Maxwell heard a distant sound. A low growl? Or a groan? Maxwell continued up the stairs. He approached the doorway of the wonderful circular room. Another low growl. Maxwell stopped, breath caught in his throat. Another sound.
Maxwell entered the circular room.
The crystal-topped table was laid out for a feast: bowls of brightly coloured sweets, decanters of wine, platters of biscuits and cakes. Another sound.
Maxwell passed by the table and stared down.
And then he began to smile.
MacGuffin lay on the floor. He was twisted into an unnatural posture: his knees drawn up to his chest, his fingers bent back upon themselves. His big head was on one side. Yellow slime dripped from his mouth.
‘MacGuffin,’ said Maxwell, ‘whatever has happened to you?’
The beady black eyes were glazed, but they flickered towards Maxwell and fixed him with a stare of unutterable loathing.
Maxwell pulled over MacGuffin’s big red throne-like chair and sat down upon it. ‘You are clearly quite poorly,’ said Maxwell. ‘In fact, you are about to die.’
MacGuffin tried to speak, but no words came to him. ‘You have lost your voice,’ said Maxwell, ‘and the movements of your hands, no more to utter curses or fling magic. How has this come about?’
Maxwell rose to his feet and stood over the dying magician. ‘It has come about’, said he, in a vicious tone, ‘because I have poisoned you. Three times over, this single day. How did I do this, I feel you might ask. Well, I shall tell you. I acquired Count Waldeck’s medicine cabinet. A great man for poison, was the count. He once had someone poison me. You never forget a thing like that. It’s the kind of thing you’d wish upon your worst enemy. And you are my worst enemy, MacGuffin.’
A spasm of pain shook the magician. His black eyes rolled up into his head.
‘Oh, don’t die quite yet,’ Maxwell told him. ‘You’ll miss how I did it. And I shall so enjoy telling you.
‘Firstly, I poisoned your blood, with a ring coated in venom. The geegaw ring that scratched your precious skin. Secondly, you poisoned yourself, by licking the gum on the brown envelope I enclosed with the bogus message. And thirdly,’ Maxwell kicked the prone figure, ‘the elixir I sent you to apply to Ewavett. I’ll bet you enjoyed applying it, you filthy creature. It could not harm her metal body, of course, but it soaked into your rotten flesh.’
The black eyes rolled down and crossed, more evil slime leaked from the flaccid mouth.
‘So I have killed you,’ Maxwell said. ‘You die for all those you have sent to their deaths, all those you have enslaved. You die because you are not fit to live.’
A rattling sound issued from MacGuffin’s throat, he jerked his head from side to side. Maxwell walked calmly to the table and looked over the colourful fare. ‘A succulent feast,’ said he, picking up a sweetmeat and putting it to his mouth.
The black eyes fixed him with a baleful stare.
Maxwell dropped the sweetmeat to the floor and hastily wiped his fingers. ‘Touché,’ he said. ‘A poisoned feast for the victor, I should have expected no less.’
The black eyes closed. MacGuffin lay still.
Maxwell sank into the big red throne-like chair.
It was done. He had taken his revenge. MacGuffin was dead.
Maxwell began to shake and then he was violently sick.
28
Maxwell wiped a sleeve across his mouth. It was not altogether done. There was the matter of his soul. A very grave matter indeed.
Maxwell climbed to his feet. ‘Come, cabinet,’ he shouted.
No cabinet came. Well, it was worth a try.
Maxwell glanced across the room to the door which MacGuffin had stared so hard at when last they met. In there, perhaps?
Maxwell crossed the room and pushed open the door. A bedroom lay beyond. A marvellous bedroom. The kind of bedroom Maxwell had always fancied: big round bed, with a white lamb-skin cover; deep pile carpet; mirrored ceiling; full range of marital aids on the dressing-table. Maxwell cast the eye of interest over these. Then his eye of interest returned to the bed. On this, side by side, sat Aodhamm and Ewavett.
Still without any clothes on.
Maxwell viewed the beautiful couple. The bronze man, with his peerless physique. The perfect golden woman.
Maxwell cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.
Aodhamm looked up at him, stared a blank stare.
