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| Chronicles of the Cake Stop |
| Vol III No. 2 |
"Use the Force, look,"
"Where is the seventh Level of Hell, exactly?"
"I think we took a wrong turn at Basingstoke." |
The charming and plucky Kathy Pike has foiled the machinations of an evil scientist intent on stealing
precious equipment from her secret underground laboratory, but it would appear that he may have
wreaked his revenge by employing the assistance of the Cake Stop's very own Gonzo, entomologist
and communications expert, henceforth poisoning the cakes with hallucinogenic mushrooms, causing
the hallowed grounds to become rife with fighting and argumentation. Saved by the Temple Guards,
the intrepid chums are now rallying under the watchful, gung-ho eye of the manly Gunner, and are
setting out to put the world to rights.
Out into the blasting wind, Gore-Tex zipped up tightly, lights sparkling and blazing in the gloom of
heavy cloud cover. The evocative aroma of hastily applied embrocation fills the air, mingling with the
ever-present scent of teflon spray and WD40. At this time of year there is also the must of fallen,
rotting leaves and that indefinable, vague tang that hints at coming Winter sunshine and snow.
Bicycles are unclipped and settled, ready for the off. Chuffy huddles inside his jacket, the Cardinal
looking sulky beneath him. "Don't like this wind," he says. "It could easily knock us over, and it's
getting worse."
"Tosh and pish posh," giggles Rigby. He sets off and is immediately caught by a gust that pushes him
into a bush. It is as if someone or something does not want them to leave the environs of the Cake Stop.
"Where's the Priestess?" Gunner roars above the wind noise. "Sorting this out is her job. I'm quite
manly enough to make it out of here, but the rest of you lily-livered oiks obviously need a helping
hand."
"She's ill," Kathy tells him, cowering from the wind behind Tim, in the stoker's position on the tandem
that was named Her. "Haven't seen her in ages. Chuffy said she wasn't well."
"Well can someone fetch her? Show some initiative you horrible lot!" Gunner bellowed with the
irritation of a military man dealing with civilians. "Unless she's bleeding to death she should be out
here fighting the good fight."
At that moment a blue glow appears in the sky.
"Wow," says Hasufel. "He looks just like Obi Wan Kenobi in Empire Strikes Back."
The light reflects off their rain-wet faces as the ghostly figure of Aeroflash, now ascended to the side of
the Goddess as a pure soul sacrificed in the pursuit of truth, justice and ABD-free cakes descends from
the heavens and comes to a free-floating rest just above their heads. Pale faces crane upwards to see
him, each pair of eyes reflecting a tiny figure outlined in coruscating sapphire.
"The priestess has been taken prisoner by one of her minor demons," he says, voice mellifluous with
the wisdom of the ascended. "She took her eye off the ball for a moment because she was distracted by
somebody trying to justify driving their kids half a mile to school in a Humvee. One of the demons
took advantage of the situation to sneak out of its paddock and inflict her with its influence and then
went AWOL. It's running about in the 7th level of Hell somewhere and she's not going to feel any
better until she catches it and puts it back where it belongs. Or whatever else she might have in mind."
He grins wickedly.
"Aha!" cries Gunner. "Then we must go and offer our able assistance. But we must get out of the Cake
Stop first. Have you any sage advice for my fellow travellers, who are all so much weaker than I?"
"Use the Force, look," says Aeroflash, waving one hand that dances with the fey light of St Elmo's fire.
The blue nimbus expands down and out, surrounding the assembly in the same soft blue and lighting a
path for them to follow. "Go, my friends. Go your way in safety and may the wind be at your back."
Bardsandwarriors takes point, enthusiasm evident as this is his first adventure, with the similarly over-
excitable Cuddyduck and Groucho right behind him. Further back, in the middle of the peleton, are the
more experienced of the Cake Stop denizens, who know that this sort of intrepid undertaking can take
quite a lot more time than originally anticipated and it pays to pace oneself. Hairyhippy is languishing
near the back, riding the eccentric and somewhat twitchy steed that is the lilac Kirk with a Bob skewer
through the rear hub, to which is attached a custom-built Bob Ibex with a lockable suspension post,
which can double as a wheelbarrow. The drysack within contains his special supply of magical
compost, well known to those in green-fingered circles as having the capacity to make anything thrive.
