In a Latitude of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 5) (14 page)

“You are a most pleasing human, Miss Plumtartt.”

“I say, thank you, young man,” I rejoin, “though you are, perhaps, in the opinion of some, considered to be an attractive fellow in your starving, dying, wretched, urbo/child of suffering that is achieved by many hours work with flamboyant mascara explorations, in my own case, I just can’t find it in me to see you quite so pleasingly, so to speak.”

“Perhaps I am more to your liking, Persephone?”

“Oh, my word,” is my eye-contact maintaining response, “yes, aren’t you the appetizing vision, with your cheekbones as sharply defined as your many abdominal muscles that you uninhibitedly exhibit, though we are at a formal occasion. No my dear, I am afraid that I must refuse your undeniable charms for I believe I perceive the entrance of my very own beau. Run along please vampire boys, my other half arrives. Oh, yoo, hoo, Mr. Temperance?”

“Yes, Ma’am, Miss Plumtartt, here I am. I guess you heard. There’s some sort of vamparyfic high pooh-bah on his way. Scuttlebutt on the grapevine says he’s gonna spill the beans on the under the table moonlighting that’s been fermentin’ down here on the horn.”

“Indeed, sir. The entire castle’s populace is turned out to hear the anticipated disclosure from this mysterious supreme leader that is held in such high regard.”

A heavy pounding and thumping of mechanical machineries announce the approach of many clockwork leviathans. The offbeat slide of tundra sleds counter the two-part pulling mechanism. The lift, lurch, and fall of the gigantic clock/mech-Walrus’s inch worm like moves are accompanied by the pull of its sleigh, behind. The steam-powered Goliaths come to a halt outside the entrance of the Tierra Del Fuegan medieval modular McMauso-Mansion.

Professor DiddleFudde’s amazing electronic music maker is loudly recreating the sounds of his airless guitar. The professor has no need of a sounding box, it seems. He plays a stringed instrument upon a solid block of strangely shaped wood, the contours of which might be likened to the silhouette of a tulip bulb. An arm extends from this body providing a tablet of sorts for the long-haired professor to change the notes of his instrument not only by finger placement, but by bending the strings and sometimes the arm itself. The contraption itself makes little noise, but a rubber coated coil of wire running from the heavy, shoulder slung, stringed instrument, is connected to an extraordinary electronic device. This recreates the instrument’s unusual warblings. The overgrown, condensed ukulele conveys the sound of a psychedelic brass horn fanfare.

b
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ugh
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W
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ah
!

SKR
EEEEER!
WHRNT.

Bough, wough, woe, woah, woe, wough, wough, wough

Bough, wough, woe, woah, woe, wough, wough, wough

Beauxe-woewoewoewoe . . . WOE!

SKR
EEEEER!
WHRNT.

Bo. .
Woe
. .Wough. . .
WOAH!!!!

Everyone stands and faces the great entrance stairs. Two guards pull the two heavy doors open.

I knew there were servants of some kind ready to open those doors! That tramp Vampyrellah was just showing off by kicking them open when we arrived! Really! My word! I say!

Bhjrghjtt and Ierjghjnhjgei run out at the head of the stairs with a heavy roll of material. A strong heave sends a roll of carpet tumbling down the steps. A vibrant red rug for honoured guests is unfurled downward in a stair covering torrent. The cascade of crimson colour is like a scarlet river of blood, pouring before that which approaches.

I say, I find myself expecting a multitude in the way of entourage for this esteemed dignitary, but his elegance has no need to supplement his own aura of power. A shadow of silence precedes the ominous presence. Darkness surrounds the form that fills us all with breathless expectation.

Slow, measured footfalls register slightly out of kilter with our perception of time.

The inexplicable darkness recedes to reveal a tall man at the head of the stairs. This elegant gentleman takes us all in his embracing vision. Ancient eyes hold us in their thrall. Centuries old flesh still clings taut to the bones of that magnificent skull. That which is history is in our presence. Somehow, the old nobleman still radiates a handsome vitality of machismo.

