A Study in Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 4) (23 page)

The linen wrapped giant, the one referred to as Elyodnanocruhtraris, stalks forth from the shadows. He bears Miss Plumtartt in his dreadful arms. She is attired as Euripides described. Though bound and gagged she struggles, however futilely, with her captor.

“Place this vessel upon the
Cubus of Anointment
, High Priest Elyodnanocruhtraris.” Snikle Liag indicates for the ghastly ghoul to place Miss Plumtartt on the square, black pedestal. “The
‘Stones of Ascension’
are in place. The
Jewels
are activated. Let the
Transition
begin! Our Queen is ready to make her
Ascension!
”

As soon as Miss Plumtartt’s tender bare feet touch the obsidian block, bolts of fantastic energies leap about the small clearing. Miss Plumtartt’s contact with the block has initiated an incendious ignition. Heavy rough ropes secure Miss Plumtartt’s hands before her and the rags gagging her mouth muffle her screams as fingers of ghostly green electric currents run up her helpless form.

Great beams of light begin to shoot into the air intermittently. The ground moves in a strange manner. It does not so much tremble as from a land tremor, but rolls, as if on a swell upon the ocean.

Powerful lights fire upwards into a sky that is suddenly roiling with anger. The Hellish rays issue from an indeterminate place within the Cubus. Though Miss Plumtartt obscures their beams, and should cast a shadow in them, somehow they re-form and continue their course without acknowledgment of her body having abated them as an obstruction.

“Wot deh bloody ‘ell is all dis’ den?” Euciligucides speaks on behalf of his shocked psycle mates. “We didn’t soign on for all dis!”

The entire group surrounding the
Cubus
gape in amazement at the frightful lights and the upheaval of the Earth. A geyser of marshy muck fires into the air like a grand fountain of Versailles, but filled with the thick, filth of the Great Sucking Death Mire. Another bottomless sink hole Earth blemish fires its grody load like the pus from between a pimple popping teen’s fingernails. The moor rides up and down in huge rippling waves and the lights send jagged orbits of crackling energy in all directions.

“Charge!” calls our detective friend. He stands and fires the Webley Bulldog revolver that he acquired at the Manor. All the super special agent girls open fire as well.

“Please be careful not to shoot Miss Plumtartt!”

Our invasion force dashes headlong into the camp.

“Aye-eee! We’re being shot to pieces! Fly for your lives, lads!”

The Gang of Ones beat a headlong retreat. I have fired all six of my shots into the air in an abundance of caution for Miss Plumtartt’s safety since the Gangsters are withdrawing anyway. I throw my pistol after ‘em and head straight for Miss Plumtartt. All nine girls pursue the five cyklers from the scene. I am almost to the
Cubus of Anointment
when I am forced to throw myself to the ground in an attempt to save myself from Horbaz WilloughSickle’s slashing swing.

“Tee, hee! Our leettle master Icky has coome to visit so that I can cut out his toiny heart! Tee, hee!”

I roll to my feet and draw my sword. Well, dang it! I try to draw the silly thing, but it’s so dang long, I can’t get it out of its holster, or scabbard, or whatever you call it. I dodge Horbaz’s continued gleeful attacks and eventually get the sword clear of its protective sheath just in time to prevent Horbaz from vertically cleaving my skull in twain.

“Tee, hee! That was a cruel and vicious trick ye played on me poor handsies little Icky. Tee, hee! Oi means to repay ye in koind, and then a bits more! Tee, hee!”

Fast and ringing metal contact tells me that my consulting friend is engaged with Jabez WilloughSickle. There is an unspoken rivalry there, and I think each participant intends to finish the other, once and for all.

Snikle Liag has re-assumed her position and begins a mystic chant. The giant rag wrapped reinforcement holds Miss Plumtartt in place on the
Cubus.

This Horbaz WilloughSickle is a fierce beast! He is more of a swordsman than I and is beginning to spot my martial inadequacies. Pushing me back, he causes me to fall.

“Tee, hee! Goood-bye, Icksy, parting is so sweet, tee, hee!”

