> > Tom Black #7: Death and Glory
> >
> > In which Regret tells the truth, Vinnie learns the truth,
> > and truthfully Tom is a bit snarky.
> >
> >
> > “Tell me about the Judas Box,†demanded Tom Black.
> >
> > The ancient sorcerer who had conquered modern Egypt and was secretly reverting it to the timeless empire he had ruled over for untold aeons trailed his long thin fingernails over his chin. “That is not the name by which I knew the Casket of Destinies,†he replied. “When I was an acolyte, first seeking enlightenment, when I first discovered the treasure in the ruins of Hy Brasil on the other side of the world, it had not yet gained that description.â€Â
> >
> > “Tell me about it anyway.†Tom Black had encountered the box just short weeks ago, and had been washed with the kaos energies inside it; washed and altered.
> >
> > Koo Koo Ka Choo made a gesture of disinterest. “It’s origins remain unknown. It has been an agent of change in many cultures. The aliens of Shangri-La opened it and gained access to the core of creation. The wytch-lords of Atlantis were betrayed by it and brought destruction on their civilisation. Far back in time the Second Oldest of all the races learned from it how to puncture reality and open rifts into the Vortex Beyond Worlds, releasing the Lurkers Beneath that devoured their history. But it matters not.â€Â
> >
> > “That’s how you came to power though, right?†Tom persisted. “That’s how you first became ‘the morning and the evening star’ and created your empire – by the power of the box.â€Â
> >
> > “It granted an opportunity,†conceded the sorcerer-king. “It was my insight, wisdom, and ability that forged the perfect age.â€Â
> >
> > In the twenty-four hours of his stay in the grand palace Tom had taken the time to question the priests and to scour the library. “You had an assist from a guy called Nyarlurkhotep as well, seemingly.â€Â
> >
> > “The Cringing Chaos was a mere adjunct,†snapped Koo Koo Ka Choo. “Even without him I would have mastered the Casket.â€Â
> >
> > Tom nodded. “Sure, why not? But you don’t have the Judas Box this time around, so you’re having to change the world to Koo-Koo-Land one tourist brain at a time, slowly remaking human belief until reality changes to match it.â€Â
> >
> > The mage agreed. “But that is where you come in, Thomas Black. The energies from the box reside in you. Why else would the Casket manifest here and now if not to empower a servant who will lead me to my final victory?â€Â
> >
> > “Why else?†Tom asked. “So what’s the deal? I’m assuming I get a cut of the action.â€Â
> >
> > “You shall be rewarded,†Koo Koo Ka Choo promised. “You shall be great in the Eternal Land, second only to me. Wealth, slaves, power, eternal existence, all of these things shall be yours. And you will be serving the Morning and the Evening Star, your lord over all.â€Â
> >
> > Tom scratched his head. “Well… how could I turn down an offer like that? What do I have to do?â€Â
> >
> > “There is… a ritual,†replied the sorcerer-king. “There will be some discomfort. But thereafter I shall resurrect you from the dead as my eternal right hand.â€Â
> >
> > “Wow, your right hand, huh. And I’m guessing you use it a lot.â€Â
> >
> > Koo Koo Ka Choo raised his arms and gestured to eternal Egypt under the swift sunrise. “Perfection awaits us, Thomas Black. Destiny.â€Â
> >
> > Tom said nothing. He was wondering why the Casket of Destinies was more commonly known as the Judas Box. He was starting to work it out.
> >
> > ***
> >
> > “Okay, I’ve undone that sigil of truth,†Vinnie de Soth told his demon temptress travelling companion. “The next time an Egyptian customs officers asks you the purpose of your visit try not to tell him you’re here to arrange the downfall of his nation’s ruler and the theft of an ancient irreplaceable artefact.â€Â
> >
> > “It’s not like I had any choice,†sulked Regret of the Damned. “You cheated by binding me to honestly. That’s really nasty. I’m going to have to plan an awful revenge against you now.â€Â
> >
> > “I’ll give you my family’s address. You could take it out on them if you like.â€Â
> >
> > Another thought crossed Regret’s mind. “Hold on. I just confessed our secret plans to that customs man. Why aren’t there lots of men with guns surrounding us?†She sighed. “I miss lots of men with guns.â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie was already working on that question, tapping airport walls with his tuning fork and noting down vibrational frequencies in a little pocketbook. He stuck his tongue out as he did the calculations, then peered about through a green monocle lens. “Ahhh…†he said.
