by Rhys Hughes
The professor had regained control of himself.
“Twisthorn, listen very carefully to me . . . I want you to climb out of there as slowly as you can . . . ”
Being a golem, Twisthorn was compelled to obey.
He stood before them, dripping.
“His body has absorbed most of the contents of the vat!” bewailed the professor. “Do you know what this means?”
“What does it mean, boss?” asked Twisthorn.
“nitroglycerine is a very powerful explosive but it’s highly unstable. In an effort to stabilise it, clay is used to absorb and hold it—the same clay you are made out of. Kieselgur!”
“My name is Twisthorn,” said Twisthorn.
“That’s the clay’s name, you fool. Listen please! You have been turned into a living stick of dynamite!”
“Is that such a bad thing?” wondered Abortia.
The professor scratched his head. “Maybe not. It does mean that he’ll sweat over time and that his sweat will be very dangerous. And he must avoid going near naked flames.”
“I won’t be allowed in the kitchen?” Twisthorn gasped.
“No. Fortunately a golem doesn’t actually need to eat. The vital thing is that you don’t allow anyone to fit you with a fuse. Also you’ll get more and more unstable until you eventually explode of your own accord, so a much shortened life-span is the price you’ll have to pay for being able to blow yourself to deadly pieces . . . ”
“I see,” said Twisthorn in a subdued voice.
“Are you willing to pay it?”
“I don’t have a choice, boss, do I? It’s either that or be telekinetically finger-clicked to smithereens . . . ”
“Richie!” squealed Hapi Daze.
“My name is Twisthorn Bellow,” corrected the golem.
“Welcome home!” said Cherlomsky.
* * * * *
A golem can’t be allowed to stroll around without a weapon. In the story the museum caretaker told the professor in Prague, the original golem of Rabbi Loew had owned a magical walking stick that he used to summon the spirits of the dead, but Cherlomsky didn’t know where to get hold of one of those, so he decided instead to equip Twisthorn with a sword-stick, one of those ingeniously sly weapons that are more often associated with rotten villains than clean heroes.
But this was no time for soft sentiments. British interests at home and abroad were at stake! A sword-stick must be obtained for the golem’s use. Try as he might, the professor couldn’t buy or borrow one, not even from on-line auction sites. So he decided to find an ordinary sword and make a cunning scabbard for it himself.
In a locked basement beneath the Ethnology department, a collection of blades from a variety of cultures and ages gathered dust. Cherlomsky ordered Twisthorn to break the door down. They stumbled inside with a pair of flashlights and examined the horde. There were spears, axes and halberds, shields, maces and whips, muskets, pistols and crossbows, but only a solitary sword, a Nubian kpinga, a weapon unique to the Azande tribe. It would have to suffice . . .
The kpinga isn’t much like a normal sword and doesn’t possess a single blade or even a pair of them. It’s not straight or curved, stiff or flexible. It resembles a candelabra or a small tree, with a handle from which branch perhaps five, six, even a dozen, blades. These blades protrude at unlikely angles and are never symmetrical. Although a kpinga can be used at close quarters it was originally designed to be thrown, and none too accurately, at the massed ranks of an enemy army.
Cherlomsky attempted to make a scabbard for this bizarre weapon but the madly sprouting blades made the task too difficult. He compromised by painting the weapon a particular shade of brown, the exact colour of walking stick wood, and that’s how Twisthorn came to own a swordstick that simply wasn’t a sword in a stick.
He soon learned how to use it with deadly effect . . .
* * * * *
Nor did the professor neglect his education.
“Did I ever tell you,” he began one day, “that our planet isn’t solid but quite hollow on the inside?”
“You never did, boss,” admitted Twisthorn.
“Well it is. There’s lots of space and breathable air beneath our feet, an environment suitable for life!”
Twisthorn frowned. “So how thick is the crust? If I jump up and down hard enough will I fall through?”
