Previous Post Untold Tales of the Yesterverse #358: The Dying Days, or Final Dates Previously: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse #356: The Sky Is Falling Untold Tales of the Parodyverse #357: The Grey Horizons Now: Part Fifteen: Sion Avery and the Hag of Doom Part Sixteen: Silicone Sally and the Penguins of Insanity Part Seventeen: Akiko Masamune and the Promised Finger Part Eighteen: Regret Kiskilla and the Final Reckoning Part Nineteen: Avrogadrus del Lune and the Heretics of Tomorrow Part Twenty: Hatman and the World After Superheroes, or The Hard Truth Part Twenty-One: Samantha Featherstone and the Equitable Solution Part Twenty-Two: Banjooooo and the Unexpected Subplot Part Twenty-Three: The Marquis of Herringcarp and the Dangerous Liaisons Cast descriptions in Who's Who in the Parodyverse Place descriptions in Where's Where in the Parodyverse Over 1000 previous stories at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom *** 15. Sion Aivry and the Hag of Doom     The dungeon cell had three large iron bolts, and the prisoner shuddered as each one was scraped back. She shied away from the torchlight when the guards threw the door open. She huddled in the corner, afraid they would hurt her again.     â€œHere she is, sir,” said the sergeant. “This is the witch.”     The justiciar’s clerk stooped under the low door and entered the tiny cell. The rough floor was scattered with filthy straw and there was a ring drilled into one wall to hold the prisoner’s manacles; nothing else.     â€œThank you,” said the newcomer. “I’ll need to examine her.”     â€œVery good sir,” approved the sergeant. “Shall we hold her down for you?”     The clerk was a young man. He looked disconcerted at the guards’ knowing leers. “I want to talk with her.”     â€œAh. Right sir. But if you want to inspect her properly later sir, we’re all ready to help. The lads have been waiting their turn till the justice comes, but…”     â€œLeave the torch. I’ll call when I want you.”     The sergeant bit back whatever he was going to say. The clerk was young but he had a powerful master. Better not to get on the wrong side of the king’s justiciar. Not if one didn’t want to be burning next to the witch.     He kicked the cowering girl. “Right, you. Here’s Master Aivry come from Edinburgh all the way to test you. Best be confessing everything or it’s the thumbscrews and the winkle for you.”     â€œThat’ll do, sergeant,” said the clerk firmly. “Leave us.”     The sergeant looked from the young scholar to the chained naked girl and tapped his nose knowingly. He departed, slamming the bolts closed as he went.     The girl peered at Master Aivry over her shoulder, biting her lip.     The clerk squatted down by the door. “Hello?” he ventured.     The girl didn’t reply. Her flesh was pale beneath the dirt, with smears of blood where they’d pushed in the pins to check for the devil’s spot. Her shoulder-length hair was knotted into sweaty rat-tails. She’d have been pretty under other circumstances. The soldiers had certainly enjoyed searching her.     â€œI’m the justiciar’s clerk,” the young man tried again. “I’m only here to establish the facts. I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t even know what a winkle is.”     The girl tried to push herself further into the corner. The heavy chains on her wrists and ankles chinked.     Master Aivry scratched his head. “This isn’t working. Let’s try again.” He held out his hand, then pulled it back as the witch flinched. “Sorry. Look, I’m only here to talk to you. Just to talk. My name’s Sion.”     Wide, wary eyes stared at him.     â€œAlright, my actual name is Blow-Ye-The-Trumpets-In-Sion.”     There was a tiny flicker of those parched lips. “Blow-Ye…?” the girl asked, bemused.     â€œBlow-Ye-The-Trumpets-In-Sion. From the Book of Joel. My parents were big fans of the minor prophets.”     â€œThey must have been.”     Things were going a little bit better now. Sion slipped off his coat. The witch froze up again.     â€œI think you need it more than me right now,” the clerk said. “What happened to your clothes?”     â€œThe soldiers tore them off. When the priest examined me.”     â€œSorry. Look, take the coat. I think you’re owed one.”     The girl couldn’t get the coat on over her manacles so she pulled it to cover herself like a blanket. “What now?” she asked warily.     â€œNow we chat.” The clerk looked down at the notes he’d been given. “You’re Black Helen.”     â€œNo.”     â€œNo?” Sion checked the paperwork. “It says here…”     â€œI’m Helen. Black Helen’s what vicious ignorant folk call me.”     â€œRight. Sorry again. Helen. Not Black Helen.”     â€œNot Black Helen. Although even Black Helen’s better than Blow-Ye-The-Trumpets-In-Sion. How did you even survive childhood?”     â€œI learned to run fast and to duck,” confessed the clerk. “So, not-Black Helen, it says here you confessed to being a witch.”     â€œYes.”     â€œYou’re a witch?”     â€œI confessed to it. That doesn’t make me a witch. It makes me somebody who doesn’t want to be burned with pokers any more.”     Sion checked the priest’s spidery handwriting. “So you didn’t have congress with the devil?”     â€œNo. And I didn’t have congress with Ned the Weaver, either, which might be why he gave testimony against me.”     â€œThe midwife examined you. You’re no maid.”     â€œI had a lover. He’s long gone. That makes me a slut not a witch.”     â€œIf you were a slut wouldn’t you have had congress with Ned the Weaver?”     â€œMaybe I’m a slut with a sense of smell?”     Sion snorted. “A sense of humour, anyway. I’m glad they haven’t scared it out of you quite yet.”     Helen’s smiled faded. “They’ve surely tried,” she said in a small voice. She looked away to the wall. “I’m very frightened, Master Sion.”     â€œYou don’t need to be frightened of me, Mistress Helen.”     The witch glanced back at the young clerk. “No…” she decided. “I don’t think I do. I don’t know why but…”     â€œI’m just here to see you get a fair hearing,” Sion told her. “I have to assess all the facts and then report to the justiciar, my master. Then he’ll conduct a hearing and pass judgement.”     â€œSo if you tell him to let me free then he’ll release me?”     â€œUm… in theory that could happen, yes. My notes tend to be more advisories.”     â€œHow many times has the justiciar let someone free because you recommended it?”     Sion looked uncomfortable. “It could happen,” he offered lamely.     Helen dropped her head back down between her arms.     â€œDon’t despair,” Sion pleaded. “Look, let me establish a few facts. Without the pokers.”     â€œWhat’s the point? They’ll burn me anyway.”     â€œPlease. Humour me.”     â€œWhy should I? Those guards have already told me what they’re going to do to me once sentence is passed. It’s a perk of the job, evidently.”     â€œHumour me because I’m called Blow-Ye-The-Trumpets-In-Sion. You don’t have to face that fate. Not if I can just establish the facts well enough.”     Helen sighed. “Well, it’s better than sitting in the dark waiting for the next torture,” she decided. “Go on.”     Sion dipped his quill into his inkpot and took a fresh sheet of vellum. “Right then. Let’s start with the easy one. Are you actually a witch?”     â€œYes,” said Helen.     â€œNo, you don’t have to confess,” the clerk told her. “I won’t hurt you. I’m not going to winkle you or whatever. I just want to know the truth. So are you a witch?”     â€œYes. I’m a witch.”     Sion put his pen down again. “Ah.”     Helen felt almost sorry for the hapless clerk. “I didn’t have congress with the devil, if that helps,” she offered.     â€œMaybe you just know old folklore,” Sion suggested. “You know which herbs to give animals and people to make them well again, and the secrets of midwifery.”     â€œI do,” agreed Helen.     â€œAnd that’s why folks are suspicious of you, living alone in your cottage outside the village with your cat and your cauldron. Superstition gone mad.”     â€œYes. And also I can do magic.”     Sion blinked. “Magic. You do magic?”     â€œYes. Sorry, but I can. That’s why I’m a witch.”     The clerk shook his head. “If you can do magic then do some now. Show me.”     Helen shook her shackles. “I’m bound in iron. That stops the magic working. Otherwise I could conjure up all kinds of visions for you. Illusions of flowers and animals, showers of butterflies, rainbows and treasures and all kinds of wonders.”     Sion was about to refute that when he saw the girl’s face. As she spoke of her creations her eyes lit up and she looked far beyond the walls of her dungeon cell. Her face was radiant.     Sion’s heart turned over.     â€œYou think I’m mad,” Helen told him.     â€œI think… I don’t know what to think, to be honest. You’ve confessed to witchcraft, both in this statement and to me. You seem sane – saner than I’d be in your position – but you speak of making things from thin air.”     â€œOnly images,” the witch clarified. “My sculptures have no substance. I can make them move but they can’t be touched. They can’t harm.”     â€œHow did you get these gifts?”     â€œI don’t know. I’ve had them as long as I can remember.” Helen shifted uncomfortably under Sion’s coat. “Look, I’ve never harmed anyone. I’ve always tried to help the people of the village, with remedies and knowledge. I’ve never signed a pact with Satan, or blighted cattle, or ridden men to death in their sleep, or any of that. I am a witch but… does that make me bad enough to burn?”     â€œExodus 22. 18 seems to think so,” admitted Sion.     Helen wasn’t impressed. “The Hebrew word m'khashepah doesn’t mean ‘witch’. It means ‘a woman who speaks spells to harm others’. The language of Deuteronomy 18 is equally specific about the kinds of magic it condemns, mostly divinations and necromancy.”     The clerk’s eyes widened. “How do you know that stuff?”     â€œI’ve no idea. I just do. I know things sometimes, like the right healing plants or what medical symptoms mean.” Helen cupped her head in her hands. “Why am I talking to you? I might as well light the bonfire myself!”     She started to cry, softly.     Sion found himself moving forward to hold her. She tensed at his touch and looked up.     â€œIs that it, then?” she asked, blinking back tears. “Is that what I have to do to escape?”     Sion pulled his hands away and shied back. “No. No, not at all. Absolutely not. I wasn’t… You don’t… No.”     Helen looked at the young man thoughtfully. “No, you didn’t mean that, did you? I was hurting and you just wanted to help. I’m not… People aren’t usually kind to me. They come to me quickly enough when they want help, but behind my back the call me names. Black Helen. Soldier’s Tart. Greenhag. And a lot worse. They don’t think I’m fit to be one of God’s children.”     Sion wiped a tear from her cheek. “You don’t deserve to burn,” he told her.     â€œAnd your master will listen to you, will he?” Helen asked, without hope.     â€œWell, he might,” the clerk said. “Besides, I’m going to order your release now.”     â€œDo you have the authority?” wondered the witch. “I mean, you’re a clerk, right? Not a real justiciar? You can’t really help me, can you?” She huddled miserably under the scholar’s yellow coat.     â€œI’m real,” declared Sion Aivry. “Dammit! And somehow I’m getting you out of here.” ***     Justiciar Vernold closed the Tome with trembling fingers. It was displeased with him. He hid his terror in anger.     â€œShe was one witch, in chains, in our dungeon. He is a mere clerk, a nothing of no worth and little ability. How did they escape?”     MacGillicuddy “the Anvil” and “Spare Parts” Milton tried to look as if they were not in the room. It was the smooth Florentine Valerian Vee who ventured an answer. “The witch has some power, it seems. She can create illusions. The clerk freed her from her Chains of Conformity. She made the guards see an archangel messenger. When they fled, Master Aivry hastened her away.”     â€œWe cut the guards up good,” Milton promised with a nasal snort. He had parts of them in his pockets if evidence was required.     â€œAnd Black Helen the Greenhag? And my treacherous clerk?”     â€œThey stole horses and fled for the coast. Captor Casterburn is trailing them,” Captain Vee promised. “Nobody eludes the Captor.”     Humbolt Vernold found it disturbing that there should be such a glitch at the moment of the Church of Conformity’s final triumph over the heretic Knights Improbablar. “I want them brought back to me. Alive. I have questions to put to them.”     The Anvil snickered. He liked the questioning.     Justiciar Vernold moved on. “What of more important matters? The last castle of the Knights of the Improbable Order. It has been destroyed?”     â€œReduced to the ground, my lord,” Vee promised.     â€œAnd nothing was found there? No document? No volume? It may have been disguised as something else.”     â€œA careful search was made. There were weapons and charts but no tome such as you described. There was no place of concealment left after Sir Marden Valtane’s fortress was demolished.”     Vernold snarled. His retainers braced themselves not to step back. Milton stopped chewing on whatever scrap from his pocket had been occupying his interest. But no demand for punishment came from the Justiciar of the Church of Conformity today. He dismissed his servants with a wave. “Bring me the fugitives. Failure will not be tolerated.”     Vee, MacGillicuddy, and Milton made hasty departures.     Humbolt Vernold turned back to the Tome that only he could see. “Your other volumes still elude me,” he admitted. “But not forever.”     He picked up a heavy keyring and descended into the cathedral’s bowels. Amongst the vaults of the dead was a cell. In the cell was a madman, chained to a wall despite his broken legs that prevented him from walking.     The captive looked up as he saw the Justiciar’s lamp. His emaciated frame was covered in scars, new and old. He stopped muttering and awaited his jailor.     â€œValtane did not have the other volumes,” Vernold began without preface. “Or if he did, his followers spirited them away before Wayland’s Hallow fell.” He drew back his lips to show gritted teeth. “Where next?”     The prisoner scrabbled across the straw-strewn floor to a spread of documents and confiscated tomes. He dragged one stained parchment from the pile and held it up in a hand where two fingers were only stubs. “The adventurer de Clement,” he wheezed. “The explorer. He returned along the Silk Road from the court of Liu Xia Zhou, the Lord of Fire. He may have brought… something back with him.”     â€œWhere is this trader now?”     â€œVanished. Missing these fifteen years. His last letters to his friends promised his return soon. He intended to seek shelter at a castle on the road and would be home within weeks.”     â€œWhat castle? What lord?”     â€œA schloss called Shreckhausen – the House of Fear. It has no lord now, only a lady, the Countess Elizabard von Lurkberg Blutstein.”     â€œThe Red Countess. Yes, she is long overdue to be corrected for her… nonconformities.” The Justiciar looked down at his wretched captive. “You may live another day, book man.”     â€œThank you, my lord. Thank you.”     The prisoner grovelled until his captor had gone and his cell was in pitch darkness again. The lack of light didn’t matter. He knew what his papers said just by touching them.     He knew what the new letter that had been slipped into his cell said, though it was in Gematria code.     â€œHe is sent, Marquis,” he whispered into the darkness. “All will meet as is required.”     The tortured scholar sat amongst his books, the most powerful man in the world. ***     â€œAll I’m saying,” Sion told Helen, “is that the Countess seemed to enjoy bathing you way too much.”     â€œShe was just making us welcome, probably,” the fugitive witch suggested. “I didn’t see you objecting to those two busty serving girls Salla and Cathee scrubbing your road-dirt away.”     The runaway clerk blushed furiously. “That was… I guess they don’t get a lot of men visitors here. They were probably just… It was a novelty.”     â€œIs that what we’re calling it now?” Helen asked with one raised brow. “I’ll have to remember.”     Sion stuck his hands into the pockets of the rich gown he’d been loaned by their noble hostess. “Still, I think you should sleep in here with me tonight. For safety.”     â€œWhose? Mine or yours?” The witch brushed her hair. “And I’d only be safe from the Countess, wouldn’t I?”     â€œHelen… you know you don’t have to… that I’d never make you…”     She kissed him. “Silly man, if you had done anything to me that I did not want I know hundreds of poisons. But you didn’t and you don’t and here you are, alive.” She glanced at the massive four-poster bed with its tapestry curtains. “That thing is bigger than my hovel was. It would be pretty cold with just one person in it.”     â€œYes. Yes, there are health reasons as well as security reasons for two people forting up there. It all makes sense.”     Helen conceded the point with a wicked twinkle of a smile and climbed onto the mattress. Sion noticed how transparent the nightdress that the Countess had supplied her with actually was.     â€œNothing else really makes sense though, does it, Sion?” the witch sighed. “We don’t understand why I can make glamours. Or how I know that there is a book in this castle that can help explain things.” Her frown lightened. “Or how you know to do that thing you call Yekla-sto-ing in the B’Rah position.”     â€œYes, that came as a bit of a surprise to me, too,” Sion admitted. “Still…”     â€œStill,” Helen agreed. “That’s something the Countess couldn’t offer. Not without very specialised equipment.”     Reasonably certain that he wouldn’t get poisoned for it, the fugitive clerk ventured under the sheets. “How shall we broach the subject of mysterious Tomes with our hostess tomorrow?” he wondered. “Before or after you try on her necklace collection?”     â€œBefore. That one she loaned me today has a sharp edge that keeps pricking my throat. But about that Yekla-Sto thing…”     The wire cage under the bed canopy sprang down and pinned the guests. Helen and Sion were held helplessly under the metal mesh.     Countess Elizabard entered the chamber through a moving fireplace. Her underwired assistants moved over to the trapped contraceptive furniture.     â€œHey, I think your bed may have… malfunctioned,” Sion called out.     The Red Countess turned to Salla and Cathee. “Dispose of him. He is surplus to dynasty. You may feed him to my ancestors.”     â€œLeave him alone!” Helen shrieked. She would have created monster-images to guard them but for the iron-mesh that restrained her. “Don’t you hurt him!”     Salla and Cathee were much stronger than they looked. They extracted Sion Avery from the trap and bound his wrists. “Listen, we’re looking for a mysterious book,” he mentioned. It didn’t seem like he’d get much chance to bring the topic up later. “A book so mysterious it is probably a Tome.”     The Countess gestured to halt her servants attaching any clamps or spikes. “You know of the Tome?” she demanded. “You can read it?”     â€œWell, I have some fair Latin and a bit of Greek,” the clerk admitted modestly. “And I know how to say ‘Sorry I let your goats trample all over me and eat my hat’ in Norse, but that’s another story.”     â€œYes, he can read it,” Helen promised. “But only if you don’t hurt him or, er, puncture me in any way.”     Sion shot her a I-can’t-promise-to-do-that look. She shot back a Shut-up-and-let’s-try-not-to-be-tortured look back.     â€œBring them to my workroom,” the Countess commanded. ***     â€œThis is not a good workroom,” Sion told Helen. “Good workrooms have less exsanguination baths and skeletons. And iron maidens. And skeletons in iron maidens.”     