Menahem - Turn 344

Menahem sat back in his chair, and surveyed his new domain.

The rows of shelves, stuffed with books, discs and tapes stretched out as far as the eye could see. As the new custodian of the library, his first task had been to deal with all the guilty looking people queued up outside the run-down, little-used city library, returning very long overdue books, in some cases ones their great great grandfathers had taken out.

Next he’d assigned the somewhat rusty, crane-armed, assistant bots to completely reorganise the library contents to his new cataloguing system, he’d named ‘Menahem’s D.U.E. Decimate System’ or ‘Dewey’ for short.

He watched as one of the tired meks, raised its arm to place the final dusty old tome into its new home, the end of two weeks work.

Yes, this was it, he’d finally found his calling and he was content…

The sound of the library doors opening were followed by heavy feet, laughter and loud conversation. Menahem looked up and saw that instead of potential library users, it was Dar, Eorconlid, Meryl and Stumpy, the dwarf loaded down with shopping bags.

“Howzit hangin’?” Stumpy asked loudly, Menahem putting his finger to his lips with a hefty ‘Shuushh!’ pointing up at the ‘Silence Please!’ sign hanging just above his counter.

“Who’s to hear us?” continued Stumpy. “Yeah!” said Eorconlid looking around at the vast library which was completely devoid of any other people, Infact after the initial rush of ‘returnees’ Menahem could recall only recall three other ‘customers’ and they had been tramps looking for a warm place to sit. They’d gone off into the third reading room and come to think of it, he hadn’t seen them since, so for all he knew they might still be in there. He noted on his heavily doodled pad before him, ‘Must send bot with several copies of Home and Garden into RR3’.

Stumpy emptied one bag onto the counter and started showing Menahem what he’d bought describing the small anti-grav unit with magnetic clamp as the ‘floaty thing that sticks to metal’. ‘Lockpick’ – Cyberlux Microtoolkit, ‘square communication orbs’ – Walkie Talkies, ‘Cure Wounds Wand’ – Medikit, and ‘Big Bang Clay and fuses’ - C4 plus detonators.

“What’s in that one?” asked Menahem pointing to the large brown bag with the words ‘I’ve shopped at Dirty Eddie’s PORN SHOP (discretion and privacy assured)’ emblazoned on the side. Before Stumpy could answer, Eorconlid produced his recent purchase and fired it up, the sound reverberating throughout the enormous hall.

“Mark VIII Excaliber Chain Sword,” explained Eorconlid with an enormous grin, “cuts through most metal like butter and makes a damn good noise whilst its doing so!” Menahem was watchful as Eorconlid eyed up Assistant Bot B0F45, but to his relief the now trendily attired, shades-wearing Dar took his attention away as he asked, “You all ready for the concert tomorrow?”

“Oh I’m too busy for that,” explained Menahem waving his arms around at the vast empty library about him, “I’ve soo much to do!”

“Like what?” asked Stumpy.

“Errr… Well I’ve got to assign dusting duties, some of the books here are just not dusty enough. You can’t have a library if people don’t have to blow dust from their tomes, it just wouldn’t be proper.”

“See you at 6 o’clock tomorrow then!” said Dar as he turned to the others and they all headed back outside to mount up on their customised Harleeson Psyk Bykes.

As Dar was revving up his bike with Meryl sat behind him holding onto him, Stumpy asked, “Anyone seen Joshua?”

“Oh shit!” exclaimed Eorconlid, “I promised I’d meet him…”

“Oh Master you have shown us the ways of the Dark One! What more secrets can you unfold to us!”

Joshua had found them in a small ad in one of the news downloads.

Followers of Darkness and the Devil. Seek like-minded individuals for meetings, fun and sacrifice. Please bring your own chicken. Contact Big Alf (072YRT-64Y-373)

 

He looked around at the fourteen faces looking at him, hanging on his every word. What a motley crew of social dropouts! Big Alf was the worst, he was overweight, smelly and had been thrown of the Heavy Thrash Fan Club for threatening letters to the lead singer for the song ‘The Devil’s Got a Bas Ass Condition’ which he felt inferred that Satan had piles and he saw this as a slur to his faith.

At least Joshua felt he had put them on the right track, with their regular prayer sessions to F’nor.

As there was still no sign of Eorconlid and they could wait no longer, he began the ceremony which resulted in him being blessed with the powers of ‘Darkness’, ‘Pain Wrack’ and ‘Call Evil’.

“Oh shurupp an’ ‘ave anuvver drink!” declared Eorconlid after Joshua had finished berating him at their top table overlooking the rest of the chic Bop House, “we are starsh, we live the rock and roll lifshtyle!”

Dar, amidst the haze of smoke grinned inanely though Meryl gave him a hard stare, having already warned him that if she was to be his girl, he’d having to cut down on the weird weeds.

Having drinks on the house as a result of their star status, meant it was in a short space of time that Stumpy was to be found bopping away on the dance-floor stark naked. This time however, his star status meant that instead of being dragged away by the bouncers, some of the fellow revellers joined in, also strutting their wobbly bits.

“Whensh dat conshert again?” slurred Eorconlid, “I’ve got dis great drum sholo worked out…”

The crowd went wild!

Solomon was almost in tears with joy. His rocking duet with Slavis had slayed the vast audience and at last he felt he’d really made it after all those years of struggling.

“And now,” drawled Slavis as the crowd started to quieten down, “I’d like you all you give a big hand to those who made it possible for me to be playing for you here tonight. Without them and Solomon here I’d probably be dead and you owe them more than you think.”

