Oh, you know, like this

Well, OK, maybe not quite like this, don't think we have the tech or the mental development yet.  So 20 years after Woodstock, they thought they'd tell us that the Ayatollah Khomeini was just really upset and it perfectly reasonable for filthy murderous apes to be rampaging through the streets because they were really upset too because they felt their primitive death cult of obedience had been mocked - and no, I don't think that telling was sourced in the Anglosphere.  Try fucking Rome.  But we just didn't learn that nutjobs were good people and an asset to the country, and we should all be eversa respectful of the genuine and sincere and drivelling loony-tune beliefs of psychiatric cases because they're inadequate, unstable, psychopathic and homicidal, so we're all terribly evil for thinking we live in the free world in the C21st not the fucking Stone Age ruled by the ravings of Broadmoor patients. There had been a sexual revolution.  They lost control of women and so they lost control of society.  Now they conspire to get it back and of course think crippling and trying to destroy me a clever wheeze.  We the Sixties and Seventies generation have been pretty much eliminated from the public discourse.  If you are not a dirty little fascist dribbling about respect and crawling to madness, you are mysteriously supposed to dwell in some pre-war world.  If you were 20 in 1935, you are extremely unlikely to be still extant, since you would be 105.  

Yes, there are a lot of us, aren't there, women, women who expect to be regarded as adult human beings, intellectually, emotionally, sexually, physically autonomous.  Who will not tolerate being treated in the obscene evil pervert kinky freak sicko fashion you filthy little animals have treated me, you dirty foul sickening sexually diseased monkeys have treated me, a disobedient slave-girl to be rightly beaten for my non-existent crimes, rightly crippled, obviously every single fucking animal ape filth at UCH thinks crippling me was perfectly reasonable since none of them objected, everything I say dismissed out of hand by kinky-freak pervert sadists, ignored, thrown on the scrapheap to rot and die.  All perfectly normal in the world of the pervert, the freak, the sexually diseased ape who belongs in Broadmoor or in other words the 'holy'.  Hey, kinky-boys, think everyone's going to obey you, do you.  Kinky-freak-boy Goldstone, you think everyone's going to be respectful of the dribble of the guys with the ringlets, kinky-freak-boy Khwaja, you think everyone's going to regard Mohammed's book as a ceiling on what may be thought and said.  What none of these freak sickos understands is what nearly everyone else understands, that government is our servant not our master, that this is a democracy and power resides with us the people, so you go on whining and manipulating and seizing the citadels of bourgeois power and preening yourselves on how clever you are, and we'll just see, shan't we.

And the women of course are even fouler.  Dirty filthy little monkey-bitch slave-sluts.  Some fuck-faced baboon thinks to decree from the depths of its bottomless madness that I am to be injured and destroyed, that no-one is say or do anything, and what do the slave-filth do, fall on their filthy animal faces rubbing themselves off and beggging to know how best to please Master.  It doesn't occur to them to stand upright.  They don't know how to stand upright.  They think everyone is owned, on a collar and lead, everyone has a master set above her, that naturally Master is to be obeyed and naturally he has a right to mete out punishment to a slave that has offended him.   Disgusting, repulsive creatures. It's all garbage they're these great independent career women, they just do what's permitted them, go as far as the length of the chain allows. 

They assume my mind and my body are not my own.  They assume my mind and my body belong to others who decide what I may do with them.  Sick, evil, monsters.  Such are the deformed obscenities into whose infected monkey paws Englishwomen are supposed by loony-tunes to be delivered, bound and gagged.  It doesn't matter how many  million times I have pointed out my mind is my property, my body is my property.  It means nothing to them. 

So look at it, a grotesquely psychologically deformed and sexually diseased baboon,  a sick-boy who assumes women are his to command, a complete pervert who freaks if his property behave autonomously, particularly of course if we have sex lives, a severely sick animal who thinks sex outside marriage is evil, a monstrous freak., a sadist who clutches its dirty wizened cock at subjecting women to violence, a creature that belongs in  a padded cell decrees my spinal fusion is to be assaulted, decrees no-one is to help or support me, no attention is to be paid to anything I say, no fact of history, no fact about the present, no fact about me has any relevance. In the diseased twisted worm-ridden brain of this mad monkey there is no such thing as democracy. Indeed nothing at all exists apart from the writhings of its sick screaming filthy ape brain that decrees no-one is to interfere when I became crippled, decrees my physical and psychological destruction are to be attempted, I am to be ignored.  Nothing else has any reality to it, least of all me, who am simply a piece of property to be punnished.  It is offended!  A slur on its perfection, its magnificence!   Clearly the creature belongs in a secure institution.And they all go along with it, they all  just sit back and watch me being crippled, these supposed doctors and nurses.   It is not possible to regard these creatures as sane. It is not possible to regard them as human.  You  know, like the vermin of politics and the vermin of the security services.  Not one cunt anywhere would insist on democracy.  Not one cunt anywhere turned a hair at my being turned into a bent old cripple.   Ignore the old freak.  If it refuses to be ignored, have it sectioned.  Ooh naow, couldn't do that. 

Oh, have I just described Ratzupthearse.  Good.  The frank illegality of regarding me as subject to the Pope of course passes all by, like every other fact.  How many of the monkey's slave-filth in high places smoothed the path for that one, Blair, of course, Rees-Mogg, Fitzalan Howard, McDonnell, Duncan Smith. 

Thus the charge against vomit vermin monkey-bitches such as Yong, D'Sa, Kyriakou is the same as that against the foetid offal Linch, Naylor, Goldstone, the insolent traitor filth of politics and security services: attempted murder.  Were it not for Miss Crouch's legacy, I should probably have ended up in a wheelchair in the gutter perishing of hypothermia.

They all know that.  They're all completely evil.  No matter how much I screamed, no-one would help me.  No-one of course would dream, would you, you insolent foul sickening vermin, of upholding democracy.  Just sat there and did nothing while I got older and older, more and more disabled, more and more desperate, fucking spectator sport for sick animals, diseased obscenities, smelly monkeys.  Just sat there and made sure democracy didn't trouble their foul evil pit of fascism, corruption, bestiality and treason, their state within a state, their filthy little sick animal world.  So there the vermin continue to sit, strutting around, preening, untouched. Are they not above the common herd?  Great ones such as they cannot be held accountable.  Maybe one day someone will hang them, wipe the insolent evil self-satisfied smiles off their filthy faces for good. Monkeys can't even speak, can you, Doctor,  can't reason, just engage in wordless mindless bestiality, because that's all a fucking baboon is good for.  If anyone ever hangs for this, it should be that monster Naylor, that evil pasty-faced smirking piece of slum filth.  Won't even tell me what I'm supposed to have done.  That would involve bothering to speak to a woman.  Oh, have I offended your precious bloody religions.  Well take your precious bloody holy books and use them as lavatory paper because books adherence to which produces sick twisted vermin like you are clearly worthless. 

