Fall Guy

Life had not been kind to Demostis of late. Quite apart from the usual troubles: his excruciating haemorrhoid problem, hereditary inability to meet girls, and the fact that his bald patch now occupied more space than his hair, he had recently learned that he would be dead within a week.

Now you might ask how he could be so certain of his impending demise. After all, he was in reasonable shape for a man of his size, one might even say perfect shape (perfectly spherical, that is), and it's pretty rare for someone to die from a bad case of piles. Demostis was known for his irrepressibly carefree approach to life, embracing it's finer and more extravagant excesses as one might welcome a long-lost brother, or a wagon train full of free beer. A warm, friendly smile was never far from his fat red face, a hearty laugh sure to arrive at regular intervals from deep within his cavernous belly, and if he did encounter great difficulty whilst attempting to walk in a straight line, fell over from time to time at important civic functions, and had a tendency to recite dirty jokes to the wives of visiting foreign dignitaries, people didn't hold it against him. It was just old Demostis, pissed as usual.

Everyone liked Demostis. Great bloke. Salt of the earth. So just what was it that made this affable and intoxicated politician so certain he would die?

More importantly, why did he secretly hope it would happen sooner rather than later?

In order to answer these and many other pointless questions, it is necessary to press the little grey button with two indented triangles pointing backwards, and take a brief look into the past.

Demostis' run of catastrophic bad luck had started about two months ago. A little known and largely ignored Earl in the little known and largely ignored Kingdom of Jazz, he was quite content to live out his insignificant little life in peace and obscurity, venturing forth from his spacious and delightfully post-modern eighty-two-up seventy-four-down rural des res with expensive stone cladding and erotic stained glass windows only when summoned to formal dinners at the palace of the venerable King Merkin.

Sadly for Demostis, it was at just such a function that he fell so painfully from grace. A lover of fine food in large quantities, Demostis never hesitated in taking advantage of the veritable culinary paradise on offer at these banquets. Unfortunately on this occasion, after reducing a particularly spicy roast boar to bare bone in record time, he made the fatal and now infamous mistake of farting before the queen.

The assembled throng were struck down by a terrible silence, awaiting the feared wrath of King Merkin. Demostis was aghast, and greatly afraid, for he too was fully aware of his majesty's legendary temper, though in truth his indiscretion was entirely an accidental one. Being somewhat the worse for having downed almost two casks of strong red wine, he had lost track of events and genuinely did not realise it was her turn.

In a fit of intense rage the King ordered Demostis out of his sight. Next morning he was packing his bags for the swampy southern climes of Bleach, a crumbling little fortress town in the middle of nowhere with a population of twenty three individuals who might justifiably be classified as human, or at the very least humanoid, two rather old and decidedly senile sheep, an impossible number of bats (that bastard knew he hated bats), and a paranoid crocodile with halitosis that could melt stone at a hundred yards. Oh, and the atmosphere in Bleach has been calculated to include 13% Nitrogen, 6% Oxygen, and 79% flies.

(For the mathematicians amongst you, who have no doubt observed that this accounts for only 98% of the atmosphere, the remaining 2% represents an as yet unspecified gooey substance that is probably best left well alone).

So, as you can see, Demostis had not exactly landed on his feet when he suffered his untimely relocation. He had, in fact, landed in a puddle of the aforementioned gooey substance, which just goes to show how unfortunate he really is.

But, you may be thinking, what does all this nonsense have to do with Demostis' unshakeable conviction that his days are numbered? Be patient, dear reader, and all will be revealed.

You see, there is one further thing that makes Bleach the runaway winner of the 'Wish You Were Somewhere Else' Worst Place To Go For Your Holiday award. In less than a week - Six days, five hours and thirteen minutes, but who's counting? - the largest, most ruthlessly efficient, and undoubtedly the most downright nasty army in the long and often tiresome history of the known universe is due to arrive in these fair lands, and they're not just coming for the tea and sandwiches.

The great East-South-Western Emperor Magnolius MCMLXXI, having declared his intention to rule the entire world by afternoon tea-time on the penultimate day of the year, was at that very moment plotting the downfall of quaint and humble Bleach and trying to think of what the ruler of all the world might actually do with unlimited wealth and power.

