Tom Black #8: The March of History In which Koo Koo Ka Choo decides that Tom is too annoying to live, and Tom proves that’s he’s too annoying to die. Previously: Tom Black #5 #6 #7     The Lord of the Upper and Lower Nile, undying eternal pharaoh of the whole Earth, raised one glowing hand and opened it. Thousands of flesh-eating beetles scuttled forth from it, clambering over each other in eager waves to devour Tom Black.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice visual effect,” Tom admitted. He willed his kaos orbs to possess the torches on the walls, searing the floor before him to fry the incoming bugs. “But Koo, I’ve got to tell you, you’re living in the past.”     This was literally true, of course. The undead sorcerer had made an ancient pact which allowed him to extend his will to the land around him, catching it forever in one moment of history and making it his dominion. Tom had been sent to prevent Koo Koo Ka Choo’s arcane dominion over Egypt and the slow spread of his influence across the world.     At a mere gesture from the Morning and the Evening Star of his people the flames were doused by hurricane winds. Tom dived for cover behind the heavy cedarwood caskets he’d been rifling through when Koo Koo Ka Choo had caught him. “This is the twenty-first century,” Tom shouted over the tempest. “We’ve got all kinds of new innovations nowadays. Like hostile corporate takeovers.” He sent commands to the will-o-the-wisps he’d had possess the defensive spells around the chamber, turning devastating curses and lethal bindings against their own creator.     The sorcerer angrily cast aside the spells that beset him, shrugging off the maledictions that burned gaping holes in his flesh right through to the parched white bone. “You think you are very clever, Westerner. You come here with your kaos tricks, forgetting that I knew kaos long before ever your civilisation crawled from the dungheaps, long before…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, sorry to interrupt the villain rant,” Tom interrupted. “Couple of other modern inventions you might want to consider. The brief sound byte. And women’s emancipation.” His kaos orbs shimmered into the chains which bound a dozen corpse-pale women to their pharaoh’s throne and neutralised the magics that bound them to Koo’s will.     Howling with hatred, the undead concubines fell upon their master.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You dare!” Koo Koo Ka Choo thundered at them, shifting his form to reveal monstrous talons and jaws that extended low enough to swallow a head whole. He turned on the treacherous princesses and tore them to shreds. They seemed satisfied with their fate.     Then the sorcerer-king turned to destroy Tom Black.     Black was gone. So was the scarab jewel he’d taken, the one that was the binding token for the pact that Koo Koo Ka Choo had made to gain his power.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He shall suffer agonies for eternity,” promised the undead ruler. He shifted into a whirlwind of cutting sand and hastened through the palace, slicing down all who got in his way. ***     Vinnie De Soth sighed as the thirtieth man in the marketplace asked him the same question. “No, she’s not for hire,” he answered again.     Regret of the Damned gave the tradesman a pouting regretful look and sadly shook her head as she grasped Vinnie’s arm.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you?” Vinnie accused her. “Provoking them. Tempting them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well that’s what demon temptresses do,” Regret Kiskilla pointed out. “At least when we’re bored.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well could you find something else to do?” the exorcist for hire asked her. “Not that,” he said, hastily removing her hand from his body.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I’m bored, Mr De Soth. Aren’t you bored? The greatest marketplace in Egypt and there’s no Christian Laboutin store. No Salvatore Ferragamo. No Harvey Nicholls. All we have are camel merchants, a choice of seventy fruit stalls, and the consequences of having lots of camels around for the camel merchants to sell.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s a bit of a generalisation,” Vinnie argued. “We’re seeing a fascinating window into a forgotten age.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, there are donkeys as well,” conceded Regret. “And the consequences of donkeys. I think you just stepped in one. A fascinating window into donkey droppings of a forgotten age.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I thought your boss just wanted us to hand about for a sign? Did he mention what kind of sign he would send?”     And just then every window of the palace shattered outward and part of the roof blew off and landed in the marketplace. ***     When the Sahara storm hit the palace Desert Rose was still locked in a death-struggle with the unliving she-warrior Allatou. The two combatants were evenly matched, Rose with her lithe dexterity and nomad training in the use of her talking sword Aree, Allatou with centuries of experience in the arts of death. The pair of them had been battling for well over an hour and only had only achieved a succession of wrecked staterooms.     The hurricane winds separated them for a moment, scattering them apart as Koo Koo Ka Choo single-mindedly pursued Tom Black and his scarab. “I will find you, Black!” the face of the sorcerer-kind roared from the tempest. “I can sense my scarab. I can follow it anywhere.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, good luck with that,” muttered a voice behind the ruined fountain where Desert Rose sheltered. “It’s not like I can have my kaos orbs put out false signatures to keep you distracted or anything.”     Desert Rose rolled over, bringing Aree across to prick Tom’s throat. “And you too shall die, evil one,” she promised.     Half a dozen will’o’th’wisps screamed from Tom’s hands straight at her eyes. She instinctively twisted Aree to slice them, giving the former intelligence officer the opportunity to spring backwards.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Those little balls can’t hurt you,” Aree advised her wielder. “At least not easily and not immediately. He’s just trying to distract you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or not get killed, as we call it back in not-being-a-sword-slicing-lunatic-land,” Tom suggested to the blade. “Now do you think you could ask Scheherazade there not to carve me up for a minute while I explain why I brought you here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You lured me to be slaughtered by the she-field Allatou!” accused Desert Rose. “But I will cleanse this land of your stain, and hers, and that of your vile master Koo Koo Ka Choo!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if you had to pick just one of us to cleanse, which would it be?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I shall destroy all of you and…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Rose,” advised Aree. “I don’t think that was an academic question. Listen to him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thanks,” said Tom Black. “I brought you here partly because I knew I’d need to get Allatou off my case while I did the sneaking bits, but also because I need a courier. This thing in the little glowing green ball is the scarab that maintains a pact Koo Koo made with some very nasty patrons. It’s about the only way to finally get rid of him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then I shall slice it in pieces!” cried Aree.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, it had never occurred to me to just chop it up,” Tom scorned. “It’s protected. You think a wizard wouldn’t take steps to shield his break-me-and-all-my-plans-go-into-the-toilet item from magic swords and hot Arab chicks in tight-fitting linen bandages?”     