The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  Soon they covered the whole ground with their number, and they chanted in terrible unison ‘Blood! Blood! Blood!’ and stamped their iron-shod feet in time, and the tremors travelled through the ground to the armies of Elves and Men.

  And then they fell silent, for they sensed the arrival of their Lord and Leader was near. And the silence was more terrible to the Men and Elves than the chanting.

  Prorn the King called across the space to the Elvish army, saying ‘You’re always ready with a wisecrack, Elsqare, say something to lighten the mood.’

  Elsqare looked out at the thick crush of orkish bodies, and said only, ‘Actually, nothing very comical occurs to me.’

  So Prorn turned to his own men and called out, ‘Be ready to fight, and be not afraid to die, if die you must. But fight!’ And his men cheered, although it sounded but a weakly hurrah in the cold air.

  And Elsqare turned to his men, and said in a clear bell-like voice: ‘Unaccustomed as I am to pre-battle speeches, I would just like to take a moment to thank you all for turning up, many of you at terribly short notice. Believe me it’s very much appreciated. And I’d like to thank the caterers for supplying the salted meats – it may be two years old, but it tastes no more than fourteen months.’

  And a smattering of applause rippled through the elvish army.

  As one the Orks began calling ‘Doom! Doom!’, and this created a deep rumbling wash of sound. For Sharon was approaching on his horse Pan-tomby. A path cleared through the horizon-spanning tangled thicket of orkish warriors, and Sharon rode forward.

  And at the sight of him all hope left the hearts of the Men and the Elves; for the Dragons’ charm made Sharon their master, and their wills were not enough to fight the potency of this magic. The irony of the spell was that the truest warriors, whose loyalty was strongest, were least able to fight – because their hearts told them that Sharon was their true and liege lord; whilst at the same time the most fickle of the soldiers, whose sense of loyalty was weakest, were best motivated to defend themselves, for they barely recognised any master but themselves in the first place.

  Many threw their weapons and themselves on the ground in despair; and Prorn himself wavered. ‘Blearyland,’ he called to the high heavens. ‘A cursed land, named for a cursed king. And so the curse works itself out in blood and death.’

  And the Orks laughed and jeered, and some coughed and cheered, and some others acted daft and weird, and others otherwise expressed their delight in their imminent and total victory.

  Sharon pulled up his terrible frankenstallion at the head of his army, and rose up in his stirrups. And, with the power of the Thing™ he cast his voice into the sky so that every elvish and every mannish soldier could hear it.

  ‘Hearken!’ he called. And because his voice was projected at a point close to the Thing™ itself, there was a shrieky feedbacky sort of noise that made Orks, Men and Elves alike duck their heads down and clutch their ears and wince markedly. So Sharon made certain adjustments.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘That’s better. So – hearken! Listen to me, you the last army of Elves, and you the last army of Men. Know this, that the Dragons of Making have granted me a fourfold charm: and that by their magic I am lord over all Men and all Elves forever – and that I am invulnerable, and immortal, and invincible in battle. Purge your hearts of hope! Your doom is to die, or else live on as my slaves.’

  And Sharon laughed, and his laughter was thunder in the mountains, and the rattling of the wings of innumerable crows ascending in winter skies, and the grumbling of icebergs. He went: ‘Ha ha ha ha ha! Ah-ha ha ha! Ah-ho ho ho! Ah-ha-ha ha! Ah-ha-ha ha!’ And, furthermore he went: ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!’ And he laughed so hard he made himself wheezy, and had to sit back down in the saddle, saying ‘Oh, dear, oh dear, oh. Dear.’

  And the Orks cheered.

  But the last hope perished in the breasts of Men and Elves, for they knew in their hearts that what Sharon said was true: every Elf and every Man was drawn to Sharon as lord. Some fled, deserting their comrades in this darkest hour; some ran towards the orkish army with their arms up; and only a very few remained about their leaders.

  And Sharon called, ‘Charge!’

  And so his myriad Orks bellowed and howled with blood lust, and surged forward, like floodwaters made flesh and armed with steel. They cut down those few Men and Elves who had run forward to declare their allegiance to Sharon, for they were careless of whom they killed.

