Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  A pause in our conversation was occasioned by the bursting in of the posh saloon bar door and the bursting through the opening of this by a group of the most wretched, hideous, horrible, scabrous, foul and filthy scum of the sea as should ever end their evil days doing a dance for Jack Ketch.

  An overwhelming rankness, the very foetor of the damned, engulfed us in a healthless miasma. I coughed, my father coughed, Mr Rune and Fangio coughed, but Fangio’s monkey just grinned and chattered.

  If they smelled bad, and they did, these malodorous blackguards, the looks of them were sufficient to strike fear into the bravest of hearts.

  It was clear that any brief flirtations any of them ever had with hygiene had not led to a lasting relationship. They were filthy. They were bedraggled. Unkempt, unrinsed, soiled and begrimed. They were turbid, they were dreggy. Matted, caked and nauseatingly slimed.

  And though I did have a thing about pirates, I did not take to this ghastly bunch.

  ‘Who be cap’n here?’ roared one of this putrid crew. One bigger and more repulsive than the rest. He wore a rotting tricorne titfer on his hideous head, a feculent frock coat, once of grey but now of gangrenous green. A pair of squalid seaman’s boots and a threadbare fusty necktie.

  I noticed that this necktie was that of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers. It is strange what catches your eye in moments of extreme terror.

  ‘Who be cap’n here?’ roared this malcontent once more.

  Fangio now pointed at my father. As did his monkey and also Mr Rune.

  My father began now to flap his hands and turn around in small circles. Which explained to me how I must have come by this undignified habit.

  ‘We be takin’ this ship,’ quoth the large ungarnished pirate to my father. ‘What say ye to this?’

  ‘I say such is the law of the sea,’ said my father. ‘If you would be so kind as to put me in a longboat with a few weeks’ supply of food and send me on my way, I’ll be happy to even let you have my cap, if you fancy it.’

  ‘’Tis the cap of a nancy-boy,’ now quoth the pulverulent pirate. ‘But I might take it with your head still inside, if such takes my fancy.’

  ‘Now hold on there,’ I said, as I did not fancy any insalubrious malfeasant parting my daddy’s head from his body. ‘He said you can have the ship - there is no cause to go chopping his head off.’

  ‘And who be you, my girly boy?’ asked the besmutted buccaneer. ‘We’ll find a use for your botty parts as we might for a Portobello harlot.’

  ‘Is he suggesting what I think he is suggesting?’ asked Fangio of Hugo Rune.

  ‘Silence!’ roared the rank and rotten ruffian.

  ‘If I might just crave a moment of your time, O lord of the sea,’ said Hugo Rune, stepping forwards and bowing low before our tainted tormentor. ‘There is much treasure aboard this vessel and I can lead you to its whereabouts.’

  ‘Such you will do indeed,’ went the unwashed one and then took to arr’ing and arr-harr’ing, after the manner of his kind. Although even this did not endear him to me.

  ‘But first,’ continued Hugo Rune, ‘why not slake your thirsts here? There is much fine liquor to be had and it would be our honour to serve you.’

  ‘Arrr!’ and, ‘Arrr-harrr!’ And the putrid pirates cheered at this.

  ‘Take yourself to the rear of the bar counter,’ said Hugo Rune to me, ‘and serve our guests. Hurry now.’

  And he gave me a look.

  And I understood this look.

  And I took to the rear of the counter.

  The mildewed multitude called out for liquor, wine and ale and whisky. Fangio shook cocktails, his monkey pulled the pints and I handed out bags of crisps.

  ‘Do you have any Kryptonite-flavoured crisps?’ asked a septic seaman who knew nothing of continuity.

  I was by now becoming able to deal with the extreme taint foisted onto the goodly air of the posh saloon bar by the scrofulous scoundrels. By the simple expedient of dipping two cocktail umbrellas in Angostura bitters and ramming them up my nostrils. Fangio’s monkey was still looking happy enough.

  Hugo Rune engaged the pirate captain in conversation. Whilst plying him with a mixture of drinks that could surely have brought down a rhino.

