From: simon leo barber
Newsgroups: alt.sex.cthulhu
Subject: Princess Bride(Groom) 1/3.txt (S.Barber)
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 02:34:57 GMT
The Princess Bride(Groom): An Unconventional Romance, with most
deeds performed by Arial and Mnemora, both
copyright Ashtoreth (William Haas.)
Words and plot Simon Barber, 1995.
(Warning! Gets R-rated in places!)
Stendahl knew it was going to be a bad day, when Inquisitor Quex failed to kick him out of bed. And though his grey-furred rump had already become more than adequately familiar with the hard grey flagstones of the Reclusium, as the painfully thin cat drew his Penitents robe on, he knew one thing was going to be different today.
"If Quex isn't with us," he silently cautioned the cold cell "He's at his other job, in the Palace. And that means .... Trouble."
The deep tolling of the tubular chime in the tower announced the start of another day, as the snow piled up on the similarly chilled stone monastery-fortress that stared down loftily on the city of Karam, capital of the nation.
"There is but one Land." Intoned the deep, humming voice of the reader, as seventy of the Penitentes filed into the long chamber for their meal.
"There is but one Ruler." The reader cast deep-sunken eyes at them, suspicion darting lightning-like from bowed head to head.
"There is but one Law."
"One Law." Came the chanted response.
"There are no borders. What we see, is All."
"We see, is All."
"And there is not, never was, and cannot be ..... sorcery."
Stendahl joined in the responses from long habit, plus the sure knowledge that disagreeing here was a distinctly Unwise thing to do. All the same, he could not put it out of his head - if something really doesn't exist, why do we spend such a lot of time and effort denying it ?
Inquisitor Quex was a tall, grey-complexioned monolith of a human, with a hard thin mouth like a single chisel stroke on polished granite. He did his job, in the way that a pillar does its job of holding up the roof - because it is necessary to do it, and because that is what pillars and Inquisitors are suited in life to do. Right now, he was out of his element, as he stood in the opulent and extravagently-lit chambers of the Royal Palace of the Karamite kings - and for worse reasons than his robes clashing with the decor.
"Treason." He spat the word out, looking up undaunted at the huge armoured equine knight looming over him. "That is what I expect to find - lies and treason. Nothing more. And a perfectly normal explanation for ..... " he waved dismissively at the wreckage where something distressing had certainly happened to the royal apartments "for all of ... this."
Quex was a man used to being the centre of attention. So he was more than slightly annoyed when he noticed the burly guard was looking over his head - the expression of abject terror was correct, but not its target. Slowly, the Inquisitor felt an unfamiliar sensation, as the fine hairs at the back of his neck began to stand on end. Something more frightening than he was, was behind him.
Slowly he turned, his black robes swinging pendulum-steady in a great swirling arc. And saw - not indeed the slavering betentacled daemonic beings rumoured to have infested the land before the extermination of the Mages, but - something else. Something so hideously OTHER that his jaw dropped open in drooling bafflement, and a terrible gasp emerged that was more expressive than a scream.
Something small, pink-fluffed and cheerful was trotting from corner to corner of the audience chamber of the Karemite Palace, tripping along far too daintily than its massive feet should permit. It was a being of direly sweet aspect, seeming almost to shed a tangible trail of corrupting fluff across the precious carpets.
Quex heard himself give a bleak moan. For a full minute he stood locked in horrified silence, before the unnaturally plushie thing waved to him, opened up a hidden seam in the once-virginal wall of the local spacetime, and hopped out of existence once more.
"It arrived without being summoned," he croaked, as the gaping rent in his hard-fought reality zipped itself shut. "Even before the Magewars - NOTHING could do that..."
Just too late, the doors at the far end of the room burst open in a furious charge of Junior priests brandishing Holy Sledgehammers and thrice-blessed Sticks Of Pointyness (+2), summoned by the rending wound in space whose opening and closing had sent ripples of disturbance out across the land. Quex pulled himself upright, addressing his juniors mostly by conditioned reflex.
"I have repelled the foulness." He gritted firmly. "Though at great cost. I Turned It, and It fled my consecrated presence."
As he led the questioning, excited brethren back towards the main Palace hall, from which the Princess and her retinue had been snatched in (now) hideously suggestive circumstances the previous day, Quex thought long and hard about what to tell his own Archpriest. For one thing, the Cute had really left of its own accord, as the other witnesses were sure to confirm. And for the other ....
It'll be back, he grimly told himself. How do I know that ? How do I know it's got plans for this place ? Because I know what it was doing. Because .... it was measuring the palace up - for carpets and curtains.
Seen from a distance, the Karemite capital suggested a jewel set in a miles-wide setting of crystal. The town was laid out as a vast octagon, its roads all leading to the Palace. And outside town, eight huge white crystalline towers poked up like teeth from green gums, rearing solidly ten stories high into the clean air. Nobody spoke of what they were for: they were the responsibility of the Inquisitors, and those were folk who asked questions rather than answered them.
At the very centre of the pattern, was a chamber carved and polished from the solid granitic heartrock the Palace rested on. And in it, a meeting was taking place that Quex would rather have never lived to see.
Rank upon rank of grey-cloaked figures sat in climbing tiers of stone benches. They stared down into a great torchlit pit - on many worlds, this would have been recognisable as a Wizard's meeting, some great conclave where deeds of spellcasting were planned and boasted of. But not on this world - and for a good, but now insufficiently good reason.
