h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From the escritoire of Major I. Sworter, The Grange.

Perry. New shopfront old boy? I fear your time in the FunnyFarm has errr...gone to your gracious noddle.

The first instalment. I trust you and Boinky have the popcorn microwaved and that his protruberance doesn't "play up" during the unfolding of this diabolical saga...

In order to refresh my memory, I have recapped on the immediate events preceeding this sorry tale. Skip it if you will...

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"After the previous day's events in the village, and it being such a splendid sunny morning, I decided to take a brisk stroll into Gedditon to discover how the land now lay. I discarded my greatcoat, as it gave me the distinctly uneasy feeling that I had shrunk! The arms were far too large and the tails trailed on the floor. Instead, I settled on my old army combat jacket, tweeds and no undergarments - as - on warmer days, I find "going Commando" allows plenty of fresh air to swish around the old Sworter withers. On arriving in the village, I stopped to light up the morning cheroot when I suddenly felt an eerie prescence behind me.

"Hexquuuss me..."

I span round to be confronted by a dapper little chap in monkey-suit, top hat and cape. His thinly chiselled features framed by a severely trimmed Goatie beard and long eyebrows teazled to points. His small piercing eyes fired into mine. In a slow, heavily accented voice he introduced himself.

"I am Pisti Pisti..."

"Well, I normally am old boy, but not usually quite this early in the morning." I blustered, attempting to lighten the mood with an injection of the old Sworter humour. Ignoring me, he continued, " ...but yoo can call me Pityuka. You haff somezink I vont, giff it to me.". I stared blanky.

"Hmmm...haff you not a parchment?" he growled, beady eyes darting to my coat-pockets.

"No...a bit of a thirst but - look here - what the bally heck is this all about?"

"Vere iss it? My frient, eef you still possess the Tractate Middoth by midnight of Valpurgisnacht you vill be der chosen von - und a goy to boot! And you vill not like zat...nottalot!". With this, his hands darted into my togs, producing my wallet, Bentley keys, braces, tie and wristwatch in a twinkling.

I was apoplectic with rage. "Be off with you, you cad! Before I call the Rozzers!" With that, he doffed his top-hat, pulled out a rabbit and vanished in a puff of smoke.

I was shocked. I was awed. I was....awe-shocked. At that moment, Mrs Qquim-Saugh careened out of the butchers, just as my breeks, sans braces to defy gravity, fell to the floor revealing, in all their glory, the Sworter crown jewels. Let a veil be drawn over the next few hours, suffice it to say that charges were eventually dropped.

But that night, I started having the most distrubing dreams...not my usual Crusty Port and Mature Stilton-fuelled phantasmagoria involving a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Eric, the "Old Faithful" geyser in Yellowstone national Park and Kirsty Wark. No. These distrubing visions emanated from a much darker corner of the Sworter subconscious."

*********************************************

THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH • Part The 1.

"DARKNESS FALLS, EVIL RISES"

Now where was I? Oh yes. I had had my first distrubing encounter with Pisti Pisti the Prestidigitator. From that night I began having the most fitful of sleep and frightful of dreams. This, combined with the onset of the most ghastly of black dog moods, the mysterious disappearance of my treasured 100 year-old Laphroigh Malt along with the trusty Sworter Purdey and Gertrude's bally HRT tablets resulted in the most miserable of months...

The same ghastly visitation that entered my nightime encounters with Morpheus became more vivid but disjointed.

It begins merrily enough in the sunshine, with orotund middle-aged WI ladies in the buff cavorting round May-poles, bejangled Morris dancers, a woman in Scarlet and a three-legged Manx cat in attendance. To the accompaniment of an accordian they sing what sounds like "Whicker, whicker baskets" or somesuch drivel.

Suddenly the scene darkens. Black clouds loom overhead. The corpulent pink ladies transform into hideous masked hags, the Morris Dancers into cowled red-eyed Monks, the Scarlet Lady a Vampyr, the cat into a goat and the happy carousing into a menacing Gregorian chant....

"Peekacart...Ayneecart...Lucateet...Pooteetbakkinzeedeck" the mantra goes on... at which point the dark sky transmogrifies into a black vaulted ceiling, illuminated only by the flickering light of black candles!

A shroud of green mist curls its way from the floor as, in a puff of theatrical flashpowder, Pisti Pisti appears from a trapdoor. The old Sworter grey-stuff now realises that I am lying flat on my back, withers on a cold, raised stone altar, unable to move a muscle...and starkers!

The ominous chant changes pace and form - " Manfred von Möleschwingen... Valpurgis...Agnus Castus Incus Succubus Pee fourty-five...Ducus coppitus sum...Fenellus sacrificius...Baph...o....met....".

The "Monks" move to encircle me, slowly removing their hoods and ...

