The Final Solution

Tax Collecting

orphious the Malevolent (Morphy Baby to his enemies) sat at his large oaken desk in his office and smiled. He was a bear of a man, and when he smiled, his huge canines gleamed like ivory. Before him lay a summons for Prince Gilmore for evasion of tax. All the summons needed was his signature for he was the chief executive officer in the City of Caliphrat. That was the easy bit. No need for pen and ink, all he had to use was the embedded brass pen nib in his finger. Red always looked very official on forms.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Morphious looked up, cursing silently to himself that interruptions always came at the most inopportune moments.

"Come in.", he grunted.

The door opened and a captain from the Special guard strode in.

"Sir. Something has come up that I think you should know about.", he started.

"Well what is it?", said Morphius still feeling irate, "Can't you see I'm busy?"

The captain grimaced.

"Prince Gilmore has fled his residence, Sir. My men have lost track of him."

Morphious did not say anything at first, but rose slowly from his desk.

"Servant," he said, speaking to the man who had stood silently all the time in the corner of his office.

"get me one of the JARS."

At this the Captain broke out into a cold sweat.

"Oh no not the JAR!", he begged,"Pleeease!"

By the time the servant returned with the JAR, all that was left of the Captain were enough ashes to half fill it.

Keeping your Head

Morphious felt much better. From his window he could look down into the courtyard and see the pool of blood slowly forming, drip by drip under the pole with the Prince's head on it. There was a wild look of horror frozen in Gilmore's face. A look, mused Morphious, of abject terror caused by being half eaten alive by a demon bat. Tracking the prince had been easy. Just let the bat take one good look at a portrait of the prince and it returns with the prey more or less intact (though rather less in this case) within half an hour. They flew like "bats out of Hell", which of course they were.

Somewhere in Time and Space...

It was warm and dark, and very wet. Cullion the Blue was at that moment very blue. Above him, sounding a million miles away, but still too close for comfort spoke the Innkeeper. He was talking to his wife who was in the bath, It was lucky for Cullion that she used a big bath with lots of "bubble bath", but he still wished he could come up for a breath. Every time the Innkeeper turned his back, she would prod Cullion and he would stick his nose above the foam. It was uncomfortable breathing bubbles, but far more pleasant than being caught. Anyway, he mused to himself, all in a days work for a rogue. In future he'd be more wary of people who offered him a bed for the night at "very reasonable rates".

Later, after having made his escape from two floors up with no more than a covering of suds on him, he ran into his second and final problem of the day.

On the road in front of him as he walked out of Caliphrat, a temporal time warp opened up and swallowed him. Had he been around to comment he would have thought it was "all in a days work" too.

Somewhere Safer

In the rocky mountains to the south, a quest had begun. In fact it had started quite a long time ago, somewhere in the region of two thousand years to be precise. Depending on how you looked at it they had gone very far, or perhaps not very far at all. Two and a half feet was all that could be expected from twenty men who walked around in circles all day. Two and a half feet down through the solid granite in search of a long lost monument to their god. Scripture said that they would only find it by the shear wearing away of the rock with their cowhide slippers. Of course there weren't that many cows left in the vicinity any more. Some of the younger initiates had taken to filing down the rock in the dead of night, but such practice was frowned upon by their elders and was liable to end in early termination.

Anyway all this was rather a moot point as they found what they were looking for, but their scriptures didn't say what they were meant to do with it. It was such a boring little box that they gave it to the next passing traveller and wandered off in search of a live volcano or similar to end it all in.

Somewhere Near By

Philious Philofax carried on walking away from the mountains. There seemed little else to do and anyway he was anxious to get home. Walking was so demeaning for him. He being a minor prince of a minor province somewhere to the far south. Anyway he didn't have a horse so that was that. What he did have though was a strange box shaped object given to him by a group of bewildered monks some days back. He had no more idea about it than they did but he was sure it would come in useful.

Plotting afoot

Somewhere not a million miles away from Philious stood an Entity. By means of Its location It could see the whole world, and what It saw, It did not like. A truly horrendous thing had happened, a mortal had uncovered the Item. If it was used, the Entity's future plans would be ruined. Had It been mortal, a cold shiver would have run down Its spine, but It wasn't, and anyway the temperature in Hell never dropped below that of the centre of the Sun.

