The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Meanwhile all the citizens around and about are deciding that since wizards do not appear and disappear in twinkly blue lights, or at least not in this man’s town, then they do not see it, and they have pressing business to attend to elsewhere. So the cops have little to do, though one of them would like to put the arm on me, and Spanish John and Little Isadore. But there are many citizens who swear that we do not go anywhere near Rosenberg’s window, and so they have to let us go.

  “So that is all the story,” says Harry the Horse, “and that is why I am looking for Eugene Edmonton. For what Eugene Edmonton does not know is that just before Thurg takes it on the lam, I borrow his pouch with the Eye of God. And since I am somewhat short of scratch at present, I wish to ask Eugene Edmonton if he will buy the Eye of God for Miss Paulette Patrick, for a wedding present.”

  THE WINDS OF FATE

  Tony Rath

  When I read this story I kept thinking of The Goon Show. It has all the feeling of the irreverent and surrealistic humour that works so well on radio and in our imagination. There is no way this story could work on television. It has to be in our minds. Although Tony Rath has sold several stories in collaboration with his wife Tina, this is his first solo appearance. For many years Tony has performed as an opera singer – so he knows all about wind!

  December is not a good month to go sailing off the French coast, particularly in a tubby old two-decker affectionately known by her crew as the Pissyant. HMS Puissant was an old ship and was, in the view of their Lordships, the most expendable of His Britannic Majesty’s ships of the line. In the officers’ wardroom the three male passengers were not comfortable. Indeed, they were grimly clinging to various parts of furniture as the plunging vessel battled through the winter seas.

  The captain had company in his command. Four wild dervish-like figures, chanting and spitting onto the deck, were coaxing, cajoling and cooing to the winds to smooth out the sea in front of the bowsprit and create an envelope of gentle, purposeful breezes to propel the ship to France. They were expensive, temperamental and extremely smelly but HM’s Wind Wizards were plying their trade for King and country.

  The largest of the male passengers, Sir Danvers Roke, fourth of that name, was wondering again what had made him answer that midnight summons from the Admiralty. The ship’s bell sounded to denote some change in the orders and he dozed fitfully.

  It was the best of chimes, it was the worst of chimes. Sir Danvers had been restless after an eventful night involving a family dinner party presided over by the delightful Lucy, his lively bride of six months. The dinner was part of a series of events to celebrate the coronation of Charles the Tenth, the latest in a long line of Charlies who had risen to the Stuart throne. Sir Danvers was engaged in a serious internal discussion with some buttered lobster, which refused to lie down and digest, when the church clock struck midnight.

  As the noise of the church bells subsided, there could be heard the sound of the front door being assaulted by someone demented. Baskerville, Sir Danvers’s trusty manservant, hastily went to the door and unlocked it cautiously, keeping one hand free for a loaded pistol.

  “Who are you, sir, and what do you want at this hour of the night?” he demanded of the tall but rather skeletal old man who was trying to raise his hand to assault the knocker again.

  “I, sir, am from the government,” announced the elderly visitor.

  “Well, we don’t require any at this hour of the night. May I take a message for you, sir?”

  “I require to speak to Sir Danvers most urgently. I am Withering.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, sir. Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Dammit, man, I am Lord Withering from the Admiralty. I have a message that must be delivered to Sir Danvers most urgently NOW!”

  Sir Danvers strode downstairs and Baskerville stood to one side. As the two men faced each there was an instant drop in the temperature.

  “I am Lord Withering from the Admiralty, sir. The First Sea Lord would like a word with you most urgently. A carriage awaits.”

  Sir Danvers suddenly belched lobster. Annoyed at this disturbance, he smiled sweetly at the visitor and said, “Tell me, Lord Withering, what is your first name?”

  “Jasper, sir, but what is that to you, pray?” said the old man who was ageing visibly before their eyes.

