The Brightonomicon

by Robert Rankin

  And he did.

  PART II

  ‘About this battle,’ I said to Mr Rune as I chugged down the champagne of Tobes in his preposterously huge sitting room, with us all sitting very close together. ‘It will be one of those fight-to-the-death sort of jobbies, I assume.’

  Mr Rune raised his glass to me.

  ‘No chance of a truce, I suppose?’

  ‘Truce?’ went Mr Rune, and he spluttered champagne. ‘That blackguard shot me dead last month.’

  ‘It is the killing bit that I am not too keen on,’ I said. ‘Could we not get him arrested and committed to jail for life?’

  ‘Perhaps you would care to turn him in yourself,’ said Mr Rune, ‘what with your Identikit picture up on the “wanted” board.’

  ‘Ah, that’s where I knew you from,’ said Tobes. ‘Knew I recognised your face from somewhere. You’re the Lewes Road-Rage Maniac and the Grand Parade Firestarter (twisted firestarter).’

  ‘The road-rage thing was not my fault,’ I protested. ‘Well, it was, but it also was not. And I never burned down Grand Parade.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Tobes, raising his hand as if in benediction. ‘I am not judging you.’

  ‘You could absolve me of my sins,’ I said. ‘In fact, you could work a little miracle and remove my face from the wanted posters.’

  ‘I absolve you of your sins,’ said Tobes. ‘Go and sin no more.’

  ‘And the other bit?’

  ‘I thought I told you to sin no more. Get thee behind me, Rizla.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said and I chugged further champagne.

  ‘It has to be life or death,’ said Mr Rune. ‘There is no choice. Recall if you will the vision of a possible future that we experienced in Chief Whitehawk’s tepee.’

  ‘With the swearing chef and all those B-list celebrities?’

  ‘And myself in cahoots with Count Otto Black. That must not come to pass.’

  ‘All that sounds very familiar,’ said Tobes.

  ‘It does?’ asked Mr Rune.

  ‘It does. You see, I have these dreams. Very vivid, they are, and I think that they might be premonitions. Like, I’ll dream that someone’s cat will get run over and the next week it does.’

  ‘Have you warned people, then?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve thought about that,’ said Tobes, ‘but it doesn’t make any sense. You see, if I was to dream of someone dying in a car crash, and it was a premonition, and so warned them and they didn’t go out in their car, then they wouldn’t be killed in a crash. Well, how could I have had a premonition about a car crash if the car crash wasn’t going to happen? I wouldn’t have had the dream in the first place, would I?’

  ‘He does have a point there,’ I said to Mr Rune.

  ‘A rather dodgy one,’ said Hugo Rune.

  Tobes shrugged and finished the champagne. ‘But what you were saying about a restaurant with B-list celebrities and a shouting chef – I had a dream about that a month or so back. In fact, you were in it, Mister Rune, chatting on a portable phone and selling film rights to Hollywood.’

  I looked at Mr Rune.

  And Mr Rune looked at me.

  ‘And it was inside a tepee?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s what it was. I thought it was a circus tent.’

  ‘I am doomed,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Your dream came to us also, Lord Tobes. We witnessed it all.’

  ‘Don’t despair,’ said Tobes, who rose from his chair and rootled about beneath its cushions. ‘My dreams are not always correct. And some of them are frankly absurd. Why, only ten minutes ago I dreamed—’

  ‘Stop,’ I said. And Tobes stopped.

  ‘Why am I stopping?’ he asked.

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘we are forgetting one precious detail. Well, Mister Rune and myself are anyway. The Chronovision. In the vision of the future, the Chronovision was still extant, was it not?’

  ‘It was,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘Then surely all we have to do is smash it up now, right now. Which was what we were originally intending to do with it, if I recall.’

  ‘Good thinking, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Without the Chronovision, that particular future cannot exist. Do you have a hammer in this house, Lord Tobes?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tobes, and he fished about beneath his cushions. ‘By happy coincidence, yes.’

  I took the hammer from Tobes and took the long hike across the living-room floor to where the Chronovision stood. I knew that it had to be done, but it did seem such a shame to destroy something so miraculous. It made me feel as if I was the ultimate vandal.