Even though in slumbers, the old Sworter brain was alive to the fact (and thankful for it) that, each evening since these vile phantasmagoria had begun, Gertrude had had the foresight to fit me with super-absorbent jimmyjam liners.

I glid through the days barely awake. I observed day-to-day events through a glass darkly, but squeejeeing my monocle was to no avail. One's brogues seemed lead-filled, the mere effort of tootling to the garage to warm-up the Bentley was akin to wading through the treacherous quicksands and thick bush of Iryan Jaya.

"Pull yourself together Pumpy!" barked the Memsahib. "If you won't, then I'm calling Ernest to come and give you the once over..."

Old Doc Cosh had been the family quack for as many years as I can remember. A rum old cove, he could out-drink, out-cheroot any man in the shire and yet was still as sprite as a spring lamb on Trill. This day, however, he was laid low by some queer affliction, and Gertrude was informed that a locum would be in attendance.

Sure enough, a few seconds later came the chime of the doorbell, which the Mem answered. I heard low murmurrings and whispers outside my study before an oddly slow, rhythmic knock heralded the entrance of the Doctor. A sallow-faced bald pate peeped round the door. His heavy-lidded, ice-blue eyes framed by Gestapo spectacles almost blinked. The thin gash that passed for lips curled open...

"Hi, I'm Doctor Turda, but you can call me Doc" he twittered.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Ghastly Sworter ! Simply ghastly !!

As I read through your awful account, my purple lips were all a-quiver !

I look forward (with a shudder in my breeks) to the next instalment !

I must say I'm rather taken aback with the mention of Fen by the Satanic cabal. Do you really think she amy be in some trouble or other ? She disappeared while on her way back to St.Tripitaka's, only to reappear this morn on the QQ board, with a mild case of Tourette's Syndrome. Do you know, she called the charming and amiable Magyar Magician "an old whinger" ! I fear she may have been possessed by an malignant sprite ....

As for the shopfront, the Devil makes work for idle hands, as you know only too well. So glad you liked it.

When can we expect the next instalment, old man ? I shan't sleep 'til the whole horrid tale is told.....

Your Chum,

Perry.

Your niece may be in grave danger old man, but more anon.

In the meantime, I am piecing together the shards of mangled memories in order to make sense of this ghastly, grisly affair. They come back through the funk of scattered, atomised grey matter that was the old Sworter consciousness. It's damned rum y'know Perry...being an ex-zombie...

Now where was I? Ah yes :-

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THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH • Part The 2 .

"DA DOCTOR D'EATH"

In hindsight, I should have sniffed out the charlatan straight away. The clues were there that he wasn't the full ten bob's worth. But in my weakened, delirious state the old addled pate didn't know whether it was April or Tuesday.

"I-I-I say old prune..." I burbled, face full of pillow goose-down, " isn't a cove's heart on the left side? And, errrrrr.... far be it from me, a blundering halfwit to tell you your job but...ahhhh....shouldn't you have the other ends of that stethoscoped thingy in your ears? ...Not up the Sworter backside??"

"Yo! Now, now Major...trust me - I'm da Doc..." the bounder slimed, as the flash and whirr of a motorised camera went orf behind me.

"Well, you're just a bit run down, that's all. Da Doc'll give you a tonic that'll pick you up in no time. It's a homeopathic herbal tea. As it happens, I have a few sachets in my bag, so no need to bother the Pharmacy with a prescription, eh?"

So saying, he produced a handful of small black envelopes and handed them to the Mem. "Just add hot water, no need to sieve the leaves. Make sure the Major takes one every night before retiring. I'd let him have one now." Gertrude took them and goosestepped off downstairs as the swine packed his case, bade me farewell and left the room.

After a few minutes, the old Sworter antennae hadn't heard the close of the front door. Mystified, I staggered off the bed and crept into the hallway. Even through my befuddlement I could make out that the door to Boodle's room was ajar, which wasn't quite right, as the dear little fizgig was still at Doothegels Hall...

I decided on a covert recce. On opening the door fully, my peepers were assailed by a sight that took me back to Madame Liklik's Bangkok "Rub & Tug" shop from many moons ago. The Doc was stood there with Boodle's hockey shorts on his head, photos of her school outing to Frinton splayed out on the bed, and my greatcoat in his grubby paws!!

"B-b-b- What... on... earth...!!" I blurted, as the serpentine figure whisked off Boo's shorts and turned to face me. His beady eyes darted to and fro, as shifty as a boghouse rat.

"Da Doc made a silly mistake. Just looking for the way out and stumbled in here. Don't worry I'll tidy up, now back to bed with you Major-baby, there's a good chap..."

Summoning up the last reserves of strength I possessed, I not so much stood, but tottered, my ground. "No....no, I'll show you the way. After you."

He reluctantly put my coat back on the bed and marched out the door. As he did so, I noticed that even though he was as bald as a coot, the blighter had a residual pony tail on his nape, with three, what looked like numbers, tatooed just above it on his boney bonce.

