Retromancer

  Which was true, but the patrons shrugged it off.

  ‘And then this travelling mendicant turned up last week. An evil-looking beggar he was. And I told him how trade was coming and going and how it was ever the lot of the poor barlord that he should go without while others prospered.’

  The patrons now did mumblings at this. And some of these mumblings concerned finding a beam to throw a hangman’s rope over.

  ‘Give me a break,’ cried Fangio. ‘I’m only trying to make a living here.’

  ‘Continue with your tale,’ said Hugo Rune.

  The clown now took a step in his direction.

  ‘This travelling mendicant told me that he was a dealer in ghosts. That he travelled the country, removing ghosts from premises where they were unwanted, then relocating them to places where other people wished for their installation. Places such as inns. Where having a ghost draws in the punters. Like I said, okay?’

  ‘And so you purchased a ghost from this mendicant?’ asked Mr Rune.

  ‘We bartered,’ said Fangio. ‘And fair exchange is no robbery.’

  ‘And now you are saddled with Gusset?’

  Hugo Rune eyed Gusset the Clown.

  Gusset the Clown eyed the Magus.

  ‘I was done,’ said Fangio. ‘I asked for a nice grey lady who would waft about in a see-through nightgown. But instead I got an annoying invisible pain-in-the-bottom that troubles my beer and my crisps.’

  ‘Then I must deal with it,’ said Hugo Rune.

  The ghost clown glared him daggers.

  And then something happened. Something so unexpected and so utterly terrible that all those who witnessed it happen now speak of it only in whispers and cross themselves when they do.

  A custard pie materialised in the right hand of the ghostly clown. A custard pie that materialised so all might behold it. And this custard pie was hurled with a horrible force.

  And struck home in the face of Hugo Rune.

  43

  I had never seen such outrage on the face of Hugo Rune.

  What face that could be seen beneath the pie.

  He rose to an improbable height and as the crowd pressed back and collectively ducked, all painfully aware of the atrocity that had just been committed and fearing to be caught in the crossfire from the retribution that must surely follow, he threw his great arms wide then clapped his hands together.

  A bolt of blue fire blazed out from these hands towards the grinning clown. And surely this bolt would have hit its mark, had it not been for the clown’s inhuman reactions.

  The phantom flan-flinger (for such was this pie) stepped nimbly aside. Big shoes and all, but light on his feet, he neatly dodged that bolt.

  Not so, however, the lady in the straw hat, who had been playing the steel pan as we entered the bar. She dissolved, along with her pan, and vanished into the ether.

  ‘Ooooh!’ went the crowd and cowered even lower and some now sought likewise to vanish.

  Hugo Rune spoke secret words and the flung flan vanished away.

  ‘So,’ said he to the nimble clown, ‘a fight is what you want.’

  The ethereal funster cocked his painted head upon one side, reached to his left ear and seemingly removed from it a tiny megaphone. This he put to his smiley mouth and whispered through the small end.

  The words he whispered appeared through the big end of this tiny megaphone. They literally appeared in the air before him, there to be read by all. Except perhaps those who were cowering behind the otherwise invisible clown, for to them the words would have been back to front and therefore somewhat difficult to read. So to speak.

  Or to explain. Clearly.

  I read the words as they duly appeared and these were the words that I read:

  Mr Hugo Rune, Magus, Grand Wazoo of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Sprout, Twelfth Dan Master in the Deadly Art of Dim Mak, reinventor of the ocarina, Best-Dressed Man of Nineteen Thirty-Three, explorer, swords-man, big-game hunter, this year’s winner of the Brentford Inter-Pub Jumping-Out Competition, guru unto gurus, Lord of the Dance and King of the Wild Frontier. I salute you. I apologise and worship you as the God-like being you are.

  ‘How exactly did he do that?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

  ‘The megaphone did it, not he,’ replied the mage, ‘and not as he might have wished it.’

  For the ghost clown was now beating at his megaphone and shaking it all about.

