Twisthorn Bellow

by Rhys Hughes

  “It’s a simile, not a metaphor,” countered Abortia.

  “Ah yes, that makes it less strange… But does Jupiter really have any shoelaces? He wears sandals!”

  “Maybe he means Jupiter the planet,” said Abortia.

  “Of course!” agreed Breath.

  * * * * *

  Arsehair Plucker said, “I’m so proud we stood together against that tyrant and did what was right.”

  “Ditto,” nodded Sappy Ever After.

  “Don’t be too smug,” cautioned Highly Contrived Name.

  “Why not?” cried Arsehair.

  Highly Contrived sighed. “Well, did we do what was right or just what was best for us? I’m unsure they’re necessarily identical. Enlightened self interest isn’t always moral.”

  Sappy Ever shrugged. “Maybe not, but it doesn’t matter, because we won. Frabjal backed down.”

  “Yes, and he even gave us this house to live in. Shame it’s only about the same size as a parcel!”

  “Cramped indeed!” sighed Arsehair.

  “And the front door, which is in the roof, appears to be locked. Taped shut on the outside, I think. And there does seem to be an earthquake in progress. All that swaying.”

  “Feels like we’re moving. Horrid!”

  “The important thing to remember is that we beat Frabjal Troose. We are three humble robots—just modest electro-assassins—but we proved that it’s possible to defeat a moony dictator simply by showing solidarity with each other. The discomforts of our abode can be disregarded in the light of our achievements.”

  “Yes that’s true. Well done to us. Congratulations to Arsehair, Sappy Ever and Highly Contrived!”

  “A big cheer for us. Hip hip!”

  “We don’t have hips. We have cogs. Will you shout ‘cog cog!’ instead? I don’t mean to be awkward.”

  “Very well. If you insist. Cog cog!”

  “Hooray! Thanks.”

  * * * * *

  Every week a visiting academic came to the Agency to deliver a lecture. Losthorn sat through every one, though his kneecap always ached during the lessons as if the shrivelled head of Mr Gum was silently shouting for help to his fellow specialists.

  But if that was the case, then his pleas were never heeded. The visiting professors were mostly too engrossed in their own disciplines to pay any attention to external stimuli.

  The range of subjects taught at the Agency became truly daunting. On one occasion a meteorologist arrived and skilfully predicted the imminent arrival in Central Europe of extremely forceful easterly winds that would blow light aircraft off course.

  This prediction was greeted with disbelieving gasps and catcalls from his listeners, but he merely smiled a superior smile and demonstrated the soundness of his talent with a verifiable prediction, namely that yesterday afternoon it had rained a bit in London. Applause and amazed gasps now erupted from the audience.

  “It did rain and I even got a bit wet,” confirmed the golem. “I wonder what his secret is? To know your own future is hard enough, but to know that of a cloud—astounding!”

  “Maybe he uses intuition,” suggested Abortia.

  “Perhaps he’s best friends with Thor,” said Breath, “or one of the other weather gods. It’s possible.”

  “Who knows?” shrugged the golem.

  So well received was this lecture that Losthorn imagined the following week’s talk would be a disappointment, but it turned out to be one of the most inspiring, a lesson on how to secretly smuggle song lyrics into prose texts, not merely into serious documents such as medical reports, legal contracts and engineering manuals but also into stories and novels written for entertainment purposes.

  Somewhat inevitably the next lecture on the schedule really was badly delivered and poorly argued. Some crank who called himself the Blink of Missit tried to convince his audience that when monsters die they don’t go to Heaven, Hell or Limbo, but end up in the Mediocre Utopia, a place that exists on Happenstance, which is a planet or an astral dimension or both. What an absolute crackpot!

  * * * * *

  MeMeMeMeMe U stood on the shore near Dover and gazed across the sea at the coastline of France. So near and yet so unobtainable! Although a strong swimmer in the icy rivers and lakes of Tibet, the yeti was certain he wouldn’t be able to cope with the choppiness of one of the most busy shipping lanes in the world.