I don't exist.  I don't matter.  It hasn't happened.  All that matter to foul degenerate degraded depraved criminal vermin are other foul degenerate depraved criminal vermin.  I'm just a sack of potatoes thrown in the bin.  Something that threatened to get in their way and was ruthlessly destroyed.  Meaningless, worthless, a woman.  Who can possibly care what happens to a woman?   For a start not the obscene fascist traitor chimp who lied his way to leadership of the Labour Party. They have no conscience.  They have no shame.  They don't think they've done anything wrong.  Stuff it all up your filthy infected arses.

No-one would help or support me in any way, emotionally, financially, politically, practically.  So it makes you all subhuman vermin, lower than lower than vermin. 

No oversight?  Deliberate neglect is my guess, after all I'm only a woman.  Some fuck-faced evil animal trills I'm doing just fine, I'm being looked after.  Well, that's all right then and the fuck-faced evil animals happily get on with attempting to destroy me.  On no account speak to me.  On no account check facts.  On no account whatever should fact be adduced.  Fact is a dirty word to them.  No, MI5 really couldn't be bothered to look at facts.  Simpler to destroy me.  Have some sickboy on the case did you, a catlick or a mozzy?

This is what my life was like when that foul deformed subhuman monster Saunders was smirking and gloating at my impending destruction.  Naturally an animal with the mentality of a concentration guard is prized beyond rubies, protected, upheld.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH
 
And so later we shall  return to my plight which has been a low-grade horror show in the last month because it is evil to insist filthy animals, swaggering bestial baboon men and their slobbering exemplars of subhumanity women behave like human beings. 
 
Let us say I am not in a good mood.  I have had a month of acute stress, my mother having been admitted to hospital as an emergency on 18 October and discharged on 28th , during which time I have done my best to be both full-time carer and full-time employee. By her discharge after trudging to the hospital every day and stress and living on Paracetamol and so disguising the pain from having done too much my legs felt so trembly I was frightened standing up, stood sobbing in horrible crowds at Oxford Circus, and I stumbled in tears and distress and horror through equally horrible crowds on the platform at Victoria, a low I shall not readily forget. Later I carried home 2 litres of milk, 1 litre of disinfectant  and 1.5 kg of potatoes together with sundry other groceries on my back because I have no money for a delivery because the minimum order amount was out of reach.  Really good for my spine, of course.  Why tell them so they can get off on it, as of course the baboon men, the animal men all do.  They think I deserve it.  Whatever happens to me, no-one will lift a finger to help me, no-one will come near me.
 
There followed a weekend with £1.60 in the world.  That too. My mum managed to sign a cheque to me I had written out and I was full of trepidation that her signature was so doddery the bank would say it was forged.  £101.61 was then all I had in the world - when the cheque cleared.  It’s the electricity bill, stupid.
 
Sleeping on Katie’s sofa in the sitting-room on the ground floor next to her bedroom.  It’s not particularly comfortable and I am so tired that I don’t wake up when I need to piss so by now it’s a bit pongy too.  Yes, you’ve guessed: I can’t afford the quantities of Dettol needed to er resolve this issue.
 
And then I got it clean and then I collapsed exhausted and pissed again.
 
Mother-daughter dialogue
Look - come and sit in the sitting-room for a minute while I remake the bed - no, not on the sofa, it’s wet - because I’m so tired I piss in my sleep
 
Or else sleeping in an armchair with my legs on the pouffe, it being more comfortable than the sofa. Not sure when I last had a proper night’s sleep nor have regular and sane meals featured too prominently.  Fortunately I have always been a great milk-drinker.  There are 34 g of protein in a litre of milk. 
 
Working at home in Katie’s sitting-room and lugging my dear old but large PC up and down the stairs all adding to the fun.
 
Sat listening to Katie burping, retching, hiccuping, a sort of reflex until I just want to scream stop it, stop it, stop it.  Was  terrified it’d trigger another bleed
 
At least when she wasn’t retching, she was well in an undefinable way that includes interest in food and conversation.
 
She was given Metoclopramide for the retching which works.  Unfortunately if coincidentally otherwise deterioration, can’t get comfortable, can’t sleep, can’t lie, can’t sit and an obsession with falling, a trembliness which is new
 
Endless faffing around with the pillow until I’m crying because I can’t get the pillows right.  Maybe no-one can.  And Katie can’t get comfortable.
 
Not coincidental just got worse
 
Of course I may not have any emotional support, they may not be anyone I can turn to,
 
Oh the cheque bounced, but just because I miscalculated and oh the fucking hours I spend calculating, a day before her pension was paid in, and I found that out at half past twelve on Tuesday morning and then I just felt sick, because I had no money at all, and had to ask a kindly neighbour for a loan in the morning to enable me to get to work and us to eat and in the evening I had to bring home another ton weight on my back in order that there be food in the house,  carried home on my back 4 pts of milk, 75 ml orange barley, a large loaf 1.5 kg of potatoes and sundry other groceries because you stupid cunts I have no fucking choice - almost no fucking choice, I could have taken advantage of Boris’s fares cap brought half of it home and then gone out again but since I was dead on my feet anyway - what the fuck
 
I must’ve looked so fucking awful three separate total strangers asked me if I was all right.  Of course I said yes thank you.  Doubtless had I been about to pass out these nice people would have been happy to call an ambulance and stay with me till it arrived but what I actually needed was a transfusion of money.
 
I couldn’t not spent £10 on Internet access because I have to work at home  and I can’t not buy 4 pts of milk because bread and milk are the staples of my fucking diet  Along with potatoes, onions, brown rice and lentils.
 
Of course it has never been possible for anyone to come near me, anyone to offer me help, financial, practical, emotional or political.
 
So then I got paid money I’d earned but a cheque is a cheque and banks are banks and cheques still have to be cleared so my hand-to-mouth existence continues until that cheque is cleared
 
My legs have nearly recovered back to their ‘normal’ pre-crisis wonkiness.   Do you know what it’s like for any activity to be an ordeal, the 3 days I go into work, carrying a little tray down the corridor.  Letting out little animal noises, whimpers of distress.  Never knowing how Katie is going to be from hour to hour, never mind when I get home from work. Constant doing, cooking up veggie soups to get both food and drink into Katie, cleaning up, emptying the commode, catching up on work in the small hours. And trying to make up my mind if she’s imminently dying of course.
 
Of course it’s all just a game to mentally damaged, mental defective vermin,  A huge joke with my health and my life the butt of it: a hunger game for their entertainment.
 
Nobody has to do anything.  That would be silly.  Think of all the offal who would be distressed thereby.
 
And more carrying home of heavy shopping on my back, of leaving work practically too tired to move and having to detour to the supermarket to load up.
 
