And words spilled from the mouth of Count Otto Black. The words of the Great Spell, the Big Magic Spell, the spell that moulded time and space, the spell that had been brought to absolute perfection through computer technology. And the awful words jarred the air, sending terrible vibrations that rattled the teeth of the rich and famous and knocked the lady’s straw hat off.
“Do something!” Will shouted at Rune. “Employ your magic”
“It’s not quite as simple as that.” Rune’s raiment flapped about him now, as an evil wind whipped up from nowhere, blizzarding the sawdust and bringing Rune’s generously proportioned belly into startling relief.
“And die that I gain all!” The other Will drove down the athame.
Rune raised high his hands. The athame halted in midswing.
The other Will struggled to push it home but an unseen force held it back.
“Bravo,” said Will.
But a look of puzzlement was to be seen on the face of Hugo Rune. The other Will fought and struggled. Hideous words issued from the mouth of Count Otto Black. Pinch-faced women cowered and fretted. Tim all but vanished beneath his hair. Automata braced themselves against the growing force. The crowd, who’d had more than enough, took to mass panic and took to the exits, screaming and clawing and climbing one upon another.
And then a blinding golden light beamed down through the great glass dome. The blade of the athame, lit by the golden radiance, pressed closer to the chest of Colonel William Starling.
The words that poured from Count Otto Black’s mouth, poured forth faster and faster: ancient words of power, the formulae of sorcerers and maguses and warlocks, brought to hideous reality.
The minute hand of Big Ben clunked to the hour of twelve.
And the golden light, the golden light.
“They come,” crowed Joseph Merrick, rising from beneath his seat and making a fist in the air with his one good hand. “The strike force of the Martian invasion fleet. Right on schedule. Let’s get a Mexican wave going.”
“What?” went Will, as well he might.
The blade of the athame struck the chest of Colonel William Starling.
“No!” shouted Will, as a maelstrom tore about him.
“Sorry,” came the voice of H.G. Wells, but faintly in the tearing and rending of elements. “I tried to hold the knife back, but he was too strong.”
The blade pressed into the chest of Colonel Starling.
“No!” Will sprang forward, hurled himself at his other self.
“No!” cried Barry. “No, chief, don’t forget David Warner. You mustn’t touch him, you mustn’t.”
“No!” cried Will’s other self, who had also seen Time Cop.
But Will threw himself forward. He knew what it meant for him; it meant certain death. And Will was young and had no wish to die. That it should end like this, so suddenly, after all he had been through, all he had seen and done and experienced, seemed nothing less than absurd. There should have been more, much more: the Lazlo Woodbine final rooftop confrontation, with the villain taking the big fall to oblivion and Will surviving as the hero. And although this wasn’t original, it would have done for Will.
But it wasn’t to be. There would be no eleventh hour reprieve, no twist in the tail, not even a deus ex machina ending, with God stepping in and putting the whole thing right. There would be only this. It would end here and end now, with Will and his other self, the meeting of matter and anti-matter, of Will and Anti-Will.
It is a fact well known to those who know it well, although how they know it well remains unclear, that at the very moment of your death, your entire life flashes right before your eyes: like a movie, like a biopic, the director’s cut. And as Will plunged forward, he viewed it, as from a plush comfy seat in a private screening cinema.
He saw himself as a child and a youth: the thin lad amongst the fat, the freak, the outsider, like Master Scribbens and Mr Merrick and Mr H.G. Wells. Alone, no matter in whose company he was.
And he saw himself in his orange-walled housing unit in the Brentford sky tower of the twenty-third century, breakfasting with his parents. And at the Tate, discovering the wristwatch on The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke. And being attacked by the robots from the past. And travelling into this past, this hidden past with its countless marvels.
And he saw his meeting with Hugo Rune, and the year that he and Rune had spent together wandering over the Victorian world, the sights he had seen in foreign parts and the folk he had met: the Dalai Lama, the Tsar of Russia, the Mandarin and the Pope. And Will knew now why Hugo Rune had taken him upon these travels. Rune had known that Will’s time was short. That he was doomed to die, now, at this very moment. Rune had wished to show Will all he could, allowing him to experience all he could, to taste the finest foods and drink the finest wines and stay at the finest hotels there were, and yes, to have had the finest sex also, with many exotic women, in many exotic parts. Which indeed Will had done, although he hadn’t mentioned it to Tim, because he hadn’t wanted Tim to be jealous.