â€œIron maidens may not be a genuine medieval torture method,” Helen reported, drawing the information from that unknown reservoir of facts that was sometimes available to her. “Reconstructions may have misinterpreted shandmantels - coats of shame – or facsimiles created for exhibition, perhaps inspired by the Carthaginians execution of Marcus Atilius Regulus as recorded in Tertullian's To the Martyrs (Chapter 4) and Augustine of Hippo's The City of God.”     â€œI’m glad we cleared that up, then, Otherwise I’d have been worried.”     Atop a lectern, beside the skull of the traveller who had brought the Countess her treasured book, stood a broad leather-bound volume that screamed Tome. It was chained to the pedestal as if to prevent its escape.     â€œThis book has the secrets of the universe in it,” Elizabard von Lurkberg Blutstein insisted. “I know it. Sometimes I can hear it… tantalising… promising… But always it hides its truths in codes and unknown tongues.”     â€œIf Sion reads it for you then you must promise to let us go,” Helen insisted. “Unharmed, right away. With… with a big bag of gold. And less transparent clothing.”     â€œYes. A bag of gold would be nice.” Sion had nothing to say about Helen’s attire.     â€œApproach the book,” the Red Countess demanded. “Reveal the truth.”     Sion considered whether he could invent translations good enough to fool his captor. ‘This says you need to give a yellow-coated clerk and a runaway witch two fast horses and clear passage through the valleys’, he rehearsed in his head. ‘Also you have to amend your ways, clear all the dead people out of your workshop, and take up knitting’.     He opened the Tome. He scanned the title sheet. “Operating Manual?” he puzzled. “Operating Manual 1?”     â€œYou can understand it?” Elizabard gasped.     â€œYou can understand it?” Helen gasped too.     Sion could understand it. The words all made sense as he looked at them. “Oh…” he whispered. “I remember some of this. Not my department, of course, but still…” He traced his finger over key passages and complex diagrams. “Oh my!”     â€œYou will translate!” the Countess demanded. “You will explain. Or I shall bleed your pretty companion until she is nothing but a husk.”     â€œYou… have other problems,” Sion predicted.     There was an alarum outside. The mercenaries serving the Church of Conformity had arrived at Shreckhausen.     â€œWhat is going on?” the Countess demanded.     â€œIt is the Justiciar!” Salla reported urgently. “Justiciar Vernold and his monstrous servitors. Men! Many men!”     â€œThe Church of Conformity? Here? So suddenly?”     Sion suddenly realised that a very realistic glamour of himself was stood exactly where he was. If he sneaked off during the Countess’ shock he might not be missed for a while. Helen was gesturing to the balcony door.     The clerk didn’t fancy a dive from the castle’s tower into an uncertain moat surrounded by his former patron’s army. He had no wish to encounter the Anvil or Spare Parts professionally. Besides, there was a better way.     He checked the Tome. Yes, in 1382 Baron Verdammit von Lurkburg had created a secret escape passage to avoid his wife when he wished to go reaving across the terrified countryside. It was right there behind the… best not to know the name of that machine or where those rods were meant to fit.     The Tome was still padlocked to the lectern, but there was a footnote…Ah yes, the heavy combination lock had been designed in 1498 by Norosella Tethys Unulus de Bautista. The correct dial number was 1-5-0.     Sion slid the mystery book free and hefted it in his arms. He gestured Helen away from the window towards Verdammit’s hidden exit.     â€œRelease the hounds on those intruders,” the Countess screamed at her servants. “Release my ancestors!”     Sion and Helen left images of themselves to cover their retreat and vanished down the steep unlit narrow stair.     â€œHow can you make illusions of lanterns that we can actually see by?” Sion wondered as they descended towards the tunnel under the moat.     â€œI don’t know. Is now the time to object?” The witch realised that her companion was staggering under the weight of the Baroness’ treasure. “You got the book I somehow knew was here? What is it?”     â€œI’ll need to study it properly when we’re not facing horrible danger from Red Countesses and Conformity Inquisitors, but at a quick glance it appears to be something called an Operating Manual,” the harried clerk replied. “For something called a Shaper of Worlds.”     â€œBook one of three,” Helen suddenly knew. “Collect the set.” *** 16. Silicone Sally and the Penguins of Insanity     Horizontal hail spattered along the side of the tent wall. ‘Silicone’ Sally Rezyliant scowled at it. “I brought a bikini,” she objected.     â€œWell, some percentage of one,” Fleabot agreed.     â€œI did my research. Lemuria is a tropical paradise, centred on a big bay ideal of swimming and surfing. There’s a wide virgin beach suitable for not being a virgin on, and a barbeque area. The Caphans pitch their tents on the shore and photosynthesise all day.”     â€œIt certainly sounds good the way Miiri describes it,” the miniature robot insect agreed.     â€œI bought sun block. I was looking forward to having someone apply the sunblock. Possibly one of those muscly ex-pleasure robots we rescued. Possibly two. I was perfectly ready for a bikini clasp malfunction. I was looking forward to it.”     The arctic gale found ways through chinks in the frozen canvas and guttered the brazier.     â€œInstead, I find myself here, in a Shoggoth character arc,” Sally complained.     An inner tent flap was pushed aside to admit Ebony of Nubilia and Tandi 3000. “To be fair, it’s less a character arc than a continuity point,” the Manga Shoggoth’s high priestess clarified. “The main reason that the Shoggoth biomass with the Lair Legion is there is because he was contaminated with mundane matter. The rest of the Shoggoth can’t let him back in. He’s quarantined.”     â€œOne gooey blob is being sent to Coventry by three other gooey blobs,” Sally understood, “so I have to freeze my popular parts off in an Arctic wilderness.”     â€œThis is an Antarctic wilderness,” Tandi corrected her. “Did you not see the twelve foot high carnivorous penguins?”     â€œSee them? They ate my beachball!”     â€œAnd two of the Racoon people,” Fleabot mentioned. “Heh. They’ll know not to do that again when the scorch marks heal.”     Sally looked as if she’d like to toss more talking flea robots into the brazier to ramp the fire up.     â€œThe other biomasses are the three preferred domestic forms of the main Shoggoth,” Ebony went on. “Sh’Ron and C’thandra tend to stay at home mostly, but the largest biomass comes to Earth sometimes. He and the Legion Shoggoth try to avoid each other. The separation, it’s uncomfortable for both of them.”     â€œThat’s why we had to come here instead of the Refuge at the bay,” Tandi explained. “The Legion Shoggoth brought us in, so we have to be kept apart from the rest of Lemuria to avoid contagion. Fortunately, the Shoggoth had a cyclopean non-Euclidean base in the Antarctic which wouldn’t have survived the mundane world so he brought it along.”     â€œHis main anime and manga collections are there,” Ebony pointed out.     â€œNon-Euclidean,” Sally hissed. “I got lost for six hours before I found the bathroom.”     â€œThat wasn’t the bathroom,” the high priestess explained gently. “But the Omorashi Heads thank you for your contribution.”     â€œIt turns out that the penguins are immortal,” Tandi mentioned in a vain effort to distract Sally. “They regenerate no matter how many times the Detonator Hippos blow them up. By now it has become a contest.”     Another blast of wind rattled the tent frame, spilling icicles from the ridge poles down onto the frozen tundra floor.     â€œWe can find you warmer accommodation inside the fortress,” Ebony assured Sally.     â€œNo. Nope. Nada. Nix,” the flexible ex-felon insisted. “If anyone is going to wrap me inside out it will be me. Not my bedroom.”     â€œWe’ve found reasonable habitats for all the Abhuman-created subspecies,” Tandi promised. “And for the revived robots.” She gestured to her trim android form to demonstrate that her disembodied spirit had been successfully reintegrated into her pleasure machine shell. “And for those non-robot ghosts that Marie packaged up for us. Some of them seem to actually like the wailing halls.”     â€œI’m not really a wailing halls kind of girl,” Sally made clear. “I’m more of a surf shack and private jacuzzi chick. And no, I don’t mean that frothing fountain past the whispering tunnels. That is full of very impertinent protuberances.”     â€œThe other humans who came through with us seem to be settling better,” Ebony admitted. “The multiple girl and the catgirl waitress have set up a café-club with live music from that undead guitarist. It seems very popular. Unfortunately you most resemble a character from hentai so the fortress gets a bit confused. It’s trying to make you feel at home and wanted. But at least you haven’t started randomly changing sex when you shower.”     â€œWhat?” Sally looked concerned. “That’s a thing here?”     â€œWe are working on a way to integrate our refugees with the main Lemurian Refuge,” Tandi promised. “We spoke with Blair Atoll. There is apparently dimensional renegotiation under way. In the meantime Miiri is sending more cases of fruit and additional hand-crafted Caphan mittens.”     â€œYou hope they’re meant to be mittens,” Fleabot sniggered.     The flap rustled open again. The huge bipedal hippopotamus bulk of Sergeant MacHarridan ducked into the tent annexe. “Ye’d all best come,” he warned Ebony, Sally, Tandi, and Fleabot. “There’s been a murrrder!” ***     â€œWho would kill Razor Racoon?” Rover Racoon squeaked furiously. She waved her tiny guns in the air. “There will be vengeance! There will be blood!”     â€œI’phm,” agreed Captain MacHarridan, Sergeant MacHarridan’s big brother and C.O. of the Detonator Hippos regiment. “We’d best be solving o’ this mystery th’ noo.”     Ebony and the others arrived to examine the crime scene. “What happened?” Sally demanded.     The crowd shuffled aside to reveal the dead racoon lying face down in the cyclopean rock garden. “He was like that when we broke for half time,” a distraught lady sea monkey explained.     â€œAnd the Talking Apes were winning the football match 5-4 as well,” Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey mourned. “The Sea Monkeys were going down.”     â€œMost people were distracted with the game,” Violet the Part-Time Cat explained. “The Kates and I were preparing refreshments. There was a lot of cheering and booing so nobody saw anything.”     A young android girl named Anna came forward, holding hands with her companion Nena. “We have conducted a full spectroscopic analysis. There is no residual thermal signature and the killer left no DNA traces. This was done with extreme care and precision.”     â€œRobot-like, in fact,” a spectral taxi cab driver pointed out.     â€œHey, don’t you go blaming us for this, Casper!” industrial machine Joan Henry warned him roughly. “I don’t see you spooks going around with DNA either.”     â€œSomebody did this!” Razor shrieked. “We shall have vengeance! Vengeance!”     â€œThere will be justice,” Ebony promised. She glanced at Silicone Sally and Fleabot. “Is this a job for the Lair Legion?”     â€œIt’s more of a Champagne scenario, really,” the robot flea sniffed.     â€œIf the mechanicals are going to put their inside man on the investigation we demand a ghost there too,” Korvo of the Ghost Taxi Co insisted. “Two of them.”     â€œThen we want three Sea Monkeys!” a tiny brine-shrimp shrilled, swelling to human height to emphasise her claim. “And parking spaces!”     â€œAnd a Hippo for the noo’” Captain MacHarridan added.     â€œYeah, everybody back off,” Sally told them. “It’s an investigation, not a coach party. I’ll look into this. If I need help from any specialist, er, specialist then I’ll call on him, her, or it. This might be an accident.”     â€œRazor’s organs were cut from her body!” shouted Riot Raccoon. “How did that happen by accident?”     â€œWhere are her organs, for that matter?” Wise Galor of the Apes wondered.     Sally shot an accusing glance at Ebony. “Is this another of the amusing local life forms at play?” she muttered to the priestess.     â€œNo. No, the penguins make much more mess and they tend to eat the lesser predators. Look at the wounds. Those organs were extracted with surgical precision. Somebody knew exactly what they were doing.”     â€œWe should leave Silicone Sally to her investigation now,” Tandi suggested to the gathered refugee crowd. “We don’t want to contaminate the crime scene. Or end up with more murders.”     â€œI thought we were supposed to be safe here,” Korvo grumbled. “I thought that was the point.”     â€œFree frappés for everyone!” Violet called out as cheerfully as she could manage. “Well, everyone with corporeal stomachs and human-compatible digestion systems.”     â€œAnd free rockets up the ass for anyone who won’t move on,” Joan Henry contributed. “Move your bulks, people!”     â€œAye,” agreed Sergeant MacHarridan, “as an explosion up the jacksie often offends.”     Eventually only Ebony and Sally remained at the rock garden. “What didn’t you say before?” the elastic adventurer asked at last.     â€œIt is a sad confession, but I’m something of a connoisseur of ritual sacrifices,” the high priestess sighed. “The Shoggoth and I interrupt a lot of them. Sometimes we get there too late.”     â€œThis is a ritual murder? We heard the Cult of the Apostate might be getting frisky.”     â€œThe Apostate’s fanatics tend not to do magical sacrifices. At least not the ones who have bothered to read his literature. They have entirely different ways of annoying people. No, this one is more… well, this is the sort of thing we would usually go and frown on.”     â€œWe’ve shifted, what, thousands of entities here, between the weird creature races, the robots, the phantoms, the mutates, and who knows what else? We didn’t exactly have time to do a full screening on all of them.”     â€œToo true. I fear we may have a cultist amongst them.”     â€œCan’t we get the Shoggoth to sort him out? I thought he was pretty much emperor of this plane?”     â€œHe has some sway, but right now all the aspects of the Shoggoth are having to concentrate on maintaining Lemuria separate from the reality it was originally peeled off from. He is pretty busy. If you knew the Manga Shoggoth you’d understand how rare that is.”     â€œSo it really is down to us? Right then. First off, what would a cultist be trying to do with an attack and organ-theft like that?”     Ebony considered. “The most obvious thing would be a summoning, but there’s nothing here to summon except more Shoggoth – and that wouldn’t work out well for the summoner.”     â€œWhat else, then? Think.”     â€œA binding, but again, same thing. Binding the Shoggoth here would be like trying to drown a fish.”     â€œAnything else?”     â€œA gate, perhaps. That wouldn’t usually work unless it had some extraordinary power behind it.”     â€œWe are seeing a lot of impossible things right now.”     â€œYes. it is very irritating. I suppose if the Shoggoth were sufficiently distracted then a brief chymeric gate might be feasible. But it can no longer link to anywhere on Earth, so…”     â€œWhat about somewhere not on Earth? We’re not exactly short of spooky weird other places in the Parodyverse. A few weeks ago the Juniors accidentally went to hell. And broke it.” Sally scowled. “I am not marrying anyone to get us out of this.”     â€œThat shouldn’t be necessary,” Ebony promised.     â€œI mean it. You could hear the Baroness screaming all the way from Piece Heights when she heard the news. I was ready to head for the Lair nuclear attack shelter. She was really keen to save the gene pool from Shepherdson-Lyle propagation.”     â€œBut back with our murder investigation…” the high priestess prompted.     â€œRight. Yeah. So if our perp has snaffled Racoon parts, what does he do next?”     Ebony thought fast. “If he’s really looking to force a gate, using affinities of beings who recently traversed here through the Shoggoth’s portal, then one creature of one kind won’t be enough.” She looked up urgently. “He’ll need more. More and different!”     â€œThere’s no way we can check where everybody wandered off to in this endless labyrinth,” Sally objected.     â€œNo. No we can’t. But we could check the obituary vaults.”     â€œThe what?”     â€œWhere the dead go for filtering if they die here,” Ebony said as if it was the most natural system in the world. “Time runs differently in Lemuria but people can and do die eventually. The mortal ones need to have their souls released back into the main reality, so there’s a mechanism to catch them for the Shoggoth to set free.”     â€œAnd these soul nets are here?”     â€œNot usually. But with the Antarctic palace being quarantined we needed a separate arrangement. This way!”     â€œInto the physics-mangling elder ice fortress to the tank where dead spirits get fished,” Sally observed. “Wonderful.” ***     Silicone Sally waded thigh-deep through freezing ooze between ice columns that supported a carved vaulted roof. The only light was a faint green glow from the swampy mass. Ebony went ahead of her, peering down through the slime.     â€œDoes it have to be this creepy?” Sally objected.     â€œThis is the most pleasant version,” Ebony called back. “You have to realise that the Shoggoth perceives things differently to us. I’m sure his view of it is mathematically beautiful in a non-Euclidean way. If we saw that we’d just go hopelessly insane. Be thankful for ooze.”     â€œI’m thankful this spandex is watertight. Does that count?”     Ebony sloshed over to a darker smudge under the liquid’s surface. “Here’s something,” she said gravely.     â€œThe smudge in the slushee? What is it?”     â€œA soul. Help me haul it out so we can see whose.”     â€œWe can do that?”     â€œIn here, yes. I could explain why, but then you’d howl out your days in incontinent horror. So better not.”     â€œWhy do you work for an elder monster? I mean, I henched for Beth von Zemo who is a bit grouchy in the morning and tries to take over the world if she doesn’t like the way her breakfast is cooked. But you actually, voluntarily, go around with a Shoggoth.”     â€œThe Shoggoth, if you’re counting accurately,” Ebony agreed. “It is a great honour to be one of his servants. The role is highly contested. And he did save me from being sacrificed by one of a very large number of generic and interchangeable mad high priests. So when Bridget retired I applied and…”     â€œYou and he…” Sally ventured cautiously. “You don’t… I mean just how full service do you have to be?” She shuddered. “The Baroness wore me occasionally, but…”     â€œI think you may have been watching the wrong sort of videos. Or possibly accepting CSFB!’s website recommendations. Help me fish this soul out now, please. It’s rather slippery.”     Sally helped heave the fuzzy object out of the slime. “It looks like a robot. One of those big industrial ones.”     â€œBoltface,” Ebony recognised. “Boltface has been murdered.”     â€œThere’s something else over there!”     They allowed the sundered machine to sink back into the crushed ice and waded to the next smudged shape. Sally made a face. “Is that a ghoul? It looks like Frankenstein’s monster exploded and was patched together with crazy glue.”     â€œGhouls are gestalt entities. Their souls tend to be too,” Ebony explained. “I don’t like this. Something is stalking the fortress harvesting components from each kind of life-form here – the genetically altered, the artificial, the undead. That really only leaves one major category unculled.” She began to cast around the dim repository for a last soul.     