He plunges his sword at my face but I am able to punch my hand up in front of my peepers in time to protect myself. His sword point, though he got my hand, is ensnared in the wire basket of my sword’s hilt. I apply a twist to hold it there. I then pull the trapped blade while at the same time kicking both my feet into both of his knees, dropping him roughly to his giggly, freckled face. I get to my feet before he does and blow his candle out with a swift kick on the button.

“Tee, hee to you, you villain.”

My friend and Jabez appear evenly matched. Their combat is conducted in such a fearful ferocity that it defies my ability to comprehend. My ears can track the ringing of the thirsty, steel blades more accurately than my sight.

“Do not let that one interfere!” Snikle Liag screams at Elyodnanocruhtraris, indicating me. She then hurries to assist her man, Jabez.

Those flashing lights popping outta that
Cubus
don’t look like they’re doing Miss Plumtartt no good. I gotta get her outta there, and pronto! Big stinky, the cloth wrapped colossus, moves with disturbing quickness to stop me. I remember how Miss Plumtartt’s sword strike was ineffective. I drop the rapier and grab a burning log from the fire. I grab the end that is not burnt and swing the fiery end at  the toweled titan. I land several stout shots and then plunge the torch into him to set him afire. Dang, you’d think with those old papyrus reed linens that he’d be ready to light up at the slightest spark, but appears that he ain’t flammable a lick. Maybe it’s the mold and mildew, or maybe stuff that old just goes flat.

“Ooph!”

He got me.

“Ouch!”

Landing on this one-wheeler cycle hurt as much as the mummy smack.

Though the furnace is out, the gauge on this Euni indicates that this boiler is still under pressure! I get in and shove the throttle over. The cycle immediately catches traction and slams straight into the past time priest! The heavy cycle knocks the animated corpse on its back and continues straight across his face.

“That’s gonna leave a mark.”

Mr. Sherls and Jabez are momentarily eye to eye again in a hilt locked embrace. Each combatant is employing his left hand by clutching the back of his adversary’s skull. Each man tries to pull the other’s face into the scissors formed by their locked blades. Tremendous strengths are being exerted against each other, but neither can release the other from this murderous stalemate. Snikle Liag draws a dagger and runs forward to stab my friend, but he quickly spins at the last moment, and Snikle presents her gift to the wrong fellow.

“Oh, Jabez! Oi’m sorry!”

“You bloody twit! How is stabbing me bum gonna help!”

“Mmglnpgh!” Miss Plumtartt tries to cry as she delicately hops from the
Cubus
to my waiting arms.

“Fly, Temperance!” calls my astutely retreating friend. “This area is unstable and our position has become untenable.”

The land buckles and heaves like an ocean during a storm. The black skies are alive with frenzied flashes of white lightning and thick with heavy, turbulent, thunderheads. I am toting Miss Plumtartt as my friend and I arrive back to the draggin’ wagon at the same time as the nine lovely secret agent girls. It is all that the fearsome Jebidiah BarbaraHaughnne can do to hold Winnifred the frightened bear in check until we are all aboard. The Quacker then releases the beast to hurry us back to the Manor with all possible speed.

Under the wild lightning’s manic illumination the moors appear as a violent sea populated with an endless herd of enormous whales, spouting great geysering flumes of muck and mire from innumerable, bottomless blow-holes.

The heaving terrain is but a stage for whatever is happening around the
Cubus
. The many searching rays of coloured lights condense and solidify into a single scorching skyward beam. This slowly widens, exposing a small vision of clear sky: a clear night sky with two moons. A tall shadow blocks some of the ray’s intensity from within. I have the impression that someone is peeking through a crack. Winnifred is in an all out gallop, now.

“Eek!” cries Modesty BummeTwiddell.

“Great Gottlieb’s ghost!” cries Miss Plumtartt. She has, of course, by this time been relieved of her bonds. “What is that?”

The column of light expands, opening to a wider aperture. Someone, or rather, something, is stepping through.

Gold braided ropes, ten times thicker than the heaviest hawser, secure size 12 thousand, quadruple ‘E’ sandals to his towering calves. A mid-thigh skirt that takes a male individual of an extreme amount of self-confidence to wear is wrapped tightly about his shapely posterior. The muscles of a Greek God adorn his upper body. No, I’m sorry, that is not really the correct mythology we are concerned with. Even at a distance of nearly a mile, I am able to judge his height to be about fifty feet at the shoulder. I use his shoulder as a reference point because that is where the gentleman’s human physique ends. From the shoulders up, the Beast has the head of a jackal. Solid black eyes, as dark as midnight, fill with desire as they immediately seize upon Miss Plumtartt.