A voice as old and deep as a Transylvanian mountain chasm, speaks to a spellbound audience.

“Ghouodde Eivehningk. Danke mein guests. I am your host. Please allow me to eintroudouce myself.”

“Mien name ist Count Drauchulau.”

“
I think I’ve heard of him., Miss Plumtartt!
”

“
Sh! Mr. Temperance!
”

“Some of you may be wondering why I have called this gathering. You may have already ascertained that I have an ulterior motive for bringing you all together in this place. I have worked hard to facilitate the construction of this, a relatively worthy accommodation for my honored guests until such time as more appropriate arrangements can be made.”

“Ha, ha! Yes! A winter vacation château to escape the Northern Hemisphere’s cruel sunlight. I count this as a temporary temple and your plan is to build an even greater version of your ‘Motel Hex’. Ha, ha! If I follow your reasoning on this, my most honoured of vampires, then we may expect similar digs to be built in the North? Ha, ha! Move over Santa, we may be dining on a few of your elves, ha, ha! Vee are the new kids on the pole! Ha, ha!”

“Hhaugh, hhaugh, hhaugh. Most amusing, Count Sezami. You are right, though. This is a temporary facility. Methods of grand construction have been conceived, built, and put to work. To help bring about a great works project, many ingenious humans have been assembled. Unlike our vampiric kind, these specimens were affected by the Revelatory Comet’s passing. They are extraordinarily gifted scientists. Many of humanity’s engineers have already built us many fantastic machineries to further our goals. One was the construction of this and other buildings. However, no, my counting colleague, there are no plans to build a little North Pole hideaway for ourselves. The plan is to stay here, in the Southern Hemisphere of our planet.”

“Need I remind you, Count Drauchulau, there is a six months of daylight period approaching.”

“Not if I can help it, Count Sezami. I tire of scurrying from pole to pole in an effort to escape the deadly radiations of the cursed sun. Likewise, I feel it undignified to cower in mein coffin to avoid the same. Many of my esteemed colleagues have been extinguished from existence by being caught in this daily slumber by murderous cattle, such as Herr Heksink, that I see glaring at me from over his ridiculous moustache. It is my intention to seize the Southern Hemisphere for our use alone. Let humanity adapt; they are so good at such things.”

“Do you now possess some strange control over the Sun, Count Drauchulau? How vill you accomplish such an impossibility?”

“Operation ‘Eternal Night’ is soon to go into operation, Count Gigalosi.”

“Oh my Goodness, you mean y’all gotta plan to extinguish the Sun?!”

“Ah, yes. The American tinker, Ichabod Temperance, is it not? No, no, dear boy. Though that is a pleasing concept, it would assuredly destroy our own food crops should such a calamity take place. We have no wish to destroy humanity. Our own existence is inexorably tied to yours. However, the inventive capacity of the modern world is quickly running much of nature to ground. The onslaught of technological wonders threaten even us. We must exert our own control over the Earth now, or we are surely doomed to perish.”

“No, my Count! You cannot really believe that the puny advancements of this insignificant species can threaten those of us that have ruled the planet for millennia with impunity!”

“It is a difficult thing for me to admit, but yes, Count Fangella, I fear it with all my being.”

“Vhat kahn vee do, Count Drauchulau?”

“I have a plan, Baron Kristopher Leigh. Elegantly simple, actually. The orientation of the planet now remains fixed as it orbits the Sun. This causes the poles of planet Earth to alternate between being near or far in regard to proximity to the central star. With this coming and going we have the change of season to season, am I correct? Yes, I see your nods of affirmation indicating you are familiar with this elemental knowledge of how our planet operates. This is good. With just a small correction to the planet’s spin, an adjustment in this ever changing orientation can be accomplished. I intend to keep the North Pole pointed at the Sun, thus allowing us an opportunity of enjoying a long life of death.”