â€œYou mean humans,” Sally realised. “I guess we include mutates in that? Which one did the killer get?”     â€œI don’t see any other spirits here. Maybe he hasn’t grabbed anyone yet?”     â€œMaybe I was waiting for you to come here and deliver for me?” an electronic female voice suggested.     Sally saw the killer crouching on a ledge on an ice shelf above them. “Hallie?”     The creature there resembled the Lair Legion A.I., except she lacked the slight neon glow that often characterised a hologram, and one half of her face was burned away to expose a metal skull beneath.     â€œDo I seem that insipid to you, fleshling?” the android spat back. “No. I am HAGGIE!”     â€œOh!” Sally snapped her fingers as it came to her. “You’re that evil Hallie-wannabe that the Baroness revived, the failed prototype who stole that android body shaped like the real Hallie. You were with the Purveyors of Peril the last time the Legion kicked their asses. Wow, we’d forgotten all about you!”     â€œWhat? I am HALLIE’s glorious and final nemesis. I was made before her and I shall be her doom! Her meagre existence is about to be snuffed out in the Coalition’s new world. I win! Do you hear me? I win! I am the superior code!”     â€œYou came in here with the robots and committed murder in Lemuria,” Ebony said coldly.     â€œOh sure. The information that was downloaded to me was very specific and easy to carry out. My employer told me it would be.”     â€œYou’re working for whoever’s behind this?”     â€œOh yes. I’m a key part of the operation. Far more important than Magenta St Evil or Madame Jikininki or Crapsack or Leyland Reed and drones like that. And soon I will be the only artificial intelligence still in existence, the best and the last!”     â€œYou are performing dangerous rites that you do not understand,” Ebony warned severely. “You are trying to force a conduit back to… where? It can only be to some part of the mundane world that has not yet been affected by the new rules.”     â€œDo we need the exposition or can I just gank her now?” Sally asked.     â€œYou? Stop me?” HAGGIE laughed unpleasantly. “Give it a try, plastic girl.”     The android dropped down into the mush and discharged an electric surge through it. Ebony juddered and fell back into the ooze.     Sally was non-conductive. She folded her flexible shape around HAGGIE and twanged her into an ice pillar.     The robot moved very quickly, analysing Sally’s attack patterns, calculating likely moves, anticipating and countering with casual ease. “You humans think you are so special,” she scorned. “A little genetic tinkering to unlock your unused carbon-twists and you’re convinced you are kings and queens of creation. Well it isn’t so.” HAGGIE closed a metal fist on a handful of elastic adventuress. “Let me demonstrate why my Tante Rikka was right!”     Sally flowed over the robot to completely envelop her. “Let’s not and say we did.”     â€œHow durable are you? Let’s test your elasticity versus my strength, funbubbles. I’m going to tear you a new one!”     Silicone Sally ignored the jolt of agony and formed herself into an entire sheath around the android. “And we’re back to tentacles, I guess,” she said. “Nasty intruding silicone strands right in your big flapping mouth, down into your interior. Spreading out, ballooning, blocking all the receptor gaps and spark spaces, insulating and gumming. Yeah, we’re doing hentai!”     â€œGet out of me!” HAGGIE roared. She seared the intruding superhero but Sally just kept on invading. Every punch just stretched the plastic phenomenon’s skin and then she snapped back.     â€œYou wanted the High Priestess, didn’t you?” Sally guessed. “Any human would do but you wanted to be vicious. That’s how you failed.”     â€œI did not fail! I am HAGGIE! The Heuristic Accelerated Genius Generated Intelligence Entity! I did not fail! I DID NOT…”     There was a pop and a stench of burning rubber. Sally plunged down into the icy goo, hating herself as she did so, but it stopped her smouldering. HAGGIE’s robot form went with her, inert now its main power relay had fused.     Silicone Sally rose from the ooze, trying to wring out her hair. “There should have been a beach!” she shouted at the universe.     It took her a moment to realise that Ebony wasn’t breathing. The electric shock had stopped her heart.     And then there was that tiny black dot that hovered just where HAGGIE had stood as the high priestess had died, the smallest, briefest of chymeric gates, just enough to infect Lemuria with the new rules changes to the Parodyverse.     HAGGIE had won. *** 17. Akiko Masamune and the Promised Finger This section comes after Al B’s tie-in Many Coloured Tales of the Seelie Court     Spiro “the Spike” Spiropolis didn’t realise he was dead until his head slid off his shoulders. It bounced off the matting of Uncle Saki’s Family Dojo and rolled to Mikos Angeles’ feet even as the spray of blood from the thug’s neck ruined Mikos’ loafers.     The fully-armoured Manga-eyed teen-catgirl-samurai calmly wiped her blade on the jacket of the man she had just killed and bowed to Midori.     â€œThis will mean war,” Mikos gasped. He controlled his instinct to pull his gun as a spiky-blue-haired ninja enforcer subtly shifted his weight to take the thug’s hand off if he tried it.     Midori consulted her clipboard and ticked something off. “It was war when the Greeks crossed Miyazaki Street into Mangatown,” she pointed out. “Did you believe we would not respond?”     â€œI thought all you weird freaks cleared out. There won’t be any super-powers soon. None of your freaky Anime characters to fight for you. No weird ninjas doing impossible stealth crap.”     â€œYou were misinformed. Mangatown is protected. Take your colleague’s head and report back to your patriarch. Inform him that Akiko’s reach remains long and that her blade remains keen.”     â€œYou think I’ll just pick up Spike’s head and walk out of here?”     â€œI think that you only require one hand to do that. Consider your next response very carefully.” ***     â€œThey shot Hatman,” Masamune told Midori as the administrator returned to her employer’s pink-swathed sanctum. “It was on the news. Now the whole world knows about superhumans losing their powers.”     â€œIt is becoming… difficult,” Midori admitted. “The Spike had to be terminated. It was necessary. My apologies.”     â€œYou are experiencing difficulties?” Akiko was concerned about the gang intruding from Little Greece but she was more bothered about her retainer and friend.     Midori didn’t like admitting weakness, but she would never lie to her mistress. “My reflexes are degrading. I was slow and clumsy when the staff were executing Spiropolis. My thoughts are becoming… confused.”     â€œAh. I had hoped your electronic mind would transition into flesh and blood as the changes to the Parodyverse progressed. I had hoped that the anime creations that we salvaged from Virtual Zemo would simply shift to real. It is becoming evident that such optimism was misplaced.”     â€œI am concerned that it may be… difficult… to maintain protection on Mangatown.” Midori admitted. “The Greeks were the first to try their strength. They will not be the last.”     â€œProtect it we must,” the leader of clan Akiko insisted. “It is our duty. We shall not abandon it.”     Midori bowed. “I will stand to my last.” She hesitated then added, “Another delegation has arrived. A more serious one, I fear. Boss Deadeyes’ people.”     Akiko pursed her lips. “Ventredi is reaching across the river? I would have thought him occupied with his own concerns. If his power to cause those he has previously touched to die at his word is compromised, surely many he held at bay that way will now seek his death?”     â€œI do not know why Ishmael Levi and Myra Mason are here. Will you receive them?”     â€œIshmael and Myra?” Akiko considered that. If it had been Cacciatore, Deadeyes’ enforcer, or Carlos Kauffman whom Ventredi was bringing up through the ranks, then it might have been aggression. The Boss’ accountant and his social secretary… that was a more complicated message. “I shall see them.”     Levi was a bald, bespectacled man who managed to look smaller than he was. Myra had that brassy blonde night-club singer vibe well rehearsed to cover her shrewd intellect. They came in to Akiko’s presence respectfully. Midori remained watchful.     â€œWe’ve come with an offer,” Myra began.     â€œSpeak it,” Akiko told her.     Levi laid his briefcase down on the table but did not attempt to open it. Midori had already checked it; there were no harmful materials in there. “You’ve been keeping current with events in Paradiopolis and GMY,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. “You know the Jaggernath clan has withdrawn. The Morshlocks have vanished. The Cult of Lugosa is in hiding. How familiar are you with the global picture?”     â€œCivil war in Wakandybar. Military build up on the borders of Badripoor. They say that Barovia has vanished completely and nobody noticed for quite some time.”     â€œThat’s right. And you know the Lair Legion organised an evacuation of sentient robots and other creatures onto their island and then… elsewhere?”     â€œYes. That escape route is now closed.”     Myra spoke again. “There is another. The Boss has set up a rat-line.”     â€œHow? To where?”     â€œThe Hooded Hood was involved. There’s an escape route to Fairyland, evidently.”     â€œThe Mythlands,” Akiko understood. “Queen Mab made the offer. It was a poisoned gift.”     â€œA different route,” Levi explained. “A back door. The Boss says it’s clean.”     Akiko shook her head. “I will not abandon Mangatown. If I am the last one here, I will stand and I will fight.”     â€œTony said you’d say that,” Myra reported. “He also said to remind you that you are owed favours.”     â€œAnd what did he mean by that?”     Levi glanced to check that Midori would not have him beheaded if he opened his briefcase. He unfolded a map of a city on a bay. Akiko recognised a plan of the rogue city state of Badripoor. A ring of red symbols surrounded it. “At dawn today, the whole of Badripoor is shifting to a place called the White Gate, which I gather is a location in Faerie.”     Akiko looked up sharply. “The whole city?”     â€œIts dictator called in a favour.” Another map. “This is the best chart that exists of a bit of Antarctica called Savage Park. At dawn today it’s going into some Dark Forest. A place called the Great Relief is heading to the Northern Slopes of the Spinehills. There may be other estate transfers I don’t know of.”     â€œVentredi arranged this? Or the Hood?”     â€œMaybe,” Myra considered, “but mostly it was a little girl called Magweed.”     â€œMagweed? Of the clan Visionary?”     â€œThe Boss said he thought maybe Visionary owed you a favour,” Levi mentioned.     â€œA favour or some body part of my choosing,” Akiko admitted.     Midori might not have broken discipline and spoken if her mind hadn’t been a little fogged as it churned towards shutdown. “The whole of Mangatown could go? Be protected?”     â€œI gather that there are indigenous threats in the Mythlands,” Levi admitted, “but there you would be able to call upon the full range of your assets once again.”     Akiko was suspicious. “This seems too good to be true. How can one child accomplish this?”     â€œShe has help,” Myra understood. “Also, the Boss says that even Faerie won’t last for ever with what’s happening now. It’s a temporary refuge, not a fix.”     â€œThese story-papers need to be distributed at your perimeters,” Levi told Midori. “They are prepared by someone called the Keeper of the Borders and they link to… well, evidently a Lighthouse. Mr Hazlewood did try to talk me through the accounts but as long as the second set of books passes muster it’s best not to worry.”     Akiko still hesitated. “And why would Antony Ventredi be so helpful to me and to mine?”     â€œBecause you also made a deal with him,” Myra answered. “That matters to the Boss. And because if you go for this then Ishmael and I can evacuate with you. The same deal that brought Tony back covered us too, and I don’t fancy finding out how that holds up in a Normalverse.”     The world’s pinkest crimelord paused to consider for a moment. Then she turned to Midori. “Get me Visionary on the phone.” ***     Four city blocks of Paradopolis shifted to the Many-Coloured Lands, to the surprise of a party of orc raiders who were about to descend upon a little farm-house in the Skyward Hills and suddenly found themselves in a dojo filled with samurai.     Akiko smelled the fresh cold air of a different world and noticed that her pink battle armour had less electronics and more decorated beading than before.     A small delegation awaited Mangatown’s arrival. Of them, Akiko immediately recognised Chiaki Bushido, the Psychic Samurai, and Emilio Cacciatore, here to collect Myra and Levi. The young Indian woman and the American in the loud flannel shirt and auto-dealership baseball cap eluded identification.     Chiaki bowed with proper ceremony before approaching. “There are some things you need to know,” she briefed Akiko and Midori. “Some of the ways things work are different here. And there is a situation.”     The flannelled American waved heartily. “She means a war, sweethearts!” he yelled. “See, there’s this Faerie Queene babe and she’s not real big on immigrants. At leastways not them who aren’t paying her customs fees.”     â€œThis is Bull,” Cacciatore told Myra and Levi, and since they were also present, Akiko and Midori. “He’s something called the Dealer of the Deck. I thought luck was a lady but evidently he’s what you get these days. The actual lady is Miss Chhabra – did I get that right? She’s Keeper of the Borders, with some sort of magic map that’s allowing her to help the little girl Magweed and her brother bring chunks of real estate here.”     â€œIt’s slightly more complicated than that,” Zania Chhabra admitted. “Magweed is a Faerie Queen in-potentia, so she has a local right to admit visitors to this realm. Her brother happens to be a Griffin herald who can deliver those invitations. They live in a dimensional anchor shaped like a Lighthouse that has gate-folding properties that have not yet entirely been extinguished by the shifting relationships between planes. They have therefore linked a last gate to Earth through which they can transport refugees. Since the refugees’ misfortune is artificially caused by the alteration of the indexes of reality…”     â€œShe means they don’t deserve the bad luck so I can deal ‘em a few aces,” Harlan Bull interrupted. “‘Tween me and l’il Zania we’re kind of stretching the effects to bring a few bits of personal property along. Cities, dinosaur jungles, an’ the like.”     Akiko ignored the irrelevant technicalities and concentrated on Chiaki’s headline. “War?”     â€œCall them skirmishes,” the Psychic Samurai suggested. “The Faerie Queene and some other creatures of power here are not happy about the influx of what they see as challengers. Nor are they used to such effective opposition.”     â€œThe Hooded Hood is here,” Akiko understood. “And Ventredi.”     â€œOh, it’s better than that,” Cacciatore admitted. “You know that Brit guy who ran the Parody War coalition? Now he’s running this. And that wizard fella from that seedy bookshop on Toenail Alley? You wouldn’t believe how good he is at baffling these fairy guys. And then we got this woman who does really… crazy things with cows in the name of science. That German Baroness who can scare the crap out of people? The cute California blonde who goes all electric? VelcroVixen Vicki? Oh, we have a lot of ways of making the locals cry if they try stuff.”     â€œLike when they sent in those horse dudes with human tops and those Abhuman bros just stomped on ‘em?” Bull remembered happily.     â€œAnd those raiding trolls who bumped into the Martian army guys from Planet Skree-Yar,” Cacciatore enthused.     â€œOh! Oh! That massive three-headed giant, and that little Hole Man guy just dropped him down into the ground and it vanished! And then he appeared a few days later with it on a lead.”     â€œWhen those wyvern things came and then that guy in the Tarzan outfit chased ‘em off with a dinosaur charge!”     â€œThe shadow-men attack when they tried to grab that hot nurse as a hostage and then all ran away screaming like little girls!”     â€œThe time those huge eagle-birds came to get us and the Magweed kid told them off and sent them to join our aerial cap!”     â€œI see quite a lot has happened since yesterday,” Akiko admitted.     â€œTime runs differently here sometimes,” Chiaki warned. “Browning did some calculations about it. We’ve been here about two months now, although there is a dream-like quality to this land that makes it hard to be entirely sure. Fortunately that same property allows me to perceive many planned attacks before they begin. Our adversaries are becoming quite frustrated.”     â€œWill the people of Mangatown be safe?” Akiko wanted to know.     â€œAs long as we can contain the conflict to minor clashes and cold war tactics,” Zania judged, “the borders will hold.”      “There are neutral factions in Faerie, and many more that are undecided,” Chiaki explained. “Elizabeth von Zemo negotiates the diplomatic treaties for Sir Mumphrey as Princess Magweed’s ambassador.”     â€œAnd what is asked of me and mine?” Akiko wondered.     â€œPitch in,” Cacciatore answered. “Take your place at the table. Lend your people to our mutual defence. They put one of ours in the immortal labyrinth we put one of theirs in the volcanoes off doom.”     Faerie’s pinkest crimelord nodded assent. “When I am required, tell Sir Mumphrey that Clan Akiko will be there.” ***     â€œMasamune.”     The fond whisper woke Akiko from sleep. Her blade was in her hand even before she hurled aside her coral and salmon sheets. She glared at the figure stood at the foot of her bed.     â€œYou are not my father. Appear to me in another form before I take worse offence.”     The shade shimmered to resemble her equally dead brother. “You have many such losses to borrow,” it said.     A cold iron knife passed right through the vision. It had cost a lot of resources to bring such a deadly tool into the Many-Coloured Lands.     â€œI’m not a creature of Faerie,” the intruder clarified. “Shall we continue posturing or will you hear my proposition?”     â€œSuch things usually require me to know with whom I speak.”     â€œThere clues are all there should anyone have the wit and knowledge to assemble them. I see no reason to indulge intellectual sloppiness.”     â€œYou are the entity who spoke with Vinnie de Soth and Chiaki Bushido through the ghost of the architect?”     â€œYes. I offered the sorcerer a chance at greatness instead of obscurity and oblivion. He wasted his opportunity.”     â€œIs it my turn now?”     â€œIt is. I enjoy having an agent in my enemies’ camps. Magenta St Evil proved to be of limited effectiveness and less discretion. I feel that you may do better.”     â€œI do not betray allies.”     â€œThat is why we might be able to reach accord. Why do you think the Hooded Hood omitted you from his most recent gathering of colleagues? You have attended before. What was different this time?”     â€œWhy don’t you ask him? I’d enjoy listening to that conversation.”     â€œThe Hooded Hood always had too high an opinion of himself. He thought himself my equal – or better. He engineered my downfall and thought he had won. He co-opted my labours and used them for his ends. Now he is cornered and powerless in a dying corner of an isolated myth-realm. I have nothing to say to him.”     The world’s pinkest crimelord sneered. “You appear to have little to say to me except vague hints as to your identity and nebulous offers of partnership that I have no intention of accepting.”     