A Study in Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 4)

by Ichabod Temperance

  “Wot deh bloody ‘ell is all dis’ den?” Euciligucides speaks on behalf of his shocked psycle mates. “We didn’t soign on for all dis!”

  The entire group surrounding the Cubus gape in amazement at the frightful lights and the upheaval of the Earth. A geyser of marshy muck fires into the air like a grand fountain of Versailles, but filled with the thick, filth of the Great Sucking Death Mire. Another bottomless sink hole Earth blemish fires its grody load like the pus from between a pimple popping teen’s fingernails. The moor rides up and down in huge rippling waves and the lights send jagged orbits of crackling energy in all directions.

  “Charge!” calls our detective friend. He stands and fires the Webley Bulldog revolver that he acquired at the Manor. All the super special agent girls open fire as well.

  “Please be careful not to shoot Miss Plumtartt!”

  Our invasion force dashes headlong into the camp.

  “Aye-eee! We’re being shot to pieces! Fly for your lives, lads!”

  The Gang of Ones beat a headlong retreat. I have fired all six of my shots into the air in an abundance of caution for Miss Plumtartt’s safety since the Gangsters are withdrawing anyway. I throw my pistol after ‘em and head straight for Miss Plumtartt. All nine girls pursue the five cyklers from the scene. I am almost to the Cubus of Anointment when I am forced to throw myself to the ground in an attempt to save myself from Horbaz WilloughSickle’s slashing swing.

  “Tee, hee! Our leettle master Icky has coome to visit so that I can cut out his toiny heart! Tee, hee!”

  I roll to my feet and draw my sword. Well, dang it! I try to draw the silly thing, but it’s so dang long, I can’t get it out of its holster, or scabbard, or whatever you call it. I dodge Horbaz’s continued gleeful attacks and eventually get the sword clear of its protective sheath just in time to prevent Horbaz from vertically cleaving my skull in twain.

  “Tee, hee! That was a cruel and vicious trick ye played on me poor handsies little Icky. Tee, hee! Oi means to repay ye in koind, and then a bits more! Tee, hee!”

  Fast and ringing metal contact tells me that my consulting friend is engaged with Jabez WilloughSickle. There is an unspoken rivalry there, and I think each participant intends to finish the other, once and for all.

  Snikle Liag has re-assumed her position and begins a mystic chant. The giant rag wrapped reinforcement holds Miss Plumtartt in place on the Cubus.

  This Horbaz WilloughSickle is a fierce beast! He is more of a swordsman than I and is beginning to spot my martial inadequacies. Pushing me back, he causes me to fall.

  “Tee, hee! Goood-bye, Icksy, parting is so sweet, tee, hee!”

  He plunges his sword at my face but I am able to punch my hand up in front of my peepers in time to protect myself. His sword point, though he got my hand, is ensnared in the wire basket of my sword’s hilt. I apply a twist to hold it there. I then pull the trapped blade while at the same time kicking both my feet into both of his knees, dropping him roughly to his giggly, freckled face. I get to my feet before he does and blow his candle out with a swift kick on the button.

  “Tee, hee to you, you villain.”

  My friend and Jabez appear evenly matched. Their combat is conducted in such a fearful ferocity that it defies my ability to comprehend. My ears can track the ringing of the thirsty, steel blades more accurately than my sight.

  “Do not let that one interfere!” Snikle Liag screams at Elyodnanocruhtraris, indicating me. She then hurries to assist her man, Jabez.

  Those flashing lights popping outta that Cubus don’t look like they’re doing Miss Plumtartt no good. I gotta get her outta there, and pronto! Big stinky, the cloth wrapped colossus, moves with disturbing quickness to stop me. I remember how Miss Plumtartt’s sword strike was ineffective. I drop the rapier and grab a burning log from the fire. I grab the end that is not burnt and swing the fiery end at the toweled titan. I land several stout shots and then plunge the torch into him to set him afire. Dang, you’d think with those old papyrus reed linens that he’d be ready to light up at the slightest spark, but appears that he ain’t flammable a lick. Maybe it’s the mold and mildew, or maybe stuff that old just goes flat.

  “Ooph!”

  He got me.

  “Ouch!”

  Landing on this one-wheeler cycle hurt as much as the mummy smack.

  Though the furnace is out, the gauge on this Euni indicates that this boiler is still under pressure! I get in and shove the throttle over. The cycle immediately catches traction and slams straight into the past time priest! The heavy cycle knocks the animated corpse on its back and continues straight across his face.