So then last weekend I stopped the pill for the retching because of the psychological side-effects and crossed my fingers and Katie didn’t promptly be sick.
 
Until Thursday morning when she’d started retching started again and she’s asking me to call someone, GP, ambulance, someone, and there am I plugged into the VPN with one half of my brain working and the other half screaming and a sort of second brain trying to get Katie clear on whether ambulance now or GP later and meantime I gave her another Metoclopramide and she settled and the the GP came later and changed it to Cyclizine.  Well, the one on Thursday night was OK, but I gave her one Friday morning and at the end of the day another and Katie spent Friday night hallucinating.  Nice hallucinations but hallucinations, nonetheless. Knowing she was hallucinating.  Have just Googled Cyclizine withdrawal.  Psychoactive drug known to cause visual and auditory hallucinations, previously available OTC and used for legal highs.  Oh right.
 
Bye-bye Cyclizine.  By now, Saturday lunchtime, she’s a bit groggy but back in her right mind.
 
Oh what big men they all are.  No-one messes with them and their filthy criminal world, no-one upsets the vile mutt-pack who run the place for them.  Don’t I just need to suffer alone for my ‘insolence’, ‘impertinence’, the crime of being a normal human being.
 
So then somewhere in all this a letter came for Katie from the solicitors handling the Will of the old friend of hers who’d left her money saying the payment had been raised and the money as unreachable as the stars, and certainly it will help but it has to be taken into account that all the care and other benefits she gets will promptly have to be paid for, and so windfall though it is it’s not the riches it appears at first sight.
 
And just about everything else going wrong, TV ceased to work again, top of the plug came off the fan heater and eluded replacement, bloody plug of the kitchen sink vanished, probably accidentally in the bloody rubbish bin, which I shall have therefore to empty out and sift through.  Why am I not screaming?  Well of course partly I am.
 
That it is career suicide to cross these filthy cunts I understand.  Ensuring no-one outside medicine helps me takes lies and lies and more filthy lies, takes a chorus of jabbering vermin, led we can assume by Nicholls, Murphy O’Connor, Sacranie, Williams, Sacks, jabbering about the ‘sanctity’ of the religion of filth, all creativity, imagination independent though to be destroyed, all learning, all reason, all morality to be destroyed because it is so upsetting to the foul vermin they spawn, everything, clean, everything upright, everything decent, everything open, everything honest, everything rational has to be razed to the ground to keep filth happy, have the country ruled by the hysteria, ignorance, bestiality, psychosis of filth
 
Should I see a doctor, perhaps.  You think I trust any animal in London medicine?  Oh, you are funny.  You think I want a cunt-faced butcher like Saunders or Ardeshna tending me, a mad diseased ape like Whelan, a bloody butcher subhuman like Rowley, an ape like Jackson or Logan, a sly dirty malevolent animal like McGuckin, a spastiic vicious spite-ridden malignant subhuman like Fenton, a slobbering bag of venom and filth and disease like Boden?  Degraded, depraved, corrupt, bestial, fascist, traitors, criminals, evil vermin subhuman who think they can butcher my body, who used their position to cripple me.  At least I can still walk, just.   I’ll pass on that slip of the hand in surgery.  Any decent doctor or nurse would demand they be struck off, thrown on the scrapheap, prosecuted, while nobly refraining from shooting them in the spine.  What else do you with monsters?  I have screamed I need help.  The animals sniggered and yawned and enjoined me to silence.  At UCH of course they are at all cost to be protected and upheld, the favoured, the chosen, invaluable for their criminality, their stupidity, their bestiality
 
That, dear world, tells you all you need to know about UCH and specifically about Linch, Goldstone and Naylor and their filth mutts who just smash and destroy
 
Oh how they have proved their worth to their masters and mistresses, they can be relied upon to be insolent criminal fascist traitor vermin, mad evil animals impervious to fact and reason, ruthless butchers and murderers devoid of ethic, conscience, scruple.
 
They like watching me suffer.  They like knowing they have the power to wreck me, physically if not mentally. Destroy me mentally the apes can never do.
 
The prime visible  filth mutts are
Senior Matron Stephen Rowley
Matron Janet Saunders
Nurse Micaela Plucinski
Nurse Siobhan McGuckin
Professor Jeremy Whelan
Dr Kirit Ardeshna.
 
The prime invisible filth mutts are
Dr Stephanie Kaye
Professor David Abraham
Mr Sturridge
Nicola Sturridge
Nurse Helen Wilson
 
They are psychopathic, bestial, intellectually worthless, morally diseased, criminal.
 
Oh what a flap the filth mutts must have got into at challenge to their fascism, their corruption, their psychosis, their evil.  To what must the jabbering and whining and babbling behind closed doors amount, readily imagined, she must be punished, she should be fired, it’s a disciplinary, it is not ‘acceptable’,  she should be prosecuted,
 
Mad sick  mentally defective evil cunts will not have it said they are mad sick mentally defective evil cunts, intellectually and morally worthless animals ain’t having being told they’re intellectually and morally worthless animals
 
“Oh I don’t think I can believe that” is probably another piece of ape drool. Then check your facts, you stupid cunts.  Being mental defectives they don’t know how to.
 
Animals, well trained, highly trained animals, but animals, with the mores of the dirty holes out of which they crawl, completely untouched by any moral or intellectual education

How do you fucking dare, you filthy little animals, just how do you fucking dare, you dirty pervert monkeys?  But of course you're monkeys, all you can do is destroy and desecrate.  You create nothing. 

Extract from The Anile Heir © 2006.I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act1988 to be identified as the author of this book
 
Meanwhile at Hokabi...What happened at Hokabi Camp was an accident, no part of anyone’s game-plan.  Sardun seized the moment with shattering consequences.  The business of Hokabi was payroll and pensions.  It was about as innocent and domesticated as this man’s army gets, a calm and cheerful place when a lot of bright young men are grateful to the army for giving them the opportunity to hone financial and IT skills at a premium in Kadun and so be sure of not just a job for life but a good job for life.  There were cats.  They set a tone.  No funny stuff: funny stuff from either side would not - will not - be appreciated at Hokabi.  Contrary to rumours that later abounded, Hokabi was actually not teaching top-level infiltration of world finance or plotting to hack Azt.  Approximately 99.9% of those on both sides with ears to the ground didn’t even know it existed.  It would probably have sat the whole thing out if the Minister’s cousin hadn’t been an accountant.
The Minister’s cousin was promoted and posted to Regional HQ.  Hokabi was within his command.  As new brooms do, he set out to visit each of his charges in turn.  The stink of cat piss somewhat upset him.  He tried to conceal he was the Minister’s cousin, the element of surprise, you know.  His name, an uncommon one, was something of a give-away. 
Oh shit, thought Hokabi. 
Nonetheless, Hiulan-Tan had grudgingly to admit, the place was efficient, damned efficient. He tried to pick holes and found none.  That was not the point!
We won at Caniba.
The cats nodded.  In other words they’ll be looking for an easy kill.
What would be really good would be to get half Corsin here.
 Always wanted to be live bait.
Hiulan-Tan fulminated to his cousin.  Corsin at this point reckoned they had bigger fish to fry than 1700 book-keepers.  Assuredly this could be nothing that required their personal attention.  The Minister was informed Corsin were more than happy to leave the operation to the chaps on the ground.
 