  “Because I always like to know the first names of those whom I am about to fling down the steps of my house. You have two seconds, sir, to remove yourself or your coach will be carrying your bones back in a startlingly new formation!” Sir Danvers advanced and Lord Withering was forced to retreat. A man more suited to hiding behind hatstands was no match for seventeen stone of very angry beef, beef enhanced with lobster at that – a most unhealthy combination.

  “But, sir, I must protest,” Withering dithered. “At another time I should know how to answer your insults, but I am on government business and it is a most urgent matter.”

  “What matter, sir, can justify you intruding on my privacy at midnight when I have already retired?”

  “One of our agents, LeBroque by name, is in France. He is injured and we have to extract him and you seem to be the only person he trusts. Will you come with me, sir?”

  Sir Danvers harumphed in his own inimitable way, and then signalled to Baskerville, who disappeared and returned with his master’s cape and new beaver hat. Danvers was about to depart when a small, furious female appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “An’ just where the friggin’ ’ell do you fink you’re goin’ at this time of the night, and oo’s this long streak of piss and misery coming disturbing us?”

  “This; my love, is Lord Withering. He is from the Admiralty. They require to speak to me concerning our old friend LeBroque who has got himself into a scrape in France. Apparently he is injured.”

  “Picked up galloping knob-rot from some poxy whore, more like,” sniffed her ladyship, retreating upstairs.

  Sir Danvers coughed and Lord Withering, who had witnessed all this, remembered to close his jaw. He turned to Sir Danvers and said, “Your wife has a remarkable turn of phrase, sir, for such a young, uhm, lady.”

  “Remarkable,” agreed Sir Danvers, following him outside to the coach.

  Upon their arrival at the Admiralty they were quickly ushered in to the First Sea Lord who jumped up, greeted Sir Danvers effusively and poured him some wine. After some general conversation he said briskly, “To business sir. Our agent in Brittany is a man you know as LeBroque. He was sending us reports until some time ago about Bony’s invasion fleet, also making contact with those who would like to see the French King back on his throne. He kept asking for money to pay people off until the clerks decided that they needed some form of proof to show where the money was going. He took this very badly, said we obviously didn’t trust him, which, to be honest, is true. Everything went quiet for a while and we thought that he had been captured or done away with until we received a message by, uhm, certain channels, to the effect that he was injured and could we send someone to get him out as he cannot move very easily. He also mentioned some very disturbing news about the recruitment of Wind Wizards.”

  “Wind Wizards! Pray what is my involvement in this matter? Surely you have other agents who could help him!”

  “Trouble is, he don’t trust anyone from government service. Very stubborn, these Channel Islanders. Says he don’t like you but he knows you are a man of honour; says he will only deal with you. Thing is we have had trouble recruiting Wind Wizards – need ’em to control winds for large fleets and ships of the line, but the supply seems to have dried up, so the clerks tell me. It appears that Bony has invited them to a series of routs and revelries in France. Most worrying, you know. They are all freelance, so we have no hold over them.”

  Sir Danvers nodded. He knew that Wind Wizards were a malodorous group of gentlemen, recruited from the far north in Lapland, who had the ability to control the winds and were essential on large ships. He also knew that they wer
e in extremely short supply and noted for their temperament and rapacity in negotiating favourable financial terms for themselves. He said, “I am flattered, I am sure, by Mr LeBroque’s regard for my honour, but what is it you require of me?”

  “There is a ship waiting to slip across to France. You can be aboard by tomorrow evening and go and talk to this man and see what his situation is. He must be got out of France. Fella knows an awful lot about Bony’s fleet and the, uhm, wizard situation.”

  “Pray, what if I meet this man and he refuses to leave, because of some no doubt imagined injury suffered at the hands of the government?”

  The admiral met his gaze unflinchingly and said simply, “I repeat, sir, he is not to remain in France alive. Dead he does not matter to us.”

  Danvers stood up, outraged, and made to leave. “Good day, sir. I am not a paid assassin. Get someone else to carry out your dirty work.”

  The admiral, moving quickly for such an elderly man, ushered his guest back to his seat, tutting, “Sir, you misunderstand me. I am sure that no such action is necessary but it will not be up to you.”

