Rude Awakenings Read online

  Chapter 138

  Epilogue

  1

  Shimmering streams of viscous light flowed lazily through the streets and alleyways of Marasmus, heralding dawn with impeccable style. People stirred, and the city, the oldest and largest on the continent known as Terra Infirma[1], came slowly and reluctantly to life. Dogs began to bark, hawkers began to hawk, and bill posters were beaten to within an inch of their lives, their job title being generally misunderstood by the populous.

  Marasmus had once been a wondrous city, established by the Ancients in dedication to the worship of Wacchus, the God of Mirth, Merriment and Mild Inebriation. Historians, should you have the misfortune to meet one, will, without invitation, tell you that it had once been the hub of a magnificent empire, which stretched for thousands of miles in each direction. The monarchs and governments of many neighbouring countries paid tribute to it, often in the form of slaves, usually young, lithe female slaves, as is so often the way of these things... but the question is, how exactly do these historians know? Were they there? No, of course not, unless wearing tea-stained cardigans with holes at the elbow and sporting a beard in which an orang-utan could nest somehow enables you to travel through time.

  Nevertheless, as glorious and illustrious as its past may have been, the Marasman Empire had not so much fallen into decline as swallow-dived, with pike, easily overcoming a difficulty tariff of six point five in the process. By the year 1212, less than a decade previously, the Empire consisted of the city of Marasmus itself and one very small and purportedly deserted island, a few miles off the coast, which gloried in the name of Gynys Mon.

  At this time, the Emperor, who just happened to be a horse[2], was besieged by political foes on all sides, although Sugarlump I had, in fact, proved to be a very popular ruler with the population at large, especially when he had won the 3.35 at Marasmus Park at very generous odds. Unfortunately the horse's reign (no pun intended) came to a violent and abrupt end when a vast army of trolls, goblins, kobolds, wolves, wraiths, chartered accountants and vicious literary critics had swept down from their strongholds in the north and laid waste to all that was before them.

  The Emperor himself was dispatched to the great glue factory in the sky and the city was sacked[3]. All traces of the imperial regime were destroyed, and the Great Temple of Gaiety, the very core and essence of the Wacchian faith, was razed to the ground. With it were destroyed all forms of entertainment; ladies of the night were placed under curfew, jesters were executed, street players were banished, minstrels were stoned[4] and the worship of Wacchus became a capital crime. Thus the veneration of the god ceased, and so did the belief. And when belief in a deity ceases to be, the deity itself ceases to be - or rather the deity is quietly handed a proverbial celestial carriage clock and discreetly retired...

  2

  Away from Marasmus, in another dimension completely, Zammael was currently pacing the lounge, hands behind his back, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the drone of complaint and quietly considering just exactly how much he hated his job. This was because he was The Keeper of Abaddon, a title much grander than the actual job, which could loosely be described as the warden of the retirement home of the gods.[5] Even plague buriers and leech collectors must derive more job satisfaction, Zammael had often thought. The only things he hated more than his actual job were his charges; and this one, this bloody whingeing sod, he hated the most.

  'But surely this isn't it?' the whingeing sod protested. 'No more worshippers, no more sacrifices, no more miracles, no more lithe young maidens in very short togas lighting torches and suchlike? All eternity, stuck here with this lot - a pantheon of the deaf, dribbling and incontinent?'

  Zammael, who, despite despising his current role, was a career demon through and through. He sighed. 'They were all once very powerful,' he reminded the complainant. Whilst it was true that new arrivals always found Abaddon hard to accept, Wacchus, the ex-god who was currently regaling Zammael with a litany of complaint, could hardly be described as a new arrival; he'd been here for 5 or 6 years or so now. He was, however, a complete pain in the tail.

  'They may have been powerful once but now it's all they can do to wake up long enough to fall asleep again,' the ex-god retorted. 'I'm not like them. I'm still young-'

  'You're over 17000 years old!' Zammael pointed out exasperatedly.

  '-relatively speaking,' Wacchus continued. 'I still have a lot to offer. I'm in my prime!'

  And indeed Wacchus was still a most impressive looking deity. A shock of snowy white hair sat atop a handsome, olive-skinned face and was only enhanced by a magnificently soft, flowing beard. Piercing blue eyes, a noble aquiline nose and a full mouth combined to give the god a wise, judicious appearance. Only the rather vulgar gold medallions which hung upon a thick chain around his muscular neck, and the overly liberal application of oil upon his hair-free body, gave away the fact that maybe he wasn't quite as dignified and intelligent as he looked. And Zammael would never understand why the god chose to go around bare-chested all the time, impressive pectorals notwithstanding.

  'Come on, Zammy, there must be some way out of here. This is like a me-damned prison sentence!'

  Zammael sighed again. They'd been through this time and time again.

  'Wacchus, you know the Lore[6]. Why can't you just accept it? Resurrection of the deity can only be achieved through the resurrection of belief. And don't call me Zammy!'

  'But how can belief be resurrected when no-one's allowed to believe in me!' cried Wacchus, jumping to his feet. 'Those sodding trolls have demolished my temple, and ordered the populace to worship their god, who is, I believe, a bloody mountain!'

