I am not the man who will become the pirate king. But don't let that put you off.

Gherkin related stocks rose an average of 20 points during the last fiscal year. For that, and other great facts, read on!

***

I stood a while, waiting for Grott to say something, but infuriatingly, he didn't.

"Well?" I said, "What's happening? Now, call me fussy, but the complete transfiguration of my bedroom tends to kind of catch my attention, so to speak."

"Oh, don't worry," said Grott, smiling patronisingly, "I've just melded the tower with this old lady's house, it's a standard camouflage system."

Why is it Grott's personality had to swap around randomly every time I saw him? It was getting on my nerves. One minute he was smug, the next, plain odd, then he'd be running around in blind panic. I decided to change tack.

"Are you alright, Mrs Fengleworth?" I said, adopting my extra loud talking-to-old-ladies voice.

"Yes dear," said the aforementioned old lady, grinning at me myopically, "It was a bit of a shock when all these people went and appeared in the middle of the kitchen, but once I saw it was your lady friend and some of her friends, I thought it would all turn out for the best."

An important question immediately occurred to me.

"Didn't you.. umm... notice the house had completely changed?"

The old woman turned and peered around her disturbing Zarfang/Old lady antechamber hybrid.

"Yes," she said at last, "I suppose it does look a bit different, now you come to mention it. Still, it's nice to have a change, isn't it?"

I looked at her dubiously, hoping this behaviour didn't mean I'd have to check up on her more frequently in future. While I was busy thinking about this, Mrs Fengleworth started to speak again.

"Still, it's lovely to see you, dear. Haven't seen you in ages, must be a year or more. Where've you been?"

At this, I couldn't help but notice that Grott's expression change to one of worry.

"What did you say?" he said, suddenly.

"I said, I haven't seen him in ages," said Mrs Fengleworth patiently, gesticulating in my direction as if the point needed clarification, "Him, over there."

Her face brightened as she remembered the standard solution to all problems.

"Tell you what, I'll put the kettle on, shall I, and we'll have a nice cup of tea presently. I think I've got some biscuits somewhere," she said, winking in a conspiratorial way in Grott's direction, seemingly completely at ease with his "takes a bit of getting used to" kind of appearance.

Grott beckoned to the rest of us, and we crowded in around him, the non-gnome component stooping to hear what he was saying.

"Listen," said Grott, quietly, "Things are worse than I though. We were supposed to arrive a week or so after we left. To tell you the truth, with things the way they are, I half expected this to happen. We might not be able to spend long here."

There wasn't much the rest of us could say to that.

"Don't worry," I said, trying to put at least a relatively brave face on things, "We shouldn't need to stay too long."

"So, Mrs Fengleworth," I said, brightly, straightening up, "How's Mr Nibbles? I haven't seen him around here."

The old lady's expression seemed to darken for a moment.

"They took him off me," she said, looking troubled, "They said we weren't allowed to keep pets."

The temperature in the room seemed to have suddenly dropped.

"Who's they?" I said, already knowing I'd regret hearing the answer.

"Those... metal people. The ones that wizard sent. You know, the one who reckons he's taking over the world, or something."

Oh dear. It didn't look as if the quality of living had increased substantially in the Howling wastes in the time since I'd left.

"Metal people?" I asked.

"Yes, metal men. They said we couldn't keep any pets, and I wasn't going to give up Mr Nibbles, and then they came and took him off me." She looked even more worried. "They said they'd be coming back."

"When?" said Maevrin, who was looking as concerned as I was at this disturbing chain of events.

"They said they'd be coming back tonight. Still," she said, suddenly brightening, "There must have been a mistake. I'm sure what they say they do in that factory's not true. I mean, they'd never allow it, would they?"

I stared at her in disbelief. Just what had our adversary been up to since we'd left?

I walked over to the window and looked out. What can I say? For somewhere known as the howling wastes to have taken a decisive turn for the worst probably tells you all you need to know. Suffice to say, if I hung around there any length of time, I'd be taking my holidays in Mordor. A nightmarish, twisted landscape greeted my eyes, tongues of flame occasionally licking its distorted surface, black clouds of smoke rising menacingly from vents in the rock. There was a disturbing feeling the land itself would burst upwards into the sky if it could, as if to escape, but was somehow pressed down by layers of corruption. I became suddenly aware of a vast, nightmarish shape rising in the gloom - the outline of a huge, fortress-like tower rising impossibly far into the black sky. It was standing exactly where Eldrigar's tower had stood. I pulled the curtains hurriedly.

"How the hell did you survive in the middle of that?" I said in disbelief.

"There didn't seem to be much else to do, really," said Mrs Fengleworth stoically, "I just stay inside, and the metal men bring me my ration, same as everyone else."

There was a heavy silence.

"What factory was that?" said Nigel suddenly, "You said something about taking people to a factory?"

"Oh yes," said Mrs Fenglworth, a complex series of expressions usually adopted by the user of a past it's sell-by-date memory when they're trying to dredge something up, "I think it was that gnome's place. That gnome's sandwich place, or something...."

"Barry the gnome's sandwich manufactory?" said Nigel excitedly.

"Yeah, that's the one. I expect that's where they've taken Mr Nibbles."

She looked suddenly sad.

Nigel looked thoughtful.

"Anyway," I said, hurriedly, thinking it better to change the subject "All we have to do is stay here and wait. I take it we're safe here for the time being?"

"Yes," replied Grott, "We are. From the outside, the cottage we merged with looks just the same. In fact, unless anyone were to walk up and actually knock on the door, there's no way they could ever find us."

He stopped and thought for a moment.

"Oh yes, I suppose that would a bit of a problem, wouldn't it. You know, you're going to laugh when you hear this, but that actually never occurred to me?"

"And what would that be?" I asked, a serial killer style smile materialising on my face. "I do hope you're not going to say something that will bring on one of my turns..."

"Your friend, or whoever it is we're suppose to be meeting -- he'll never find us when we're camouflaged like this."

That had to be the number one sinking feeling I'd had so far - and I'd had a fair few to compare it with.

Another thought, even worse than the last, occurred to me. I turned a sickly countenance in the direction of Mrs Fengleworth.

"These... visitors, the ones that are supposed to be coming tonight - how long would that be from now?"

"Oh," said Mrs Fengleworth, with surreal calmness, "I suppose that would be in a few hours."

One possible route of escape flickered into my mind.

"So can't we just leave?" I asked Grott, "Or just move somewhere else?"

"No," he replied, predictably, "We can't move for six hours or so - we have to wait for the energy reserves to build up so we can break free of this building."

"Grott, dear," said Mrs Fengleworth, while I gradually expired from certain doom syndrome, "I've just noticed - I didn't know you could talk..."

This was enough to drive my nerves over the edge.

"WAAAH!" I bellowed, waving my arms in the air, "WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?"

I passed a hand across my brow. It seemed I hadn't thought this one through...

Maevrin shot an "Oh what an intrepid leader.." look at me, which was hardly fair, and Mrs Fengleworth looked positively offended. Nigel looked as if he was worried enough on his own, without my help, and Gorgrod maintained his usual blank expression.

"There's no need to shout," said Mrs Fengleworth pointedly, evidently thinking this to be the most inappropriate thing possible, "Now, I've got some kippers I can cook up for you, if it'll make you feel better."

Kippers! Surely not kippers! Ever since I'd entered the kitchen, I thought I'd detected something wrong, and now I'd realised - it was the smell of kippers! Even now, the memory of all those years of intolerable haddock smells seemed to whiffle up into my memory with unnerving speed.

I hurried out of the room, muttering something about wanting to think things over, my mind full of grim, kipper related memories as I hurried up the stairs.

For a while, I paced about in my room, not really thinking about anything concrete, which was pretty much all I could come up with in circumstances. If you can't do anything sensible, wander about and gibber quietly to yourself, that's what I always say. After a while, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in, then," I said, tersely.

Maevrin poked her head around the door cautiously.

"Are you alright?" she asked, "You went a funny colour. At least, not one I've seen you go before."

"Alright, alright," I said, wearily, "Come in."

Maevrin entered and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me with a mixture of concern and dubiousness. After a while, I stopped pacing about, and turned to face her.

"Well, everyone's got a weakness, OK? Mine happens to be the smell of kippers."

"Kippers?" said Maevrin, the expression of dubiousness waxing visibly.

"Yes," I said, "Kippers. You see, my parents had a fishmonger's shop. Still do, so far as I know."

My eyes must have taken on a dangerous glint, as Maevrin looked slightly worried.

"Fish was the problem - fish, I tell you," I continued manically, "I couldn't stand all that fish, all day every day. Fish, this, fish that - it drove me crazy. Can you imagine a more tedious fate? I ended up running away from home, to become a wizard. I'd heard about my Great Uncle from family friends, though my parents didn't talk about him much - they didn't think wizardry wasn't a good career path in the modern world. If it didn't centre around fish, and fish related industries, they weren't interested."

Maevrin seemed to struggle to work out what to say to this.

"Hmm, so you're telling me the reason why you wanted to become a wizard is because you didn't like fish?"

"Well, yes," I said awkwardly. Come to think of it, as a tragic/heroic back-story, it was a bit of a let down. I wished I'd included a dragon, or something.

I slumped down the chair by the computer.

"I ended up finding this empty tower, thinking it would be a good start. Didn't work out quite the way I'd planned, I suppose."

There was a short silence.

"Hey, don't be so down on yourself," said Maevrin, smiling suddenly. "You're only doing what you think is right - my parents never approved of my stamp obsession either, you know."

Her unexpectedly kind words caught me somewhat by surprise, and I stared back for a moment at her, trying to make out clearly the expression behind those impenetrable glasses. I'm sure it will come as a great relief to readers that at this moment, Nigel entered the room.

"Hey," he said, "I've been thinking."

"Err, yes?" I said, suddenly feeling embarrassed that I'd not been giving the certain doom scenario we were facing the full attention it deserved.

"The situation's like this, right? We can't leave yet, and we have to find this guy you're after, so that means leaving the tower, right?"

I'd realised this myself, I suppose, it was fairly obvious. I just didn't want to think about actually doing it. The only other thing I wished was that Nigel wasn't one of those infuriating people that won't stop saying "right?" whenever he was explaining something.