Once satisfied the beggar was well and truly orf the premises, I shambled back to Boo's room to tidy up. As I grasped my coat to check my wallet I noticed the label "Gervaise of Saville Row" on the inside pocket. "Good Grief!" I thought, " what happened to the 'Mr. Buyright' tag? This can't be my coat!!?"

The penny dropped. I must have picked up the wrong mantle after our fuel-filled bash at the Club, Perry old chap!! There's only one cove with the refinement and moolah-credit to be outfitted by old shirt-(and hem)-lifter Gervaise...

After that fearsome bit of Holmesian deduction, the Sworter noddle was quite drained. I retired to my bed, resolved to drive over to Gedditon Hall later that eve and return the Ulster to its rightful owner - your jolly old Ducal self...

Hell's Teeth ! The plot thickens !!

Sworter, when I read your terrrible missive this morning, my devilled kidneys shot from my weak old paws ! Ghastly !

This "Doc" cove sounds like a most egregious ruffian - hockey shorts, what ? Turn 'im off the grounds, old man !

All is now becoming clear

Boinky and I are on the edge of our stools - did I mention that his unfortunate protruberance makes a bally good tool for switching stations on the google box - not to mention browning the toast at the grate, of course ?

More Sworter ! I gots to know the whole truth !

Your Goggle-eyed Chum,

P.

Terrible indeed,old bean. And it gets worse.

I do hope dear old Boinky's protruberance is behaving itself. It does tend to swell and have a mind of its own during the pollen season.

Now, where the bally heck was I? Oh yes...

********************************************

THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH• Part The 3.

"STRANGE BREW"

Alas.

"The best laid plans...", as the bekilted bod, Rabbi Burnstein, was wont to say. And thanks to the quack's evil brew, they ganged mightily aglay.

The Mem brought up the steaming infusion and stood over me, Goebbels-glared, until your humble correspondent had drained every vile, revolting, disgusting drop. I enquired of her whether there was anything written on the bally sachets. Apparently there was nought save a strange pointy star thing with a legend underneath in microscopic lettering that read "Magician's Tea - May contain traces of Nuts and Wolfbane"... or somesuch tommy-rot.

Whatever it was, the filthy sludge wrought its insideous vengeance on the failing Sworter constitution. After a few brief seconds the room began swirling around me as if I had simultaneously ingested eight pints of Old Badger's XXX Piston Dirigible Porter along with a box of full-strength exotic cheroots, all on an empty stomach...

"By Gadfrey Nanny, but you're a corker...any more jelly and blancmange? Bagsy the paps, Mrs. McGillicuddy---" I heard myself twattle, as reality started to go as bendy as a daub by that queer moustachioed Spaniard.

I fell into deep, deep Dalirium. . .

The next few days and nights are lost to me, save for the recurring ghastly apparition of a Teutonic twerp dressed in medieval garb peering down, all hot stinking breath, pumping me with the same infernal question, "Iz eet seff...iz eet seff?" and the eternal nightmare being punctuated by violent colonic spasms. It seems that another side-effect of the hideous filth was as a laxative of immeasurable potency. I was vaguely aware of being piggy-backed to the thunderbox whilst liquid liquorice erupted Vesuvius-like from the poor Sworter cats-eye.

Days rolled into weeks. Were it not for a shaft of light piercing through the shuttered room and my shuttered eyelids, I believe this old shattered frame would not have lasted another toxic day. I became aware that I was being propped up by soft-skinned, slim arms which were trying to force the odious muck between my lips. In a split-second my wits flashed back to me. These were not the swarthy, hirsuite arms of my beloved Memsahib! Mustering my last reserves of stamina, I opened one peeper. My tormentor was the wretched Doc Turda.

"I'll take my medicine..." I burbled "...just leave it on the side."

"Ah...back in the land of the living Major. Very well, but drink it all up. Da Doc'll be back in a minute to check.". With that, the bounder left my room.

As quickly as I could, I fumbled for the beaker and tipped the contents into Gertrude's potted African Violet, situated on the bedside cabinet. Collapsing back on the bed exhausted, I closed my eyes and once again slank into the black netherworld of Morpheus...

The ruse must have worked, as when I came to, I was aware that the old Sworter senses were sharper - not quite as befuddled as before. I looked at the table, the beaker had gone. And so had the plant. The pot was still there, but all that remained was a couple of charred stalks. "Rum" I thought. I struggled out of my cot and togged up as quickly and quietly as I could in my weakened state, donned your greatcoat and opened the bedroom door.

Everything was dark and, save the irritating tick-tock of the Brig's Granfather clock, as quiet as the grave. Clutching the bannister for equilibrium, I made my way down the stairs and recced the rooms. No sign of the dastardly quack nor the Mem. I began to fear for the old gel's safety. I picked up the telephone, endeavouring to enlist your help, old chap. But to no avail. The bally thing was as dead as a dodo!