 
The middle of Vaudos has little enough to recommend it in human terms, the tap-water, you will recall, being brown, and the people at best sullen, but against all the odds it insists on being pretty, and so ventures into the tourist industry.  Some leagues distant from Hokabi, over yonder hill and through ye woods that line the valley, there is a reasonably decent hotel - too many leagues distant, it is hoped, for the arrival of a party of senoki to raise suspicion.  They are traders in something or other, shit, what are we traders in, gentlemen’s outdoor attire, and are looking to combine business with pleasure, have a few days in the country before putting on our oxygen masks and venturing into the nearest large town, Cabutin, to do some trading.  
My Cioulis, however, arrived at Hokabi.  Of course he wasn’t my Cioulis then, nor for some years yet, and both of us would probably have hissed with laughter at the idea we were meant for each other.  What’s that again about war making strange bed-fellows. Cioulis, they learn, is the new (wait for it) Deputy Welfare Officer, the Welfare Officer himself being a cat approaching retirement.  A younger man needs to be trained up.  Most people in the south don’t think the Army of All-Kadun can even spell Welfare.  True, they are not much concerned with mums dying, girlfriends two-timing or families being evicted but everyone mostly sane likes to know someone in Welfare, especially when a base in under attack. Since an attack is said to have succeeded when the ‘Welfare Officer’ is 40-carat rat-shit, the skinny dark lieutenant attracts intense if cautious interest, it being not immediately clear what he is.  The nice furry sergeant in Stores is wiser in the ways of the world.  Lad’s a tree.  Oh right, they’ve sent us a tree.  What is this!  Lovely smell of pine.
An older, greyer tree walks out of the woods and has a long talk with the senior cat.  Sardun (the earthpower equivalent of PANTHER) have one or two party-tricks.  Passing themselves off as Cult is one.  It won’t fool Corsin, but it may fool lesser adepts (depends how lesser) and it has its uses, such as confusion to the enemy and giving your furry friends vital extra minutes in which to scarper.  Of course it has its drawbacks too.  Adepts can pretend to be fooled and draw you into a trap.  Another one is deflecting assault into trees.  Make a note of those woods.  They are going to matter.
The senior cat in turn drives Cioulis way off into the woods, out of range of wandering minds that might pick up the vibes and wonder what the hell is going on.
They get out and grin at each other.
“One duels, sir?” asked Cioulis.
“Nice one.”
Traditional Cult means to pick a fight, overture to separating your sanity from your mind.
There was a convenient tree-stump, on which Gar-stangis reclined, a huge black cat with yellow eyes, dreaming in the afternoon sun. 
The sun went out, all light, all warmth, the cat will be skewered, skinned - no.
Starburst blew the darkness apart, fragments falling to the ground like ash, then evaporating.
Cioulis seized fragments before they hit the ground.  They swelled, burst, pouring liquid filth without end. The cat will choke, drown.
The cat leapt for Cioulis’ throat, knocked him to the ground, landed on his chest.
Cioulis who is Death will put out its eyes.
“Very good,” said Gar-stangis.  “Now the heavy stuff.”
They grinned at each other again.
Death looms project fear, terror, pain, anguish, torment.  A grinning skull fills Gar-stangis’ mind, its maw open into which he will, he must fall, a forked red tongue flickering to and fro in anticipation.
Gar-stangis searched for the weakness, the crack, the vestige of humanity and found none, so starburst once more blew the skull away.  Behind it only was utter darkness, though he sensed nasty wriggly things in it and the smell was foul. This is the grave.
Again and again he zapped Cioulis, until at last there was a chink of light.  PANTHER talons tore apart the darkness, revealing finally a silver birch in a field of flowers. 
“Real-time,” said Cioulis, “at this point I’m dead.”
(A silver birch is the symbol of Sardun and, as you know if you’ve been paying attention, earthpower after-life a field of flowers.)
“Now teach me,” said Gar-stangis.
Somewhere in the cavernous depths of the headquarters of VILE, small, tubby and balding said, “They’re going to do what?  Is this a private party or can anyone join in?”
“More the merrier, sir.”
Another young officer arrives sniffs the air, do I detect a whiff of cat , some tom been spraying?  It is of course a very old joke, that or some variant of.  It doesn’t necessary identify an adept of the seventh degree; it may identify any part of the gamut of hostility to PANTHER; ratters, you will recall, should stay in the barn. It may even signify a cautious desire for further acquaintance. Few on any side can probe without revealing themselves but most of them can pick up the scent on the breeze.  You can never be absolutely sure what you’re walking into.  Some places initiation rites are banned outright, (not that that ever stopped them taking place) others that is derided as terribly sissy.  Harmless fun.  There are old jokes about trees too.  Saws, axes, logging tend to come into them.  Sardun can’t be relied upon to see the funny side, and so these are made less often.    
New brooms sweep in.  Discipline becomes stricter, punishments harsher; bureaucratic idiocy more prevalent, but there are no attempted arrests or firing-squads, nothing to provoke confrontation.  This is partly because of the old game of male dogs sniffing each other’s arses, trying to find out what the other guys can do without finding it out the hard way, and partly because H-T frankly would rather Corsin was doing this (and even they lost).  Clearly these moggies are not those moggies but anything feline is to be approached with caution.
Kinsquol is approaching, a time traditional for bonfires on hill-tops.  It just depends what they’re burning.
Not too far from Hokabi, one of the senoki traders was very taken with a run-down property, not much more than a chalet, a wonderful place to bring his non-existent children in the summer holidays.  Of course Sardun aren’t going to hang around interminably in the woods waiting for the Cult to do something.  They are pro-active.  They are dynamic. They are going to do something first.  When they’ve worked out what.  But the chalet is useful.  Suppose it rains.  Cioulis is looking over my shoulder even as I write.  I point out I’m only faithfully recording what he told me the guys said at the time.  In short, at this Point P, no-one exactly knew how Corsin were to be tempted out of Azt.
Kinsquol means very different, or in other words diametrically opposite, things to different people.  Neutrally, it is the festival of the winter solstice, the shortest day.  As such, it has been celebrated in earthpower since rather before the year dot.  They called it the Day of the God, in irturbi M’niba-gar-Altan, as opposed to the summer solstice which was the Day of the Goddess, the nadir of the year and its zenith. The fine minds of the Cult have the solstices as the zenith of and birth of death.  For reasons that elude me, the entire continent calls the two solstices and the two equinoxes by their Cult names. They are the four Days Celebrant and what you do is party. Some people say it’s false etymology.  Kin - family - geddit.
 
