The Cult of Kishpu

by J. J. Shetland

  “It wasn’t me,” said Paula. “Haven’t you seen the fish workers who do the deliveries?”

  “Nay,” replied Stu Pot. “I haven’t seen any at all, let alone many.”

  “Well, they’ve started two years,” said Paula. “They had yet to advance their fish tanks to do their deliveries easily. But when Lukeson saw the plans from a lobster that planned all this and how they would work, he approved them and business had never been better since.”

  Then bell ringing invaded the whole city.

  “I bet that means it’s time to take our seats,” Stu Pot said. “Better head over.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rustom muttered, following his new commanding officer.

  Despite being a corporal now, Stu Pot started to worry about how much lip from Rustom he was going to get. And even though he was heavily influenced by Lukeson, he somehow doubted he would get his persuading abilities to control Rustom.

  Pedro got more excited the closer he got to the tables. “I’m getting the first pizza slice! And I’m getting the first –”

  “Pedro, calm down,” his aunt warned. “There’ll be plenty for all. Lukeson told us so.”

  “Okay,” Pedro said.

  Paula only hoped that both he and Larissa will put their differences aside and be on their best behaviour, though she was always wise enough to never get her hopes high.

  * * *

  The wooden tables stretched out as high as a mountain. They were piled with giant bowls of vegetables, fruits, many soups, garlic breads, vegetable lasagnes, pizzas, mushroom burgers among the many vegetarian choices.

  Captain Tugson wheeled to the far end of the table and Lukeson sat on the chair on his right side. Louise sat next to him and her father sat next to her. Chris, James, King Coralbeard and Pavia joined Tugson on his left. Then the G.C.A soldiers and citizens with the human world leaders and soldiers all sat down.

  About eleven tables away from the top one, Squad I was comfortable at where they were sitting and the food in front of them were making their mouths water. Pedro reached for the first slice of pizza, but his wing was pulled back by his aunt.

  “Not yet,” she whispered.

  “But I’m hungry!” Pedro moaned.

  “Shh!” his aunt warned.

  Everyone turned to Tugson.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” the captain asked. “Everyone, start – ”

  “Prayer,” said Lukeson.

  Everyone groaned.

  “We should at least thank all the gods of whatever religion you believe in for all this food we have to eat and for our lives we have to live,” Lukeson told them “We should even pause for a minute to wish all the innocent lives that have been unfairly taken away from the war well into their heavens or into their next lives. If some of you guys are atheists, just take this as an opportunity to be grateful you are still alive.” Then he turned to Paula. “Ready to go live, Guzman?”

  Paula pointed a wooden flicker upwards and pressed it. The hundred and twenty wooden projectors on the ceiling aimed for the table and produced digital blue lightning. Above the middle table a giant digital blue screen appeared and little screens appeared on it.

  Lukeson and Tugson recognised that each screen represented all the G.C.A. cities under the Earth’s surface. They recognised the Blackpool one with Skipton sitting unhappily with its citizens.

  “You’re on the air, Captain,” Paula whispered.

  Tugson cleared his throat. “Very well. Let’s get this over with. Close your eyes and put your hands together or whatever.”

  Everyone closed their eyes and went into their own praying positions.

  Tugson cleared his throat. “To all gods of all religions, thank you all very much for all this delicious food, thank you for letting us live and please look after everyone who never made it through the war into your heavens or next lives.”

  Everyone went silent as they were unimpressed with his speech. Lukeson knew Tugson, being an atheist and knowing not a great detail of religion, would say something like that. The closest thing he had to a god was a goalkeeper no one heard had heard off or which football team he even played for. He had to let him do it because he was the President and CEO of the organisation. Otherwise he would have done it himself. As this was too embarrassing, he decided to finish it for him. “Thathaastu.”

  Everyone still looked confused.

  “Amen?” Lukeson said.

  “Amen,” said everyone.

  “Now, can we eat, Sergeant Major?” Tugson asked.