And so it was back to 'Plan A' from all those weeks ago...

I crept out into the moonlit night, shambled over to the garage and into the trusty Bentley. Away, away...finally, to Gedditon Hall and Sanctuary.

Or so I thought...

Snoozed orf, old boy?

Don't blame you. This ghastly chronicle is more soporific than a cup of Boinky's "Special" Cocoa...

Nevertheless, you asked for it...

********************************************************
THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH • Part The 4.
"EVIL LURKS WITHIN"

Now, apart from a passing facial resemblance, I'm no Stirling Moss. But that fateful night, down the moonlit, winding country roads and glades of Nether Gedditon, Lower Eastpolstead but a blur, even the Regenmeister wiles of the Schumacher cove would not have got him within a Knickerbrook's sniff of boy-racer Sworter's exhaust. Pit-stopping only once in the Wizzle Copse, due to the dire laxative effect of the evil Doc's tincture, I was the winged chariot from hell!

I pulled up just short of the Hall, killed the headlights and stepped out onto the grounds, immediately going arse over tit into a cowpat. I'd tripped over a bally molehill...

Summoning the last shreds of nerve and dignity, undaunted, I continued.

An imposing black, gargoyle-encrusted silhouette picked out in sharp relief against the starlit sky and twinkling Uranus, your dilapidated seat was a daunting prospect. I tippytoed to the front entrance. The door was ajar....

The hallway was dark, dank, musty, creaky and cobweb-strewn. Nothing unusual there, except...as I reached the main staircase I heard muffled voices coming from your Librabry and low, moaned incantations - their source seemingly emanating from under my feet! Gad! How I wished I had packed my trusty Service Smith & Wesson, its reassuring cold muzzle had seen me safely through many a queer moment in the Kasbahs and backstreets of Tangiers and Istanbul...

Unsure of your whereabouts and far from happy as to how the land lay, I edged along to the Library portal and peered through the crack. There, in the harsh glare of a bare light-bulb, were several quite agitated figures pacing about, seemingly having a bit of a "ding-dong". The old Sworter orbs damn near popped out of their sockets as I recognised several of the protagonists! To one side was the dapper little prestidigitator, idly toying with his wand. Towards the back of the room were a tall, Vampyric woman dressed in scarlet together with a short dumpy old trout - reminiscent of that loathsome Widdicombe woman - attired in tight, shiney black latex, her whole appearance that of a humungus beetle. They made strange choreographed movements in unison, not unlike berserker 'Cheeky Girls'. Completing the diabolic tableau, 'centre stage', were an officious looking cove (whom I recognised as that Customs & Excise revenue bod you had the brouhaha with a couple of years back, Perry), a white-coated chap whom they adressed, I think, as "Dr. Floyd" and the egregious 'Doc' Turda.

I craned forward to get a better sonar reading on the gist of their heated conversation, picking up only the odd word here and there.. "Manfred....Walpurgis...Resurrection...ancestral blood line...must be...succubus", and your name was mentioned in conjuction with a bally tractor or somesuch. As I crouched onto my hauches to get the full griff, the foul Magician's elixir worked its Moulinex blender action on the Sworter tripes. I could not restrain a violent burst of wind. Alas, it was deadly, but not silent. The rasp echoed around the panelled hallway of the Hall. Their conversation halted abruptly - eyes homing in on the door behind which your humble chronicler was secreted. I backed away with nowhere to hide as they scrambled towards me. I was about to be grabbed by the fiendish minions of Baphomet!!!

From nowhere, a hand came over my mouth and I was brusquely jolted backwards, through the oak panelling and into the safety of what later turned out to be a secret passage. Unable to give an utterance in the vice-like grip, I listened to the muffled burbling of the Satanists - "It must have been the wind...blah-blah..." After a few anxious moments, the voices disappeared back in the direction of the Library.

"Shhhhhhh! Not a word. I am a friend." the voice behind me whispered...

My assailant relaxed his grip and I turned around slowly to be faced with what, in the murk, was a cowled figure with only the vague outline of a mouth visible. "You, the Duke and all who are dear to you are in mortal peril!"

"Wha...whaa...who are you?" I stammered.

"For now Major, you may call me... 'Deep Goat' "...

TO BE CONTINUED...

§

Sworter, my dear old thing, I must apologise for not keeping in touch these last few days. I have been struggling with the accursed Exciseman.

I am agog, Sworter ! To think that those foul beasts had been gadding about upon the Ducal rug ! Whoever can the cowled figure be ?

You know it is strange that you should make mention of a goat. Whilst I was lodged at Boinky's, he had cause to wake me more than once, his unfortunate protuberance oft wedging itself in my ribs. On more than one occasion I heard him mutter and gibber to himself, and on my last night, I hurriedly jotted down his garblings -

"My brain ! My brain ! God, Perry - it's tugging - from beyond - knocking - clawing - even now - the pit of the Shaggoths - Iä Shub-Niggurath ! The Goat with a Thousand Young ! Cthulhu fhtagn ...."