"Our founding fathers", came the slow voice of Ur-Cardinal Benzen-Rhing, "saw their land laid waste by the Magewars, as every citizen knows. They persuaded the then King-priest, Valency the Third, to take all power into his own hands, to bind it forever to the Crown. That he did - he made the Eight Guardians, to gather all the mage-power in the land, and twist it into a punishing energy that no magic-user outside their boundary can stand. So much is also known: and for seven hundred years, we have kept the land free of mage-taint."
The hulking eight-foot tall dwarf turned to survey his audience. "Apart from a few suspects who we do our best to spot young, and channel into - more suitable lines, this land has no mages, its traditions and powers are gone - those with the power to flee the world did so, and the rest are ashes. Apart from the descendants of our good King Valency, of course - and with the thinning of his blood, it has been long generations since even our rightful royalty had the talent and the ability to do more than make the crown glow in the dark."
The Ur-Cardinal looked around at the front row of the audience. "Last week, monsters no more than waist-high, tore their way into our world by alien magic, despite the best efforts of the guards - and bore away our Crown, and indeed only, Princess of the Royal line. Physical force was useless - as the comrades of the deceased guards would tell you without any need for physical persuasion."
Benzen-Rhing gave a sharp, bark of a laugh. "We suddenly need magical assistance, reverend colleagues. Because, as we used to say on the farm, we are in the shit up to our eyes here."
******************************
An immeasurable distance away from the Inquisitorial board meeting in all measurable terms, is a place the inhabitants call the String. Although it is a solid enough piece of land, it lies not on any chartable world. Some few mathematicians have glimpsed it in moments of fractal-tossed hallucinations, but fortunately the attendants of such are usually selected for their stolid innumeracy.
The String is an Interesting place, much in the way that "May you live in Interesting Times" is used as a curse. Its relationship with the usual planes of existence is not so much angled, but literally screwed. As a boundary between dimensions, it behaves rather like the boundary layer on an aircraft wing: most of it stays stable, but whirls and eddies occasionally break off and vanish into Elsewhere. On the more stable pieces, people build cities - although definitions of "city" and "people" tend to be a little relaxed.
There are few voluntary tourists. Gods go there sometimes: more often they send in disposable Avatars. Some folks, though, feel right at home.
"The trouble is, dear Sister," sighed one approximately vulpine being to her twin, as the pair strolled arm-in arm through what a sane city would call streets, "What ARE we going to do today ? We enlisted with Grumash's Bloody Hordes at the sacking of Andapur last week, we found the fabled Holy Ewer of Aspantilus the week before ..."
"Makes a lovely chamberpot", her twin smiled reminiscently.
They stopped to watch with amusement as a newly-arrived detail of the Town Guard passed by. It took a very special sort of force to keep order around here, and suitable units were hard to find. Down the street salsa'd the (-3rd) Surrealist Squad, the enchanted edges of the giant can-openers and eggwhisks they carried sparkling brightly. Their leader consulted the Dali watch he carried, before letting it flow back into his pocket. They were not so much Irregular Infantry, as Fractal.
Mnemora raised an eyebrow, almost intrigued in spite of her fashionable languor. The week before, the street had been patrolled by Line Infantry recruited from a one-dimensional world - though they had difficulty in understanding tactics involving a defence in depth, their Linear Accelerators had proven effective enough in battle.
Her twin sighed, sharp teeth nipping her gently on the back of the neck.
"...And now Steelfang The Slayer's gone back to her master till next month, there's not a lot to go back home for." Their spacious pallazo, with a good view overlooking the arena (when the sorcerous flux blew the right direction) saw a rapid turnover of guests. Few of them returned regularly, even those in any condition to do so. Their neighbour, however, kept a jet-black three-metre hellhound bitch as guard and familiar, who the vixens were more than familiar with.
"Lovely glowing eyes, hasn't she ..."
""And that trick with the burning breath - most stimulating ... delightful fangs, too. I think we've taught her a few things she didn't learn back home on the 548th Abyssal plane .."
Arial and Mnemora, for such they were, looked at each other greedily, their tails entwining like a furry yin-yang symbol. In the middle of the street, various bypassers decided to give their peripheral vision a workout: currently the vixens had only eyes for each other, but there were Stories told about that pair, shocking even for here.
"Why, Ari, if it was anyone else, I'd say they were jealous," Mnemora's own eyes lit up as her "sister" nipped her eartips delicately with her sharp teeth. "Next time she's ready, you can be first - I know which I prefer.."
It became obvious to even the most blase neighbour, that the vulpines were soon going to have some business to take care of at home despite Arial's earlier complaint.
"She's only female," Mnemora whispered. "A nice taut rump indeed, but - so, incomplete - I could almost feel sorry for her."
Both she-male foxes broke out in peals of ironic laughter, and hastened home to break out the whipped-cream and 7-dimensional edition of the Karma Sutra. There were three particular positions that were impossible in any known continuum, except here under the relaxed physical laws of the uptown end of the String.
Three hours later, comfortably sprawled and sated for the moment, they lay and looked out over the marble-like expanse of the city below them, lit by the unthinkable glow of the Aurora Unrealis. Arial lay cuddled with her muscular arm round her twin's improbably slender waist. Suddenly, she felt her twitch with excitement.
[What's up ?] She sent the thought out, teasingly probing.
Mnemora's elegant eyebrow arched. [ How's this for something really - delightfully different to do. Something even we've never tried...]
Arial's ultra-sharp mind rapidly scanned through a catalogue of scenarios ranging from "De Sade's Greatest Hits" to "The Care Bears Go Flower-Picking", with not a few combinations of each thrown in. [ And, that is .... ?]