Desert Rose looked down at her combat outfit. “What is wrong with my clothing?” she demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Absolutely nothing,” appreciated Tom. “Anyway, Koo’s not going to be fooled by my corpse-lights forever, and then he’s going to be after me with all the power and fury he can muster.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like the wrath of God,” said Aree.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or at least the wrath of Khan. So I need you to take this scarab and get it to the one guy who might know what to do with it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why should we trust you?” demanded Desert Rose as Tom offered her the jewel. “You are evil!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, but I’m pointing my evil at somebody you want dead right now, so you need to decide who you want to get rid of most. Later on when Koo’s beaten you can always devote your life to stalking me, at least if you promise to wear that outfit. Right now, I need you to get this to the people waiting in the market-place. Look for a babe wearing even less than you. Aree will probably be able to spot her as a demoness.”     As if mentioning demons summoned her, Allatou came out of the dust, glowing dagger in each hand, screaming death at Desert Rose.     Tom’s kaos orbs seared into her, possessing the magics that allowed her undead form to move. “Get going,” Black ordered Rose. “She’s not like the others. She doesn’t want to be free of Koo. She’s going to break loose soon. Run!”     Desert Rose looked from Tom to Allatou to the scarab in her palm. She made her decision and leaped through the window.     Allatou screamed in rage, burned away the will’o’th’wisps restraining her, and lurched at Tom. ***     The great storm rose above ancient Cairo, a mile-high whirlwind of sand that ripped the palm-thatched tops off the buildings below and toppled mud-brick walls back into the Nile. Koo Koo Ka Choo had chased down each of Tom’s decoy orbs and now he knew he had been tricked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Black!” he screamed, a vast face carved on swirling dust over the trembling city. In the palace the bas-reliefs on the walls began to shiver and move. Dog-headed warriors detached themselves from the stonework and began to sniff out the Westerner. Tombs opened and yellow-bandaged mummies rose to shamble in the hunt. The vermin of the catacombs swarmed, a wall of skittering hunger, devouring all they encountered.     In the battered remains of the harem, Allatou the unliving chased Tom Black along the gallery and followed as he vaulted over the balcony and landed in the fountain below. She screamed as she realised Tom’s kaos orbs had already twisted the magics of the waters, making them inimical to those of extraplanar origin.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why do I always do this?” Tom complained to himself as he rolled out of the pool and continued to sprint away. Allatou was stung but hardly injured. She shattered the basin and continued her charge. “Every single time,” Tom said. “The plans always seem so clever in my head, and then I end up doing stupid stuff like this! Why do I listen to me?”     Allatou brushed away the last generation of will’o’the’wisps that Tom generated and hurled one of her blades to slice into Tom’s leg, dropping him so he could run no more. She squatted over him, pinning his throat with one bony hand and bringing the point of her other knife down to his eyeball. “Any last pleadings?” she asked him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I win,” Tom boasted defiantly. “While you’re busy with me, Miss Sahara 2008 is getting your boss’s scarab to where it can be exorcised. I just wanted to distract you long enough for her to have a chance.”     Something about Black’s irritating grin warned Allatou that it was true. She stabbed her blade down through her enemy’s face, slicing off the top of his head, then gutting himm from throat to groin. She spat on his corpse. “You shall be damned for all eternity for this!” she promised him as she raced off to pursue Desert Rose.     Tom watched from across the room, arms folded as he leaned against a lacquered cabinet. “Why do women always seem to spit on me sooner or later?” Tom mused. He hadn’t been sure that his last spawn of kaos globes would be able to temporarily possess and twist the magics which gave the undead Allatou her sight and sound, but clearly they had. And the will’o’th’wisps had a nasty sense of humour. They’d showed Tom what they’d showed the demon assassin.     Then the lattice casements that were slamming in the wind were blown off their frames as Koo Koo Ka Choo finally located his enemy and closed in on Tom Black for the kill. ***     Many terrified people had sought refuge in the marketplace tavern, whose sturdy walls stood more chance of withstanding their sorcerer-king’s wrath than flimsier buildings. Now terror found them here as a fierce nomad warrior pounced on one of the sheltering populace and bore him to the floor.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You!” Desert Rose warned, holding Aree across Vinnie de Soth’s neck, “You will undo the magics upon this scarab and destroy Koo Koo Ka Choo or I will destroy you!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, okay,” agreed Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And they say that manners are dead,” sniffed Regret of the Damned.     Desert Rose reluctantly let the exorcist-for-hire to his feet. Vinnie accepted the jewelled scarab and examined it carefully, pulling a series of lenses from his pocket and dinging a tuning fork on it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s occulting,” Regret told the seething warrior. “Can I tempt you to a drink while you’re waiting.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Careful,” Aree warned Desert Rose. “This one has the stench of the inferno about her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d be cautious about mentioning stenches when you’re being carried by a girl who’s clearly been living rough for the last couple of years,” the demon temptress noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is some very nasty stuff,” Vinnie muttered, turning the scarab over in his hands. “It’s already eaten through whatever Black had wrapped it in to shield it from detection, and now it seems to be actively calling to the sorcerer that carved it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You mean Koo Koo Ka Choo will be coming here?” realised Regret.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm, yes. You’d best get all the innocent people away, please. We don’t want them getting hurt.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You care about the innocents?” Desert Rose was puzzled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s right,” Aree told her. “Chase everybody out of here. It’s their only chance.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw, I’m all warm and soft and touched,” Regret mocked. “And I have testimonials to say so.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, need to move fast,” chattered Vinnie, feverishly. He pulled a new stick of chalk from his pocket and began the complicated inscription of an elder sign on the wooden floor. He laid the scarab in the centre then began to seal it within the circle. “Um, you ladies might want to be in here with me too,” he advised. “It’ll be horribly dangerous but not as horribly dangerous as out there.”     Allatou the undying crashed through the door, splintering it. Her screech sent the last locals fleeing into the storm, their bowels emptying as they fled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The other demon!” cried Desert Rose, hefting Aree.     But Allatou was staring at Regret; except it wasn’t Regret, it was a handsome muscled young man in a tight loincloth. “Kuldep?” Allatou whispered, her face stricken and tormented. “H-how? I lost you a long time ago. An eternity. I chose to follow my master. You… you died on my blade so I might become… Oh, Kuldep…!”     