Fall

by Rod Rees

  ‘I found out that I’m gonna have to keep a bloody sharp eye on you in future. I never knew you were such a dab hand at playing the femme fatale.’

  Trixie giggled and kissed Wysochi on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry about that, Wysochi, there’s only one man for me, and that’s you.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Wysochi grumped.

  Her father gave a discreet cough. ‘If you two have finished canoodling perhaps we could get on with our discussions? Wysochi’s search of Captain Roberts’ tent tells us that it is the Flagellum Hominum he has been referring to and, more importantly, which are the passages in the book that are key to his deliberations. Wysochi had the presence of mind to copy these down.’ He proffered his notebook to Trixie. ‘This is what they say.’

  Trixie studied the verses carefully and then shrugged her shoulders. ‘What do they mean?’

  And her father told her.

  *

  All Wysochi could suppose was that meeting Trixie had a much more profound effect on Bert Baker than he had imagined. Wysochi had thought that the chance of him recognising Trixie in daylight would be slim, especially with her surrounded by four tall men and her face camouflaged by a patina of dirt.

  But Baker did.

  They were marching to breakfast the next morning when Wysochi, vigilant as ever, spotted that Baker was one of the detachment of StormTroopers designated to guard the work gang. ‘That’s Baker, up ahead, so keep your head down, Trixie,’ he whispered, but it did no good.

  ‘You!’ Baker snarled as he grabbed Trixie by the arm and dragged her out of the line of shuffling workers. ‘You’re that Bella item that got me all riled up last night. Well, I’m off duty in five minutes so let’s see what you look like under all that filth.’ He wrenched at her overalls and though Trixie squirmed and struggled, Baker was too strong for her to resist. It took Wysochi’s fist in his face to persuade him that this wasn’t going to be his day for sexual dalliance. As Baker slumped to the ground, Wysochi was set upon by the other guards and it would have gone badly for him if Cassidy and Crockett hadn’t intervened. There was a vicious scuffle that ended with more of the SS racing to the rescue.

  ‘Shoot those fuckers!’ Baker shouted as he spat out his front teeth, and Wysochi and his two allies found themselves staring at the wrong end of five automatic rifles.

  ‘Belay that order.’

  The command came from General Clement, who had witnessed the set-to and was now striding over to see what had caused the kerfuffle. ‘Hold that girl,’ he shouted and the SS guards pinioned Trixie’s arms even tighter. ‘Well, ah’ll be … if that don’t beat all. If ah ain’t mistaken, this is Miss Trixie Dashwood, gentlemen, the most wanted Reb in the whole of the Demi-Monde, and that big galloot with the whiskers is the ruffian and ne’er-do-well Feliks Wysochi. My, my, two bad pennies if ever there was and now both of ’em have invited themselves to a hanging. String ’em up, boys.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Algernon Dashwood as he stepped out of the ranks of the labourers.

  Clement spat a plug of tobacco onto Dashwood’s scuffed boots. ‘An’ why not?’

  ‘Because if you do, you’ll never learn the secrets of the Great Pyramid.’

  *

  Her father’s intervention saved Trixie and Wysochi from summary execution and persuaded Clement to bring the three of them, heavily manacled and somewhat beaten about, into the presence of Aleister Crowley. The mage paused in the spooning of his scrambled eggs into his mouth, pushed the plate aside, dabbed a napkin to his lips and smiled.

  ‘As I live and breathe … Baron Algernon Dashwood and his bitch daughter, Trixiebell. Good morning, Algernon, I am so pleased you have graced us with your presence. If my memory serves, the last time we met was at Dashwood Manor when you conspired to have the Daemon, Norma Williams, escape. That caused me no little embarrassment, so I am delighted that you are accompanied by your daughter. I will be able to use her – or should that better be abuse her? – to demonstrate that crossing Aleister Crowley is a dangerous and very painful occupation.’

  Her father said nothing. Trixie knew that he had worked with Crowley before and regarded him as nothing more than a braggart and a blusterer … but he was a braggart and a blusterer who had the power of life or death over them.