However there was always a solution. A small amount of dimension manipulation and Philious would be eradicated from the face of the world.

The preparations were started, and before long all was ready. A slight twist of time and things would be as before. There were sometimes a few side effects but these were not normally a problem.

Fortunately, the Entity was not around to squirm at Its failure as a temporal time warp, a byproduct of Its own manipulations whisked It away at the crucial moment. (Another side effect of this experiment whisked away Cullion the Blue the week before but the Entity in Its haste to "put things to rights" had totally missed this fact).

Somewhere not a million miles away from the Entity, but now several dimensions stood Philious. He had a headache, but thats nothing compared to problems the Entity had now.

A Change of Plan

Being zapped into the nth dimension was no joke for the Entity. It was dark there, and there was not a lot of anything. All was not lost though (It was always an optimist). With a little raw material and a lot of ingenuity soon the world would be put to rights. It wasn't too pleased with the quality of the raw material though...

Cullion open and closed his eyes several times in rapid succession before concluding that either he was blind or that there was no light. He realised that this was not best of situations but a rogue's life is not an easy one. Deciding that there was very little he could do, he sat tight and waited for something to happen. After an indeterminable period had passed, he became aware of a presence...

The vision of a naked young man sitting with his knees held up to his chest and his eyes tightly closed did not exactly fill the Entity with hope, but for the sake of Its pride It had to try. Thinking quickly It started to speak in a gentle voice:

"My son, my son. Welcome. You have passed from your plane of existence to a higher one. RISE! Open your eyes and behold the glory of the Kingdom of the gods!".

Cullion, greatly relieved at the sound of the voice obeyed.

The Entity had meanwhile taken a small box of Lucifers from Its pocket, and after snapping the first one on the side of the box in anticipation, lit one.

"Wow !", exclaimed Cullion, seeing a beacon a light in the darkness.

"Drat !", cursed the Entity as It dropped the match, trying to light another before the first went out.

Shortly however:

"Look towards the light, my Son. Be not afraid. Listen to what I have to say."

The entity started droning away in the old tongue:

".....6809....SAD....UNIX...101010...52...2A..."

Cullion stood mesmerised. He didn't understand a word of it but he had nothing better to do..., only, perhaps he had?

A Solution without a Problem to Solve

The Item was dirty, but as Philious sat cleaning it that night beside his camp fire, it gradually took form. It had been a smooth black box about the size of a couple of magic tomes placed side by side. It had a handle on the side which had looped in it a rusty metal ring and some chain. As Philious peered closer, he could make out some lettering on the top. After searching his memory of all the languages he knew, Philious eventually decided that it was the ancient written form of the common language from before the Great Wars. This is what it read:

N O R D
T CTICAL DE ENCE COM UTE
REMO E TER INAL

Unfortunately although Philious could pronounce the letters the words didn't seem to make sense.

"NORE DEE TEE STICAL DE ENCE COM UTTE REAMO EE TER INALE." he said to himself a couple of times, but no meaning was forthcoming.

After pondering this for some time, Philious tried a different tack. Searching the sides of the box he looked for a joint or gap. Soon he found one in the edge, and prised it open with his knife. Suddenly he heard a voice.

"GOOD EVENING. THE DATE IS :-
OVERFLOW ERROR NUMBER 42
ABORTING IDENTIFICATION CHECK.
GOING INTO PROGRAMMERS TEST MODE.

WHAT IS YOU COMMAND?"

After a few seconds, the question was repeated. Philious however was already hiding behind the nearest tree.

"Who's there?", he shouted.

"VOICE PATTERN NOT RECOGNISED. NEW VOICE PATTERN IDENTIFICATION BEING CONSTRUCTED FROM AVAILABLE DATA."

"Please, who is it? I've got nothing worth stealing.", he begged.

"VOICE PATTERN COMPLETED. MY NAME IS.. ERROR 43, CLASSIFIED COMMAND - WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?"

"Hello Erorfortiethree", Philious stammered, "Where are you?

"EXTERNAL SENSORY UNITS INDICATE I AM IN A MOUNTAINOUS AREA."