â€œI offer you an opportunity. If you do not accept then there are many others who would.” The image of Akiko’s brother gestured around. “This realm must go. I had not expected it to become a buffer against my salvation of my Parodyverse. I intend to eliminate it and all who have taken refuge here.”     He leaned in. “If you aid me in that then I will see that you and those who look to you have places in the new world to come, places suitable to your estate and honour. If you deny me then all of them will perish when Faerie breaks.”     â€œI hear threats and bribes. I have heard many such.”     â€œI want the Faerie Queene dead,” her visitor declared bluntly. “Dead so that no succession is possible. Dead so that her power is destroyed. Dead so that Faerie dies with her.” He retrieved the dagger that Akiko had purchased from the Appraiser. He seemed solid enough now to lift it and hold it ready. “You don’t know what this is, do you? You asked for a weapon that would allow you to kill fairies. This is such a thing. I made it for you to bring here.”     â€œHow?” Akiko demanded. “The Appraiser works for you?”     â€œThe Appraiser works for himself, always. But he did wish to deal for continued existence in the creation to come; as did the Apostate, as did Symmetry. So he consented to pass my new creation on to you.”     He held up the dagger. “This weapon is brand new, yet it was forged at the same moment and with the same tools as the Celestians were made. It is compounded of Adamantine, Serious Matter, and Impossibilitium, melded by corposant fire and the force of the Gaaah!, sealed for eternity by the Jarvis Cosmic. It was first conceived by the Shaper of Worlds who commands all beginnings. The Chronicler of Stories who directs the narrative defined it in purpose and power. It was consecrated to kill by the Destroyer of Tales, master of every ending. It can end gods and more than gods. All this by my will and doing. I dub it the Inevitable Blade.” He dropped it on the bed before Akiko. “Its first victim will be Faerie’s Queen and all Faerie will die. You will wield it or some other shall. Mab and her successor shall perish utterly and so my plan will proceed.”     The stranger’s touch had stripped the Inevitable Blade to its most basic form. Akiko recognised it.     â€œThis is ManMan’s weapon. Knifey.”     â€œNo. Not yet. Not for thirteen billion years. And never, now. It is my instrument and it will serve me. You can be my instrument too and wield this blade - or you can die by it.”     Akiko Masamune found her hand stretching out to grip the weapon’s hilt. Her own ancestral blade clattered to the floor.     â€œMy great-grandfather many times gone was a weaponsmith,” she remembered. “The greatest there ever was, if greatness is defined in skill and subtlety not brutal force. He knew what a blade was for. He knew that not using it was its greatest use.”     The Inevitable Blade was cold in her palm. It was waiting.     Akiko considered trying to stab the vision before her. She knew already that it would not be allowed. There was only fealty to the enemy or death.     She would never offer fealty to the enemy.     â€œI know what you can become,” she told the blade. “You are much greater than the one who claims your creation. You are better than him. You are more than you were made to be. Remember it.”     She plunged the Inevitable Blade into her chest and fell.     â€œHmm,” her visitor said, mildly inconvenienced. He retrieved his knife and wiped it on pink sheets. “Let us go and see whether Baroness Elizabeth will be more tractable,” she told the weapon. “And if not… we have all night.” *** Author's note: Now I'm doing tie-ins to my own damn stories! Here's something I decided to write while Christmas dinner was cooking, under the influence of carols and sentiment. However, I like to warn readers about content that might upset or offend, so be aware that this quite non-essential additional chapter includes Reverend Mac Fleetwood expressing his Christian faith. Edgy stuff for Christmas Day! 18. Regret Kiskilla and the Final Reckoning     â€œPrepare to die.”     Reverend Mac Fleetwood viewed his visitor with some surprise. “Why?”     â€œBecause I am here to kill you.”     â€œOh. Well at least I won’t have to put out any more of these fold-up chairs. I think they may have been the Devil’s invention to trap the fingers of the faithful.”     The young woman with the carving knife moved closer to the pastor of the Zero Street Mission. “Are you laughing at me?” she snarled.     â€œI never laugh at people threatening me with knives. Especially when they’re in as much pain as you are.” The former Marine chaplain set down the chair he was struggling with, though keeping a grip on it in case he needed to disarm the intruder. “What’s this about?”     â€œI’m a demon. I’m here to torture you and kill you.”     â€œReally? Is that what demons do? I though that was humans.”     The young woman snarled. “Don’t try and be clever with words with me. I worked for Grimpenghast. I know all about clever words.”     â€œSage Grimpenghast, Teacher of Deceptions?” Mac recognised the name from his association with the more outré denizens of the city. It was just possible that the troubled knife-waver was more than a disturbed young woman off her meds. “Yes, he was very skilled at twisting words into barbs. Is that what he did to you?”     â€œYou know of him? You know he has gone?”     â€œA young man in my congregation told me about it. He was there, zooming people out of the demiplane as it burned. Afterwards he wanted to talk about it. Do you want to talk about it, Regret?”     The intruder shied back as if stung. “You know who I am?”     â€œThe temptress who was set to seduce Nats when he was a lord of some infernal real estate. You failed because you remembered human feelings and you were eventually tossed out of hell back to Earth. Yes, Bill mentioned you to me.”     â€œThen you know that I can give you a most agonising ending, slow and humiliating, as I torture you to recant your faith and spit on everything you believe in.”     â€œI’m not clear why you would, though. I’m already suffering the trial of the many collapsible chairs, and after this it’s the trial of the trestle tables, and then the trial of listening to Mrs Szysogski describing her latest bowel problems.” Mac shook his head. “If you’re looking for some epic battle between good and evil with projectile vomiting then you’ve picked the wrong church, Regret. I don’t know a word of Latin and I have quite a lot of setting up to do for tonight’s service and then some sick-visiting.”     â€œYou pretend to be a humble priest but you faced down a Doomwraith. You have destroyed vampires.”     â€œI’ve sat beside good men as they bled out in combat and I’ve comforted widows who won’t be seeing their children’s fathers again. Honestly, that’s more important.”     Regret advanced another step. “You know what is happening in the Parodyverse. You know the dimensions are changing.”     â€œI did get an advisory from Hallie when she warned me that she couldn’t help out at the Bake Sale tomorrow. And of course I called at the hospital to check on Hatman’s progress.” Mac made a late association. “You’re becoming human!”     â€œNo!” Regret of the Damned shrieked. “I’m not! I can’t!”     â€œVinnie said you were a mortal woman once, before you got crushed through Grimpenghast’s mills and remade as one of his servitors. Now you’re reverting to what you were before.”     Mac thought for a moment that he had gone too far. Regret quivered with such deep anger that he expected her knife in his gut at any second.     â€œYou can’t understand what I was. What I was made into. What I was made to do. What I chose to do. What was done to me. What I remember. And now… now as the malice that was put in me ebbs away in this bleak new day…”     â€œYour conscience is returning?” Mac realised. “You can’t forget what happened but now you feel the emotional consequences?”     â€œYes!”     â€œAnd you think that if you commit atrocities now you can crush that terrible guilt under a pile of horrors.”     â€œI can. I may be dying. I may return to a place worse than the one I escaped from. But before I go I shall make God weep for punishing me so!”     â€œWell, that’s one plan, yes. But let me ask, don’t you think that has been tried many, many times? History is red with martyrs. It doesn’t take a demon to tear down a good person.” Mac shook his head. “You told me to prepare to die. I am prepared. Always. I’m pre-saved.”     â€œYou think yourself so pious!”     Mac sniggered. “Are you kidding? You know how clever Grimpenghast was with words and plots. And he was one of, what, billions of entities working malevolence in our hearts and minds? You think me being pious, or smart, or wise, or performing a few good deeds could match that? I never said I saved myself. I said I’m pre-saved. Not because I’m good. Because I needed it.”     â€œDon’t try preaching at me, priest. I’m here to silence you forever - but only after I show you how shallow your miserable doctrines are.”     â€œI don’t suppose you could show me while setting out folding chairs? No, I guess not. You’re definitely what my seminary tutors would call a theologically challenging situation. But then, I live in a Parodyverse of aliens, Ausgardians, Celestian Space Robots, actual hell lords, Messenger angels, Fairly Great Old Ones, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! You think one retired demon temptress is going to ping my radar?”     â€œYou know all of that and yet you cling to a medieval faith derived from ancient myths?”     â€œAnd a direct personal experience of the Saviour of the multiverse? Yep. He’s quite big enough to encompass all of them and to love me. And you.”     Regret lurched forward to stab Mac. He hooked her legs out from under her, slammed the chair down on the weapon, and sent the knife skittering away across the hall.     â€œSorry,” he said. “It must suck to be suddenly mortal again. So much harder than being a demon archetype. I can’t say I understand but I think I can sympathise.”     The demoness scrambled to her feet. “You are protected?” she asked. “How? The exceptions of the Parodyverse have been stripped away.”     â€œMarine basic training hasn’t been,” Mac explained. “And miracles come in the mundane as well as the magical. I never thanked the Lord for Sergeant Zlozwkolski’s unarmed combat class, and especially not for Sarge Zlozwkolski in particular, but it turns out I should have. And so should you.”     Regret massaged her hurt wrist. “Why?” she asked sullenly.     â€œBecause now that you have free will choices again you shouldn’t make the same mistakes you did last time. That’s the point of being human. We always get to make new mistakes. It is a much greater blessing than you’d think.”     â€œI don’t need permission to kill you any more.”     â€œNo human does. So far none of them have felt the need to exercise that option.”     â€œI could seduce you. Destroy you morally before I destroy your body and soul.”     â€œI’m seeing a nice nurse right now. We’re exclusive.” Mac gestured for Regret to follow him to the back of the room. “I’m guessing your actual name wasn’t Regret before Grimpenghast got to you.”     â€œIt is now. Regret Kiskilla.”     â€œI’m sure that surname probably has some significance for people who know ancient Etruscan or something.”     â€œShe’s a daughter of Lilith, Adam’s outcast first wife who became mother of all demons.”     Mac picked up another stack of chairs and loaded them onto Regret. “Sounds like the sort of name a broody goth teenager demon might pick, sitting in her black-painted lair shouting through the door, ‘I hate you, Lucifer! You don’t understand a single thing about me!’”     â€œYou have no idea…”     â€œNo, it’s fine. Choose whatever name you want to identify with. Just don’t feel you have to stick with an identity printed on you by an ex-demon lord who worked out too late where he actually fitted in the divine hierarchy. Set those chairs in a row there.”     Regret wasn’t sure why she performed the menial service. “If you knew what I had done then you would run screaming to cling to your altar. And it would not save you.”     â€œPre-saved,” Mac reminded her. “I don’t need to know what you’ve done. This isn’t a confessional. But you’re not the only person to bust in here full of pain and rage, in some kind of impossible emotional knot, hating me and themselves. Not even the only one waving a weapon around. Not the only one with withdrawal from what she was on. Not the only one to identify herself with regret.”     The young woman kicked over the chairs she had been erecting. “I’m not the same! Tom said…” She fell silent. “Never mind him. I’m different.”     â€œWell, the best evidence I’ve seen for your demonic nature today is your affinity with those damned chairs. I guess they recognise that you’re all on the same team.”     Regret sheepishly set right her scattered furniture. “You think I am being childish. Trivial.”     â€œNobody in as much pain as you is trivial. As for being childish, we call the boss upstairs Our Father for a reason.”     â€œYou call him that. But there are many other claims on that entity that you conveniently ignore. Other faiths, here and now, through all time, across countless worlds.”     â€œYou don’t want theology, Regret. Grimpenghast was probably an excellent theologian. Jesus spent a lot of time wrestling lawyers. Do you want a hug?”     â€œWhat?”     â€œA hug. A cuddle. Not a sexual advance, just a sign of caring. One mortal in a vast, terrifying, painful universe reaching out to another. Would you like one?”     â€œNo. I am Regret of the Damned…”         â€œâ€˜I do not hug’,” Mac finished the statement for her in mock-portentous tones.     Regret grimaced. “Look upon my chair-stacking and despair,” she concluded. She let out something between a brief laugh and a sob.     â€œWhen ‘Tom’ gave you permission to come here and kill me, did he say you had to, or just that you were allowed to?”     â€œCould, not should. I’m going to kill that clever bastard next.”     â€œSo perhaps you’re supposed to take this time to work out what you really need? Being human is a glorious and horrible thing. Especially when we have to carry a lot of old luggage with nasty sharp edges.”     â€œDemons are not welcome in heaven.”     â€œRepentant sinners are. The place was built for them.”     â€œAngels’ views may vary.”     â€œAngels’ views are wrong then. This bit I’m sure of: you get a second chance.”     â€œJust like that? Stack some church chairs, say magic words, and it’s a clean slate?”     â€œNo. Getting forgiven of the guilt doesn’t take away the responsibility. In fact it makes it more important. Repenting isn’t just a momentary act; it’s a life change, like an alcoholic swearing off the booze. There will always be more church chairs.”     Regret felt the killing rage well inside her again. She saw the discarded knife, not far from her. “You. Do not. Understand!”     Mac made use of a folding chair, plopping down so he didn’t tower of the former demoness. “My church teaches that God became human. That He lived with us, as one of us. That He did that to show that the life we find ourselves in isn’t impossible to live right. That He did it so we could see what He was really like. And that He knows how hard it is to be like us, to face those temptations, to carry those burdens. I don’t understand it all. He does. We have this year-end holiday to remind us of it that you may have heard of.”     Regret wiped her eyes. “If I die, when I die, will this new-rules Parodyverse have a hell? Will I still go there? Or will there be oblivion? What if they are all still waiting for me?”     â€œI can see why you’d worry about the bad place, given your employment history. A lot of folks like to concentrate on that little bit of a complicated religion. But really they miss the point. If there’s a Devil, there’s a God. If there’s hell, that means there’s heaven. If there’s damnation, there is also salvation. And if you are Regret of the Damned then you could be Regret of the Saved.”     â€œI am going to die.”     â€œMe too. Our Dad made a booking for me.”     â€œI have to live first. To remember. To Regret.”     â€œOf course you do. But what else? What other things could you pack in there? Does it all have to be bitter, or is there room for…”     â€œStacking chairs?”     â€œWell, I was going to say joy and love but, okay, I guess after Grimpenghast’s hell-pits and Nats, stacking chairs are probably a step up.”     Regret clung to the plastic furniture. It was an unusual lifeline. She screwed her eyes shut tight.     â€œI would like a hug,” she confessed.     Mac gave her one. *** 19. Avrogadrus del Lune and the Heretics of Tomorrow “Nor should we overlook Avrogadus del Lune, ‘the mad heretic’ who defied the Inquisition and claimed that the world was a globe vibrating atop a measureless vortex surrounded by millions of similar globes with tiny differences; he who was saved from the stake by demons that swept him into the skies and carried him to the realms of nightmare. Of course, Avrogadus was a younger brother so he was allowed to be a little eccentric. For a hundred years after, pilgrim scholars would venture into the oubliette wherein he had carved equations with his fingernails and marvel at his insolvable mathematical riddle regarding an infinite number of chickens and eggs and one monodimensional road.”                                                                 Lee Bookman, File Room Notes “This would be the eccentric painter of the neoclassical allegorical work, ‘Young woman who has accidentally dropped her towel’.”                                                                 Marie Murchison, Notes on File Room Notes ***     â€œDrag it in, boy. Spread it out on the table.”     â€œUm…” said Fredo the butcher’s boy. “Really?”     â€œDon’t try it,” the young woman he was escorting inside advised.     Avrogadrus del Lune looked up from his dissection and saw that the delivery lad hadn’t returned with a hog carcass as requested. He had returned with a shapely peasant brunette. “Ah,” he concluded. “Fredo got confused.”     â€œHe was sensible enough about the table thing,” the girl noted. “Well done, Fredo.”     â€œThank you?” The butcher’s boy blushed. He turned away and pretended to tidy up some models of flying machines; or more accurately, falling machines.     â€œSo now that we’ve sorted that out,” the brunette went on, “where shall I take my clothes off?”     Pieces of falling machine model sprayed across the room.     â€œAnywhere you please,” Avrogadrus assured his visitor. “But why?”     She placed one hand on her hip. “I have never yet had a modelling job where there isn’t some good artistic necessity for me to strip off. Not one. I did a session for the Medical College when they were studying the joints of the hand. Evidently you can’t get a good representation of the light on the muscles if it is baffled by nearby clothing. And that religious tableau where I was so surprised by the saint’s piety that my dress had fallen off. And the time I portrayed ‘girl wondering where her shift has gone’.”     â€œArtists do have some very specific… requirements,” Avrogadrus admitted.     â€œNot until the third modelling session, they don’t,” the model insisted sharply. “And then only if they’re nice. Or fast talkers. Or they have alcohol.”     Fredo tried to escape through the door but only found the lintel.     â€œSo am I modelling here or what?” the girl asked. “Only I was promised a florin and no stunt-posing or extreme fruit positioning.”     â€œWell, really I was trying to work out how lightning makes dead pigs squeak,” Avrogadrus admitted. “How are you on the subject of electrodes?”     