  ‘And,’ I heard him say, ‘this floating city could serve you as a luxurious headquarters, whilst in it you scour the seas for further wealth. All that would be needed would be for half a dozen of your men to dive down and free the propellers that drive the ship.’

  And I gathered from the pirate chieftain’s reply to this that the notion of leaving the Sargasso Sea, where his forefathers had become trapped and where he and his father before him had lived since birth, preying upon the contents and crews of unhappy ships that fell victim to the Sargassum weed, found great favour with him.

  ‘And so,’ Mr Rune continued, ‘myself and my companions would be honoured to throw in our lots with you and offer the highly specialised skills, which take years of training, to manage the actual movement of this great ship. You will find us a valuable asset.’

  The scummy ruffian nodded his mouldy tricorne to this and then asked Mr Rune what progress had been made in the world beyond during the last two hundred years and whether the iPod had been invented yet. Which certainly had me baffled. But I did think that we were all starting to get along quite well. And I was joining in with some of the shanty singing. And my father was telling a tale about how he had been aboard a cross-Channel ferry that had gone down with all hands but himself and how he had been washed up on the beach at Hartlepool. Where the locals would have hanged him as a French spy, had he not been able to convince them that he was in fact a monkey. And Fangio had even encouraged several of the pirates to enter the Weeping and Wailing Competition. And Clarence was dancing a jig and rattling a tin cup for money.

  When things suddenly went the shape of a pear in an unexpected fashion.

  The door to the posh saloon bar, which had been burst in by the arriving pirates, and which had been eased back into its frame by my father, whom it appeared to me for the first time had a thing about tidiness and was perhaps just a tad obsessive-compulsive, burst open again, this time to admit the entrance of something more foul and unwholesome than all of the pocky pirates put together.

  ‘Ahoy there to you, bonny lads!’ cried out Count Otto Black.

  There was a moment of silence then. Followed by mighty cheerings. The squalid leader of the bog-rotten bunch did evil toothless grinnings towards Mr Rune. ‘I have enjoyed our conversation,’ said he, ‘whilst you tried to inveigle me with talk of your knowledge and the value of your fellows. But we need none of you, as we can move this mighty ship by other means. I only spared you my blade because I was ordered to do so by my master here, who predicted who would be found aboard this ship after she struck the Sargasso.’

  Hugo Rune looked towards his arch-enemy. ‘Why, if it isn’t Count Rotto,’ said he. ‘We meet again. And how fitting that it should be amongst your own people. Those who share your fear of the bathroom.’

  ‘Shall I cut him down by a foot or two?’ asked the pongy pirate chief.

  ‘All in good time.’ Count Otto Black grinned. ‘For now I will have words with my fat friend. And then you may cast them all over the side.’

  ‘But we can jolly roger the little one?’ asked the pirate captain.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Count Otto. And he produced from his pocket a Luger pistol and pointed this at Hugo Rune. The pirates resumed their carousing and the count had words to say.

  ‘This, I feel,’ said Count Otto, smiling with evil upon Hugo Rune, ‘will be our last time together. You are fighting out of your weight, my plump fellow, and that says much, does it not?’

  I saw Mr Rune’s knuckles whiten on the hand with which he held his stout stick. But he retained his dignity and regarded his enemy with a look which combined nonchalance and contempt to a winning effect.

  ‘Poor old magician,’ crowed Count Otto Black. ‘Out of his time and
out of his league. The world has changed, Hugo, changed for ever. The old Gods are reborn, but not within the frail bodies of men. Rather within mighty machines. Great engines of power. Do you understand anything of what I speak?’

  ‘I understand all,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I understand that the enemies of Goodness and Peace are possessed of a great computer, which is itself possessed by the spirit of Wotan.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’ And the count clapped his hands together. ‘And Colossus was possessed by the spirit of Arthur, which you sent on its way.’ And the count laughed cruelly. ‘A bit of an error there on your part, I am thinking. An own goal.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Matters will adjust themselves, of this I have no doubt.’

