Did it really happen?...
Or did I dream it?...
…
When we crossed the Atlantic, she kissed my cheek.
She was proud of me; maybe more.
…
Ohhh...
Ohhh, Miss Plumtartt...
I'm sorry...
I failed you...
Miss Plumtartt...
I failed you, Miss Plumtartt...
...
cold...
…
hungry...
…
alone...
...
- - -
“Wake up, you little American Bug!”
I am kicked in the face.
The kick, combined with the Prussian Pillock’s accent, snaps me out of the funque into which I had slipped.
“Thanks, I needed that, you monocled madman.”
I come to my senses on a vast plateau.
A dark and frozen wasteland.
I grab my weapon and spin up the ‘Beauties’ as the Bavarian Bombast exclaims:
“Was zur Hölle!?! Mmm-Bwuhahahahaha! Is that some sort of caveman club you have devised, Herr Munchkin?”
Herr Doktor Himmel relaxes in his outrageously ostentatious and luxurious, monster-pulled sled.
Scores of horrible creatures scuttle over the ridge behind him. Massive horrors surround him. The beastie that just kicked me in the face backs away to afford the Doktor a better view of yours truly.
“Vas ist this you clutch in your dirty human hands? A bone? A bit of tubing? An old glass jar?”
I only have one shot with my improvised device.
I take it.
BUH-WHOOMP. POW!
BUH-BUH-BUH
BOOM! BOOM! BOOMITY!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOMITY!
BOOM! BOOM!
BAH-BOOMITY-BOOM!!!
“Got him!”
More than a dozen kritters got fried in that discharge. The P.G.D.D. exploded in my hands and face, but I don’t care! This is my first moment of happiness in months. The fancy sled got blown to pieces, and the Dok... No!
Twenty feet back from where he was standing a moment earlier, the Bavarian Dastard sits up from the snow.
Momentarily dazed, he angrily gets to his feet.
Quickly covering the ground to where I have been blown back by the discharge, the Dirty Deutschman reaches out with his suddenly tentacled limbs.
Augh! These tentacles have got me! I am bound up tight!
“Now, you shall pay for your insolence, you insignificant interloper.”
My arms are pinned. I’m being crushed. I can’t breathe.
“And this, I think, belongs to me.”
Doktor Himmel has the scroll!
“Mwuhuhuhuh”
“Mwuhuhuhuh”
“Mwuh-Ahhhhhh-Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
The Doktor holds his prize, the lead pipe containing the Dread Scroll of Unutterable content, above his head.
“At last, the U’llighi is in my possession! Let the Great Invasion begin!”
He’s screwing the end cap off the pipe. Dang, as soon as that cap came off, all the critters got excited! Golly, there must be hundreds, no, thousands, no, tens of thousands of inter-dimensional horrors claiming this Tibetan Plateau. They have gathered to welcome their wrongful poobah of another plane.
Doktor Himmel is pulling the scroll from its lead shelter. The hordes of horrors have taken up an excited chittering.
The diabolical Doktor displays the thing to his rapt audience.
They cheer him wildly.
He begins to read aloud from the scroll.
The abominable insect speech subsides.
KUHrrrrrrRRRACK
The sky makes a loud and distressing noise.
KUHrrrrrrRRRACK!!!
The sky makes another, even more ominous sound.
The monsters are going berserk with joy!
The Doktor continues his terrible spell.
He holds the scroll aloft...
… and it is speared out of his hand.
The implement of its removal is quivering, where it has plunged into the ground.
The scroll has been punctured by an emerald spike, protruding from an iridescent green ball, affixed to the end of a pink parasol.
Chapter 42 – Timing.
Persephone
“All equipment and personnel, this is it!” I bellow as I charge ahead of my gathered forces.
The horse rears to flee, but with my new-found Gung Fu-trained agility, I merely use this as a propellant, to spin and continue my forward motion.
I top the icy ridge.