  “You’re the president of this company, sir,” said Lukeson.

  “Right, everyone, begin,” said Tugson.

  Lukeson enjoyed watching everyone tucking into their vegetarian dinners. Both humans and animals were chatting with each other and even telling jokes as they ate. He noticed that the human leaders were laughing with some of the animals. He felt like the first negotiations between human and animal was a success.

  “So, Rhys,” said James. “What is in for the future for G.C.A.?”

  “Well, while you guys were relaxing and getting ready for this dinner,” said Lukeson, “Captain Tugson, Helen and I had another meeting about expanding the organisation and we agreed to the PM’s limited loan.”

  “How much?” asked Chris.

  “Chris!” snapped James. “You know you shouldn’t mess with other people’s business.”

  “It’s fine,” said the UK Prime Minister, who was sitting between King Strigiformes and his daughter. “After what you guys have done for the last fortnight, you deserve an extra five thousand pounds per year.”

  “Is that it?” James had to laugh.

  “Well, it’s just for the routine inspections, that’s all,” explained Lukeson.

  “And I am making Helen as my G.C.A. ambassador for Parliament,” the UK Prime Minister said, “and the other leaders have made her the G.C.A. ambassador for their countries as well.”

  “That’s wonderful news!” Lukeson cried happily. “None of this would be possible if it weren’t for her.” He raised his glass and toasted Helen’s dedication to helping G.C.A. since it began. The others joined in with the toasting and drank her good health.

  Then Lukeson turned to Louise. “Shall we do what we always do everything we visit each other?”

  “Well, shall we skip the ‘hello’ part?” Louise laughed.

  “If you like.” Lukeson joined her laughing. “How is the sky doing?”

  “Well,” said Louise, “father says that since we left, the death toll is only fifty and we only have two hundred injured casualties.”

  “Wingpeople or birds?” asked Lukeson.

  “Only twenty birds have broken wings,” said King Strigiformes. “And we’ve sent word to all the other cities in the skies to double their guards and upgrade their weapons in case another war comes. Everyone in the sky knows about you, Mr. Lukeson, and your amazing Squad I.

  “And because you have proved your worth and convinced me that not all the land creatures are savages,” he went on, “I grant everyone at Global Creature Alliance the freedom to enter our cities and give them permission to do their jobs as long as you obey the laws of the skies.”

  “I promise you that neither I nor my squads will ever disobey your laws, Your Majesty,” Lukeson said. “I will train whoever will be my successor not to get any funny ideas. Ever.” He and his friends from the land, the sea and the sky toasted their successful negotiations. He took a sip of his vegan red wine.

  * * *

  Squad I was really enjoying their tasty food politely and quietly. They had each been telling their own adventures since they got separated from the colossal squids and reunited at the Vancouver Horticultural Gardens.

  “Yeah,” said Larissa. “And then I recognised that Petunia’s earrings were emerald like the –”

  “Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Pedro. “You told us your adventures already.”

  “Pedro,” snapped his aunt. “I haven’t heard it and I want to, okay?�
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  Pedro just gave her a huff.

  “Behave yourself,” his aunt warned. “You’re having dinner with the human world leaders, for God’s sake.”

  Kathy lifted her glass of vegan red wine up. “Can I just say that Larissa is not only the bravest penguin I’ve ever met in my life but the bravest person ever? I wished I was more like her when I was her age.” She toasted Larissa’s bravery and took a sip.

  Everyone applauded the brave young penguin, except her own brother.

  “Hardly a role model, is she?” he said. “Let alone a good one.”

  “Well, I don’t think prating around and not getting things done makes you a good role model!” Larissa told him.

  “Well, to me, it’s better to be a prat who’s true to himself and does what he enjoys than be a diva who doesn’t suffer fools gladly!” Pedro snapped.

  Larissa had been criticised by her brother many times, but this time she felt like he had really crossed the line with the word ‘diva’. She grabbed a half-eaten baked potato from her nearly empty plate and was about to throw it to him, but then she smiled, shut her eyes and fell off her chair. Pedro went unconscious as well.