 
It didn’t just fall into their laps: the Cult placed it there. The Minister wants to know how his dear brother is doing.  Doubtless there will be something special laid on for Kinsquol.  Really, one can have too much of the city, a few days in the country perhaps.
To this, of course, the pretty well universal reaction was oh fuck, Huilan-Tan not wishing to admit his operation was still at the reconnaissance stage. 
The CO in such situations is a cipher.  This one will run with the hare and hunt with the hounds which makes him basic crud, but human crud.  Hiulan-Tan tells him Cioulis and the cats are to be arrested.
If Hiulan-Tan and cronies hadn’t been rather stupid, slightly afraid and grossly arrogant, they would have decided to leave the prisoners to Corsin, but they were all three and wanted to make their mark by handing over broken and beaten men.
The prisoners were summoned to their presence and slouched in washing behind their ears or polishing his branches as the case may be.
“You understand what awaits you,” said Huilan-Tan.
“Do tell.”
“You will be devoured.”
“That could be interesting.”
“You are insolent.  Let us teach you obedience.”
“That could be even more interesting.”
The Cult attacked their minds and was so to speak thrown off and sent flying across the room, but all their attention was fixed on Cioulis doing his adept of the seventh degree bit, complete with flickering forked tongue.
“Fools,” said Cioulis.
“They understand nothing,” said Gar-stangis contemptuously.
“You have failed the test,” sneered Cioulis.
In the ensuing confusion Huilan-Tan and his five cronies found themselves under arrest.  Naturally he is screaming very loudly about the Minister.
“That will not protect you.”
What do we do now?  Fortunately we don’t have to anything because Sardun arrive dressed in their best Cult kit and order a total evacuation, rumour of an explosive device planted by insurgents.  Can’t be too careful with the Minister on his way.  Cioulis and the cats are promptly rearrested, Hiulin-Tan and cronies are removed for medical attention. It’s probably worth reiterating that most of these guys are about as near the average office-worker  (or at any rate the average irturbi office-worker: you have yet to meet Tingle, Mitch’s PA) as anyone under arms gets, they are not planning total war, they are a little confused and they have no desire to be blown up. Nor of course do they wish to give or to be seen to give the authorities anything less than their fullest co-operation. The evacuation is conducted to the south of Hokabi.  Cioulis, the cats and Sardun lay fuses, spill petrol and sincerely hope any god who happens to be around on this his day will smile upon their endeavours. 
They pile the inert bodies of Huilan-Tan and friends in a lorry, then piled in themselves and drive away very, very fast, though whether Huilan-Tan knows anything worth finding out probably depends on whether the Minister survives the current encounter.
Boom!  The whole of Hokabi becomes a raging inferno.  The smoke billows into the skies.  Probably see it in Azt.  What was that again about covert ops?
Distinctly bizarre messages promptly reach Regional HQ, about a bomb disposal squad, poor chaps must all be dead, fortunately we were evacuated - what the fuck are you talking about?  And the bloody Minister is on his way?  Of course we’ll pick you up - if this isn’t some mad joke, a hoax.  Confusion to the enemy!
The Minister’s plane abruptly lands in a field.
We must investigate, he chitters.
Meaning we must, think Corsin.  Whatever has happened at Hokabi, clearly there is nothing still alive.  Clearly also leaving the Minister in a field with a small armed guard is leaving the Minister vulnerable.  Surely he must see this.  He does indeed.  Clearly this has been a botched attempt on his life!  They suggest he return to Azt.  He must speak with his brother!  His brother doesn’t answer his phone. This is not immediately construed as sinister since phones can be forgotten in rapid evacuations but contact is made with the evacuees and Huilan-Tan cannot be found. Brief mental images are exchanged of a charred body.  It may be he is on his way to us, says the Corsin captain soothingly.  Even as they stand chatting in a muddy field they are mind-scanning, but there is nothing in range.  Everyone assumes that any ‘insurgents’ involved would have gone south to Vasucula and are probably there by now but obviously the evacuees must be interrogated to get the full story.  They get airborne again, fly round the fire and land south of what I suppose you could call the fire assembly point, coinciding with the arrival of the guys from Regional HQ.  Corsin deliberate.  Clearly there are no minds here worth a fart but if there is an enemy what it wants us to do is camp inches from the Vasucula border.  Let us all repair to HQ.  In the morning we shall oversee the forensic investigation.  Oh, and let us have some fighting-men to search the area and surround the place. 
Cioulis and the guys had linked up with other units of Sardun, handed over their captives to them for delivery to Van-senok and turned south again.  Two units of VILE moved up from Vasucula.
What followed, Cho was to say dreamily, was probably the greatest mind-war Kadun had seen for 600 years.
While the regular guys ran around leaving no stone unturned and doing their utmost to look efficient and impressive, Corsin scanned.  Bloody nothing.  They are not fools.  They did not for a moment relax their guard. 
“Obviously arson, sir,” the forensic guy was saying.  A werewolf snapped at him.  He flinched.  “Sorry, sir, thought I saw...”
“You did, you did,” said the Corsin officer with enormous enthusiasm.  “Really, children, is this the best you can do?”
Undoubtedly we have company but where the fuck are they?
For a moment they were still out of range.  One werewolf!  They do not dare - got them!
Concerted assault was directed at our heroes and deflected into the trees.
The response was the growling of huge cats.  That was actually a recording.  Things have moved on a bit in 600 years.  There are amplifiers. 
Concerted assault was directed by our heroes and Corsin deflected it into ordinary guys. 
For some it was like a shaft of lightning hitting their brains.  For others it was giant bears about to tear out their brains.  The werewolves came in their hundreds, snapping and snarling.
Some members of the Cult are superstitious, actually believe the Great Master shall enfold them in his embrace.  The average member of Corsin is about as superstitious as a block of wood.  They enjoy death (at any rate other people’s), they enjoy pain (at any rate other people’s), they like being evil.  There is nothing so outré as to not be attributable to tricks of the mind.  They therefore don’t mind too much being under constant attack by werewolves.  They are illusory, they are disposable and they are bloody annoying.  And who forgot to pack the silver bullets, mutters one officer, zapping another trio of bloody curs into oblivion. But they understand the point of this deranged assault. They can force the regular guys into action but pretty fucking useless they will be under werewolf attack.  To put up a werewolf shield depletes the mind-power available to mentally eviscerate the foe. 
An army of the dead rose from the earth and began to march forward.  It became cold and dark.  Corsin were rather irritated at having to do this, realizing the net result was to scare the shit out of their own guys with probably zero effect on the enemy, but they wanted to see what the enemy would do.  The enemy shattered the corpses and sent down a rather nasty shower of rotting flesh, bone and cerement, which Corsin gathered into fireballs sent bouncing towards the woods, which were caught in mid-air and returned to senders, who hastily quenched them, and also got flat.  Corsin do not expect to be shot at because they do not expect anyone opposing them to retain the power to pull a trigger.  Once again concerted assault was directed at minds that rolled over in the sunshine and patted butterflies with their paws.
Suddenly there were voices in the air (another recording).  You guys really like fire, don’t you, fire to burn the senoki witches, fire to purify, fire to kill the trees, fire to smoke out the witches, fire to destroy the evil.  There was the sound of women screaming.  Pain.  Pain really does it for you, doesn’t it, terrible pain.  Bears were tearing open Corsin’s faces, eating their brains.  Deflected.
They knew now.  Fucking Sardun.
A wall of fire was being pushed slowly towards them.  It seemed prudent to retreat, even as they pushed it back and a rain-storm blew up.   Now they understood the trap.  Behind them lay the wreck of Hokabi.  What was behind that?  Plenty of cover in which to find out. The fire was edging closer.  Real or illusory?  Did it matter?  Very few people, even in Corsin, can be engulfed by a wall of flame and not feel something. So now Corsin are crouched behind half-walls, rubble, fallen beams, facing south and throwing everything they have to the south, fog, hail, Death in the air paralysing everything it touches (trying to) and now they come out firing and the enemy is very close, and mind attempts to strangle mind, the fog clears, reforms, clears, reforms but too many of Corsin are dead or dying or resisting mental death to hold it and at the end four members of VILE are dead and 23 of the 27 members of Corsin.
One of the survivors asks: Do you take prisoners?
No, says Sardun, but VILE says fine. 
There is such a thing as intelligence, guys.  You may know it all.  We don’t.
They won’t talk!
They might, they might.
The PANTHER guys sigh.
Depends who’s talking to them
?  Cho wants to meet these guys.
Ah, says Sardun. 
The Corsin survivors look at each other.
May we ask what imprisonment entails?
Hours of interrogation on the sun-drenched shores of Vasucula surrounded by people in shorts who can fry your brains if you so much as blink out of place.
I do not doubt it.
If you want to return to Kadun to take your chances, we shall be happy to oblige.
I think we have a deal.  There remains the matter of leaving Kadun.
We have that figured.
Why did I doubt it.
Just remember this is pointed at your brain.  Don’t even think of trying it.
The Corsin guy grins.
Especially at the border?
Especially at the border.
Always wanted to travel.
Sure, you’re just regular guys.
Meanwhile, Cioulis and his now rather weary companions have turned the wall of flame into smoke and fog to hinder the regulars from deciding to be heroes and turned and started to drive like fuck for Van-senok.  There’s supposed to be an air-lift out of this and there, we hope, it is.
The flier skids to a halt and unmistakable Fidubis get out.  Long straight black hair.  Deep tans.  It might have been the earrings.
“Imperial Airlines is boarding now.  Well done, you!”
 