  He had no intention of drowning today, so he needed to find a method of getting safely across. Should he rob a human being for the ferry fare? No, that was too defeatist a solution. What if he constructed a raft from driftwood and paddled it with an oar improvised from the biggest spoon? In that case he would need to buy the spoon first! Should he rob a human being for the spoon money?

  Clearly he was going round in circles.

  And he hadn’t even put to sea yet! Best to sit down and think carefully about all the available options.

  Where to sit? There were no benches here.

  On a rock? But they were slimy or else chalky. Here was an aspect of Dover that amazed him—the cliffs were like vast, badly shaped sticks of school writing implements!

  Why not use that wrecked ship as a seat?

  Yes, that seemed the most comfortable answer to the seating dilemma. The wreck was an old one, some kind of steam schooner from the days of yore, but it looked clean enough. It was half in the water, half out. With a sigh, the yeti climbed up the extended gangplank onto the deck. He stood at the rail for a few minutes.

  Suddenly a voice addressed him.

  “Do you need a lift across the channel?” it asked.

  “Yes I do,” answered the yeti.

  “I’m in a position to give you one,” the voice said.

  “Where are you and who are you? Why can’t I see you? Do you lurk on a lower deck of this vessel?”

  The voice responded with horn-like laughter.

  “I am the vessel. I’m a monster like you but radically different in form, girth and cuddliness. My name is Bryan the Ferry. I’m half malign brain, half paddle-steamer. I was about to leave for France myself. Will be delighted to have you on board.”

  “Fine! Makes my cryptozoological life easier!”

  “Why are you going to France, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it to sample the bohemian night-life?”

  “No, I’m on my way home to Tibet.”

  “I heard there’s a music festival about to take place in Strasbourg, but I can’t attend because it’s too far from the sea. A pity! I’d dearly like to go and watch Maurice Chevalier.”

  “I thought he died ages ago,” said MeMeMeMeMe.

  “That’s what makes it even more remarkable to catch him live! It must remain a pipe-dream, alas.”

  The yeti frowned. “Maybe not. Are you aware of the films of Werner Herzog, by any chance?”

  “Pardon?” gasped Bryan the Ferry.

  The yeti tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “One good turn deserves another, that’s all.”

  “One good turn? But we’re monsters!”

  “Sorry, nearly forgot. One bad turn deserves another! I’ll explain fully when we reach the other side.”

  “Okay. All aboard. Weigh anchor!”

  “I don’t have my scales with me but I estimate it to be about a ton and a half, give or take a third.”

  “You went to university, didn’t you?”

  “Afraid so. And you?”

  “Dropped out after the first year. I couldn’t focus on my studies. I was besotted with a mermaid. Tried so hard to win her heart but she ended up marrying a cottage instead and became a housewife! Now she’s president of a Housewives’ Cabal whose members meet every week to slander their husbands—who are all houses!”

  “Good job monsters are supposed to be unfunny.”

  “My own opinion too…”

  * * * * *

  “Guess what!” cried Snaphorn Bellow as he bounded into the bathroom and beamed down at Abortia in the bath. She had hung her exoskeleton on a radi
ator so it would be warm when she put it back on. Dwarfed by soap suds, she shrugged.

  “I have no idea. Give me a clue.”

  “Changed my name again,” he announced.

  “Was that necessary? I’d only just got used to calling you Losthorn. I think the deed pole is a negative influence on you. Maybe you ought to break it over your knee.”

  Snaphorn’s lips quivered. “You’re right.”

  “It has become an addiction,” warned Abortia, “and it’ll get worse until you metamorphose into a cold turkey. That’s what happens to all addicts. They turn into a gobbling bird and then get seasonally stuffed. The deed pole is your worst enemy.”

  “I dislike turkeys—almost as much as ducks!”

  “Abandon the pole then!”

  The golem nodded slowly. “But it won’t leave me in peace! Tomorrow it’ll probably force me to alter my name again, maybe to Breakhorn. What can I do? I’m slave to it!”

  “How does the thing work, precisely?”

  “I’ll show you, Miss Stake.” With a thunderous roar, Snaphorn called for assistance. His plea was answered by a young man with freckles, one of the new Agency recruits.