  ‘I hate to do this,’ I said, ‘especially as I could have found out who I really am if Mister Rune had only twiddled the dials for me. But I realise that it must be done. Wondrous as this instrument is, it could mean the ruination of Mankind if it fell into the hands of Count Otto Black. And so it must be destroyed.’ And I raised the hammer.

  And then I paused.

  ‘Go on, then,’ shouted Mr Rune, viewing me through his telescope. ‘You know you really want to.’

  ‘I was just wondering,’ I shouted back, ‘what if it explodes when I hit it? Perhaps we should give it a rock ’n’ roll send-off and throw it out of the window instead.’

  Mr Rune stroked his chin.

  ‘I don’t want you breaking my windows,’ shouted Tobes. ‘And anyway, I clearly recall that you were going to hit it with the hammer.’

  ‘Recall?’ I shouted.

  ‘In the dream I just had ten minutes ago. The one I was going to tell you about, but you made me stop.’

  ‘Eh?’ I shouted, which is not as easy as you might think. ‘You just dreamed that I was going to smash the Chronovision with this hammer?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what you were going to do. But like I said, I’m sure that not all my dreams can be correct, because this one was frankly absurd.’

  ‘Perhaps you should tell us about it,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘No,’ said Tobes. ‘You’d only laugh.’

  ‘I’m sure we wouldn’t.’

  ‘You would,’ said Tobes. ‘Go on now,’ he yelled at me. ‘Take a swing at the Chronovision, get it over with.’

  I raised my hammer.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I beg you, Lord Tobes, speak to us of your dream.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Tobes sat down in the armchair, but as he had not replaced the cushion after rooting for the hammer, he sort of sunk into it, pranging his bum on a spring. ‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘I should have recalled that, because that happened in the dream also.’

  ‘Will you please tell us?’ And Mr Rune wrung his big fat hands.

  Tobes rose from the armchair and rubbed at his bum. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘like I was saying … Yes, that’s right, I’d just hurt my bottom, and then there was some chitchat – I was speaking, I think. And then you shouted for Rizla to smash the Chronovision. Then the absurd bit happened.’

  ‘And the absurd bit was … ?’ And Mr Rune leaned forward in his chair.

  ‘A house,’ said Tobes, ‘like the sort of house that a child would draw – this house appeared, came right up through the floorboards. Damn near demolished this house, I can tell you. Gave me such a start that it woke me up.’

  Now, even though Lord Tobes had not shouted, I had heard every word. Which was probably a miracle, but I could not say for sure. But—

  I looked at Mr Rune.

  And Mr Rune, in the distance, looked back at me.

  And then from beneath our feet there came a rumble.

  ‘Smash the Chronovision!’ shouted Mr Rune. ‘Smash the Chronovision now!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what you said,’ said Tobes. ‘And what is that God-awful rumbling?’

  Great vibrations shuddered through the room and rolled across the mighty floor. China ducks fell from the walls, along with a painting of a crying child. Ornaments tumbled from the mantelpiece as the mighty floor began to rise.

  ‘Smash it, Rizla!’ roared Mr Rune.

  I raised
the hammer above my head, but I did not have time to swing it because suddenly I was borne aloft upon the room’s carpet and broken floorboards and the roof of the rising bathyscaphe. I glimpsed the distant Mr Rune falling back and taking grip on his stout stick. But I did not see Tobes, though he must have been there somewhere.

  Floorboards shivered and shattered. The sounds of destruction pounded my ears and brick dust filled my nostrils and throat. I clung to the now rooftop carpet as it rose up and up. And above me, growing closer by the second, was the living-room ceiling.

  I tried to jump from the rising rooftop, but would you not know it, but the sleeve of my tweed jacket was snagged upon a nail. I scrunched up my shoulders and ducked my head and prepared myself for oblivion.

  And then with a kind of rocking, grinding, halting kind of motion, there was a rock and a grind and things became motionless.

  And I was … well … phew … about a mere three inches from oblivion. But still all snagged like a fish on a hook and somewhat covered in dust.

  And then I heard new sounds beneath me – the sounds of a door being opened and sounds of manic laughter, too.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ went these sounds of manic laughter. ‘Excellent navigation, Mister Mate. It would have been your ’nads on a plate if you’d harmed the Chronovision. Now hurry along, man, fetch it in. A lively evening’s viewing awaits us. Get a move on, you oaf!’