"So these whatever-they-are things are going to come here, right? Here's what we do - we go and sneak back into the factory, and create a diversion, so they don't bother coming to the tower. Best chance we've got, I reckon. Grott and me know this sneaky back way into the factory; there's an old tunnel that used to house an offal conveyor, and it leads to a derelict building across the road - we used to use it to creep in when we were late for work. We could get the chance to meet up with your friend while were out there, and you never know, we might even be able to rescue that old biddy's dog while we're at it."

I supposed I'd got to hand it to him. The only concern I had was that a group of highly skilled commandos would probably have trouble pulling off that kind of mission, whereas we... well, let's just leave it at that. I shuddered to think of the hidden dangers there could be out there, in that unnatural darkness that surrounded the tower.

"Still," I thought ruefully as I stood up, "We've got to start saving the world sometime..."

Come with me now, on a journey through time and space...

In 1924, Lord Harold Overcoat successfully circumnavigated his house no less than seven times on one historic afternoon. To this day, the means by which he achieved this unprecedented feat remain lost to history, for he took the secret to his untimely grave in the summer of '39. But the events of that afternoon have long been the stuff of local legend; it was said that the circumnavigation was an attempt to mend a broken heart, due to the tragic disappearance of his wife Lady Esmeralda Overcoat during the Great Peruvian Itchy-foot Outbreak of 1919. Recent historical research has proven this not to be the case, however, as electoral records clearly show she lived only three doors down the road. This has not deterred the telling of various tall tales in the town's pubs and taverns, most notably that on the night of a full moon, Lord Overcoat can still be plainly heard, circumnavigating house after house and letting out his mournful cry beneath the moonlit sky, looking for his lost love.

Lord Harold Overcoat
1886-1939

This is not his story.



Well, let's have a little thinkipoos, shall we? We last left our heroic hero about to recount his lovely plans to his intrepid band of followers. Once again I would like to remind you that the events you are about to read are entirely true and factually correct, and so far have not led to my untimely death or general insanity. GO!

***

I cast my eyes over my companions, the sweat from our near-death dash still very much in evidence on their foreheads. If this were a rubbish comedy film, it could well have been that at this point I might have got into a little huddle with them, leaving the viewer with the sound of dubious whispering which dissolves in one of those wibbly-wobbly kind of fadeouts. But thankfully, it wasn't.

"OK, here's the plan. What we need is the complete kick-bottom wizard type person to help us sort this business out once and for all, right?"

They stared at me blankly. Well, I suppose I couldn't really blame them.

"So what we need to do is go and get one, right?" I said brightly.

"Well, OK, who would that be, then?" said Nigel. "It's not like they're listed in the yellow pages."

"Isn't it obvious?" I said, looking at them hopefully and pausing for dramatic effect, "My Great Uncle!"

There was silence.

"Well, funnily enough, it's not that obvious," said Maevrin, "Seeing as we've never even heard of your Great Uncle, much less know anything about his wizarding abilities."

"Oh yes," I said, sheepishly, sails drooping windlessly, "I suppose I never did actually say anything about him, now you come to mention it. Well, I have it on very good authority that he was a first-rate white wizard. He's got to be the man to help us out."

"So hold on," said Nigel, "How exactly are we going to find him?"

"Easy," I said, "We take the tower back in time!"

Dubious would have been a bit of an understatement when used to describe the expressions that greeted this.

"Oh no," said Grott, a serious expression etched across his beknobbled countenance, "There's no way I'd do that. You do realise we would have to know exactly where he was at a specific moment in time, right? We're talking about time travel here - it's not the sort of thing you can do without careful planning. It's extremely dangerous at the best of times, and with the tower in a weakened state, we'd only have a day or so at the most before we'd be drawn back to our normal time frame."

That made things somewhat difficult. I thought for a while. It wasn't like I knew anywhere my Great Uncle would be at any particular time - I didn't even know where he'd lived. There was nothing else for it.

"We're going to have to go back home. To the world we came from, and ask the... err... contact I've got there." I said, trying to sound decisive despite the "err".

"Really," said Nigel, looking nervous, "Are you sure that's a good idea? Won't the universe start to unravel, or something? There's also a certain mad, all powerful wizard on the loose who, I dunno, might cause a few problems for us, yes?"

"We haven't got a lot of choice, really, have we? Unless anyone else has got a better plan?"

It seemed they hadn't.

"So who's this 'contact' of yours?" asked Maevrin.

A complex serious of expressions must have passed across my face as I though of how I could possibly describe the visitations of an inter-dimensional anthropomorphic brussels sprout, then decided that I couldn't.

"I know this is going to sound crazy," I said at last, "But this 'contact' of mine will hopefully just show up of his own account, we'll just have keep our fingers crossed on that one. Yes I realise it seems we're risking everything for something totally random," I said, seeing their expressions, "But you're going to have to trust me on this one."

"Well," said Grott at length, "I still haven't agreed to the whole idea of time travelling, but I suppose we really don't have anything to loose, except all your lives, of course," he said, grinning ghoulishly.

"What do you mean, 'all our lives'" said Nigel, turning to face Grott's goblin-like countenance, "Aren't you going to be doing the same?"

"No, I'm not," replied Grott, grinning, "I'll be out of here like a shot, first sign of trouble."

"Right," said Nigel, "That does it! Come here, you rotten little sod!", which was a rather ridiculous insult, as Grott stood at least a foot taller than him.

Nigel lunged forward, but Grott sidestepped neatly, sending him sprawling flat on his face.

"I'll just start the tower moving, shall I?" said Grott obsequiously, smiling smugly. Then he disappeared rapidly out of the room in his trademark blur.

Nigel got slowly to his feet (which was quite an achievement, as he didn't have far to go) muttering dark oaths under his breath.

"So who was this uncle of yours?" Maevrin asked me, "I had no idea you had a real wizard in the family."

"Ask me about it later," I told her, as a strange grumbling sound began, indicating the tower had started to move through whatever peculiar dimensions it travelled in.

Grott appeared once more by our side. No sooner had he done so, when the noise stopped again as suddenly as it had begun. Grott looked irritated.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"Heavy traffic." he replied vaguely.

"Umm... Heavy traffic? What?"

"Well, " said Grott, as if talking about something dull, like unblocking the drains, "There's quite a lot of traffic about in inter-space, you know. I've no idea where it all comes from, but there's a lot of it about, even on a sunday. I expect we're stopped at the lights."

Wordlessly, we all made our way over to the window. Grott opened it for me - it seemed the mysterious vortex itself was quite harmless. I poked my head outside, and did a double-take.

There was a whole queue of outlandish and bizarre vehicles stretched out in a long line, floating rigidly in space as if on a solid road. Just beside the tower, an old man was riding astride a large, red pillar box turned on its side. His complete nakedness was mercifully mitigated by his extremely long white hair and beard, which covered most of his scrawny body. Looking behind him, there was an extremely large penguin, with a head that appeared able to rotate a full 360 degrees. It was towing a horse box, and inside, the horse could plainly be seen wearing a top hat and smoking a cigarette from a long, elegant holder. The horse grimaced at me snootily as I stared at it, as if insulted I had the affront even to look. Beyond, there was a man dressed as what appeared to be the Greek god Zeus riding on jet powered roller-skates. He was engaged in throwing lightning bolts made out of various kinds of Italian pasta at a little tiny gnome-like man that he had attached to a piece of string, like a dog on a lead. Stretching away as far as the eye could see in the murky light, there were all sorts of outlandish shapes that I couldn't make out too well, which was probably a good thing. Turning my head and looking up the "road", I saw that there was indeed a set of traffic lights floating motionlessly in space, the red light glowing brightly against the dark, swirling vortex.

"Well, it's not so bad," said Grott, cheerfully poking his head through the window to join me, "We're practically first in the queue."

"Yes..." I said, vaguely, wondering, not for the first time, how it was possible that I was starting to get used to this sort of thing.

"How's it going there?" shouted Grott to the old man on the pillar box. The old man turned his head sharply in our direction.

"F**K OFF!" he screamed, at me for some reason.

We hurriedly closed the window.

"Really, there's no pleasing some people, is there?" said Grott, shaking his head. Just then, a green light shone at the window, and the bizarre scene disappeared entirely. It seemed we were moving again.

"So how long's it going to take to get back home again?" asked Nigel.

"Oh, a few hours, I expect," replied Grott, who had pulled a magazine from somewhere about his person and started reading it.

Hearing that, we all decided to have a bit of a rest on our own, having already had one alarming adventure that day. I headed up to my room and fiddled about on the computer for a bit, chronicling recent escapades for your reading "enjoyment". What exciting events would appear in the next blog entry? Only time would tell.

I don't know whether it had been the come-down from all that excitement earlier, but I must have dozed off at some point. I awoke with a start at a strange sound - the sort someone might make unblocking a toilet in a Salvador Dali painting. I realised with a sudden, horrible feeling that I didn't recognise the room I was sitting in at all...

I looked around cautiously. It was a bedroom, alright, but not one I could remember seeing. Or.... Could I? Something seemed strangely familiar about it. The decoration was odd to say the least. It was a bit like my room in a way, in that dark stone walls and various shelves were very much in evidence, but there seemed to be rather random pink, chintz decorations liberally festooned about the place as well. The whole shape of the room was different as well - my bedroom had been round, to fit the sides of the tower walls, but this room was a sort of buckled cube shape, as if it had been square, but the walls had then been pushed out into a convex shape by unknown means. There was a set of china flying ducks on the wall above the fireplace.

Then my eyes settled on a familiar sight. It was my long-suffering potion collection, and it was sitting on a cabinet that looked almost the same as the one it had always sat on, though this one seemed to have a flowery engraving on it that I didn't recognise. I suddenly realised that everything in the room was actually familiar - everything was in its normal place for my room, only changed and distorted in some strange way.

I got up, opened the door and went down the staircase, which was now only a gently curved single flight of stone steps, flanked with pictures of various unnervingly cute dogs. Wait a minute... Where had I seen pictures like that?

