sacrifices of morons from the shallow end of the gene pool who don’t know any better than to feed the Spawn of the Groper with their own blood.”
“Fool woman! You think I fear you and your putrid master?” screeched the high priest. “You think this place is not prepared for you – and him?” he gestured to the blood-smeared walls. “These very stones are warded against you! And you have walked all unknowing into the place of sacrifice!”
Johnstantine leaned over the Liu Xi Xian as he lit up a cigarette. “You know all those lessons about self-restraint everyone’s been giving you, about how to control your powers and not do anything horrible?”
“Yes,” breathed the elementalist.
“Now’s the time to forget ‘em, darling.”
“Yes,” agreed Liu Xi.
She reached out with her mind and shattered the stones of the walls, fragmenting off the runes of warding. She willed the candle flames to flare high, driving the cultists against the walls. And she gestured and hurled the high priest far from Ebony by pulling the very salts of his body. It felt good.
“Now we have your attention,” Ebony continued, “we’re looking for a stolen book. A rather naughty book called the Nectonastycon. And we happen to know that it was brought here and used to open a chymeric portal less than a day ago.”
“I can taste it,” Liu Xi confessed. “It almost makes me sick.”
“Thing is,” Johnstantine told the cultists, “we really don’t like you, and if you don’t tell us who nicked the Book of Rude Names and where he went next we’re going to get a bit irritable. First the kid’ll get irritable, and you’ve seen how powerful she is. Then Ebony’ll get irritable, and she’s had a long time to think up painful things to do to cultists.” He took a long puff of his cigarette. “And then I’ll get irritable… and I’m a serious bastard.”
The high priest was as pale as his vestments. “You want to know who took the book?” he cried, his voice triumphant even then. “It was stolen by an alien warlord and given to its rightful master, he for whom it was written.”
“Who’s that?” Liu Xi asked; but Ebony and Johnstantine were both looking horrified.
“Yes,” hissed the high priest. “The man in black, Nyolurkotep, prime agent of the old ones, prince of chaos and herald of the elder race! He is the one who claimed the Book of Rude Names… and he is the one who left us a guardian here should any come to seek it! Aia! Aia! Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu! Rise, thou Lurker Below and take thy sacrifices!”
Ebony hammered her fist into the high priest’s gut but it was too late. Even as he bent over wheezing the grill on the sewer grate buckled apart and three dozen slimy wet tentacles broke into the room.
Then Shabba’Dhaba’Dhu, the Groper Out of Grossness, broke through the very walls.
***
“Something’s very wrong here, guys,” Nats warned the Lair Legion field team (and Al B. Harper).
“We’re in some kind of Lovecraftian sunken city, carved by a Shoggoth, filled with alien statues doing stuff even I don’t want to try,” Trickshot pointed out. “I’d have to agree with you, Nats.”
“I mean more wrong,” the flying phenomenon warned. “I mean right now wrong!”
“I’ve got a signal,” Al B. announced urgently. “I bio-sign! I think it could be Kerry.”
“Which way?” Dancer asked urgently.
“Bad question to ask around here,” pointed out CrazySugarFreakBoy!
“Just be doing your best to be leading of us there,” Yo told the LL’s scientist.
“I don’t know which way,” Hatman admitted, “but I’m recommending away from the giant tentacles. Watch out!” He swept Yo and Al B. aside just as the first of the putrid slithering appendages slammed down.
“K-martu!” the Manga Shoggoth gasped. “He awakes!”
“But you can take him, right?” Dancer checked, cartwheeling away from the tentacles that were breaking through the pavement around them.
“Not on my best day when we were at the height of our strength,” the Shoggoth replied. “We only defeated the Fairly Great Old Ones because the stars were wrong for them. We have to retreat out of here.”
“Not without cute-Kerry,” Yo insisted.
The slithering writhing feelers burst our all around the Legion, surrounding them, groping forwards. “You think we’re really getting out of this?” DBS swallowed.
***
“You’re Nyalurkotep?” Kerry asked Petar Tyolanh. “I never heard of you.”
“It is my role to awaken the Fairly Great Old Ones when the time is come,” the man in black told her. His touch was painfully cold as he dragged her towards the sacrificial slab. “Of course, the Shoggoth must die first, else he might interfere.”
“Everything you’ve done, supposedly to help Vaahir… it was all really a plot aimed at the Manga Shoggoth? You’ve set Vaahir up to kill him!”
“Yes. With the Shoggoth gone, his Lemuria will be a ripe feeding ground and spawning pit for the arisen Great K’martu, and from there we can awaken all those who once ruled and shall again.” He smiled down at Kerry. “But to truly awaken He Who Waits requires a virgin sacrifice.”
“Technical virgin.”
“Let’s see if that will do.”
***
Next time: Well let’s see. We have the LL vs tentacles. Vizh and Lisa vs tendrils, Ebony, Liu, and Johnstantine vs more tentacles, Mumph and Epitome vs Caphan invaders, and the Juniors vs Squibb. We’ll try and bring things together in Even More Still Untold Tales of the Tenth Caphan #205: Alright You Alien ***holes, In the Words Of My Generation, "Up Yours!", coming in s few short days.
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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