  ‘Indeed they will, but you will not be here to see this occur. You will be deep at the bottom of the sea where you can cause no further annoyance.’

  ‘And as this is to be the case,’ said the Magus, ‘then there would be no harm in you revealing to me your plans for world domination. Such is the way of the supervillain, is it not?’

  ‘Indeed, indeed, indeed,’ said Count Otto Black, thrice more. ‘As you might well be aware, two days from now, at precisely twelve noon, an atomic bomb will fall upon New York. The Americans have been carrying out many experiments with atomic weaponry and they have a number of bombs in various stages of completion currently being transported hither and thus across North America. These will be triggered in a chain reaction by my bomb. America will cease to be, the Allies will capitulate before the nuclear might of the Third Reich and Germany will win the war.’

  ‘And what will that make you?’

  ‘I rather favour a position of power,’ said the count, preening at himself with grubby fingers. ‘Ultimate power! High Priest in the World Temple of Wotan rather suits me. For with the fall of the Allies, an ancient God will once more be restored to his rightful place and the beaten peoples of the world converted to his faith.’

  ‘All well and good,’ said Hugo Rune, in a voice that lacked not for irony. ‘But how do you intend to deliver an atomic bomb to New York unnoticed?’

  ‘It is on its way even now,’ said the count. ‘Germany is all but done for in terms of resources and cannot survive another year of war. A means of transporting the bomb, using what remains in the armament factories of the Reich, has been created. A Zeppelin, Hugo. The biggest ever built, powered by jets. And aboard this craft, along with the bomb itself, the computer possessed by Mankind’s new God. Such will direct the dropping of the bomb, unseen from on high.’

  ‘Such a mighty craft will surely be seen and shot down,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘This plan will never succeed.’

  ‘Oh, I think it will,’ said the count. ‘Because no one will see the Zeppelin approaching New York. Because it will be invisible. Caught within the ionic beam of the Tesla field generator that I removed from your conservatory and which is even now down in the cargo hold. What think you of that?’

  ‘I think we shall see what we shall see,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I thank you for supplying me with this valuable information. I shall of course use it to confound your evil scheme.’

  ‘No no no,’ said Count Otto Black, taking then to the laughter so beloved of supervillains. ‘Now you die, Hugo Rune. Hey, Captain,’ he called to the pestiferous pirate. ‘Weight this big one heavily and cast him over the side.’

  56

  And with that several loathsome swabs laid hands on Hugo Rune. They tore his stout stick from his grip and marched him from our sight.

  I would have pleaded with Count Otto Black if I had thought that there would have been any point in doing so. But I knew better, so I kicked him in the ankle bone instead.

  The count took to comedy hopping about, followed by calls for my death.

  ‘Might we engage in jolly rogering first?’ asked a stinking salt. Which made the count grin as he rubbed at his leg, and that fair put the willies up me.

  So to speak.

  But now another unexpected arrival caught the attention of one and all. Through the burst-beyond-all-repair doorway marched a number of German soldiers. Smartly turned out special troops were these, all shiny helmets with death’s head motifs and lots of buckled leather. It had to be said that they seemed to me more fearsome than any bad pirate.

  One who held rank amongst them stepped forwards, clicked heels and Heil-Hitlered Count Otto. The count did Heilings in reply and asked for a report.

  ‘The field generator has been located in the cargo hold, mein Herr,’ said the high-ranker. ‘It is now being loaded onto the motor torpedo boat, as were your orders.’ And this was followed by more heel-clicks and a little bit more Heil-Hitlering.

  ‘Good,’ said the count. ‘And keep a steady eye upon the torpedo boat’s propeller - I do not want it fouled up with Sargassum. Make ready to leave when fully loaded.’ And yet more heel-clicks followed these words.

  The excrementitious pirates who still remained in the posh saloon bar eyeballed these finely dressed soldiers. And perhaps little ill-oiled and poorly maintained cogs were starting to mesh together within their scruffious heads. They exchanged bitter glances and one, no fouler than the rest, being of leprous aspect and dunghill disposition, was caused to offer up words to the effect that, ‘All don’t seem right hereabouts.’ And also, ‘I smells a rat.’

