Twisthorn Bellow Read online

  Twisthorn nodded sagaciously. “I guess it helps that Hapi and myself don’t actually need to eat, and Abortia is only able to ingest one gram of nourishment per day. Means that mealtimes aren’t such a big headache as they might be for our enemies.”

  “Very well put, Twisty,” said Cherlomsky.

  But Abortia wasn’t satisfied by the outcome of the conversation. She killed the heat on the stove and spooned the steaming grey mess into the professor’s bowl with a sneer.

  “A serving spoon would be more efficient. That sneer has gaping holes in it,” Cherlomsky remarked.

  Twisthorn laughed and slapped his thigh.

  The professor grinned . . .

  But Abortia didn’t find the joke funny. She served the meal sourly and fetched a glass for his ether.

  “We still need a professional chef!”

  * * * * *

  Twisthorn started reading up about the history and function of panpipes. He was amazed to learn they were associated with the god Pan, who was a nature deity, exactly the sort of wild god that young lovely naked ladies might be disposed to worship.

  In return Pan might be inclined to offer those ladies his patronage and feel aggrieved if interlopers violently disrupted a ceremony in his honour by slaying his worshippers. He might vow revenge on those blaspheming butchers and follow them home.

  As far-fetched as all this seemed, it was still far less far-fetched than the notion of a clay statue that was also a living stick of dynamite reading an article from an on-line encyclopædia. And that’s precisely what Twisthorn was doing. The logical conclusion was obvious and very unpleasant. How might they oppose a real god?

  Twisthorn resumed reading. He began to feel discomfort. The bowels of his mind rumbled sluggishly.

  Perhaps it was time for a data dump . . .

  The god Pan is the god of shepherds, flocks, mountains, rural places, full moon parties, rustic music.

  His parentage is unclear. Possibly his father was Hermes, messenger of the gods, whose iconic helmet with wings remains in place without a chinstrap, but how? Arcadia was the principal seat of Pan’s worship and it’s a rugged mountainous realm, though Twisthorn probably imagined it as a narrow roofed strip of land containing shops. Pan inspired irrational terror, hence the word PANIC!

  The reed flute is his favourite musical instrument but educated people call it a ‘syrinx’ rather than panpipes. Snobs like that are no less a threat to British interests than foreigners are . . .

  Pan is so in love with Nature that wanton cruelty to any living thing is repulsive to him. He hates the way human beings treat other animals and so is utterly against vivisection.

  Sometimes in the forests of the world he comes across creatures killed by gunshot, cut in half by spring-loaded traps, strangled with wire snares, and then he sheds long tear-drops.

  His main home is a cave on the island of Paxos.

  Twisthorn pulled an atlas off the nearest shelf and consulted a map of Greece to learn where that island was. Locating its position in the Ionian Sea added nothing to his understanding of the god’s possible motivations, but pointless research is relaxing.

  Then he recalled something else that had occurred during the night of the massacre at the witches’ Sabbat. Despite his perfect memory he could be very forgetful at certain times . . .

  Is that a paradox or just an oversight?

  * * * * *

  Twisthorn found a secret room at the end of a little-used passage in one of the campus buildings that served mainly to store junk and rubbish. With a pout he quietly pushed open the concealed door and found the professor kneeling on a pillow under a framed photograph of a young man with sly eyes. Candles burned low in corners and incense sticks filled the air with patchouli, a scent that disgusted the golem’s strangely-tuned nostrils. He stood on the threshold, reluctant to enter because of the naked flames that might cause him to detonate.

  “Are you praying, boss?” he whispered.

  The professor sighed and turned around. “I’m an atheist, as you know. I’m sorry you had to see this.”

  “Shrine of some kind, though,” Twisthorn persisted.

  “A secular shrine to a remarkable man. See this photograph? His name was Mark Anthony Zimara and he improved my fortunes to a vast degree. I owe him everything. So does the Agency. Perhaps even our great Queen is unknowingly in his debt.”

  “Must have been one of the really good guys!”

  “Yes, he must, mustn’t he?”