  “Thanks, Mengy,” said Paula, who got a wink from the elephant. Then she sighed before she took a bite from her delicious squash and blue cheese wellington. “I don’t just know what to do with them. I do love them and I try my best to nurture them, but I just think it’s a scientific fact that an aunt cannot raise her nephew or niece as well as their real parents.” She was disappointed that they couldn’t even behave at a dinner table with the human world leaders.

  “Well, as far as aunt-raising goes,” Kathy said, “you’re the best.”

  That compliment made Paula feel much better.

  “How did their parents die?” asked Stu Pot. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  No one had ever asked the penguins about their private lives, because they were always too busy with research or makeup or just plain pratting around. But tonight because she was eating dinner with her best friends, Paula decided to be a bit more social with them. “Some years after the Great Mutation Storm, I was with my brother and his family in the South Pole, having a fun snowball fight. It was a lovely day for us all until a giant killer whale suddenly took my sister-in-law Aylen away. My younger brother Blas told me to look after Pedro and Larissa while he went to save her. I told him not to risk his life, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “I waited two hours with Pedro and Larissa and neither of their parents came back. I was the little penguins’ only living relative so they came to live with me. Then a few years later you guys discovered us and we’ve never left you since.”

  “What amazes me is how you penguins can adapt to warmer countries like this and go vegetarian,” Kathy said.

  “Well, neither of us was ever fond of fish or meat and we got sick of cold water.”

  Rustom yawned.

  “Is my back story really that boring?” asked Paula, who felt a little hurt.

  “No, no,” said Rustom. “I just feel hitting the hay.”

  “Did your place have hay?” asked Stu Pot.

  “Why do you ask?” asked Rustom.

  “You don’t tell us much about yourself,” said Paula.

  “Even the most private person in the world has to give some of his details to someone at some point in his life,” said Kathy.

  “Aye,” Stu Pot agreed. “And since we’re going to be working together for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time as you’re immortal, we’d like to know more about you.”

  “Well, you do know me,” said Rustom. “You know what I am and what I can do. What else do you need to know?”

  “Like how you can carry all those weapons in your body?” Kathy asked.

  “Why are you indestructible?” asked Stu Pot.

  “Why have you got a rouge attitude?” asked Paula.

  “And what music do you like?” asked Pedro, who woke up from Mengy’s sleeping trance earlier.

  Larissa woke up too.

  Rustom stood up, loudly scraping the floor with his chair. “I’m going to answer Pedro’s question.” He unbuttoned his blazer and shirt, revealing his chest. It had metal abs and it opened up like his back!

  What the animals saw in the hole of his chest was something like a DJ speaker, only half the size of a normal one. Then hip hop dancing music took over the table.

  “Rustom!” yelled Lukeson. “Turn that racket off right now!”

  “No, Lukeson!” said Tugson. “Let them have fun. They deserve it.” Soon he was wheeling like a disco star past from the tables. Then everyone got up and danced.

  Stu Pot never felt much like a dancer. As well as not being a very good academic student, he was not much of being a physical one either. While trying his hardest, he felt that he was letting Kathy down as he was trying his hardest, but she was smiling, flexible and tolerant, even when they fell down and nearly broke their legs.

  “We could spend weeks in hospital and maybe even share the bed together,” she kept on joking.

  Stu Pot didn’t laugh not because it wasn’t funny, but because he liked that idea, though he wasn’t trying to ruin the dancing on purpose.

  Paula was just enjoying her tap claw dancing, though she was not impressed with Pedro’s terrible rap dancing or with Larissa’s waltz dancing as her partner was a broken wooden table leg.

  Rustom was walking along the floor with the DJ speaker. Then he accidentally bumped into Mengy. She wasn’t hurt; she was smiling at him. She held her arm out.