  The god sighed theatrically before sitting down again. He shook his head. How had this happened? he asked himself for the thousandth time. He'd been a good God, he was sure. He'd demanded very few sacrifices, he'd been relatively lenient in the amount of offices and services required and he'd only been vengeful and wrathful when he'd been really, really pissed off...

  Zammael interrupted the god's thoughts. 'I'm sorry Wacchus, but the Lore is the Lore!'

  'Bah! You and your bloody Lore!'

  'It isn't my Lore, as you well know,' the warden pointed out.

  'But there must be another way!'

  There was another way, Zammael knew. A small loophole. But to tell anygod would be more than his job was worth. However, with the prospect of Wacchus' moaning and carping potentially haunting the warden throughout all eternity, he was tempted, very tempted indeed. But then he shook his head. No it was his duty. He could not, would not, shirk his duty.

  3

  Somewhere else, somewhere indefinable, someone was listening.

  'Hmm, interesting,' he muttered quietly.

  Theodore De Ville - elegantly dressed as always, being currently attired in a long morning coat, purple silk cravat and matching cummerbund, complete with top hat and ebony cane - reached up to his moustache which existed only to be twirled. As he contemplated the conversation he had just overheard he lowered his hand to stroke his pointed goatee, which could, no doubt, be used as a chisel, should the need ever arise...

  He had what would be called in country folk a ruddy complexion, very ruddy, but it had little to do with an outdoor life. Nor was it due to an unhealthy fondness for drink. There was very definitely a different reason...

  And there was something else; a hint of horns, maybe, and a suggestion of a tail, perhaps, and, on close inspection, his shoes seemed to have a certain 'hoofy' quality about them.

  Furthermore, if you looked at him out of the side of your eyes, you would almost swear that instead of a cane he held what suspiciously looked like a pitchfork. Looking at Theodore was like looking at one of those cards you used to get in cereal boxes, the type that changed when you looked at it from a slightly different angle.

  The word 'melodrama' suggested itself whenever he appeared, and when he did appear you half-expected it to be it to be in a puff of red smoke. He should have been c
alled something like 'Spring-Heel' or 'Ripper' and, indeed, at a different time and different place, he very well may have been.

  When asked - by the inordinately brave or recklessly stupid - what his profession was, he would answer 'Sole Trader'. When asked 'a sole trader of what, exactly?' he would just shrug. Spelling had never been his strong point.

  And in fact trade had been very good recently. The trolls had been, forgive the expression, a godsend. They were extremely lax in the worship of their own gods, thereby breeding a general lack of faith, and subsequently disturbing the belief ecosystem. Theodore smiled. He had always been a predator, but now he was sitting easily at the top of the proverbial food chain, a predator without competition.

  But Wacchus's manoeuvring could well present a very real threat to this comfortable position; should Wacchus somehow manage to get himself reincarnated, who knows where it could end? A revival in belief could mean Gods coming out of the woodwork, and that, quite frankly, was not at all desirable. He'd definitely need to keep an eye on this situation...

  4

  Despite the early hour (or late, of course, should you have approached it from the direction of the night before) the Golden Griffin was still open, providing an invaluable service to those members of the population who were the diametric opposites of the great and the good of the city.

  Deep in the shadows of a quiet corner Anyx Abychson, dwarf about town, was cradling a tankard and contemplating his current straightened circumstances. Due to a fondness for hard liquor and a tendency to say things how they really were, he hadn't had any sort of work for 3 months. Not that it was the lack of actual work that bothered him. Anyx was, he would occasionally admit, inherently lazy, a trait generally considered unusual in a dwarf. Dwarves tended towards the industrious but Anyx would, for the most part, be hard put to be bothered even spelling the word industrious. Work and Anyx just didn't get on and consequently - and not for the first time - he was utterly and totally skint.

  He downed the last of his drink and looked around hopefully to see if there was anyone in the Griffin to whom he didn't owe money and could therefore scrounge a drink from. Unsurprisingly there wasn't. Oh well, he thought, he'd been meaning to cut down for some time now. Besides, he was sure there was half a bottle of paraffin somewhere in his room. It didn't taste too bad if you pinched your nose. The only problem was that it gave him awful wind, which could potentially be very dangerous with any naked lights about, and was why he only ever drunk it during daylight hours.

  He got up, waved a half-hearted farewell to the landlord (who pointedly ignored the gesture), and walked out into the street.

  5

  'Well, that was a bloody waste of time,' Dr. Dosodall complained as he walked towards Marasmus on the Port Tawny Road. His companion, Annabel, who just happened to be the world's greatest medium, decided to ignore him. The doctor glanced across at Annabel and chose to pretend that she hadn't heard him, although he knew that that was quite impossible. 'I said...'

  'I heard what you said,' Annabel replied, 'but you know that I disagree with you.'

  The doctor sighed and pulled his cloak tightly about him. The sun had risen but, despite being late summer, the shimmering pink globe had obviously decided to keep all its warmth for itself and consequently there was still a chill in the air. A heavy coating of dew lay sparkling upon the ground.

  'By all the levels of hell it's cold!' the doctor declared, his breath a delicate mist hanging in the air.

  Annabel, being incredibly thick skinned, didn't notice the cold, and so didn't bother to comment. Instead she considered the previous few days. They had been attending