  Twisthorn blinked. His molars gnashed. “But I heard a rumour that he ran off with your wife, boss.”

  “What did you say?” shrieked Cherlomsky.

  “Just a rumour, boss . . . ”

  “I believe you. But where did it come from?”

  Twisthorn screwed up his face. Compelled by his nature as a golem to answer every question truthfully, he now found himself racked with inner pains, with kieselgur spasms.

  “Don’t know, boss! Maybe I started it?”

  “Not you, Twisty. Never.”

  The professor stood up and blew out the candles. The fact that Zimara had run off with his wife was irrelevant. Clearly there had been a serious breach of security. Either rumours were leaking into the Agency past the gates and through the walls, or they were being spontaneously generated in the grounds themselves. Either way it looked like another foul attempt at sabotage. Who was to blame?

  * * * * *

  Far away, across the sea, in the mysterious east of France, in the dreaded territorial entity of Alsace-Lorraine, where autumn rains soak all exposed cheeses until they turn to traitorous mush, where berets are worn at jaunty angles on heads that contain eyes that have read Proust, a few of them at least, not many if you want to be pedantic, and where the wines are smug beyond belief, a man with an unbearable visage sat on a brass throne in a cave below the city of Strasbourg and laughed himself silly, no mean feat considering how silly he already was.

  He laughed like a professional chuckler!

  Despite rumours to the contrary, the official language of France is not a perverted degradation of English called Frenglish, but a genuine tongue of its own usually known as French. This man mumbled to himself in that vocabulary and his head rotated.

  As the eyes of this paragraph adjusted to the murk of his underground lair, it became apparent that his head was not really a head but a vile type of helmet, a helmet fabricated of cheapish chocolate whose spiral pattern mimicked the helix of Twisthorn Bellow’s horn. At its top was affixed a single massive stale walnut half. This helmet was sinister, strange, sickly head-wear, not very fashionable.

  Clearly it was the Walnut Whip Helmet!

  The figure spoke more clearly now, “As I learn to control this casque, my ability to start rumours of any kind at any distance becomes more and more refined! Soon I’ll be able to permanently tarnish the reputations of my worst enemies. Tee hee!”

  He fell quiet, became thoughtful . . .

  He was the king of a grotto of nullity, also a slave to his own passions, and he knew it. He frowned.

  Many years before, he had chanced on this sealed cavern and broken into it with the aid of an accomplice. The Walnut Whip Helmet rested on the throne and he had stumbled forward to claim it, lifting it high, forcing it down hard on his cranium. The sealed base of the helmet broke and his head went inside the cream filling. But somehow he didn’t suffocate. He turned to address his accomplice.

  “Now I’m wearing it I will never be able to take it off. I have made my choice and there’s no turning back.”

  The accomplice trembled. “I heard that rumour.”

  “I know,” said the man. “I started it.”

  The accomplice was dead now. He had been disposable all along. But he had served his sentence, the sentence above, so he deserved to be free. Casque is an old word for helmet, by the way. The man is a big show-off. His name is République Nutt . . .

  One more thing. Chocolate doesn’t really go with nuts. Well, arguably with Br
azils. Not with walnuts. How could it? A travesty, that’s what that combination is. Rank villainy!

  * * * * *

  The Agency was summoned to the Imperial Ice Museum to deal with an alarming spate of bold thefts that had reduced the famous ice collection by half. Cherlomsky gasped in wonder as he strolled the galleries where ice from every corner of the British Empire had been tastefully displayed on pedestals made of other ice.

  The curator was a veteran of the good old days, an elderly gentleman dressed in a scarlet frock-coat who wore huge mutton-chop whiskers. The smell of his cheeks might have been off-putting had he not dwelled and worked among ice. He coughed.

  “A baffling mystery, sir! I always say that if there have to be mysteries at large in the world why can’t they be prosaic and easy to comprehend? I don’t like what’s been happening.”

  “Mysteries at large,” mused Twisthorn.

  “And what exactly has been happening, Mr Pieofeels?” demanded the professor. “I’m still in the dark.”

  Mr Pieofeels, whose first name was Alf, returned a patriotic groan and a less strongly affiliated shrug.

