The Brightonomicon

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Fear not, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Follow the spaniel, all will be well.’

  ‘Are Atlanteans teetotal?’ asked Tobes. ‘Or is there likely to be a bar nearby?’

  ‘A bar,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Or possibly a restaurant.’ And his eyes sparkled as he said the word.

  ‘Let us just find the Count,’ I said, ‘then go home to bed, eh?’

  ‘Spirit of adventure deserted you?’ Mr Rune asked.

  ‘This is a lot to take in,’ I said, ‘and it has been a long and trying day.’

  ‘And it is far from over. Aha, Nathaniel has stopped and is doing that annoying whining that dogs do at doors. This must be the building we seek.’

  We stood before a building of formidable size and structure that had a certain Hollywood feel to me. But then, what did I know?

  ‘Where are all the Atlanteans?’ Tobes asked. ‘The streets are deserted. Oh no – there’s someone, a lady in a straw hat. And who’s that there – surely it’s the masked walker. And there—’

  ‘This way,’ said Mr Rune and he pushed upon a door, which opened before him.

  I shrugged at Tobes and Tobes shrugged at me. Nathaniel scurried between our legs and rushed on ahead of us both.

  Tobes took stock of our present location and made approving sounds. ‘Oh yes indeed,’ said he. ‘We are in a bar.’

  And yes indeed that is where we were. In a subterranean bar. It looked very much how a bar should look, which is not how most of them do. It was of the Victorian ilk, with Britannia pub tables, much etched glass, a really snazzily patterned carpet and lots of framed portraits of folk that I did not know.

  Mr Rune approached the counter, which was all brass foot rails and mahogany top. There were copper spittoons as well, and I thought that I might just have a spit in one if the opportunity arose.

  Behind the counter stood a barman all done up in Victorian garb. He wore a high starched collar with a blue silk cravat, a suit of dark stuff and much in the way of mutton-chop whiskers. And a smile.

  ‘How might I serve you, gentlemen?’ he asked.

  ‘Fange,’ I said, as I gaped at the barman. ‘Fangio, it is you.’

  ‘It is,’ said the barlord. ‘And it is you also.’

  ‘But what are you doing here?’

  ‘I saw this ad in a newspaper,’ said Fange, ‘the Weekly World News – “Experienced bar staff required to serve in alternative reality. Ability to talk toot essential.” Well, I thought, I’ll have that, because, after all, my bar in Hove had been destroyed in all the looting that went on last month. I wonder who started all that chaos, eh?’

  I did clearings of the throat. ‘Search me,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ asked Fange. ‘What are you hiding?’

  ‘I am not hiding anything.’

  ‘I am,’ said the barlord. ‘Can you guess what it is?’

  ‘I’ll have to stop you there,’ said Mr Rune. ‘This, I regret, is not the time for toot.’

  ‘Aw,’ said Fange.

  ‘Aw,’ said I also.

  ‘We’ll just have some drinks, if we may,’ said Mr Rune. Firmly.

  A broad smile crossed Fangio’s face. ‘Right,’ said he. ‘Drinks, is it? Well, we have a number here upon the hand pumps that you might not have tried before. Would you care for me to recommend something?’

  I winked at Fangio. ‘Go for it, Fange,’ I said.

  ‘Three whiskies,’ said Mr Rune, ‘from that bottle there behind the bar.’

  ‘Aw,’ said Fange.

  And, ‘Aw,’ said I also.

  ‘And I’ll have a large one,’ said Tobes, who knew nothing of toot.

  Fangio took up three glasses and placed them on the counter, took down the bottle and poured out the whiskies.

  ‘This reminds me of a funny story I heard,’ he said. ‘Would you care for me to relate it to you?’

  ‘Yes I would,’ I said.

  ‘No we wouldn’t,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘Aw, come on,’ said Fangio, ‘this might well be my last appearance in this epic adventure. At least let me talk the last bit of toot.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Rune, and he took up his glass.

  ‘Look out behind you!’ cried Fange. ‘Zulus, thousands of them.’

  Mr Rune shook his head.

  ‘I could call you a cab,’ said Fangio.

  Mr Rune shook his head once more.

  ‘I know where Count Otto Black is,’ said Fangio.