  “Yes sir? How may I be of help, sir?”

  The golem raised the pole high. “Suggest another name for me. Don’t look bemused. It’s an order!” And he brought the pole down on the young man’s head. “Do as I say!”

  “I don’t know, sir… How about Maurice… What about Fred… Please don’t hit me so hard, sir…”

  Snaphorn lashed out even more strongly. “A name with the word horn in it, you pathetic cretin!”

  “Sorry, sir… Hornblower, sir… Hornbill… Hornblende… I can’t think because of the agony, sir…”

  “No, a name that describes the present state of my head. Take this and that for your ignorance!”

  Something burst and the fellow sagged to the floor. He moaned as the golem proceeded to methodically club him, softening his muscles into black sacks of bruises, splintering bones and rupturing organs. “I issued a direct order, you slacker.”

  “What about Nonhorn, sir?” croaked the man. He shuddered and died and slowly stained the floor.

  The golem stood back and surveyed his handiwork. Then he nodded to himself and sat on the edge of the bath. “You just witnessed, Miss Stake, how thirsty a tool the deed pole is. The concept of personal nomenclature is making me so unhappy!”

  Abortia popped a soap bubble with a finger. “This is my solution. Why not change the name of the deed pole? Give it a taste of its own medicine! Then it’ll leave you alone.”

  “Good idea, Miss Stake! Bully the bully!”

  “Go on then. Do it!”

  “Okay. How about if I call it—A Silly Stick?”

  “Well done, Mr Bellow! See how it sags in your grasp? The power it possessed has been taken away.”

  “But I don’t want to be left with the name he gave me,” Nonhorn said as he kicked the mangled corpse.

  “Then alter your name one last time and terminate the process! Name yourself Twistoff Bellow and refuse to be called anything else. This new name is almost identical to your original, plus it’s accurate, because your twisted horn was twisted off.”

  Twistoff grinned down at Abortia.

  “What a wonderful suggestion! Thank you! And it means I won’t have to change the initials you branded on all my personal possessions when I commanded you to. Hurrah!”

  “Glad you’re more happy now. I’m certain it was worth the life of this innocent man you murdered.”

  “Pretty much. Shall I soap your back?”

  * * * * *

  The sound of a serrated blade cutting through the roof woke him up from savage nightmares. Arsehair Plucker blinked painfully as light streamed into the narrow confines of the room he shared with the corpses of Sappy Ever After and Highly Contrived Name. They had starved to death, losing power and shutting down over a period of weeks. Arsehair now suspected that Frabjal Troose had tricked them, perhaps by giving them a prison cell instead of a genuine house.

  But why was a face peering down at him?

  “Hello!” said a voice that belonged to the face. “I wonder who mailed me three broken robots?”

  “I’m still alive,” croaked Arsehair.

  “So you are! Come up then!” Two hands reached in, lifted him out and lowered him onto a table.

  “I fed on the static electricity of my fallen comrades, but I’m weak and need power,” explained Arsehair.

  “Fair enough, I’ll plug you into one my sockets. As I peer closer, I now see that the parcel wasn’t addressed to me but to the Applied Eschatology Agency. I shouldn’t have opened it. I’ll be skinned alive by that Twisthorn Bellow chap! Oh dear! I can’t possibly confess to him what I did. He gets into such irrational rages.”

  “You saved my life. But I don’t recognise my surroundings. This isn’t Moonville. Where am I?”

  “In London, of course. My name’s Alf Pieofeels and I’m the curator of the Imperial Ice Museum.”

  “Ooh, that sounds interesting!”

  “Yes, ice from all corners of the Empire, including those hard to reach corners that don’t get dusted.”

  “Will you take me there, Mr Papal Owls?”

  Alf shook his head. “Nothing to see. Thieves stole the exhibits, all of them. Now let me explain my surname. It’s Pieofeels, as in pie of eels. A pie of eels is a kind of pie filled with eels. Such pies aren’t at all kind but they are traditional in this city.”

  “Will you adopt me, please?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “How the heck did I get to London?”