  “Something in opposition to the Queen, that’s certain, sir! The exhibits keep disappearing. My hunch is that the thefts may be connected with the failure of the cooling system.”

  The professor arched an eyebrow. “What an odd notion!”

  Mr Pieofeels tugged his whiskers. “The cooling system went wrong a month ago. Ever since the temperature started to go up, the thief has been operating with impunity. There must be some link between these events, even though it sounds absurd . . . ”

  “Quite. Have you ever glimpsed the thief?”

  “No sir, but he always leaves evidence of his passing. Pools of water! Always just below the place where the exhibits were—fresh water! Very peculiar it is, beyond all logic!”

  “Pools of water, you say . . . Yes, that is extremely curious. It suggests we’re dealing with a clever water-based monster of some kind. Probably not a kraken. Too big, too dull.”

  “What about a marid, boss?”

  “A water genie, Twisty? Could be, but Iranian things have no working knowledge of ice and would be very scared of a block of frozen coldness. A more likely culprit is a merman, one of those male mermaids that carry iron tridents and conch shells.”

  Mr Pieofeels squinted. “Merman? Will you catch it before it steals the remaining exhibits and ruins me?”

  The professor glared down. “Ruins you, Mr Pieofeels? This is far more serious than your paltry existence. This concerns the reputation of a major British cultural showcase!”

  “Yes, forgive me, sir!” begged Alf Pieofeels.

  “Another mistake like that and I’ll order Twisty to twist your head off your neck, clean off. Get it?”

  * * * * *

  They proceeded to the end of one gallery, entered another. “Still a grand collection, though,” said the golem.

  Mr Pieofeels danced ahead. “Yes, isn’t it? This slab of ice comes from Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic. That land was claimed for Britain in 1825 by Captain Norris of the brave ship Sprightly but in December 1927 the Norwegians came along and annexed it unexpectedly! Britain lodged a protest at the League of Nations.”

  “To no avail?” sadly asked the professor.

  “I’m afraid not, sir . . . ”

  “What’s our official position on Norway, boss?”

  The professor spoke with difficulty. His smile was false. “They’re our allies now. Against the Finns.”

  “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” said Mr Pieofeels.

  Twisthorn jutted his jaw.

  “Does that mean my friend’s friend is my enemy? As if I don’t have enough work to do! Say, boss, will I have to smash Abortia? Hapi’s my friend and she’s his friend.”

  “No, Twisty. Not for a long time . . . ”

  Mr Pieofeels danced even further ahead. “This glacier chunk originally came direct from Hyderabad.”

  “But that’s a state in India, a hot arid place where ice never forms. Is some kind of magic involved?”

  “No, sir, it’s carved from a giant diamond. In our Indian colonies ice is made of diamonds—they are melt-proof!”

  “Ingenious. We British are amazing!”

  “Look over here, boss! There’s something dark embedded in the ice, a shape with the contours of evil!”

  The professor rushed to the golem’s side, then whirled to confront Mr Pieofeels. “Explain this block.”

  “Real ice, sir, not a gemstone. It comes from Tibet. Discovered during the Younghusband expedition of 1903. Our troops stormed the Forbidden City, found this in a basement of the Potala Palace, mounted it on a sled, used many yaks to drag it back.”

  “I recognise the outline, boss,” said Twisthorn as he peered even more intently. “Belongs to a yeti!”

  Mr Pieofeels spat. “How abominable!”

  The golem urged the others back. “Something’s happening! I think the thief is striking right now! Look at the ice. It’s vanishing! A pool of water is spreading on the floor!”

  “Must be the merman, Twisty. Get him!”

  The golem turned to look for the slippery and daring thief, but now his back was facing the Tibetan ice and the figure inside suddenly moved. A cracking sound was following by a shower of ice crystals. Then the white monster shook itself loose.

  “A mindless brute is free, Twisty!”

  The monster seemed to take offence at this. It pointed a massive finger at the professor and rumbled:

  “My name is MeMeMeMeMe U and I’m a highly educated yeti. I went to university! I’m not mindless!”