‘You are free,’ said Maxwell. ‘MacGuffin is dead. I, Max Carrion, have killed him. You are liberated. You may go your way.’
Aodhamm’s stare remained blank. His bronze lips moved. ‘MacGuffin has defiled Ewavett,’ he said.
‘Er, yes.’ Maxwell scratched at his chin. ‘That was my fault, I’m afraid. But the way I see it, one small defilement is better than a lifetime of enslavement.’
‘It’s not the defilement,’ said Aodhamm. ‘It’s the fact that she enjoyed it.’
‘I did,’ said Ewavett, grinning hugely.
‘Good grief,’ said Maxwell, gaping hugely.
‘Aodhamm’s no good at it,’ said Ewavett. ‘He makes clanking noises when he comes and he can’t keep it up for more than an hour.’
‘I think I must be going now,’ said Maxwell.
‘You look like a bit of all right,’ said Ewavett. ‘How about splitting the bamboo with me for a couple of hours?’
‘You trollop,’ said Aodhamm.
‘You wimp,’ said Ewavett.
‘Goodbye,’ said Maxwell, closing the door.
‘Come, cabinet,’ he called. Well, it was always worth a second try. No cabinet came (clanking or not).
Maxwell sought another door. One other remained in the room. Maxwell stalked over and threw it wide. Beyond lay the cabinet of souls, hovering in the air. Maxwell pulled it into the high-domed room. It moved without weight. Maxwell swung it around. ‘Open up,’ he told it.
The cabinet did not open.
Maxwell applied himself to the lid. ‘Carefully does it,’ he said. The lid shifted a mite, then dropped back. Maxwell dug in his fingers. As he pulled up the lid, the cabinet rose with it. Tricky.
Maxwell climbed onto the floating cabinet and pushed it down to the floor. There’d be a knack to this. If only he knew some magic word.
Some magic word.
Maxwell stood up from the cabinet and ran his hands over the lid. Some magic word? Maxwell’s hands froze. Some magic word? The cabinet still floated, kept aloft by the magic of MacGuffin. And when a magician dies, so too does his magic.
Which meant . . .
Maxwell spun around.
MacGuffin’s body shook and shivered. MacGuffin was not dead.
Maxwell sought something to finish the job. The big red throne-like chair, dash out his brains. And dash them out now.
Maxwell struggled to lift the chair. The chair would not be lifted. Something. Anything.
MacGuffin’s body jerked like a puppet on strings. It flapped from the floor, dropped back. Flapped up again. The great arms falling wide, trailing about, bending at strange angles in all the wrong places. The big head lolling this way and that.
Maxwell looked on in horror. Something very bad was about to happen.
Something very bad indeed.
MacGuffin’s body rose, swung erect. But he was not standing. His feet scarcely touched the floor. Some-thing other than MacGuffin was working the mage.
Maxwell backed towards the door, pushing the cabinet of souls.
His MASTERPLAN had ended with PHASE FOUR, it did not run to a PHASE FIVE. Maxwell, however, felt well disposed to run.
‘Stay. Stay.’ The magician’s mouth was moving, but the voice wasn’t his. It was soft, pleading. ‘Stay, Maxwell,’ it said.
‘No chance of that.’ Maxwell had the cabinet almost out of the door.
‘Then I must make you stay.’
MacGuffin’s mouth stretched wide. Revolting sounds came from his throat. Something vivid red sprang out, a twisting tentacle. The thing
thrashed about, another joined it, whirling from the magician’s mouth. His chest heaved, then split. MacGuffin collapsed to the floor.
And something stood over the body. Something that had come from within. It was no human something.
Bright red it was, as red as blood. Two horns upon its head. White pointed teeth and slitted eyes. A tail and wings upon its back.
‘Aw hell!’ said Maxwell, as one would.
‘Quickly now,’ the creature said. ‘As you have slain my host, so now it is that you must carry me within.’
‘No sodding way!’
Maxwell snatched a decanter from the table and flung it at the creature. The thing swept it aside and advanced upon him.
‘I must come into you now. At once.’
‘Who are you? What are you?’ Maxwell tried to push the cabinet out of the door, but somehow he’d managed to wedge it.
