by Guy Haley
They made their way down to the Flan, and the Queen had lackeys re-equip the band, giving them fresh shot and powder for their guns.
"A small secret of yours arrived a while back. You enjoy the fighting, and you enjoy your gun," said the Queen to Richards as a servant presented the AI with a box of ammunition.
"No, I hate fighting," said Richards.
"If you say," said the Queen. A mirthful twinkle, for a moment, sparked in his eye. "Do not be ashamed, for there are worse things in life than to fight for a just cause.
"And now, my bold adventurers, you must be away." He smiled sadly. "I suppose, if you are successful, then one will know, for one's punishment will be unending. Ah! Such irony! But imprisonment is preferable to death, so you go with my blessings."
The Flan's clamshell doors began to shut. "Remember! Do not trust Hog, yet do not fear him either. We know that there is only one thing in all the world he does not know, and he covets this information above all else. It is what he has been searching for his entire long existence. And you, Richards. You can tell him what it is."
"Eh?" said Tarquin. "How come?"
"The box, Tarquin, it held more than the way in. Look, I promise I'll explain everything later, OK? I can't say right now because then it won't be a secret, will it, and he'll know."
"Oh," said Tarquin, "I see." He reconsidered. "Actually, I don't see."
"You'll just have to wait."
Piccolo twirled a bow. "Thank you, O Queen! And farewell!"
"Your majesty," said Tarquin. "It has been a great honour."
"See you around," said Bear.
The doors shut with a clang.
"You're such a suck-up," said Bear.
"Am not," said Tarquin. "One must simply show due deference."
"Ponce."
They stood on the earth by the edge of the world by a guillotine stroke through Reality 37; on one side, emerald grass dancing in a breeze; on the other, the long night of the Terror.
Away from the edge of the world, the Kylie and Flan sat on the grass.
Pylon 8,888,888 soared into the air on the very edge of the dark. Of all things in the world, it was only the pylons that seemed impervious to the void left by the Great Terror, provided, as Bear and Richards had seen, the line stayed whole. A defiant slash of rope stretched away from the edge of the land into eternity.
"Lots of eights," said Richards. "Lucky for some." He glanced behind him where, in the distance, he could see the city being comported away like a giant's funeral bed. Right now, he almost envied the Queen his fate.
"Hmmm," said Bear. "I'm not so sure this is a good idea, sunshine."
"I don't think we've much choice, old bean," said Tarquin.
"No," said Richards. "Now. We need a cable car."
"And how are we supposed to get onto it? That pylon's at least a thousand feet tall," said Bear. "And how do we know there's one coming? They might all have been destroyed."
"The cars belong to an older and darker power than Penumbra," said Tarquin. "There is always another one. Always."
"Like Satan's bus service," muttered Richards.
"Does it annoy you when Tarquin gets all portentous like that?" said Bear. "It annoys me."
"Sergeant Bear, your problems with gravity are of little concern as of the moment. The question worrying me is whether or not these cars still pass," said Piccolo.
"Well, whether they pass or not, this is the only way for us to see Hog," said Richards. "Let's get on with it." And he set off towards the pylon.
"If that's what you want, sunshine." Bear followed Richards.
"I cheer your boldness, but fear your chances of survival are slim," said Tarquin.
"Oh, shut up," said Bear. "I still have my needle."
"I'm coming, aren't I?" grumbled the lion.
"Like you have much choice, captain coat."
Piccolo ceased looking pensively up the pylon's heights, and turned abruptly to his assembled crew. "Men," he said. "Men, it has been a pleasure to fight with you, but now I feel I must bid you farewell. I cannot ask you to aid me now, I, a man who follows friends, and then only for the adventure. I would not demand you blindly stray into the perilous fields of my selfish endeavour. Stay here with the ships, as close as you can to the edge of the world. If I do not return within six days, flee. Try by whatever means you can to outlast the Terror, if it can be outlasted at all."
There was a clamour from the pirates. Many of them demanded to be taken along. In the end Piccolo relented, and seven were selected, men as foolhardy as Piccolo and maybe even more crazed. But at the one man who clamoured the loudest of all, Piccolo shook his head sadly.
"No, Bosun Mbotu, you are to stay here."
"Captain!" cried the pirate, for he loved his captain as much as one murderous cutthroat can love another, which is to say quite a lot, until gold got in the way. "I insist! I will face the Hog with you."
Piccolo grinned and walked up to the man. "Alas no! I would not put so good a servant as you in the way of harm," he declaimed. Then, much more quietly into the man's ear: "Besides, when I do come back, and before six days are out you should be sure, I want to be completely certain both my ships await me." He cast meaningful glances at some of the men, and Mbotu acknowledged that with a curt nod. "And if I do not return," shouted the captain, "then you shall be captain of this scurvy band, aye?"
"Aye!" the pirates replied with a shout that was nine parts hearty and only one part treacherous.
