The Garden of Unearthly Delights (36 page)

Maxwell
also took a deep breath. He climbed down from Black Bess, tied her reins to a
hitching post, pushed open the front gate and marched up MacGuffin’s garden
path.

The
milk bottles were still on the step, but Maxwell supposed that this was
not
because
MacGuffin was asleep. He took another big breath, squared up before the front
door and then knocked a great knock on the knocker.

A
moment passed. And then a moment more.

Maxwell
stood a-trembling. And then he knocked again.

Another
moment passed and then a window flew open above.

MacGuffin
stuck his big red head out. ‘Who dares disturb me from my business?’ he
shouted.

Maxwell
took a step back and rolled up his eyes. The evil one glared down upon him. The
pig’s bladder face with its beady black eyes was contorted with rage. Maxwell
saw that the golden nose-ring was gone. The count’s magic had truly died with
him.

‘Who
the devil’s arse-wipe are you?’ demanded MacGuffin.

Maxwell
stared him eye to evil eye. Hatred roared through Maxwell’s brain. The red
mist, that powerful symptom of his soulless state, blurred his vision.
Maxwell’s mouth was dry, but he steeled his nerves and drew in another breath.
‘Good day to you, sir,’ boomed Maxwell. ‘I am The Honourable Eddie Von
Wurlitzer, Duke of Earl, and I would have a moment of your time.

‘You
would
what?’
roared MacGuffin.

‘A
matter of great urgency. You are the master of this squalid little village, I
presume.’

‘And
much more now besides.’ MacGuffin drew in his head and slammed shut the window.

Maxwell
stepped forward and applied himself once more to the knocker.

The
window flew open again. ‘Away with you!’ bawled MacGuffin. ‘Or I’ll cast a
spell of scorpions at your scrotum.’

Maxwell
held his ground. ‘If it please you,’ he said politely, ‘I am the emissary of
his magnificence, The Sultan of Rameer.’

‘The
Sultan of Rameer?’ MacGuffin cocked his big head on one side. ‘Wait there a
minute. I’m coming down.’

Maxwell
waited, nerves jingle-jangling. The front door opened and MacGuffin stood
there, filling up most of the opening. He stood in huge and horribleness, a
monstrosity made flesh and made from plenty of it. He wore nothing but a red
string vest and a pair of unspeakable red Y-fronts. Maxwell viewed with
revulsion the bulge of a stiffy in MacGuffin’s underpants.

But not
a particularly big one.

MacGuffin
glared at Maxwell.

And
Maxwell stared right back at him.

He was
now once more face to face with the beast who had taken his soul. Maxwell
chewed upon his bottom lip and fought with the terrible compulsion to leap at
the magician and tear out his heart. A compulsion which would surely end with
a word or two of magic and Maxwell’s hideous death.

MacGuffin
struggled into a red satin dressing-gown, garishly adorned with lime green
silhouettes of well-hung men and fat-bottomed girls splitting the old bamboo.
He knotted the sash about his wandering waistline and glared further glares
towards Maxwell. ‘This better be very important,’ he said.

‘Oh it
is,’ grunted Maxwell. ‘It very much is.’

‘Follow
me.’

MacGuffin
led Maxwell through the hall. Its walls were made gay by numerous paintings of
sparsely clad women who displayed an unseemly fondness for their dogs. Maxwell
turned down his eyes from them and chewed once more on his lip.

In
order to conceal his tremblings, Maxwell took to blundering about. Making
flamboyant gestures and bluff swaggering movements,. He bumbled after
MacGuffin, knocking into things and generally making a nuisance of himself.

‘Be
careful.’ MacGuffin raised a big fist. ‘My collection is priceless. If you
damage one single item, I will boil your cods in cockroach oil.’

Maxwell
moved a little more carefully.

MacGuffin
led him through the room of obscene animals, down the hall of obscene statuary,
up the sweeping staircase and into the wonderful circular room, with its
incredible
trompe-l’oeil
ceiling and its crystal-topped table with the
incredibly obscene centre support.