Dashed if I can make head or tail of it, old boy !

Still no word of Fen, either. I must confess I'm getting a little concerned......

What happens next - what happens next !!

P.

CTHULHU!!??!! Aaaaaarrgghhh! ...not dead, but dreaming....

Even after the diabolical events that have assailed me this last month and my resultant, more sanguine 'take' on the whole mumbo-jumbo-hocus-pocus-heeby-jeeby business... I don't like the sound of Boinky's utterances...not one little bit.

He's been got at.

You would be well advised to give the poor chap and his lethal, potentially purgatorial protruberance a wide berth! At least, until the 'Black Feast of Möleschwingen-ArschNacht' is passed. I would hate to lose my dear ducal chum to a fiendish display of the 'Ali Boinko" black arts when sweet victory is so close! Fear not - Fenella, too, is relatively safe until that infernal date. But more anon...

Now wh- ah yes... 'Deep Goat'...


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THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH• Part The 5.
"THE PLOT SICKENS"

******** The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are and the Old Ones shall be. From the dark stars They came ere man was born, unseen and loathsome They descended to primal earth *********



"We haven't much time. Now, where is it?", the enigmatic 'Deep Goat' chappie went on.

I blinked.

"You have got it with you?"

"Errrrr...arrrrrrr..." the old grey stuff whirred, but nothing came out.

"The Tractate Middoth! The parchment of the Baphomet Invocation...??! You must have it?". The cowled cove's frustration was tangible.

"I'm sorry, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Do you mind explaining, old chap?"

With a deep sigh, he pushed me down to the floor and crouched to join me there. Still whispering, his words began to careen round the old Sworter bonce...scarcely credible but with the ring of awful truth. In a voice that was strangely familiar to me he began...

"This is all hush-hush, Major, and it goes right to the very top.". His index finger pointed skywards. "I've been embedded, watching this bunch of dangerous saddos for the last year. This crowd aren't your run-of-the-mill harmless Wicca, Rosey Cross, Masonic leg-shaking, Mystic Meg, spoon-bending head-the-balls... no, this is heavy-duty, heavy-jelly LIFE and DEATH-"

"Ulp! Do excuse me old bean..." another involuntary emmission from the shell-shocked Sworter backside punctuated his exposition.

"They were after your pal, the Duke. Somehow they've cocked it up and you're the scapegoat now. Without the Duke, they need a fill-in for a year until next Beltane. They had everything in place, including photos, mannequins and hair of everyone they might need for their sicko rites. They even staged a diversion to nick the hair trimmings from your local village Figaro. So you've been readied for it. Prepared for sacrifice."

"WHAAAAAAA...??!" he clamped my mouth before I could get the expletives out.

My mind ran in rivulets...Good grief! I'd been like a turkey : plucked, basted and stuffed for Christmas...only in my case the stuffing wasn't sage and onion. I had been farceéd with the obnoxious Magician's Tea concoction! My parson's nose twitched, I was well plucked!

My cowled companion continued... "After the mysterious disappearance of that old perve, Archbishop Rumbelow last Walpurgisnacht, I thought your wife and her WI Lodge may have been involved in it, but it transpires she was only running a toyboy swapping service with the rest of the WI and Townswomen's Guild members."

The old Sworter jaw dropped to the floor.

"No, the ringleaders are in there... Arch-Druid members of an ancient East-European and German Cult...and your Dukey mate and his niece are their targets. We need to catch them 'inflagrante delicto' if its going to stand up before the powers-that-be. To do that, you'll have to go through with most of the Ceremony, I'm afraid."

"Parp!" I was past caring after this piece of news.

"Without the Tractate Middoth, they can't go through with it. You must have it, check all your pockets Major - it's an old parchment with symbols on it." I began rummaging around when the penny dropped...

"Good grief," I blurted, " a parchment, you say? Oh lor...."

I had thought nothing of it at the time, being in the most dire of rears, but it all came flashing back to me now. On my car journey to the Hall that night I had been caught short by that damnable tea and dashed into Wizzle Copse to relieve myself. Having no handkerchief or tissues on me, I had found a large piece of paper with some jottings on it in the pocket of your Ulster! I thought it was probably an old gambling chitty or somesuch of little import, so had used it wipe the err... well bears in woods do it, don't they? You take my meaning, Perry old chap.

I regaled this sorry incident to 'Deep Goat'.

"S**T!!" he exploded.

"Precisely." I replied.

Without another word he rose, plucked me orf the ground with one deft movement and bundled me down a tight stone spiral staircase that seemed to appear by magic from the back of the secret passage. Round and round, down and down we went, the chilling incantations and chants becoming louder - I was now deep within the bowels of your seat, and bally uncomfortable it was too! We reached the foot of the steps where my gaze was met by a sturdy but rough mediaeval door. To my horror, my mysterious companion reached over to the iron handle and turned it until the door creaked open.