  ‘I felt he must make some verbal amends for the outrage he visited upon my person,’ Mr Rune continued. ‘Verbal for now, physical for the future.’

  The ghost clown now shouted into the megaphone. He was definitely shouting, although his words could not be heard. But only seen, as they appeared in written form.

  I didn’t say those things, you knave, you pompous ape.

  ‘Enough,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Will you depart these premises of your own accord? Or must I be forced to punish you horribly before I hoik you out upon your greasy ear?’

  You sham mountebank. I’ll have your liver and lights.

  ‘The hoiking it is, then. Hand me the Zo Zo gun, Rizla.’

  Hold hard there, came forth the words and hovered in the air. Hold hard there and parley a while.

  ‘What have we to speak of?’ asked the Magus.

  You clearly possess some small skills in the Magickal Artes. Perhaps you might wish to become my acolyte that I might train you further.

  I flinched at this, but Mr Rune remained calm. So cool indeed was he that had he been a fridge, he would surely have been in need of defrosting, because the icebox unit at the top would have got all frozen up with great big lumps and—

  ‘Calm your thoughts, my dear Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘This fellow interests me, slightly. Tell me, Mr Gusset, how did you come to be here?’

  The clown did scratchings at his toupeed topknot, his squirty flower revolved.

  I was deceived, were the words that appeared. Deceived and conveyed to this hovel.

  ‘I’ll have you know I keep a clean and tidy house,’ complained Fangio. Who now appeared to be the only living person present in the bar, besides myself and Mr Rune. ‘And I bartered fairly. Although what exactly that MP3 Player I bartered with actually does, I have no idea.’

  I looked at Mr Rune.

  And he looked back at me.

  ‘Not good,’ I said. ‘A loose end there, I think.’

  And Mr Rune nodded. ‘But another must be tied here first,’ said he. And addressing the clownish bogeyman he asked, ‘Deceived by whom?’

  One of your kind, came words in the air. But he is a greater wizard than you. One who can command such as myself. And such as me fear no man living, but I have fear of him.

  ‘Intriguing,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And would you care, or indeed dare, to speak the name of this mighty wizard?’

  You’ll know it soon enough.

  ‘Then so mote it be.’ And Hugo Rune interlaced his fingers and did knuckle-crackings. ‘And so it is time for us to say farewell. My companion and myself have a free lunch that needs taking. And as for you, there is always something roasting down below.’ And he spoke these final two words with heavy emphasis. Then flung forth his force.

  The clown did duckings and divings too and Fangio lost his dartboard.

  And now the clown flung more than just flans, and beams of mystical energy criss-crossed the saloon bar like searchlights in the Blitz. And many explosions flared around and about and I ducked down for cover.

  Fangio howled and ‘rued the day’ and called for an end to hostilities. But the Magus and the manky clown were fiercely battling it out. I peeped from beneath our specially reserved table, where I had taken to hiding, and watched in awe as this item and that levitated from the pigskin valise and bombarded the unwholesome prankster.

  The unwholesome prankster retaliated with further flans, which hissed and bubbled as they struck walls, as if they were of noxious acid.

  Then suddenly things went white all around and I became confused. Ther
e seemed to be white and whirlingness to every side of me. And then I became aware that this white and whirlingness was the ball of string that I had seen Mr Rune deposit into the heavy pigskin valise. And Mr Rune was now wearing the gardening gloves and the ball of string had extended itself and was wrapped all about the horrible clown, from throat to great big shoes, much in the way that a mummy might be, if wrapped not in linen but string.

  The clown was struggling, but to no avail, and Mr Rune was smiling.

  ‘And so, my fine fellow,’ I heard him say, ‘even the most heinous clown of Satan is no match for a ball of ACME garden twine that has been thrice blessed by Ava, the Goddess of Gardeners.’

  Ava Gardner? I thought, but I did not say a word.

  ‘So it is time for you to take your leave.’ And Mr Rune approached the clown.

  And I now rose to cheer my friend, thinking all was won.

  But Hugo Rune had stepped too close and horrible horrors occurred.