…………….
 
“The people of Carlin aren’t going to be affected much.  Except around here.  The guys in the village know what to do.
     Phase One you guys here won’t be directly involved.  That doesn’t mean interesting things won’t be going on all around you. Keeping your wits about you may not be entirely simple. You’ve all received training on the unusual, so I’m going to quickly run through what you already know to make sure you know it!  Sorry.   Lots of juicy detail this time.
     Sound is one of the ways humans work out what’s going on around them.   It can be hard enough working out where sound is coming from in normal circumstances, never mind when people like me are playing with all-round systems, synthesizers, distortion.  The opposite of sound is, startlingly enough, silence.  The silence of a country night in which there is nothing but maybe the odd owl hooting and Corsin swearing with rage.  You can’t tell what’s going on in practically total silence either.  Your ears are not going to have a fun time.  They’ll be frantically seeking for solid fact and there isn’t any. 
     Accept no order, hint, suggestion, instruction of any kind from anyone who isn’t a real live physical human you can see.  No public address system.  Certainly not Corsin.
There will also be an assault, a heavy assault, on what you see.  Corsin are not going to get close enough for anything nasty, at least not close enough to you. Slightly freaking images don’t have to be gross.  Do remember there are no wolves in Carlin!”
The howls of a pack in full cry filled the air.
Followed by images more substantial than the last ones of huge golden wolves.
“Preferably it’s night.  They look even better in moonlight.”
Sure, Sarat…
“Ignore anything that is no normal part of the fields of Carlin, no natural part.  Note I’m not saying regard it as a movie.  People can get engrossed, absorbed in movies. Of course you could regard it as a boring movie.  I need you quiet too, so you can’t chat to your mates during the boring movie.  Yawn.  Make daisy-chains if you can find any daisies. Just remember there’re no pretty lights in fields, no music. There are certainly no wolves. There aren’t many trees. This is not Van-senok!  You are not in impenetrable forest.  There are no wolves, bears or lynxes.  Especially not lynxes bounding across the floor of the Ciletij Senate and heavily armed bears surrounding the HQ of the Sivalin Bank.  Nor of course are Maya and I  - yet – entertaining in the Jumesit.  You will see and hear things that are funny.  I’m asking you to ignore them too.
  “There aren’t even any hadin.  Zani and Narulis are not here.  Kaminua and Asyrion are absent.  The floods will be real, talent for irrigation, but they’re happening up at Sta-venon. The explosions you’ll hear are diverting the Gensi.  I’ve left a few things out.  You get the gist.”
“The special effects department has worked overtime on this one.   If you’ve ever seen the sun rise through stained glass you know that beauty is also a distraction  – “
If you have ever what? 
“Take a good look at your surroundings and hang on to them.  Tents, hedges, boxes, a particularly good-looking tree.  Clock the position of the sun.  If it’s a clear night, clock the moon and stars.  Stay centred, stay cool, and stay quiet.  You are a guy in a field in Carlin.  That’s reality.  Hang on to it.”
WTF, Sarat!  Hi-tech war!
“I haven’t finished. As you know, but of course a lot of people don’t, when you get into Vaudos initially you’ll link up with the special forces guys already there who will be among the few people who actually know what’s going on there.”
OK, we vamoose.  Don’t want to trip on the wiring!
Who said there was wiring! The signal’s in Dabida, right?
Vasucula, Var-sega’.
Scram.
Yessir!
That’s it, said Sarat.
Boss-time, Sarat!
You’re not moving, said Sarat.
He turned to B+P.  Get them thrown out, could you, please.  Ever ever so politely, of course.
I think we were just leaving!
            Catch up with you later, said Sarat.
            Hang on, what about Vaudos?
            No, said Sarat.
            Get in from Dabida!
            You’ll find the gallant army of Dabida lining the border.  Don’t want my local difficulties spilling over.  Or escaping.  Same with Vasucula.  Try Ciletij.
            Real coup, said Baz, our brave reporters have accompanied treasonous Ciletij forces into Kadun.
            “Guess we get to see pix of your travels!”
            “I know this will amaze you.  They have journalists in Vaudos.”
    