  “Well, however it happened, we can’t stay here. When that clay bully at the Agency gets to learn that a parcel addressed to him was mistakenly delivered to me and that I opened it, he’ll come here and slay both of us. We have to flee Britain. There’s only one country the golem would never dare venture into—France!”

  “Shall we go there, Mr Pieofeels?”

  “Indeed so. Oddly enough, as he delivered you, the postman casually mentioned how lovely Strasbourg is at this time of year. He’s a wondrous postman, that Mr Dnarrettim… Anyway, we should depart immediately, but we’ll have to financially support ourselves over there, so I suggest we start a small business after we settle, maybe an ironmongery store selling tools and substances useful in the household and in quarries. We can use the bodies of your defunct companions to give us a head start in terms of spare components to sell.”

  * * * * *

  Bryan the Ferry pulled in as close to the deserted shore as he was able. Then he bobbed gently on the current and said, “This is the terminus of the journey. Good luck.”

  MeMeMeMeMe shook his hairy head.

  “Wait a moment! I promised to get you to the music festival and so I will. My route to Tibet is a straight line that takes me near Strasbourg, so I’ll escort you and we can say goodbye there, rather than here. I just need to make one phone call.”

  “What exactly are you planning?”

  “When I was in South America I met a man who was making a film about an opera fanatic who wanted to build an opera house in the jungle. The film is called Fitzcarraldo and includes a scene where a steamboat is dragged over a mountain.”

  “Don’t think I’ve seen it,” said Bryan.

  The yeti grinned. “I offered to work as an extra and it was mostly my muscle power that made the scene work. The film director and principal actor were extremely grateful and promised that if they could ever repay the favour they would.”

  “Was that a serious offer?”

  “Certainly. One phone call and Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski will get here as fast as possible and arrange for you to be dragged all the way overland to the festival.”

  “What funny names human beings have!”

  “Yep. Are you happy?”

  “With your proposal? Absolutely! But answer this. What was a yeti doing in South America?”

  “What do you t
hink? Monsters go on vacation too! I decided to take a gap year before university.”

  “Of course! Silly me!” said Bryan.

  * * * * *

  The King of the Gods, known to the Greeks as Zeus and the Romans as Jupiter or Jove sat on his throne on the summit of Mount Olympus and yawned deeply as he woke.

  He had fallen asleep in this chair, very uncharacteristic of him, and now had a headache. The goblet of wine on the table near his elbow was empty. He picked it up and sniffed it. Awful! What had possessed him to drink wine in the afternoon?

  His cup-bearer would need chastising!

  Strange how Ganymede, the fellow in question, hadn’t looked too well himself when he’d served him. In fact his appearance was utterly different from usual. Bigger hands for one thing, swollen perhaps. Maybe it wasn’t the low quality wine that made him feel ill now, maybe a bug was going round and Ganymede had passed it to him. Having said that, gods don’t get sick, so it was a long shot.

  He switched on his laptop computer.

  Still no emails from Pan. What was he playing at? It was almost as if he’d vanished from the Earth.

  Nature was in uproar as a consequence.

  Jupiter blinked and shook his head. He wasn’t able to concentrate with his skull pounding like this.

  He called for a glass of water.

  But Ganymede didn’t respond. Strange!

  Jupiter called him again.

  There was a muffled reply, the kind of reply that someone with hands tied behind their back and a gag stuffed in their mouth in another room might give. Even odder!

  Jupiter decided to get up and fetch his own water.

  He rose and took a step…

  Suddenly he was plummeting forward, tumbling down the stairs of the dais on which the throne was mounted. He landed awkwardly, hitting his chin on the marble floor.

  “What in the name of myself!” he gasped.

  He looked at his sandals.

  Someone had tied the laces together. Impossible! The crime must have been committed while he slumbered. Or had he in fact been drugged just to facilitate this prank?

  “Who would dare?” he shrieked. “Who? I’m the King of the Gods! I’ll take a horrible vengeance for this insult! Whole empires will crumble as a result. Mountains crash into seas! Fruit will go off in fridges. Cats won’t sleep at night, nor will other nocturnal mammals! And as for humans and monsters… Who would DARE!”