  ‘There,’ said Mr Rune. ‘At last.’

  ‘What a villain, that bloke,’ said Fangio. ‘Puts me in mind of that Brownfinger in the James Bond movie.’

  I opened my mouth, but Mr Rune made me shut it again.

  ‘No takers, then?’ said Fangio. ‘I can get at least two pages out of getting the names of supervillains wrong. Some are quite saucy and prompt the occasional, “Oooh, Matron.’”

  Mr Rune finished his whisky. ‘Where is Count Otto Black?’ he asked.

  ‘Upstairs,’ said Fange, ‘top floor – he has the penthouse suite.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Follow me, gentlemen.’

  ‘Can I come, too?’ asked Fange.

  ‘No, you cannot. Which way to the lift?’

  ‘Through that door, you spoilsport.’

  The lift was Art Deco style, big and full of polished brass, with spreading fanshaped design work and tortoiseshell floor buttons. Mr Rune pressed the one marked ‘Eagle’s Nest’ and the stylish lift sped upwards.

  ‘We are now on the Count’s home turf, as it were,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Be on your guard at all times and put your trust in me.’

  ‘I could have waited in the bar,’ said Tobes.

  ‘You could have,’ Mr Rune agreed, ‘but I feel that your gifts may need to be called upon.’

  ‘I don’t have any gifts,’ said Tobes. ‘I was given a spaniel once, for Christmas, but it ran under a bus.’

  ‘Was it a Brighton bus, with a local celebrity’s name on the front?’ I asked.

  Mr Rune made tooth-grinding sounds.

  The lift came suddenly to a halt and Mr Rune’s podgy fingers took a firm grip upon the pommel of his stout stick.

  The doors slowly opened and we peered out. At the penthouse suite of Count Otto Black.

  It was a magnificent suite, extravagantly appointed with many an expensive-looking doodad. Leather-bound volumes bricked its walls and brass contraptions littered the horizontal surfaces of exquisite tables.

  ‘My books,’ said Mr Rune. ‘My scientific equipment. My tables.’

  ‘It looks as if he helped himself before he burned down our rooms,’ I observed.

  ‘The pungent turd,’ said Mr Rune. Which I found quite amusing.

  ‘Where do you think he’s hiding?’ asked Tobes.

  ‘I doubt if he is hiding at all,’ I said. ‘He will not be expecting us.’

  Mr Rune shook his head slowly. ‘He will be expecting us,’ he said. ‘He knows that I can gain entry to the Forbidden Zones. However, I remain puzzled on one matter: he has access to this realm, but he could not find the entrance point to the place where the Chronovision was hidden.’

  ‘He is not the Reinventor of the Ocarina,’ I said. ‘Are you not Mister Hugo Rune, whose eye is before E, except after C? Rune, whose navel knows the secrets of the ancients? Rune, whose bum is the square of the hypotenuse? Rune, whose—’

  ‘That is quite enough, thank you, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Now be on your guard and follow me, this way.’

  Before us hung a magnificent pair of doors, tall and wide and heavily laden with ornamentation. I liked not the look of those doors, though, for the carvings upon them were of tortured souls being bothered by horrible demons.

  ‘Suggestive,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘Plah!’ was the best I could manage.

  Mr Rune put his great hands to the doors and pushed the blighters open.

  Beyond lay a wonderful room, black-carpeted and lit by massive torchéres. And there was a desk resembling a marble sarco
phagus. And behind this desk was Count Otto Black.

  He sat there on a gilded throne, stroking Nathaniel the spaniel.

  And he smiled a wan smile in our direction.

  And then all Hell broke loose.

  PART IV

  They came at us from everywhere and horrible they were. Nasty, spiny, evil things as black as the Bottomless Pit. They closed in about us and I closed my eyes and my hands began to flap. The smell of death was up my nose and Hell was in my ears. I tried to scream, but no sounds came, so I turned in small circles instead.

  And then something smacked me right in the head.

  ‘Rizla, stop doing that!’

  I rubbed at my head and opened my eyes. The hideous things were gone.

  ‘You will have to do better than that, Count Otto,’ said Mr Rune. ‘An elementary calling, voided by a simple counter-spell.’

  The Count made a bitter face behind his desk.