            Cho and Amida looked at each other.
“The music was released long ago.”
“Can one release the music from the Isles?  Is it finite?”
“Fidub is not a man-made object!”
“Does that matter?”
“We shall see.”
 
Have we, asked Bris, fully considered the implications of ‘Sarat is a real modern young guy’?
It is obvious the images are not real!
The extent to which the little monkey brain knows that when a wolf is coming for its throat.
I do not guarantee I shouldn’t flinch!
Corsin, surely.
Biter bit?
Let us see. Why has he told Azt all that?
Rock-solid has to be what he’s told the guys already.
If he’s told it them. 
I think I see –
Some are more readily confused.  I think we can take that as solid.
 
“A readiness to act,” said Bal suavely. “They should not be lost in contemplating the music of the spheres!”
“He did say – his kind of war – “
“We may assume every word of that was directed at Corsin. Get me every crazy out of it story about the Window you can find.” 
“If there is one thing clear, Sarat does not sound as if he thinks he’ll be dead in the morning!”
“I do not think that is on the menu!”
“Every word of that was directed at the guys in Vaudos.”
“Or of course Ciletij.”
 
Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on earth. 
“We’re taking bets,” said Vax.  “What is IT, what is the other matter.”
 
But Corsin had stopped.  We’d thought they might.  Not only had they stopped but they appeared to put their feet up and have a snooze.  This was because it had finally dawned on them that they didn’t have the faintest notion of exactly what they were walking into.  There is no hurry.  Let us think.  The Window worried them.  Indeed the Houses contain many ancient artefacts.  That hadn’t been what Ban-razit had meant.  He’d meant the mosaic in Vaudos, the images of which had been said to and indeed had changed while you gaped at them, in consequence of which about 400 years ago someone had a hissy fit and smashed it.  That wasn’t exactly what he’d meant either.  The wall now adorned with a few shards of mosaic together with slivers of paint and plaster had been covered by a tapestry while the House was occupied; despite the wall’s being reputed to contain a hidden entrance, it had been plastered and painted, plaster and paint that had or was reputed to have shattered in the night into crumbs.  Is this a secret passage? I hear you cry.  Well, possibly, but since repute was that no-one who entered it had ever been seen again, presumably not one of immediate use to anyone and in any case no-one had ever seen or felt for anything even dimly resembling an entrance.  From the point of view of Corsin, the sole point of Sarat’s spiel had been telling them about the Window, the rest being irritating but scarcely critical.  They realized they were going to waste time and energy locating the actual attacks in a flurry of imagery.  They too can make holograms.  The most worrying thing about the Dacunine Window was not some crazy out of it story but the simple historical fact every tour-guide thinks he or she knows: that it  is a replica of the Sun Window in the shrine at M-P (it’s not, as the use of a single brain cell would demonstrate: the Sun Window doesn’t have triptychs of Narulis running off with Brig and a panther reclining at the foot of a silver birch celebrating Hanif-Altan).  The little cunt is Fidubi.  Which bloody Window is he talking about?  Then of course there is the simple historical fact that the Cult had never gained so much as a toehold on Fidub. Sarat’s cheerful babble had made Corsin very unhappy indeed. 
 
 
Karmen, Saban and a great many extras streamed into Vaudos, apparently under cover of impenetrable forest.
“Forest approaching, sir.”
Anyone else would have laughed.  It is a little too serious for that.
Then we must burn it.  The forest became a wall of fire, but unfortunately not their wall of fire: it continued approaching. Progression stayed.
OK, they’re behind the fire.  Can’t do much from there.
 
Corsin had paused.  Not of course that they didn’t intend to continue, but they had thought it prudent to contemplate further what they were going to continue into.  Either it was the most enormous bluff or for fuck’s sake what.  From their centuries, eons of knowledge of this war was markedly absent any enemy commander warning his forces against beauty and laughter.  But they knew they could spend centuries, eons, trying to figure it and began to move again.
 
The Window worried them.  Slightly.  Not a lot because everyone was supposed to be dying in torment before they got that far. He will move the Army to surround the House?
Why has he kindly told us the road is blocked?
Why has he kindly told  us to order their surrender?
Why has he apparently told us exactly what he’s going to do?
So the press-fiends all flew to Fidub.  Well, all right, no, of course they didn’t, but from the state of Cho’s front yard it seemed they had.
“He doesn’t confide in me,” said Cho.
“I do not think we believe that.”
“Try harder,” said Cho.
“That would be our ageist conditioning!”
“Could be,” said Cho.
 
Corsin too had not been idle, satisfied with same old, and had sought to perfect the mist, which rendered them invisible to sight, though not to mind or feeling; half an antenna could identify a freezing deadly cold. Thus they had to be kept to the road, in case they used the mist, so the bombers knew where they were. The Battle of Carlin was essentially decided at Junction 7 on the highway when Corsin prepared to execute their cunning plan of leaving the highway and found they couldn’t  and it was won by sheer numbers.  They had been promised air-cover but clearly all hell was breaking loose overhead.  It was not an easy road from Azt, potholes, flood,  PANTHER and Sardun in front of them, behind them, at their sides, keeping  them to the road, a simple trick, impeding the turn of vehicles, but you have to be bloody brave to do it (Cioulis, I love you!) because it puts you within scanning reach, all street-lighting extinguished, an irritating grind of same old as the ground opened up before them, fireballs rained down upon them, flood waters drowned them.. The whole fucking time Then the real bombs started.  I don’t think it can be said Corsin were ever good-tempered but by the time they were 20 nani away they were in exceedingly bad moods, and also depleted in number. It hadn’t helped that the bombers had suddenly wheeled away, replaced by fighters sky-writing Sarat rules, OK! as they gave him total air-cover. The whole of FAF had turned out.  As they say, PANTHER with wings. The so-called blockade of Car-sandis was simply KAF and FAF waiting for lunch.
 