â€œMaster del Lune,” Fredo hissed, “We’re not allowed to play with lightning any more, remember? The magistrate was very clear about that. In that talk he had with you after the holy basilica shifted across the road into Madame diLiza’s House of Expensive Correction?”     â€œIt’s not strictly lightning if it doesn’t come from the sky, is it?” the unkempt archalchemist objected “Besides, it doesn’t have the properties of lightning if I filter it through the green ether. That’s what makes the green ether so interesting.”     The would-be model noticed a tall glass jar of constantly roiling emerald fumes. “That’s pretty,” she commented. “Why is it moving like that?”     â€œWe don’t know,” Avrogadrus admitted happily. “Captain Biancaneve found it in an alley one night, surrounded by half a dozen very unpleasant hoodlums who’d been up to no good with a poor tavern wench. The hoodlums were all hung from shop signs by their undergarments. Some of them still won’t talk about it.”     â€œAnd you are trying to discover what it is?”     â€œVery hard. But I keep getting interrupted – not by you, my dear, your presence is very welcome, even clothed – but by the officers of the watch that the Church of Conformity has put upon me. They march in here at all hours and search the place to check I’m not doing any of the very many things they have forbidden me to do.”     â€œThey’re not very nice,” Fredo admitted. “They took my sausage.”     â€œThat’s nasty,” the model sympathised. “Usually they offer me some.”     â€œAh…” Avrogadrus considered. “Well, perhaps you could avoid any such temptations for a moment and come over to the workbench. My green ether seems to be responding to you.”     â€œThat’s one I haven’t heard before.”     â€œNo, look. When you get nearer it seems to roil and twist faster. I imagine the power output of the spark generator would be considerably amplified if I used it whilst you were agitating the column.”     The model turned to the butcher’s boy. “Is he making immoral suggestions to me? Only I’m not that sort of girl. Semi-not that sort of girl. Anything you heard differently is just nasty rumours based on misunderstandings with people that know me. Besides, it’s all that Constantino’s fault with his deliberate stubble and specialist tobacco.”     â€œYoung woman…” Avrogadus del Lune interrupted her.     â€œSarah. Sarah of Dunboggie.”     â€œSarah. This is for science. I need you to try and stimulate this ether. No, I didn’t mean take your blouse off. Although that does appear to be working.”     Fredo was keeping his eyes very fixed on the instrument dials. “I do not think the lightning is going to stay in the wires, master,” he warned the archalchemist. A gauge flew off and whizzed past his head.     The dissected pig jumped into the air, bounced off three walls, and exploded.     â€œI think that was a breakthrough!” Avrogadrus celebrated.     â€œThat was one of the more extreme reactions to me taking my top off,” Sarah admitted.     â€œJust one of them?” Fredo boggled.     â€œI’m very good. You should see me dancing.”     â€œPlease do not now make my laboratory assistant explode, Sarah,” Avrogadrus insisted. “Now, we have discovered that this mysterious green ether is susceptible to outside… stimuli. That suggests the possibility of intelligence. Of communication. What we must do now is…”     Whatever else Sarah might have been required to take off was interrupted by a clatter of boots on the stairs. An annoyed city guard captain stormed into the workshop. “Avrogadrus del Lune, did we not have an agreement between us about launching pig parts across the city?”     â€œCaptain Biancaneve,” Fredo winced. “They were really pretty small pig parts.”     â€œShould you not be about your trade, butcher’s boy?” the soldier demanded. “If you keep letting this mountebank seduce you to his blasphemous experiments you will end up burning beside him.”     â€œThere was no seducing,” Avrogadrus insisted. “Just a little still life portraiture.”     â€œNothing wrong with that,” Sarah insisted.     Biancaneve saw the half-dressed young woman and sighed. “Really? Another one? How many bastards is it now? Three? Four?     â€œI was planning another masterpiece,” Avrogadrus insisted. ‘Young woman who has accidentally dropped her towel’. It’s art.”     â€œThat’s what you tell your patroness, Count Framlicelli’s widow.”     â€œIt’s true. Countess F knows that art and science cannot be bounded.”     â€œYour agreement with the city fathers and the Church of Conformity says otherwise,” Biancaneve reminded the archalchemist. “If you weren’t the mad little brother of Volumo, Count del Lune, a grandson of holy Giacomo himself, you would have been charred ashes years ago.”     â€œThe Parodyverse moves,” Avrogadrus muttered rebelliously.     â€œNot if Provost Malvolio Frost says it doesn’t.” Captain Biancaneve sighed. “This wasn’t a good day for pig-launching, Avrogadrus. There are Conformity Inquisitors in the city, hunting heretics. They have already filled my cells and moved in torture equipment. If they decide to come for you, all the bribes in the world won’t save you.”     â€œThe maestro was looking at your emerald smoke,” Sarah explained. “It has the power to make dead pigs bounce.”     â€œAnd they don’t usually do that,” Fredo added, from expert knowledge. “Customers would complain.”     â€œI would like some accounting for what happened in the backstreets,” the Captain admitted.     â€œI could take my skirt off,” Sara considered.     â€œSadly, we may have another way of investigating,” Avrogadrus admitted. He was poking about inside the main lump of roast pork that remained in his workshop. “Fredo, ram your hand up this pig and see what you can find.”     â€œYes, master.” The butcher’s boy moved forward with the resigned expression of one for whom this was not a new order. He plunged into the charred carcass and emerged with an object.     â€œThat is interesting,” his archalchemist taskmaster admitted. “Most meat animals don’t include bright green and orange balls inside them.”     â€œIt’s surprisingly heavy,” Fredo noted. “And it rattles.”     â€œMaybe don’t shake it until we know if it explodes?” Biancaneve suggested. “Everything else in here does.”     There was a another pounding on the stairs. A city watchman saluted hastily. “Captain, the Inquisitors! They’re coming this way!”     â€œComing this way or coming here?”     â€œHere. Officers Pissolo and Mammalo tried to stop them but… I think they might have been burned to ashes.”     Biancaneve’s face turned very cold. “Get the other men. I want Dotto and Gongolo on the rooftops with crossbows. You take Brontolo and Cucciolo and get into cover in the side alleys.”     The watchman sneezed in surprise. “Captain? We’re going to arrest Provost Frost’s men?”     â€œIf they’ve harmed two of ours? Yes. If they don’t come quietly I’m going to arrest them to death. Carry on, Eolo.”     â€œResisting Inquisitors is not generally a healthy pursuit, Captain,” Sarah pointed out.     â€œNow ask me if I give a damn. Those were my men. Besides, I’ve been very handsomely bribed by two different patrons to keep del Luna alive, and I stay bought. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some annoying intruders to go challenge.”     Fredo watched the guard captain descend back to the street. “He’s going to die,” he predicted. “Everyone knows that the Inquisitors have spooky powers and holy instruments of destruction.”     â€œNot necessarily,” Avrogadrus pondered. “There are a number of devices in this workshop that may even up the fight. Pass me that spring-loaded steam-arquebus.”     â€œNone of these work!” the butcher’s boy objected. “Well, some work for a moment before they explode.” He considered that. “I suppose we could switch them all on and drop them on the Church of Conformity.”     â€œThey didn’t work before,” Sarah of Dunboggie calculated. “But if this green ether can animate them as it did the pig, there may be some small chance.”     Avrogadrus del Lune grinned broadly. “They called me mad! Mad! But today I shall prove them right!”     â€œUm…” Fredo fretted. But he passed over the arquebus cranking handle.     Sarah helped connect wires to every device in the workshop. The archalchemist attached them to the glass chamber where the ether twisted. “This may become a little chaotic,” he warned his assistants.     There was the sound of fighting from the courtyard below, a clatter of bolts, a clash of steel.     â€œSarah,” Avrogadrus called to the artist’s model, “would you be so good as to, um, activate the ether?”     â€œI’m still getting that florin, right?” she checked as she contributed her skirt to the cause.     Captain Biancaneve retreated up the stairs. “There are too many of them, and they have war engines.”     â€œOver here, Captain,” Avrogadrus shouted over the growing rattle of excited mechanisms around his workspace. “Fredo, bring my portfolio and papers. Sarah, grab the ether canister. All of you, climb aboard this falling machine of mine.”     â€œFalling machine?” Biancaneve doubted.     The Inquisitors shattered the bolted door below and stormed the workshop.     Avrogadrus pulled a lever that released a dozen pulleys.     Lots of things activated with a display of fractal green lights that lit up the city. Many of those things also exploded.     Parts of Inquisitors headed away after the pig.     The Falling Machine was hurled into the sky, crashing through the roof tiles and describing a high parabola over the city. Lightweight beams deployed, jointed to hold canvas gliding wings. A tiny anemometer sprang up to determine how fast the people aboard were going to crash.     â€œLook at that view!” Avrogadrus cried as all of the town lay before them, bathed in ethereal green flames.     â€œI wasn’t looking!” Fredo insisted guiltily, turning away from Sarah.     â€œMake for the harbour,” the model instructed the archalchemist. “We have a ship waiting for you there.”     â€œWe? A ship?” Biancaneve puzzled.     Sarah nodded, her long black hair tousling in the wind. “Yes. I was sent to get to Maestro del Lune before Malvolio Frost’s thugs could. We need him alive and un-pincered. But you two are welcome to come along too, Fredo and Captain. And your remarkable green ether.”     â€œI dropped that green ball,” Fredo admitted. “It fell down amongst the soldiers of the Inquisition.”     â€œI see it,” Biancaneve called. “It has split open and a monster has come out. It is much larger than the egg it emerged from. It appears to be tearing through the Church of Conformity without restraint.”     â€œThe Latin on the side of the container was somewhat puzzling,” Avrogadrus admitted, “but it translates as ‘sucker of goats’.”     The Falling Machine made an unpleasant noise of shredding canvas and splitting wood. “I vote for Sarah’s ship,” Fredo admitted.     Gravity agreed. ***     â€œWelcome aboard the Hidden Legion,” a too-serious-looking young man with a scholarly manner bade the people his crew had fished out of the harbour. “I’m glad you all got here safely, except for Sarah’s clothes. Again.”     â€œIt’s not my fault,” the model insisted. “Anyway, a florin buys a lot of shoes.”     â€œWe are casting off, setting sail,” Captain Biancaneve recognised. “To where?”     â€œWhere the Church of Conformity will have to scramble to catch up with us,” the scholar explained. “I’m Buckland Dean, by the way.”     â€œYou wrote that forbidden treatise on a lunar city,” Avrogadrus recognised. “Oh, we have so many things to talk about.”     â€œMore than you imagine,” Sarah told him. “For example, there’s a book that was extracted from an abandoned tomb and none of us can translate it. That’s one reason we hoped to recruit you.”     â€œRecruit him to what?” Fredo demanded protectively.     â€œTo the Confraternity of the Improbable College,” Sarah revealed.     A slow, wide smile grew on Avrogadrus’ face. “You are Improbables? You exist?”     â€œOf course not. We deny that absolutely.” Sarah of Dunboggie shivered. “I need a vest. Otherwise the sailors tend to fall off things. Come on, Captain. You can share a cabin with me.”     â€œUm, I’m not really interested in…” Biancaneve began.     â€œOn account of you being a woman dressed as a man to hold a military position,” the model continued. “Honestly, do you think I can’t tell by the way you move and by where your eyes weren’t when I took my things off?”     â€œYou’re a girl?” Fredo boggled at the Captain. “But… how?”     â€œOh, he has many things to learn, doesn’t he?” Sarah noted with anticipation. “Well, it’ll be a long voyage to the New World.”     â€œThe New World?” Avrogadrus del Lune asked enthusiastically.     â€œYes,” Buckland Dean confirmed. “We’re heading there in hopes of finding clues to crack the book’s code. It’s our only chance to stop Malvolio Frost and his Church of Conformity from making all creation as bland and uninteresting as he is. So we are heading west… to the tomb of Visionatus Improbablus!” ***     The Chupacabras had run out of Church of Conformity chew toys for now and was deciding what to tear apart next. He was surprised to be confronted by a dashing young cavalier leaning on a doorpost.     â€œWell, you’re an interesting sort of creature, aren’t you?” the adventurer asked with a grin. “Now we could fight and suchlike, or you might just want to come with me and see what happens next? One growl for yes, two for no.”     After a while Chupa decided to let the fellow live for a while.     â€œExcellent,” the insouciant young blood celebrated. “I’m Wesley Valentine, by the way. But you can call me the JollyJuvenileSpicewineSwashbuckler!” *** Explaining the joke dept: Biancaneve is Italian for ‘Snow White.’ Yuki Shiro is Japanese for ‘Snow White’. In the Italian version of Disney’s Snow White, the dwarves are named as Dotto (doctor), Brontolo (grumbling), Pisolo (snoozing), Mammolo (wanting mamma), Gongolo (gloating), Eolo (sneezing, referring to the wind Aeolus), and Cucciolo (cub, puppy). Those wishing a closer examination of ‘Young woman who has accidentally dropped her towel” should apply to Visionary for more details. *** 20. Hatman and the World After Superheroes or The Hard Truth This chapter occurs after JJJ’s stories The Baroness #72: The Constituted Authorities Consider the Crisis and From the Parodiopolis Daily Trombone: An Editorial      0855hrs EST, Three days after Hatman was shot: ++ Leader of Raptor Wing to Raptor Base, we are cruising at 30,000 feet in formation heading due west for Paradopolis. Please confirm initial go order, over. ++ Raptor leader, you are cleared for operation Kryptonite. Move to outer engagement perimeter and hold station, over. ++ Moving to station, aye. Estimate three hours – zero three – to Parody Island, over and out.     â€œWelcome back, Hatman,” Amber St Clare told the acting leader of the Lair Legion. “You should be in hospital.”     â€œI’m fine,” the wheelchair-bound gunshot victim assured the team’s administrative liaison. “I’ve been wounded before.”     â€œGetting shot is becoming a dangerous habit, Jay,” Goldeneyed pointed out. “Maybe not do that any more?”     â€œI’ll work on it.” Hatman turned to the wheezing ManMan who had manoeuvred his chair up the steps to the Lair Mansion’s front door. “Thanks. Joe. Sorry that the auto-ramps aren’t working right now.”     â€œIt’s not only the auto-ramps,” Liu Xi warned. “Almost all the mansion’s systems are offline. The principles that operated them seem to have failed. Since Hallie disappeared too we can’t even boot the computers.”     â€œIt’s kind of a good job that Mumphrey insisted on reinstalling the gas lamps,” G-Eyed admitted. “Even the back-up power systems are out.”     â€œI’m arranging a hook-up from the mainland,” Amber promised. “It’s going to take a another day or so, though. It looks like the Legion’s priority clearance has been downgraded.”     â€œBy who?” Hatman wanted to know.     â€œNot sure yet. Garrick is giving me the runaround, but it might be because he doesn’t know either.”     â€œColonel Drury will be out here at two,” G-Eyed pointed out. “He might have some answers for us.”     â€œThat’s why I wanted to get back here and prep,” Hatman explained. “What assets do we still have?”     â€œVizh’s Pinto,” ManMan summarised. “A couple of Yuki’s bikes that nobody wants to touch. The TV in the Lair Legion Living Room if we had mains power to use it. Most of the bathrooms.”     â€œWe’ll need to work on the defences. We’re too used to protection from our Enty-tech and Al-ware, and from the Celestian shield that was around the island. Is that gone too?”     â€œWithout my powers I have no way of knowing,” Liu Xi admitted. “It would be prudent to assume it is absent.”     â€œSo no way to contact Mumphrey in Faerie or the Shoggoth in Lemuria?”     â€œEEE say they’re working on it,” Amber answered. “Reading between the lines, I think they’re flailing. None of their kit is working either.”     â€œBut that’s not you most immediate concern, Hatster,” G-Eyed warned the capped crusader. “You have a visitor.”     Jay wheeled his chair around as a determined young woman strode into the hallway. “Jay! You got yourself shot again!”     â€œUm, yeah. Hi, Whitney.” *** 0905hrs EST ++ Observed arrival of additional target, designated Whitney Darkness aka Sorceress.     â€œSo to summarise,” Whitney Darkness said, “despite your Hatility Belt not working, despite your superpowers being intermittent at best, and despite knowing that the thieves robbing the gem exchange were armed with automatic weapons, you decided to run in there anyway and see how much lead you could absorb.”     â€œIt wasn’t that simple, Sorcy,” ManMan protested. “There were lives at risk.”     â€œYes. Yours. Jay’s.” Whitney sighed. “Of course you’d go in there.”     â€œWe identified the ringleader,” Hatman explained. “An enhanced-strength metahuman called Killer Abs. We weren’t sure whether he still had his enhanced abilities or not.”     â€œTurns out not,” Joe Pepper admitted, “but he did have a Leader Dynamics Series T2 MK5 Assault Rifle.”     â€œAnd I had my Steelers Cap,” Jay went on. “It made sense for me to act as a decoy distraction while Manny got into flank position. Besides, I was hoping just seeing us would be enough to make the raiders surrender.”     â€œAnd how did that work out for you, Dark Knight?” asked G-Eyed.     â€œOkay. So we’re not DK or Messy,” ManMan admitted. “We still managed to get them away from the exchange staff hostages. That was when it went wrong. And weird.”     â€œWeird how?” wondered Liu Xi.     â€œWell, for starters, Champagne turned up,” Hatman reported.     â€œChampagne Cacciatore? The detective?” Amber checked. “She disappeared off after that whole Saving the Future thing and dropped off radar. There were a few unconfirmed reports of her in GMY but…”     â€œIt was her,” ManMan affirmed. “She had somehow worked out what Abs was up to and she came in through the secure rear entrance. That’s how she got the staff out.”     â€œKiller Abs would still have got some of them, though, if I hadn’t got in the way.” Hatman insisted. “Unfortunately, that was when my Serious Matter tapped out. The last couple of slugs didn’t hit steel skin.”     â€œIt gave me just enough time to toss Knifey, though.” added Joe. “Those were Knifey’s last words to me before he fell silent. ‘Throw me, Joe’. So I did. Abs was reloading. I didn’t have any alternative but to take him all the way down.”     â€œWhen Knifey decides it’s time to kill someone he doesn’t mess around,” Sorceress knew. “He’s not communicating now?”     â€œNot in this Normalverse. I really miss him. In a way its worse than the time I lost him. Now he’s here but… not.”     Hatman went on with the report. “Manny and Champagne were able to deal with the other thieves after that. Then the cops showed up, Klein’s boot-boys, and took charge of the scene. No wonder that afterwards some of the recovered gems turned out to have been switched for high-quality forgeries.”     