  The two armies of Men and Elves that remained were nothing but rumps; yet, through sheer blind habit, or else through some twist of character that resisted the Dragons’ charms, they readied themselves for the fight. Prorn himself raised his sword and screamed, a scream such as a wind-spirit24 might make in the height of the tempest; and in this sound he found release from the agony of conflicted loyalties the appearance of Sharon had produced in his breast. And he stepped forward as the front rank of slathering Orks crashed upon him; and he swung his sword from left to right, cutting down three enemy warriors, and he swung his sword from right to left and cut down two more, and then the crush overwhelmed him. And his body was slashed by many hatchets and trampled under many iron-shod feet, and the life was cut and crushed from his frame. And so ended the life of King Prorn III, known as the Grrreat.

  His bodyguard fought as well as they could, though hopelessly outnumbered. And for a little while the very size of the Ork army prevented them from making their victory an immediate thing, for the Men stood in a circle with their weapons out, and only a certain number of Orks could present themselves at any one assault. So the Men fought on, cutting and hacking, until a wall of ork corpses grew before them; yet Orks still clambered over the top of this and rained down blows and axe-ended spears upon them. One by one the guard of Men perished. Prince Stronginthearm, Prorn’s strong-armed first-born, died of a gash that cut his head in twain.25

  Prince Braveface, Prorn’s second-born, died under a savage barrage of hook-ended swords.

  Nor did the Elves do better. They fought with elegant coordination, sweeping their long gold-decorated steel lances to and fro and clearing great swathes from the mass of advancing Orks. But there were always more Orks to come clambering over the bodies of their fallen, and soon even the strength of the Elves was exhausted, and their formation was overrun. Some Elves died there and then; some were carried off to be mutilated or torn to pieces by howling bands of Orks; and some few were captured by Sharon’s personal bodyguard – who alone of the horde possessed a modicum of self-restraint amongst all the blood lust and berserker fury and such.

  And so Sharon had brought before him a dozen Elves and fewer Men, clad about with cruel iron-thorned chains, their hands bound at their backs. And they were forced to kneel before the Evil One and his terrible steed on the blood-sodden ground.

  ‘Yield,’ he called, ‘and swear allegiance to me as your Lord, and I shall not kill you quite yet. For I have need of slaves, and my torments may yet spare you for years yet.’

  With the Dragons’ magic pressing upon their heart neither elf nor man could resist. Elsqare the Elf, the last Nodiholdor of noble blood still alive, swore allegiance to Sharon the Dark Lord. And so did all the Elves, and all the Men.

  So ended the last battle, with evil victorious. The Orks of Sharon’s horde spent their fury, making the land around the battlefield a wasteland in their berserker rage, until the rage passed off them and they had a berserker hangover. Which only made them grumpier. And there really wasn’t enough berserker-seltzer in the stores of the medical orderlies to go round, and some people got very snappish and unhappy, let me tell you.

  And Sharon rode to Elfton, with his captives in chains behind him, and made it his new capital. Thus came to an end the history of Men and Elves; for neither lived happily
ever after – the Men, because they were mortal and could not live ever after, regardless of their mood; and the Elves, because although they could live ever after, it was very hard for them to be happy under the new regime.

  Sharon rode about his new kingdom, and in every place he came he commanded automatic fealty, because the Dragons’ magic was strong. And even if elf or man had been able to stand against him, they would have faced the fundamental problem of his invulnerability, immortality and invincibility. Which is, I hope you agree, something of a poser.

  24 A zephyr, or Spirit of the Howling Gale; not a clockwork spirit of the sort that keeps your wristwatch wound over a period of several years.

  25 Which is to say, into twelve pieces.

  Of the Tyranny of Sharon, or the ‘Sharonny’ as it was called

  Sharon exulted in his victory. He established a capital for his new empire on the site of Elfton. ‘Pull down this elf town,’ he ordered the Elves of Taur-eadorpants. ‘You shall build me a new capital.’ And the inhabitants of Elfton were compelled by their malign allegiance to tear apart their own homes and temples, and scatter the debris.