The scene that met me was straight out of my delirium all those weeks ago...the altar, the black vaulted ceiling, the acrid stench of incense, the chants, the black candles flickering - illuminating in ghastly relief the six hooded and dark-robed figures advancing upon a quaking Ian Xavier Sworter...only this time...

...it was REAL!!!

†§§†

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Have a jolly weekend, Perry ol' chum!

Yours, in verbosity, etc

Ian.

Hell's Teeth, Sworter ! I've gone through four sets of breeks this morning, reading your fearful missive !

You have confirmed my own suspicions regarding old Boinky. You know, one night as we lay snoozing, I could have sworn that I saw his unfortunate protruburance moving around under his nightshirt, and fancied I heard a low muttering coming from it's direction. At the time, I put this down to the three trenchers of Doolittles, tripe and onions, and half dozen pickled eggs which I had consumed some time earlier ... now however, I'm not so sure ....

Bally bad luck using up the old parchment in that fashion. Whatever shall happen next ? I've been racking my walnut, trying to place this cowled cove, but to no avail. Shall all become clear ?


Yours in a Nappy,

P.

I do hope so Perry, old fruit. Stick with the Huggies, never let the old Mater down in the bundle-dropping dept.

Apologies for absence - been AWOL earning a crust with Corky's new wheeze for quick mazoohmah in the Transvaal. Randy buggar's swizzed me. Never trusted those squiffy eyes and chewed fingernails of his...

Now. Where was I...?

Ahhh there you are Sworter..... fratting with the Sood Efrikens eh ? Nasty chaps .... lots of diamonds y'know....

Don't mean to complain old bean, but I haven't had a wink of sleep in a week waiting for you to continue your enthralling account.



Push on man !

P.

Wholeheartedly agree, Perry. I've never met a nice Sud Afrikaaner...bunch of thick-necked boers, the lot of 'em.

But if there's mazoohmah there...

Onwards and downwards...!


***************************************************
THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH• Part The 6.
"H.P. Witchcraft"

"There was a Mad Arab who said
That Cthulhu, though dreaming, is dead,
But some future night
When the stars become right,
He'll abandon his watery bed."



I backed away, hoping to make my escape from whence I had come PDQ - only to discover that the bally door was locked - and the Judas, "Deep Goat", gone!!! I smelled the acrid whiff of fear. To my eternal shame, it emmanated from the Sworter rump...

One of the approaching ghouls came to the fore and removed its cowl. It was the vile Pisti. From his sleeve he produced two doves, several cigarettes, cards and a bunting of assorted garish handkerchieves; whereupon he cursed and threw them to the floor in a fit of Pisti pique. Finally he drew out a small doll-like figurine that bore a grotesque resemblance to your humble chronicler! It had tufts of what appeared to be pubic hair, not unlike my own sparse bonce strands, stuck to it - a crude dickie-bow and miniature monocle completing the Sworter lookee-likee ensemble.

As his fiendish cohorts chanted the damnable "Peekacart...Ayneecart.." mantra, the Magyar of Mumbo-jumbo 'floated' nearer, manic orbs burning into mine. In low monotones he whispered, "Luke into mein eyesss...you are feeling wery schleepy...". My mind began to flake - I noticed the rummest of things - pulsating and luminescent red dots behind the fiend's lugoils - glowing through the lobes! I, too, began to float.

Resolved to put up a last heroic stand I cried, "Awaaayyyy!! Away from me you bounder! Your shabby Mesmerism won't work on Ian Sworter - it's all a battle of wills and the strongest mind---"

From here, events become rather squiffy.

Next thing, I'm aware of being splayed out atop the altar stone ... in the altogether!
I wish to move but am paralysed, I want to shout but cannot utter a word.

One of the "monks" is daubing a crude star-shape on my nethers in some red dye, with my old chap a rather alarming colour of magenta... the chants begin to reach crescendo.."Hail to thee, Knight of Pentacles...Hail to thee, o Knight of the Burning Pestle!" Another smell assails the Sworter nostrils...goaty, unearthly. This time it wasn't me. Smoke...fur...horns...foul, dripping water... ghastly breath...can't move...a crinkly, zigguratted dagger...unspeakable acts...

Mecifully, the Sworter sensibility conks out, fuse blown, before cerebal infarction has time to manifest its deadly grip. All is black, all is silence.

I half-wake to a rum, echoing brouhaha...trying to make sense out of it... "No Tractate Middoth...then we have to get rid of him, he knows too much."

"Do...do they mean me?" I thought, still unable to move a muscle.

"Brethren. I'll see to it that the buffoon is dispatched. " said one of their number from the shadows of the infernal Black Chapel.