I didn't have much time to think. I arrived in the kitchen, which was now much bigger and much better stocked than it had been before. To my relief, the others were all standing about, looking confused, along with Grott, who was grinning in an "I know what's going on and you don't" kind of way. But there was another person standing with them, and seeing her I instantly realised where I'd seen decorations like the ones in the newly transformed Zarfang.

"Hello dear," said Mrs Fengleworth, "Fancy a cuppa?"

***

Graham Cardboard,
1933 - 1999

Graham Cardboard, inventor of the pocket trampoline, died last week at the age of sixty-six. An eccentric man, he was convinced he could levitate using the power of seedless grapes, and that he would drop dead if he found himself more that three hundred yards from a man-hole cover. Despite these unusual beliefs, he was immensely popular in the small town in which he spent all his life, and was especially popular with the local school children, who he would entertain by doing a little dance just outside the school grounds, long before this would have been considered creepy and suspicious. Due to his beliefs, he wore large, steel, manhole covers strapped to the bottom of his boots, a practice that is said to have considerably improved the spectacle of his dancing, and also made it easy to tell when he was coming. He died in what was described in the post mortem as a fit of shock three hundred yards from his home, after a bout of forgetfulness had led him to leave his house bare-footed.

His invention, the pocket trampoline, despite early success in Taiwan in the early seventies, never really caught on.

Graham Cardboard,
1933 - 1999

Return of The Limpet!

Well, hello, greetings and the usual. Yes, it is I once more, the great and mystic master of, well, nearly... well, OK it's me again. It probably hasn't escaped your attention that posts on here have been a bit thin on the ground in recent times. Never fear! The Great Limpet does not desert his minions in their hour of need, I have returned, if not triumphantly then, well, at least I'm here. I think the recent bout of uncontrolled dimensional travel has caused an inevitable delay in the turbo-hyper-spacial-node-relay-uplink on my computer, or something like that. Come on, don't spoil my fun by saying I made that up, even if I did. That's the best explanation I can come up with, so I'm sticking to it. Having said that, maybe "turbo" didn't sound too convincing... Anyway, without further ado, on with the show!

Theme music: DA DA DA DEE DADA DE DA DUM! [montage of me messing various things up, Grott doing his trademark gurn, complex expressions of disbelief from Maevrin, Nigel emerging slowly from the bread bin]

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, it's Thurs-a-day night, it's-a half past two, It's time for... THE IVAN THE LIMPET SHOW!!!!!

I emerge through a curtain of shiny plastic strips, wearing a white top hat and tails and proceed to dance down a flight of fake marble steps which light up as I tap them with my wildly flourishing cane. Cheesy big band music blares, along with taped audience applause. The music ends with a flourish as I do a little turn on the spot, having reached center stage - this garners a whoop from the fake audience and increases my ghastly Pan Am smile by twenty percent.

"Well, good evening guys and gals!" I proclaim stridently in a strange, mid-Atlantic accent, "It's mighty fine you all came along! And have we got a show for you tonight!"

The audience whoops again. Was that the exact same sound recording as five seconds ago?

"But first, let me give you a quick round-up for those viewers unlucky enough to miss our previous shows. Our intrepid hero is currently travelling through space and time, trying to avoid the end of the universe!

Crowd track : Oooooh!

"Yes, that's right, folks! But where has Grott taken him this week? One things for sure, if their destination is more craaaazy adventures, we sure won't be disappointed! Right?"

Audience : general affirmative "YEAH!"

"Then, without further ado, on with the show!"

The annoying brass section strikes up again as the view starts to distort and fade...


***


The annoying brassy noise just seemed to get louder and louder and more and more discordant as everything else faded. What on earth was going on? Hang on a minute...

I opened my eyes to reveal the bedroom ceiling, but the strangulated trumpety noise refused to abate. I turned over and got the first shock of the day - Nigel standing on the chest of draws beside the bed and attempting to play a large trombone, his face red, cheeks and eyes bulging alarmingly.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" I asked, understandably slightly put out at being woken up by unauthorised brass music first thing in the morning. I personally thought the whole "dream merging into noise that's happening in reality as you wake up" type thing only happened in movies and dodgy old cartoons.

Nigel removed the trombone from his lips, sweat trickling down his brow from his efforts.

"It's a trombone," he said, blowing a ridiculous little sound on the thing as if to prove it - the sort that might accompany a clown falling over backwards.

I put my hands to my face and drew them down, groaning.

"How about we actually don't let this whole conversation run its course with a tedious, numbing and pointless inevitability - how does that sound? I suppose my next line is 'I can see it's a trumpet, what are you doing playing it in my bedroom at the crack of dawn?' And what would your witty comeback to that one be?"

Nigel looked slightly hurt.

"Found it down the back of an old cupboard. Thought it might come in handy for waking you up in the morning. It's not the crack of dawn as well, you lazy sod. We've been up for ages. Thought I'd better get you out of bed, you see, 'cos we've arrived somewhere."

"We have?" I said, jumping out of bed.

"Blimey," said Nigel, "Look at the state of you. Those have got to be the worst pyjamas I've ever seen. Where the hell did you get them from?"

"Shut up," I said, trumpeting gnomes momentarily forgotten as I strode over to the window.

I looked out. I wasn't really that surprised to see a strange landscape stretching out around the tower. A rocky, rugged sort of country met my eyes, bathed in bright morning sunlight - craggy lumps of stone dotted with patches of rough grass and small clusters of pristine pine trees. Actually, the view looked quite attractive, like some kind of poster advertising a national park or something. Or at least it would have looked that way if it hadn't been for the assortment of large buildings that appeared to be embedded solidly in the landscape at all sorts of odd angles, as if they'd simply materialised there, intersecting the ground like some badly programmed graphics. I realised suddenly that they were all theatres, most of them ornate but all seeming weathered, as if they had been in their present state for some time. I could clearly make out the sign above the front entrance of the nearest building, though it was facing almost up towards the sky. "Charrington Wick Variety Theatre", it proclaimed in large, black letters. Another ornate structure nearby, which was sunken into the ground at a crazy angle announced itself as "The Crubblewade-on-Sea Pavillion Music Hall". A few of the lights around the sign appeared to be flickering weakly.

"Well," I said as I pulled back from the window, "What sort of freaky, messed up place have we ended up in this time?"

I wasn't entirely predisposed to be in a good mood that morning - after all, I'd only just recently received news of the imminent end of the universe, that does tend to put a bit of a cramp on your style, especially when you end up wandering around the dimensions at the mercy of a small wizened lunatic that used to serve you coffee. How should I say this - it doesn't exactly leave you with a deep sense of satisfaction in the direction your life's taking, take it from me.

"I dunno," said Nigel, still standing on the chest of draws, still clutching his trombone. "Does look a bit weird, don't it? I personally say we round up that Grott, or whatever he's called and get him to send us back home. I mean, yeah, we might all get killed by that wizard, if he finds us, but it's not like we can do anything about it. He can just take his tower and shove off somewhere with it, can't he?"

"Yeah, that doesn't sound so bad," I said, sitting down on the chair by the computer. Talking about going home was strange, as this was, in fact, my home, though it certainly didn't feel like it when it was hurtling around the universe like a time lord with ADD. Actually, though I agreed with Nigel, I realised that in all probability we couldn't do as he said - Grott had told me he needed me to help power the tower and stop it falling into Eldrigar's hands, so I at least was stuck here for the foreseeable future. Still, right now there didn't seem to be much that was foreseeable about the future at all...

"I take it there hasn't been any sign of Grott?" I asked.

"Nah, but I expect he'll show up again soon enough, he usually seems to. Come on, let's have a bit of breakfast. How do you fancy beans?"

He blew a loud blast on his trombone (I made a mental note to destroy it at the first opportunity I got) then hopped down on to the floor and scampered out of the door.

"Oh well," I thought, "At least Grott said the universe wouldn't end while we were hanging around here."

Once again, the great gift of ignoring things had cheered me up no end.

***

I met the others downstairs. Gorgrod, Nigel and I shared yet another plate of baked beans, which I was well on the way to getting totally sick of. Whatever the strange place was that we'd ended up in this time, I hoped we'd be able to pick up a bit of food. One thing we all agreed - that after what happened the last time we'd left the tower, there was no way we'd go out without this time getting Grott to come along with us. That at least would mean whatever weird and unpleasant things happened to us, with any luck they'd happen to Grott as well. Maevrin seemed relatively upbeat - I had been slightly worried the last experience had left her a bit drained. I resolved I'd get her, at least, back to somewhere safe at the first opportunity, it really wasn't fair to make her carry on following me around in the bizarre existence we now found ourself in.

Just as we were finishing the washing up, Grott appeared, as if from nowhere, a beaming grin on his unpleasantly gnarled face.

"How are we all doing this morning," he said obsequiously, almost bowing.

"Where did you come from!" said Nigel, who had jumped at Grott's sudden appearance and nearly dropped a plate.

"That'll get him back for that blasted trombone," I thought, sniggering inwardly.

"OK then, Grott. Where have you brought us?", I said out loud.

"Oh, this place," replied Grott, as if it was something of so little importance he'd almost forgotten about it. "I don't think you should worry about this place at all. I told you I wanted to take you somewhere you could relax for a bit in safety. Trust me, I've been here before, I'm sure you'll find it in some way entertaining. Looking after a tower that can defy the laws of physics does have some advantages after all."

I opened my mouth to reply, but Grott cut me off.

"Now, I know what you're about to say, and rest assured, I'll be coming with you this time. Just as soon as I've changed."

Grott shot from the room with unnerving speed, returning less than a minute later in full Victorian explorer costume, complete with pith helmet.

We stared at him in silence for a moment.

"Well, it makes it more fun," said Grott, as if that was an adequate explanation.

"You know," said Nigel, "For a soulless, immortal creation of come god-like arch-mage, you really are a bit of a nutter."

Grott shot back a slightly unnerving grin, which seemed to say "you don't know the half of it."

***

About half an hour later, we set off from Zarfang, Grott leading the way cheerfully.

"I found this place by accident," he was saying, "It was much like yesterday's regrettable incident - I was on the way past, and simply ran into it."

"So what is this place, then?" asked Maevrin.