  The voice was that of Count Otto Black.

  The mate’s name was Phil. And he said, ‘Aye aye, Captain.’

  There was a fumbling and bumbling beneath me, and sounds as of broken floorboards and of mashed-up fixtures and fittings being shifted. And then the mate gave a cry of, ‘I have it, Captain. And unharmed it is.’

  Followed by more sounds of manic laughter from the mouth of Count Otto Black.

  ‘Do you want me to fish their bodies from the wreckage, Captain,’ asked the mate, ‘so that you can defile them in an unspeakable fashion, as the fancy takes you?’

  ‘Tempting though that is, Mister Mate,’ crowed the Count, ‘I now have what I want. And what my God has in store for Rune’s soul far out-grosses anything that I could seek to do with his body.’ And then he laughed once more for good measure.

  ‘Blackguard!’ I thought. And I tried once more to release myself from the nail that I was snagged on, up on the roof of Count Otto’s subterranean ark.

  ‘Take us below, Mister Mate!’ called the Count. And the door slammed shut upon them.

  ‘Take us below – oh by Crimbo,’ I whispered. ‘I will be ground to oblivion.’ And I wrestled once more with my snagged-up sleeve and received no joy in return. And suddenly the rocking, grinding and halting motion jerked into reverse and The Bevendean Bathyscaphe submerged.

  ‘Oh by Crimbo, by Crimbo! By Crimbo!’ I scrabbled about at the now-sinking rooftop, trying to free myself. And over the apex of the roof, two faces grinned at me.

  ‘Mr Rune!’ I went. ‘Lord Tobes!’

  ‘We both snagged our sleeves upon rooftop nails of this here ark,’ said Tobes, ‘and so were saved from being crushed to our deaths. Was that a miracle or what?’

  I would have said something in reply, but it suddenly became very dark and I became greatly afeared. And I would probably have voiced my fears, probably something to the effect of, ‘Get us out of here, Lord Tobes!’ had I been able to make myself heard. But the sudden sound of whirling blades cleaving through the earth would have drowned out what I might have said, and so I did not say it.

  So to speak.

  And it certainly moved at a fair old lick, that subterranean ark. And on its rooftop we did not get mashed, but we did have to cling on tight. I do not know how long we travelled for, nor how fast, nor how far, but it was very scary and it did not smell too nice.

  But suddenly we came to a halt. And with the suddenness of halting came a suddenness of light. Bright light. Bright light and whiteness, too. I looked up fearfully into the bright-light whiteness and saw that it was all-over tiles. We were inside a great domed structure composed of what seemed to be millions of tiles. Many tunnels ran away from this place and although it looked rather wonderful, it also smelled very bad.

  Stretching my snagged arm to its limit, I dragged myself to the apex of the roof and there was joined by Mr Rune and Tobes, who were still similarly snagged. ‘Where are we?’ I asked Mr Rune.

  ‘The cathedral,’ said himself.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The main chamber of the Brighton sewerage system. I visited it on one of their popular sewer tours during the Brighton Festival.’

  ‘You did not take me,’ I said.

  ‘It must have been the day you went to see The Lady-Boys of Bangkok.’

  ‘I never did,’ I said. But I had done. ‘But why are we here?’ I asked, as I fanned at my nose from the pong.

  ‘Don’t you ever go to the cinema?’ Mr Rune asked, dusting earth from his leather coat. ‘Supervillains always have mountain lairs or inhabit the innards of extinct volcanoes. And how fitting this is for a sewer rat like Count Otto Black.’ And Mr Rune chuckled. And then I shushed him into silence. From beneath us came sounds of the door being opened, and Count Otto’s voice once more.

  ‘Home again, home again, jiggedy jig,’ the Count cackled. ‘Bring that Chronovision, Mister Mate. And all the rest of you, me hearties – you’ve earned your rum tonight.’

  I peeped down and beneath me saw the Count doing his foolish dance as he pranced along, followed by the pirates who had once sailed under Captain Moulsecoomb on The Saucy Spaniel. They presently vanished into one of the many tunnels of the great sewer system.*

  ‘It would be nice if we could climb down now,’ said Mr Rune.