  “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  Mr. Sherls and Jabez are momentarily eye to eye again in a hilt locked embrace. Each combatant is employing his left hand by clutching the back of his adversary’s skull. Each man tries to pull the other’s face into the scissors formed by their locked blades. Tremendous strengths are being exerted against each other, but neither can release the other from this murderous stalemate. Snikle Liag draws a dagger and runs forward to stab my friend, but he quickly spins at the last moment, and Snikle presents her gift to the wrong fellow.

  “Oh, Jabez! Oi’m sorry!”

  “You bloody twit! How is stabbing me bum gonna help!”

  “Mmglnpgh!” Miss Plumtartt tries to cry as she delicately hops from the Cubus to my waiting arms.

  “Fly, Temperance!” calls my astutely retreating friend. “This area is unstable and our position has become untenable.”

  The land buckles and heaves like an ocean during a storm. The black skies are alive with frenzied flashes of white lightning and thick with heavy, turbulent, thunderheads. I am toting Miss Plumtartt as my friend and I arrive back to the draggin’ wagon at the same time as the nine lovely secret agent girls. It is all that the fearsome Jebidiah BarbaraHaughnne can do to hold Winnifred the frightened bear in check until we are all aboard. The Quacker then releases the beast to hurry us back to the Manor with all possible speed.

  Under the wild lightning’s manic illumination the moors appear as a violent sea populated with an endless herd of enormous whales, spouting great geysering flumes of muck and mire from innumerable, bottomless blow-holes.

  The heaving terrain is but a stage for whatever is happening around the Cubus. The many searching rays of coloured lights condense and solidify into a single scorching skyward beam. This slowly widens, exposing a small vision of clear sky: a clear night sky with two moons. A tall shadow blocks some of the ray’s intensity from within. I have the impression that someone is peeking through a crack. Winnifred is in an all out gallop, now.

  “Eek!” cries Modesty BummeTwiddell.

  “Great Gottlieb’s ghost!” cries Miss Plumtartt. She has, of course, by this time been relieved of her bonds. “What is that?”

  The column of light expands, opening to a wider aperture. Someone, or rather, something, is stepping through.

  Gold braided ropes, ten times thicker than the heaviest hawser, secure size 12 thousand, quadruple ‘E’ sandals to his towering calves. A mid-thigh skirt that takes a male individual of an extreme amount of self-confidence to wear is wrapped tightly about his shapely posterior. The muscles of a Greek God adorn his upper body. No, I’m sorry, that is not really the correct mythology we are concerned with. Even at a distance of nearly a mile, I am able to judge his height to be about fifty feet at the shoulder. I use his shoulder as a reference point because that is where the gentleman’s human physique ends. From the shoulders up, the Beast has the head of a jackal. Solid black eyes, as dark as midnight, fill with desire as they immediately seize upon Miss Plumtartt.

  “Didn’t Miss Wallaby mention a persona by the name of ‘Annuubnuub’?”

  The being that has passed through the portal, or brought us to his plane, pulls the ends of his mouth toward his impossibly black eyes. He throws back his head:

  “HAI-EEEEE!”

  “YIP!YIP!YIP!YIP!”

  “W
AH-RHOUOOOO!”

  “MY QUEEN!”

  “YOU ARE FOR ME,”

  “NEFERTATAS!!!”

  The tremendous voice vibrates the air.

  “Oh my Goodness, y’all, Mr. Annuubnuub is making tracks like a determined rooster after his favourite hen. He’s a gaining on us like a shark after a jellyfish.”

  “We break upon the Manor. Ladies, Temperance, everyone abandon the sleigh.”

  “Ah,-hahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha!”

  “Look, y’all, the Egyptian giant, Elyodnanocruhtraris, has also made good time in our pursuit and is emerging from the mire from over yonder. He has one arm stretched before him. The other is held at an angle, close to his body forming a comfortable perch so that Millicent Wallaby, that is, I mean, Snikle Liag, may ride upon it in a somewhat elegant manner.”

  “Ha, ha! You fools! You cannot escape the Great Annuubnuub! Ha, ha!”

  “Hurry everyone; fly within the confines of the manor.”

  “Yessir! Come on, Miss Plumtartt and all you other attractive ladies, let’s duck back in the North annex the way we left out, earlier.”