[ What if I'd thought of something so bizarre that even You never thought of it ? Something so unutterably alien, so perverse, that - well, would you try it ?]
The question was rhetorical. They tried it.
"Hateful, isn't it ?". Arial gave a delicate shiver. She had sorcerously generated a pile of popcorn, a few cans of weak, over-carbonated beer, and the ritual trays of artificial food traditionally required for their evening's entertainment.
Mnemora plugged in the Scryatron to the mana socket on the wall, and checked the strength of the sorcerous flux. This was a rough equivalent of the crystal balls used in more primitive areas - but from the String, what it actually picked up was always liable to be Interesting.
"There's something on the Ashandian wars on at nine," Arial glanced at the thick black grimoir she had hauled out of storage. Its elder blasphemies included a complete prophesy of the TV channels for six thousand years into the future. "Some of the telecast companies are doing a competition, about war atrocities. They want viewers to phone in with suggestions for some new ones."
"Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt," Mnemora gave the dial a random spin. "What else is in the Telecomnicom ?"
Unlike her sister, Mnemora took great delight in material science - as she often pointed out, "A 'Power-Word Incinerate' looks good, but you don't have to call a phosphorus bomb to mind before you use it." Unfortunately, the great Telecomnicom was not amenable to being put into electronic storage - like most Unspeakable books, half the good bits were written in Unprintable characters.
She pressed the switch, and was delighted to see one of the infamous Video Niceys playing - innocent fuzzy animals happily frolicking around a sylvian environment without so much as a rapid firing 437 mm nuclear-capable field howitzer between them. "Oh, just take a look at this one - now, that's SICK."
Just at that moment, the screen dissolved into a strangely flickering pattern of kaleidoscopic shapes, and the speaker blared out a garbled burst of alternating white and octarine noise..
Mnemora's eyes narrowed to slits.
"That WASN'T supposed to happen."
The repair-entity scratched its head, before resorbing the head and arm back into the available pool of churning, seething, liquescent horror.
"Can't see nought wrong with it." He grew an ear, and stuck a pencil behind it as he put the casing back on. "Yer's got yer Thaumic Resonator, yer Transvisional Crystal tuning, and yer Enochian Field generator in these sets, and that's the only bits that ever go wrong. Checked them out fine. O'Course, I could take it back to the shop and have a look for you....."
Arial's ears went flat. "We'd DECIDED TO have a nice quiet evening watching lame sitcoms from worlds that don't even exist - "
" - Any more - " Mnemora seamlessly joined in.
" - Since we paid them a visit - "
" - And if you won't provide that for us, it's in the rental contract - "
"- You'll have to provide a Service of equivalent value to your customers .... "
The jet-black shoggoth turned a distinctly pale hue as Arial nonchalantly sealed the room with a Warding field. He sighed, remembering to grow an appropriate vocal organ first.
"Well, a contrat' is a contrat'....."
"Mmmmmm - still, you can't say the evening was entirely wasted."
Mnemora smiled. What passed for morning arrived on the sunless plane that was the String, as a depleted Horror slumped and flowed out of the building, released at last. His only salvation was that the company had not offered Unlimited Service Guarantees.
"Quite. And we do know the Scryatron's in mechanical order .."
The twins exchanged smiles. They had known that, before calling out the repair-entity.
"So, that leaves ... Interference. Let's get the circles drawn up, and see if we can track it down."
*******************************
Stendahl had learned years ago, never to trust a smiling Inquisitor.
"You'll be SO glad to know, your repentance is accepted as pure," Inquisitor Quex had strode into the Punitorium, and tossed him a bundle of clothing. "But there is one - last test, that we have for you."
"I'll do it !" Stendahl looked hungrily at the bundle. Outdoor clothing - he was getting out of here ! "What's the mission, Your Eminence ?"
Quex had looked down at the supplicant, and remembered how that expression went. Ah, yes, a smile. Stendahl was typical of the sort of case they had these days - almost no natural-born mages had appeared in generations, thanks to the Inquisition's good work in catching them. Any innate magical sensitivity merely made a suspect vulnerable to agonising headaches, as the righteous power of the Eight Guardian stones invaded a mind that should be shut. No doubt half the suspects in the Penitentium really had nothing but standard migranes, but that, Quex told himself confidently, was not the Point.
"Ah. It's by way of a - Test, indeed. And a secret one. We have some - Equipment, that we need a volunteer to try out. And if you do well, I promise you'll never be back here again."
Quex had genuinely smiled then. Dabbling with forbidden sorceries was punishable by death, with no possibility of leniency. It was a good thing they could find volunteers like this.
*****************************
"I'm telling you, it's a Series One Thaumotron kicking out that racket, off on the 17th plane," Mnemora tapped one elegant claw in the grimoire. "One of those places where the timestream runs at about 20:1 relative to us."
Her sister yawned. "So what ? Let's pay them a visit, and - silence them." Both vixens grinned. But then, Mnemora's ear dipped slightly.
"Do you know how old those are ? They abandoned the whole PRINCIPLE five hundred years ago - it's a hideously inefficient way of sending a message, any fourth-level mage could do better. That means .." her eyes lit with the mania of a dedicated collector. "Ari ! That could be the only one still in EXISTENCE - I WANT IT !"
"You've got an extra-dimensional cellar down there, piled high with junk you never do anything with." Arial regarded her mirror image languidly. "A Series One Thaumotron is so much scrap. Chances are, it's so out of tune the signal's going nowhere they expect - or it wouldn't end up here. Why not just build one, if you want one ?" Sorcerous energies flicked round her fingers, as she called a minor Transmutation spell to mind.