"Golly Moses! They do mean me!" My senses did a passa-doblé with the realisation. I was about to be, as my old antipodean chum "Dingo" Durrell would put it, "just another prawn chucked on the Bar-B of Life."!!

They trooped out. Leaving your chum alone, bound, paralysed and starkers, to a sorry fate at the hands of the cowled executioner...


____________________________

Have a nice day, Perry old bean!

Yours, in souciance and Potters Bar,

Pumpy.

ps. "G-G-GOBLINS"!!!???

Just in case that last awful narrative wasn't quite enough to see you through your bedtime Cocoa & Doolittle's "Nightcap", Perry...

...another chapter - this one truly diabolical...

******************************************************
THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH• Part the 7.
"REVELATIONS"

The bony hand of the spectral figure grasped a fiery torch from the wall and approached your helpless narrator. As it stood over me, surveying the detritus of my once inviolable frame, I detected something familiar about 'him'...Gad!...it was the bally Judas "Deep Goat" !! Oh, what fiendish, diabolical fate awaited poor Sworter at the hands of this turncoat swine...?

He quickly undid the manacles restraining my paralysed hands and feet and, still without a word, lifted me up over his shoulder, Fireman's-lift fashion. Being unable to move a muscle, the only view afforded to me was the marble-slabbed flooring as he shuffled along to a dark corner of the Chapel. Heralded by a click and an ominous stone-grating sound, I was being transported through solid-wall! How many secret-passageways did this bally cove know? Again, we were going down, down what , in the flickering torchlight seemed yet another spiral staircase, it seemed forever... until my executioner dipped to enter a low portal, scraping the Sworter lumbar regions on the bally ceiling. It hurt to beggary - yet I could not utter even the slightest squeak of demur. As we moved along the tight, dank, musty passage in the half-light, I could just make out some rum objects scattered on the earthen ground. Echoes of his shuffling feet told my petrified grey-matter that we had entered a slightly larger chamber. He stopped, swung me over his shoulders and despatched me to the floor, propping me up against a cold perpendicular slab.

"Another fine mess, eh, Major? You've had a very close shave."

"Too bally right..." I thought, " the bounders could have at least used foam beforehand." It was as if a starved, razor-toothed beaver had been let loose round m'privates. Not since Gertrude had carved out that bally heart-shape from m'short and curlies with her Ladyshave doodah had I felt so 'delicate'.

"Sorry about this, but it's the only scrap of clothing I could find at such short notice..."

He produced what I now know to be a nightgown once belonging to your dear departed Alice, draping it around my poor exposed bod. ( I will return the said item of attire to you at the first available opportunity, Perry old chap - Sketchley's eventually managed to get most of the stains out).

"They're watching the Hall, so this will have to be your home for a while, until we can get you well - and out."

I watched, mute and lifeless, as he produced a phial, snapped it and poured the contents down my throat. I have to confess that at this point of the proceedings, the bally bully of the black dog had sunk its fangs into the Sworter backside as far as they could caninely go. I was as helpless as a mewling newborn, stuck in some god-forsaken place, having endured the Torquemada of all indignities after weeks of queerness... and to top it all, I now had a bellyfull of what tasted like one of Boo's ghastly alcho-pops a'bubbling in m'fundaments. I felt rather put upon. The next bit of news wasn't exactly guaranteed to put the rosey hue back into the wan Sworter cheeks either...

"You've been poisoned, old lad..."

"Well, stick a feather up my arse and call me Bertram." I thought.

"...a curare based toxin. Also a psychotropic drug used a lot by some tribes in Brazil for paralysing their prey and adopted by the Voodoo cultists in Haiti to induce a trance-like zombie state. This..." he indicated the empty phial, "... is the antidote. It'll take a couple of days to flush through your system, I'm afraid. You'll slowly get your feeling back. I've got to go now to get your cover story sorted, but I'll be back in a few hours. Chin up, Major, it'll all be over by Christmas."

And he was gone.

I was alive, I was alone. At least he'd left me the flickering torch, perched on a wall-bracket. Unable to move my head, I forced my eyeballs to move from side to side, gradually becoming accustomed to the firelight, to recce my immediate environs.

What they then observed provided me with a modicum of comfort in the knowledge that my bowels, too, were paralysed...



*******************************************

Snooze well, old chum!

God's Wounds !!!

You wait for a week, then two come along at once !!!!!



Who IS this cowled cove ? Where did he acquire his knowledge of Gedditon's nether regions ?



More Sworter ! MORE !!

Truly terrible isn't it Perry?

I 'm tapping for all I'm worth on this bally electronic typewriter in the odd moments when Boo and Serge aren't monopolising the thing playing their 'Mattress Reloaded' game gubbins, or the Mem isn't raking in the plastic mazoomah on her new "WI&TWG~ToyBoySwapShop.com" website wheeze. She's just bought another "Server", whatever that may be...I thought it meant we were getting a butler. She's positively rolling in the stuff!!