It is as I had sensed. Untold thousands of hideous creatures, great and small, fill this vast plain. A glowing sea of phosphorescent abominations writhe before me.
I almost relinquish my pre-battle meal, but manage to control my nausea.
The hordes of creatures are oblivious to me as they are in a terrible state of frenzied excitement.
There! Not too terribly far away are two men. No, it’s one man and he is being held by the other fellow’s tentacles.
KUHrrrrrrRRRACK (The Sky!)
Herr Himmel is holding my Ichabod!
KUHrrrrrrRRRACK!!!
Himmel intones the manifestation!
Seeing my Ichabod draws my hand to his gift for me as it always does when I think of him.
Instinctively I target the foul scroll.
My pink parasotal missile flies from my hand.
Bullseye!
“I say, good show!”
Chapter 43 - A Welcome Sight.
Ichabod.
“Miss...”
“Miss...”
“Miss ... Plumtartt?”
A vision of womanhood, idealized, stands atop the icy ridge.
Indifferent to her harsh surroundings is this figure of legend, a warrior Goddess.
From her boots, (heavily constructed, they follow the form of her strong legs, all the way past her knees) to the top of her head, (incongruously adorned by a familiar gentleman’s hat) she exudes confidence, and control.
Around her waist, she wears a skirt. It’s quite short, in fact, presumably allowing freedom of movement.
Her bodice is a corset of heavy leathers, firmly strapped into position. The contours of her remarkable form are securely supported.
Bucklers adorn her forearms.
A confident cock of her shapely hips lock out to one side.
A mischievous fire blazes in her eyes.
“Fraulein Sour-tartt! So, you made it after all, ja?”
“That’s Plumtartt. Miss Persephone Plumtartt, but you, Herr Doktor, may call me the Bringer of Destruction. Your destruction.”
Chapter 44 - The Battle For Planet Earth.
Persephone
“Ahahahahahahaha!”
Herr Doktor Himmel stands in a writhing sea of inter-dimensional horrors. The size of some of the horrors is staggering. My human size is tiny in comparison.
“Really? Do you think you can stop what cannot be stopped? You? You, and whose army, mein Leibchen?”
“My army, Herr Doktor!”
Suddenly, pair by pair, thousands of green points of light blink into existence, each marking the presence of a set of Mr. Temperance’s ‘Green Beauties’.
Tens of thousands of well-armed soldiers and their frightening equipment clear the ridge, stretching out for a mile in either direction.
Thousands of soldiers come into view, armed in Mr. Temperance’s prototype he designed while in Hawaii. From their shoulders, a harness is suspended. This is secured around the waist, to support a structure in front of the user. A triangulated point is formed. On this steady platform, a Gattling Gun of sorts is mounted, but it has no crank to rotate its many barrels and feed its ammunition appetite. Instead, it operates by means of compressed air, stored in tanks on the backs of the soldiers. With the freedom gained by not having to manually crank the devices, the gunmen enjoy a two-handed grip on their deadly devices. Two
thumbs comfortably rest on a single trigger. A large supply of ammunition is available via two great round magazines, side mounted on the guns. The destructive power is amplified exponentially by ectoplasm, for each barrel is coupled with tubes of emerald fury from Mr. Temperance’s Plasmo-Gasmic Discharging Devices.
These soldiers so equipped are interspersed with personnel armed with individually-powered Voltage Disruptors.
Thousands of soldiers armed with polearms, and every other fighting blade known on Earth, mix in amongst their well-armed brethren; their weaponry cast in Ecto-Plasmic Resin.
The dynamo crews have the electricity supply prepared. The Voltage Disruptors should be engaged.
The incendiary brigades, armed with catapults, flaming spears, javelins, and a nozzled weapon with just a bit of flame at the front, are prepared to ignite a torrent of fiery death.
Mixed in with all units are the funny little monks. They are chanting in low choruses of ominous portent.
Ah, here we are, one by one, the big guns are wheeled in, pulled by their teams of massive elephants. Gigantic Voltage Disruptors have an uncanny, futuristic appearance almost as alien as the disgusting, writhing mass in the frozen meadow below.