Mnemora shook her head, the long forelock of hair dancing. "I want a genuine one. If that's the only one in existence, I'm going to have it. Now, let's see ... home-on-jam locked on ... compensating for temporal flux distortion .... co-ordinates in space-time set ..... right ! Let's open a pinhole portal, and see just where this is."
Just at that moment, the room filled with a magical scream like claws dragged down wet glass, an ear-splitting howl that pierced through their consciousness like a silent dog whistle, in the instant before their sorcerous shields snapped up. Hastily, Mnemora closed the pinhole portal to the place the mechanically generated spell was being cast from. And she turned round, a slow smile spreading down her sharp muzzle.
[You know, I think I recognise there. Karemite Kingdom, world Acephalia. And that signal, just before the porthole came through ....]
[ Quite. It's an automated distress signal. The world without magic's sending a message for all good people on the astral plane to come and save them.]
[ Well, we're good people, none better] Arial summoned a suit of brilliant platinum armour, and hastily erased the Chaos and death's head runes from the helmet. [Just think - they're calling for our help. I just wonder what's gone wrong all of a sudden ?]
Both vixens snickered. Mnemora summoned a matching suit, this one cast in grey tungsten carbide, and called to mind a pair of self-powered translation bracelets to take care of the local language problem. These they wore invisibly, and went unremarked like all truly transparent plot devices.
"Let's go and renew our acquaintance with those charming ...."
"Unprotected, naive, stupid, manaphobic ..."
"... Whimsical, unconquered people down there. Just think..." Suddenly Arial found her enthusiasm firing up, and her eyes widened in excitement. "If we save them..... We'll be Heroes. Actual, famous, worshipped by millions of ignorant people, and we won't have to cast so much as a Charm Person on them."
Mnemora's ears pricked up. This, she realised, would be definitely something new. Of course, both hermvixens knew implicitly that they deserved fame and acclaim as a matter of principle - but actually receiving god-like worship from millions of innocent, stupid people..... she licked her lips eagerly.
"And then, of course, if we decide not to save them, we can just sit back and watch as whatever ghastly Doom consumes them one by one: that'll be fun too." With a minor Teleport spell, she summoned another bag of popcorn from the midst of its family on its native plane. "Whichever way, it'll beat watching TV."
She looked at her twin, scenting the delicious aroma of her excitement. Arial was half-dressed in her platinum armour already, its original Chaos Paladin owner having been left in no condition to need it again. "And then ..." she cocked her head to one side.
[Yes, 'Mora ?]
Mnemora ran her finger down the lithe muscled back, savouring the contrast of fur and shining metal. [Oh, we don't have to go JUST yet. Let them stew for a bit - they'll be that much more pleased to see us.]
[ And if someone else gets there first ?]
A shrug. [You said it. That broadcast's so out-of tune, it's hitting the String - and I'll bet, lots of other places they REALLY don't want visitors dropping in from. Just imagine - they don't know it, but they're shouting, "Here we are, we've got no magic, come and get us ". If even one of our own neighbours decides they need a holiday on the mundane plane ....] Her tail twitched rapidly from side to side. [Now, that WOULD be fun.]
[Ok - let's leave it for awhile.] Arial had put most of the armour on, carefully leaving the strategic areas undefended and inviting invasion. [ Besides - it looks like we'll be too busy till at least tomorrow....]
******************************
Inquisitor Quex hurried through the darkened passages of the palace, his granite features set hard. The Ur-Cardinal had made his decision, and would not repent; they would use the Royal Artifacts to summon aid from Outside. The trouble was, for several centuries the Inquisition had made a point of persuading the good citizens that not only was there no magic inside the realm, there was none outside - and indeed, there was no "Outside" at all.
"Traband. Wartburg." He nodded to the two huge ursine guards sealing the ancient chamber. Here was the workshop of the Mage-King who had built the Eight Guardians to poison all magical sources, outside the octagon ring formed by the great monoliths rooted in the depths of the planet.
Traband, the smaller bear, scratched his head confusedly. "Yer Eminent. We's s'posed to let nobody out alive. That go for you too ?"
Quex smilingly shook his head, making a symbol of benediction. "Blessed be the mind too small for doubt," he quoted, and strode into the chamber.
In the great vaulted chamber, carved from the crystalline granite heart of the palace hill, was a sprawling, spider-like array of glittering crystal that few in any recent generation had even suspected existed. Within the Palace, magic functioned - for the King-priest Valency the Third had conquered all opposition that way, and made the local astral plane a poisoned wasteland outside it.
"Your Eminence !" Stendahl spun round as the door opened. The young wildcat caught himself just in time to avoid putting his elbow through the lacy filigree work of the machine. In his hand he clutched the forbidden grimoire, unearthed with great secrecy from the Inquisition vaults - the dreaded "U-Serr Manual", as its long-forbidden name was whispered to be.
Quex's face was set stern again. "And have you any - results, to show for us ?" he demanded. Tampering with unclean things was bad enough, but to have to do it and fail to deliver the goods.....
Stendahl winced. "I have sent a call out, as best I can - the book assumes you know a lot of things I've never even HEARD of. We've called, Eminence, but ....."
Quex nodded. "Ignorance is the best defender of Innocence," he quoted sagely.
Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash in the room, and a sudden rush of cold, alien-scented air set his robes billowing.