  Which did give me the opportunity to stick in my three-pennyworth. Because I had to save Hugo Rune somehow and the best way I could think of doing that was to cause a big diversion here, during which I could quietly slip away.

  ‘He means to trick all of you,’ I shouted and I pointed to the count. ‘He was only using you to capture this ship. Now that he has what he wants he will desert you. Or probably have you all killed.’

  ‘Shoot this outspoken turd!’ cried the count and a soldier took aim at my person.

  ‘Belay that,’ called a pirate.

  And I saw my father hurl the bottle that bounced off Count Otto’s head.

  Now there is one thing in particular that pirates and soldiers have in common and that is their love for a good old fight. Sailors particularly love fighting in a dancehall (oh, man, look at those cavemen go). Soldiers prefer a bar, and pirates will basically have-at-you wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.

  There were half a dozen pirates and quite as many soldiers, so it made for even sides and a rather decent fight.

  I ducked down behind the bar counter where I found Fangio, cowering with his monkey. I think my father stepped back from the actual fighting, but then it would have been hard for him to either throw a punch or defend himself as he was so engaged in flapping his hands and turning around in small circles.

  Bottles flew and smashed above my head, showering glass flecks upon Fangio, monkey and me. Great war cries welled from pirate throats, and warrior calls were returned against these by the Führer’s bully boys.

  There was such a lovely row of etched-glass windows that looked out from that posh saloon bar towards a posh deck beyond and, even though I was not a betting man, I would have been prepared to put my money, if I had had any, upon these windows soon getting broken as fighting men crashed through them.

  ‘There goes that lovely row of etched-glass windows,’ wailed Fangio. With no one to hear him and offer a prize but me, and, it had to be faced, the Weeping and Wailing Competition was now unlikely to take place at all. Pirates and solders spilled out onto the posh deck beyond in a violent, horrid maelstrom.

  And there they really got into the violence proper.

  And then came strange and terrible sounds that chilled me to the marrow. I was rising from behind the bar counter, hoping that now would be my opportunity to flee from the bar and somehow save the life of Hugo Rune, when I saw the awful shapes and heard the awful cries. Great monstrous somethings were dropping down from above and wreaking a hideous havoc. In the darkness on deck, when all the light there was came only from this bar, flashes of twinkling scales were to be seen and glimpses of men being snatch
ed up from the deck. And now the men on deck no longer fought each other. Now guns blazed into the sky and cutlasses swung above heads.

  ‘Whatever are those creatures?’ I asked.

  But Fangio cowered below me.

  Flashes of gun barrels, flashes of coloured scales, flashes of violence, flashes of death, all as in a strobe light of horror. I looked on and felt sick.

  And then as suddenly as it had all begun, there was nothing. Silence only, darkness without, my father curled in a tight ball upon one side of the bar, Fangio likewise on the other and me standing there, shaking violently and peeping through my fingers.

  But then a figure appeared beyond the shattered windows and waved to me and smiled, stepped into the bar and retrieved his stout stick.

  For it was Hugo Rune.

  57

  The Magus entered the devastated bar and he was not alone. He was accompanied by warriors, beings of noble aspect with flowing locks of golden hair and romantic fairy-tale armour. They carried spears and antique weaponry and amongst their number was a beautiful young woman in silver trappings, a broadsword in her hand and a smile of triumph on her face.

  ‘Princess Roellen of Purple Fane,’ I said, recognising at once the gorgeous creature whose realm extended from the mountains of Ffafiod to the Sea of Garmillion, encompassing the forests of Caecomphap and Pemanythnod. And to whom I had played a part in returning the Ring of PowerTM, which was also known as Isildur’s BaneTM.

  ‘Fair night to you, Rizla,’ called Princess Roellen. ‘My men and I will take wine, if you will kindly offer it.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I will. I will. And hello, Mr Rune.’

  The Magus picked his way between broken tables and shattered glassware and joined me at the bar.