  “Ugly hulking brute, in that case,” said Twisthorn. “I’m going to smash you anyway, you foreign mass!”

  “I’m not a brute. I’m an ape-like cryptid!”

  “What, like a cryptid crossword, you mean? I do those over breakfast, you icicle-horned numbskull!”

  “Bah! You’re just a clay man. I’m a descendant of the scholar-yetis of Guge. I earned my degree in Tsaparang, capital of that isolated kingdom, and did my PhD in Lhasa.”

  “What did you study, sir?” asked Mr Pieofeels.

  “Cryogenics,” came the reply.

  The professor whispered, “Take him alive, Twisty! His knowledge may prove useful to the Agency if we can get him back to a laboratory and torture it out of him!”

  “Will try, boss!” cried the golem.

  But the yeti clearly had other ideas. It seized Twisthorn by one arm and swung him rapidly around, finally letting him go so that he flew off across the room and impacted himself against all that now remained of the notorious block of ice that sunk the Titanic. The golem sagged. The yeti bounded over but Twisthorn grabbed an ankle and jerked the beast down. They rolled together on the floor, punching, biting, and the golem jabbed his knuckles in the yeti’s eyes. The yeti lashed out blindly. A clay nose was flattened by an elbow.

  Twisthorn crawled away, regained his feet, ran to the wall and paused for only a moment before launching himself in a high arc. Down he came on his adversary, pinning the yeti’s shoulders to the floor. But up jerked the snowman’s knees to make two deep dents exactly where Twisthorn’s kidneys should be. The golem groaned and relaxed his hold and the yeti took this opportunity to seize the clay man’s head and smash it repeatedly into the ground. Slam dunking!

  The golem rolled free, stood, kicked at the yeti’s groin, found his foot caught in a powerful paw, was thrust backward, banging his skull against the historical ice block carved especially by the OXO company for Queen Victoria’s Uranium Jubilee. It broke. The modern Queen, sworn to defend her ancestors, would be furious!

  Cherlomsky could probably win a pardon for Twisthorn, provided the golem actually won the fight . . .

  Which at the moment hung in the balance.

  “Always better to hang in a balance than from a gallows, sir!” said Mr Pieofeels, less than helpfully.

  The professor checked his watch.

 
; For two hours the enemy giants pummelled each other. Finally the yeti collapsed and the golem gasped.

  “Am exhausted, boss. Can’t move a muscle!”

  “We’ll get you back to the Agency on a stretcher, dear boy. I’d better ring for assistance to move this yeti too. He’s our prisoner now and all his secrets will soon belong to us!”

  * * * * *

  Twisthorn Bellow eased his bruises with his favourite remedy. He was a frequent bather and washer in extra-virgin olive oil even when he wasn’t wounded. He had a sneaking suspicion, wholly incorrect as it turned out, that the oil of olives somehow diluted and counteracted the nitroglycerine that sweated out of his pores and formed crystals on his hide. At the same time he was aware that most of his self-created superstitions were absurd and so he couldn’t bring himself to explain to the professor why the olive oil supplies ran out so rapidly.

  The professor put the blame on poltergeists. He hadn’t yet questioned why the golem often smelled like salad dressing. But he would one day. He was systematically nosy . . .

  Abortia watched the golem as he ladled the liquid over himself. She patted him down with absorbent napkins and then they went into one of the laboratories where the professor was tinkering with a hand-held laser cannon that hadn’t worked since arriving in the post. He was cursing the un-reliability of lethal hardware purchased via on-line auction sites. This was the third dud in one week.

  “Ah, Twisty, my boy! Congratulations on winning that fight earlier. I imagine it was the toughest of your career. That yeti gave as good as he got! An enjoyable spectacle.”

  “Boss, he nearly tore my arm off!”

  “Very funny when you called him an ugly hulking brute! Rather like the pot calling the kettle black!”

  “But the kettle’s silver, boss! I can see it!”

  The professor waved a dismissive hand. “A figure of speech, my lad, but if you really want to be pedantic I give you permission to amend the phrase whenever you choose.”