  ‘Magic,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘And you—’

  ‘I am a Master of the Mystic Arts,’ said Mr Rune, ‘and enough is enough.’ And he strode to the desk of Count Otto and brought his stout stick down hard upon it. ‘Return the Chronovision to me,’ he demanded, ‘and I will spare your life.’

  The Count looked at Mr Rune and then the Count laughed. ‘Spare my life?’ he said. ‘You are in my world now, Mister Rune, it is you who must beg for your life.’

  ‘Such histrionics,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Such bluff and bluster.’

  The Count’s hand strayed to a button that rose from his marble desk. It was a blood-red button. The Count’s finger hovered above it.

  ‘One little tap,’ said Count Otto, ‘and you will be despatched to your grave.’

  ‘Hm,’ went Mr Rune and in a flash, he had drawn from his stout stick a glittering blade that he held to Count Otto’s throat. ‘Then the two of us will die,’ he said, ‘and Rizla here will dispose of the Chronovision.’

  The Count’s finger continued its hovering. ‘Thus and so,’ said he. ‘But why must we persist in this? Answer me truly, Hugo Rune, are we not made of special stuff, you and I? Are we not men above the faceless hordes of humankind? We are remarkable men, and together we could achieve remarkable things, extraordinary things.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ Mr Rune’s blade twinkled at Count Otto’s throat, its tip deep in amongst the great black beard.

  ‘An alliance, plain and simple. We are men of learning, men of great esoteric knowledge. Each of us seeks recognition for our unique talent. You crave fame, I crave infamy. Together we could aspire to a middle ground that would benefit us both. Together we could have it all.’

  ‘The world?’ said Hugo Rune.

  ‘Who could stand against us? With the aid of the Chronovision we could gain control of everything. We could create an Earthly paradise, a new Eden.’

  ‘You and I?’ said Mr Rune. ‘You are suggesting that I should trust you?’

  ‘We would swear an oath, a magical oath stating that neither would seek to deceive or destroy the other. Think of it, Hugo – you and I united, benign rulers of the world above. Better surely this than that we go on from age to age as antagonists?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No!’

  ‘A noisy boy,’ said Count Otto, ‘but we could find a place for him. Perhaps he might like to be Prime Minister of England?’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘He is a good boy,’ said Mr Rune. ‘He’d make a good Prime Minister.’

  ‘What?’ I said again, but with greater emphasis.

  ‘And the other chap,’ said Count Otto, ‘he is the One, I assume. Perhaps he would like to be Pope?’

  ‘Is there a bar in the Vatican?’ asked Tobes.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘And you stop it, too, Mister Rune. You cannot side with this, this—’

  ‘Pungent turd?’ said Tobes.

  ‘Pungent turd,’ I said. ‘Remember the vision we had in Chief Whitehawk’s tepee. You do not want that to come true, surely?’

  ‘As Lord Tobes said,’ said Mr Rune, ‘a premonition cannot be a premonition if that which occurs in it does not come to pass. Perhaps it would be for the best if the Count and I forgot our differences and worked together for the good of all.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Do not do it. You cannot trust him. You must not side with him.’

  ‘Think of it, Hugo,’ said the Count, ‘think what you could do for Mankind if you were in control of it. You could end all wars, all suffering. And you know how to do it, don’t you? You are the All-Knowing One. You wrote The Book of Ultimate Truths.’

  ‘An alliance,’ said Mr Rune. ‘A magical oath. Complete and utter trust between us?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said the Count. ‘We will draw up a contract and sign it with our blood, and together we will set the world above to rights.’

  Mr Rune nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Do not do it. Do not trust him. It is just a trick.’

  ‘Silence, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I cogitate, don’t interrupt.’

  ‘Tell him, Lord Tobes,’ I said to Lord Tobes. ‘Tell him, Lord Tobes – do something.’

  ‘I’m for peace, me,’ said Tobes. ‘If these two fellows can make it up and be friends, well, I think that’s very nice. And we should all have a drink to celebrate.’

  ‘This is wrong,’ I said. ‘All wrong.’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t,’ said Tobes. ‘It was in my vision, after all. Perhaps it was a good vision, not like all the others.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is not right.’