> >
> > “Men with guns are easy,†Regret Kiskilla went on. “If you’re easy, that is. Thirty seconds in a room with men with guns and they’ll shoot anyone for you.†She glanced at the hapless occultist she’d hired. “Anyone at all.â€Â
> >
> > “Yeah…†Vinnie answered on auto-pilot. He pulled out a crystal on a chain and used it as a theodolite.
> >
> > Regret sighed again. The living world of flesh and soul was proving more challenging than she remembered. “What are you doing, Mister De Soth?â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie remembered there was someone else in the room with him. “Uh? Oh. I was answering your question.â€Â
> >
> > Regret frowned. “I’m not sure we can get back into the aircraft’s bathroom now.â€Â
> >
> > “Um, not that question. The one about why the customs officer just ignored what you said about Koo Koo Ka Choo. I think it’s because of the illusion.â€Â
> >
> > “Illusion?â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie nodded. “Everything we’re seeing here isn’t real. I don’t know what’s actually about us, but it’s not this airport. We’re just being made to think it’s here. The locals are so caught up in the masquerade that they’re not even responding to anything beyond the scenario they’ve been put in. Certainly not to any conversation about what’s really behind this.â€Â
> >
> > “Tom said that an ancient sorcerer-mage might still be alive and active in Egypt,†Regret noted. “And that he might have useful information about a medical condition that…â€Â
> >
> > “You told me everything about Black and the Judas Box while I had the truth sigil on you,†Vinnie reminded her. “Yes, this reality-shift might be something a thing like that would power. But that means we have a problem.â€Â
> >
> > Regret considered this. “There are other bathrooms. We could just slip into one of the airport hospitality suites and…â€Â
> >
> > “The problem is that if we pierce this illusion I think we’ll become part of whatever reality it’s masking. That might include both physical and psychological changes to conform us to the place we find we’re in. We might forget who we are or why we came here.â€Â
> >
> > “Will that have happened to Tom as well?†Regret worried. “Only I haven’t been paid yet.â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie thought on this. “I’m guessing that Koo Koo Ka Choo had his man contact Black because he needed him for something, probably to do with the kaos energies he absorbed from the Judas Box. He probably excepted Black from the transformation shift. That means we need to find somebody who can take us through the illusion into whatever remade reality it’s hiding like they took Tom, to get us there with our minds intact.â€Â
> >
> > “Or as intact as they come,†muttered the demon temptress, glancing at Vinnie.
> >
> > “This Salidaya abd Ramar guy that Black told you approached him on the plane…†Tom had indeed been in contact from Flight BA-19957 with his personal secretary via a kaos-orb-possessed mobile phone, so Regret knew that his bait had been taken.
> >
> > “What about him?â€Â
> >
> > “If only we could convince him to take us through the illusion field,†Vinnie speculated. “But how?â€Â
> >
> > Regret held up her hand. “Hello? Demon temptress here? Any ideas yet on how to make this mortal man do whatever it is we desire? Think hard.â€Â
> >
> > ***
> >
> > “So, you’re a mummy,†Tom said conversationally, leaning back on his divan and helping himself to grapes. “How’s that working out for you?â€Â
> >
> > The woman known as Allatou was dressed in straps of fabric over her dark tanned skin. Every loop of cloth holstered another bladed weapon. “I am not a mummy,†she replied.
> >
> > “A mama, then,†Black suggested. “You work for Koo, right? And you have done for thousands of years, since you got buried alive in his tomb along with all his other servants. So that’s got to make you the teeniest bit unbdead.â€Â
> >
> > “Undying,†Allatou replied. “We are deathless.â€Â
> >
> > “We’re all deathless,†Tom shrugged, “until we die. That’s like saying that you’re dry until you get wet.â€Â
> >
> > Allatou shifted aggressively, but she was supposed to be guarding the man not killing him. Yet. “I serve the Lord of the Sands,†she replied. “That is all you need to know.â€Â
> >
> > “Allatou was a Babylonian demon, wasn’t she?†Tom asked conversationally. “One of the death goddesses. Wife of Nermal or someone.â€Â
> >
> > “Nergal. Wife of Nergal, king of then underworld.â€Â
> >
> > “Oh yeah. Nermal’s a cat from the Garfield comic. Easy mistake.â€Â
> >
> > “I am the greatest and most loyal of Koo Koo Ka Choo’s servants,†warned Allatou. “I shall not be mocked.â€Â
> >
> > “You think? Say, do you have a magic sword?â€Â
> >
> > Allatou blinked. “I have many weapons of dire enchantment.â€Â
> >
> > Black smirked. “Too easy an opening there, honey. I don’t go for the cheap shots. But you have some kind of arcane weapon on you that you can use to defend yourself?â€Â
> >
> > “I have many. What is your point, guest of my master?â€Â
> >
> > Black shrugged. He’d seeded the area with kaos wisps earlier to act as lookouts. “Oh, just that the lady creeping up the side of the palace wall who’s now just outside that window has a pretty nice magic sword from what I can tell. So I thought it’d be best if you had one too.â€Â
> >
> > Allatou whirled round, her senses extending far beyond the mundane.