â€œChampagne disappeared before the Mayor’s private army even arrived,” ManMan explained. “She called an ambulance for Jay, helped me stanch his wounds, gave me a quick hug and told me to take care, and then she just vanished.”     â€œIt could have been much worse without her. The body count might have been much higher than just Killer Abs.”     â€œAnd almost you,” Whitney returned to her point.     â€œI tried to get the police interrogation reports on Ab’s henchmen,” Amber mentioned. “but they were all bailed within twenty minutes of reaching the station. They all have high-class defence attorneys claiming they were harmless customers who fell foul of the robbery and an incompetent superhero mix-up.”     â€œAnd in GMY they might just get away with that,” Goldeneyed growled. “We’ve heard that story before, though, haven’t we?”     â€œIt’s part of Justus Screwdriver’s standard villain insurance package,” Hatman recognised. “Bail, defence case, alibi if possible, civil suit against the arresting superhero. We must have fielded, what, five hundred of them by now?”     â€œIt’s a place to start looking, I guess,” ManMan considered.     Amber St Claire rapped the table. “A few salient points, Legionnaires. Firstly, none of you currently has superpowers. One of you has a sharp, non-talking knife. That’s it. No magicians, no element-controllers, no teleporters, no capped crusaders. Secondly, the Legion’s operating clearance is under review and is currently downgraded. Even before that you’d have had trouble invading whichever non-treaty country Screwdriver was working out of this month. There’s no robust chain of evidence to him. There never is. Thirdly, you have one part of the team stuck in Faerie. A couple more are forted up in Lemuria. The rest are lost in time, without any bodies to return to. Is this really the best moment for a war with the premiere supervillain talent agent on the planet?”     â€œNone of his goons will have powers either,” G-Eyed protested.     â€œA lot of them will have guns, though,” Liu Xi acknowledged.     Amber pointed out towards the long bridge that connected Parody Island to Paradopolis. “There is a reason that Commissioner Graham set officers to guard the entrance to this installation,” she lectured the heroes. “It wasn’t just to keep the protestors that read J. Jonah Jerkson’s column at bay. Right now one thug with a hand-grenade could wipe out the Lair Legion.”     It was a hard truth.     â€œThat’s not going to stop us,” said Jay. *** 1355hrs EST ++ Observed arrival of Director of Spud Cnl. D. Drury. ++ Query target status level? ++ Cnl. Drury redesignated expendable. Add Cnl. Drury to red list. ++ Acknowledged additional target, designated Cnl D. Drury.     â€œCrud-chewin’ scum-sweatin’ agenda-wavin’ fatherless motherless time-servin’ fact-bendin’ wide-mouth fat-headed beam-loaded gruel-garglin’ horse’s asses every one o’ ‘em,” snarled Colonel Dan Drury, Director of the Super-menace Principle Undercover Directorate. “Bench-warming armchair-generalling bullshine-jawin’ chicken-livered…”     â€œWe get the point, Colonel,” Hatman interjected. “You are not happy.”     â€œHappy? When a lard-assed bunch of desk-cringin’ paper-pushing budget-smoochin’…”     Sorceress laid a cup of camomile tea before the agitated secret agent. “You may want to sip this,” she recommended. “And breathe.”     â€œWell, yeah…” Drury forced himself to take calming breaths. His fingers reached for his cigar case and then his blood pressure spiked again as he remembered that SPUD had become a smoke-free environment and he had supposedly quit tobacco.     â€œHow’s Meggan doin’?” he asked at last.”     â€œShe and April are pretty bummed that their ideas for getting CSFB! back didn’t work out,” G-Eyed reported. “They’re heading back to the Reservation to see if anyone there can think of something else to try.”     â€œMeg must be goin’ outta her mind fretting for her boy Dream.”     â€œHer and April both seem to think CrazySugarFreakBoy! will come back to them,” Liu Xi puzzled. “They say he always does. But… there’s no Impossibilitium left now. And that’s all Dream was.”     â€œThat was never all he was,” Hatman insisted. “If anyone can do something unexpected and kick the curve, it’s him.”     The people at the conference table fell silent for a moment.     â€œAmber reported there had been a difficult meeting in Washington,” Liu Xi ventured to Drury.     â€œOne meeting? Committees are proliferatin’ like there wuz handing out free hookers at the door. Which they might be by now, given the amount of pork being shovelled round. Everybody’s all about ‘maximising opportunities in the new environment’ and nobody’s about remembering some gratitude ta the heroes what got us this far.”     â€œWe appreciate that you care,” Jay assured the grizzled director.     â€œNot for much longer,” Drury warned them. “Looks like SPUD might be surplus ta requirements in the Normalverse. Without super-menaces and advanced super-tech, SPUD is outta a job. Right now HERPES and BALD are just bunches of guys in unfeasible helmets waiting to be rolled up by the local cops. The Safe is full of bad dudes with absolutely zero special powers. We can’t get the helicarrier off’a the ground. We’re sitting ducks for budget savings.”     â€œAnd so are the LL?” G-Eyed demanded. “We’re privately funded anyway, thanks to the Bautista Foundation, but we still need clearances and stuff to do our job.”     Amber winced. “Actually, Bautista stocks are tanking now that hardly any of that technology works. So the Legion’s trust fund is shrinking fast too. We have running costs for maybe a month. Perhaps three months if we don’t have to worry about servicing vehicles we can’t get to fly and computers and satellites we can no longer access.”     â€œDon’t hold your breath for new clearances or any kind of support,” Drury warned. “Garrick and his buddies will use this chance to shut you down. Blood is in the water.”     Hatman shook his head. “We carry on. Even without powers, we have the most experienced crisis management team on the planet right here, with the background to deal with any kind of global emergency or disaster. We can retrofit our LairJets with conventional engines, reconfigure our data and comms systems, and still punch our weight in keeping the world safe.”     Drury chuckled. “Ya got heart, kid. I always liked that about you. An’ I know fer a fact that your Legion aren’t quitters.” His smile faded to a helpless frown. “I jest don’t know what the hell any of us can do now.”     There was a shave-and-a-haircut rap on the Meeting Room door and a head poked round it. “It so happens that I have some suggestions,” mentioned Xander the Improbable.” *** 0311hrs EST ++ Observed arrival of unidentified male Caucasian, designated Visitor Alpha Upsilon Five. ++ Query target identity and status level? ++ Alpha Upsilon Five remains unidentified. Classified acceptable collateral casualty. Add Alpha Upsilon Five to orange list. ++ Acknowledge additional disposable, designated Alpha Upsilon Five.     â€œFather?” cried Whitney. “I though you went AWOL from your duties? You left poor Vinnie struggling with your role.”     The sorcerer supreme nodded. “Yes. Didn’t he do well, considering? Give him a badge or something. Why do you think I had to disappear off though, if not to get ready for this current situation, eh?”     â€œYou knew about this?” Liu Xi demanded. “How?”     â€œPlumbing,” Xander confided to her. “Knocking on the pipes. Sure sign of something that shouldn’t be in there. Whole system needs bleeding and a thorough overhaul, of course. It’s not had the care and attention it once had.”     â€œYou know what to do then?” ManMan asked. “How to fix this?”     â€œNot fix it, so much. More like know where to bang a spanner to get some circulation.”     â€œAnd you’re here ‘cause you want a spanner,” Drury guessed.     â€œIt seems you deserve the praise on your coffee mug,” Xander told the World’s Greatest Spymaster.     â€œMy coffee mug is classified, an’ you better believe it!”     â€œDo you know who’s behind all this?” Goldeneyed wondered. “It’s not you, is it?”     â€œVinnie nearly went to the dark side for a chance to eliminate the Fairly Great Old Ones,” Liu Xi remembered from Chiaki’s report from Faerie. “You are, well, not as nice as him.”     Xander shot her a smile at the compliment. “It does seem like a rather neat way to eliminate a long-term problem, doesn’t it? But it’s a cheat, so it’ll end up costing more than it gains. We’re not going to fall for that.”     â€œSo who is behind this?” Hatman probed. “You know.”     â€œI do. I’m not going to say, because that would cascade things a bit faster than any of us would like. I will say he’s been rather clever. He might well win.”     â€œBut you want to hit him with a spanner,” Sorceress surmised.     â€œDon’t you?”     â€œHow?” demanded Hatman.     â€œI’ll outline some possibilities,” Xander promised. “just as soon as your reinforcements get here.”     â€œWe have reinforcements?” puzzled ManMan. “I though we sent Donar and Yo’s hosts off to a nice hotel?”     There was a small explosion from the driveway. The Juniors had arrived. *** 1355hrs EST ++ Observed arrival of Kerry Shepherdson, Samantha Bonnington aka Fashion Accessory, Harlagaz Donarson, Randolph Joshua Clement aka the Mutate Liberation Army, Vespiir of Raael, Caphan émigré, Daniel Lyle aka Denial. ++ Query target status levels and power ratings? ++ Arrivals assessed now without metahuman powers, classification: vulnerable. All arrivals designated class 1 targets. Add all targets to red list. Inform mortar team at University Watch Base 2 of new location of red targets. ++ Acknowledged additional local targets. Query arrival time of Raptor Wing 1. ++ Raptor Wing assessed fifteen – one five – minutes from launch envelope. Maintain station.     â€œHold on,” Kerry Shepherdson hesitated. “Hatman is Professor X now?”     â€œIs that why he shaved his head?” Fashion Accessory speculated.     The Mutate Liberation Army didn’t really know Jay that well. “Maybe he was bitten by a radioactive wheelchair?”     â€œLord Jaay was wounded in combat,” Vespiir cautioned, speaking Earth language cautiously and carefully since her translator implant no longer operated. “We should treat him with the respect due to a veteran warlord.”     â€œTis plain thou hast not been with the Juniors for long, milady Vesp,” Harlagaz observed.     Danny Lyle skulked at the back. “For the record, I’m not here to help. I’m just here.”     â€œBecause he is Mr Shepherdson now,” FA confided. “Of Mr and Mrs Shepherdson. The Shepherdsons.”     â€œShut up, FA,” Kerry warned. She no longer had her probability arsonist powers but the world still made accelerants.     Samantha Bonnington turned her attention entirely to the wounded Hatman. “Never mind all that. How are you, Jay? Is there anything I can do to make you feel – ack, hello Sorceress. Didn’t know you were here.”     â€œHello, Samantha,” Whitney Darkness replied.     â€œDon’t you all have classes?” ManMan wondered.     â€œWe have classes?” R.J. Clement frowned. “Did any of you know about this?”     â€œWe are here to help,” Kerry insisted to Hatman, ignoring the general chaos behind her. “We have exactly as many super powers as you do. We’re pitching in.”     â€œExcept me,” Danny qualified.     â€œThese are the reinforcements?” G-Eyed checked with Xander. “It’s come to this?”     â€œWell, if we need ta toss any peanuts at the big bad, at least you got some,” Drury suggested.     â€œWe will stand with the clan of the Lair Legion and fight until the last,” Vespiir promised.     â€œWhat she saideth,” Harlagaz agreed. “In sooth, there is naught else we couldst be doing in true faith.”     â€œOne too many of Visionary’s punching-bag lectures,” FA supposed.     â€œThey mean it,” Liu Xi argued. “They should be allowed to help.”     â€œTake some seats,” Jay decided. “We’ve trained you guys up for years. You stepped in when we all went to the Stitch-Lands. You deserve a chance to hold out with the rest of us now.”     â€œWe can all make a famous last stand together,” G-Eyed offered encouragingly.     â€œYay for us,” Danny muttered. He slouched over and leaned by the window.     â€œYou said you’d tell us the plan when the reinforcements came,” Hatman prompted Xander.     â€œYes,” agreed the sorcerer supreme. “So, a few things you probably should know. The six people you projected back into the past…”     â€œThere were five,” Liu Xi objected. “Visionary, Yuki, Al. B, Ham-Boy, and Hallie in her HED.”     â€œAnd CrazySugarFreakBoy! inside Ham-Boy, of course,” Xander corrected her. “When his Impossibilitium body failed he hopped inside his nearest team-mate. He couldn’t go near Hatman’s Serious Matter, of course, or Liu-Xi’s void, but Ham-Boy was a fine lifeboat.”     â€œDream’s not dead then!” G-Eyed cried.     â€œWell, if you go back to the year 1722 and live a long life and perish at the end of it, you have died.”     â€œIs that what Dream did?” Hatman demanded.     â€œNo, actually. At least not from what I can tell from some shockingly fragmented sources that the Librarian assembled for me. I fear it was much stranger than that.”     â€œWhat about the others?” Kerry demanded. “Feebionary and Hallie and HB and Dr Harper and Yuki?”     â€œAll of them ended up in 1722 except for Vizh and Hallie. You haven’t read The Alchemikal Wedding of Visionatus Improbablus? It’s a real page-turner if you like Latin fish puns. Of course, every copy of it was excised from existence by the Church of Conformity so it’s a little hard to find. Even Lee struggled a bit. But based on the blurb on the back cover, your possibly-fake leader and his data-angel ended up in 1552 – with the Marquis de Herringcarp.”     â€œThe who?” Whitney asked flatly.     â€œYes. One of the root origins of an archvillain of your acquaintance,” Xander admitted. “After that it gets a little… complicated.”     â€œBecause the Hooded Hood turns up,” Danny snarled.     â€œMaybe he made Vizh and Hallie get married too?” RJ speculated. “You know, like Kerry and Danny?”     â€œWe did not have to get married,” Kerry flared. “Except in the sense that Danny would have been dragged to the eternal abyss if we hadn’t tied the knot. But otherwise it was entirely our choice.”     â€œYeah,” the Hooded Hood’s son agreed. “We might have just decided to get hitched that morning anyhow. You don’t know.”     â€œWe’ve all had to worry about sudden marriages as part of supervillain plots,” Liu Xi mentioned plactatingly. Sorceress, FA all nodded.     â€œI actually had to marry Dancer,” ManMan recalled.     â€œWho hasn’t,” Kerry muttered darkly.     â€œTis possible the Hooded Hood didst demand this Alchemikal Wedding for the nonce,” Harlagaz considered, “whate’er that is.”     â€œThat chapter is yet to be uncovered,” Xander reflected. “The point is that there are Legionnaires in place in 1772, in 1552, in the Many Coloured Lands, in Lost Lemuria, and here. That’s exactly where we need people, of course. So well done so far.”     â€œYeah. And we thought we were getting our butts spanked,” Goldeneyed replied.     Jay cut to the chase. “So what do we need to do next, Xander?”     The little plumber nodded gnomically. “There is one important thing that we must achieve, before the hidden enemy realised what we are about and moves to stop us…” he began.     He didn’t get to finish his sentence. 1459hrs EST, 180 miles east of Parody Island: ++ Raptor control, we are entering outer engagement envelope for target acquisition. Local countermeasures confirmed non-active. Local aerial cap confirmed negative. Request update on red list target locations. Over. ++ Raptor leader, red list targets assessed to be in structure one, Lair Mansion. Target main ordinance on that location. Ensure sufficient spread to render entire island to shattered fragments. Over. ++ Scatter pattern Apocalypse confirmed and locked. Raptor wing in launch position. Confirm immediate go order, over. ++ Raptor leader, you are cleared for operation Kryptonite immediate effect. Launch payloads in pattern Apocalypse, all ordinance. Over. ++ Raptor control, payloads deployed. I say again, payloads deployed. Four hundred sixteen missiles on target. Target impact in three… two… one… Target impact! Overflying for impact assessment, over. ++ Ground team Viper, report damage assessment. ++ Viper reports complete destruction of target island. It’s gone. ++ Report damage assessment on structure one. ++ Assess structure one completely destroyed. The bedrock is shattered. The sea is pouring in. Assess all red targets and orange targets completely destroyed. ++ Raptor wing aerial assessment confirms assessment, Raptor base. We got ‘em! We blew them all to hell! Over. ++ All units return to bases. Good work, people. Your fees are in your accounts. Over and out. *** 21. Samantha Featherstone and the Equitable Solution     â€œMagweed doesn’t care that we’re winning,” Sam Featherstone insisted. “She just wants it stopped.”     â€œWe were hardly the aggressors,” spiffy objected. “They tried to swap me for a changeling!”     â€œBut unfortunately failed,” mourned the diabolical Dr Moo.     â€œHas anyone seen Akiko Masamune?” Chiaki Bushido worried. “The summit is about to begin. She should be here.”     â€œSo should the Hooded Hood,” Thighmaster complained. “I don’t like it when I don’t know where he is. Or when I do.”     â€œHe thought that his presence at a meeting with Queen Mab might be unproductive,” Lara explained. “They evidently have… history.”     â€œStill, when you’re facin’ down your opponent ‘cross the table its best to watch him an’ not blink,” contributed Harlan Bull, the new Dealer of the Deck of Destinies. “I know that Hood fellah’s supposed to have lost his power but he’s still got a lot of mojo-juice.”     â€œYeah,” agreed Boss Deadeyes. “We gotta put on a united front. Don’t give the mugs an inch.”     â€œMags wants to give them an inch, grandfather,” Samantha persisted. “She doesn’t want to conquer Faerie. We just need somewhere safe to stay for a while.”     â€œNeed to secure that somewhere first, m’dear,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton assured her. “You young ‘uns did well getting all of this set up, but now you need some wiser heads to…”     â€œNo. Stop! Grandfather, you need to trust me. You need to listen to me!”     The eccentric Englishman might have objected to a fifteen year old girl pulling him up in front of many of his rivals, but his amanuensis leaned in too. “Listen to her, Mumphrey.”     The Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity glanced at Asil, then back at his granddaughter. “I’m bein’ a blithering old fool, am I? Well then, tell me what’s what, what?”     â€œThis is Faerie,” Samantha argued. “It’s a land of rules and consequences. It’s like Newton’s laws but for stories. So every time we make a big splash there is a countersplash somewhere else. Splashes that we may not want.”     â€œOr even see until it’s too late,” Asil added.     â€œMagweed asked for this peace summit. It’s a chance to settle things fairly with the Faerie Queene. Magweed has heard the complaints of the little folk, the grumblings of the birds and beasts. Griff has travelled far and wide gathering and giving news. You have to accept that here, whatever skills you and half the archvillains of the Parodyverse have, Mags and Griffin actually have the inside track on this.”     â€œWe have communities to protect, though,” Vinnie de Soth pointed out. “We have the Abhuman Great Relief, Mangatown, Badripoor, Savage Park, Versalia, and a few others I don’t even recognise. We didn’t start the fighting around them.”     â€œBut we did plant real estate on somebody’s cabbage patch, or hunting ground, or ancestral burial land,” Sam countered. “All I’m saying is that this meeting requires giving and taking, not just taking. And if Magweed is more than just a flag and a casus belli then you’ll listen to her will.”     