  ‘Look at you, Dashwood: thin, enfeebled and filthy … how are the mighty fallen. But isn’t that ever the way with the terrorists and radicals who seek to overthrow the ForthRight?’ He paused to take a sip of his breakfast Solution. ‘No matter. Comrade General Clement advises me you claim to have solved the puzzle of the Pyramid. Somehow I doubt it: if I remember aright, yours was a mundane intellect, one not refined enough to understand the esoteric teachings of the Pre-Folk.’

  Her father smiled. ‘It is this mundane intellect that has enabled me to decipher the riddle – the riddles – of the Pyramid … riddles that have defeated you.’

  This simple statement did at least wipe the smug smile off Crowley’s face. The problem for Trixie as she stood watching the scene unfold was to understand just what her father was hoping to accomplish. In her opinion, this wasn’t a time for parley … this was a time for sacrifice. The one thing he mustn’t do was to reveal the Pyramid’s secrets to Crowley. If he remained silent then the ForthRight was defeated.

  ‘I suspect, Dashwood, that you are telling me this in order to engage in some form of negotiation. What do you want in exchange for revealing the secrets of the Pyramid?’

  ‘The lives of my daughter, my friends and all the slave labourers you have working in Terror Incognita.’

  Trixie was aghast. ‘No, Father! Don’t do it. Heydrich will win, he’ll—’ The slap the SS guard delivered across Trixie’s face ended her protests.

  Crowley ignored her outburst. ‘But how do I know that you have the solution? You might simply be bluffing. I have been studying the Pyramid for weeks to no avail, so how can it be that you have succeeded and I haven’t?’

  ‘Probably because ABBA does not wish you to succeed.’

  ‘Guard that tongue of yours, Rebel Dashwood,’ growled Crowley, ‘or you’ll find yourself not having a tongue to guard.’

  Trixie’s father shrugged the threat aside. ‘You should know, Crowley, there are two puzzles hidden in the symbols decorating the Pyramid: solving the first will activate the Pyramid and solving the second will allow you to raise the Column to the Pyramid’s summit. I am willing to show you how the first can be solved to demonstrate that I can do what I say I can, but I will only solve the second puzzle when I am sure that you have kept your side of the bargain.’

  ‘No, Father! This is wrong.’

  Crowley, his face red with anger, turned to the SS sergeant guarding Trixie. ‘If that girl speaks once more, Sergeant, I will have you and your family shot.’

  The sergeant took Crowley’s threat seriously: he stuffed a rag into Trixie’s mouth and then tied a gag around her head. Now all she could do was stand silent as the treachery of her father unfolded.

  Satisfied that Trixie had been made mute, Crowley continued. ‘I could have the information tortured out of you,’ he observed.

  ‘You could try, Crowley, but as the second part of the puzzle has to be enacted on Fall Eve you would never know if what I told you was fact or fiction until it was too late.’ Dashwood smiled. ‘Let’s stop playing games: we both know that you will have me killed immediately I’ve given you the second solution, but if you let Trixie, my friends and the Poles go, then I will have an incentive not to play you false. It’s their lives for the Demi-Monde.’

  For a moment Crowley sat in silence, his sharp eyes staring at Dashwood searching for connivance. ‘Very well,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s see what you can do and then we’ll negotiate.’

  ‘As you will. Verses fifty to fifty-three of the Flagellum Hominum talk about there being three aspects of ABBA: the Nothingness, the One and the Duality.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Crowley impatiently. ‘We know all this.’


  ‘I also see that you have assigned numbers to each of these entities,’ and here Dashwood nodded to the blackboard set at the end of Crowley’s tent upon which was written:

  The Nothingness = 0

  The One = 1

  The Duality = 2

  ‘Again, this is obvious, just as is the presumption that the different shades of green Mantle-ite used in the construction of the Pyramid correspond to these three numbers.’

  ‘Correct,’ confirmed Dashwood, ‘but the question is, of course, which is which, and as we have seen from the sad demise of Lieutenant Poe, the consequences of getting the answer wrong are severe.’

  ‘Then we eagerly await your solution, Dashwood.’

  ‘The clue is given by the line in verse fifty-three which tells us that ABBA is indivisible except by His/Herself.’

  Crowley glanced over to Captain Roberts, but all the captain could do was shrug his bewilderment. ‘I’m not sure I follow,’ Crowley admitted.

  ‘What numbers are divisible only by themselves and by the number one?’

