Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

“You’ve wasted your mind and your life. Do you understand that? Science can do it all so much cheaper, easier, and, indeed …” Will-o’-the-wisps were dancing around Rufus’s head as arcane powers peaked. Cabal sighed. Nobody ever listened. “And, indeed,” he continued, “faster.” He drew his revolver from the bag and fired rapidly three times. Rufus was a big man, but he’d just become host to enough lead to build a platoon of toy soldiers. His chanting stopped on the first impact, and he only grunted when the others caught him. He looked at Cabal with rising horror as he realised that he was dying. He blinked, unable to believe that his life was now measured in seconds. He made a strange beseeching gesture to Cabal, his upper arms against his chest and his hands reaching out as if he thought Cabal could somehow reverse the damage, somehow save him. Then his body betrayed him, and he fell forward heavily in a way no living person can. The will-o’-the-wisps danced over the carcass for the moments it took for them to fade away.

“Now,” said Cabal, “what am I going to do with you lot?”

The Maleficarian Army shifted en masse from foot to foot. They weren’t sure, either. A cry went up: “Our new leader!” It was quickly taken up and expanded upon.

“Our new leader, Cabal! Cabal! Our new leader, Cabal!”

Cabal put away his gun. “Very well,” he said dryly. “You can work for my carnival. Follow me.” The army formed up behind him as he set off.

“One thing, though,” he called over his shoulder. “There are some forms that will need filling in.”

Big Squidhead lies a-scheming at the bottom of the sea,
He is counting out the aeons that make up eternity,
And when he’s done, it’s curtains for the vast majority,
While the Tcho-Tcho get on down.

Aie! Ftagn! Ftagn! Shub-Niggurath!
We’re on the winning side to see the aftermath,
Put on your marching boots because we’re on the path,
To the end times, here we come!
To the end times, here we come!
To the end times! Here! We! Cooooooooome!

“And stop that!”

CHAPTER 8 in which Cabal is educated in business affairs and undertakings are undertook

The good people of Murslaugh responded well to their saviour and showed their appreciation by visiting his carnival in droves. In his school exercise book with the squared paper pages that he thought his brother, Horst, knew nothing about (he was wrong, and Horst found it vastly amusing), Johannes Cabal kept a graph. On the x-axis was a one-year time scale; on the vertical y-axis a scale marked from 0 at the origin to 100 at his topmost point. This was Cabal’s “soul chart,” and it was looking quite healthy. With the edge of his wooden ruler, he could estimate the best-fit line, and it took him over the hundred- souls mark about two weeks before the deadline. It was a safety margin, but not much of one; it wouldn’t take much to make him lose the wager. Not much at all. There was a knock at the door. It was Mr. Bones.

“Say, boss, it’s the boss,” he said.

Cabal put his exercise book away and leaned back in his chair. “You are making precisely no sense,” he said.

“You know? The town boss guy.”

Cabal sat up abruptly. “You mean the mayor? Well, show him in.” Cabal had little time for politicians at any level in the normal run of his scientific career. Well, perhaps the level marked “live experimental subjects,” but that was all. If he had learned anything in the previous weeks, however, it was that local politicians have limited powers but enormous egos. A snub, real or illusory, was all it took to make them apply those limited powers with great vigour and imagination.

Two months previously, a disgruntled alderman had almost managed to close them down for health and safety infractions. Cabal hadn’t felt like pointing out that the carnival’s governing body — Hell — only has the sort of health and safety regulations that make sure both are seriously threatened. He had accurately doubted it would have done their case any good. It had taken the carrot of a large brown envelope stuffed with used bank notes, and the stick of a midnight visit from Phobos the Nightmare Man (who was pathetically grateful to have been seconded from Tartarus: “It’s good to get out, meet the punters. Gets you back in touch, you know?”) to clear things up. All because the alderman in question took exception to Cabal mentioning in passing that the last time he’d seen any body as bloated as that of the alderman’s wife, it had maggots crawling out of it. The fact that the observation was true was neither here nor there.

The Mayor of Murslaugh was a jolly, ebullient man of the sort who, in a well-ordered world, would be called Fezziwig. That his name was Brown was a powerful indictment on the sorry state of things.

“Lord Mayor,” Cabal said, “what a delight to meet you. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call on you.”

“Not at all, not at all, a business entrepreneur like you, busy all hours, not at all.” He smiled, apparently expecting an answer.

Cabal gave up trying to find a verb in that sentence. “Well, how can I help you? I am, of course, at the service of you and your delightful town.”

“Ah, well, yes, marvellous, you see? Maleficarus! Poom! Yes, blink! Of an eye! Marvellous!” Inexplicably, he mimed swiping at a ball with a cricket bat, then watching the ball vanish into the distance. “Exemplary!”

“Oh! I understand. This is about me clearing up that little bit of unpleasantness with Rufus Maleficarus? Really, it was nothing. A pleasure,” he added truthfully.

“Nothing? No! Jings, quite substantially not inconsiderable. Taking all points. All points, mind! Great thing, great thing.” He shook his head at the sheer drama of it all. “Local hero.” He looked dolefully at the floor for a moment, drew a great breath, the huge smile reappearing, said, “Busy man! Off now!” and left.

Cabal looked at the door for several moments after the mayor had shut it behind him. “Yes,” he said finally. “Well, if I ever suffer brain damage, I know there’s always a career waiting for me in local politics.”

* * *

The ugly man and the fat, ugly man eyed the stall. “What are y’ s’posed to do?” asked the fat, ugly man.

“All you have to do is throw a Ping-Pong ball into one of the goldfish bowls,” said Bobbins brightly.

“An’ I win a prize?” said the fat, ugly man.

“And you win a prize,” said Bobbins. Brightly. Bobbins had been the result of some of Cabal’s tinkering with the basic “a rag, a bone, a hank of hair (and a quantity of lard)” formula — in this case, by the addition of a tin of Brasso metal polish. As a result, everything that Bobbins did, he did brightly.

“Okay,” said the fat, ugly man, faintly echoed by the plain ugly man. “S’pose I’ll ’ave a go.”

Coins and Ping-Pong balls exchanged hands. The fat, ugly man lobbed a ball in the general direction of the goldfish bowls without taking any time to aim at all. The ball hit one bowl’s rim, bounced high, and landed neatly in another.

“Well done, sir!” said Bobbins, brightly. “You win!”

The fat, ugly man and his companion looked unaccountably put out. “Bugger me, Anders,” he said to the ugly man. “I’ve only gorn an’ won, ’aven’t I?”

Anders looked miserable. “Bugger me, Croal. So you ’ave. Now what?”

“You win a goldfish!” butted in Bobbins, brightly.