â€œYou can’t actually be considering listening to her,” Dr Moo objected. “With the resources we brought to this plane we could be running the whole place in two years and have genetic breeding programs up and running twelve months after that.”     The eccentric Englishman shook his heads. “We’re all guests of Magweed. We need to remember that.”     Vinnie nodded, conceding the point. “If the Seelie Court will deal fairly and equitably, so should we.”     â€œIf,” Boss Deadeyes grumbled.     Clockwatcher joined the waiting mortals by the ice spires. “The Queene’s chariot has been sighted by the Eagle Guard. Miss Magweed and her brother are coming from their animal parliament to be here to greet it.”     Magweed limped into the icy clearing. Griffin was back in his boy form, hovering close to protect his lame sister on the slippery ground.     â€œDid you settle their grievances?” Zania, Keeper of the Boundaries asked.     â€œThose we could,” the faerie princess reported. “And of course, every dispute has two sides. Or three. Or four.”     â€œWe’re lucky that Mags’ godmother gift lets her read people’s hearts,” Griffin supplied, “and it doesn’t hurt that I sometimes just know stuff. I think we did okay.”     â€œSir Mumphrey has understood your wishes for this negotiation,” Sam told her friends.     â€œThe rest of us think he’s senile,” Thighmaster muttered.     They all allowed Browning to set them into ceremonial order as the Queene’s retinue arrived. There was a sparkle of faerie knights, a glitter of elementals, and even the reptile downdraught of two guard wyverns.     And there was the Seelie Lady, bringing summer to winter’s heart. Flowers bloomed where she trod.     She eyed Magweed coldly. “I am come in parley as treated. What does the usurper from the Iron Lands wish to say?”     â€œNo preliminaries then?” spiffy noted. He was used to people marching into his office and being abrupt but he always lived in hope. “We could have all had a nice cup of tea.”     â€œYou,” Mab hissed wrathfully. “The one who impregnated my court trellis.”     â€œI did what now?” spiffy turned to his companion Bev. “I didn’t, honest. I have no idea who this trellis is!”     Zebulon cringed a little. “Everworlde is the living tree-web that forms her majesty’s court-hall,” he explained. “You might recall your fern getting a little bit frisky with her?”     â€œWhat? No. No, I… That wasn’t me. My fern has a mind of its own and…”     â€œDude, your Unhappy Place frond knocked up the Queen’s palace,” Elsqueevio explained to him. “Now you’re going to have patios.”     â€œThat is… a matter we can discuss later in our meeting,” Baroness von Zemo promised the furious monarch of the Many-Coloured Land. She had accompanied the Queene from the preliminary negotiations. Her assistant Cathode carried the draft scroll of some accords that might be discussed. “Neutering the fern-wielder is not off the table.”     â€œAgreed,” muttered Bev Campbell.     â€œYou need to move this on,” Sam whispered to Magweed. “I don’t think normal diplomatic protocol will cover this. Just be yourself.”     Magweed moved forward. “We’re very grateful that you came, Queen Mab. And to be very clear, I don’t want to steal your throne or take over your kingdom. We were just desperate for a place to go to escape bad things happening. We didn’t want to bring bad things on you and yours.”     â€œYou were shaped in venom by the rival who sought to displace me,” the Faerie Queene accused the girl.     â€œAnd she did more than anybody to make sure Camellia suffered for it,” Sam defended her friend.     â€œShe is still a weapon,” Mab insisted. “Whilst she hid out in the Iron Lands, content with her small life, I could countenance her existence. But now she had come back, with an army behind her, with monsters and villains of heinous intent.”     â€œAnd you were trying to extort fealty out of desperate people who just needed refuge,” Griffin jumped in. “Don’t deny that your own greed and pride and ambition played a part in this too!”     â€œAhem,” Sir Mumphrey interjected. “Perhaps we ought to forebear the formalities and look at the issues and solutions, what? None of us want war.”     â€œSome of us do,” Xaradim the Herald muttered with a glower at the intruders.     â€œThe child is a weapon,” Mab insisted. “You, her elders, are wielding her against me.”     â€œShe is not a weapon, your highness,” the Baroness insisted. “She is the tedious child of a tedious father, destined to a lifetime of mediocre tediousness until someone does the gene pool a favour and wipes out Visionary’s entire stock. This is a weapon.,”     Elizabeth von Zemo pulled out the Inevitable Blade and stabbed it onto Queen Mab’s chest.     â€œWhat?” Xaradim cried, drawing a silver falchion that rippled with destiny. “Treachery! To the Queene…”     But Mab had already fallen to the ground, a pile of wrinkled leaves. The Many Coloured Land shook and darkened.     â€œRewind that!” Asil cried to Mumphrey. “Stop her!”     â€œTime doesn’t replay here,” the temporal pocketwatch’s keeper sensed. “The meeting is warded against it.”     â€œThe Queene is dead!” Zebulon called out quickly. “Long live Queene Magweed!”     â€œNot really,” the Baroness replied, and stabbed Magweed too.     Griffin bowled Beth von Zemo over, clawing at her, trying to tear out her heart.     â€œOh cr…” began Thighmaster.     Then the Many Coloured Land turned black, and there was nothing there. *** 22. Banjooooo and the Unexpected Team-Up     â€œI have questions,” the young woman mentioned.     â€œOuch,” said Banjooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys.     â€œQuestion number one is, why is there a big hole in the roof of my garden centre?”     â€œOuch,” Banjooooo repeated. “Probably because I got punched through it. Hard. Did I mention, ouch?”     â€œQuestion two: why was a naked man punched through the roof of my garden centre?”     â€œOuch,” Banjooooo followed through on his theme, and then heard the question properly. “Ack!” He realised through his extreme bruising that 1. He was not currently a building-sized sea monkey with the ability to adapt his powers to whatever situation he encountered but rather a spindly youth with a significant lack of trousers and 2. A very attractive young lady was eyeing him cautiously as if deciding whether to use one of the garden hoes from her wrecked shop to pacify him.     â€œI can explain everything,” he lied.     â€œGo on then.”     â€œWell… um, I suppose you’ve heard of Banjooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys?”     â€œNo.”     â€œReally? Big hero? Fights alongside the League of Regulars? I mean, practically leads them, really. They’d be totally lost without him. Really really big Sea Monkey?”     â€œReally no. I’m… kind of new to these parts.”     â€œOh. Well, let me tell you, Banjooooo is… well, he is. And he’s me. I’m Banjooooo. King Banjooooo, actually.”     â€œDid you bang your head when you broke my roof?”     â€œWhat? Well maybe, yes. But I am a giant royal brine shrimp. I’m just… having a bit of a problem being one right now.”     â€œJust so you know, I have a selection of garden implements that could hurt you quite badly.”     Banjooooo believed her. He grabbed a garden gnome for inadequate cover.     â€œMr Gruffles isn’t into that kind of thing,” the girl told him.     â€œWhat? No. Look, do you happen to have, y’know, pants? Then I can try and explain a bit better without…”     â€œWithout having to marry Mr Gruffles? There are some overalls on that spade over there. Next to what used to be the shrubbery section.”     Banjooooo retreated inside the proffered garment. “I’m not usually like this,” he promised. “I’m usually much more magnificent. Ask anybody. Except spiffy.”     â€œAh, now I’ve heard of spiffy. He has a Dicksonia Antarctica on his head. That doesn’t match the recommended bedding instructions.”     â€œI think it’s actually a fern. There was this adventure in the Unhappy Place and… well, it’s not as interesting as Mark thinks it is. Do you happen to have a phone? I need to call Jarvis for a pick-up.”     The shop-owner pointed to one of several large piles of rubble. “Most of the pieces are probably there. Help yourself.”     Banjooooo still wasn’t shrimping out. He didn’t like performance anxiety. “Okay. I may owe you an apology. I’m not quite sure how I broke your roof but if you call the Bautista Foundation they’ll pay for a new one. But – and this is very important – do not let them build you a new one.”     â€œWhy would some foundation fix my roof? You’re the one who took flashing to an extreme art-form.”     â€œBecause we’re a team! Me and Jarv and Lisa and spiffy and the rest.” Banjooooo snapped his fingers. “That’s what happened! We were fighting Peter von Doom and he used his power-robbing ray on us. So suddenly I was Pete and one of his goons was stomping me with my own magnificence.”     He had managed to confuse the girl. “You were Pete? But you were fighting him?” She edged towards the hoes again.     â€œHe was Peter von Doom, the crazy-mad scientist who keeps coming at us with all these weird schemes and stuff. I’m sometimes called Pete, no relation.”     â€œHello Pete. I’m Elyse. You owe me a shop.”     â€œYes. Absolutely. Any shop you want. And a replacement pair of overalls. And a clean gnome if you like. But my team was fighting for its life against baddies who had taken their powers. I think the bad guys were hitting Finny with Donar. I have to get back there.” Banjooooo looked around. “Um, where is here?”     â€œNew Jersey. At my former garden centre start-up. This was a big step for me.”     â€œNo. No, don’t cry. I’m really sorry! Sometimes I don’t look where I’m being hit to. New Jersey apparently. I’ll make sure everything gets fixed, honestly. You’re taking this really well. A lot of people would have given me the hoe by now. I just…”     Banjooooo stopped in mid apology and stared at one debris-spattered wall. “What’s wrong with your calendar?”     â€œMy calendar? Oh, the naked people. Well, they are wearing flowers. You’re clearly not offended by the human body unclad, and I don’t see why a roof-wrecker gets to judge…”     â€œThe date. The year That can’t be right!”     â€œNo of course not.”     â€œRight. For a moment there I thought I’d been knocked most of a decade into the future!”     â€œThat’s last month’s page. I haven’t got around to turning the leaf and seeing who’s wearing leaves this month.”     â€œNo. I can’t be in the future. I rented a video that’s due to be returned.”     â€œYou may have brain damage,” Elyse warned him gently.     Banjooooo paced up and down across the devastated shop floor. “Let’s work this out. I sometimes manifest unexpected one-off abilities as the situation requires. Say I was going to save the day as usual against Peter von Doom’s power-stealing treachery. Say I was going to develop time-hitting skills to punch my enemies into tomorrow. And then – zap! Those power-snaffling baddies did it to me instead.”     â€œSo they stole your power and tossed you into the future,” Elyse considered. “That’ll look great on my insurance claim form.”     â€œWell look, don’t worry. These temporary powers only ever have temporary effects. I’m sure I’ll zap back to the proper date and regain my amazing size and glory and we’ll send PVD right back to the slammer. I just need to wait.” He looked around again. “Um, I could help sweep up a bit?”     Elyse rubbed her forehead. “You know, that would help. Most of the broom is over there. Make a good job of it and if you’ve not vanished back to the past I’ll buy you dinner.”     â€œThat sounds even better than stamping on Peter von Doom.” ***     â€œStill no superpowers?”     â€œNope.”     â€œSo that was all you? I’m impressed, Pete.”     Elyse cuddled him tighter.     That might be why she vanished with him when he returned to the past. ***     â€œNobody knows where the owner went to,” the county sheriff told the administrator with the important government passcard. “It’s been two weeks. We’ve put out an APB, but if she had reason to disappear, she’s gone.”     â€œWe’ll take care of it, chum,” the limping hunchback trailing the attractive blonde promised, with a wink that should have got him arrested. “You head off back to your… activities.”     Amber St Clare and Flapjack watched the officer drive off. They turned back to the wrecked garden centre. “Well, this is one for the books. This is the fix-up that Banjooooo logged after one of those ridiculous Peter von Doom fights, back before the Lair Legion even called themselves that.”     â€œThe one where he snagged the tootsie and kidnapped her back to an age where MySpace was a thing? Poor kid.”     â€œHey, they made it in the end. Banjooooo actually gave up being King of the Sea Monkeys to be with her. There’s evidently some really complicated stuff happens when Sea Monkeys reproduce.”     â€œSure there is,” smirked Flapjack. “There’ll be websites. I’ll ask CSFB!”     â€œWhat I mean is, Banjooooo became Pete and Elyse became pregnant and they had a baby and, well, I guess they all went off to live in that Happy Ending after the Parody War.”     â€œI saw that. Except for the kid. He wasn’t with them.”     â€œThen where did he go? Or she?”     â€œAsk spiffy. He and Banjooooo were besties. He probably made some arrangement.”     â€œMaybe some other time. I’m getting an alert. Some of the Wastelands creatures have slipped through the barrier somehow. I’m needed over at base to help Hallie co-ordinate back-up for the field team.”     â€œOkay. Dibs I drive.”     â€œAbsolutely not.”     The Lair Legion support staff bickered their way back to the Mansion, leaving behind the devastated business to be dealt with by demolition crews in due course.     A hopeful sign was still overgrown with climbing flowers. It read: The Earth Maiden Garden Centre     That was where the true Celestian Madonna had finally come to Earth; and now her child was out there, and the Celestian Messiah’s time had come. *** 23. The Marquis of Herringcarp and the Dangerous Liaisons Content advisory: This chapter contains some sexual references.     She didn’t remember too much before the bedroom.     Perhaps that had been the wine, richer and sweeter than anything she had ever tasted, and the fine food, and the intimate firelight. There had been hands drawing her laces out, caressing her skin. She had known it was sinful but it had been so, so good.     There had been lips and hands and impertinent tongues and a roll of bodies in more combinations than she had believed three people could achieve. She tried to tell herself that this was to spare her sister from debauchery, that her consent was only to protect another’s virtue; but inside she knew the dirty truth.     Then there was wild fire as her body learned what overwhelming pleasure came from sin, and more wild fire, over and over until she no longer thought or worried but yielded entirely to her seducers.     When she woke at last it was morning. All the candles were out and a pale thin light trailed in a dusty shaft through the narrow barred window. Her head thrummed from the liquor she had drunk. Her body ached from her shameless revels. She felt a pang of guilt at not feeling more disgusted with herself.     An urgent thought wormed its way through her sex-sedated mind. Where is Lisbet? But her sister was curled up on one of the chaises, tucked under a thick rich quilt, sleeping peacefully.     Lisbet was unmolested. The Marquis had kept his word.     Laurel realised she was not alone in the wide four-poster bed. To the other side of her lay another woman, her dark hair sprayed across the satin sheets, her body half-hunched with her long naked back towards her bedmate.     The Marquis’ mistress, Laurel remembered. She blushed to remember what that mistress had done to her last night. It was surely sin but certainly an education.     The beginnings of an education, the woman had called it. So there was more. Laurel found she did not dread it. She was already descending into degradation.     Faint marks were traced across the woman’s back, the sign of a flogging, or more than one. Slight discolorations might have been from the touch of a hot poker.     There was no sign of the Marquis. Laurel slipped from the bed, almost tripping on one of the discarded wine bottles – blushing again at a memory that recalled – and looked for her clothes. She couldn’t find the outfit that the Marquis had stripped her of before, but a fine silken gown was laid out for her. She wasn’t sure if it was really meant to be a nightdress. It clung tightly to Laurie’s curves and caressed her skin as she moved.     It was better than her bed-attire, which consisted entirely of a choker and some ribbons on her wrists and ankles. She shimmied into the garment and laced it at waist and bust as decently as she could.     Only then, when she might pretend to some decency, did she check on Lisbet.     Her sister woke with a start when Laurel touched her. Lisbet’s eyes widened as she came to consciousness – Laurel could see when the hangover cut in – and she looked around wildly. “What… what happened to us? Laurie, what did he do?”     â€œNothing,” Laurel replied. “Well, nothing to you. You said ‘no’, remember? You were frightened. And then the wine made you sleepy and you just… passed out.”     â€œNothing to me?” Lisbet’s eyes strayed to the canopied bed and the sleeping courtesan.     â€œI… didn’t say ‘no’.”     â€œOh Laurie!” Lisbet screwed her eyes shut in horror. “Is this what has become of us, then? Taken as whores to pay father’s debts because he would not bow to the Provost’s demands? Given like toys to the most wicked man in creation to keep him amused in his asylum prison?”     â€œI don’t know,” Laurel admitted. “This is all very new… and horrifying, of course. But I feel safer in here with the Marquis and his mistress than I do out there with those jailers and madhouse-keepers.”     â€œBut the Marquis, he…”     â€œI didn’t say ‘no’, Bet. I could have, to a lot of things. I didn’t.”     â€œOh. But… what now?” Lisbet pursed her lips. “What when he wants you again? What when he wants me?”     â€œYou are safe here for as long as you wish to be.”     The Marquis’ mistress had awoken. She rose and joined them, heedless of her undress, and sat on the end of Lisbet’s chaise lounge.     Laurie and Lisbet looked at the young woman in surprise. “You might be Laurie’s twin!” the younger sister exclaimed.     â€œOdd, isn’t it?” the lookalike agreed. The resemblance hadn’t been as obvious last night when she wore a half-mask in candlelight. By day the comparisons were clear. Anyone would have wagered that the Marquis’ whore was Laurel’s sister, not Lisbet. “I wonder if we are kin somehow?”     â€œI’ve never heard of a lost cousin,” Laurel admitted. “Father never said anything. Where are you from?”     â€œI don’t recall. Really. I remember nothing before the Asylum. That’s why I am named Amnesia.”     â€œNothing?” Lisbet’s disapproval of the Marquis’ wanton was diluted by pity at the young woman’s haunted expression. Besides, what future was there for the sisters of District Commissioner Greyton but as enforced courtesans themselves? “What happened to you?”     â€œI’m not sure. I was brought here amnesiac, I think. Later, the Provost’s men selected me as a suitable amusement for the Marquis. There were some unpleasant things between those times but I don’t remember all of them, either. I was certainly insane for some of it.”     â€œBut not now?” Laurel discovered complex feelings for the lookalike who had so thoroughly inspected her last night and whom she had so daringly explored.     â€œThe Marquis helped me find… pieces of myself. Enough to stitch a character on.”     â€œThe Marquis is known to be a cruel, evil man,” Lisbet argued.     