Desert Rose cut short her anguished monologue by swiping her head from her shoulders. Allatou still looked at Regret as she crumbled to dust.     The demon temptress resumed her normal form. She could only maintain the semblance of whatever her victims desired while her victims still existed. “I was hoping for something a little more kinky,” she admitted. “Still, good to see that even spooky undead knife chicks can fall for the classics.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In the circle,” called Vinnie urgently. “Now!”     The women raced across the line and Vinnie closed the loop just as Koo Koo Ka Choo’s storm minions found them and tore the tavern to shreds. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is what you get for taking shortcuts,” Tom Black scolded the Lord of the Upper and the Lower Nile. “There you were, perfectly good plan for dominating the whole planet by changing people’s perceptions and all that gubbins, but then you had to get greedy and want my kaos energies to give you a free pass.”     Koo Koo Ka Choo formed up out of the storm and walked as a man towards the Westerner he had come to despise. “Your kaos energies shall be mine. I shall tear them from your anguished body and use them to complete my work. All shall be as it was, as it ever shall be, and I shall reign supreme.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I hope not, Koo,” Tom told him, “because that would be really boring.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think to distract me, Black? You think to occupy my attention while your minions find ways to exorcise my scarab? I have found them too, surrounded their pathetic magic circle with my essence. They cannot complete the rite. I have won.”     The cynocephali and mummy warriors closed in around Tom Black.     Tom snickered. “You think this means you win? If you take my kaos energies you’re finished, you moron. What part of ‘Judas Box’ don’t you get? You know what happens if you kill me and take that power?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I triumph over all,” boasted Koo Koo ka Choo.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You call down destruction on you and your people,” Tom replied. “Once they know I’ve failed, the world powers will need to act urgently to stop you. So next you get a visit from the Lair Legion, I’d guess. The guys who took out Mefrothto and Dormaggadon and Blackhurt and Frightmare and the Parody Master. That Lair Legion, annoying but effective.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They cannot enter my realm save by becoming my slaves.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think? They’re pretty damned tricky, Koo. And then there’s the sorcerer supreme. Heck, for all we know Xander might be here already, plotting your downfall. You’d never know.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The master of the mystic crafts is gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s certainly what he’d like you to think. And then there’s the Carnifex. And the Triumvirate. And the Celestians. And the Hooded Hood. This isn’t Ancient Egypt any more. There’s a whole queue of people in the modern world lining up to kick your ass. It’s the march of history.”          Ã¢â‚¬Å“Once you have fallen and kaos is mine then I can resist them all,” the sorcerer-king proclaimed. “They will wane and I will wax.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, about me falling,” Tom noted. “You fell into the gloating trap. See, the longer my will-o’th-wisps are in place the more they can embed themselves in whatever technology or spells they’re trying to possess. And here we are, in the middle of an army of creatures you’ve animated by necromancy. And you’ve been talking for quite a long time in that ranting monotone of yours. Long enough for my guys to make some of your guys a better offer.”     Tom turned the spirit warriors on their master and their master’s unsuborned servants. There was chaos.     Koo Koo Ka Choo came in burning with fury to finish Black off.     Tom punched him in the face, shattering his jaw.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yeah, and by the way,” Black added, “I don’t think de Soth was going for a full exorcism. He didn’t have the time. He just settled for shielding your beetle-clasp from you, so that pact-thing is suspended. Just for a few minutes, Koo old chum, you’re back to being mortal.” And he hit him again.     Koo Koo Ka Choo had not been hurt in eons. He folded under Black’s punch, gasping for breath. He pulled up the sorcerous energies that still suffused his body. Black stamped on his stomach.     Spirit warriors spiralled in to defend their master and destroy Black but unprotected by the sorcerer-king from kaos globes they were easy to unravel.     Tom knew that no protection could suspend the scarab’s pact for long. He leaned over Koo’s wheezing form. “Assume I made a joke here about you begging for your mummy,” he told the mage. Then he snapped Koo Koo Ka Choo’s neck. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeow!” yelped Vinnie as the scarab fragmented to pieces under his hand.     Desert Rose and Regret looked around them. The tempest was gone. They stood in the devastated remains of what had once been an ancient city, now flattened and destroyed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What has happened?” Desert Rose demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Koo Koo Ka Choo has gone!” Aree recognised. “And look… his influence is fading.”     Regret and Vinnie’s clothing was changing, returning to their modern forms. Then slowly, radiating outwards, the modern Cairo asserted itself, steel and glass and petrol fumes and traffic congestion.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I preferred the silence of the desert,” admitted Aree.     Vinnie de Soth sucked his fingers and said nothing. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, he entered our country,” Salidaya abd Ramar answered Sir Mumphrey Wilton on behalf of the Egyptian government. “He assisted us with an internal security matter then departed by boat yesterday.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmph,” snorted the eccentric Englishman. “Slipped away again. Elusive bugger.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We can still put out a global kill-order on him,” offered Sir Ian Bradbury from Her Majesty’s Intelligence Services. “He is a clear and present danger.”     Sir Mumphrey shook his head. “That wasn’t the deal. Black did his part. Now we have to keep our word. He gets a chance. We keep an eye out. Can’t say I like the bounder, but everyone should have an opportunity to prove themselves, what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where did he go?” Bradbury demanded of abd Ramar. “What destination?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He neglected to mention it,” the government official replied. “So long as he is gone from here we are satisfied.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But God help wherever he ends up next,” said Sir Mumphrey. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Black here. It’s done. Koo Koo Ka Choo’s gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you get what you were promised. Thank you, Tom. Good doing business with you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No problem. Nice doing business with you too, Mark.”     He shut off the phone and turned to Regret as she looked over the ship’s rail at the teeming city beyond.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The wickedest place in the world,” she admired, looking up at the tall skyscrapers beyond the crowded shoreline shanty town. “You know, I’ve always wanted to visit Badripoor.” *** Thanks to Dancer for the image of Regret. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 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.