Legend has it that Urskrokh, androgynous Caliph of the Eternal Gods of the Crystal Tetrahedron, as the deities of the East-South-West prefer to be known, came to Magnolius in a drug-induced dream, and told him that it was his destiny to rule the world from a throne of ivory in a palace of white gold, and that no enemy could withstand him so long as he had faith in the gods, and kept up his subscription to Readers Digest.

Of course, Magnolius also claims to be the illegitimate son of the Etruscalian Phoenix, has regular conversations with a small collection of pebbles named Felicity, and has taken to drinking enormous quantities of Earl Grey tea through a straw in the shape of a sea-dragon's wedding tackle. But it is not wise to question the sanity of the most powerful individual on the planet, especially when he's stark raving mad.

Whatever the reason, Magnolius had summoned a force of twelve million battle-hardened, bloodthirsty maniacs each prepared to die in the name of their Emperor, or anyone else who offered them a truckload of cash. Demostis, meanwhile, could count on the dubious support of twenty-three out of work pig farmers, two stupid sheep, and a troubled reptile. Hardly a fair fight, and consequently the Duke of Bleach was utterly certain of his impending gruesome death at the sword of some wild-eyed, foaming-mouthed East-South-Western lunatic with a liking for plump human flesh.

But, I hear you cry, surely the powers that be wouldn't just abandon Demostis and the good citizens of Bleach in their hour of greatest need. Well, under normal circumstances, those courageous digintaries would sell their own grandmothers, or better still sell each other's grandmothers, rather than lift a jewel-encrusted finger to aid a fellow human being in dire peril. However, it was patently obvious even to politicians that as soon as Magnolius destroyed Bleach - and let's face it, he's hardly going to lose any sleep over it - he would turn his attentions northwards, and all the various petty empires, kingdoms, duchies, earldoms, theocracies, democracies, dictatorships, republics, and fledgling communist states would inevitably fall before his awesome might. The thought of their mountains of gold and milk tokens falling into enemy hands, not to mention the bottom-squelching fear of being cut up into tiny pieces and used as garnish in some grand victory banquet, would provoke some form of action in all but the most intoxicated of world leaders.

So, much as it pained them to do so, as they hated the sight of each other even more than they hated the thought of actually doing something to justify their enormous expense accounts and annual holidays in the sun-kissed Videssos Islands, the esteemed leaders and representatives of these imperiled realms put off less pressing engagements and converged on the fabled city-port of Drayn, where in the glittering halls of the Patrician's palatial private residence a Council of War was convened.

Desperate pleas of help were sent out to great heroes the length and breadth of the known world, the plan being to raise a force to shake the foundations of legend, a band of greatness to make a daring and unquestionably suicidal stand against impossible odds at the strategically critical but otherwise utterly uninteresting fortress town of Bleach. At the time of their greatest need, the leaders of the free peoples shook off their pride, placed it in a small wooden box in a cubby-hole behind a portrait of Queen Imelda the Voluptuous for safe keeping, and cried out for help.

They cried out to Vorodin the Really Brave, Warlord of Nebros, Hammer of the Nails and Bearer of the sacred Tonka, who sadly had a bit of a cold, or possibly even 'flu, and had been told by his doctor to take things easy for a while.

To Lar-Melondress, amazon Sorceror-Queen of the High Elves of Silverglade, who had apparently just got married for the seventeenth time, to a dashing orc chieftain named Errol, and was away on honeymoon.

To Durk Ironkrap, King of the Dwarves, who was otherwise indisposed, and would later claim that his reply must have gotten lost in the post.

They cried out for help, but no help came.

All across the continent the answer was the same. Everyone seemed to have something better to do than to face certain and painful death defending a hotch potch of corrupt, degenerate states from an invasion whose lavatorial facilities alone occupied the land mass of a small country.

Except, not everyone was too busy. One person at least thought that this was a worthy cause, a fight for truth, justice and the Arconian way, a final cataclysmic clash in the eternal battle twixt good and evil. A cause to die for. One man stood up to be counted, determined to face down the enemy in the murky swamps of distant Bleach, no matter what the odds (which were, in case anybody's interested, somewhere in the region of 12 000 000-1). And that man was Kudos. Or, as he preferred to be known, KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT!