"..... And just whistle, and we'll come," came a voice from inside one of the shining figures stepping down from the dais. "You DO know how to whistle, don't you ?"
Two hours later, Arial and Mnemora had decided this was a fun place to spend an afternoon. The Palace was unimpressive, a mere three kilometres on each side - but it was the people they were impressed with.
[They really ARE stupid.] Arial commented to her twin telepathically. [Look at all those happy, smiling faces - and they're all SO pleased to see us.]
[Quite.] Mnemora paused to pick up a bouquet of flowers tossed from one of the cheering crowds in front of the palace. With her tungsten helmet under one arm and the posy held elegantly, she posed as for a stained-glass window.
"If you've QUITE finished, ladies ?" Ur-Cardinal Benzen-Rhing raised an eyebrow. The twin paladins were definitely not what he had been expecting: certainly they looked powerful magic-users, but there was something definitely .... disquieting about them. His gaze flashed across the Chaos Detector that was set in the hilt of the twenty-kilo sacred warhammer that was part of his sacred regalia. Nothing showed - but still, something felt - strange.
Arial cast him an amused smile. "Cardinal. We haven't said what we'll take to do the job, or even if we'll do it. "
"Quite." Her twin chimed in. A slitted green eye opened wide in amusement. "Millions of worlds got your message, but only we bothered to turn up." She gestured vaguely towards one of the Eight Guardians, visible from over the looming town wall. "You DO know, you're not a ... popular place ? Your mages spread out and settled all over the place, and they mostly published their memoirs in exile. Folk have heard ALL about you."
"Poisoning the sorcerous flux for several continua around, denying your whole world the pleasures and protection of magic..." Arial's tail waved within its enchanted platinum, which also shielded her from the sorcerous white-noise barrage the irritating monoliths were screaming out every second.
".... Let's face it, all the kind and good folk of worlds out there wouldn't touch you with the business end of a long and particularly shitty stick."
A vulpine snigger sounded in stereo. "Or perhaps they would."
The Throne Room was designed to impress, and even to Arial and Mnemora's jaded tastes, it was a passable attempt.
[Third-level Ruritanian Imperial style, I'd say, with a touch of the Perpendicular and Transverse styles around the windows...] Mnemora surveyed the high-vaulted room with a moment's interest. [Ah. This looks like the one we're going to deal with.]
[The one with the crown and the fancy dragonskin boots, with the jewelled cloak ?]
[At a guess, I'd say he's King. Or prone to making expensive Fashion Statements.]
King Valency the Nineteenth,Monarch of All He Surveyed, was a worried fox. It had been a week since his daughter had been kidnapped, dragged off by unthinkably stuffie entities. Those things, with cuteness that did to mortal minds what a well-aimed brick does to a stained-glass window - the THINGS, had been seen twice since then. The last time...
"Brave visitors to our realm ..." he started his carefully rehearsed speech, then caught Mnemora's mocking gaze. He gave a weary grunt, and threw himself heavily down in the throne. "Oh hell, it was a stupid speech anyway. Demoiselles, my only Daughter has been kidnapped, by things that came from outside our reality - will you help us ?"
The two vixens looked at each other, an ear half-cocked apiece.
"Welllll...."
"COULD do ...."
The King clapped his hands, and a party of Palace Guards came in with something shrouded under a black cloth. "If not for my sake, or for reward, but to destroy things like ... THIS." With a motion, he indicated the guards to set their burden down.
The cloth was pulled away, and the court was suddenly filled with thuds and retching sounds as unprepared folk fainted or threw up at the sight. On the stretcher, was the rounded, pale blue form of an unthinkably cute thing. It seemed to combine elements of kitty and bunny - not merely "cat" and "rabbit", but all that was soft and fluffy in their makeup. driven to the ultimate extreme.
"Interesting," Arial said mildly. "You seem to have killed it pretty well yourself, though - don't these things regenerate ?"
Valency The Nineteenth's ears dipped. "I take it, you KNOW what it is ? But - this arrived yesterday, it didn't behave like the others - it kept shouting that we had to believe it, that it was ... well, it gave a name. Then one of our Inquisitors managed to slay it with an ancient blade forged in the Magewars. This isn't a typical one - if you look, you can almost make out .." He pointed to what looked like embroidery, half-hidden in the pale blue plush.
"The name it gave was of one of the guards who was with my Daughter when they were carried off. And that embroidery matches a tattoo his comrades say he had."
There was a second's silence.
Arial hid a smirk. [Seems like we've got Fluffy Evangelists at work - they're going to make Converts out of everyone.]
[That should be fun to watch] Her sister flashed back, trying to look shocked and concerned in just the right combination. [Just think of it - the whole population forcibly .... stuffed.]
Arial licked her lips. [Are we just going to tell them ?]
[No. More fun to have them believe in us awhile longer. Always good to save a few surprises for later...] She glanced down appreciatively at her twin's bulging armoured codpiece: evidently the folk here assumed that she had just taken a standard male armour and altered only the breastplate to fit.
"Of course..." she held her voice serious. "It is the duty of all right-thinking, honourable and Good folk to oppose this Evil. And we are, naturally, Good."
[We're EXCELLENT] Her sister flashed contentedly.
"Then you'll do it ?" King Valency half-rose out of his chair, his ears pricked up. But Arial held up an armoured hand.
"There's just a matter of details ... what does your Daughter look like - assuming we can still recognise her if we find her ?"
Her twin gave a mental snigger.