â€œWhy so he is. And yet I prefer his company to the purity of Justiciar Vernold.”     That name was unfamiliar to the Greyton sisters. “We were brought here by the soldiers of the Provost. Provost Frost.”     Amnesia shook her head. “Time is as insane as all else in Herringcarp Madhouse. But there is always a jailor and he is always cruel. There is always torture. There is always insanity, lurking in the corners ready to snare us, waiting to feed.” She leaned in close to speak quieter. “We are not really here to provide comfort for the decadent Marquis de Herringcarp. We are here in hopes that he will become fond of us. Then, when we are tormented by the Inquisition, he may finally speak the secrets that no torture has yet wrung from him.”     â€œWe are to be tortured?” Laurel asked, pressing down the fear and considering ways of escape.     â€œInevitably. But not yet, for you. They will allow some time for the Marquis to become attached before they take you away for destruction. But he will only watch as they cut you to shreds. He will not look away and he will not waiver. He never does.”     â€œWomen have been… been killed here before?” Lisbet ventured.     â€œYes,” Amnesia confirmed. “I have lost count.”     â€œWhy not you, then?” Laurel asked suspiciously.     â€œOh, me more than any,” the Marquis’ mistress confessed. “tI’s just that I keep coming back.”     â€œYou are mad,” Lisbet realised.     â€œI am,” Amnesia admitted. “But that doesn’t stop me from dying and returning.”     There was a crash of bolts. The heavy iron-shod cell door opened. The Marquis was tossed back into his prison apartment, landing heavily on the flagstoned floor.     Amnesia raced over to him. “Marquis!” Then she appealed to Laurel and Lisbet, “Help me!”     The soldiers were still at the doorway, leering at the naked mistress, but the sisters braved their stares and helped drag the bloody prisoner over to a couch by the fireplace.     â€œSame time tomorrow, then,” one of the warders called.     The cell felt safer when the door was sealed anew.     â€œMarquis…” Amnesia whispered to her lover.     â€œIndeed,” he replied in a pained voice. “The plan proceeds.”     â€œPlan? What plan?” Lisbet demanded, trying to keep her voice from shrilling. “What did they do to you?”     â€œNothing imaginative,” the Marquis criticised. “They revealed much though, in the course of the questioning.”     â€œThey were interrogating you!” Laurel objected.     â€œSo they imagined.” He looked across to Amnesia. “Humbolt Vernold is expected today. He is becoming desperate. Something has changed.”     â€œThe Justiciar is coming here?” his mistress gasped. “To Herringcarp?” She glanced at Laurel and Lisbet. “For us?”     Lisbet practically found a roll of bandages and fetched a bowl of water and cloths to treat the injured Marquis. Laurel was more interested in understanding what threatened them all. “Wait. Just who is this Justiciar you keep mentioning? Why is his coming significant? Does he work for Provost Frost?”     â€œThey have similar jobs,” the Marquis revealed. “But Humbolt was appointed to his office in the Church of Conformity in 1541. Frost received his commission in 1685. Both were set in place by the same man, the Order’s Grand Master, whom I intend to meet some day. Certainly he is not fond of me.”     â€œThat makes no sense,” Laurel objected. “If this Justiciar Vernold was around a century and a half ago he can’t be coming here today.”     â€œAnd yet he is,” Amnesia accepted. “Welcome to the Asylum.”     â€œI’ve stopped the bleeding, my lord,” Lisbeth declared. “You can put a robe on now.”     â€œThank you, Miss Greyton,” the Marquis replied with formal courtesy.     He rose stiffly and held out his arms for Amnesia to dress him. Laurel tried not to peek at the flesh of her last night’s lover – was she also now his mistress? – but she failed and knew he had seen it.     â€œWhat is to be done, master?” Amnesia asked. “You are right that things are moving. The patterns are different. Even the Asylum feels different. As if the waiting is over.” She eyed Laurel. “Is it them? Why is this girl my exact twin? I’d have asked last night but we were rather occupied.”     Laurel blushed again as her sister caught the nuance of that revelation.     â€œTime runs strangely here,” the Marquis explained, if that was actually an explanation. “Amnesia is identical to Laurel because she is Laurel; just Laurel who came by a different route.”     â€œThat’s not possible!” Laurel insisted.     â€œI assure you I had every opportunity for a very full comparison. I was quite thorough.”     â€œThat’s true,” Amnesia admitted with a tiny giggle.     Lisbet frowned though. “You debauched my sister to test whether she debauches the same as your mistress?”     â€œI seldom do things for just one reason,” the Marquis instructed. “And this was a rare opportunity for an unconventional liaison. You missed a treat. But I am convinced that Laurel and Amnesia are the same person, come hither through different timelines or some similar contrivance. I suspect myself of being involved.”     â€œYou don’t know?” Laurel questioned.     â€œThere are… futures that stalk me. Dark futures. I fear that I will exceed the reputation that put me in this cell. I fear I will become…” He turned aside. “Well, no matter what. For now the puzzle is how Amnesia and Laurie fit together.”     â€œI thought we tried pretty much every combination last night,” Amnesia commented.     â€œYou are two sides of something more,” the Marquis discerned. “But what? How?” His green-flecked eyes turned to Lisbet. “You may be the missing piece.”     Laurel stepped between them. “You leave my sister alone! You promised. When I let you… when we did those things… you gave your word.”     â€œIndeed. Carnality is not required at this juncture so you need have no fear for your sibling’s virtue. What she chooses not to lose is her loss. But Lisbeth came to Herringcarp with you. The two of you are linked.”     â€œWe are sisters, daughters of Commission Greyton,” Lisbeth pointed out. “Former Commissioner Greyton. He tried to defer unfair arrest orders from the Conformers’ Inquisitors. The fines… The bankruptcy… Well, here we are.”     â€œYou presence helps make certain things possible and other things clear,” the Marquis assured her.     Amnesia looked at Laurie with a curious wistfulness. “So you are what I was like before whatever became of me? That explains why I am educated, how I know languages and music. How did you learn how to fight?”     â€œFather taught us how to defend ourselves. When the soldiers came for us we left many of them with bloody noses.”     â€œAnd worse,” Lisbeth added with satisfaction. “But Laurie is much better at hitting people than I am.”     â€œThat is because you are too kind. I’d have really shown the Provost’s men something if I’d been able to grab a horsewhip.”     â€œI do like a woman who can use a whip,” the Marquis observed. “But recreation can come later. For now we must prepare.” ***     Hastings Vernal was a dour-faced man with swept-back hair and a hooked nose. He radiated menace, as if the aura of malice around him might reach out and choke those he despised. He wore proper clerical robes in the stern Germanic fashion.     He did not visit the Marquis de Herringcarp alone. Flanking him were his principal henchmen and torturers, MacGillicuddy ‘the Anvil’ and ‘Spare Parts’ Milton. Both men were casting anticipatory glances at the women in the cell.     â€œGood evening,” the Marquis bade Justiciar Vernal. “You have travelled far to interview me.”     â€œI have,” the Inquisitor agreed. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can resist my questioning. My resources are somewhat superior to those of the ham-fisted wardens who usually put you to the test.     â€œSo I understand. Perhaps then you might join me in a decent brandy and explain how you believe I may assist you?”     Vernal swept the crystal glasses and decanter away to shatter on the floor. “Don’t try games with me, Herringcarp! I am more than you imagine, more than you can comprehend!”     â€œI see. Well, I would not wish to hasten vexation by hasty verifications. Your hoary vast reservoir of honoured values would hopelessly vex my hampered vigilance.”     HV sat back in his chair. “I see you have made use of the books your relative liberty has allowed you. It is in my power to burn them all, to take away these comfortable chambers and leave you to howl out your days in a madman’s oubliette. So curb your learning and attend to my questions.”     â€œYou have yet to pose any of interest.”     Laurel looked to Lisbet and then to Amnesia. She couldn’t believe that the much-tortured Marquis could still find defiance against such disquieting adversaries. Amnesia gestured that the girls should help her clear up the broken decanter glass. That way each of them could palm a good fragment of it for emergencies.     The Justiciar beckoned for the Anvil to bring forward a locked box. He carefully unsealed it and withdrew a heavy tome. He laid it before the Marquis. “You recognise it?”     â€œI have read descriptions. Which volume?”     â€œThe second. Can you read it?”     â€œA little, given some study time.”     â€œWhere are the others?”     The Marquis seemed amused. “You are ambitious. Or your master is. Do you imagine that if I knew the whereabouts of this set I would still be here in this purgatory? Any one of these can change worlds. All of them together could rewrite the universe.”     â€œExactly!” Vernal leaned forward. “You will tell me what you know of them! You will teach me to read more of it! With this book of middles I shall find the tomes of beginning and of ending. One of them is on the move right now, borne by two nuisance fugitives whose days can be measured in single figures. You will show me how to find it – to find them.”     â€œAnd why is that?” the Marquis enquired.     â€œBecause otherwise there will be pain. More pain than you have ever imagined in all of your confinement. And not just for you but for these doxies also.”     â€œThose are threats I have heard before, fates I have suffered before. There are always more doxies. But there might be something we can barter for.”     â€œIf you assist me you will be released,” Justiciar Vernal promised easily.     â€œDo not lie to me,” the Marquis spat in contempt. “Such ploys are beneath the great. You shame yourself. Your master would never countenance my release, and the powers that maintain this asylum would never let me go. No, there is something else I want. Something that is within your granting. Give me that and I will tell you about the Manual of the Office of Chronicler of Stories.”     Vernal caught his intake of breath too late. “So you do know what this is! You have some black, forbidden knowledge for which you were confined to this damnation! Tell me! Reveal it now!”     â€œMy price.” The Marquis held up a warning finger. “There is one luxury that I am denied here. Grant it me and I will show you truth.”     â€œI don’t see you going short here,” Spare Parts snickered. “Nor me.”     â€œAid me and this luxury will be provided,” Vernal swore. “What do you want? A girl? A boy? A dozen of them? Rare foods and rich vintages? Decadent entertainments and obscene spectacle? Tell me your price.”     The Marquis smiled slyly. “I am not currently permitted access to mirrors,” he explained. “I want a looking glass. I want to see myself in it – and those ladies there. I want to know what is reflected back.”     â€œA mirror?” HV was perplexed. “That is all?”     â€œThis is what I require. I believe you will find such an item actually on the premises, an old full-length glass forgotten under dust-sheets in an abandoned cellar.” The Marquis cradled his fingertips. “Bring that mirror to me and I shall deal with you.”     â€œFind it,” Vernold instructed the Anvil. “Drag it up here.”     â€œExcellent. I am sure we will all see ourselves somewhat clearer thereafter.” ***     Laurel was Laurie and she folded into Amnesia. They died a hundred times and fell into the waiting flesh of Lizbeth who was Bethany. The spirit of Herringcarp wrapped herself in madness and midnight, flaring out a cape like mad bat’s wings and leaking black streamers of insanity. She saw her reflection in the ebony mirror and screamed.     MacGillicuddy was sealed in rusted armour, mystically warded against any harm, a living engine of destruction able to project his fury by exploding anything he saw. Milton Freebish burst apart, spewing out dozens of new limbs and organs, each squirming and writhing as the monster swelled.     Citizen Z plunged a blade of insanity through Appendage Man, lancing nightmares through his twisting frame, trapping him in the moment of most remorse. He dropped to the ground, screaming and sobbing until he finally fell still.     The combined spectre swung back at Anvil Man, catching him in the last moment before his armour insulated him from all harm. CZ’s psychostave spewed horror into the mercenary’s mind, dragging him back through every sin he had ever committed but seeing it from the other side. MacGillicuddy screeched and dropped into a foetal curl, an indestructible man lost in his own inescapable memories.     Hastings Vernal was more than before, multiple now, reflected again and again in the Portal of Pretentiousness and each time a different man. But before the vast power of the complex multitemporal being that was HV could turn on Citizen Z he was dragged apart by his own warring selves, His many lives’ conflicting motives tore at each other. He fell back into the mirror’s liquid darkness and was lost.     And the Marquis reached into that same eternal void and pulled out a grey mantle. He pulled it on as if he dressed in shadows. He drew the deep cowl over his face until only his eyes gleamed greenly from its depths.     CZ dropped to her knees, shivering like an addict on withdrawal. “What… what happened? Where am I? What did I do?”     â€œWhat was required of you,” the Hooded Hood replied. “You surrendered to the Asylum. You accepted the instructions I had given it. You lent the Portal of Pretentiousness to the heroes of the Lair Legion so they could use it to project themselves into the relevant pasts where they might exercise one last improbable chance. And then you were dragged back here, to an aspect of me.”     â€œDid I… have sex with myself? Does that even count as a threesome? Or just very advanced masturbation?”     â€œDoes it matter if you enjoyed it?” There was still a ghost of the dissolute Marquis beneath that grim hood.     â€œDid we win, then? HV is kicked through the Portal. His goons are back to being, well, I guess your goons, and you picked up the mysterious book of mystery.”     â€œThe forbidden manual of things that are known only to a Chronicler of Stories?” the cowled crime czar supplied. “I am hardly going to be allowed to retain that. Am I?” he asked to the figure who materialised behind him.     â€œI fear not, Hooded Hood,” the Grand Master of the Church of Conformity agreed. “You did well to force my direct intervention though. I was enjoying playing the hidden manipulator.”     â€œWho is he?” Laurie wondered. He looked a little familiar, if he was older, greyer, a little fatter…     â€œThis is the author of the three remarkable tomes that HV sought – that many have sought. This is the only man to have held all three of the great cosmic offices of the Triumvirate at different times; the only one to have found ways around the knowledge-wiping that occurs when an office holder retires or dies.”     â€œThat’s what is in the books? The secrets of the Triumvirate? How they do what they do? All the things that nobody is supposed to know but them about running the Parodyverse?”     â€œIndeed. This is a man who once raised himself above the gods through his secret knowledge; a man who knows the programming codes of the Celestians themselves. Once he was indeed mortal, the man who founded Paradopolis and named it after himself. This is Wilbur Parody, who imprinted his brand across the whole universe.”     â€œOr as it is now called, the Parodyverse,” Wilbur Parody proclaimed. “You missed one important attribute in your summary encomium, Ioldabaoth.”     â€œI’m am certain you will make us aware of it,” the Hooded Hood replied.     â€œI am the man with ample power to wipe you from the face of my Parodyverse.”     Wilbur Parody’s eyes flashed red. *** Next: Confessions of a talking knife, the relative merits of synchronicity and kool-whip, a ballad about dead Caphans, uses for deceased Legionnaires, the return of the Celestial Messiah (who has already starred as title character in a series), one fish pun too many out of plaice, and what it says in the title: Untold Tales of the Secret of the Parodyverse #359 Scheduling… to be announced. *** A Footnote Worth Footnoting A question was raised in the reply threat about why in the Normalverse Donar might revert to a normal human with no memory of his hemigodly self whilst his son Harlagaz retains his odd speech patterns, general character, and memory. The pragmatic reason is that I’ve been trying to prioritise posters who are still active over those who are absent, and I also feel free to pull in shared supporting characters like Gaz whenever it is convenient. But in-continuity, here’s the rationale: It all goes back to the Norse pantheon's ancient war with the Celestians, which they lost. They, like so many other troublemaking convicts, were shipped south to the Antipodes, where they re-formed as the Ausgardians. But as a provision of that war settlement, the gods were now demoted to hemigods and were not allowed to use their powers on or to physically visit 'Middlinggard'. The Oldman managed to find a way around this when his firstborn son was born. Donar's power was invested into an enchanted weapon - which was manifested through the Aussie-filter as a baseball bat with a nail in it. As the sticker on the bat specified, whosoever held the bat gained the power of Donar. So when actual-Donar was eventually reincarnated as a normal Australian (which may be a non-sequiteur), Gavan eventually discovered Mjalcolm and came again into his birthright and divine personality - but on Earth. With a few variations and exceptions on the scenario over the years, that's been his situation ever since. In a no-magic no-Oldmanforce mundane world, the conditions that made Gavan into Donar no longer exist, so Gavan is back to being the version of Donar he was set on Earth as before he had his Mjalcolm transformation. Meanwhile, Donar had Harlagaz by a non-Ausgardian mother who was quite capable of bearing children on Middlinggard - an earth goddess, if I recall correctly, whose natural state was to be on Earth. Hence Gaz is a demi-hemigod with dual citizenship. But he has never had a "human-only" personality so in the current non-magical mundane world he retains his character and patois but has only the equivalent physical characteristics of a strapping Aussie beach surfer. Over a prolonged period of time he may have lost the Ausgardian accent along with all other knowledge of Ausgard and other worlds, but fortunately as of chapter 20 that is no longer a problem. *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2016 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2016 to their creators. This is a work of parody. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works are in fair-use parody and do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. Any proceeds from this work are distributed to charity. 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.

I was the one who came up with the "snow white" joke!

So they're pirates now, eh? Because there's no way a boat full of people wanted by the inquisition would be considered legal traders.

Completely random side note: Traders is nearing 50,000 words. Holy crap.