No sign of a domestic redistribution of wealth at the mo, though, worse luck. I still have to go through the weekly Saturday-night "rigmarole" before getting m'bally pocket-money. (She still hasn't forgotten the Qquim-Saugh "incidents"...)

I will press on with this sorry tale, old chum...to the bitter end.

By the by - this vanishing act of old Boinky's is v. distrubing...

I do hope the Excisemen have relaxed their ghastly grip on your Ducal baubles? The swine give even the dreaded black dog a run for its money in the misery stakes...

We must meet up at the Club sometime soon, old chap...? The bar-staff, particularly Terry, the treasurer "Shifty" Sidebottom, and "Big" Bronwyn, send their regards.

Ian.

Sworter old chap, I'm on tentyhooks !

I'd be delighted to rendezvous at the Club - haven't had one of their "special" cocktails for quite a while. Perhaps that explains why I'm feeling much more myself.....

As regards dear old Boinky, I confess I'm rather concerned. Prior to his sudden buggering off, I made a covert tape-recording of the aforementioned nocturnal mutterings. Can't make head nor tail of the bally thing ! I shall have to take it to the language labs at L.E. Technical College. Poor old Boinky

And still no sign of Fen. I do so hope she's not .. well ... you know ... in the family way again.

TTFN

P.

Hello, old chap.

Apologies for the delay, but I'm having the most frightful time finishing orf the beggar, as I feel the juices draining from me with every syllable. A wee bit like pre-married life, dontcha' know?

Anyway, here's the first extract of the final chapter to keep the ducal whistle wet...

Yours, in the shackles of work, rest and precious little play etc,

Ian.

******************************************************
THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH• Part the 8 (chapterette 1).
"THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE QQ"

I've never been one for this psychic and religious guff. I leave all that Mumbo-jumbo to the mountebank mentalists, fundamentalists, CofE sky-pilots, gay Bishops and their becassocked like. But I do hold one belief...

Many's the time the Sworter beanbox has been struck by a laser-beam drilling its way through the back of one's cranium - leaving a borehole the size of a florin deep within a chap's guilt-cortex. At least, that happens with relentless regularity whenever Gertrude's in the vicinity of the door to one's study, at the exact moment a cove's engrossed perusing artistic pictures on the old electronic Macintosh typewriter. I have even felt her beady glower through the oak-panelled door, as if X-ray vision was a thing of fact and not...ermmm... childhood fantasy. How do they possess this unnerving supranatural ability? But they bally well do! And it was this very cold-sweat inducing feeling that overwhelmed me as I lay there, helpless as a newborn, mewling and puking infant. I was not alone. And I was being scrutinised by....something!!!

I slowly forced my eyeballs up and over towards the direction of the searing beam's source. My gaze was met by not one, but two pairs of beady red eyes - each pair set like encrusted rubies, in - horror of horrors - the orbs of a rictus-grimacing human skull!!

A strangulated noise came from some part of the battered Sworter anatomy, I knew not, nor cared not, from precisely where.

Now, I've always been led to believe that moles were blind as bats. Not these confounded blighters! As they blinked at me, I could swear I heard some ghastly sounds echoing from the hollow skull's brain-pan...not unlike a macabre, high-pitched stereophonic travesty of 'Doddy's Diddymen' letting forth in mock-tattifilarious mirth...and... like that Liverpudlian Loon, it was far from being funny!

As my petrified peepers became accustomed to the light I was able to make out that the skull seemed to be perched atop a full skeleton that was partially covered in a deep purple robe. It was, as I was to later to learn dear Perry, the mortal remains of your illustrious forebear, Old Aquitane!

And then, without any warning, Old Aquitane started to lurch towards me...



****************************************

Sleep well, old chum - more to come...

Extraordinary, old bean !



Extraordinary !!!!

But where did the Cowled Cove go ? Old Acquitaine up and running again ??? Whassattttt ?????



If you're bored, don't bother anymore, Sworter. I myself fight a constant battle 'gainst dryness. Half the time, one doesn't know whether to write, or blow the Ducal scone clean orf.



P.

Bored?! Not in the slightest Perry, old chum.

Simply dry. Dry as a bone. Dry as Dryden. Dry as...

...a Nun's nasty....< shudder >

I feel the need to dive into the cooling surf and frolic 'mongst the rollers of a white sun-kissed beach for a week or two...

...leaving the knobbly Sworter knees brown, the crinkly Sworter cerebellum refreshed and the broad Sworter shoulders tanned - ready, once more, to assume the cares of the world for another year.

Have a sherbert or two with me, my dear old thing...

Yours, in amity and joyous George Best "Revolving-Door" mood,

Ian.

and perhaps, one for the road ...



That's much better. Bally PC is damnable slow today, old bean - I'll drop by this thread later, God Willing !

Pip pip !

P.