King Valency pulled out a miniature from the pocket above his heart, and handed it over. "Princess Melissa, heir absolute to - everything." His ears dipped again. "If she lives, she will be the one ruling voice after me - in her paw will every life rest. Find her, I beg you - do what you must, but bring her back. She's no warrior, like her retinue - she's just a pure, happy cub, barely of marriageable age.." He sank back with a groan.
The twins surveyed the picture. It was not the formal portrait they had expected, but an action drawing of a young vixen strenuously playing some tennis-like game. Her fur was sleek and golden-red; slim digitigrade legs were graceful with athletic prowess, and her figure was evidently filling out nicely.
[If we bring her back and she's turned plushie, they'll have a direct connection into the Royal Family....] Mnemora commented, running her eyes hungrily over the portrait. [Which would be rather a waste.]
[Still, I doubt local law would disqualify her from ruling, whatever her .... condition... no matter what happens to her.] her twin raised an eyebrow. [I think we've got our motivation. The Spare Hares don't deserve her.]
There was an instant's silence, and then unformed thoughts passed from mind to mind. Slow smiles spread in stereo.
[That would be a shame .... ] Mnemora summed up. [Letting them plug themselves into the Royal line, that easily..... when someone more deserving could....]
"We agree - we'll go looking for her." She said aloud.. "There's the matter of payment, though - just for our expenses, you understand ... we crossed twenty Dimensional Planes to get here, and we need our Plane tickets home to pay for."
"Our treasury is open to you .." the King began, before Arial cut him off.
"I THINK the usual reward is your daughter's hand, and half the kingdom," her eyes narrowed to slits. "It's an old tradition."
"Impossible !"
Both vixens fixed the monarch with coldly calculating stares.
"You should be grateful that ..."
"...We're not demanding the whole..."
"...Of the kingdom and half..."
"...Your Daughter's hand instead...."King Valency looked from one face to another. "Well, if you put it like that..."
"We do. And we want your sorcerous jamming system off, and we want it off right NOW. Or we'll never manage to track where the Cutes are breaking through, with these shields of ours running on full."
There were cries of horror from amongst the senior Inquisitors.
"Don't listen to them, Majesty !" One cried out "Without the Guardians, we'll be prey to every foul sorcerer in the cosmos!"
There was a loud thump and groan as the Ur-Cardinal restored order with his holy warhammer.
Cardinal Benzen-Rhing stood forward, his eyes troubled but his face resolute. "It seems to me, Your Majesty, that we already ARE at the mercy of such. If deactivating the Eight Guardians can help us seal the leak - then we will have to follow their advice. After all, they're the only hope we have."
The vixens smiled triumphantly at each other, sly thoughts passing from mind to mind.
There was a long silence. And then, in the distance, came a confused noise of shouts, crashing and doors slamming open.
Suddenly the great double doors of the throne room flew apart as if a battering ram had driven them in. All heads turned to see what had disturbed sixteen tonnes of iron-bound timber so.
[Oh, shit.] Arial inwardly groaned at the sight.
[Shit, piss and the waste from a dozen thaumo-industrial complexes.] Mnemora agreed. [We just lost our exclusive contract on this.]
"Sorry I'm late," came a harsh, synthetic-sounding voice in the suddenly absolute silence. "I was out when your call came through. Had to hurry in here - don't worry, the guards are only stunned."
Standing in the open doorway was a figure two and a half metres tall. Like the vixens, it was fully armoured - but in a vastly different style. The material was a glossy non-metallic black, moulded in organic curves and spiked on the joints and shoulders like a well-defended seedpod. Wires and conduits could be glimpsed hidden behind translucent panels, and the whole suit was outlined in a crackling, blue-sparking glow as the local magical field smashed itself against the unearthly material.
[Tech-mage.] Mnemora glumly pronounced.[ Active Thaumic field generators on the suit, looks like - must be using up a hell of a lot of mana running them over here..... probably no match for us both, but he's got a lot of very nice and flashy toys.]
The figure strode forwards to stand outside grabbing range of the vixens. It nodded towards the open-mouthed King, then to Arial and Mnemora. "I hear you've got a problem with Spare Hares around here. Started breeding already, have they ?" A spiked gauntlet gestured towards the stuffed thing that lay in two pieces on the stretcher. "Looks like I got here just in time."
"It's CUSTOMARY," Arial pointed out frostily "To take off your helmet when addressing Royalty."
There came again that oddly synthetic voice. "I fear, Your Majesty, that you would not see anything of information to you. I am Doktor Kantus, what is left of me. This suit provides an artificial arm, two artificial legs, and ...." he reached up and unscrewed the helmet. The crowd gasped, and a few retched whatever they had remaining at the sight.
"Now, that IS impressive," Mnemora murmured. "An artificial Head."
**************************
On the battlements above the gateway leading of the inner fort, Stendahl looked from one face to another. He felt uncomfortably like a mouse referee at a freestyle cat fight.
"The thing IS," he swallowed, feeling the ice-cold glares of the vixens and the impassive scanning plate of Doktor Kantus riveted on him, "we've no Idea what's out there. It'll take every willing crusader to follow the trail, wherever it leads." He had suggested a platoon of Palace Guards accompany them: Arial And Mnemora had eagerly accepted. The real trouble had started when Doktor Kantus had stated authoritatively that mundane, non-magical troops would simply perish in a bloodbath the severity of which intact mortal minds had no parallel for.
[ Busybody.] Mnemora had flashed to her twin, annoyed.