  And Sharon set ork overseers over gangs of Men and Elves, to quarry and drag great stones, to cut timber with giant scythes and fashion it, and to build up a vast new building. He commanded men to sieve the lakes of Blearyland for gems to decorate his throne; and to lay down hundreds of fleeces to pan gold from the flowing streams; and ordered Elves to labour twenty hours in the day to raise up the great blocks of stone.

  And so, over twelve months of the hardest labour, and many deaths, a great and stark palace uprose. And largely it was composed of rectangles and blocks, and these were built in an uparching lopsided dome, tall as a mountain. And inside was a huge green-black hall, and here Sharon’s great lidless eye sat in state upon a vast eggcup of gold, for this, he had discovered, was the best shape for his throne. And all the leaders of Men and Elves left alive trooped into this hall, before the sneering and mockery of phalanxes of Orks, and paid homage to Sharon.

  His new capital he called The Sharonage, and over the gateway he placed a sign that read: Dunberserkin.

  Sharon sent out Tuoni Bleary and Robin Bad-fellow to scout the land for twenty strong, tall individuals, ten elvish and ten mannish, and these were brought bound to the Sharonage, although they were not tortured or broken. For Sharon required their bodies to be strong.

  And they were bound to metal frames in one of the dungeons of the new fortress, and ork surgeons clustered around them, grunting and chuckling; and into the chambers rolled and bounced two score of Sharon’s brood of eyeballs, swarming over the black flagstones like hideous insects, rolling and squeaking.

  And each of these Men and each of the Elves had their own eyes pulled out with bill-ended tongs; and into the oozing sockets the ork servants pushed two of Sharon’s eyeball offspring. Yuk. I mean, I’m sorry to have to relate that last bit, which is pretty repulsive I know, but, you know. The story requires it. So if you’ve stopped shuddering, we can proceed.

  And when this foul surgery was completed the Men and Elves were released from their frames to fall to the floor in despair. And some of them burned in their hearts to end their lives at that time, and some burned to seize metal pokers or blades and kill as many as they could. But all were bound by the Dragons’ curse, that Sharon be lord over all Elves and Men, for as long as Elves and Men exist. And Sharon commanded them to take horse and ride about Blearyland making his will known to Elves and Men, and to give him – as he sat in the Sharon-age – views of the land he now ruled.

  These twenty individuals were called the Eyes of Sharon, although they were known to Men and Elves as the Scary Score of Scanners: and their tragedy was that they served Sharon’s evil through no fault of their own, for they were noble spirits, but of a fell necessity. And though they were compelled to do as Sharon commanded them, yet did all Men and Elves shun the Scary Score. They fed them, and gave them shelter, and surrendered their horses to them, because they must; but they loathed them all the same.

  And Sharon set his most trusty subalterns as lords over the various shires and provinces of Blearyland, and laid a heavy tax upon them but gave them free rein to treat their underlings as they wished. And for those of the Orks who craved manflesh or elf-flesh to eat, they were permitted to purchase this food for a certain price. And for those who yearned to command troops of mannish slaves, or to force Elves to labour in the fields, they were permitted to do this.

  Many copses were burnt; and many creatures killed; for winter continued to prevail in the land, and the myriad Orks were hungry. So many trees were burnt to heat the soil, and many forest animals were slain and eaten.

  And yet did Sharon grow uneasy even in his triumph, for he thought again and again of the Dragons’ magic. And whilst he could see no weakness in the promise of invulnerability, immortality or invincibility, yet he pondered the fact that he had been granted dominion over only Elves and Men. He thought of the creatures of Upper Middle Earth that were neither elvish nor mannish, and worried over the harm they might do him.

  So he sent some of his Eyes to treat with the Dwarfs; but they were uninterested in the happenings in the lands of Men and Elves, being mostly concerned with their own subterranean affairs. ‘Leave us alone, bach,’ they said, ‘and we’ll leave you alone. Common sense, that.’