"What are you?", Philious continued feeling more confident even though the previous answer had seemed like gibberish.

"I AM THE FINAL SOLUTION.", came the reply.

By this time, Philious' worst fears had been confirmed. The box was speaking to him. Quickly he grabbed it, shut it and hid it in his pack. Only after careful checks around his camp site did he settle down for a restless night's sleep.

In the morning Philious woke up. He often did this in the morning, only this time he wished he hadn't. Memories of the night before came flooding back and he knew he would have to do something about the Item. He could throw it away of course, but maybe there was another solution..

Return to Normalcy

The Entity sighed and sat back on his seat. Getting out of the nth dimension had not been without its problems, but It was sure glad to be home. Considering the difficulties, Its plan seemed to be recovering quite well. Cullion had been returned to his own dimension, the Entity to Its, and the second attempt to return things to "rights" had been started. If only that bumbling idiot Cullion would do his job right then the world would be saved from the likes of Philious.

An Interesting Rumour

Morphious sat at his desk and thought. He thought hard and long, short and soft, big and small and every other combination he could think of. The only thing he couldn't think of was the solution to his problem.

A few days ago, while interrogating a suspect, he had obtained some information about an "Oracle of all Knowledge". What it was, or where it was, Morphious had no knowledge, but he knew he must have it. For the might of Caliphrat (and of course a little extra curricula activity). "Perhaps a little unofficial holiday is in order", he thought to himself.

A Chance Meeting

The marketplace in the market town of Karain was crowded. Most people were going to and fro in their business. Some were just milling about. The sun was low in the sky and the days trading was coming to a close. Some stall holders were beginning to pack up their wares, but in corners of the market, entertainers were still doing well. In one such corner was man.

"Oh Yey, oh yey, come and speak to the Oracle of All Knowledge. Only one gold piece a question. Com'n, cheap at twice the price. Oh Yey...", he repeated.

A merchant stepped forward and held out a coin. The man stopped chanting and took it. He bit it to check its validity and asked the merchant for his question.

"When will it rain next?", the merchant asked.

The man repeated this question to the black box which lay on a velvet cloth on the floor.

"Erorfortiethree.", the man commanded.

"WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?", the box answered.

"When will it rain next?"

"COMMAND ACKNOWLEDGED SIR. ACCORDING TO MY EXTERNAL PRESSURE SENSORS THE ATMOSPHERE WILL PRECIPITATE H2O WITHIN THE NEXT TWENTY FOUR HOURS.

I AM THE FINAL SOLUTION."

"The Oracle of All knowledge says it will rain before this time tomorrow. Praise be to the Oracle!", the man exclaimed.

There was a hushed muttering from the crowd. They did not know what to make of this prediction in the light of the recent drought. The merchant walked away bemused. He would wait until this time tomorrow before making any further moves. Maybe this really was the "Oracle of All Knowledge".

A Night on the Town

That night it poured. Morphious got very wet. He had arrived late in town that day and after that merchant act in the market place, had been unable to find a room at the main Inn, "The Frog and Analyst". The only other Inn was the "Peacock" but that was a dingy placed filled with lanky haired young louts speaking in foreign tongues. Eventually he stopped under a stable and bedded himself down in the straw.

Cullion the Blue was also very wet. He strolled along the high street up towards the market place in the dead of night. As of late he wore only his cloak of suds, which strangely enough did not wash away in the rain.

"Clothes are beyond me,",the Entity had said "but I can curse those suds on you for ever more."

He knew only one thing. "Find the Item and throw it into a Volcano". This was all very well he thought to himself occasionally, but lately he didn't seem to have as much control over his actions as he used to.

When he got there, he found the market closed. Somewhere deep inside his brain, a feeling that this was the normal state of affairs for a market after midnight, started, but was soon quashed by a more powerful commitment to find the Item and dispose of it.

Turning, he proceeded down a road to look for some shelter.

The Following Day

Morphious rose early as usual. Today could be the day he thought to himself. After a quick wash and brush up, he stepped over the sleeping animals and went out in search of breakfast. He felt lucky.