  ‘Why, prime numbers,’ answered a suddenly excited Roberts.

  ‘Then if you substitute zero, one and two for the various shades of Mantle-ite and then add each row across, there is only one combination that adds, in each and every case, to primes.’

  Roberts rushed over to the diagram of the Pyramid drawn on the blackboard and quickly substituted numbers for colours. ‘I see, I see. So simple … so very, very simple.’

  ‘But is it correct?’ asked an anxious Crowley. ‘Poe was equally confident in his solution but he proved a false prophet.’

  ‘There is only one way of finding out, Crowley, and that is to put it to the test.’

  1:30

  Terror Incognita

  The Demi-Monde: 52nd Day of Fall, 1005

  The second attribute of a subMISSive woeMan is to be Invisible, to disguise her feminine allures. Father Quintus Tertullian teaches us that when in public, woeMen should keep their bodies covered except for their eyes and their hands. To do otherwise would allow them to be ‘patted all over by the roving eyes of total strangers’ (Quintus Tertullian, Use the Cane and Double the Pain, Whips and Scourges Publishing). This is best achieved by woeMen wearing a burka. The burka is the all-enveloping black robe which leaves only a woeMan’s hands and eyes uncovered. In this way, when she is abroad, a woeMan’s feminine charms will not attract, delight or inflame the senses of any Men who might espy her. As Father Miles Davis advises, ‘Keep your chick under wraps otherwise you’ll wake up one bright morning to find every cat in NoirVille has been drilling her all ways and sideways.’

  A Fool’s Guide to HimPerialism: Selim the Grim, Bust Your Conk Publications

  A somewhat bemused Trixie was bustled out of Crowley’s tent and, together with Wysochi, Cassidy and Crockett, was pushed over to the Pyramid. She was having real difficulty coming to terms with the speed at which things were happening. It seemed that her father was intent on betraying the Demi-Monde simply to save her life, a preposterous thing for him to do, but the gag prevented her protesting.

  ‘You and you alone will climb the Pyramid, Rebel Dashwood,’ said Crowley. ‘But understand this: if you fail, you will die knowing that your daughter follows you to the Spirit World and that she will journey there screaming in agony from the pain I will have inflicted on her.’ With that he signalled for the guards to unshackle Dashwood.

  With a glance towards Trixie, her father marched up to the Pyramid’s staircase and began to climb. He climbed slowly: the staircase was long and steep and he was a very sick man. Twice he had to stop to catch his breath and when he reached the top of the Pyramid Trixie could hear that he was assailed by a terrible cough. Finally, though, he straightened up and moved to stand alongside the topmost block of Mantle-ite.

  ‘Why is he waiting?’ she heard Crowley ask Captain Roberts.

  ‘I suspect, Your Holiness, he is wondering about the practical aspects of the task he has set himself. Verse fifty-three orders us to touch the Great Pyramid but it doesn’t explain how the Pyramid should be touched. Dashwood is probably considering how the triangular slabs might be manipulated to show that they represent zero, one and two.’

  ‘And your thoughts?’

  ‘The narrow walkway that runs under each row of the slabs suggests they have to be pressed or moved in some way.’

  ‘Is such a thing possible?’ asked Crowley. ‘Your own estimate is that each block covered by a Mantle-ite slab weighs in excess of five hundred tons.’

  ‘I would suggest that the Pre-Folk compensated for this with a system of counterweights.’

  Trixie’s father had obviously come to the same conclusion. He began to edge along the six-inch-wide walkway, this thin strip of Mantle-ite all there was between him and a fatal slide down the side of the Pyramid, his foothold made all the more precarious by the wind that gusted around him.

  Trixie could hardly bear to watch as her father shuffled along to stand before the first slab. Then he pushed it twice. To her great relief and amazement, the slab slid back a couple of inches into the block of Mantle-ite it was covering and nothing went bang.

  There were nine tiers of slabs and it took her father all morning to move along each tier pushing the slabs as he went, and as he came to the last one, Trixie was wrung out by the tension of it all. This was the moment of truth; this was when she would find out if her father was to follow the unfortunate Lieutenant Poe to oblivion. He pushed, the slab slid back and then … nothing.