The electric-blue path streaks out in front of them through a landscape darkened by a fierce storm.
Above them the clouds bare teeth made of dark shadow, gaping maws looming, ogre-like, and from the
woods on either side come unsettling noises and unnatural movements. The light of the path keeps the
darkness at bay, preventing encroach by whatever black forces are attempting to foil their plans.
"This is just like Pitch Black" says Hasufel, somewhat inaccurately. "We could do with having Vin
Diesel around."
"What sort of chap is he?" asks Rigby. "What does he ride?"
"Er..." Hasufel is nonplussed and let's the idea slide.
They emerge from the tree-avenue that lines the little-known backwater providing access to the Cake
Stop. As the last man emerges from the arching foliage the vegetation seems to close over the road
until there is no sign that there is anything there. The sky clears and the blue path fades away into the
dim twilight of a crisp Autumn day.
The gang cycles on a little further, largely because Bardsandwarriors is keeping things moving up
front, but the pace drops and drops further until the main pack is barely crawling along, and eventually
they grind to a halt, forcing the newer entrants to the League of Gentlemen Cyclists to stop and come
back to rejoin them.
"Where exactly is the Seventh Level of Hell anyway?" Gordon asks, eyebrows raised quizzically.
"Ah," says Gunner. "We need Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Well done that man. Come along then,
chaps. Where is Mistress Raven's abode?"
"That would be near Exeter," Chuffy supplies, being the only one besides the reclusive writer ScottSam
ever to have visited the precise location in the Seventh Level of Hell where the Temple Priestess
spends her spare time.
"That's some distance," FatBloke comments dubiously. "It's not like we can just cut through A-Time.
Kathy and Tim have got the half-red tandem again, RB ain't here on account of some minor demon and
Aeroflash has gone to be Yoda's toy-boy in training."
"I have a little experience of these things," Flying Monkey offers graciously. "And Chuffkin may have
succeeded in keeping it mostly hidden out of sheer shame at his once-delinquent behaviour, but that
incident with the speed cameras outside Salisbury left him with some ability in that area himself."
EvilChuffy blushes and peers very hard at a speck of dirt on the Cardinal's top tube.
"There is weak spot in the space-time continuum at the crossroads by the Four Horseman about 3 miles
away." Flying Monkey continues, ignoring Chuffy's embarassment with a tolerant smile. "It popped up
when the Eldridge Pope brewery closed down, and although someone has started producing Royal Oak
again I think it should still be there."
"Jolly good show!" Gunner beams hugely and adjusts his bandana. "Onwards then troops! Heading of
two-niner-zero and let's be having double time and be quick about it!"
In a mass of whirring pedals and glittering spokes, breath steaming great smudges of vapour in the
brisk evening air, the pack sets off once more to make the crossing into A-Time.
A-Time. That inter-dimensional weave where the surrealism of Dali meets the irreverence of Da-Da in
a false-colour palette apparently devised by the boys working on Chaos Theory for NASA. Here there
are giant worms that leave casts of plasticine blue; birds with legs too long and fragile possibly to
support the weight of their massive, gently nodding heads if they were ever to set foot on a perch;
clowns the size of buildings striding across the rolling topography with grins into which a double
decker could fit; insects with eyes on stalks like deedle-boppers and iridescent wing-casings that whine
in flight with the sound of a halide lamp warming up. Here there lives a man who is made entirely of
crows; and the predatory snake-women, who slide pitiably along the ground as if with broken legs until
the unwary traveller approaches to offer help, at which point they spring forward, extending their upper
bodies like springs, and paralyse their luckless victim with poison that exudes from their nails and
teeth. Here live the hopes, fears and daemons of a thousand cultures. Here live the Abstracts. Here live
the Grotesques.