The professor laughed. “No, my friend, the empty space in the middle isn’t that big, maybe only a quarter of the diameter of the Earth. The crust is strong enough to support us safely! In fact it’s so thick in parts there are whole asteroids embedded in it.”
“How do you know so much about it, boss?”
The professor sighed. “Experience, dear boy. Did I ever tell you about a man named Mark Anthony Zimara?”
“I don’t think so. Was he one of the good guys?”
“I’m sure he was. Maybe. Remind me to tell you about him one day. I haven’t been a good teacher, have I?”
“No complaints from me,” said Twisthorn.
“But I don’t seem to have told you much about anything. That can be remedied easily enough, I suppose. What might you want to know about next? The nonexistence of linear time? Woodcarving? The history of old Nekrotzar? The cultivation of chives? Modern philosophical objections to the doctrine of epiphenomenalism?”
Twisthorn’s eyes narrowed beneath his clay frown and his huge upper incisors bit down on his massive lower lip. Then he smirked. “How about practical procrastination, boss?”
“No, no, we can tackle that tomorrow!”
Twisthorn’s expression returned to rueful mode. “Epiphenomenalism it is, then. Best of a rotten bunch . . . ”
* * * * *
Professor Cherlomsky taught Twisthorn Bellow everything he knew over a period of years. The golem eventually became a match for the smuggest lover of trivial facts on any televised quiz show. Not that he ever entered one of those competitions. He was too careful to avoid public scrutiny, to operate as unobtrusively as a three-metre tall living statue could manage, to go in for that kind of thing.
Celebrity status wasn’t his cup of nitro!
* * * * *
The professor wasn’t completely sure that his deadly enemy République Nutt was truly or permanently dead and this doubt often kept him awake. During these periods of insomnia he would creep quietly to the bedroom of Twisthorn and knock softly on his door. The golem was usually awake and would whisper for him to enter.
The door was rarely locked. The golem wore pyjamas decorated with orange and blue stripes that contrasted horribly with Cherlomsky’s own purple and yellow dotted pair.
But the professor would perch on the edge of the bed and the unlikely friends would kill the loneliest hours with conversation, silly jokes, the sharing of wisdom, torch songs . . .
They read books together, serious and disturbing novels by Douglas Adams and Spike Milligan, or gentle comedies by Gustav Meyrink and H.P. Lovecraft; but the strange genius Philip José Farmer remained the golem’s favourite author, especially his unique World of Tiers novels, a fantasy sequence that Twisthorn rated even higher than Roger Zelazny’s superb ten volume Amber series.
So now you know what you didn’t need to . . .
They even read a few Classical writers, including Chariton and Ovid, and learned that the sun god had several names, or conversely that there were several sun gods in the mythology of Ancient Greece, and that while Apollo was often identified with the sun by shepherds and chive farmers, Phœbus was the solar deity beloved by poets, lovers and artificial men brought to life by magic means.
For a harmless game that would have educational merit and also serve to tighten the bond between them, Cherlomsky and Twisthorn decided to worship Phœbus one fine morning. They chanted old hymns for him and poured a libation in his fiery honour, something that probably hadn’t been done for sixteen centuries or more . . .
But Phœbus wasn’t listening. He was changing . . .
It was about
this time that the Sunbeam Research Centre began to take note of the fact that something weird was happening to the sun. But they didn’t inform the Agency. Yet.
* * * * *
The team started to go on missions together. Nothing too spectacular, but good practice nonetheless. They gatecrashed an un-dead party and livened it up by snapping the batty spines of the dancing vampires and stomping the vinyl records to fragments. The very next day they did a similar thing at a charity banquet for zombies.
Those vampires were Swiss, not strictly French, but near enough to fully enrage Cherlomsky. As for the zombies, they were British, but there had been baguettes and Brie on the dining table and that was damning enough to justify merciless elimination.
The following week Hapi clicked a foul tree sprite into oblivion. Then Abortia reduced a squonk to tears, an achievement the professor remained dubious about for some reason . . .