  Nothing …

  She watched as her exhausted father stepped from the Pyramid and shambled slowly back to the group clustered around Crowley.

  ‘I expected as much,’ sneered Crowley. ‘It is unimaginable that you, Dashwood, would be able to succeed where I—’ He stopped and his eyes widened in disbelief.

  The glow emitted by the Pyramid suddenly intensified, the whole structure beginning to pulse with a deeper green light. But there were other changes too: if Trixie wasn’t mistaken, there was now a low, almost imperceptible hum coming from the structure. Suddenly the Pyramid burst into life, shining bright in the evening, illuminating the whole of Terror Incognita with a sheen of spectral green light.

  *

  ‘It would seem that you have been successful, Rebel Dashwood. So what are your demands?’

  ‘As I have managed to activate the Great Pyramid in accordance with the instructions given in the Flagellum Hominum – the instructions you were unable to interpret, Crowley – you should have no doubts that I can also raise the Column. If I do this, I wish to ensure that my daughter, my friends and all members of the work gangs are freed.’

  ‘The majority of them are Rebs, Your Holiness,’ interrupted Clement. ‘Ah don’t think the Great Leader’s gonna be real pleased when he hears we’ve let that bunch of Polak trash loose.’

  ‘That’s my price,’ said Trixie’s father firmly.

  ‘How’s about ah let you watch while ah let a couple of mah boys work on this pretty little girl of yours, Dashwood? Way ah figure it, hearing her screamin’ an’ hollerin’ will free up that tongue of yours a mite.’

  Dashwood smiled at Clement, but there was no warmth in the smile. ‘Understand this, Clement, if you touch one hair on my daughter’s head, I will never divulge the final secret of the Pyramid.’ The threat was spoken with such quiet determination that it seemed to unnerve even Clement. ‘Harm her and you’ll never get the Column to the top of the Pyramid.’

  ‘No … we won’t use torture,’ answered Crowley. ‘But you must understand that your daughter won’t be allowed to leave Terror Incognita until you have successfully raised the Column.’

  ‘Then how do I know you’ll let her go once the Column is raised?’

  ‘Oh, you have my word as a gentleman,’ answered Crowley.

  Trixie couldn’t believe her ears: her father was surrendering the Demi-Monde to Heydrich on a promise from Crowley, a man he knew to be venal and untrustworthy. It beggared belief
that her father could be so naïve but what he said next confirmed that he was.

  ‘Very well. But Trixie and Wysochi must be by my side on Fall Eve, I must know that they are safe. The rest of the work parties will be released on the ninetieth day of Fall. They will go to a location I designate, a location unknown to you. Once they are there and satisfied that they have not been followed, they will fire a signal rocket. Only when I have seen this will I raise the Column.’

  Crowley thought for a moment. ‘Agreed. But believe me, Rebel Dashwood, should you fail, the pain I will inflict on you and your daughter will transcend any nightmare.’

  1:31

  The JAD

  The Demi-Monde: 52nd Day of Fall, 1005

  The third attribute of a subMISSive woeMan is for her to be Supine before her Master. HimPerialism teaches that Men have been ordained by ABBA to be Masters of the Demi-Monde and that woeMen must be dutiful and obedient in all things. As Father Alfred Aristotle so correctly said, ‘Just as tamed animals need Man to protect and feed them, so it is with woeMen’ (Alfred Aristotle, WoeMen: ABBA’s Biggest Fuck-Up, MENtal Books). There is, of course, one other aspect of the Supine that is relevant to the subMISSive woeMan: she must recognise that her only true purpose in life is to beget children, therefore if a woeMan isn’t in the kitchen, then the best place for her is on her back.

  A Fool’s Guide to HimPerialism: Selim the Grim, Bust Your Conk Publications

  Moynahan roused all the Portal’s defenders at five the next morning and had them gather in the Rec Room.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to keep this short. Our patrols tell us that the SS have been reinforced and they’re getting ready to attack. My guess is that they’re gonna be coming at us at dawn … in two hours’ time. Our mission is to keep Norma Williams here safe and return her to the Real World so that’s what we’re gonna be trying to do.’ He turned to Norma, who was standing in a corner of the room. ‘Miss Williams, I want you to take up a position in the Transfer Room and the rest of us will form a defensive cordon around it.’