  “Capital, Mr. Temperance.”

  “Looks like everybody and everything is as we left it, with the exception of Mrs. SaurSkowlle’s addition. I reckon she didn’t much care for that confined to quarters business, no how.”

  “Good work, ladies, glad to see you have all made it safely back.” Persnicitus Sforza has been assisted to a small couch where Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza sees to his every need. “Temperance! I see you have Madame Plumtartt! Nice dress, Persephone. Good show, old chap, mission accomplished, eh, what?”

  “Not quite, sir.”

  “We have an inbound aggressor, sir,” Obstinance GoodeWoodey informs Mr. Sforza.

  Looking toward the North wall, the strange, pointy-eared, fancy head-dressed shadow of the Egyptian God can be made out against the stained glass window, cast there by a blinding backdrop of unceasing lightening. The shadow is strangely animated, as the image jumps from place to place by the different positions of the hyper-active lightning storm.

  “COME TO ME”

  “NEFERTATAS!”

  The entire Northern Annex shudders under the frightful impact of the Titan’s grasp. The walls quake in plaster- exploding tremors as the Colossal Beast tears into the stone structure. A fist the size of a four horse carriage explodes the historic stained glass window of St. George into a gazillion flying shards and chunks of lead. The walls and roof remain more or less intact, but two sets of fingers grip the edges of the window and tear down most of the North wall. Wind and rain rush through the opening from around the giant’s torso that stands outside. From our limited perspective, we can tell the monster is bending to squeeze in through the opening.

  “AYE-EEE-YIPE!!!”

  “HIEN!!!”

  “HIEN!!!”

  “HIEN!!!”

  “Bahdde daugie! No! No! Sit! Down boy.”

  We see the creature stumble back from the building, clutching his steaming face where he has just gotten a severe remonstration from the smelter. A spray of gray metal liquid lead continues to fall, like so much drool from a maddened canine but in slower, more metallic form from the gaping mouths of the lizard-faced fellows of stone inhabiting the corners of this manic manor and acting as her gutterspouts.

  “Ye’ll show theese ‘ouse a bit mooore respect, nouw, Oi thinks, Rover,” we hear Morag shout.

  “You horrible infidels!” Snikle Liag and her eight foot walking dead cohort stand in the doorway amongst the broken walls detritus. “How dare you assault the Great Annuubnuub! You shall pay for your insolence with your lives! Elyodnanocruhtraris, seize the Plumtartt girl that we can see to her Ascendancy! You shall be the bride of Annuubnuub! You are to be our Queen Nefertatas, reborn!”

  True to form, Elyodnanocruhtraris raises his arms straight out before him as he makes a direct march across the Annex floor.

  “I’ll get ‘im, Miss Plumtartt,” I say, pushing my sleeves up my arms in preparation for some heavy duty brawling.

  “Never mind, sir, I think I should prefer to deal with this fellow, personally. Ohm... Ohm... I say, ‘at you’!”

  A scarlet impression of light bounces up and down through Miss Plumtartt’s frame several times before finally allowing itself to be released into her hands. From holding her hands high above her head, she brings her arms down and before her until the heels of her wrists come together. The open fingers and palms form an imaginary ball. A red sphere forms in the hollow place her hands have outlined. Her right elbow is withdrawn until the two wrists now meet in a ninety degree angle at her hip. Maintaining the proximity between the two hands, she forcefully thrusts her palms towards her enemy while congruently issuing her admittedly less than absolute fear-inspiring battle cry. The crimson light expands and collapses several times before speeding away to unerringly strike and envelop her attacker. The huge mummy is rocked backwards and his torso absorbs the energy orb of light. There is a sense that time has been held in suspension for a moment, and then the gruesome ghoul explodes in a chamber filling cloud of ancient death.

  HUH-FAH-PUH-WHOOOMP!-puh.

  “What have you done?” screams Snikle Liag from the doorway. “You shall die for this transgression!”

  A hand grabs the shoulder of Snikle Liag and spins her around.

  “Huh! Huh! Huh! Ee-yew whawnged me mae-yan. Huh! Huh! Huh! Ee-yew duhdy tuhd! Huh! Huh! Huh!”

  ~Pow!~

  Snikle Liag is clocked by a roundhouse punch flung with all the velocity an angry, long-limbed girl of a wronged man can generate. Trembling with righteous rage, Condolescence Purvey stands over the unconscious body of Snikle Liag, a terrible visage of retribution superimposed atop her blotted, tear-soaked features.