  “Sorry, babe, but I don’t dance,” he told her in Old Chinese. But he found out that he was. He knew why he was dancing and quickly looked at Mengy who was soon dancing with him.

  Rustom knew that there would be no point shouting and screaming as one of the few things he could never do was break free from Mengy’s magic spell. He just went with the flow, like everyone else. The more he went with it, it started to grow on him faster than lettuce, green onions and spinach in a vegetable plot and he started to enjoy it.

  Lukeson found himself dancing as well but in the air with Louise. “This is great!” he cried. “But what is this dance called?”

  “This dance is called Den Flyvende Dans.”

  Ah, ‘The Flying Dance’. Lukeson liked it. He continued to let Louise lead the flying dance.

  Then Rustom noticed that the mermen were looking fed up. He thought that it was probably due to the fact they were stuck in their fish tanks and couldn’t dance like everyone else. Then he had an idea and turned his speaker off. “Here.” He gave them each an electric guitar that he whipped out of his back. “Just because you guys can’t dance in those boxes doesn’t mean you can’t be part of the party.”

  The mermen looked and nodded at each other before they played. When everyone else continued dancing, they didn’t feel left out. In fact, they felt they were the kings of the party.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  “Are you sure you can’t sleep in Blackpool Underground tonight?” Lukeson asked.

  Louise smiled. “I would love to, but my father says we need to return back to the Capital for tomorrow he’ll start training me as the heir to the Sky Throne. Top of our duty list is to oversee the repairs to the trees of the sky.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone else worthy to be heir besides you,” said Lukeson.

  “Well, there is my cousin,” said Louise.

  “How old is he?” asked Lukeson.

  “About six months old… in my aunt’s womb.”

  They laughed.

  “I’ll see you soon,” said Lukeson.

  “Sooner than usual,” Louise said, kissing him on the lips. “I’ll meet you and greet you in the middle of a battle if I have to. Bye.”

  Lukeson hoped that would never have to happen as he watched her and her father fly away above the G.C.A. Victoria railway platform.

  “Sergeant Major!”

  Lukeson realised that everyone was in T
ugson’s private coach and he was holding them up. “Coming, Captain,” he called.

  As he got in, the coach finally moved.

  “Are you friends with her on social media, Sergeant Major?” Larissa asked.

  Lukeson turned around to face her and laughed. “She’s the Princess of the Skies, Larissa. She’s got a very important and secured job. She doesn’t have time or need for social media.” Then he turned around and walked off. But it would nice if she did.

  “Sir?” Paula called.

  Lukeson went to her and saw the pieces of the Kishpu Stones in her wing. Yesterday, he ordered her to research all she can about this and find more clues to the Cult of Kishpu, even though every member was dead.

  “I’ve scanned the pieces,” Paula told him, “and I’ve discovered no creature belonging to the Cult of Kishpu alive at all. But these special emerald pieces cannot be completely destroyed and I cannot promise that they are powerless.”

  Lukeson took the pieces and gave the penguin a smile. “Well done for researching all you can, Guzman. I shall put them in the G.C.A. Museum to as a relic of this war that we’ve stopped and survived through. Dismissed.” He was stopped again when Kathy got in his way.

  “Permission to say something soppy, sir?” she asked.

  “Permission granted, Toronto.”

  “I just say wanted to say thank you for taking me into your world when you did and all you’ve done for me since.”

  Lukeson understood that Kathy had been depressed since the moment she joined the organisation because of Petunia’s fake death. He had been so used to it that he wasn’t ever expecting her to be grateful, so he was really surprised at how much she had changed in very little time. “You’re welcome, Private. And may I say that you are one of the very best soldiers I have ever trained. It’s zebras like you that make me proud to lead G.C.A.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Kathy saluted him.

  Lukeson saluted back. “Dismissed.” Then he smiled as he watched her walk off.

  * * *

  An exhausted Skipton approached and greeted everyone as they came out of Blackpool Underground Station. “Welcome back, sir.” He saluted Tugson.