  The clown, though bound from neck to ankle, opened his mouth and out shot a terrible tongue. Like an evil black snake it curled into the bar and swept about Hugo Rune. The Magus was pinned by the atramentous coils that fixed him in a hideous embrace.

  And words now flowed from the vile clown’s ears, words that spelled out ill.

  Your end is nigh, thou bumbling oaf. I crush your bloated body—

  Then I heard the sounds of crackling bones as the black coils crushed my friend. It was surely the end and a horrible end and I felt sick to my soul.

  So I leaped onto the table, threw wide my arms and shouted words of power. Words that I knew not the meaning of, but shouted all the same.

  And there was a dreadful rushing roaring sound, as of a steam train bursting from a tunnel. A flash and a bang and a wallop and a whoosh and the bad clown vanished away.

  Mr Rune lay prone upon the floor and I hastened to him to help. He raised himself upon his elbows and stared me full in the face.

  ‘How?’ he asked of me. ‘How, Rizla, did you know those words? I sought to speak those very words myself, but the creature had me in its coils. How did you know what to call?’

  I helped the Magus to his feet and dusted down his robes. Picked up his mitre, dusted this and handed it to him.

  ‘In the toilet,’ I said, ‘I met The Hermit again. Diogenes, my guardian angel. He told me that I might find the need for words that I knew not the meaning of. And that when I did I must call them out as they entered my head or all would be lost to me. I just opened my mouth and the words you needed to speak came out of it.’

  ‘You have the makings of a magician, young Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And you have certainly earned yourself a free lunch.’

  44

  But, as I had said to Hugo Rune previously, I had been informed that there was no such thing as a free lunch and this day proved the point.

  We had ordered, certainly, and Fangio, even viewing the ruination of his softly smoking bar, had indeed taken our order, when the saloon bar door opened and in strode Lord Jason Lark-Rising, fighter ace and all-round hero.

  ‘Mr Rune,’ he called to the Magus. ‘I thought I’d find you here.’

  ‘One more lunch for the boy in blue,’ said Mr Hugo Rune.

  ‘Sadly, no time for luncheon,’ said His Lordship. ‘Come with bad tidings, I regret. A break-in at your manse. I called by to say my hellos and found the front door off the hinge. The neighbours told me that they’d seen some workmen chappies earlier removing some complicated piece of futuristic-looking apparatus from there into a lorry. The neighbours said that these workmen chappies were being chivvied along by a tall thin chap with a great black beard. Ring any bells with you?’

  ‘Count Otto Black,’ I said, in a whisper. ‘He has stolen the field generator.’

  ‘And it is all my fault,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I walked right into a trap. The great wizard, whom the clown feared? The mendicant who sold the ghost to Fangio? None other than Count Otto Black - who else could it possibly have been? And I allowed myself to fall into his trap, leaving the manse unattended to perform an exorcism here. He played upon my weak point, Rizla, and that is my vanity.’

  ‘I am very sorry,’ I said. ‘This is all very bad.’

  ‘It was inevitable,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘The word of the day. The word was inevitable. I am THE FOOL.’

  45

  THE MAGICIAN

  I had never seen Himself look quite so down before. On the following morn he hardly touched my breakfast.

  ‘Perk up,’ I said, in that well-meaning yet totally inappropriate manner that some folk use when speaking to manic depressives. ‘We might have lost the battle, but I am sure we will win the war.’

  ‘Are you, young Rizla? Are you?’ The Magus sank lower into his chair and seemed to be shrinking away.

  ‘Count Otto snatched the Chronovision8 but you still beat him and won it back.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’ The Magus now sank lower.

  ‘You can steal my sausage if you want. I will look the other way.’ But even this enticement failed to rouse him.

  ‘I fear, Rizla,’ he said at length, ‘that I have become nothing more than an anachronism. A portly gent in out-of-date tweeds who dabbles in magic and never pays his bills.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘That is hardly fair. Well, some of it is, but, no.’

  ‘There is no room for a magician in this age. It is all machines and technology.’

  ‘You beat that evil clown through magic,’ I said.