Now Demostis, when he heard that the invincible army of Magnolius MCMLXXI was making Bleach its next port of call, had looked to the skies and shouted: "Gods, things can't possibly get any worse!" On reflection, this was a very foolish thing to do. You see, there's nothing the gods like better than a challenge. Mind you, even the gods in their wisdom which, if not exactly infinite is still pretty big, found it difficult to go one better than dumping the poor wretch in a bat-infested cesspool like Bleach and then having twelve million rabid east-south-western warriors turn up uninvited.

However, the gods are nothing if not imaginative. And besides, it's amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it. So it was that they decided to inflict on poor unfortunate Demostis, who only two months earlier had been living it up in the soft and squidgy lap of Luxury, a fate far, far worse than death.

KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! was, without the shadow of a doubt, the most mind-numbingly tedious human being ever to wear trousers. True, he was a very great and noble warrior, a swordsman without peer. True, he had stood alone against the rampaging might of a legion of troll-lords when the ninth cavalry had fled like frightened school children, and inflicted on them a humiliating defeat without breaking sweat, wind, or even a finger nail. Indeed it was he who famously scythed through the teeming mass of goblin invaders at the Battle of Rubbaduk whilst armed with only a cocktail stick, and rescued the Princess Glace. It has even been said that he arm-wrestles Dragons for fun, and can crush mountains with his bare hands.

Much indeed has been said about the glorious achievements of KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! The point is, most of it has been said not only of KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! but also by KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT. Renowned as the world's foremost bighead, with an ego of galactic proportions, KUDOS was absolutely and unequivocally in love with himself. This was perhaps just as well in view of the fact that anyone who had ever spent five minutes in his company, assuming they managed to survive, hated him with a passion mere words alone cannot convey. Demostis could be counted among that select band of unfortunates.

Whole towns have been wiped out by ritual mass suicide at the very mention that KUDOS might be passing through, on his way to yet another famous victory, and that he may stop for a chat and a cup of coffee with the locals. He has been refused entry to monasteries, stoned by nuns, shunned by the Samaritans, and had a membership application to the National Arconian Mail Order Book Club turned down, yet still he stubbornly refuses to see just how monumentally unpopular he is.

If KUDOS were to appear on Mastermind, his specialist subject would be himself. If a survey asked him to name his ten favourite things in all the world, the seventh one would be fighting; the other nine would be himself.

But undoubtedly the most tragic facet of this self-obsession, in Demostis' opinion, was that KUDOS genuinely believed that people wanted to hear for the ninety-eighth time how he had once single-handedly challenged and defeated the fearsome kraken of Black Deep and the Fell Beast of Moorh, and that before breakfast. That was what Demostis feared most, being subjected to the endless stream of self-congratulatory drivel that KUDOS was able to produce, sometimes for days on end. If his only hope of salvation lay in the hands of this gargantuan ego-trip, Demostis firmly wished he was dead.

The first and only time he had ever met KUDOS was at a dwarven rights rally when he was a student at Briddling, back in the days of his rebellious youth. In fact, to say they actually met is something of an exaggeration. Demostis had seen KUDOS standing on a balcony, wearing the smug grin that has become his natural expression, accepting an award for saving the city from some terrible disaster or another, but the effect on him was such that he had to be kept away from anything that had a sharp edge for a week. That's the sort of impact KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! can have on people, and Demostis did not want to go through it again. He still couldn't look at a fish slice without wincing.

Luckily for Demostis, Meryl, Goddess of Chance Happenings and Minor Strokes of Good Fortune, had continued to observe his predicament long after the other gods had gone down the pub for the evening. Deciding that it was indeed about time that the beleaguered nobleman had a Minor Stroke of Good Fortune, she used her influence over all things improbable to subtly manipulate the nature of future events, thus sparing the generally unfortunate but this time really quite jammy Demostis from the fate worse than death. Consequently, when KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! stopped to tie his shoelace a mile outside Bleach an unseen hand holding a very big stick whacked him over the head. He woke six days later.

Sadly, Meryl was unable to do anything about the fate that actually was death, namely the vast and unstoppable army that even now approached the decayed walls of Bleach, walls that could barely hold up a poster never mind the greatest military force ever assembled. That would require a Feat of Unparalleled Good Luck, which was well out of Meryl's league. He was on his own.