    

Tom Black #8: The March of History In which Koo Koo Ka Choo decides that Tom is too annoying to live, and Tom proves that’s he’s too annoying to die. Previously: Tom Black #5 #6 #7     The Lord of the Upper and Lower Nile, undying eternal pharaoh of the whole Earth, raised one glowing hand and opened it. Thousands of flesh-eating beetles scuttled forth from it, clambering over each other in eager waves to devour Tom Black.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice visual effect,” Tom admitted. He willed his kaos orbs to possess the torches on the walls, searing the floor before him to fry the incoming bugs. “But Koo, I’ve got to tell you, you’re living in the past.”     This was literally true, of course. The undead sorcerer had made an ancient pact which allowed him to extend his will to the land around him, catching it forever in one moment of history and making it his dominion. Tom had been sent to prevent Koo Koo Ka Choo’s arcane dominion over Egypt and the slow spread of his influence across the world.     At a mere gesture from the Morning and the Evening Star of his people the flames were doused by hurricane winds. Tom dived for cover behind the heavy cedarwood caskets he’d been rifling through when Koo Koo Ka Choo had caught him. “This is the twenty-first century,” Tom shouted over the tempest. “We’ve got all kinds of new innovations nowadays. Like hostile corporate takeovers.” He sent commands to the will-o-the-wisps he’d had possess the defensive spells around the chamber, turning devastating curses and lethal bindings against their own creator.     The sorcerer angrily cast aside the spells that beset him, shrugging off the maledictions that burned gaping holes in his flesh right through to the parched white bone. “You think you are very clever, Westerner. You come here with your kaos tricks, forgetting that I knew kaos long before ever your civilisation crawled from the dungheaps, long before…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, sorry to interrupt the villain rant,” Tom interrupted. “Couple of other modern inventions you might want to consider. The brief sound byte. And women’s emancipation.” His kaos orbs shimmered into the chains which bound a dozen corpse-pale women to their pharaoh’s throne and neutralised the magics that bound them to Koo’s will.     Howling with hatred, the undead concubines fell upon their master.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You dare!” Koo Koo Ka Choo thundered at them, shifting his form to reveal monstrous talons and jaws that extended low enough to swallow a head whole. He turned on the treacherous princesses and tore them to shreds. They seemed satisfied with their fate.     Then the sorcerer-king turned to destroy Tom Black.     Black was gone. So was the scarab jewel he’d taken, the one that was the binding token for the pact that Koo Koo Ka Choo had made to gain his power.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He shall suffer agonies for eternity,” promised the undead ruler. He shifted into a whirlwind of cutting sand and hastened through the palace, slicing down all who got in his way. ***     Vinnie De Soth sighed as the thirtieth man in the marketplace asked him the same question. “No, she’s not for hire,” he answered again.     Regret of the Damned gave the tradesman a pouting regretful look and sadly shook her head as she grasped Vinnie’s arm.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you?” Vinnie accused her. “Provoking them. Tempting them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well that’s what demon temptresses do,” Regret Kiskilla pointed out. “At least when we’re bored.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well could you find something else to do?” the exorcist for hire asked her. “Not that,” he said, hastily removing her hand from his body.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I’m bored, Mr De Soth. Aren’t you bored? The greatest marketplace in Egypt and there’s no Christian Laboutin store. No Salvatore Ferragamo. No Harvey Nicholls. All we have are camel merchants, a choice of seventy fruit stalls, and the consequences of having lots of camels around for the camel merchants to sell.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s a bit of a generalisation,” Vinnie argued. “We’re seeing a fascinating window into a forgotten age.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, there are donkeys as well,” conceded Regret. “And the consequences of donkeys. I think you just stepped in one. A fascinating window into donkey droppings of a forgotten age.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I thought your boss just wanted us to hand about for a sign? Did he mention what kind of sign he would send?”     And just then every window of the palace shattered outward and part of the roof blew off and landed in the marketplace. ***     When the Sahara storm hit the palace Desert Rose was still locked in a death-struggle with the unliving she-warrior Allatou. The two combatants were evenly matched, Rose with her lithe dexterity and nomad training in the use of her talking sword Aree, Allatou with centuries of experience in the arts of death. The pair of them had been battling for well over an hour and only had only achieved a succession of wrecked staterooms.     The hurricane winds separated them for a moment, scattering them apart as Koo Koo Ka Choo single-mindedly pursued Tom Black and his scarab. “I will find you, Black!” the face of the sorcerer-kind roared from the tempest. “I can sense my scarab. I can follow it anywhere.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, good luck with that,” muttered a voice behind the ruined fountain where Desert Rose sheltered. “It’s not like I can have my kaos orbs put out false signatures to keep you distracted or anything.”     Desert Rose rolled over, bringing Aree across to prick Tom’s throat. “And you too shall die, evil one,” she promised.     