  ‘Imagine, Hugo,’ the Count continued, ‘your Book of Ultimate Truths upon every bedside table of every home in the world. The Third Testament, as it were. The recognition you so justly deserve. With myself at your side, what companionship we would enjoy, what amazing things might we achieve.’

  ‘If trust were to exist between us,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘Which it does,’ said Count Otto. ‘Does it not?’

  Mr Rune eyed Count Otto Black. ‘The button,’ he said.

  ‘The blade,’ said Count Otto Black.

  Mr Rune drew back his blade and sheathed it in his stick. ‘Trust,’ said he.

  ‘You schmuck!’ cried Black and his finger hit the button.

  The floor beneath Mr Rune dropped away and the Perfect Master plunged down. Smoke and flames belched up from below and a terrible scream belched with them.

  And Count Otto Black placed his spaniel down and clapped his hands together.

  ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No, no, no!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Count Otto. ‘And now farewell to you.’ And his fingers reached once more to the button and my hands started to flap.

  ‘Do something!’ I shouted at Tobes. ‘And do it now, or he’ll do for the both of us.’

  But the Count laughed his laugh and his finger plunged down and the floor beneath us fell away.

  But we did not fall. We hovered there. Hovered in thin air.

  Smoke and flames roared round us. But the fire did not hurt and the smoke did not make me cough. I looked down in wonder at my floating feet and then across at the Count, who had suddenly ceased his laughing.

  And then I saw him, Hugo Rune, rising from the flaming pit below. Up and up he came, like a leather-bound blimp, until he, too, did hovering above the marble desk of Count Otto Black.

  And Mr Rune shook his head and said, ‘You really are a very wicked man, Count Otto. I feel that there is no hope for you.’

  And then Mr Rune drew the blade from his stick and cleaved off Count Otto’s head.

  ‘He never did?’ said Fangio. ‘In a single stroke, like a Samurai?’

  We were back in the bar once more and we were drinking hugely.

  ‘Swish,’ I said. And I mimed swishing. ‘And blood came shooting out of the Count’s neck and everything.’

  ‘Urgh!’ said Fangio. ‘I think that would have made me sick.’

  ‘It made me sick,’ I
said, ‘but it was a good kind of sick.’

  ‘It didn’t make me sick,’ said Tobes. ‘But then I never get sick. A waste of good drink, sick is.’

  ‘So you really have mastered the art of levitation, Mister Rune,’ said Fangio. ‘Taught to you by your chum the Dalai Lama, I suppose.’

  Mr Rune made a certain face and then he shook his head.

  ‘No?’ I said. ‘Then how?’

  ‘You’d better ask Lord Tobes.’

  I looked towards the great-many-times-descendant of Lord Jesus Christ. ‘Tobes?’ I said. ‘What is this?’

  Tobes shrugged and tried to look humble. ‘I could hear what Mister Rune was thinking,’ he said, ‘and Mister Rune knew that I could. He wasn’t going along with Count Otto’s nonsense; he was only waiting to make his move. And he was praying that I would offer him my support when he did so. Which I suppose I did.’

  ‘That was a great deal of trust on your part,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘What if Tobes had not been able to help?’

  ‘Naturally, I had a back-up plan.’

  ‘Did you?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I did not.’

  ‘And what about this Chronovision thing?’ asked Fangio. ‘You said that your quest was all about that, all the cases and conundrums of the Brightonomicon.’

  ‘Rizla smashed it to pieces,’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘I did,’ I said. ‘Count Otto had it under his desk. It was a bit gory, but I gave it the rock ’n’ roll ending it deserved and threw it out of the window.’

  ‘Then the world as we know it is saved,’ said Fangio. ‘The next round is on me.’

  And we enjoyed the next round.

  And the next.

  Which I am sure was Hugo Rune’s, but Hugo Rune did not pay.

  PART V

  At a little after ten-thirty of the Friday-evening clock, Mr Hugo Rune, Lord Tobes and I returned to the world above. We pushed open the manhole cover in the middle of the Pavilion lawns and struggled up through the opening.

  We were a little gone with the drink and we each stood there aswaying. I gulped in the Brighton breeze, clicked my joints and gazed all around and about myself. We were less than twenty yards from the front door of what had once been forty-nine Grand Parade, my home for almost a year, now nothing but a blackened, gutted shell. I shook my head and shrugged.