Twisthorn used his kpinga to remove the heads of rock guitarists in pubs, sometimes kicking open the tavern doors with a foot and blindly flinging his awful weapon in the general direction of the music, without even stepping inside. These wild throws often took off the limbs of music lovers by mistake, those traitors who would be referred to as ‘innocent bystanders’ in liberal newspapers the next day. Little wonder Britain is no longer the world power she was!
And that’s how the team continued, doing work the Queen would approve of, breaking ghouls, banshees, centaurs, abominable snowmen, warlocks, mandrakes, perytons, lamias, musicians, elves, harpies, robots, moths and sundry French things.
Breaking them like an earthquake snaps a tectonic plate!
* * * * *
They also managed to find time for relaxation.
While Twisthorn played shogi with Hapi, the professor, who didn’t care for Japanese chess, decided to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the establishment of the Agency by getting very drunk in his personal laboratory, alone. Alcohol just wasn’t strong enough for what he had in mind. But bottled ether was . . .
Outside the window the sun shone . . .
Within an hour, Twisthorn had won. Shogi was his favourite board game, though he also had a fondness for xiangqi, hnefatafl, chaturanga, mancala and cluedo. He also liked most card games but refused to play belote, because it was French . . .
By the time the golem had started a second game, the professor was staggering all over his room. He lurched to the desk and reached for a flask but only succeeded in knocking it to the floor, where it smashed. Then a soldier ran into the room to see what the trouble was, but slipped on the puddle and broke his neck. He was the last soldier left in the institute. Now the team was on its own.
* * * * *
Without soldiers to guard them, Cherlomsky and his brave monsters were in greater danger than ever. Assassination attempts were already common but soon became even more frequent. One large parcel was received that was covered in French stamps. The mechanical sniffer let it pass but the professor decided to subject it to an X-ray scan. Inside a sealed cardboard box stood a humanoid shape.
“Rather curious,” remarked the professor.
“Doesn’t seem alive,” said Abortia.
“There’s a label on the side of the box that says the contents are a robot by the name of Crystalbonce . . . ”
“Not a bad cognomen for a mechanical man!”
“Especially as its head does seem to be a giant yellow crystal. Shall we open it? Clearly it is deactivated.”
Abortia knew she was incapable of making a robot weep, if the worst came to the worst. “But it’s from France and might be French, like many things that come from that country!”
“I’m fully aware of that fact, my dear.”
“Just be careful, that’s all I’m saying,” huffed Abortia.
“Certainly. Well, here goes . . . ”
Suddenly the box burst apart by itself. The robot inside flexed, swept aside the remnants of the packaging, began whirring and clicking. It was crude but forceful and its arms terminated not in hands but loops of wire that probably carried a powerful electric charge. Swivelling its seemingly eyeless yellow cranium, Crystalbonce fixed its attention on the professor and began gliding towards him.
“C’est pour toi que je suis!” it rasped.
“It’s speaking in French!” warned Miss Abortia Stake.
“Help me!” cried the professor.
“How can I? It has no known tear ducts!”
“Je t’adore! Veux-tu m’epouser!” said Crystalbonce.
“Twisthorn! Come to my rescue!” shrieked Cherlomsky as he tried to hide behind Abortia’s waldo.
The shadow of the golem darkened the doorway.
“I’m here, boss. What’s the trouble? I see, an imported Gallic robot. No problem for Twisthorn Bellow!”
Crystalbonce never stood a chance.
He discharged his entire current into Twisthorn’s torso but the golem didn’t flinch. Nor did he explode, despite the nitroglycerine that saturated every one of his clay pores. Clearly he was still at the very stable stage, a prime example of high-quality fresh dynamite. In the future things might go differently, but they weren’t there yet, they were still in the present and a considerably weakened Crystalbonce was easy prey for the golem to lift up high and cast down hard.
He repeated this action maybe seven times.
Finally the robot shattered . . .
“Who could have sent such a thing? And it was deactivated when it arrived. I don’t understand!” gasped Abortia.
The professor knelt to examine some of the components scattered on the floor. Then he straightened with a sour expression and stroked his silver nose with worried fingers.