And Will relived his meeting with Sherlock Holmes and with Barry, the time-travelling Holy Guardian sprout, and Joseph Merrick and Will’s other self. And he remembered how he had returned to the future and told of his adventures to Tim and brought Tim back to this age; and the courtroom siege and the moonship disaster at Crystal Palace, and all that had led him to this moment, this moment when he would die.
All of this as seen by Will and re-experienced: the wonder, the excitement, the laughter and the pleasure. And there was a sense of satisfaction here, of closure.
He had lived a life, which though short, had been filled with adventure, fantastic adventure, with risk and adventure, with all that he had ever really truly wanted, and if it was to end here and end now, then so be it. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad. Perhaps, indeed, this was how it should be, how it was meant to be.
And as Big Ben chimed in the dawn of the twentieth century, Will fell upon his other self. Fell into his other self. Matter, anti-matter, Will and Anti-Will. The two merged into one, became one and the same. Which cannot be, because it buggers time and space and sets the cosmic cats amongst the pigeons.
And there was a mighty flash and a mighty crash bang wallop, and the flying circus of Count Otto Black, that evil magical, grown-in-the-future, organic interdimensional transperambulist of pseudo-cosmic tomfoolery which had mostly been Larry’s idea, because it really did seem to Larry to have been a good idea at the time, erupted with a force that was nothing less than nuclear.
This force blazed upwards into the midnight sky, engulfing the Martian invasion fleet, much to the surprise and disgust of the captains, crews and onboard troops, who’d been really looking forward to invading planet Earth and getting into all the mass-slaughtering, raping and pillaging that generally went along with interplanetary invasion.
And the force blazed upwards and outwards and onwards, bending space and bending time. And as bath water goes down the plughole, either clockwise or anti-clockwise, depending which hemisphere you’re in, the flying circus, the Will and Anti-Will, and the Martian invasion fleet were sucked into a hole in the sky, to vanish, with a pop.
46
“Did you see that?” asked Queen Victoria. “Over there, in the Whitechapel area, above the rooftops? A big bright flash followed by a tiny pop?”
“Probably just fireworks, ma’am.” A courtier bowed his head low. “And if your Majesty would be so inclined as to wave her handkerchief over balcony, the Centennial fireworks display will begin.”
“Indeed.” Her Majesty fluttered her hankie.
“Gawd bless you, ma’am,” said the courtier.
And down upon the palace lawns, a pyrotechnician lit the blue touch paper and the firework display began.
It was a marvellous firework display and it was greatly enjoyed by the crowds that filled the Mall and waved their Union flags before the Palace gates.
“A new century,” said a lady in a straw hat as a ragamuffin ca
lled Winston deftly relieved her of her purse. “Who knows what wonders it will bring.”
“Electrical lighting,” said The Man in the Street, as Winston’s brother, Elvis, deftly relieved him of his clockwork pocket watch. “And something called the internal combustion engine, which I am told will supersede horse-drawn transportation.”
“Electrical lighting?” The lady in the straw hat laughed. “That’s just a music-hall trick. And nothing will ever supersede the horse. You’ll be telling me next that man will be able to fly.” Winston’s other brother, Kylie, deftly relieved the lady of her false teeth.
“Fly?” said The Man in the Street. “I wouldn’t go that far. And I think you’re right about the horses. But it’s my opinion that by the year of nineteen twenty, every street and thoroughfare of this country will be nose to tail with horse-drawn vehicles and London will be thirty-five feet deep in horse manure.”
“Now that makes sense,” said the lady, although she lisped somewhat as she said it, due to the lack of her teeth. “That would be an accurate prediction for the future.”
And fireworks blossomed in the twentieth-century sky.
And Queen Victoria went inside and had a cup of tea.