Half a dozen will’o’th’wisps screamed from Tom’s hands straight at her eyes. She instinctively twisted Aree to slice them, giving the former intelligence officer the opportunity to spring backwards.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Those little balls can’t hurt you,” Aree advised her wielder. “At least not easily and not immediately. He’s just trying to distract you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or not get killed, as we call it back in not-being-a-sword-slicing-lunatic-land,” Tom suggested to the blade. “Now do you think you could ask Scheherazade there not to carve me up for a minute while I explain why I brought you here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You lured me to be slaughtered by the she-field Allatou!” accused Desert Rose. “But I will cleanse this land of your stain, and hers, and that of your vile master Koo Koo Ka Choo!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if you had to pick just one of us to cleanse, which would it be?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I shall destroy all of you and…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Rose,” advised Aree. “I don’t think that was an academic question. Listen to him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thanks,” said Tom Black. “I brought you here partly because I knew I’d need to get Allatou off my case while I did the sneaking bits, but also because I need a courier. This thing in the little glowing green ball is the scarab that maintains a pact Koo Koo made with some very nasty patrons. It’s about the only way to finally get rid of him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then I shall slice it in pieces!” cried Aree.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, it had never occurred to me to just chop it up,” Tom scorned. “It’s protected. You think a wizard wouldn’t take steps to shield his break-me-and-all-my-plans-go-into-the-toilet item from magic swords and hot Arab chicks in tight-fitting linen bandages?”     Desert Rose looked down at her combat outfit. “What is wrong with my clothing?” she demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Absolutely nothing,” appreciated Tom. “Anyway, Koo’s not going to be fooled by my corpse-lights forever, and then he’s going to be after me with all the power and fury he can muster.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like the wrath of God,” said Aree.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or at least the wrath of Khan. So I need you to take this scarab and get it to the one guy who might know what to do with it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why should we trust you?” demanded Desert Rose as Tom offered her the jewel. “You are evil!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, but I’m pointing my evil at somebody you want dead right now, so you need to decide who you want to get rid of most. Later on when Koo’s beaten you can always devote your life to stalking me, at least if you promise to wear that outfit. Right now, I need you to get this to the people waiting in the market-place. Look for a babe wearing even less than you. Aree will probably be able to spot her as a demoness.”     As if mentioning demons summoned her, Allatou came out of the dust, glowing dagger in each hand, screaming death at Desert Rose.     Tom’s kaos orbs seared into her, possessing the magics that allowed her undead form to move. “Get going,” Black ordered Rose. “She’s not like the others. She doesn’t want to be free of Koo. She’s going to break loose soon. Run!”     Desert Rose looked from Tom to Allatou to the scarab in her palm. She made her decision and leaped through the window.     Allatou screamed in rage, burned away the will’o’th’wisps restraining her, and lurched at Tom. ***     The great storm rose above ancient Cairo, a mile-high whirlwind of sand that ripped the palm-thatched tops off the buildings below and toppled mud-brick walls back into the Nile. Koo Koo Ka Choo had chased down each of Tom’s decoy orbs and now he knew he had been tricked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Black!” he screamed, a vast face carved on swirling dust over the trembling city. In the palace the bas-reliefs on the walls began to shiver and move. Dog-headed warriors detached themselves from the stonework and began to sniff out the Westerner. Tombs opened and yellow-bandaged mummies rose to shamble in the hunt. The vermin of the catacombs swarmed, a wall of skittering hunger, devouring all they encountered.     In the battered remains of the harem, Allatou the unliving chased Tom Black along the gallery and followed as he vaulted over the balcony and landed in the fountain below. She screamed as she realised Tom’s kaos orbs had already twisted the magics of the waters, making them inimical to those of extraplanar origin.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why do I always do this?” Tom complained to himself as he rolled out of the pool and continued to sprint away. Allatou was stung but hardly injured. She shattered the basin and continued her charge. “Every single time,” Tom said. “The plans always seem so clever in my head, and then I end up doing stupid stuff like this! Why do I listen to me?”     Allatou brushed away the last generation of will’o’the’wisps that Tom generated and hurled one of her blades to slice into Tom’s leg, dropping him so he could run no more. She squatted over him, pinning his throat with one bony hand and bringing the point of her other knife down to his eyeball. “Any last pleadings?” she asked him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I win,” Tom boasted defiantly. “While you’re busy with me, Miss Sahara 2008 is getting your boss’s scarab to where it can be exorcised. I just wanted to distract you long enough for her to have a chance.”     Something about Black’s irritating grin warned Allatou that it was true. She stabbed her blade down through her enemy’s face, slicing off the top of his head, then gutting himm from throat to groin. She spat on his corpse. “You shall be damned for all eternity for this!” she promised him as she raced off to pursue Desert Rose.     