In his chambers, Demostis stood gazing vacantly out of a window at the town he had ruled for the past two months, and which would soon become just another stretch of highway over which the armies of Emperor Magnolius could march. In the street below, two scruffy teenage pig-farmers were arguing about something, though he couldn't make out what. Then the boy looked up and saw him.

"Who's that fat bloke?" he asked.

"Haven't a clue," the girl replied, giving up flicking mud at her companion. "Want a biscuit?"

"Don't mind if I do," he said taking two.

As they wandered off, seemingly unconcerned by the haunting spectre of death that loomed over the town, a single tear squeezed itself from Demostis' left eye and slowly navigated a southerly route across his chubby cheek. It could be that he was upset at his failure to connect with the common people of Bleach (that is, all the people of Bleach); perhaps he felt he had let them down, brought his curse of bad luck to their door; most likely, however, he had the hump because they hadn't offered him a biscuit.

"What's that smell?" Demostis said, roused from his state of self-pity by a thick cloud of acrid purple smoke. Turning, he was greeted by the sight of his manservant, Rocky, sitting in the Duke's favourite relaxer chair dressed like an extra from Starsky and Hutch. The luminous stench came from whatever it was he was smoking. "And what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hey man," Rocky drawled lazily. "I thought we should, like, just kind of chill out, you know." He took another drag. "No point in, like, getting stressed out. You should try it."

Lost for words, Demostis rolled across to the other window. The scene that met his weary eyes took his breath away. Where there had previously been only endless moors and marshland as far as the eye could see, there were now only people. An unimaginably vast landscape of humanity, stretching to the horizon and beyond. Not simply a lot of people, but a LOT! of people.

So, Demostis thought, the time has come. At least it shouldn't take too long.

Then his attention was drawn to a movement in the midst of the multitude, a commotion of some sort. Something, or someone, was attempting to force a way through the crowd, and they weren't fussy how they did it.

KUDOS had woken, rubbed his eyes and scratched his aching back. There was a sharp pain behind his left ear, and a family of field mice in his underpants. He was completely surrounded.

More soldiers than even the great KUDOS had ever seen stood around him on all sides. They were heavily armed, and looked ready for battle. He could just make out the ramshackle turrets of the fortress over the heads of his enemies.

KUDOS was angry. The fury built like a bushfire within him, and a thin wisp of steam emerged from his ears. They were ignoring him! How dare they! He was KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! The greatest hero in the galaxy and his mortal enemies were walking round him like he was a piece of furniture.

Hefting his mighty axe in one hand, his mighty sword in the other, and somehow manipulating his awesome warhammer with an unseen third appendage, KUDOS let fly at the nearest footsoldier. His first blow sliced the man clean in half, while his extravagant follow-through accounted for three more, innocently enjoying a quiet tea-break nearby.

KUDOS was up and running. Relentlessly scything his way through the ranks, he made light work of a platoon of elite spearmen who dared to ask him where he was going. He was determined to reach the fortress so that the good people could hold a celebratory feast in his honour before the real fighting began. Line after line was cut down with devastating efficiency, and lots of blood. It took almost two and a half hours, but eventually KUDOS attained the frail but stubborn walls of Bleach.

Slamming and barring the gate behind him, KUDOS wondered what was keeping the official reception, red carpet, key to the city and all that. Come to think of it, he also wondered what had happened to all the people. Perhaps they didn't yet realise that they had an army on their doorstep. He went to find them, to tell them the good news.

He found Demostis choking in a cloud on narcotic smoke, while Rocky fought vertigo and a horde of ants wearing tuxedos from the relaxer chair.

"Greetings," KUDOS said. "I am KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! and I have come to save you from the forces of darkness that hound your door." He paused, awaiting the traditional applause.

"You took your time," Demostis said.

"Ah, yes, well. I'm here now, so there's no need to go into details. Suffice to say, you need fear no longer. I have already despatched a million or so of our enemies, and it is only a matter of time before the rest fall like dead people beneath my axe, sword and awesome warhammer." Again he paused, winked, and grinned stupidly, but still no words of adulation were forthcoming.

"Well, don't let me keep you." Demostis pointed to the door. "The battlements are that way, go and do whatever it is you do. And close the door behind you, we get a terrible draft through here."

Anyone else would have been crushed by such offhand treatment, but not KUDOS. He simply hoisted his assortment of weapons and marched off to do what he did best, which by strange coincidence also happened to be the only thing he did.