"You'll see," he said cheerfully, "all I can say is, the universe is a strange, strange place."

We walked on in silence after Grott, not exactly encouraged his words. There were no paths, we simply carried straight on, avoiding the larger rocks and other obstacles, skirting around the side of one of the mysterious embedded theatres. It was really odd to be walking beside something so incongruous to the landscape, but everything seemed very peaceful - there was no sense of danger or impending weirdness. That was, at least, until we encountered the door. It was a large and quite nondescript wooden door which wouldn't have been out of place just about anywhere, only that finding it standing there on its own in a patch of grass with no visible sign of any support was a little bit unexpected.

Grott looked over his shoulder at us, waggling his eyebrows. We looked at each other dubiously as we drew closer to the mysterious door. As we approached, I noticed the pattern in the wood was slightly peculiar. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said those knot holes in the middle were almost like eyes, that mark below was almost like...

"Oh, no," I thought, "It hasn't got a..."

"Oh, hello there," said the door in a sullen voice. Yes, it did indeed have a face. "It's you again, and you've brought some friends I see. Just so you know, I'm not doing any today, I'm sorry, but I'm not. I'm not in the mood for it, but I don't mind you hanging about the place. Nice to have a bit of a change of company, it is."

We stood behind Grott, looking at the talking door in dismay and wondering where things were going to go from there. How exactly do you address a door? Woodenly? Oh, OK, I'll shut up.

"Hello there, Charlie," said Grott, warmly, "Where are all the rest of your friends?"

"Oh, I'm sure they'll turn up soon enough, once they hear you've come back again. It's been quite a while, how've you been doing?"

Grott and the door then proceeded to launch into a long and tedious conversation of the sort that two old women might carry out over a garden wall. We couldn't help feeling a bit awkward.

"Anybody got any bright ideas about what the hell we're doing here?" asked Nigel after a while, quietly so as not to be overheard by Grott.

"Well, no, not really," I replied. "You know, I can't help wondering if all those years of isolation have made our old friend Grott go a bit... peculiar."

"You can say that again," said Nigel, eyeing the small figure in front of him with an unfriendly eye.

"Hold on," said Maevrin, "what's happening now?"

"Here we are," said Charlie the talking door, "Someone's coming through."

At this point, the door swung open, revealing a complex swirling pattern of black and white. Out of this appeared a short, fat, middle aged man with a large, grinning face. He was dressed in an ill fitting suit that appeared to have been selected for deliberate comic effect.

"'Ow yer doin' lads!" said the man in a thick northern accent. "'Ey up! 'Appen if it ain't old Grott! I shall 'ave to tell the mother in law - you know, I haven't spoken to 'er in 18 months. Didn't like to interrupt."

He didn't seem bothered that we didn't laugh at his depressing joke, as we instead stood there staring at him, bemused.

"Err, I don't really know what's going on here, but I'm Ivan, and these are my friends Nigel the Gnome, Maevrin and Gorgrod. Who might you be, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Nay, lad, I ain't mithered," said the man. "My name," he said grandly, "Is Trumblebert Scrubb."

"Err, pleased to meet you, said Maevrin.

"Pleasure's all mine, my lass. 'Ere, I went down 't chemist yesterday and tried to buy some arsenic, but they wouldn't let me 'ave none. 'Appen 't picture of me mother in law weren't enough."

Maevrin looked shocked.

"Is she really that bad?" she asked, apparently in all seriousness. I don't know, maybe she hadn't ever encountered awful comedy acts in the past.

"Bad? Bad! There were a bloke up 't road that were told 'ee had six months to live. He moved in wi' us cos living wi' her, six months wud seem like forever!"

"Oh my god," I said to Nigel out of the corner of my mouth, the full horror of the joke fully sinking in "if he keeps this up, I'm going to go mad."

Thankfully, we were spared by the arrival through the door of a man in a straw hat and stripy suit, who was playing the same chords repeatedly on a miniature banjo and grinning toothily. He was accompanied by a ventriloquists dummy that was walking about on its own.

"Oh my god," said Maevrin, "That's too creepy."

"Hey!" said the dummy in a squeaky, indignant voice, "I'm not creepy! How about I leave you alone with him and his flippin' mother-in-law jokes!"

"Alright, alright, she's very sorry," I said hurriedly, anxious the threat might actually be carried through. I decided that continuously asking what was going on was getting a little pointless, and decided to just go along with it all. From the expressions on the faces of my companions, they'd evidently decided to do the same (except Gorgrod, whose expression never changed based on what was going on around him).

The new arrivals greeted Nigel warmly, and a few moments later the door opened again. There emerged a strange, flickery figure coloured entirely in black and white. It moved oddly, slightly too quickly, but seemed friendly enough, doffing its hat and mugging at us silently. I almost shouted out loud in surprise as all of a sudden, I was plunged into absolute blackness. Had I been struck suddenly blind? Thankfully, almost immediately there appeared in front of me some enormous, flickery white letters, bordered by a white square which read:

"Hello!"

The next moment, my vision returned to normal.

"Don't worry," said the ventriloquist's dummy amiably, apparently having forgotten its earlier affront, "He doesn't talk to much. Saves us having to look at his words all the time."

There next emerged a sort of conjuring type man, who kept pulling various bits of coloured paper out of his sleeves, waving a magic wand all over the place and twirling his moustache. For some reason, he was accompanied by an otter walking on its hind legs. It's shiny black eyes met mine briefly for a moment.

"Hey, mon." it said casually, in a rich West Indian accent.

Next came another stripy suited man, this one rather rotund, with a round, shiny face and thin, pointy moustache.

"I say, I say, I say!" he bellowed, bobbing up and down, "My wife's gone to Saint Petersburg!"

"Is she Russian?" called back the man with all the mother-in-law jokes.

"No, she's taking her time!"

The sound of the short drum roll and cymbal crash coming out of nowhere made us all jump. Good grief! What sort of place was this?

"Have you figured out where we are yet?" asked Grott, who had sidled up beside me.

"I don't know, the land of terrible jokes?" I asked.

"They all kind of represent old fashioned types of entertainment that aren't mainstream any more, don't they?", said Maevrin.

Grott looked surprised.

"Ah, yes, well done", he said, his beady black eyes full of admiration, "You're almost right - it's good to know you aren't all stupid."

He gave me a stare. What was he trying to imply!?

Before I had a chance to complain, he carried on speaking, standing there in his pith helmet like Sir David Attenborough talking about a snake.

"This place seems to be a sort of afterlife - where the spirits of jaded old comedy acts go when all the creativity has drained out of them."

"Oh, I see," said Nigel, as if he had the slightest right to pretend this made any logical sense at all, "So he's supposed to be the spirit of dodgy banjo playing acts, that flickery guy over there is the spirit of silent comedy, and that geezer in the dodgy suit is the spirit of mother-in-law jokes."

"I am, that, aye," said the man.

Honestly, what a way to spend a day - hanging out with the physical embodiment of mother-in-law jokes.

"Alright then," I said, "if that's true, what's the bloody otter in aid of?"

"Ah ham de spirit of de dodgy accent dat everybody 'tink a bit racist dese days, mon," said the otter.

"And would it be appropriate to ask why you are an otter, maybe?"

"Nien! Zat is so zat I do not haf to appear to overtly racist and get ze blog you are writink shut down!"

"What?" I said in disbelief, "How did you know about that?"

"Because I also haf ze ability of breaking ze fourth wall for ze comic effect, ya? Bonjourno, all-a the readers! Mama mia! Give-a me some pasta!"

"OK, " I said, turning away quickly to preserve my fading sanity, "What about the door, then?"

"Oh come on," said the door in an exasperated voice, "Haven't you figured it out yet? Don't make me do the one about Doctor Who."

"The one about Doctor Who... Oh, I see."

Just then, the door burst open and two flying Punch and Judy puppets came hurtling out, zooming around our heads and cackling hysterically.

"Grott," I said, "why did you bring us here? Why does this place even exist?"

"I already answered the first question," he replied, "And as for the second, I told you, the universe is a funny old place."

"So what do we do now, then?" I said, sitting down weakly on a nearby rock.

"Well, I'm sure the guys here would only be too keen to do a show for you. They don't get to perform to anyone these days, and performing is the reason for their existence in the first place. Anyway, without further ado, on with the show!"

There was nothing else for it. The others joined me on the large rock, and as if by some unspoken cue the performance began. I can't really recount to you the structure of it, because there didn't appear to be any. All I can say is there were a lot of stripy suits, comedy banjos, terrible gags and a man who did impersonations of pre-war politicians using only his tuba. The otter made the odd cameo performance as various "comedy foreigners" of the sort that were very much in demand in the seventies. Everyone seemed to chip in at random moments - it was like the comedy equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting. The only ones that didn't join in were the door, which had leant itself sulkily against a tree, and the ventriloquist's dummy, which had sat itself beside us, spoiling the performance somewhat by chain smoking large and foul smelling cigars and heckling the performers shrilly. Grott seemed to be enjoying himself, whooping and rocking backwards and forwards in a slightly alarming way, but I supposed when you're many hundreds of years old you probably get a taste for that sort of thing.

At length, the bizarre act reached its end - a rendition of "Down at the Old Bull and Bush" by Punch and Judy, accompanied by the black and white silent comedy man, who made his dialogue plates come up at the key moments. We all clapped as the strange entities took a bow - there didn't really seem to be anything else to do.

Grott burbled his way off to mingle with the performers. I turned to my companions quickly.

"Let's get out of here at the first opportunity, this place is too odd."

The others nodded in emphatic agreement.

"How about we see if we can get some food off them before we go," suggested Maevrin, "If they even eat, of course. Then we can get out of here and decide what to do with ourselves."

That didn't sound like a bad plan at all. We had to break off our conversation hurriedly, as the various strange characters were approaching us again.

"Did you like our show?" said the banjo man, eagerly.

"Yes, yes!" I replied, wondering if they'd all suddenly erupt into hideous betentacled monsters if I said no.