The fearless cyclists of the Cake Stop are on a mission, and some of them have traversed this mind-bending country before. The rules are simple: stick to the path and Don't Ever Fall Behind. Previous
experience has taught them a lot, and now Kathy and Tim's tandem is accompanied on both sides, and
in front and behind, by others of the League. Nutty is following up the rear of Her, riding the brompton
and hoping that the rubber bushes will not perish in whatever odd substances are found in the A-Time
atmosphere. Enthusiasm curbed by the bizarreness of their surroundings, the newcomers to this gang of
adventurers are no longer forging on ahead in front, but are now keeping themselves mid-pack, where
familiar faces lend some sense of anchoring point, however falsely reassuring that may be.
LamBO's face registers blank surprise at the sight of a gnarled tree on the horizon. It is not the tree that
has him so startled, but the man with the floppy hat and one piercing, gimlet eye, crucified to its trunk
and branches. LamBO nudges Shen hard in the ribs and points, but Shen just shakes his head. "Ignore
it," he advises. "Ignore everything."
They take a left fork in the path, then a right, led by Chuffy and Flying Monkey who are operating by
instinct, instinct having told them that the two black birds who appeared shortly before the first
junction with a resigned expression and mad eyes were not unfamiliar to them. "Is she stuck down a
well?" Chuffy had murmured to them, but the joke had not been appreciated and they had flapped off
without further ado. Now the two ravens are maintaining a steady distance not far in front, and, bereft
of any more or even less sophisticated navigational aid, such as knowing where the hell they are going,
the Cake Stop chums are following.
* * *
Eventually the cyclists emerge, dirty and weary, skins jaundiced from the yellow dust that gets
everywhere in A-Time at certain points in the lunar calendar. They have been travelling for what feels
like years, and have fought off the predatory snake women, avoided being squashed by giant clowns,
fixed several punctures, met one of the burrowing worms face to face — which was not entirely pleasant
— and been spied upon by he who is made of crows: the Hollow Man. Now they have completed the
not-so-short cut and they find themselves gathering at another crossroads with a pub on it. This one is
called The Cross, appropriately enough. Thought and Memory are squabbling about something,
pecking at one another and hopping up and down.
"Braak!" yells Thought.
"Braak! Braak! Braak!" Memory shouts back. Flying Monkey, Gunner and Chuffy regard them
uneasily, wondering if perhaps someone left some of the cake lying around.
"Braaaaaaaak!" hollers Thought.
Memory backs down and meeps sorrowfully.
Thought stalks away from his brother towards the cyclists and sidles up to Flying Monkey with the air
of someone whistling to appear innocent. "I think we took a wrong turn at Basingstoke," he confides
and then sidles away again as if nothing had happened.
"Did that bird just talk?" Gunner says in astonishment.
"I couldn't possibly comment," Flying Monkey says, aware of the beady eye of the raven watching.
"Amazing!" Gunner exclaims. "Normally birds just swoon when they see me. They don't get a chance
to get a word in. Sometimes they get most of the way through 'Il Bueno!' but not often."
Shaking his head in reluctant admiration for Gunner's unshakeable faith in his own impressiveness,
Chuffy says "Not far to go now. It's just over the hill and round a bit. Sort of. Might as well stop in the
pub for a pint. I'm parched."
"Much as I am keen to get Ravenbait and Fingal back amongst us," Rigby says. "I have to say that is an
admirable idea."
And so, with only a bare two miles or so left to tackle before reaching the home of the Temple Priestess
in the Seventh Level of Hell, we leave our intrepid friends enjoying a pint of Otter's finest in a local
tavern, well-deserved after their tortuous trip through the backroads of A-Time.
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What's this? This volume of our exciting and educational adventure periodical for boys and girls has
hardly even started spinning up to speed and our intrepid companions are already bound for
refreshment in a public house! A tavern, inn, hostelry! Should we fret, gentle reader? Should we be
concerned that perhaps the priorities of our fair chums are somewhat out of sorts? No! Of course not!
Making haste under any circumstance is most unseemly and a delicate pause for refreshment is only the
gentlemanly thing to do under such a trying occasion. So tune in next time for the continuing tales to be
found in Chronicles of the Cake Stop.
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