  ‘You spoke the words, Rizla, not I.’

  ‘Then I am a sorcerer’s apprentice and I do not feel out of date.’

  ‘You fail to grasp my point, Rizla. To quote my disciple Brian Eno: “Energy fools the magician.” ’9

  ‘Brian who?’ But I did not follow that up.

  ‘Think about it, Rizla. The reason why we are here. Technology, advanced technology. Atomic weapons, robots and computers. It is all to do with technology.’

  ‘Are you saying that the technology is evil?’ I asked.

  ‘Not the technology itself, but those who wield it. Although I wonder at times . . .’

  ‘You do? About what?’

  ‘There is a hand at work behind all the cases that we have dealt with so far. A hand far greater than the unwashed mitt of Count Otto Black. Some huge dark force. I feel it, Rizla, I do.’

  ‘It is Hitler,’ I said. ‘And many believe that he sold his soul to the Devil and that he himself is a black magician. Mr McMurdo said that his power comes from the dark arts. That he worships Wotan.’

  ‘Hitler is a buffoon,’ snarled the Magus. ‘His only gift is for oratory. He is no military strategist - brute force is all he knows. And if he really is a black magician, then I do not consider him to be much of one. Shall we say that I went along with McMurdo’s theories for reasons of my own. There is much more going on here. There is more at work than Herr Hitler. There is some vast inhuman force influencing events that I have yet to identify.’

  ‘And I am sure that you will,’ I said. ‘In fact, I know that you will.’

  Hugo Rune smiled and rose in his chair.

  And somehow was eating my sausage.

  ‘I need you to pick a card,’ he said, when breakfasting was done.

  ‘This will be our very last case here, because soon we must cross the Atlantic.’

  ‘I am having some doubts about that,’ I said, seating myself fireside and taking up the paper. ‘I believe I expressed them to you. I would like once more to reiterate them.’

  ‘Repetition does not enforce a point, Rizla, it merely belabours it. Our time is running out. Within days my other self will return here from Switzerland. I cannot come face to face with my other self—’

  ‘Because it might create a quantum paradox that could trigger the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter and bring about the collapse of the universe?’ I said.

  ‘That and the fact that I owe him money, which he will be eager to collect.’

&
nbsp; I made whistling sounds through my teeth. ‘You even owe money to yourself,’ I said. ‘You are a first-class act.’

  ‘Why, thank you, Rizla.’ And Hugo Rune bowed. ‘But also I know the date when the atomic blast will devastate New York and trigger a chain reaction that will decimate the entire United States of America. And thus, allowing for our travelling time, we will need to make haste.’

  ‘Are you absolutely certain that repetition does not enforce a point?’ I asked. ‘Only—’

  ‘Cease, young Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘and pick a card, if you will.’

  I chose a card that I felt appropriate, but in hindsight it was perhaps not the best choice.

  The card I chose was THE MAGICIAN.

  It did not make Hugo Rune smile.

  As the local newspaper failed to yield anything remotely resembling Cosmic Conundrum material, we donned our linen suits and panama hats and took ourselves off for a stroll.

  This stroll led at length to The Purple Princess, which I found less than surprising.

  We entered the bar, placed our stylishly cased gas masks upon the bar counter and beheld the barlord, Fangio.

  ‘Now what in the name of all the unholies do you think you look like?’ I asked.

  And Fangio did a little twirl. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Will I do?’

  The barlord’s face was made up in that style that is forever known and loved as ‘Pantomime Dame’. And the costume that he wore was greatly in keeping with this look.

  A blond wig covered his manly skull and a flowery frock his less than comely frame. I leaned over the bar counter, wondering if, perhaps, I might catch sight of a pair of Ruby slippers. But then could not quite remember which year The Wizard of Oz had actually come out.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Christmas has come unexpectedly early and you are playing an ugly sister, possibly in an all-gay panto called Cinderfella.’

  ‘Guess again,’ said Fangio.

  ‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘We will take two pints of Stone Informal and not in cocktail glasses.’