“Give it up now for my friends… Dar!…”

Dar takes his place with his bass guitar as the crowd cheers….

“Joshua!…”

Dressed in black, the F’norian priest strides forwards onto the stage clutching his lead guitar…

“Eorconlid!…”

The chieftain climbs up to his seat amidst his drum kit…

“Stumpy!….”

The dwarf with his medallion gleaming in the stage lights, takes his place behind his own drum kit.

“And finally… Menahem!….”

The A’stall priest come librarian takes his place behind the keyboards and looks out beyond the lights at the mass of people filling the huge stadium. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many people in his life before and they are all looking at him…

An expectant hush falls across the vast place and Menahem is stood there looking out, motionless…

His bout of stage fright is soon cancelled by a hiss from Joshua telling him to just hit the play key, as they were mainly going to be miming.

Menahem fixes his wide grin to his face, hits the play key and the band goes into ‘Viva Lost Faces’ which sends the 350,000 people filling the stadium into a frenzy.

At the assigned moment, Menahem switches off the recording and Eorconlid goes into his great drum solo, Slavis matching his slow beat section with pelvic wiggles which drives the audience into delirious screams.

And then with the recording back on, the song rises up into it finale with all the members of the group and Slavis singing the chorus line, “Viva Lost Faces… Viva Lost Faces…. Viva…. Viva…. Lost Facess!”

With this final crescendo, the mass of pyro-technics connected to the stage go off in a mass of explosive light, thousands of fireworks streaking up into the night sky to explode and illuminate the vast stadium and surrounding buildings.

The sheer spectacle and noise is immense.

“Menahem… Stumpy… Eorconlid… Joshua… and… Dar… have left the building!”

Errol Shaker looked out from his position next to the wheel at his loyal crew carrying out their duties. To them he was ‘Captain’ whilst to his enemies and those who sought to bring him to justice for his ‘so-called’ crimes he was ‘The Shark’.

The wind was getting up again and the sails billowed as Errol looked again at the notes he’d made from the charts laid out in his map room below. This mysterious robed passenger of theirs had them sailing into pretty much unchartered waters hunting for the legendary Island of the Lost. Still at least he’d paid them half their hefty fee before they left the old smugglers port and said they would get the other half when he was returned there. Also of course there were the stories of the great lost city of this isle and the treasures that lay therein. This stranger claimed only to want to find something of particular interest to him and had said anything else Errol and his men could take, well it sounded like a good deal at the time…

It was then that he heard his second mate Meenus calling out some curses and backing away from the centre of the deck. A light was forming in the air and more of the crew started to grab at weapons and back away from it. From the light faint wailing could be heard.

The light was expanding and what looked like a hole actually appeared in mid air. Through it dropped several large lumps which seemed to be the source of the strange wailing cries. The lumps hit the deck and the hole shrank to nothing and then vanished leaving a small puff of smoke in the air.

Dar groaned and rubbed his head, opening his eyes to find himself led atop several of his comrades and surrounded by a bunch of over twenty cutlass and flintlock-wielding pirates. As Stumpy and the others started to come around, Dar slowly got to his feet and did the first thing which came into his head when meeting potentially hostile strangers… he offered them a joint of Brain Weed.

The circle of pirates parted and through them strode the broad-shouldered, long-limbed man with thick ropey muscles and black curling locks with sideburns. Dar noticed the cold icy-blue eyes of the swarthily handsome man, his sea-and-salt tanned flesh displaying tattoos and angry scars across the chest through his open shirt.

An impressive cutlass with an ivory handle in the shape of a sea dragon could be seen jutting from his belt along with a saw-toothed knife, a leather bullwhip and a pair of apparently gold-plated pistols. A large gold earring hung from his left ear and sitting next to it on his left shoulder was an ugly parrot of green ragged plumage.

“What have we here?” declared Errol, the parrot Steerkrook quick to answer, “Uglee bastards! Uglee bastards!”

Telling the parrot to be quiet he looked across the strange individuals who had literally dropped out of the air. There was a dwarf of surprising good looks, dressed almost pirate like with leather trews and an open black shirt displaying a medallion. There was a man also dressed in black and next to him a true muscular warrior type who looked as if he could certainly handle himself in a brawl. The man who had offered his men the roll of weed had rather strange hair and scars around the edge of his face, his long leather trench coat seemed to hide the muscular frame of a fighter.

Finally from the bottom of the heap rose the strangely dressed individual, hoisting a shoulder bag up that had slipped from his shoulder. The Hawaiian shirt he wore was so garish it was hard to look at. “Errrm.. Hello… I’m… Menahem…,” the figure said slowly and loudly as if he’d assumed Errol was foreign and unable to speak the common tongue, “and… these… are… my… comrades Da…”

Menahem did not get to continue as from up in the crow’s nest came the cry, “Ship Ahoy!”

Looking off to the East, Errol raised the spy glass that was handed to him and he could see that another ship similar in size to his own was sailing on what appeared to be an intercept course.

The ship flew the Jolly Roger and the raven design on the sails meant it could only be ‘Black Gorhook’, renown as a dirty blaggard even amongst fellow pirates. It looked as if they were readying themselves for a fight and Errol pondered the sixteen cannons his own ship possessed, eight port and eight starboard. It looked like they might be evenly matched.

The question was, why would Captain Gorhook be so far out in unchartered waters, this was certainly not the trade routes where he normally plied his trade…

The adventures continue...