  The odour of raw meat came into the room wrapped round a tall cadaverous figure swathed in a dull grey cloak.

  The little admiral pointed at this and said to Sir Danvers, “This is agent Kokki from the Finnish Board of Interrogation. He will accompany you and take certain steps if necessary.”

  It is indeed difficult to speak with any authority while pinching one’s nostrils.

  “You mean, he is to kill LeBroque if he is not pliable to your wishes,” said Sir Danvers bleakly.

  The little admiral merely bowed and said, “Come sir, time is passing. Will ye go?”

  “I may regret this decision, but yes, I will go.”

  “Good, we shall convey you by one of the new steam coaches. Most interestin’ experience. Use it meself regularly. Mind you, first time I was sick, second time me hat blew off.”

  Two hours later, trying to sleep in a rattling, bouncing contraption on the Portsmouth road, Danvers wondered whether he had made a rash decision. They had been met at Blenheim Station and conveyed to the bowels of the earth by a series of steam-powered moving staircases, there to be greeted by the stationmaster, who had received them most graciously and explained that a special coach had been prepared for them and that the tunnels had been cleared. The coach was a large carriage set on rails with a separate engine mounted on wheels, which required, as they explained, two men to stoke it and a driver. The experience of going through darkened tunnels had left all of them shaken; at one point they could hear the river above them. They had emerged at Greenwich and the relief among them had been manifest. The engine men, as they insisted on being called, had carried on with that cheerful smugness that comes with special knowledge.

  Agent Kokki was concerned with nibbling on a large raw pork chop, which he offered to Danvers, saying it was the custom in his country to share a joint.

  Baskerville sat seething, having received a tongue-lashing from her Ladyship when he went to collect additional clothing, pistols and Danvers’s huge sword. She had burst into tears and somehow blamed him for everything, calling him a great lobcock (whatever that meant) and other sundry terms. Her parting shot had been to warn him not to bring Danvers back “wiv any bits chopped orf”.

  They reached Portsmouth by mid-morning, after several stops for refuelling. Kokki seemed to know the way and, in between bites of calves’ liver (“Offally good,” he said, with a ghastly smile), had directed the driver to the inn which was their destination.

  Their arrival was punctuated by the curses of other vehicle owners. Steam coaches running on the road were new and the average horse did not appreciate them. Neither did the average horse owner.

  Upon arrival they were met by a tall thin man in his late twenties clad in neat but shabby naval uniform with the single epaulette of a post captain on his shoulder.

  “Good morning. I am Captain Bruce Partington. Here is the plan. I have been charged with arranging passage for you to the coast of France this evening. There you will be met by representatives of the monarchists who will convey you to your destination.”

  “How is our passage to be achieved, Captain?”

  “I have discussed this with the local admiral who has directed me to convey you part of the way to the coast in my own command and proceed in small boats for the final trip to the beach. I presume this gentlemen will be going with you.” He gazed distastefully at Kokki, who had produced some sheeps’ eyes from a large bloodstained bag, which, he explained with a droll smile, would see him through the evening.

  “I will see you at nine this evening,” said the captain, backing out hastily to the sounds of crunching.

  Promptly at nine o’clock in the evening there was a gentle tap on the door and the naval gentleman appeared. They proceeded down to the harbour to be picked up by the captain’s pinnace. Sir Danvers and his company, not being proficient in matters nautical, stepped gingerly down into the vigorously bobbing craft. The water had a light chop but the oarsman soon had them to the side of the ship. The wardroom proved to be very long and low and quite unsuited to one of Sir Danvers’s dimensions. As he explained to Baskerville: “Feels like a coffin with sails.”

  The rank odour of uncooked flesh and unwashed clothes suddenly permeated the atmosphere and they could hear the rhythmic chanting and exhortations as his Majesty’s loyal Windmaster pounded up and down on the deck above them and screamed incantations in an increasing frenzy. There was a lurch and a puff of breeze and the ship was under way. Danvers asked Kokki what the words meant, but he shrugged and said, “Buggered if I know, master, I dink they make it oop mineself.”