  Yet still Sharon fretted. So he sent a command through the whole kingdom, that any person who knew of any danger to his might from a being outside the realm of Men and Elves, should declare it. And none could resist this command.

  One day a man approached the gateway of the Sharonage. The fir-needles were tooth-white with frost, and the crust of ice on the snow cracked under his feet leaving deep pitted footprints, and the sky was blue with perfect cold.

  And he begged entrance, to approach Sharon himself. ‘Why?’ demanded the gate-guard in scorn. ‘In answer to his command,’ replied the man, with great grief in his voice.

  He was led to the throne-hall, and Sharon’s great lidless eyeball did stare down upon him. ‘Why have you come?’ he asked.

  ‘In answer to your command, O Lord,’ said the man.

  ‘Speak!’ said Sharon eagerly. ‘Tell me!’

  And the man said, ‘I was a fisherman, and one day at sea I encountered a sea creature called Urd, who told me that he and his brood in the deep waters feed upon the bodies of dead Men and Elves, buried in the earth, that wash out eventually to the ocean. He warned me that should we stop burying our dead in the earth, then he and his brood would go hungry, and would leave the ocean and swarm over the land to eat.’

  Sharon was glad to learn of this, for Urd was such a creature as was not covered in the Dragons’ charm; and though he knew himself still invulnerable, immortal and invincible, yet he had no wish to encounter this sea serpent.

  As he told his tale, the fisherman wept. And Sharon asked, ‘Why do you weep?’

  And the fisherman was compelled by the charm to answer him truly. ‘I weep to have revealed this to you, my lord. For although I and my kind are all prevented from rebelling against you, yet I yearned to see this realm of yours wasted by these sea beasts, for my heart is dead with bitterness at your dominion.’

  Sharon laughed at this. ‘Truly!’ he said. ‘Well, fisherman, my desire is to increase your woe. So we must appease these Sea Beasts. You shall ride out with these half dozen of my Eyes, to the lands of the west that abut the sea. And there you yourself shall choose fifty people from each village and a hundred from each town; and they shall be slain by my Orks and buried in the ground, as offerings to Urd. I command you to do this thing, and then to return here to me to see what other tasks I may have for you.’

  The fisherman wept at this, and yet had no choice but to obey. And in this barbarous manner was the threat of Urd abated by Sharon.

  And Sharon sent his Eyes throughout the land, and ordered all Elves and Men to swear an oath that they would never plot against him, seek to overthrow him, o
r rise up. And with tears and despair, all swore this oath. For they could not do otherwise.

  Of Eärwiggi

  Once there was a boy called Eärwiggi, which in Elvish means ‘ceremonial earmuff made of horsehair’; and in after times he was sometimes called Eärwiggi of the Mighty Fib, for his destiny was bound up with a fib that could bring down evil empires and change the very fabric of the world. It is a strange and instructive story, and its moral is: always tell the truth – unless telling a small fib can bring down evil empires and change the very fabric of the world.

  Now Eärwiggi was born in a small home on the banks of the River Optik, and he grew up there with his mother and father. He grew strong and tall, and learnt how to fish from the river, and how to take the honey from bees without being stung by them; and he learnt which forest fruit and mushroom are good to eat, and which not.

  He had neither brother nor sister, and there were no neighbours nearby; but from time to time visitors would come by, to trade with his parents, or travelling to some other place and hoping for refreshment; and some of these visitors were elven, and some were Men, but never Elves and Men at the same time. And when he asked his parents about this they said: ‘Once in this land Elves and Men were friends; but there has been a falling out recently, and now no Elf and no Man will greet the other in friendship.’

  ‘What sort of falling out?’ asked Eärwiggi, for he was always curious.

  But his parents were reticent. ‘Oh,’ they said. ‘Grown-up stuff.’ And they taught him the stories and traditions of both Men and Elves.

  And then one year there came dire news from the outside world. It was said that the land languished under winter when it should be spring. But although the rest of Blearyland was laid over by winter, yet the field and hollow by Eärwiggi’s home, and the bank of the river there, were not afflicted. Visitors were amazed to discover this; the only place in the world not afflicted by the curse of ice.