“This is our world, Doktor. We shall not relinquish her Sovereignty.”
“We shall conquer this puny world, and have you grovel at our feet!”
“rrrRRRRAAAARRRRR!!!!”
(they cry)
“rrrRRRRAAAARRRRR!!!!”
(we respond)
The obscene creatures fling themselves upon our human armies.
KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! CHITTER! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! SCREETCH! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! HAH-WHOOSH! EEE-AYE-rROARK! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! SCREETCH! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! KUH-rrRACK! BOOM! BUH-WHOOMP-POW! BOOM! SCREETCH!
{A thousands of times over.}
These men and women know that the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
They combat unthinking murderous monsters, bent on the enslavement of our planet, and our entire universe. We are the ones who will deny them this precious world.
By my lights, do we give it to them!
Such a display of raw power! The explosive mêlée is devastating in its concussive brutality.
“Those devils mean to escape! Put the cats on them!”
Scores of gigantic Siberian Tigers chase down and slaughter the fleeing demons.
The men of real genius should be proud of their marvelous inventions, and their noble defense of our home planet. Professor Tesla, and the brave scholars of Graz. Mr. Temperance, … Mr. Temperance!
I look once more to the two individuals on the field below.
Seeing the battle go against him, Doktor Himmel returns to the dreadful scroll.
He utters a few malevolent words.
“Hahahahahahaha”
“He cannot be stopped, now!”
KrrrRRRRRACK-KUH!!!!
The sky....
I am looking through a hole in the sky.
Chapter 45 - Manifestation.
Ichabod.
“He comes!” roars Doktor Himmel. “Grovel, you worms!”
It has gotten darker. Many stars are not showing because there is a big square of blackness in the sky. Somehow, the blackness appears to have depth. I think it is an opening, like a window, but inconceivably immense. There is something up there. I think it is akin to the Kraken, but on an entirely different scale. Something awful is coming into our world, something of mind-boggling enormity.
“Fire on that abomination!” commands Miss Plumtartt.
The Gigantor Voltage Disruptors swing their massive cones upwards to fling their far-flung destructive electrical bolts. They arc ever higher until they are able to aim at the thing in the night sky. The abomination is almost impossible for the human crews to bear to look upon. The Tibetan monks give the soldiers the intestinal fortitude to stay with their difficult task. The major batteries open fire.
Smaller weapon units take up the slack where the big guns have altered their targeting. These seasoned troops prevail, where any other human army would balk.
The Gigantor units emit blasts of unbelievable energies, yet they are but tiny pinpricks against the hideous horror. They will not stop the inter-dimensional Conquerer.
With the big Disruptors’ targeting change, the field of battle’s dynamic changes. Slowly, the creatures of Earth’s destruction begin to gain the upper hand. Huge blasts of green energies strike from the Great Beast above our heads. The monster is destroying our Gigantor units! The tide of battle turns against us.
I see Miss Plumtartt holding a translucent white orb up into the air. It’s the Pearl! Does every man and beast gasp? Somehow, a ripple flows through the scene of battle as each person notices the shining pearl.
This draws the attention of the incomprehensible horror above our heads, making it aware of Miss Plumtartt.
With a powerful green beam of energy, the uninvited guest to our fair dimension rudely assaults the Maiden of Destruction. She is momentarily staggered, but quickly rallies. The Pearl, held high above her head, absorbs the pulsating ray emanating from the horrible thing in the sky. Atta girl! It’s working!
Herr Himmel’s bug-eyed face jerks back and forth between the two combatants.
“Nein! Fraulein!” roars the treacherous German. He thrusts out an especially long tentacle. He grasps her tender ankle!
“Miss Plumtartt!” She falters!
Her concentration is broken! The Talisman fails!
The Doktor smiles, tightening his repulsive grip. The appendage grasping Miss Plumtartt slowly insinuates itself up her leg.