The sun was quite high in the sky when Philious fell out of bed. The night of drinking and wenching had gone on into the small hours. Eventually however he crawled into his silken flairs and frilly shirt, purple of course, as befits a prince. He rang the bell and shortly a servant from below came up with breakfast. These were always the luxuries his family could never really afford, but at a coin a question, he was suddenly very rich.

"You know, Erorfortiethree." he started, speaking to the box.

"WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?"

I've been wondering. "What is the Final Solut-"

A loud knocking at the door interrupted him.

"What is it?" Philious snapped.

"A message Sir."

"Oh, alright. I'll open the door."

Outside the room stood a naked man.

"What is it ?!" exclaimed Philious feeling peeved at the nature of the interruption.

"GIMME THE ITEM OR I'LL BASH YER BRAINS IN!" came the reply.

Philious slammed the door in the man's face and bolted it shut. He could hear the man bouncing down the spiral staircase as the force of the blow had knocked him off the top stair.

"Crashhhhhhhhhhhh.....! Ooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" came up from below.

Feeling rather shaken, Philious returned to his meal.

A Final Solution

It didn't take Morphious long to track down Philious. After some careful "research" he had discovered that it was the slimy prince who owned the Oracle, and was making so much money from it that he could afford to rent a whole pub. He decided a direct assault would probably be out of the question but a variation on a similar theme would probably work. He proceeded to the "Frog & Analyst" and went up to the Landlord.

"Hello, my good fellow." He started.

"What can I do for you Sir?" Came the automatic response.

"Well actually, its what I can do for you that might be of interest."

"And what can you do for me?" replied the Landlord cautiously.

He never got passed this question as his eyes glazed over in a hypnotic sheen. Morphious asked to be taken to the prince and without another word being spoken, led him past the drunk at the bottom of the stairs up to Philious' room.

Philious, who was still shaken up by the thug at the door, sat pondering whether or not to call the Landlord. He hadn't been long at this when there was another knock at the door.

"Who is it?"

"The Landlord."

"Ah come in.", he said, turning towards the door.

"I was just about to call ...?!... you." he finished lamely, seeing the glazed look in the Landlord's eyes and the merchant grinning wolfishly behind.

"I think you and me have some unfinished business." said the merchant.

"How come?", replied Philious, "It rained last night, just as the Oracle fortold."

"Well," continued Morphious, "You have something I want."

"Information, riches, maybe?", came the sarcastic response.

"Just your Oracle."

At this point another figure staggered into the room.

"GIVE IT TO ME!", he shouted.

Feigning an air of grandeur, "Oh this is really too tedious", exclaimed the prince.

Cullion staggered forward. "GIMME THE ITEM OR I'LL BASH YER BRAINS IN!"

"But we've been through all that before my good man.", Philious replied.

"In fact the same goes for all of you. Get out now or I'll have my men hunt you down like rabid dogs!" Despite his apparent defiance, Philious knew his power was limited, and decided that he might actually profit from some sort of deal.

"I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement", weedled Morphious. "There must be a solution to our apparent dilemma."

"Well I suppose we might be able to agree on a final solution to please everyone, although I suspect neither of you could possibly compensate me for the loss of my oracle. How about twenty years worth of fortune telling? Interest in line with inflation, of course. Now let me see....", schemed Philious.

(All together)

Cullion "Well how about just giving it to me."

Morphious "I just knew it! Everybody has their price!"

LandLord " !?! "

Erorfortiethree "COMMAND ACKNOWLEDGED SIR. I AM THE FINAL SOLUTION."

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

ErorFortiethree "SIR..."

Philious "Shush. We're busy!"

(Some time later)

"....... Look, I'll add fifty camels and the key to the City of Caliphrat", bargained Morphious.

"And I'll add fifty years to your age and chuck in a trip to HELL free, if you don't give it to me!" countered Cullion. Though the voice was his the words were not his own.

ErorFortiethree, "SIR. I MUST INSIST. I STILL DETECT YOUR PRESENCE IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY. RADIATION LEVELS ARE RISING RAPIDLY. YOU MUST MOVE TO A SECURE ZONE IMMEDIATELY. I AM THE FINAL SOLUTION"

All, "WHAT!?"

BANG!

The End