Tom watched from across the room, arms folded as he leaned against a lacquered cabinet. “Why do women always seem to spit on me sooner or later?” Tom mused. He hadn’t been sure that his last spawn of kaos globes would be able to temporarily possess and twist the magics which gave the undead Allatou her sight and sound, but clearly they had. And the will’o’th’wisps had a nasty sense of humour. They’d showed Tom what they’d showed the demon assassin.     Then the lattice casements that were slamming in the wind were blown off their frames as Koo Koo Ka Choo finally located his enemy and closed in on Tom Black for the kill. ***     Many terrified people had sought refuge in the marketplace tavern, whose sturdy walls stood more chance of withstanding their sorcerer-king’s wrath than flimsier buildings. Now terror found them here as a fierce nomad warrior pounced on one of the sheltering populace and bore him to the floor.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You!” Desert Rose warned, holding Aree across Vinnie de Soth’s neck, “You will undo the magics upon this scarab and destroy Koo Koo Ka Choo or I will destroy you!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, okay,” agreed Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And they say that manners are dead,” sniffed Regret of the Damned.     Desert Rose reluctantly let the exorcist-for-hire to his feet. Vinnie accepted the jewelled scarab and examined it carefully, pulling a series of lenses from his pocket and dinging a tuning fork on it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s occulting,” Regret told the seething warrior. “Can I tempt you to a drink while you’re waiting.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Careful,” Aree warned Desert Rose. “This one has the stench of the inferno about her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d be cautious about mentioning stenches when you’re being carried by a girl who’s clearly been living rough for the last couple of years,” the demon temptress noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is some very nasty stuff,” Vinnie muttered, turning the scarab over in his hands. “It’s already eaten through whatever Black had wrapped it in to shield it from detection, and now it seems to be actively calling to the sorcerer that carved it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You mean Koo Koo Ka Choo will be coming here?” realised Regret.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm, yes. You’d best get all the innocent people away, please. We don’t want them getting hurt.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You care about the innocents?” Desert Rose was puzzled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s right,” Aree told her. “Chase everybody out of here. It’s their only chance.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw, I’m all warm and soft and touched,” Regret mocked. “And I have testimonials to say so.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, need to move fast,” chattered Vinnie, feverishly. He pulled a new stick of chalk from his pocket and began the complicated inscription of an elder sign on the wooden floor. He laid the scarab in the centre then began to seal it within the circle. “Um, you ladies might want to be in here with me too,” he advised. “It’ll be horribly dangerous but not as horribly dangerous as out there.”     Allatou the undying crashed through the door, splintering it. Her screech sent the last locals fleeing into the storm, their bowels emptying as they fled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The other demon!” cried Desert Rose, hefting Aree.     But Allatou was staring at Regret; except it wasn’t Regret, it was a handsome muscled young man in a tight loincloth. “Kuldep?” Allatou whispered, her face stricken and tormented. “H-how? I lost you a long time ago. An eternity. I chose to follow my master. You… you died on my blade so I might become… Oh, Kuldep…!”     Desert Rose cut short her anguished monologue by swiping her head from her shoulders. Allatou still looked at Regret as she crumbled to dust.     The demon temptress resumed her normal form. She could only maintain the semblance of whatever her victims desired while her victims still existed. “I was hoping for something a little more kinky,” she admitted. “Still, good to see that even spooky undead knife chicks can fall for the classics.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In the circle,” called Vinnie urgently. “Now!”     The women raced across the line and Vinnie closed the loop just as Koo Koo Ka Choo’s storm minions found them and tore the tavern to shreds. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is what you get for taking shortcuts,” Tom Black scolded the Lord of the Upper and the Lower Nile. “There you were, perfectly good plan for dominating the whole planet by changing people’s perceptions and all that gubbins, but then you had to get greedy and want my kaos energies to give you a free pass.”     Koo Koo Ka Choo formed up out of the storm and walked as a man towards the Westerner he had come to despise. “Your kaos energies shall be mine. I shall tear them from your anguished body and use them to complete my work. All shall be as it was, as it ever shall be, and I shall reign supreme.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I hope not, Koo,” Tom told him, “because that would be really boring.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think to distract me, Black? You think to occupy my attention while your minions find ways to exorcise my scarab? I have found them too, surrounded their pathetic magic circle with my essence. They cannot complete the rite. I have won.”     The cynocephali and mummy warriors closed in around Tom Black.     Tom snickered. “You think this means you win? If you take my kaos energies you’re finished, you moron. What part of ‘Judas Box’ don’t you get? You know what happens if you kill me and take that power?