> >
> > Desert Rose bowled through the window and went for her with her sentient scimitar Aree. “Die, befouler of the dead!â€Â
> >
> > “Hey there,†waved Tom Black, reaching for another grape. “You’d be the mysterious stranger who bribes the palace slaves for info, right? You’re just on time.â€Â
> >
> > “Enemy infidel!†shrieked Allatou, drawing a pair of kamas from her silken wraps. “This time you have dared too much. This time you die!†Her black glowing sickle blades chattered their threats in a dark secret language unknown to Tom.
> >
> > “As if,†snorted Aree to the weapons. “Bring it on.â€Â
> >
> > “You shield the dark one!†Desert Rose accused the undying bodyguard. “He is the key to your vile lord’s ascension, but I will see him dead in his own entrails before that happens.â€Â
> >
> > “I really need to get a PR agent,†Tom considered.
> >
> > Allatou blurred across the room to strike at Rose. The nomad warrior countered her assault and replied with a lightning-fast riposte of her own. After that things got too fast for Tom to easily follow.
> >
> > “I’ll leave you two at it, then,†Black told them, rising for the exit. One of his will o’ th’ wisps had already suborned the magics sealing the door. On a last minute impulse he retrieved the remaining grapes from his dish.
> >
> > “You may not leave!†shouted Allatou
> >
> > “Stay here and die!†commanded Desert Rose.
> >
> > “Yes, that’s really going to convince him,†noted Aree.
> >
> > Tom waved at them, slipped out of his palace suite, closed and sealed the door behind him, and sidled off back towards Koo Koo Ka Choo’s Hall of Wonders.
> >
> > ***
> >
> > Vinnie de Soth wandered across the grand market and under the arches of the Pharoah Gate, trying not to stare at the iconic Egypt he now found himself in. The streets were teeming with people going about their business amongst the gaily-painted booths and mud-faced houses, all under the brooding shadow of the giant stone statues of Koo Koo Ka Choo that ringed the palace.
> >
> > “Shame my Kodak transformed into a paintbox when we slipped through the barrier,†Vinnie observed. “This is really fascinating.â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie wore slightly shabby scholar’s robes. The woman at his side was now clad in roughly three square inches of gauze and seemed a lot happier about it. “It’s tedious and historical,†Regret Kiskilla objected. “Note the lack of decent studio cafés, the absence of MP3 players, and the total disregard for personal hygiene products. There’s something to be said for a million years of human evolution.â€Â
> >
> > The sorcerer-king had remade the world he had ruled seven thousand years ago. “Not all of us have been able to ignore the usual flow of time to visit places like this before, Regret,†Vinnie argued. “This is the stuff that makes me actually glad for all the crap my family drilled into me while I was growing up. This is the good part about being an occultist weirdo.â€Â
> >
> > Regret realised that the unfamiliar tone in her companion’s voice was enthusiasm. It suited him. “An interesting place to visit, maybe,†she conceded. “But you wouldn’t want to live here?â€Â
> >
> > “Hell no. This far from Girl Genius? In a world without blueberry muffins? It has to end.â€Â
> >
> > “We have arrived as instructed,†Regret noted. “Now we must await a signal.â€Â
> >
> > “What signal?†Vinnie asked. “What did your boss need an exorcist here for anyhow?â€Â
> >
> > “We will know the signal when we see it,†the demon temptress answered. “Something exploding, probably. Then we race towards the danger.â€Â
> >
> > “Um, wait a moment. I’m seeing a flaw in this game plan…â€Â
> >
> > “Then you will undertake your duties, whatever Tom conceives them to be.â€Â
> >
> > Vinnie looked around him, then at the demon temptress, then up at the looming graven images of the Lord of the Upper and the Lower Nile. “I’m only doing this for the blueberry muffins,†he sighed.