“The X-rays supplied the power it needed, so it could be sent through the post without batteries . . . Fiendishly clever! There’s only one person I know capable of such extreme cunning. And the robot spoke French and clearly originates from that nation. All these facts are leading me to one extremely unpleasant conclusion.”
“Which is what, boss?” asked the golem.
“My deadly enemy, République Nutt, really is still alive!”
“He’s not one of the good guys?”
“Oh dear no. Far from it . . . ”
“Will he try other stunts like this, boss?”
“Yes, and much worse too!”
“I bet this is the last robot he sends, though . . . ”
* * * * *
One night there was a mysterious fire in the library and the professor’s entire collection of occult books was destroyed. Clearly this was an act of blatant sabotage but it was impossible to point a definite finger at anyone. Cherlomsky was inconsolable. The blaze meant that his monster-making efforts would have to cease.
“Without the recipes, I can’t proceed!”
“Didn’t you commit any to memory?” Twisthorn gasped.
“Not possible. They were too complex.”
“I wonder who did this?”
“Perhaps it was the work of République Nutt.”
“But how could he arrange it?”
“Doesn’t really matter now. The important thing is to find another way of recruiting weird-powered things to our cause. Maybe we can advertise for already existing monsters?”
“Not a bad idea . . . ” Twisthorn admitted.
* * * * *
A little research revealed the existence of many monsters in many parts of the world. Twisthorn wrote to all of them. Very few responded positively. Even fewer turned up at the Agency gates for an interview. One who did was an ectoplasm guy, but he failed to deliver on his initial promise and a few minor missions later he resigned.
There were many negative responses . . .
The wereclown Guttersnipe Chutney replied with a letter covered in laughter, while the magician Adrab the Unlikely answered with a blank sheet of paper that turned into an origami snake and slithered away the moment the envelope was opened.
Ruby dubDub, Snagtooth Toasta and Bryan the Ferry didn’t bother t
o reply at all. Janrel MacScabbard and Bob the Lock took it a stage further and didn’t have the decency to exist.
As for Upside Downey Jr, his reply ran: “Dear Twisthorn, I’m flipping you da bird, all worst regards.”
“What’s da bird?” wondered Twisthorn.
“American slang,” explained the professor. “Upside’s from the Downside of Chicago. He’s the notorious ‘inverted gangster’ and compelled to say ‘da’ instead of ‘the’. It’s a question of honour, and honour is how he outsmarts all his lowlife no-good rivals . . . ”
“I’ve always thought it’s a weird coincidence that gangsters mostly go round in gangs,” remarked Abortia.
The telephone rang. The professor answered it.
He listened in silence for a few minutes, then he replaced the receiver with a pale face and sat shakily down.
“What’s up, boss?” cried Twisthorn.
“Bad news, I’m afraid. Strange and terrible news. Impossible news! That was the Sunbeam Research Centre. It’s about the sun. Too much exposure to sunlight for too long. Six million millennia of exposure to its own harmful ultraviolet rays . . . ”
“What are you getting at?” demanded Abortia.
“Cancer . . . The sun’s got skin cancer! It only has six months at most left to live. We are all doomed!”
“Cool!” squeaked Hapi Daze.
“Is it?” bleakly asked the professor. “Is it really?”
* * * * *
They had a brainstorming session later that same day, sitting around a big table in the office Dean Nutt himself had once occupied. For ten hours they proposed ideas and rejected them.
Abortia first suggested evacuation of the human race to a better planet, but the professor churlishly pointed out that no planets better than Earth had ever been discovered. Plus no spaceship currently existed that could carry more than a dozen passengers, a figure that fell rather short of the seven billion persons currently alive.
Her second idea was for the human race to seek refuge underground in the hollow inner world. This was a much more practical proposal and the professor was on the verge of adopting it as the official Agency solution, but then he realised that the human race included the French. How could he bring himself to be responsible for the salvation of that fiendish race? So he shook his head in the negative.