  “AH-WHOUOO!”

  “TREMBLE”

  “AT MY MIGHT”

  “PUNY HUMANS!”

  “I HAVE COME”

  “FOR YOU”

  “MY QUEEN”

  “NEFERTATAS!”

  The Jackal headed Egyptian God now tears his way into the chamber with fearful fury. The molten lead has disappeared from Annuubnuub’s face and the wounds inflicted are healing before our eyes.

  “Ohm... Ohm! . Ohm!!! At you!”

  A series of scarlet orbs fly from Miss Plumtartt’s outstretched hands to all blow up with great intensity about the caninish snout.

  FaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuhWHOOSH!

  BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!

  BOOMITY!

  BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!

  BOOMITY!

  FAH-WAH-BUH-BOOMITY

  BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!

  The red-hued explosions are staggering, but not to Annuubnuub. Miss Plumtartt is completely done in by the expenditure and collapses in a cute little heap.

  “I SHALL”

  “HAVE MY”

  “QUEEN!”

  “Where are my manners? The Manor has a guest crossing, if crawling, the threshold. Announcing, the Lord of the UnderWorld and Egyptian pseudo-deity, Annuubnuub!”

  “That’s a true butler there, Obstinance.”

  “Aye, Spikey.”

  “Temperance! Take up a pole-arm!”

  “Yessir!”

  “Charge!”

  “Unh, unh!” “Wah-yah, wah-yah!”

  “Our efforts are negligible. We imperil ourselves needlessly. Fall back, Temperance!”

  “I SHALL”

  “DEVOUR YOU ALL!”

  “ALL BUT NEFERTATAS”

  “YOU SHALL ASCEND”

  “TO BE MY QUEEN!”

  “This is the bad spot to be in we are thinking for sure, oui? All twenty-three members of our group are pushed up against the back wall in an effort to evade the huge terrible hands that try to grab and drag us to the massive, snapping jaws of slavering death, too!”

  “Ja, His gigantic eyes shine darkly with hunger, hate and anticipation. Annuubnuub’s breath is as cold as a Siberian winter and smells like a mercury-f
lavoured carbonic ore-shake.”

  “Mr. Temperance! What can we do?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Plumtartt!”

  “Sing.”

  “Hey! Who said that, henh? I don’t-ah thinks it was ah-one of us.”

  “Bup, bup, bup. I-i-i-i-t’s dat barmy wench in the fetching Egyptian get-up. Bup, bup, bup.”

  “Colonel WinterCleese, or whatever your name is, is correct, my darling Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza. Look there, my dove, it’s that dratted Snikle Liag woman. She is suspended in the air without visible sign of support. Much like we witnessed with the Temperance chap earlier, she is experiencing the same sort of traumatics as did the Colonial lad. White orbs gone green, arms and legs outstretched and unusual vertical wheel maneuvering, that sort of thing, don’t you know.”

  “I say, is that you, Rhutatootootunkamen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sing out the words of power!”

  The hovering, cart-wheeling, enticingly attired cutie-pie cultist in the clutches of the ancient Egyptian ghost of the High Priest Rhutatootootunkamen intones the dreadful words of abominable power. Annuubnuub reacts badly to the refrain.

  “NO!”

  “YOU MUST NOT SPEAK”

  “THE WORDS!”

  Too late for you, Annuubnuub! The sounds turn out to be pleasing, even catchy and lyrical to our ears. The gynormous Egyptian deity’s giant, obelisk-like ears oscillate to and fro in a frantic search for relief. He holds his human hands to his tall, pointy, furry, ears that protrude from his impressive head dress in a vain attempt to hold the painful tones from his extreme sensitivities. Tilting his head straight back as far as he can possibly take it, he howls his unendurable frustration and disapproval.

  “AH-WAH-WAH.”

  “WAH-OOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

  With Annuubnuub’s vocalizations still ringing at us from its echo off of the ceiling, we sing out the powerful and magical words.

  “Ffaeirre theighhe wWhellhe”

  . .

  “Ffaeirre theighhe wWhellhe”

  . .

  “Ffaeirre theighhe wWhellhe dhiaugghe” “ffeiasedde Dhieghietiey”

  . .

  “Aeyiem aeatteinne augh bahnneahnnah”