"Right then, fire up the boilers on the Flan, and prepare the grapples." He turned to the pylon, at whose base Richards and Bear stood grim-faced. "Gentlemen!" called the pirate dandy through cupped hands.
"What?" said Richards.
"Do you not think it a little foolish to climb so high when you have at your disposal the world's mightiest air machine?"
"Oh, yeah!" said Bear. "I hadn't thought of that."
"That's because you're a rather stupid kind of bear," said Tarquin.
After much wobbling and inching slowly across what was, to Richards' mind, a very thin rope, they stood upon one of the pylon's iron girders. It was as wide as a main road, and red as old blood.
For a long hour they sat on the pylon's bones, chilled by a wind that playfully punched them towards the edge. It lowed sadly as it was parsed by the giant cable, tinkling as it hit the end of Reality 37's tortured terrain. Richards watched the blackness. Bursts of colour flashed as the air obliterated itself upon the wall of the void.
As Richards stared at this tiny firework display, there was a violent lurch and a loud rumble, and all the world was shaking. The pylon shook, its ancient metal groaning. Rivets pinged from the ironwork amid a snow of rust. With an almighty rush, the earth about the pylon collapsed in on itself, sucked away to nothing. The noise of its shattering was deafening. Richards and the others clung on for dear life.
It stopped.
The pylon stood upon an island of bedrock and old concrete, its bare metal roots exposed. To the west, over the remaining land, the two airships hovered uncertainly. They backed away, but remained in sight of the free-floating pylon.
"Nuts," said Bear. "I suppose we have no choice but to wait now."
They sat there for a while. Not as much as a whole day, thought Richards, because he did not become hungry, but it was certainly late afternoon when the first black car trundled unsteadily past. It was hard to tell; time had no meaning in the void.
The car was the colour of charcoal. The first indication they had of its approach was the squeaking of unoiled wheels. It ground slowly past, a large "four" daubed crudely on the side.
Bear stood up to leap. Richards shook his head. "Not that one."
In appearance the car was like a railway boxcar, but many times larger. It hung from an arm five times the height of Bear, and was bigger in volume than a stack of shipping containers. They watched in silence as it went past, listened to it bang as the wheels upon the arm bumped over the cable support, then watched it go
away. The whole spectacle took less than ten minutes.
"And there we have it," said Tarquin. "I told you the black cars never stop running. Not even for the end of the world."
They didn't have to wait very long before another appeared, a black dot on the horizon.
"Number?" asked Richards.
"An eight," said Piccolo, and handed his telescope over to Richards. Richards nodded.
"That's the one."
"Men, make ready!" yelled Piccolo. "Prepare the grapples!"
"Aye, cap'n!" replied the pirates. The seven men swarmed along the beams either side of the pylon line. They made fast the ends of the ropes to the superstructure and, with practised ease, tossed the grapples onto the car as it neared the pylon. Six of the hooks wrapped themselves round the central arm or hooked in cracks, only the seventh bouncing from the wood with a meaty thud.
"Now!" said Piccolo. "Quickly! We must get aboard!" All at once, everyone ran for the ropes. Bear swung along arm over arm, followed by Richards and the pirates. "Faster! Faster!" shouted Piccolo. The cables tightened as the car rumbled past, pulling them up into the air. One by one they scrambled aboard. Bear first, then some of the pirates, then Piccolo. Richards soon after, helped up by two of Piccolo's crew. The car drew away, its progress little slowed by the lines. The ropes creaked. They hummed with tension, before splitting apart with a series of cracks.
"A fine job, lads! A fine job!" said Piccolo, panting.
Richards began to push himself up off the floor, then stopped. Through a gap in the rough timber he could see movement and the glint of an eye. Something looked back up at him. He could dimly make out porcine shapes. "The car's not empty," he said, and was greeted by a chorus of grunts and squeals.
"Did you expect it to be?" asked Bear.
Richards shrugged. "All I got were numbers and a map."
As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they saw that the pigs' silhouettes were a little off. All were wearing clothes.
"Arrrr!" said one of the pirates. "At least we be having something to eat, and I's can get me a new pair o' boots while's I is about it. Arrrrrr!"
Richards explained where the pigs came from. And about Circus. The pirate went pale.
"This is it," said Richards. "Lord Hog, here we come."
CHAPTER 19
Lord Hog
Lord Hog's lair was an inverted mountain. Its splayed roots faced heavenwards, peak pointing down in the direction of the other place. Its stone was the colour of a corpse killed by asphyxiation. If geological processes had forced such a mountain into being, they are best left undescribed.
Although it was called the Anvil, it was more akin in shape to a clawed hand. Within the palm lay the temple of Hog, from where, Tarquin said, he ruled his subjects with an iron trotter.
Only the broad sweep of these details was visible to the stowaways on board the cable car, intent as they were on hacking away at the roof.
"Come on! We've not got much time!" said Richards. The car was closing in on the final pylon; from there the cable descended steeply to a turnaround at the base of the mountain.