“Didn’t Miss Wallaby mention a persona by the name of ‘Annuubnuub’?”

The being that has passed through the portal, or brought us to his plane, pulls the ends of his mouth toward his impossibly black eyes. He throws back his head:

“HAI-EEEEE!”

“YIP!YIP!YIP!YIP!”

“WAH-RHOUOOOO!”

“MY QUEEN!”

“
YOU ARE FOR ME,”

“NEFERTATAS!!!”

The tremendous voice vibrates the air.

“Oh my Goodness, y’all, Mr. Annuubnuub is making tracks like a determined rooster after his favourite hen. He’s a gaining on us like a shark after a jellyfish.”

“We break upon the Manor. Ladies, Temperance, everyone abandon the sleigh.”

“Ah,-hahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha!”

“Look, y’all, the Egyptian giant, Elyodnanocruhtraris, has also made good time in our pursuit and is emerging from the mire from over yonder. He has one arm stretched before him. The other is held at an angle, close to his body forming a comfortable perch so that Millicent Wallaby, that is, I mean, Snikle Liag, may ride upon it in a somewhat elegant manner.”

“Ha, ha! You fools! You cannot escape the Great Annuubnuub! Ha, ha!”

“Hurry everyone; fly within the confines of the manor.”

“Yessir! Come on, Miss Plumtartt and all you other attractive ladies, let’s duck back in the North annex the way we left out, earlier.”

“Capital, Mr. Temperance.”

“Looks like everybody and everything is as we left it, with the exception of Mrs. SaurSkowlle’s addition. I reckon she didn’t much care for that confined to quarters business, no how.”

“Good work, ladies, glad to see you have all made it safely back.” Persnicitus Sforza has been assisted to a small couch where Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza sees to his every need. “Temperance! I see you have Madame Plumtartt! Nice dress, Persephone. Good show, old chap, mission accomplished, eh, what?”

“Not quite, sir.”

“We have an inbound aggressor, sir,” Obstinance GoodeWoodey informs Mr. Sforza.

Looking toward the North wall, the strange, pointy-eared, fancy head-dressed shadow of the Egyptian God can be made out against the stained glass window, cast there by a blinding backdrop of unceasing lightening. The shadow is strangely animated, as the image jumps from place to place by the different positions of the hyper-active lightning storm.

“COME TO ME”

“NEFERTATAS!”

The entire Northern Annex shudders under the frightful impact of the Titan’s grasp. The walls quake in plaster- exploding tremors as the Colossal Beast tears into the stone structure. A fist the size of a four horse carriage explodes the historic stained glass window of St. George into a gazillion flying shards and chunks of lead. The walls and roof remain more or less intact, but two sets of fingers grip the edges of the window and tear down most of the North wall. Wind and rain rush through the opening from around the giant’s torso that stands outside. From our limited perspective, we can tell the monster is bending to squeeze in through the opening.

“AYE-EEE-YIPE!!!”

“HIEN!!!”

“HIEN!!!”

“HIEN!!!”

“Bahdde daugie! No! No! Sit! Down boy.”

We see the creature stumble back from the building, clutching his steaming face where he has just gotten a severe remonstration from the smelter. A spray of gray metal liquid lead continues to fall, like so much drool from a maddened canine but in slower, more metallic form from the gaping mouths of the lizard-faced fellows of stone inhabiting the corners of this manic manor and acting as her gutterspouts.

“Ye’ll show theese ‘ouse a bit mooore respect, nouw, Oi thinks, Rover,” we hear Morag shout.

“You horrible infidels!” Snikle Liag and her eight foot walking dead cohort stand in the doorway amongst the broken walls detritus. “How
dare
you assault the Great Annuubnuub! You shall pay for your insolence with your lives! Elyodnanocruhtraris, seize the Plumtartt girl that we can see to her
Ascendancy!
You shall be the bride of Annuubnuub! You are to be our Queen Nefertatas, reborn!”