Alone on the battlements, face to face with around eleven million seething warriors baying for his blood, KUDOS was clearly in his element. He taunted them, he mocked them, he even told them a few jokes, just to lighten the mood a little. He always maintained that people took mortal combat too seriously.

Then he told them the tale of how he once halted the demonic hordes of the Duke of the Infinite Abyss, and sent them scurrying back to the chaos-tainted halls from which they came with their barbed tails firmly between their legs. And that's what he would do to his current audience, if he let any of them live. He hadn't reached a decision on that point yet, he told them, but added reassuringly that when he did make up his mind they would be the first to know.

Those who hadn't already heard of the living legend that was KUDOS THE MAGNIFICENT! had certainly heard of him now. His grating, nasal voice reached every ear, his words moved every stomach. And as a result every last warrior in that immense army wanted nothing more out of the rest of their lives than to be the one responsible for killing that arrogant pratt with the axe, sword, and dubious warhammer.

A sudden and powerful blast of wind shook the walls of Bleach, and KUDOS teetered atop the fragile battlements. Eleven million people went "Oooh!" The roar was deafening, and the walls shook some more. A few bits fell off. If KUDOS hadn't been so heroically stupid he might actually have started to worry at this point.

In the distance, the Emperor Magnolius MCMLXXI watched the scene with growing interest. Here he was, on the threshold of total world domination, and all his enemies sent to face him was a single warrior. Was this some kind of joke?

He was invulnerable, the gods had assured him of that, yet still he was troubled. His seers had told him of this KUDOS, of his great feats of courage, and his peerless warcraft, but surely not even he could stand against such impossible odds. Could he?

Back at Bleach, that second tremor had set in motion a dramatic chain of events that would forever stain the annals of history, and confound all attempts at logical explanation.

As the fortress shook, a groggy Rocky lost his grip on his fag. The ancient, threadbare carpets wasted little time in feeding the hungry flame, and it rapidly took on alarming proportions. Demostis panicked. "Fire!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "FIRE!"

Outside, two million archers asked the person next to them, "Did you hear that? I think someone said fire."

"And they replied, "No, can't have."

"Didn't you idiots hear me?" Demostis was on the verge of hysteria. "I said FIRE!"

And two million archers did just that. Understandably, KUDOS was somewhat disturbed to hear the order to open fire coming from his own side. He was also a little put out at being turned into a pin-cushion about half a second later by two million dead-eyed arrows.

To his credit, KUDOS didn't go down straight away. He tried to get out a few defiant last words, which sounded dangerously like "I'll be back!", before succumbing to the inevitable and toppling backwards off the battlements, taking his axe, sword, awesome warhammer and family of field mice with him..

A cheer went up that resounded through the forty-three corners of a particularly eccentric-shaped world, while the citizens of Bleach struggled to put out the fire. It was the first time they had ever done anything together, and they all agreed that it felt rather good. Had circumstances been different, it could have been a major turning point for the town.

Little did they know that things out on the battlefield were taking a definite turn for the better. An argument had broken out among a group of archers, disputing who had fired the shot that actually killed the great hero KUDOS. Such was their hatred for his very name, they were willing to fight to prove it was they who had slain the lone warrior, to the death if necessary.

A number of scuffles began, and feelings soon spread. In next to no time, a brawl involving a million of the Emperor's finest troops was threatening to rip the heart out of his army. Like an epidemic it spread, each and every one of the combatants maintaining that they had fired the decisive arrow.

Soldiers who could not possibly have been responsible, on account of being a couple of miles away and not actually possessing a bow and arrow, nevertheless laid claim to the kill. Even Magnolius himself was not immune. So powerful was the need to be the champion who had rid the world of its biggest headache that he found himself scrapping with a lowly scribe, who had dared to question the word of his Emperor.

And so it went on. The army was decimated within a day.

Scenes of gruesome carnage met any eyes that looked out from Bleach, so no-one looked. Demostis enjoyed a quiet cup of herbal tea while Rocky dozed in the remains of the relaxer chair.

Magnolius was dead, stabbed in the back by his legal advisor. The only survivors of the self-induced massacre were Barge, a cook, and Necktie, a domestic cat with only one eye, mascot of the 137th pikemen.

Not being much interested in world domination, they went home.