We had a strange few hours hanging out with the various spirits of old-school comedy. I managed to offend the Otter by making fun of him saying "where's me wallaby?". Nigel lost an arm-wrestling contest with the ventriloquist dummy, which he was quite put out by, then him and Gorgrod shared a bottle of this stuff called "Glucose Stout", produced by the spirit of mother-in-law jokes. Actually, the spirit of mother-in-law jokes turned out to be quite helpful, he gave us a nice hamper of rather 1960's issue food which he retrieved from the mysterious other side of the door, plus I managed to stop him telling me who'd inevitably made it for him by screaming suddenly, then explain I had a disease which caused me to scream uncontrollably at random moments. It seemed to work – try it yourself sometime.

Well, everything seemed to be going well, or at least as well as you could expect in the circumstances. That was, at least, until I decided to say something that brought the visit to an unexpected conclusion.

I was in conversation with the ventriloquist's dummy, who of all the odd denizens of that place was capable of holding a relatively rational conversation.

"It gets so dull here, you know," he was saying, pausing as his mechanical jaw clamped unconvincingly on his cigar to take another draw, "We've got nobody to perform to, nothing much to do with ourselves. Presumably the Creator had a sense of humour, that's why we're here in the first place."

I thought for a minute. It had to be said that the various characters around these parts hadn't been bad to us, and the 1960's issue food would provide a very welcome alternative to the emergency apocalypse relief bean supply.

"Well," I said, "Maybe you just need a fresh look at things. I mean, the kind of entertainment you lot represent went out of fashion ages ago, most people aren't interested in it. How about taking it in a new direction?"

"What do you mean?" asked the dummy, his glassy little eyes intent on my own.

"Children's TV," I said, "Have you tried that? Those kids will laugh at just about anything, though you might have to tone down the dodgy accents and, err, the exploits of that man over there," I said, casting my eye in the direction of the spirit of mother-in-law jokes.

The ventriloquist's dummy's face took on an indescribable expression, like he'd had some kind of rapture (or rupture), which was quite a surprising thing to see on a face that had been carved out of a block of mahogany.

"That's a great idea," he said, jumping to his feet and dropping his cigar in excitement. "Hey lads, how about this - we get on a kids TV show!"

The various spirits suddenly looked very excited. Then, something began to happen. They all began to glow around the edges, a strange humming sound filling the air.

"Yes!" said someone, "We're going back! We're going back to the real world!"

All of a sudden, the door had flung itself open, and a blazing white light surged from the opening, which the spirits started to fling themselves into with cheers and whoops.

"Well, so long!" shouted the ventriloquist's dummy, who was the last to go, "Look out for us! See you!"

With that, he jumped into the light and vanished. The door slammed shut.

"Thank you!" said the door, and promptly disappeared with a loud thumping noise.

We stood a while in silence.

"Err," said Nigel, "What just happened?"

Before anyone had a chance to answer, a disturbing rumbling sound began, which was rapidly joined by a collection of ominous creaking and fracturing sounds. We could feel them vibrating up from the ground beneath us.

I turned to Grott, and wasn't entirely happy to note his wild-eyed expression of panic.

"What have you done!?" he squeaked in fear, "Without the inhabitants, this place will collapse - it'll take us with it!"

"Oh," I said, "This would be the part where we start running, right?"

"Get back to the tower!" came the shout from Grott's rapidly retreating back. The ground started to shake alarmingly as we caught each other's eyes for a split second, then turned as one and dashed frantically in the direction of the tower. A swirling vortex appeared to be forming in the sky above us, sending out dark tendrils of energy which began to flicker across the landscape like the lightning in a plasma ball. In short, it didn't look good.

Zarfang's reassuring black outline grew closer. I couldn't resist looking over my shoulder as I ran, which I regretted almost immediately. The buildings that were embedded in the landscape were being wrenched out of the ground, floating through the air ponderously before being sucked into the vortex in a stream of shattered bricks and tiles. I snapped my head back round and tried to increase my speed, cursing that my idiotic curiosity had caused me to fall behind the others.

An enormous rend shot across the landscape right in front of me with an ear-splitting crash. I realised then with a chill feeling that I might not actually make it. I had to leap across a rapidly widening chasm, the entire section of land that I'd just been running on disappearing into the void. The others were almost at the door. I saw Nigel jump inside, followed closely by Gorgrod, who was faster than he looked. Maevrin turned as she reached the doorstep, looking back in horror at me running up hill as the ground collapsed beneath me. The situation was not looking good - I could feel the force drawing me back - another few seconds and I'd be as non-existent as Gorgrod's personal hygiene.

There was nothing else for it. I jumped.

For the second time that day, something happened that I'd thought only happened in the movies. As if in slow motion, Maevrin jumped towards me, her hands locking with mine, just as Gorgrod grabbed hold of her shoes. Nigel rode on his back, waving his arms like some kind of demented jockey. We all hung there for a moment like a Christmas decoration defying the attack of the Anti-Christ Vacuum Cleaner, as the earth beneath us slid into the abyss. Then, Gorgrod had dragged us through the door where we collapsed in a heap on the mat.

"Gorgrod, you're a genius!" burbled Nigel from somewhere near the top of the pile, "Fancy hooking your foot round the boot scraper!"

I got shakily to my feet and looked out of the still open door. All I could see was the familiar swirling emptiness that usually surrounded the tower when it was travelling. It seemed the weird world we'd just been in had disappeared entirely. I shut the door and leant on it to stop my legs giving way.

“Well, that was fun, wasn't it?”, I said, dreamily.

After a brief effort to pull myself together, I helped extricate a rather squashed Maevrin from underneath Gorgrod, who was only just getting up. I installed her at the kitchen table, where she sprawled face down.

"You saved my life," I said

"Urghh!" she replied.

"Well I hope you're happy!" said Grott, grumpily from the corner of the kitchen, "That was the closest I'd come to certain death in all my long years!"

"Oh, shut up and put the kettle on," I replied tersely, "And how can you blame me? I was only trying to think of something encouraging to tell them, I didn't know the whole world would collapse in on itself, did I?"

"That was a bloody close one, eh?" said Nigel as he entered the kitchen, at least 75 percent of his general cheeriness restored. Gorgrod followed close behind, grinning.

"Gorgrod!" I said, "That was great stuff! How did you do it?"

Gorgrod did a credible impersonation of someone impersonating someone cool.

"Don't worry," he said, "Chill."

I know what Charlie Brown would have said at that point.

“And I suppose that hamper of food has been reduced to ether, then?” I asked the kitchen in general.

“Au contraire,” said Grott, nodding to the now rather battered hamper that had been shoved in the corner, “I brought it back.”

Well, that was something, at least. Anyway, I made a cup of tea for everyone, which cheered us all up a bit at least, even Maevrin.

"So," said Maevrin at length, "What are we going to do now, then?"

Before, I might have said "What are you looking at me for?" or moaned that I'd never actually stated that I was any good at doing anything, and hence couldn't be reasonably asked to solve anyone else's problems, but now I felt rather guilty after having been saved from certain doom. Furthermore, how could I actually allow myself to get swept along by events without trying to do anything, and yet still moan about things? Maevrin, it turned out, was a hell of a lot braver and more dependable than I was - I had to do something for her in return.

For the first time, I actually put my mind to the possibility of doing something that might actually yield results. But, what could I do?

"Hey!" said Nigel, staring at me with a look of concern "What's the matter with you?"

"I'm just thinking, shut up for a minute!" I said, irritably.

"Thinking, eh?" he said, "No wonder I didn't recognise the expression..."

I ignored him. What could I do that might actually get us out of this hole? Let's see - what did I have? A crew of random people? Not actually astonishingly helpful in the situation, but that wasn't their fault. My own magical abilities? I doubted I could train myself up into someone that could last half a second against Eldrigar, even with a whole lifetime to train. And one thing that was out of the question was trying to wield the same power he was using. What with the fact that the universe was apparently coming apart at the seams already, without there being two people tearing it up, I also refused to get involved with something that sounded so dark and corrupting. No, that wasn't the way. How about the tower itself? I supposed that having a tower that could travel just about anywhere was quite an asset in itself, but what use would that be if you didn't know where you were going? I racked my brain, trying to remember the things Grott had told me about the tower's capabilities.

"This tower can warp reality, even transcend time itself in some capacity."

"If you happen to know the address of any powerful white wizards in the neighbourhood who could do battle with the greatest sorcerer imaginable, maybe that would work."

Hmmm....

Transcending time, eh....

That was it. Yes! I'd had an idea. An actual, genuine idea that might just work, unlikely as that sounded, though it wouldn't be without its dangers. I could scarcely believe it myself.

"Grott," I said, trying to sound casual, "You said this tower could could transcend time, right?"

Grott looked at me in surprise.

"Yes, I did," he said, slowly, "but it requires tremendous amounts of energy and is really quite dangerous. I wouldn't recommend it, plus we'd have to know exactly where and when we were going."

That was good enough. I assumed my own cool person impersonation, pitching it somewhere between a late eighties action hero and Jeremy Clarkson.

"Well, in that case," I said, narrowing my eyes and trying to strike a commanding pose with limited success, "I've got a plan. So without further ado..."

I paused for dramatic effect.


"On with the show..."


***

Nothing like the deployment of a really cheesy line, eh? Oh well, see you next time! Onward to victory! I hope.

Aldous Huxley VS Huxley Pig GRAND BATTLE!

Well, here I am again, O most loyal minions. Let's see where we were last time, shall we? Let's grit our collective teeth and analyse the improbable situations I'm facing....

1. It appears the universe is going to end. I thought I'd better put that as problem number one.

2. It appears I am supposed to be able to do something about it. The less said about that the better.

3. I am thoroughly sick and tired of surreal and disturbing things happening. I just thought I'd better throw that in, as you can't really have a two point list, can you? Oh, don't mind me, I'm in a bad mood. Well, you would be too in my situation, wouldn't you? *GRUMBLE*

OK, inane text-type introduction over, time to find out what was going down back in the safe and comfortingly mouldering environs of Zarfang's kitchen. I can't say that at this point I'd entirely recovered from the horrible events rendered to you so inarticulately in the previous message. Oh, let's not dwell on that any longer than we have to, eh?

***

I thought it was about time I got to the bottom of things.

"Grott," I said, "You knew we'd turned up in this place, whatever the hell it is, didn't you?"