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I triumph over all,” boasted Koo Koo ka Choo.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You call down destruction on you and your people,” Tom replied. “Once they know I’ve failed, the world powers will need to act urgently to stop you. So next you get a visit from the Lair Legion, I’d guess. The guys who took out Mefrothto and Dormaggadon and Blackhurt and Frightmare and the Parody Master. That Lair Legion, annoying but effective.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They cannot enter my realm save by becoming my slaves.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think? They’re pretty damned tricky, Koo. And then there’s the sorcerer supreme. Heck, for all we know Xander might be here already, plotting your downfall. You’d never know.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The master of the mystic crafts is gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s certainly what he’d like you to think. And then there’s the Carnifex. And the Triumvirate. And the Celestians. And the Hooded Hood. This isn’t Ancient Egypt any more. There’s a whole queue of people in the modern world lining up to kick your ass. It’s the march of history.”          Ã¢â‚¬Å“Once you have fallen and kaos is mine then I can resist them all,” the sorcerer-king proclaimed. “They will wane and I will wax.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, about me falling,” Tom noted. “You fell into the gloating trap. See, the longer my will-o’th-wisps are in place the more they can embed themselves in whatever technology or spells they’re trying to possess. And here we are, in the middle of an army of creatures you’ve animated by necromancy. And you’ve been talking for quite a long time in that ranting monotone of yours. Long enough for my guys to make some of your guys a better offer.”     Tom turned the spirit warriors on their master and their master’s unsuborned servants. There was chaos.     Koo Koo Ka Choo came in burning with fury to finish Black off.     Tom punched him in the face, shattering his jaw.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yeah, and by the way,” Black added, “I don’t think de Soth was going for a full exorcism. He didn’t have the time. He just settled for shielding your beetle-clasp from you, so that pact-thing is suspended. Just for a few minutes, Koo old chum, you’re back to being mortal.” And he hit him again.     Koo Koo Ka Choo had not been hurt in eons. He folded under Black’s punch, gasping for breath. He pulled up the sorcerous energies that still suffused his body. Black stamped on his stomach.     Spirit warriors spiralled in to defend their master and destroy Black but unprotected by the sorcerer-king from kaos globes they were easy to unravel.     Tom knew that no protection could suspend the scarab’s pact for long. He leaned over Koo’s wheezing form. “Assume I made a joke here about you begging for your mummy,” he told the mage. Then he snapped Koo Koo Ka Choo’s neck. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeow!” yelped Vinnie as the scarab fragmented to pieces under his hand.     Desert Rose and Regret looked around them. The tempest was gone. They stood in the devastated remains of what had once been an ancient city, now flattened and destroyed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What has happened?” Desert Rose demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Koo Koo Ka Choo has gone!” Aree recognised. “And look… his influence is fading.”     Regret and Vinnie’s clothing was changing, returning to their modern forms. Then slowly, radiating outwards, the modern Cairo asserted itself, steel and glass and petrol fumes and traffic congestion.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I preferred the silence of the desert,” admitted Aree.     Vinnie de Soth sucked his fingers and said nothing. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, he entered our country,” Salidaya abd Ramar answered Sir Mumphrey Wilton on behalf of the Egyptian government. “He assisted us with an internal security matter then departed by boat yesterday.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmph,” snorted the eccentric Englishman. “Slipped away again. Elusive bugger.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We can still put out a global kill-order on him,” offered Sir Ian Bradbury from Her Majesty’s Intelligence Services. “He is a clear and present danger.”     Sir Mumphrey shook his head. “That wasn’t the deal. Black did his part. Now we have to keep our word. He gets a chance. We keep an eye out. Can’t say I like the bounder, but everyone should have an opportunity to prove themselves, what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where did he go?” Bradbury demanded of abd Ramar. “What destination?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He neglected to mention it,” the government official replied. “So long as he is gone from here we are satisfied.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But God help wherever he ends up next,” said Sir Mumphrey. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Black here. It’s done. Koo Koo Ka Choo’s gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you get what you were promised. Thank you, Tom. Good doing business with you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No problem. Nice doing business with you too, Mark.”     He shut off the phone and turned to Regret as she looked over the ship’s rail at the teeming city beyond.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The wickedest place in the world,” she admired, looking up at the tall skyscrapers beyond the crowded shoreline shanty town. “You know, I’ve always wanted to visit Badripoor.” *** Thanks to Dancer for the image of Regret. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 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.