MacGuffin
indicated a knackered old bentwood chair which stood by an open window. ‘Won’t
you sit down?’ he said.

‘I
would prefer to stand.’

‘As you
wish.’ MacGuffin seated himself in his big red throne-like chair and drummed
his fingers on the table top.

Maxwell
glanced about the high-domed room. He could not see the cabinet of souls, but
he could feel its nearness, almost as if it called to him. Of Ewavett and
Aodhamm there was no sign, but Maxwell knew MacGuffin would have them in some
safe and private place.

As for
Rushmear the horse trader. If Maxwell had been a betting man, he would have
wagered all the money he had, that the big man’s corpse now lay in MacGuffin’s
cellar, possibly pickling, prior to the removal of its skin for mounting in the
mage’s under-stairs collection. And if Maxwell had got good odds and had any
money to wager, he’d have really cleaned up on that one.

‘Hurry
now.’ MacGuffin’s big fat fingers went drum drum drum. ‘Tell me what you want.’

‘As I
said, I am the emissary of the Sultan of Rameer.’

‘And
how is the dear Sultan?’ MacGuffin asked. ‘In the best of health, I trust.’

‘On the
contrary. He is quite dead.’

‘Dead?’
MacGuffin feigned a face of abject sorrow. ‘How did this happen? An accident
perhaps.’

‘An
assassination,’ said Maxwell. ‘By a hired killer named Rushmear.’

‘Rushmear?’
MacGuffin shook his great head. ‘I have never heard of such a man.’

‘And
why should you have? Rushmear escaped in one of the Sultan’s many flying ships.
We followed him to this very village.’

‘We?’
MacGuffin asked.

‘Myself
and a legion of one thousand knights who now surround the village.’

MacGuffin
glanced towards the open window.

‘Masters
of camouflage,’ Maxwell told him. ‘Now obviously I have no wish to lay waste to
the village and slaughter all its inhabitants, if this can possibly be avoided.
And I doubt that you’d appreciate a hundred or so hairy-arsed knights rampaging
amongst your collection. So it’s imperative we capture this Rushmear as soon as
possible and disarm the dangerous device he absconded with.’

‘Dangerous
device?’ MacGuffin stroked one of his chins.

‘A
metal woman’, said Maxwell, ‘created by the late Sultan and some clown of a
magician. What was his name now? MacGrubby the Maggot, was it? Or MacMurky the
Masturbator? Something like that.’

MacGuffin
puffed out his cheeks.

‘Anyway,’
Maxwell went on. ‘It is understood that the assassin was in the pay of this MacMuff-diver,
who, when captured, will be put to such extremes of torture that he will yearn
to have his cods boiled for a bit of light relief.’

‘Magicians
are not easily captured,’ said MacGuffin. ‘My knights wear enchanted armour,
impenetrable to magic. They have ways of dealing with any magician.’

‘What a
pity then that they did not save the Sultan from assassination.’

‘They
were having a day off. But no matter. If this MacGuffer now has the metal
woman, they will have no work to do.’

‘How
so?’

Maxwell
laughed. ‘It is a high jest indeed and one you will possibly appreciate.
Apparently the late Sultan swore a terrible vengeance upon this Mac—’

‘Guffin!’
said MacGuffin. ‘It’s MacGuffin.’

‘You
know of him then?’

‘Only
by reputation.’

‘As you
will. So, the late Sultan swore a terrible vengeance on this MacGuffin, over
what I do not know. But he swore that one day he would destroy him. Now
apparently this MacGuffin owns the male counterpart of the metal woman, and
you’ll laugh when you hear this.’

‘Will
I?’ asked MacGuffin.

‘You
will. Apparently the late Sultan, well, this was before he was late, if you
understand me.’

‘Get on
with it!’ MacGuffin roared.