"We're going as fast as we can, sunshine," grunted Bear, as he punched at the roof. It was ancient wood, seasoned by evil purpose. It splintered slowly and, although already there was a hole big enough for the men to slip through, Bear would not fit.
"Phew!" said Bear, "this stuff is harder than it looks." His gauntlets and fur were smudged with sticky creosote.
"Don't stop, man! We will be there in seconds."
"Tarky," said Bear, "I don't think it matters. I'm not going in. If I'm in there I'll blow the plan. They'll never think I'm a pig. Look, you lot go in there and hide. I'll lie flat on the roof."
"There'll be lookouts," warned Richards.
"Nay, I think not," said Piccolo. "We venture right into the heart of Hog's power. He will be complacent."
"But what if he isn't? We don't want to blow the game," said Tarquin.
"Boys, boys, boys. I'll climb up the outside of the mountain. You lot go in with the pigs. That way, if anything goes wrong, I can come and rescue you. I'm good at rescues. Sound OK?"
"I suppose," said Richards.
"Indeed," said Piccolo.
The final pylon neared; beyond, a steep run of cable. The men hurried through the hole, pushing squealing swine out of the way. The pigs defecated in fright, and huddled away from them.
"Here we go," said Bear. He laid himself spread-eagled upon the roof. "Watch out below!" he shouted, then rammed his claws into the wood as far as he was able. The car approached the last pylon.
The truckle wheel above the car bounced upon some device within the pylon's frame. The rope continued to move, but the truck was no longer being pulled along with it.
The boxcar slowed for a moment, seeming as if it would stop. There was one final bump, and it went over the edge. Richards watched through a crack in the wood as the car dropped. His stomach was left trailing as the car hurtled down toward the mountain. The pigs squealed. The mountain's topsy-turvy base rushed up to meet them. There was a metallic rumble as something connected with the wheels above, the entire car lurched violently forward as its truckle grabbed at the rope, and it was moving slowly again.
"Ow!" whispered Richards. He rubbed his face where it had smacked into the wood. He put his eye back to the crack. The cable ahead curved round a series of wheels bolted directly into stone. The terminus was ahead.
"Mr Richards!" hissed Piccolo. "Get away from there! We must make ourselves ready to disembark!" A sound of cracking wood came from above and Bear's claws disappeared from the ceiling.
There was a series of muffled thumps and the car came to a standstill. The pirates and Richards took out their weapons.
"Ready, men?" whispered Piccolo.
"Arrr!" whispered the pirates.
"As Odysseus was before Polyphemus," growled Tarquin.
The sound of bolts being drawn back preceded a loud bang as the door was pulled down to form a ramp. The sound of fluting voices came up through the floor, accompanied by the grunts of frightened pigs. There were several levels to the enormous car, and Richards and company were at the top. As each floor was cleared, a section of floor was let down to make a ramp to the level lower, and the pigs herded out. Each time it was done, a fresh chorus of terrified squeals echoed through the boxcar as the floor dropped away underneath the swine. As they went out, there was a further commotion, sounds of pain, the clang of hammers, the hiss of hot brands on skin. The boxcar filled with the aroma of burning hair where it competed with the stench of shit. Every new piggy cry sent a palpable wave of fear through the remaining animals, so by the time the swineherds reached the third floor the boxcar was rank and noisy.
The fourth floor was unloaded. Only one more lay between the stowaways and Lord Hog's servants. Richards tried to catch sight of them through cracks in the floor, but all he could make out were blinking shadows. Their words were tangled with trotter scrapes and fearful oinks, but whatever they were speaking, it was no human tongue.
Piccolo gestured to two of his crew. He pointed to the corners behind the trapdoor and moved a finger across his throat. The pirates nodded and, as quiet as cats, secreted themselves, knives in hands, amongst the pigs.
"Ready?" said Piccolo very quietly. All present nodded. "Remember, lads, quietly! Do not advertise our presence, lest we bring the whole mountain down on us."
Tarquin growled. In this confined space he could not shift his hide or Richards would be hampered by a corset of stone. Richards fingered his gun and sabre nervously.
The seconds stretched themselves out. The pigs on the floor below were driven out, and the herders undid the bolts beneath. There was a crash as the door fell open and one luckless piggy tumbled through. The creatures started up the ramp.
The creatures were of the same species that Circus had been, only larger. He had been, after all, in some respects, a true dwarf. At a metre and a half they would have towered over the transmo
grified Pl'anna. They were heavily muscled, shock-pikes gripped in their kangaroo-paws.
They gabbled their singsong tongue, jabbing at pigs with their sticks. One of them stopped and grabbed at the other's naked arm.
Their frog-eyes widened; the hole in the roof. They walked toward it cautiously, pikes outstretched. They were handspans from Richards when they stopped and poked at the edges, exchanging swift sentences of alarm.