So Tom's new job is as a hired mercenary?

That and his complete lack of coordination makes me wonder though - is he going to realize that he needs some training? After all, with his power people will be coming after him, especially if he becomes a hired mercenary. He needs discipline too if he wishes to master his power. Unfortunately there aren't many who woud do it, simply because they might be afraid he'll kill them.

Of course Sir Mumphrey would probably want someone with a strong moral center like the Psychic Samurai to train Tom to fight, because she might also teach him manners as well. She would need major incentive to do it, though, because she usually doesn't even consider training people who aren't friends.

I wonder what will become of Vinnie and Regret now?

An excellent story (and illustration). I quite enjoyed Tom's showdown with Koo and his henchmummy. And while we didn't learn that much more about the origins of the Judas Box, at least he and Regret are in a place where the previous user of the kaos energies kept house.


Looking forward to more!

I'm sure Tom learned more than we did.


We're at a good rest point for this story while I finish off some other loose ends, but I expect we'll cover the Badripoor trip eventually.

He was just doing a favour for his new buddy, Mark Carnifex, in exchange for a mutual favour.


I don't think he has got a complete lack of co-ordination. There was a bit in the battle where he was running for his life, having perhaps overestimated his abilities, but he did pull it off in the end.

Remember that Tom has been trained by some shadowy division of British Intelligence, albeit primarily as an ananlyst, and he's also seen action during the Parody War before he got his powers.

That said, Tom is trying to hone his abilities. Like any good analyst, he's tracking down the various sources of information on his condition.

In terms of hand-to-hand abilities, he's farily good but not up to the standards of heroes who use physical attacks as a primary means of combat. He could beat a couple of thugs but he wouldn't stand a chance against, say, Asil.


Mumphrey wouldn't realy want Tom made any more formidable. He doesn't trust him at all. He's just waiting for him to reveal his true colours.

Chiaki might find she gets a huge headache whenever Tom's nearby, because those kaos energies in him are almost sentient and spittingly evil.


Regret's gone off with Tom to Badripoor. Vinnie got a ticket home. He even got paid.

Lad's got potential. Let's have more.

Yes, I'm evil.

See, I had assumed that "Mark" was "Mark Hopkins".

Hell hath no fury like long dead women scorned, apparently. Or women in general, as they were all kind of moody this chapter. Admittedly, Regret was mostly bored, but that in itself is a reason to raise the threat level.

Some fun Mummy antics here as we reached the climax of Tom's latest adventure. Nice to see so many of AG's characters in a story again, with some big budget action sequences. And now Tom's hanging out with spiffy of all people. I should have known he was to blame...

Considering the number of my own characters that could apparently be controlled by Tom's chaos energies, I had some pity for the she-field Allatou manipulations at his hands. Not that she didn't get what she had coming, but his powers offer to throw him in some dangerous ethical waters if he's willing to take control of people... even dead ones. So far, he stopped at taking control of her perceptions, but it could be a slippery slope.

I look forward to seeing where they go from here.

Tom's really only just starting to work out his potential. In his own way he's as powerful as the late great Count Armageddon, and he used to take on the entire LL single-handedly.


These days we call it otherly moral.

Yes, I realised there might be some confusion, and elected not to clarify it in the text. I'm thinking now it might have been better either to do so or to allow people their assumption until later on.

One of the developments of modern times is an expectation that woman can stand up for themselves and might justifiably object to being treated as chattels.


I always thought there was a story to tell about the Egypt situation, so I was glad of an excuse to use it.


We've straightened out that misunderstanding now. If it was Hopkins that Black was talking to he'd have nobody to clash with in the next story arc, would he?


It could indeed; especially since Tom's kaos orbs tend to have nasty senses of humour when it comes to interpreting his instructions.


Well, first they go to Badripoor.

Otherwise he'd know the perils of monologuing.

~Hat~

Is he getting paid for it too?



Even if more discipline might give Tom a greater appreciation for his power and maybe some manners too?



Her psychic ability hasn't really been proven. Though if she senses something that awful from Tom she may try to kill him to protect everyone else from it.



Liu Xi will be proud of him.

.

He doesn't need the money. He inherited millions.

> > Mumphrey wouldn't realy want Tom made any more formidable. He doesn't trust him at all. He's just waiting for him to reveal his true colours. > Even if more discipline might give Tom a greater appreciation for his power and maybe some manners too?

Mumphrey think hanging him would be the best way to teach him discipline.

> > Chiaki might find she gets a huge headache whenever Tom's nearby, because those kaos energies in him are almost sentient and spittingly evil. > Her psychic ability hasn't really been proven. Though if she senses something that awful from Tom she may try to kill him to protect everyone else from it.

When Tom opened the Judas Box sensitives across the planet had very bad feelings. Now plants die when Tom stands near them for too long.

It's still nice to be paid.



He may want to talk to Chiaki then after Tom gives her a headache.



He'd better not kill the plants in Chiaki's garden. She worked hard to get everything just as she wants it.

It implies a different kind of relationship. It's the difference between one guy swapping stock tips with another and one guy hiring the other.

> > > > Mumphrey wouldn't realy want Tom made any more formidable. He doesn't trust him at all. He's just waiting for him to reveal his true colours. > > > Even if more discipline might give Tom a greater appreciation for his power and maybe some manners too? > > Mumphrey think hanging him would be the best way to teach him discipline. > He may want to talk to Chiaki then after Tom gives her a headache.

He already knows Tom is a headache.

> > When Tom opened the Judas Box sensitives across the planet had very bad feelings. Now plants die when Tom stands near them for too long. > He'd better not kill the plants in Chiaki's garden. She worked hard to get everything just as she wants it.

Chiaki had better not invite Tom to her garden then. It's not something he can control.

Once again, Pixar shows us things about ourselves.