Doktor Kantus stirred, his glistening armour catching the late evening sunlight. "You are faced with annihilation." His voice was flatter even than the synthesizer usually managed. "You are facing Spare Hares, and what they bring with them."
"What DO they bring with them ?" Stendahl asked flatly. He very much doubted he would like it, whatever it was.
The techmage idly picked up a weathered shard of stone from the battlement, and lobbed it over the edge, tracking the smooth parabola of its fall.
"Some worlds have dragons, some Arvonian Devourers, some have Chaos "Mange-tout" pea vines .... " he said distantly. "Ferocious indeed - monsters that could flatten this palace in an evening like an insect-eater ripping into a hive." He paused. "But believe me, there are worse things than being devoured alive and digested by such."
The vixens exchanged knowing glances. The techmage was proving interesting. His suit, even, was made of a substance their analysis spells could not get to grips with - a heavy, synthetic element that not only did not, but actually could not, naturally exist in most planes of existence.
"When the Spare Hares make a place their own ... " he said slowly, picking over the words like a barefoot man picking his way over broken glass ".... they digest not only its inhabitants, but its - reality. Those fuzzy outer forms you see are the fractal-edged event horizons of Pastel Holes in your dimension, where the power and terror of their native place, the Elemental Plane of Plush, seeps through like leaks in a boat hull. Which is why they are almost immune to physical damage - they are solid shadows, of things that are not truly HERE. And neither will your magical barrage jammer cause them the mildest twinge: they have no need to gather the tainted mana of this world, they not only have, but ARE, the pipelines to their own supply."
"Of course, a big enough disruption can cast them back, you know ..." Arial's tail waved idly.
"If you have big, a BIG one.... " her twin continued, tongue caressing sharp teeth as she eyed her match and mate up and down.
".... In physical terms, you're talking energy releases on a rather unmanageable scale for most neighbourhoods..."
"... You're really talking hydrogen bombs ...."
"....WITH Contact Fuses....."
"... Or the sorcerous equivalent, a couple of MegaThaum direct hits on the seams can explosively unstuff them all over the landscape ...."
"....And that can spoil their whole day ...."
"But ... Inquisitor Quex - he Turned them, with his holy presence," an unwilling supporter of the Inquisitor burst out. "He sent them back, with the Words and the Will !"
Vixen sneers came cheaper by the pair, or so it seemed. "Turned ? Him ? He couldn't "Turn" warm milk on a hot day," Arial yawned dismissively.
Stendahl's ears drooped. "What can we DO, then, against things like ... that ?" He asked weakly.
Mnemora snickered. "You could hope they go away and lose interest until you've had a few millenia to rebuild your sorcerous traditions ..." she suggested helpfully.
"..... You could all perish hideously, the way whole nations and worlds have, crushed ..."
"Plushed," her sister smiled.
"Plushed beyond all recognition, beneath the all-conquering tread of those adorable pawsies..."
".... Or you could leave it to the professionals, and make sure you pay them enough to do a thorough job for you. Otherwise, you're Really stuffed." Mnemora finished up, her lip curling in a grin that exposed a fine set of sharp, white teeth. "You're all going to Maximise your Genetic Protein Potential, as soon as they get here in force, you know that ?."
There was a silence. Stendahl looked out over the green fields and distant mountains of his world. Even with the Inquisitors, it was somewhere he loved and understood - and the unspeakable fluffiness of the things that were taking unguided tours of the Palace, were nothing that belonged to any sane or wholesome universe.
Doktor Kantus scanned the vixens up and down. "I destroy Spare Hares." He stated flatly. "It's what I do. Not for fame, or reward - but to put an end to them in all spaces for all time. And I have to admit - I often fail." He tapped his artificial head ironically. "I managed to keep my brain and optic nerves intact, but much of the rest was - irrevocably contaminated. " He paused. "If you hope to maintain life as you know it on this world, give these two everything they desire. You know but dimly the truth that you spoke, when you said you need all the help you can get."
Arial and Mnemora felt as much as saw each other's ears rise appreciatively.
[Well, now ....]
[Well indeed. He's not such a bad sort, after all ! ]
Deep in the heart of the Palace, a great rock-hewn chamber was unsealed for the first time in generations. In the exact centre of the Eight Guardians that stood outside the city walls, a brilliant crystal a score of paces thick, stretched up through the hidden heart of the tower and down into unguessable depths of the planet.
"The Sceptre Stone," breathed Ur-Cardinal Benzen-Rhing. "Keeper of the Keepers - the key to our world's defences. He stood, looking up at what had been the centre of the Realm for so long, the protector against all useable magic, and the core of the Inquisition's faith. Pulling out a tiny platinum key from deep in his robes, he began to chant even as he strolled towards the small panel set in its one exposed facet. The key turned once, one tiny movement - and the Karemite Kingdom changed forever.
"Ah ..... that's better." Mnemora sighed, shaking her head as she looked down over the battlements. "They've turned it off. " She gradually lowered her shields: although she could have kept them steady for literally weeks, it was a great relief to be able to gather native mana. Stretching, she put down the helmet on the cold stone bench of the lookout post.
Stendahl looked lost. "After all this time .... it's .... gone ?" He winced, and looked around as if he expected to see a horde of evil sorcerers emerge from the stones of the castle.
Doktor Kantus nodded gravely. "And now there is no more time to be lost. Every second may count - should a legion of Spare Hares appear, we might be overwhelmed. For when many are together, their combined presence overstrains the local reality until it ....."