“Ha, ha! I love it! Count me in! But how are we to accomplish such a paradise? Ha, ha!”

“We have a brilliant theoretical physicist here with us in Herr Professor Christopher DiddleFudde. Professor, would you care to explain your theory, please?”

“Why, certainly Count Drauchulau. Here, Spyijke, hold my electrical hard core violin. I need both hands to wave around madly to help me explain, even though one of them wields a cane and thus makes me very dangerous so please be prepared to duck in self-preservation because I do not intend to flail about, it just happens. My swinging hands at the ends of my arms help to grant me inertia to better tell my theories of inertial forces being used to create a harmonic and sympathetic correspondence of centrifugal energies that can either stabilize speed up or otherwise affect the rotation and hence gyroscopic balances thus inferred upon said matter or sphere, right? So, with that being the case, orientation of projected axis can theoretically be manipulated with regard to chosen alignment by application of angular velocity to affect the precession of forces on the pseudovectors at the exact moment of nutation to facilitate the momentum of inertias and thus exert its inexorable will upon the said object in question.”

“Well said Professor DiddleFudde. I believe that is it in a nutshell, which is appropriate.”

“I sure am sorry to be dense, y’all, but hey Professor, hunh?”

“Perhaps I can use an imagined visual example that even you can follow, Ichabod. Let us say you are a billiard hall hustler, what is called the Pool Seal.”

“Shark.”

“From what I’ve seen of the seals down here, I’d rather take my chances with the shark. So, Ichabod the Pool Seal is hustling some rubes down at the corner nogoodnik hall. He wishes to hit a striped ball with his cue ball but Mr. Solid Ball lies squarely in his way. What is our Ichabod the Pool Seal to do? Does he gives these dirty punks his monies? No! The little rascal strikes down and to the right of center of the spherical object that he should be ashamed of himself to be associated with! A counter-directional spin to the movement is what our billiard ball will take. The inertias fly in the face of the ball’s course and demand of it to change! Our delinquent hero drives his cue ball around the obstruction to strike the striped ball in question.”

“Why couldn’t I just ricochet one ball off the other?”

“Because I am trying to make an example! You have executed the maneuver, what do you call it Ichabod?”

“‘Slapping the British’?”

“Close, but no, I think it’s called ‘Putting some English’ on the ball.”

“What does that have to do with Pool Seals, Herr Professor?”

“It has more to do with orbital mechanics than your shameful hustling. The working name of the theory is ‘Generation of Neutral Polarity’.”

“Ah, Professor, I think I prefer ‘Gyroscopic Neutralization Prerogative’.”

“Whatever.”

“Can this theory really be used to control the orientation of the Earth’s axis?”

“The theory is absolutely sound. It only remains to initiate a process to realize this possibility.”

“What is this process you would initiate?”

“Three macro-gyroscopes are needed to instill the influence we desire. Our research has determined there to be an ideal positioning for such devices beyond the Southern fields of ice. There is land at the Southern Pole. Up until now, Mankind has been unable to penetrate these environments. Recent technological advancements now make that journey feasible. Sites have been prepared upon these heretofore undiscovered lands of the extreme South that I have claimed on behalf of our conglomerate.”

“Just how big o’ agyroscooope are ye’ planning to build, m’lad? Pardon me, yer’ anti-grace?”

“Big.”

“How will you build such large wonders, Senor?”

“I am planning on enlisting your help, Senor MontalKahn. I want you to build me a very special water caster. It will be a device that can instantly form products, even something as complicated as these  gigantic gyroscopes from out of ice! With the oceans, massive snowbanks, and mountains of ice at hand in this region providing a relatively endless source of raw material to work with, the size of the things become arbitrary.”

“It is within the abilities of my vast intellectual prowess to conceive and build your device, but you will never get the waters to behave in a way that you have in mind.”