  “Your command of English is very unusual, I must say. Pray which school did you go to?”

  “I spent two years on an English merchantman out of Liverpool, under Captain Richard Starkey. He drummed it into me.”

  Sir Danvers concluded silently that Captain Starkey had introduced Kokki to the Joe Miller Jest Book as part of his tuition.

  The journey was uneventful and they were only roused by the captain announcing they were ready to land. Danvers noticed that all the boat crew were carrying pistols and cutlasses or boarding axes and wearing nondescript dark clothing and that both the boats had been fitted with a light cannon, which, on enquiry, he was told was loaded with grapeshot. Evidently some trouble might be expected. The captain and a warrant officer each took charge of one of the boats.

  There was no incident until the boats reached the shore. Sir Danvers and his companions were stepping out onto the wet pebbles when there was a volley of shots and one of the seamen clapped his hand to his thigh and yelled in outrage. He was dragged on board and the craft took off into the just-discernible dawn.

  “Oh hell, here’s trouble,” said Danvers as he saw a French guard boat appear and pursue their friendly vessels. They could hear a fusillade of shots and muffled crack from the light cannon, followed by curses and yells in French.

  The three men ran for a stand of trees at the top of the beach and took stock of the situation. They had the clothes they stood up in, some ammunition and shot, enough food and water for one day’s sustenance and no sign of the official welcoming party.

  Sir Danvers braced his back against a stout tree and checked the priming of his pistols. He glanced surreptitiously at Kokki, who seemed entirely unconcerned by their situation. After a two-hour wait by Danvers’s watch they drank some of their water. Then they heard the jingle of harness. It was Baskerville’s turn to be suspicious and he shot a hard look at the agent’s back, but he, too, was now looking tense and nervous, gnawing at a sausage, which looked like the very rude part of a large male horse.

  The three men instinctively dropped to kneel on the ground. Baskerville wordlessly passed a pistol to Sir Danvers, who eased the long barrel round the thick trunk of the tree, ready to take aim. He saw three riders leading saddled horses and a huge dog. The riders’ costume was of a faded grandeur that
bespoke nobility and wealth fallen on hard times. Sir Danvers looked towards his companions and handed the pistol back to Baskerville. He took a deep breath, tugged his sword hilt straight and stepped out from the trees, holding his hands up in the air. It was a tense moment. There was a muted shout as he was seen. The leading rider spurred his horse up to Danvers and spoke.

  “You are ze Englees milord?”

  Sir Danvers bowed slightly.

  “I am Armand de la Tocque. Zese are my brothers, Pierre and Henri and . . . uhm . . . Alois. We are the Three Cavaliers.”

  “But there are four of you,” Danvers observed.

  “Alois doesn’t count,” Armand responded.

  “He doesn’t read or write, either,” added Pierre.

  Much bowing and scraping followed and Sir Danvers signalled to Baskerville and Kokki to join them on the pebbly beach. It was getting light and although the brothers were no doubt charming companions he did not want to attract the attention of any more guard boats. He was also somewhat nervous of Alois, who was a rather wolflike creature with deep-set hazel eyes and a nose that would have been a great boon in the national cheese-rolling contest. Agent Kokki seemed delighted to meet him and dropped to all fours to engage in a protracted bout of bottom-sniffing. Alois was rewarded with some giblets and bounded off to scout ahead.

  The journey took some hours and several times they were forced to conceal themselves as troops of French cavalry passed by. They were provided with advance warning by Alois, who seemed able to communicate with his brothers by a series of meaningful yelps and short barks.

  Eventually they reached a small converted manor house with a dry moat and clattered across the stone bridge into the courtyard. They were welcomed, if so it can be described, by LeBroque who was standing with his arm round a pretty, plump girl who seemed most attached to him in every sense.

  Sir Danvers dismounted. He looked closely at Mr LeBroque and said accusingly, “I was told, sir, that you were injured, yet you appear to me to be in excellent health. Pray, what is the meaning of this?”