I scramble up, from where Himmel just turned me loose.
I am on that caddish calamari faster than grease through a goose.
It’s clobbering time for me and the German Octo-Dok.
Miss Plumtartt recovers and is able to re-assert her self-control.
The wondrous Pearl, wielded by one who is equally pure, collects the unclean energies that are blasted at our beautiful heroine by the Unknowable Abomination. At last it dawns on me why our enemies have tried so hard to divest Miss Plumtartt of her virtue.
The Talisman glows with a warm light and begins to vibrate.
A pulse of bright red light emanates from the natural wonder and expands across the battlefield. Everything stops. Another, brighter, sphere of light pushes out in an ever expanding bubble until ‘popping at the edge of the valley. As soon as one bubble of light expires, another begins. Faster and faster, scarlet balls pulsate outward in successive waves encompassing the frozen plain. Intermittent vertical halos flash outward in brief, electrical, bladal, orbits of red light. With dazzling speed, they illuminate the high plain until reaching a crimson crescendo!
The ‘Orb’ achieves a critical stage.
“At you!” cries the Goddess of War.
Hhhwww-WHOOOMMPP!
{{{BOOOM!!!}}}
The Talisman gives a grand release. The spherical bubbles of scarlet energy pulsating from the Talisman focus into a beam of relentless waves to pound the invader back through its inter-dimensional portal, and pummel the doorway shut.
The reflection is a smashing success!
Chapter 46 - Together.
Ichabod
Every creature on the field of battle, human and otherwise alike, has been knocked off their feet by the blast of the Talisman’s reflection of the inter-dimensional horrors deadly green beam. The incomprehensible horror retreats. The perilous portal crumbles in upon itself.
However, Herr Himmel is not yet done. “At least I shall have the pleasure of killing you! You little American bug!”
The big German has got me pinned down, strangling me with his hated tentacles.
He gets kneed in the nether regions.
We roll apart. Himmel looks to me, and then Miss Plumtartt. The Doktor grabs his cane and aims it like a rifle at Miss Plumtartt.
I
grab Miss Plumtartt’s parasol and fling it at Himmel.
He gets the point.
- - -
“I believe this belongs to you, Mr. Temperance,” Miss Plumtartt tosses a familiar hat into my lap.
“Yes, Ma’am, I reckon it does, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am.”
Can this be real? I am unsure, until she helps me to my feet.
I hold the blessed contact of her lovely hands.
I take Persephone in a warm embrace.
This is my happily ever after.
Chapter 47 - Ichabod and Persephone.
Persephone
My poor bedraggled Ichabod Temperance! To have him in my arms again is more than I could have dreamed. I suspect a slight teasing will ignite the fires of your soul.
“Mr. Temperance, I believe that you have been terribly rude to me, sir.”
“Oh, no, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am! I wouldn’t never!”
“Oh yes, for as I recall, at our last meeting, you had the temerity to throw me overboard from our ship like a parcel of British rubbish...and then...”
Is that a tiny flicker of a smile on his face?
“And then you made the most amazing statement, but you left abruptly, without giving me a chance to reply. Most intolerably rude, I must say!”
Somewhere in the depths of those hazel eyes, I see merriment, and hope.
“Oh, golly, I’m sorry, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am.”
“May I make my reply now, Mr. Temperance?”
“Oh, yes, Ma'am, Miss Plumtartt, Ma'am!”
His smile is as broad and open as a boy’s, but infinitely more promising.
“Ichabod Temperance, you silly little fellow, I love you in return.”
“Oh, golly gee whillikers, that’s awfully swell, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am.”
“Kiss me, you fool.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Ichabod, I, and this great blue marble tumbling through space have this Tibetan plateau as our axis.
We are on top of the world.
With this kiss and embrace, I know we shall live very happily ever after.
~The reader is asked to look away.~
The End.
AFTERWORD
Thank you, Dear Reader, for having read our story!
A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) Page 22