> >
> > ***
> >
> > Tom Black peeled off more kaos orbs to deactivate the arcane wards preventing his access to the Hall of Wonders. He had to use the tiny half-sentient spheres of green energy as scouts too, for Koo Koo Ka Choo’s priesthood walked the corridors near their master’s temple and Black had no wish to run into those pale shaved fanatics.
> >
> > “I didn’t ask for this,†Tom muttered to himself, just once. He hadn’t chosen his kaos energies. He hadn’t wanted to take on a deadly near-impossible mission as the price for not being eliminated by his own government. On the other hand, he did want to understand exactly what this Judas Box was and what had happened to him. before something else happened to him.
> >
> > The magics around the Hall of Wonders were more complicated than anything Tom had encountered so far. It took his kaos orbs almost an hour to defuse the arcane traps so that their progenitor could slip into the inner sanctum.
> >
> > A dozen pale dead women chained to the sorcerer-mage’s throne watched him as he entered. “Ladies,†Black nodded politely.
> >
> > It took Tom forty minutes more to defuse the wards around Koo’s treasure chests. The villain had made the classic mistake of protecting his most precious possessions with the nastiest and heaviest of spells, making it easy to locate the right caskets to break open. While he waited Tom wondered what had happened between Allatou and Desert Rose. Surely the fight could not have continued for this long?
> >
> > The kaos lights were excited as Tom opened the largest of the treasure boxes, but Tom was not surprised when their glee turned to disappointment as the chest was revealed to be empty. “This is where baldy kept the Judas Box,†he told them, “but it’s pretty obvious he lost that back when he first got beaten. Maybe that’s why he first got beaten – it betrayed him. You were just smelling the traces of where it used to be. If he still had it then he wouldn’t need my energy - you guys - to seal his deal.â€Â
> >
> > The pale women still watched, unspeaking, from around the royal dais.
> >
> > “I can’t help you,†Tom told them. “He’s already killed you, then brought you back for… well, I don’t really want to know. I can only end you. And for that I need…†He prised open the smallest of the most secure caskets. “I need this.â€Â
> >
> > Inside the tiny box was a jewelled scarab of exquisite craftsmanship. The black jewels in its eyes seemed to glitter.
> >
> > “This? It’s your hubby’s pact object,†Tom explained. “Can you believe he let me loose in his library? And I used to be an intelligence researcher. It wasn’t that hard to piece together how he found his ‘Casket of Destinies’ – the Judas Box - then used it to supercharge some kind of deal with Nyarlurkhotep that made him into that immortal undead who could conquer and hold all of Egypt. And of course, every good occult pact has to have some kind of physical manifestation, right?†Tom waved the scarab. “Bingo!â€Â
> >
> > The winds stirred the curtains in the Hall of Wonders, blowing in a gust of sand from the distant Sahara.
> >
> > “Yeah, time to go,†Black told himself. “Less exposition to the undead chicks, more getting the hell out of here.â€Â
> >
> > The sands twisted into a sudden vortex then formed up into the shape of Koo Koo Ka Choo.
> >
> > “Hey there,†Tom waved. “Love what you’ve done with the place. Bold choice on the whole corpse women motif. Not everyone could pull that off. See you later.â€Â
> >
> > “So you are a craven coward, a traitor, and a thief,†the sorcerer-mage intoned.
> >
> > “You say that like those are bad things.â€Â
> >
> > “You will never leave this palace with my scarab. You will never leave this palace alive. The kaos energies you bear will be ripped from your screaming body by the most agonising methods I can devise. Then my triumph shall be complete.â€Â
> >
> > Tom saw things shifting out of the shadows, crawling from niches where they had slumbered for millennia. He heard the skittering of black beetles swarming from their tombs. He felt the foetid wind rising, bringing with it the razor-sands of the lost desert. Koo Koo Ka Choo rose before him, tall and commanding, coruscating with power.
> >
> > “Ah, %&*$ this!†Tom Black shrugged. “Bring it on.â€Â
> >
> > ***
> >
> > Concluded in Tom Black #8: Black Deserts
> >
> > Girl Genius Online Comic - as recommended by Vinnie de Soth
> >
> > ***
> >
> > 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. |
> >
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