Grott shuffled about sheepishly. Nigel looked as if he was about to attempt a repeat of his previous attempt to get Gorgrod to wallop him. Maevrin sat half slumped at at the kitchen table, looking pretty exhausted. Poor old Maevrin - I wished I'd never let her come along. I affixed a mental note to the mental fridge to try and console her a bit later on, hoping that a mental gust of wind wouldn't blow it under the mental cupboard.

"Well," Grott began, "I admit, I had started to suspect where we were. However, I promise I didn't know for sure when I sent you out there. But enough of that, tell me what happened to you? You met him, didn't you?"

"Oh, alright," I said, wearily, "I'll tell you what happened."

Everyone listened with an interesting spectrum of expressions. Maevrin looked disturbed, Nigel hovered around an almost comical expression of disbelief, the sort of face a football fan makes before he can figure out just how outraged he is going to get at a dreadful refereeing decision. Grott maintained a starry eyed expression like something from an old cartoon, the sort where the pupils go the shape of a cake with a slice out (I wonder if there's an official term for that?) and Gorgrod oscillated between gargoyle-style grimaces and grins, which was a bit distracting. These expressions intensified as my over-melodramatic account drew near, complete with dubious Carlos Castaneda style out of body mind warpings.

"So what do you make of that, then?" I said to Grott.

"Yes..." said Grott, not looking towards me and seemingly talking to himself, "It all makes sense now. You must have become partly embedded in someone else's dream..."

He fixed his beady black eyes back to me.

"I hope you now realise why my master disappeared. It was to repair the damage he'd done to reality."

I struggled to think of a sensible response to a sentence like that.

"Here's a question for you." said Grott, assuming the tone of a temperamental lecturer, "Haven't you ever wondered why after my master's career, all manner of modern inventions just seemed to invent themselves? Television, automobiles, even the internet? Not only that; people became innately aware of the other world those inventions originated from."

I felt strangely confused.

"I... suppose I've never really thought about it..."

"Exactly," said Grott, "How could people not think of that as suspicious? I'll tell you why. Reality from another world has been leaking into this one and changing things. You see, our universe is only supposed to be a small satellite of the main one, full of the sort of things that are supposed to inspire legends, myths and the like. That was what it was before my master, anyway. Of course, reality has also leaked from our universe back into the main one, but the effect was much less pronounced in that direction, and seems to have become entangled in films, television, games and the like. Where do you think all those MMORPGs keep coming from?"

"Hold on a minute," chipped in Nigel, "So if I'm right in thinking your boss has gone and naused up reality, how are we supposed to do anything about it? He said Ivan had to do something, didn't he?"

At this, Grott's face fell.

"Well, yes, that's true, I'm afraid. You must find some way to beat Eldrigar, otherwise the damage he is doing will set free the forces my master is currently fighting to contain, meaning the end of the world. In answer to the question you're about to ask, it has to be you for complex reasons you won't understand easily. This tower can warp reality, even transcend time itself in some capacity, but can't affect the laws of causality. You've become entangled with the tower, so it's impossible to reverse your involvement, I'm afraid."

There was short silence.

"Well?" I said, "I was kind of hoping you were about to tell me about some hidden power I'd got, or some kind of plan you might have to sort all this out? Maybe we could cut to some kind of training montage or something?"

Grott looked at me blankly.

"No, actually I wasn't. You haven't got any hidden powers. In fact, you're almost completely useless. Eldrigar could atomize you on sight. And I haven't got a plan."

"Oh," I said. "How about assembling some kind crack team from somewhere or other which we could use to win in an epic showdown?"

"Err, well, if you happen to know the address of any powerful white wizards in the neighbourhood who could do battle with the greatest sorcerer imaginable, maybe that would work."

"Oh, come on!" I said, throwing my hands up in exasperation, "Can't you be a bit more useful? You've been scurrying about all this time, doing you own mystical thing, then you reveal your secret identity and act all high and mighty, now, when you might actually help us out, you're no use whatever!"

"Oh don't start on me," Grott said, irritably, "I was only created to look after this tower, not to save the blasted universe."

"Don't worry about him," said Nigel to me, in a semi-reassuring tone, "He's just a glorified janitor anyways."

To avoid Grott's furious expression, I walked over to the window and looked out. The garden was still as beautiful as ever, the sun was now sinking lower in the sky.

"What's this place supposed to be, then?" I said, gloomily thinking that there was nothing better to do than to carry on the conversation. Grott replied grudgingly.

"I suppose this must be the interface point that my master created on the fringes of the world of dreams. I never saw it myself before, but we'll be quite safe here. We must have effectively collided with it on our way past, I hadn't realised the world of dreams had expanded so much."

I turned back to Grott.

"So the universe could end at any time, then?"

"Actually," replied Grott, "I think we should be alright for the time being. You see, we're actually outside the time scale of our world here, where the damage is being done, so nothing should happen any time soon, so long as we don't go back home for a while."

At this, I brightened up immediately.

"Well, why didn't you say so before?" I said, cheerfully. "If we don't have to do anything for the time being, things aren't so bad, are they?"

Nobody else looked particularly convinced, but personally, nothing cheers me up like a bit of procrastination.

"I'm sure we'll think of something that'll sort all this out," I said, with ridiculous forced cheerfulness. "How about I cook us all something nice? I can't promise it won't contain beans, though."

At this, everyone groaned.

"I tell you what," said Grott, "How about I take you somewhere interesting? maybe it'll cheer everyone up a bit. There's a place I used to go that's not far from here, in a manner of speaking."

"Oh no," I said, feeling a sudden sense of dread, "After what happened in this place, there's no way we're going to some other crazy, messed up location. I know what'll happen - first it'll look fine, then all of a sudden there'll be a Transylvanian postman lunging at me with his antique gravy boat collection."

Grott looked disappointed.

"Oh, come on," he wheedled, "That could happen to you anywhere! [note from me - what???] This place is quite safe, it always used to cheer me up when I'd become a bit bored of waiting for my master to return. And it's only a little bit surreal."

"No way!", said Nigel and I at exactly the same time. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have the desired effect. Grott's face took on an impish expression, like some kind of mischievous school boy, which looked pretty weird and incongruous on his gnarled features. With one quick cry of "I'm going to do it anyway!", he disappeared out of the room almost faster than the eye could see, leaving a hysterical "hee hee hee!" hanging in the air behind him.

The next moment, the view of the garden that could be seen from the windows vanished, replaced by the black, swirling vortex we'd seen last time the tower was travelling, though reassuringly without the deep groaning sound we'd heard before.

I sighed. What on earth was the point of putting a brave face on things, when stuff like this kept continuously happening? Seeing as this was fast turning into some kind of adventure or adventure related escapade, shouldn't I have at least made some kind of progress already? Maybe a little bit of a feeling of getting somewhere? Oh well.

We all looked at each other with a sort of "never mind" expression on our faces, then I proceeded to cook us all some sort of dubious bean concoction, fortified with some past its sell by date chilli sauce from the fridge. We carried on drinking the whiskey, no food can taste too bad when you've had a few drinks.

Actually, it turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable evening, though we made sure to keep the topic of conversation away from the events of the day. There wasn't anything much any of us could do about the situation, Grott seemed to have done another of his disappearing acts, so we ended up feeling strangely cheerful. Maevrin seemed to have recovered and cheered up, and Nigel was telling all sorts of hilarious stories about stupid things his various uncles had either done, said, or told him. He'd grudgingly admitted that his "slightly invisible" potion was a fraud after I put a bit on my food and discovered it was indeed brown sauce, he swore dark oaths of vengeance against Uncle Trevor. Even Gorgrod could be palatable company when he'd had a few drinks.

I looked around at the gloomy old kitchen, now full of the sounds of people laughing and joking. It seemed strange that I'd been happy enough pottering about it largely alone, satisfied by vague pipe dreams about becoming a great and powerful dark wizard. I realised that despite none of us wanting to have been caught up in this sort of insane adventure, all of our lives were pretty drab and boring, whether it be working endless hours in a sandwich factory, organising stamps in a dark room or just simply being a rather unpleasant troll, and that at least bound us together in some way. At least this sort of thing was interesting, whatever else you could say about it.

After a number of hours, which were impossible to measure as we'd noted that each of the clocks in the tower was rotating in its own random direction and speed, we decided it was time for bed. I discovered to my surprise that Nigel was indeed actually sleeping in the bread bin. Yes, I did laugh.

Well, what strange adventures will we get into tomorrow? Where is Grott taking us? Will I figure out a way to even come close to solving the dire problems we've all so happily put on the back burner? Stay tuned to find out, as I for one would like to know.

Peace out, y'all.

A fun day out

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

GRUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

EUEUEUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUGH!!!!!!!

Sorry about that, you've got to get stuff like that out of your system, they say it can really mess you up if you don't. Hello, by the way. As you might have gathered, things haven't quite been going to plan, if indeed there was ever a plan, which there wasn't. I wonder where that leaves me now? Not following a non-existent plan is about par for the course when you consider what I've just been through, which you will do, provided you keep on reading this.

Sorry if all this doesn't make much sense or actually isn't at all entertaining to read (though that can't have put you off if you've got this far) it's just that I've had a very traumatic experience. I hereby officially state that I have had enough of the way things are going right now, and that I for one am fed up with magical/surreal/disturbing adventures and sincerely hope never to have to live through another one for the rest of my life (however remote the chances are of that). I'm going to be petitioning reality and the space/time continuum for more boring events to happen to me. I mean, just how difficult could it be for the laws of causality if all that changes is that this blog just gets extremely dull? What would be so wrong about entries that consist of things like me getting out of bed, going downstairs for a bit, having a look out the window, then going back to bed? I mean, it would be a hell of a lot easier and much less stressful for me, and would save wear and tear on keyboard. I could add the making of a cup of tea occasionally, just to liven things up a bit. Think of the carbon footprint! I'm not sure how that applies, but throwing in an environmental issue usually does the business these days, so far as I can see.

Anyway, hold onto your eyebrows, folks, 'cos this one's going to be pretty odd. You know, I think writing this down faithfully is the only thing keeping me sane, right now. Still, it's not so bad as actually living through it, so think yourself lucky!