‘You have seen the new Adam and the new Eve. Now you behold the new serpent also.’
‘The Devil?’
‘MacGuffin conjured me, but I possessed him. I guided his hands to conjure Ewavett and Aodhamm, so that I might rule over the new Eden. The Garden of Unearthly Delights.’
‘Every blighter wants to rule,’ Maxwell struggled to shift the cabinet. ‘Still, it’s good to get these things out in the open. It helps tie up all the loose ends.’
‘I must enter you now.’
‘I’d rather that you didn’t.’
‘MacGuffin dies. At the moment of his death his power will be yours. But only for a moment. If I am within you I can hold the power. Together we can do many things.’
‘You really must be joking.’ The window above was open. Maxwell wondered if he could leap through it.
‘Now, Maxwell, let me come inside.’
‘Here,’ said Maxwell, ‘have this.’
He swung a fist and smacked the creature in the gob. It was somewhat like hitting a rock.
Maxwell howled and as he howled the room began to rock. It was nothing to do with his howling though. It was all to do with MacGuffin. The magician clawed at his hollowed chest, gave a howl of his own and fell dead.
‘Now!’ The creature flung himself at Maxwell. Maxwell ducked aside. ‘Open, cabinet,’ he shouted. The lid swung open and Maxwell snatched out the glowing sphere that held his soul.’
‘Inside!’ The creature threw itself once more at Maxwell. Clutching his soul to his chest, Maxwell ran around the crystal table, the creature in pursuit.
‘Quickly, quickly,’ it screamed. ‘I cannot survive outside a body. We will lose the magic. Quickly.’
‘Quickly it is then.’ Maxwell turned to face the creature. ‘Horse and Hattock, this whole bloody house!’ he shouted. ‘Then to Hell with MacGuffin’s magic!’
‘No!’
But it was yes.
And chaos was the order of the day.
The house shook and trembled. Slates flew from its roof. The crystal table tipped and smashed. In rooms and halls beneath, showcases shattered and statuary toppled. Rude pictures fell from the walls and broke. And the manse lifted into the air.
As it ripped itself from its foundations, MacGuffin’s magic burst out like water from a fractured main.
It boiled about the village, tearing up the cobblestone and frightening the horses.
Dave, who had been packing his suitcase, was flung from his feet. His trousers shredded and a hydra (many headed) rose out of his underpants and went for him something cruel.
Maxwell clung to the obscene table support as the room now spun around him. He tried desperately to keep a grip on the crystal globe, but he could feel it slipping from his fingers.
The creature was upon him. It clung to his leg and Maxwell tried to kick it away. It leered at him and laughed. ‘You’re all mine now,’ it said.
‘I’m not done yet,’ and Maxwell kicked and kicked. Things smashed and crashed and windows broke and columns fell and magic roared and raved.
Ewavett’s voice could be heard above the maelstrom, coming from the bedroom. ‘Yes, yes,’ she cried. ‘Do it to me, Aodhamm. Do it to me. Yes, yes, yes.’
‘I shall do it to you,’ cried the creature, curling about Maxwell’s leg, a horrible blood-red serpent.
‘Oh my Goddess.’ The crystal globe slipped from his grip and bounced across the room. Pain tore into Maxwell from every direction. The creature rolled itself into a ball and shot towards his mouth.
‘No!’ Maxwell ducked his head, the thing flew past. It circled round in the spinning room and flew at him once more.
And it was now or never.
Maxwell didn’t want to do it, but he knew he had no choice.
Dragging the very last piece of mileage that could possibly be dragged from a single item, he tore the magic pouch from his pocket and held it open in front of his face. The creature swept into it and Maxwell drew the draw string tight.
And then MacGuffin’s magic faltered, coughed and died.
And went to Hell.
The manse hovered a moment in the air.
Maxwell scrambled up and dived towards the crystal globe.
And then the manse plunged down.
It missed its former foundations and fell upon Budgen’s.
Which cushioned its fall. Though not by a lot.
The roof caved in, the dome collapsed, columns buckled, walls bulged and burst. Dust and bricks and rubble, falling timbers, ruination, mangled bits and bods and bodies.
And then just a bit of a hush.