  And as if at a magic word, the nails came away and we all tumbled down from the rooftop.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said. And so did Mr Rune. Tobes did silent chucklings.

  ‘And so what now?’ I asked of Mr Rune when he and I were on our feet and rubbing at our bruised parts.

  Mr Rune had a firm hold upon his stout stick. ‘Follow the villains,’ said he.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said, in a hesitating fashion. ‘But actually I do go to the cinema as often as I can. And I do notice all the plot holes in the movies. Now would be the time to disable Count Otto’s ark, to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Exemplary thinking,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Lead on.’

  I led on and did so with caution, for there might still have been some pirates on board.

  Now, you have to picture this really, or it makes little sense. Picture, if you will, Noah’s Ark. Everyone knows what Noah’s Ark looks like. It is a big ship with a house on the top. Myself, Mr Rune and Tobes had been snagged on the roof of this house, and when we dropped down, we did so on to the deck of the ark. From this deck ran a lowered gangplank, by which Count Otto and his pirate crew had most recently taken their leave.

  The only truly noticeable differences between Noah’s Ark and the Count’s was that the actual ship parts of the Count’s were constructed from riveted steel and there was a hefty great revolving blade arrangement on the front that enabled it to dig through the ground. And it was nuclear powered, of course. Though I do not actually know what powered Noah’s.

  Oh, and there were these big caterpillar-tracks beneath Count Otto’s. Oh, and some rather dangerous-looking guns mounted on the forward part of the deck. Oh, and—

  ‘Pacey-pacey, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune, ‘for surely as the quixotic seagull of haste besmirches the tart’s handbag of time, so too does the spaniel of hesitance foul the footpath of destiny.’

  Which I took in the way it was meant, I suppose, and pacey-paceyed along. With care.

  We found ourselves first in the bar, of course, which brought great joy to Tobes. He took himself straight behind the counter and helped himself to a bottle of gin. We followed him and then I led the way below, although I do not really know why I was leading. I had no idea of where I was going. Although of course, it had been my idea, so I suppose that I
should have done the leading.

  Below was lit by bulkhead lights and looked like the inside of an ocean liner. Animal noises came to us and we soon found ourselves moving stealthily between countless cages.

  ‘Damn me,’ said Tobes, stopping at one. ‘That’s my cat, Coldean – I wondered where he’d gone.’

  ‘The Coldean Cat!’ I said. ‘What a cop-out. That has to be the most tenuous link to the Brightonomicon ever. And half of the others have been pretty duff.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ said Mr Rune, ‘it seems like months since I’ve given you a badge.’

  ‘It matters not,’ I said. ‘I have lost all the others.’

  ‘Then you’d better have the full set.’ And Mr Rune dug into his leather-coat pocket and brought out a handful of badges. He counted them into my hand. ‘You didn’t have these,’ he said, counting in several, including one of a Morris Minor, the Saltdean Stallion. One of the Chronovision. Another with a gaudy representation of Jesus – ‘For Lord Tobes here, the Wiseman of Withdean,’ Mr Rune explained. And a final one with the portrait of Count Otto Black. ‘Something for you to remember him by.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ I said and I stuffed the badges into my pocket. ‘But the point of these badges has always been lost upon me. And now is hardly the time for such trinkets, surely?’

  ‘Their time will come,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Now let us proceed.’

  And so we proceeded, until …

  ‘I think we are in the engine room,’ I said. ‘Does that, or does that not, look like a nuclear reactor to you?’

  ‘It looks like three nuclear reactors to me,’ said Tobes, and he giggled foolishly.

  ‘You are drunk again,’ I said in horror. ‘You have drunk that whole bottle of gin.’

  ‘Drunk, but happy,’ said Tobes. ‘If a mite sleepy.’

  ‘Oh … my … God!’ I said.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked Tobes.

  ‘What do we do?’ I asked of Mr Rune. And my hands were starting to flap.

  ‘Keep him conscious,’ said Mr Rune, ‘while I position the bomb.’

  ‘What bomb?’

  Mr Rune unbuttoned his coat and drew it widely open. Within were many sticks of dynamite. ‘Forward planning,’ said the Lad Himself. ‘One must be prepared at all times.’