***

We rejoin our intrepid hero (hero?) asleep in bed. I was having a nice dream about discussing the merits of cable cars with a bright yellow parrot who was driving a bus. Where does all this stuff come from, I wonder?

Anyway, I was awakened by a loud knocking at the door. The morning sun was streaming in through a gap in the curtains. I remembered where we were, or rather that I had to find out where we were, with a sinking feeling. Don't you just hate it when you wake up in a good mood, then immediately enter a bad mood because you remember what you have to do that day? Oh well, there was nothing else for it but to get up.

“Who is it?” I shouted as I got out of bed, hoping whoever it was didn't barge in and see my dreadful pyjamas. I only bought them in amazement that they actually made Tellitubby ones in adult sizes. Don't do internet shopping when you're drunk.

“It's Nigel!” came the voice (unsurprisingly) of the aforementioned gnome, “How much longer are you going to keep us waiting? What are you up to in there?”

I interrupted rummaging in the wardrobe to make a complex expression of disgust at the door

“Up to anything? I'm not up to anything! I just need my sleep, that's all.”

“Well, hurry up, would you? Some of us weren't so comfortable in the bread bin last night as you were in that bed of yours!” came the terse reply.

I decided to wear my shaded robes of nethermost blackness – after all, it had taken me an age to make them, and I was determined to get some wear out of them. Honestly, needlework monthly had said you could knock up one of these in a single afternoon – what a load of rubbish! Well, the pattern had been for a dress originally, so I suppose that had accounted for the various problems I'd had. Looking in the mirror, I still couldn't quite shake the feeling I looked like Queen Victoria in her mourning dress. Still, it was the best I could do.

I took a quick look out of the window. The sun was rising above the mystery garden outside, it looked cool and quiet, and dew was shining on the grass. Looking at the view, I began to feel that maybe things weren't so bad. I was almost looking forward to having a look around out there.

I strode over to the door and pulled it open.

“Blimey!” said Nigel, looking at me in disbelief, “You have been up to something in there. You've had a sex change!”

“Shut up,” I said, pointedly, “You know perfectly well these are robes, but fair enough, I apologise for the bread bin remark. Now can we please stop messing about while in the middle of potentially dire situations?”

We went downstairs. Maevrin and Gorgrod were tucking into large plates of baked beans. Good grief, I never thought I'd have to witness the spectacle of Gorgrod eating here in my own home.

“Ah, there you are,” said Maevrin, “Why are you wearing a dre...”

“Alright!” I shouted, “OK!”

I turned around, went back upstairs and returned wearing the robes I'd worn the previous day. Honestly, some people have no sense of taste.

“So why have you got so many cans of baked beans?” Maevrin asked me with her usual abruptness as I entered the room.

“Well, I just got them in case of an apocalypse or something, you can never have too many cans of beans in an apocalypse. They've certainly come in handy now, haven't they?”

She cast me one of her impenetrable stares, unreadable behind those glasses of hers. I cast an eye over to Gorgrod, who was shovelling down beans like he was stoking a furnace. I couldn't help having the disconcerting feeling I'd be somewhere near him when they started their effect on his digestive system. Good grief.

I sat down and unenthusiastically ate a bowl. Just as I was finishing, Grott appeared.

“Well, well, how are we all getting on this morning?” he said, rubbing his gnarled hands together with a forced and slightly oily cheerfulness. “I wonder was today will bring? Have you all slept well?”

“Yes, thank you, “ I said, looking at him suspiciously. “Have you figured out where we are?”

I don't know if it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn that a faint look of fear passed over Grott's knobbly countenance at that moment. Had he found something out?

“No, that I haven't, I'm afraid,” he said, smiling once more, “I'm afraid we won't know until you go out and have a look.”

“'Ere!” said Gorgrod, unexpectedly showing he was keeping up with the proceedings, “Why don't you go out and have a look?”

“Oh, I'm sorry Mr Troll, I can't do that. I've got to look after the tower's defence. That is, after all, the reason for my existence in the first place.”

I looked at the troll, wondering what he was making of all this. No doubt he was taking it all in his stride - it wasn't as if you could say he was stupid as such, just loosely connected with everything else but the acquisition of beer and the money to pay for it. No doubt he'd carry on following us about until this was all over, whenever and however that would be. Maybe he thought it was all part of the house raiding job Nigel had called him out to do last night.

Well, there seemed nothing else but to do as Grott said. We cleared up the breakfast stuff, dithered around the kitchen for a few minutes, and were at last ready to head out. We decided it was best not to wander too far, just far enough to hopefully find someone to ask where we were.

The sunlight streamed in as I pulled open the door, the air smelt as fresh and clear as I ever smelt it. It felt almost like that bit near the beginning of The Wizard of Oz as we stepped out into the bright garden. It was so perfectly still, silent and strikingly beautiful that we couldn't help but stand and look around in amazement. The tower seemed to be standing in the exact centre of the place, sitting in the middle of a precise circle of the same white gravel that made up the paths, paths which stretched out in all directions like the spokes of a wheel. They were bordered by immaculately neat grass, and each section was filled with diverse arrays of trees, shrubs and richly coloured flowers. The only thing that was slightly strange was how absolutely quiet it was, there wasn't a breath of wind or sound of birdsong; the sky above was absolutely cloudless.

“Well,” said Nigel, his voice sounding oddly loud in the silence, “At least this certainly beats manning the offal boilers. Let's go and see what we can see.”

Only Maevrin looked worried.

“I don't like it,” she said, looking about uneasily, “It's too quiet. Why hasn't someone seen us? There must be people around to look after a place like this.”

“Whoa, whoa,” I said, “Let's not go down that path. We've had enough of the bizarre and disturbing yesterday, without it all kicking off again today.”

Oh, Mr Hindsight, why must you play your cruel little games with me?

We chose the path that led directly away from the front door, crunching our way along it and drinking in the morning air. It was a strange place but not unpleasantly so, I thought at the time. It had that vivid quality of a place in a dream. Actually, if comparisons with popular fiction are to be drawn, it really wasn't anything like the Wizard of Oz. It was much more understated, more like the garden in Alice Through the Looking Glass, though hopefully without the talking flowers. I stared at one suspiciously, but it seemed reassuringly inanimate.

After a while, the dark, green hedge that formed the border of the garden began to draw near. There were many more trees crowding around the edge of the path here, they hung overhead, nearly meeting above us. There was no gate as the path passed through the hedge, but it was still difficult to make out what lay beyond.

“Did you just say something?”, Nigel said to me, looking puzzled.

“No,” I said, “I didn't hear anything.”

“I thought I heard a voice. Said 'My name is Kaloo-something-or-other', I couldn't quite catch it.”

“Oh, not you as well,” I said, “Look, I'm determined, despite having arrived in a teleporting tower, for us not to have a disturbing and creepy day. I'm sure it must be your imagination, so please calm down.”

Nigel grumbled to himself, pulling his pointy hat down low on his head and sticking his hands in his pockets. Soon, we had reached the gap in the hedge and passed through it.

We found ourselves standing on a dusty old country lane which ran off around the curve of the hedge. In front of us there was nothing but grass covered hills stretching away into the distance. I was suddenly aware that a fresh breeze was ruffling my hair, which was strange, as we surely should have felt it in the garden behind us. Turning to mention this to the others behind me, I suddenly and uncomfortably realised that the lane running alongside the hedge, as well as the hedge itself was now perfectly straight, and the path leading back through the garden was now curved to the right, meaning we could no longer see the tower. Furthermore, there were now white clouds skudding swiftly across the sky.

We all stood, looking at each other.

“Right.....” I said, “What exactly just happened there? You know, come to think of it, I think it might actually be an idea to turn back right now, don't you think?”

“Just a moment!” said Maevrin, “There's somebody coming down the road!”

We all turned to where she was pointing. It was difficult to make out, as dust blown up from the lane was obscuring our view, but there was definitely a figure walking towards us, a figure of curiously monotonous colour that seemed to be wearing a tall hat.

We all stood silently waiting for the walker to reach us. However, as the figure began to resolve itself, we understandably declined to strike up a conversation.

It was a man made entirely out of pork sausages.

The sausage man walked calmly toward us, its feet making soft, squelching sounds on the road. It raised the sausage top hat it was wearing and squished its eyeless sausage features into a friendly smile as it passed in front of us, then away down the road. It was soon lost in the distance.

There was a long and deeply uncomfortable pause.

“Well,” I said, in a faded, sing-song sort of voice, “I take it you also just witnessed the creepiest thing I've ever seen?”

“Yeah, I just did.” said Nigel vaguely. Maevrin merely nodded.

“I'm not sure I'll be able to eat a certain meat based product again after that.” I said.

Nigel turned to me, and spoke urgently.

“Look, mate, don't mess about. We've got to get out of here, back to the tower.”

I didn't need to discuss it with him. However, as we all turned as one to leg it back down the white path, we realised that the hedge, the path and everything else had gone. With a disturbing lack of transition, we were standing on a city street.

The buildings were tall and very shiny, seemingly made of stainless steel or chrome in various neon colours. It appeared to be night, and the scene was lit by various brilliant points of coloured light positioned seemingly at random. When I looked up at the sky, I wondered why I wasn't entirely surprised that all I could see above us was the colossal form of a honey bee hovering there, vast beyond all imagination, its wings flapping up and down steadily and smoothly, exactly like a slow motion video from a nature program. The street we were in was quite narrow for the height of the buildings, and the whole scene had an intolerably oppressive feel. There was a deep, throbbing sound in the air.

Looking back down, I noticed strange, bulbous figures had begun to issue from the doors of the buildings and from manhole covers in the pavement. As one of them approached us, I realised it, like all the others was a kind of anthropomorphised cake with arms, legs, and an unsettlingly human face with glassy, staring eyes. Soon there were a great heard of them passing quietly in front of us. One was in the shape of a doughnut, with it face distorted grotesquely across the ring shape. I should have been terrified, but at that point I felt strangely numb.