47
On the first of January, in the year two thousand two hundred, Mrs Starling of number seven Mafeking Avenue, Brentford, gave birth. She gave birth to twin boys and named them William and Timothy. They were not born into the dystopian future of the sky towers and acid rains that our Will had been born to. Nor were they born into the Utopian super future that Will’s other self had grown up in as the Promised One. Nor indeed any twist or permutation of these two.
William and Timothy were born into our future, the future that will be what we make it to be, and a future which, if the past and the present are anything to go by, won’t be all that bad.
It won’t be all that good either, of course.
But it won’t be all that bad.
It will be somewhere in the middle.
It will just be the future.
Our future, which won’t be so bad, will it?
And that, of course, should be that: the end of our tale, and as near to a “happy ever after” as it’s possible to be.
If it wasn’t just for a few loose ends.
Five loose ends, in fact, which probably means that it isn’t the end, but only the beginning of a great deal more.
And then some.
Footnotes
1
One of the most wonderful works of Victorian erotica ever written. Buy a copy.
(<< back)
2
You really should see this painting; it's in the Tate Gallery.
(<< back)
3
Corporate sponsorship of months had been all the rage in 2207, but had since been discontinued, because it was stupid.
(<< back)
4
Pink being the new black this particular year.
(<< back)
5
Unforgivable, I know. I should never have left it in. Sorry.
(<< back)
6
As opposed to the Cartwright known as Hoss. Or even a man called Horse, played by Richard Harris. Who never even owned a horse. (Or Robert Redford who whispered to horses.)
(<< back)
7
On the area that we now all know is your philtrum.
(<< back)
8
Alice Bands: Hands.
(<< back)
9
Rhythm and Blues: Shoes.
(<< back)
10
Patent Pelmet: Helmet.
(<< back)
11
Whistle and flute: Pair of trousers.
(<< back)
12
This was not an old one then; it was a new one.
(<< back)
13
Davy Crockett: Pocket.
(<< back)
14
Bangers and Mash: Cash.
(<< back)
15
Collectors of dog shit that was used in Victorian times for the process of tanning kid gloves. It's true, you can look it up in Mayhew's London. (I did.)
(<< back)
16
It was a very big pile!
(<< back)
17
You can't say Major Tom. It's an infringement on copyright and you have to pay royalties, so stuff that!
(<< back)
18
Equivalent to one and a half mo's. Or three quarters of a tick.
(<< back)
19
It was the white dog poo they collected in those days for the tanning. You just don't see white dog poo about any more, do you?
(<< back)
20
Which is allowable and not a breach of copyright.
(<< back)
21
Not to be confused with a hairy trigger, which is a variety of Siberian mountain horse. Or a willy.
(<< back)
22
Berkshire Hunt: Fool (loosely speaking).
(<< back)
23
Arsenic and Old Lace: Face.
(<< back)
24
Spitting sound.
(<< back)
25
Gawd Bless Her. Take it as read.
(<< back)
26
It must be remembered that in Victorian times such terms as nigger, darkie, savage and coon were considered politically correct. And the word spastic was still a term of endearment, although mostly favoured by gyppos.
(<< back)
27
Except outside the Greater London area.
(<< back)
28
Tim's nose.
(<< back)
29
God bless you, Spike Milligan.
(<< back)
30
Or wherever it is in the movie.
(<< back)
31
Not on the back of the same ostrich, obviously.
(<< back)
32
Unforgiveable, I know. But hey, we are reaching the end of the story now and how many times is an opportunity like that going to come up in a single lifetime?
(<< back)
33
Careful phrasing, there you notice. No copyright infringement.
(<< back)
34
Rune actually was the first person ever to utter this line. And very well uttered, it was.
(<< back)
FB2 document info
Document ID: 9998eaea-4b9c-4f37-ad56-e0677a801637
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 2010-01-22
Created using: doc2fb, FB Editor v2.0 software
Document authors :
Bakoro
Document history:
ABEB Version: 3.0
Created: 2004/1/26 @ 21:53
An mdf Scan & Proofread.
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
The Witches of Chiswick Page 42