They dug Maxwell’s corpse from the wreckage. There was no way he could have survived. They hauled him into the ruined high street and stood about, making respectful faces and wondering who would be the first to say what a good fellow he’d been and so lay themselves open to standing the cost of the funeral.
Not Dave.
He was going through Maxwell’s pockets.
‘He owed me three gold coins,’ said the lad, who had worked a few things out for himself. ‘Hello, what’s this?’ He prised a crystal globe from Maxwell’s dead fingers and held it towards the light.
A tiny Maxwell stared out at him and waved its hands about.
‘Aaaaagh!’ went Dave, dropping the globe to the ground.
There was a crash, a flash and a sound like rushing wind.
Maxwell’s soul swept from the fractured globe and shot back up his left nostril.
Maxwell’s eyes blinked open. He coughed and groaned and breathed the air. ‘I am alive,’ he said, which was reasonable enough. ‘And I am whole. I have my soul, I can feel it, I can feel it. Praise the Goddess. Praise the Goddess.’
And in the rubble something stirred.
Though nothing nasty.
Something somewhat Goddess-like raised its golden head from brickdust. ‘Oh Aodhamm,’ purred Ewavett, ‘did the earth move for me that time, or what?’
29
They carried Maxwell shoulder-high around the village. Young women threw petals and kisses. Old folk cheered and children danced a jig.
There was laughter, there was joy.
Maxwell was the hero of the day.
And he’d really done it. All on his own with no-one to help him. He had triumphed.
He had scored the winning goal. Max Carrion, Imagineer.
‘I love you all.’ And Maxwell waved and folk waved back and cheered some more.
‘I’m his closest friend, you know,’ Dave confided to a young waving woman who looked like she might settle for second best.
‘Piss off!’ said the woman. For looks can oftimes be deceptive.
Hoorah and cheer and clap. ‘Max-well. Max-well. Max-well.’
Oh happy day.
And folk came running. Men in farmers’ smocks.
‘Stop!’ they shouted. ‘Hold on, stop.’
Maxwell waved and called, ‘Hello, hello.’
But, ‘Stop,’ they shouted. ‘Cease all this at once.’
‘Whatever is the trouble?’ Maxwell asked, and he was not alone in this.
&nbs
p; ‘MacGuffin’s magic is no more,’ cried the farming types.
‘Too right,’ called Maxwell. ‘I have slain MacGuffin. His magic has died with him.’
‘Then we are all doomed,’ the farming types called back.
‘Oh yes and why?’
One farming type held up a withered parsnip. ‘MacGuffin’s magic made the land fertile. Now the crops perish and rot.’
‘You will grow new crops,’ Maxwell called. ‘You are free men now and you may grow whatever you will.’
‘Not round here, mate. Even the grass where your pavilion landed has turned to brown. It’s wasteland here. We are doomed.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Maxwell, as he was dropped from shoulder height. ‘Don’t you understand? You are free now, free from enslavement. No more the chattels of MacGuffin.’
‘Better a chattel with a full belly than a free man free to starve,’ called someone, who favoured a nice turn of phrase.
‘Oh come off it. I have saved you all. Rejoice that the wicked magician is dead.’
‘I quite liked him actually,’ someone said.
‘Me too,’ said someone else. ‘When my cat had the mange he prepared me a magic potion.
‘He cured my warts,’ said someone else again.
‘He bonked my wife,’ said yet another someone. ‘You couldn’t help liking him though.’
‘Too right. Too right.’
‘No,’ cried Maxwell. ‘This is madness. I have saved you all. You are free men. Free men, do you hear?’
‘Maxwell has destroyed us all,’ cried several farming types in unison. ‘Slay the assassin who has wrought this ill upon us.’
‘No,’ said Maxwell. ‘No.’
But it was yes
‘Slay the assassin.’
‘You ungrateful bastards.’
And someone threw a stone.
Maxwell ran, the villagers in hot pursuit.
But Maxwell was well practised in the art of running, and he soon left them some ways behind. He turned and shook his fist, raised his hands to the sky, shook his head and then ran on once more.
This time towards the east.
30
It was hardly a ‘feel good’ ending.
And this was hardly fair.