The cake people were all making their way towards one point, at the foot of the tallest tower. I craned my neck above them, and saw that they were all entering a wide, black opening in the wall, above which flashed a bright neon sign, which read:

“PARTY”

I realised that the dark opening had metallic teeth and lips. From within it, there was a dull, rhythmical clanging, thumping and grinding as the disturbing figures disappeared into its darkness. I also realised I was alone – there was no sign of the others beside me. I looked around wildly, and spotted Gorgrod standing motionless a little way down the street, staring upwards. But before I could get to him, he had swiftly and noiselessly transformed into a large, black bird, a raven maybe, and had flown away.

I was at the point of despairing, when suddenly there was the sound of a vehicle's engine revving loudly, the screech of tires and the blast of a horn. A large, bright yellow bus swayed into view, scattering the cake figures left and right. The driver's side window rolled down, revealing the face of a very large, yellow parrot.

“Hop in mate!” It said, cheerily. “Come on, I haven't got all night!”

The doors slid open with a hiss, but though I could see little alternative, I hesitated. Suddenly, the cake-creatures attention switched abruptly away from the door. As one, they all turned to face me, their vacant, glassy eyes on mine as they started to shamble my way, this time letting out a thin, babbling murmur. That was persuasion enough. I jumped aboard, collapsing in a heap on the floor. The bus screeched off again, with one unpleasant squelch which must have been the demise of one of those cake-men. The wipers cleaning whipped cream off the windscreen didn't help my state of mind.

When I managed to gather my senses, I gingerly made my way to the front of the bus. Outside, it was as if we were flying through the depths of space – stars and nebulae were shooting past us at a fantastic rate. I reached the parrot driver and looked cautiously at him.

“Wotcher!” said the parrot, amiably, one wing resting on the steering wheel, the other clutching a cigarette. There was no mistaking it, I'd seen that parrot before, and not so long ago.

“You're the parrot from my dream!” I said.

“Course I am, son,” said the parrot. “Course I am. Now did you think an honest dream like me could leave you in the lurch down there? All them bloody cakes messin' about all over the place? Nah, son, don't you worry. I'll take you to see the boss. He'll show you what's what, right enough.”

The parrot gave me a wink, and started whistling. I slumped against the window on the opposite side, then suddenly remembered the others. The parrot seemed to read my mind.

“Don't worry about your friends, son. They'll be fine once the boss hears about you.”

“Oh,” I said, weakly, “That's alright then.”

The obvious question occurred to me.

“Who is this boss you're talking about?”

The parrot sucked at the air in the manner of builders about to make a hefty quote.

“Oh, I can't be talking about the likes of him, I'll let him speak for himself.”

The parrot drove on silently for a while, the conversation apparently exhausted.

“So,” said the parrot, suddenly, “What do you reckon about cable cars, then?”

***

I can't exactly remember getting off the bus. In fact, as far as I remember, I'd only closed my eyes for a moment, as the swirl of the stars had made me feel dizzy. This is what happened, as best as I can remember, though it all seems now as if it happened to another person entirely.

I was walking down a street, at night, alone, and I had been walking for some time. The silence and the solitude seem to hang in the air around me. I was walking steadily, the dark windows of suburban houses staring silently at me as I passed, their blank faces bathed in faded sodium glare. I was concious of not having to worry about anything but watching the sombre scene slide by.

I lifted my gaze slightly and stared blankly up the street. A dark hedge with a small brick wall at its foot bordered the path ahead; beyond, a side street branched away into the gloom. Suddenly and unpleasantly, I realized a dark shape resting against the low wall was that of a person; a man, lying partly slumped against the brickwork. He was just beyond the nearest pool of light, a shadowy silhouette. I could make out no features.

He was lying on his side, with his head propped uncomfortably against the wall. Despite this, I felt certain that dark and entirely conscious eyes were regarding me from the deeply shadowed face.

The world had changed completely. The emptiness had gone, now I felt only self-consciousness and doubt. Too late to stop or cross the road before he saw me; I was sure that he already had. I felt a sudden certainty that I would not walk past the shadowed figure, despite the awkwardness of turning away. I drew to a halt, then swung to my right, making to cross the road.

“Hey!”

The voice started out across the street; hoarse, rasping, yet weak and gasping, almost unnatural. I froze, feeling sudden shock and fear as I realized how pitiable the voice sounded, as if the speaker was near the final end of his strength. The slumped shape was still absolutely motionless; it seemed almost impossible that the voice had come from it, were it not for the persistent feeling of the hidden eyes upon me. It seemed almost inevitable when I started out towards the figure.

As I grew closer, I began to make out more detail. Slowly I could make out tattered clothes, a stubbled chin, and on the pavement beside him, an overturned can with a tiny stream of liquid threading its way toward the gutter. I slowed my approach, not wanting to get too close. The figure gave a shudder and began to struggle awkwardly to a sitting position, the face finally coming into the light, a sickly, haggard face with dark, haunted eyes.

I stopped. As the man's eyes met mine, his face cracked into the ghost of a smile, he seemed almost about to laugh. Then his face grew serious.

“Do you know,” he said hoarsely, “You're the first awake, sane person I've seen for over four hundred years?”

He appeared to take in my expression.

“I know you've been in here long enough to forget who you are, as if you were dreaming. Well, this is not a dream, it is quite real, as real as this place can ever be.”

Once again, I remained silent.

“I'm sure you've heard of me. In my time I shook mountains, shaped continents, slew armies. I have paid for it more than you could ever imagine. But all I have suffered would be entirely in vain, should you fail in what I am about to entrust you with. Please, listen to me.”

I contemplated running. I should have been in bed, I had lectures the next day. The old man was clearly insane, but something in his voice made me strangely reluctant to miss hearing what he had to say, as if in some strange way I knew who he was. The man continued.

“I discovered a source of strength so great it that tore our world apart. I found the very conduit that links universes, forcing open the door from our world to the world it feeds from. Ours is a satellite universe, nothing more, my own foolish tampering upset the delicate balance of reality. It was when my power grew so great that I could transcend time itself that I realised what I had done. Not only had our universe forever been changed by the flood of influence coming through from the mother world, something else was leaking through that came from another place entirely, something that should never have a direct connection with reality.”

“This is the force I've been fighting these past four hundred years. The realm of dreams has been rushing through the rend I made, growing like a cancer. Perhaps dreams are not the best description for these things, as with dreams come nightmares, and when nightmares stray into wakefulness you will know horror, chaos, insanity, oblivion.”

“But the situation was not hopeless. I was winning. However, all that has changed. Somebody out there in the real world had begun tapping the source once again, widening the rend, and I believe you have encountered him. Because of his actions, I am nearing the limit of my strength. If this man is not stopped, the bubble holding back the tide of insanity with burst, and the world will be as good as dead.”

The man was quite mad, but I found it impossible to leave him.

“Don't let this happen! Go back to the real world and kill the man who is doing this! If you can only find a way to stop him, I will fight these nightmares back to their own dark dimension and restore the balance of reality, and then I will at last be able to finally die. Tell my servants that I will return to them before the end and release them from their duties. Yes, to die... but that is nothing for one who has seen the beginning and end of time.”

Suddenly, a deep groaning shudder rolled down the street, so deep you could feel it in your bones. The old man's eyes widened.

“Kalumantu!” he said, his face hardening. “There's a war raging here, good dreams versus nightmares. The most powerful nightmares have personalities of their own, and this one is the lord of them all. Only he could have broken through my defences at a time like this. I barely have the strength to fight him, but I will keep him at bay long enough for you to escape! Go now!”

Something was stirring at the end of the street. I could see dark, jointed legs moving somewhere in the half darkness just beyond the street lamps. Something huge was moving there, moving much too quickly and jerkily for something so seemingly massive.

“Didn't you hear me?” said the old man, his eyes now wild and staring, “You need to get out of here!”

But my legs had gone numb and refused to move.

“I can't move!” I shouted.

“No, no!” shouted the old man, “I mean get out of here, not run away!”

Suddenly the groaning rose to a crescendo. A terrible, black shape detached itself from the darkness and began to surge down the street. Multiple, crab-like limbs crashed their way along the concrete, smashing lamp-posts like twigs and kicking great lumps from the road. A enormous dark shape swayed and rocked above the crustacean-like body. The monster drew rapidly closer and the mass above resolved itself as the face and upper body of a grotesquely twisted clown, flapping around like a corpse, yet filled with lust for our destruction. It let out a bursting roar as it saw us, the absolute, mindless horror of a thousand death-rattles. The last thing I remember is the old man struggling to his feet to face the beast, before I was filled with a sudden sensation of rushing upwards.

***

I opened my eyes. The faces of Nigel and Maevrin were looking worriedly down at me. Thank goodness for that! I think I'd just about had enough of nightmares to last me a lifetime. It seemed we were back in the garden, at the foot of the familiar and comfortable shape of Zarfang.

“What happened?” I asked, struggling into a half sitting position.

The other's faces clouded.
“Well, I don't really know,” said Nigel. “We went into that....place,” he shuddered, “but we were led out again, there was a light, and a voice, it showed us the way. We went down this swirly great tunnel thing, we passed you, you were spark out, so I got Gorgrod to carry you. We came out here.”

It was then that I remembered the meeting with the old man. Now, of course, I knew what he meant, and who he was.

Oh.

Oh dear.

Not good at all.

“Right,” I said, standing up unsteadily, “There's only one thing to do at a time like this! Follow me!”

I opened the door of the tower. There was Grott, waiting eagerly. He began to open his mouth, but I cut him off.

“Not now! I'll deal with you later!”

I quickly rummaged my way to the back of the larder, where I'd hidden among the numerous baked bean cans a bottle of the finest dragon blood whiskey, top prize at a tombola I'd entered a few years previously. I brought it back to the kitchen, poured some generous measures and handed them around. I figured we'd all earned something to steady our nerves.

“You've met my master, haven't you!” said Grott, excitedly as we hurriedly downed our drinks. “I can sense his influence on you! What did he say?”

I groaned inwardly. Somehow I felt sure things weren't going to end well.

***

Oh well, that's enough of that for one day. Stay tuned for the (possibly) exciting continuation of this quasi-epic tale, providing I don't meet some kind of all too possible demise in the mean time. Or the universe ends, of course.