The music began, lilting, ethereal, exquisite.  Ho hum, thought Mitch.  I ignore you, little tune. Worse they could not begin to tell from which direction it came, since it appeared to and in fact did come from every direction.  The sounds of the country night could not be eradicated, the death-squeak of small rodents, the bark of foxes, the hoot of owls.  They provided a pleasing counterpoint.  They couldn’t find the music, so they couldn’t zap it, and it seemed to absorb same old, screams of terror, the voice of Death.   Some of them detrucked and fanned out.  They scanned. Nothing.  One of their number, collaped to the ground, dead as a doornail, then another.  They went rigid, scanned again.  Nothing.  A cursory examination of the corpses appeared to show bullet wounds, one in the leg, one in the shoulder, not apparently fatal injuries.  A deadly poison, therefore!  20 more fell, picked off from the rear.  That still left an awful lot of Corsin but hardly an awful lot of Corsin feeling inviolate.  Sarat’s voice, mocking, courtesy of the all-round, picking you off like flies, aren’t we. That was PANTHER again (PANTHER and allies).  PANTHER don’t usually use conventional weapons because there aren’t usually enough of them around to cover the guys shooting.  Sarat began to recite something which not a lot of people actually  understood, since it was in irtubi. Maya began to sing: Come, hadin, come, come not alone, come Hadin, come!  Shall Zani fail, shall Zani quail, oh no not he, our brave Zani, come, hadin, come!   I am Zani’s heir, you know. Kind of inflammatory, Maya. Find them!  Various people afterwards confessed to thoughts along the line of all for senior officers to be in the front line, perhaps not this senior, this front.  Making themselves targets. Seani had felt it, everyone felt it, a stiffening throughout the camp.  He, OK, but she.   But where are they?  Hang on to reality!  Recordings: They could be in Zur!  But we know they aren’t. PANTHER went on picking off Corsin.
After that thngs got a bit confusing
The distant howling of wolves, rapidly becoming less distant: they hove into view, bounding across the lush green fields of Carlin. Not a few people rapidly discover the mantra remembertherearenowolvesincarlin. I feel, there is no other word for it, thought Mitch, I feel  I am in the forests of Van-senok.  I feel the power of the trees.  I feel the trees are moving remorselessly toward Corsin to bury them.  Are we not guys in a field in Carlin? murmured Corsin. But they couldn’t quite shake off the illusion that ahead of them and all around lay impenetrable forest. Let it burn!  But the trees absorbed the fire, real fire.  The wolves bounded parallel to the IA and went on bounding until the pack leader launched himself at the Corsin commander’s throat.  Instantly zapped of course, but it didn’t do any good. Fried.  The wolves began to fall, scorched metal.  One weapon stripped from these cunts!  The scorched metal turned into panthers.  Zapped. One particularly large panther stood over Krarlik with its teeth in his neck.  The illusion long enough for a voice not many people recognized as Baya’s to call out, “Sarat! Time for dinner, darling.”  The panthers changed into walking trees, which happened to be silver birches, which as fast as they were zapped turned into a silver coronet above a silver chair.  “That’s my chair,” said Sarat and now the images are coming so fast that Corsin zaps only to find it’s back. On the chair nestles a panther cub. “They came, the skull-faces, but we laughed.”  Sarat or is it Narulis but no it must be Sarat because they didn’t have bin-bags in Narulis’ time sighs and gathers up a broken ragged figure of Death at his feet and chucks it in the garbage and now here is Azt, slime-covered, rotting, rat-infested, needs a good spring clean, says Maya, with bucket and mop surrounded by bottles labelled disinfectant, pesticide, rat poison.  Azt is transformed.  My Silver City, says Sarat.  It doesn’t look shimmering and ethereal, but rather more like an advertisement for washing-up liquid; there is the product bottom right labelled PANTHER.  PANTHER PROTECTS flashes onto the image.  KILLS ALL KNOWN GERMS.
Tar put his head in his hands, then looked up, helpless with laughter
Even I, said Cho.  What is technology, what is the other matter!
They really put their pretty little brains together for this one, didn’t they.
Consulting a schoolbook map had shown the world where the army was and now Corsin tried to swing round to fire.
 
WTF
 
The music began again, no longer cutesy but wild, alive, a fire over Carlin,and preventing their turning, above which hung the hologram from Caniba of the Rabbiters’. Then the Window.  Narulis stepped out of the Window, or was it Sarat, shaking his hair back; Begone, creatures of the Pit! Corsin began to hurt, their heads hurt, their bodies hurt, but they rallied “They’re the real pervs,” said Maya.  “Total BDSM.”  Narulis said, “I’m a brash Fidubi brat who used to keep a lot of hamsters and thought he was going to be a vet.”  Sarat again, mocking, going to die, are we, suffer nameless torments at the hands of the Great Master.  The ground became alive with light, sparkling, glittering, moving, a lighted fuse making its way towards Corsin, spreading as it went, until it seemed whole meadows were alive, but not a fire, and they knew it for what it was and tried to run but could not, stripped of all power and rather uncomfortable, especially their feet.
“Round ‘em up, guys,” said Sarat.
IAF were back, skywriting.
Sarat rules, OK!
 Three cheers, His Imperial Majesty!
Three cheers, Her Imperial Majesty!
They’re rather cute aren’t they, they were both a bit bewildered.  After a while they got the hang of the idea they were supposed to have put themselves in extreme peril, though they insisted they hadn’t. Since even Saban insisted that few would have tried that particular stunt, the majority won.  Well, it is a democracy. 
 
Right good at IT, our Sarat.  It became important because devoid of class or nationality; what Kadun needs, a modern lad good at IT. 
 
I have no words, said Mitch. Karula looked cynical and disbelieving.
 
Burnt-out bodies, burnt-out tank, well, it’s for sure there was a real war here.
 
Overheard: don’t care if he bloody eats hamsters, meself.  What a lad!
 
It’s a long way  to Azt!  Not through Carlin.
You do realize he has half, three-quarters of the military poised to take Azt.
I realize he has humiliated them in front of the whole world.  How long does he have to live?
 
Sarat and Maya made their way slowly to the House.  Smile for the camera.  Don’t they make a lovely couple.  Please, Sarat, please, in front of the Window. The Master and Mistress of Kadun posed in front of the Window on the front-page of practically every newspaper in the world.
 
On opposite sides of the ocean Bal and Varchulan darling contemplated the headlines and thought, oh, what do I do now
 
He screwed the dumbasses!   Burnt-out tank, burnt-out bodies on the road to Azt.
Don’t they make a lovely couple!                 Sarat and Maya in front of the Window.
Sarat rules, OK!                                             Panther cub on the chair
Three cheers their Imperial Majesties           Sarat with garbage bag, Maya with mop bucket and disinfectant
 
The crwd parted as Cho appeared
Reckon as lad did right good job.
 
Later, when finally they got ten seconds alone, after hearing the whole story, Cho scrutinized him with huge amusement. 
You realized something, young freeborn citizen of Fidub.
Baz did, said Sarat. The music in the glass had to be the singing of the Isles.  If it wasn’t it would have been a tougher ride.  It is.
“You heard Hanif-Altan from the Sardun side.”
It wasn’t a question.
But Cho was still puzzled.  Many cats have passed through Carlin.  Conventional wisdom had remained that the music was released long ago.
“Who detected the music?”
“Sardun.”
Cho laughed.
“Our metaphysics then splintered, shattered, a pile of broken glass.”
“That’s not the most important thing right now.”
“To you, perhaps.”