‘Yes,
sorry. Well, the Sultan apparently inserted a quantity of highly volatile
explosive, actually up inside,’ Maxwell made a suitably obscene gesture with a
ring-clustered hand, ‘up inside the metal woman. So that if the metal man tries
to, you know, have a bit of hanky-panky, the friction will ignite the explosive
and—’

‘Stop!’
MacGuffin fell back in his chair. ‘You mean, should the two be physically
reunited then—’

‘Boom!’
Maxwell used both ring-clustered hands to imply a very large boom indeed. ‘You
have to laugh, don’t you?’ he said.

The
look that now covered MacGuffin’s face, gave Maxwell to understand that
laughing was something he definitely did
not
have to do at this
particular moment.

‘By the
by,’ said Maxwell, ‘I really must apologize, but I forgot to ask your name,
sir.’

MacGuffin
was now breathing heavily. His eyes strayed towards a door on the far side of
the chamber. ‘My name?’ he said, in a distracted tone.

‘Your
name. What is your name?’

‘It’s…‘ MacGuffin made a gesture, as if plucking a name from the air. ‘It’s
Carrion,’ he said. ‘Max Carrion.’

‘Not
the
Max Carrion?’

‘The?’
MacGuffin’s eyes had become fixed upon the door.

‘The
legendary hero,’ said Maxwell. ‘Spoken of with awe throughout the four worlds.’

‘What?’
went MacGuffin, his jowls all a quiver.

‘What
an honour to meet you.’ Maxwell reached forwards, grasped MacGuffin’s great
right paw and shook it vigorously.

MacGuffin
dragged his hand away. ‘Ouch,’ he cried, ‘you have pierced my delicate flesh
with your geegaw rings.’

‘My
sincere apologies. So many rings. So generous the Sultan was. I hope his dear
son Colin will be so kind when he is formally crowned.’

‘Get
out of my house!’ cried MacGuffin. ‘I have pressing business that will not
wait.’

‘Would
that I could,’ said Maxwell, sitting himself down upon the knackered bentwood
chair. ‘But it’s more than my job’s worth. I must search for the assassin and
the metal woman with the explosive snatch box. Perhaps I should begin my search
here. What lies beyond that door your eyes seem so drawn to?’

‘Enough!’
MacGuffin raised his hands and made an intricate gesture.

Maxwell
tried to stand. ‘My gown appears stuck to the chair,’ said he, in a voice of
some alarm.

MacGuffin
flung his broad arms wide. ‘Horse and Hattock, Von Wurlitzer’s chair, and carry
him off to the moon.

‘To the
moon?’

With a
mighty whoosh the chair rose up and Maxwell shot out of the window.

27

Maxwell clung on to the
flying chair. ‘So far, so good,’ said he.

So
far, so good?

‘So far,
so good.’

With a
careful hand, Maxwell withdrew from a trouser pocket MacGuffin’s magic pouch.
He gently eased one foot into it and then the other. With no less care he
slipped his shoulders from the voluminous gown that was magically glued to the
chair.

Maxwell
leapt into the pouch. The pouch fell down and the chair continued on its
historic voyage to the moon.

Down
and down went the magic pouch, gathering speed as it did so. Inside Maxwell
giggled away, as the ground rushed up and up. There was going to be a ‘Splat!’
coming soon, but Maxwell seemed unaware of this.

Down
and down.

Rush
ground up.

With
the Doppler whistle of a falling bomb, the magic pouch swept down.

Thirty
feet from the ground, a pocket handkerchief popped out of it. A piece of string
was tied to each of the four corners. The pocket handkerchief became a tiny
parachute. The parachute caught upon the air and the pouch slowed its rate of
descent. Fluttered upon the breeze and settled gently down onto a grassy meadow
a few yards before the cricket pavilion.

Maxwell
stepped out from the magic pouch, dusted himself
off,
returned the pouch
to his pocket and blew his nose on the handkerchief.

‘So
ends PHASE ONE,’ he said. ‘And now begins PHASE TWO.’

Half an hour later, a
golden knight marched into the
village
of
MacGuffin
. The
golden knight carried a large white envelope and, as his visor was down, he
nearly tripped over a young fellow with a swag of yellow hair, who had tumbled
in the street and dropped all his shopping.