"Is stuffed." Arial finished smugly. Her sister smiled, and ran elegant fingers through the long silky quiff of head-fur. She stood up, stretching her long lean body, the waist improbably slender even in armour. "Shall we hunt ?"
Stendahl had joined Doktor Kantus on the quest for the sorcerous trace the magus assured him would still be there to find. He scratched his head wonderingly. Today seemed - different, all of a sudden. It was like the feast-days had been, when he had woken after a full night's sleep rather than the four hours the Rule prescribed.
For two hours they roamed the corridors and echoing rooms of the great Palace, following a device that squeaked and cheeped faintly. But nothing seemed to be centred anywhere: just random echoes and traces of the monstrosities that had padded down these hallowed halls.
"But ... " he shook his head wonderingly. "I thought the Eight Guardians were meant to stop that sort of thing from happening ? I mean - " her looked around himself quickly, to see if any of the Inquisition were in earshot. "There's a whole list of things we've been taught couldn't exist - teleporting's one of them, so is something they called a "gate" spell. I suppose, all the stuff they told us couldn't exist - if it really couldn't, there'd be no point telling us so." He cocked his head on one side. Thinking suddenly seemed so much easier.
Kantus imitated the gesture, and for an instant Stendahl had a strange impression. It was as if the faceless figure was smiling back at him - as if he was perceiving with some other sense than vision.
The techmage stood up, his suit no longer illuminated with crackling coronal discharges as it fought the sorcerous barrage. Now it shone with the slippery organic gloss of fresh seaweed, of some strange new life-form unknown to the Book of Rule.
"Spare Hares." Came a measured tone. "Break their way in where they can find a gap. For a mage to travel from Here to go Out, one must draw on the power that is Here - and that was what the Eight Guardians poisoned. But the other way round .... they burrow from without like shipworms. " Again came that unfamiliar sensation, as if Stendahl could see a troubled frown on the Face That Was Not. "Was it a natural rift, I should be able to detect it. But a foci - if some mage specially constructed a gateway aligned to their world, it would be indeed a weakness...."
From below them, there came a rolling boom, and the windows rattled.
"The cellars !" Stendahl shouted - "Down here !" He threw open a door to a narrow servants' staircase, and dashed down - halfway down the stairs, his brain suddenly seemed to seize, though his legs kept moving.
What am I DOING, he thought desperately, while Doktor Kantus in his heavy suit followed a few paces behind. - I've no idea what's down there ... it could be a host of them, and there's not a thing I could do about it ....
Through four of the great vaulted cellars he forced his unwilling legs, with the hiss and heavy armoured tread of the techmage's suit the only spur onwards. In the fifth cellar he stopped, the Detector behind him suddenly squeaking like a wagonfull of kittens..
There was light here. But not the cheerful glow of torch or firelight. From round the corner came a polychrome riot of pastel putrescence, each shade as subtly off as a harp with all its strings badly tuned.
"The portal opens," Doktor Kantus muttered. "As it says in "Die UberPflaumig Kulten" of Von Tuu, "By their hues beyond Law and Nature, shall ye know them - beware the shade that lies in no mortal brush, and the light that no goodly sun gives forth". And the dread Compte D'Isgny's "Cultes Des Schtroumpfs", says much the same..." With a flick of his right wrist, an obsidian black blade snapped out, and began to glow with a clean, starlight brightness.
Stendahl gulped. "Will we be ... hopelessly overmatched, captured and dragged back for a brief but unhappy life as slaves to fluffy entities of ultimate Evil ?" He looked up at Doktor Kantus, as if for reassurance.
The half-machine stirred. "Quite possibly. But if we don't go to them - be sure they will come to us - when they decide they are entirely ready." Swinging his Scalpel of Seam-ripping (+5) in a long, slow arc, limbering up his surviving organic arm, he slowly moved forward, till he rounded the corner lit with the synthetic pastel horror of a Toonish Hell.
Arial and Mnemora stood decoratively by each side of a yawning hole in the air, through which a sick rainbow mist billowed and gave nightmarish glimpses of a world beyond.
Mnemora blew the newcomers an ironic kiss as they edged around the corner. "Took your time getting here," she commented, her gaze innocently studying the vaulted stone of the vault. "Took US five minutes to find it, and ten seconds flat.."
"... Nine point Nine-six, to be precise ..." her twin chimed in.
"....Under ten seconds to get it open. We've been waiting for you ever since."
*************************
The Princess Bride(Groom) Part 2
Being an Unconventional Romance,
co-starring Arial and Mnemora, (C)
Ashtoreth (William Haas).
Tale told by S.Barber, 1995
Stendahl stood in the deep cellars at the heart of his civilisation, looking through what looked like a circular doorway to infinite reaches of soul-shattering horror. The portal was three metres across, hovered in the air as knee-height above the stone flags, and seemed as flat as a soap film in an invisible ring. From behind, it simply did not exist.
"Go on," Arial prompted. "It's quite safe - it won't kill you." She picked up a stray rock, and tossed it through the ring. It turned a bleached pink, and hit the ground with a thud that seemed a little too soft for natural stone to land.
Doktor Kantus' armoured glove fell heavily on the young feline's shoulder. "Not so fast." He made a complex gesture, and something fractally fluffy like a billowing cloud of ultra-fine fur suddenly illuminated, appeared in the mouth of the Gate for an instant. "A stripped-down, hot-rodded, jacked-up version of a Type 17 Aegypan Curse. You'd have been fluffed before you hit the ground."
[ Damn.] Mnemora mentally scowled. [He spotted it.]
[ He's really fairly competent.] Her twin agreed.