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Sangrelysia
by Vivian Darkbloom
The Wenubians
We crowded into the sunlit glen. "What are they doing over there,
anyway?" Unseen over the next ridge, George and Elwrong were
occupied in a top-secret ritual with their multitude.
"Dynatology, Elwrong calls it."
"Expensive brainwashing, I calls it."
"And if you can't keep up your dues, they sack you in the
dungeon, just for an example."
"They're obsessed with a bloke named Wenu, some bad-guy alien who
came to Earth centuries ago, whose long-dead body is supposedly
clouding all our minds."
"Anybody who doesn't give them money has got to be cloudy in the
mind, they say."
Laughter all around.
"Let's have a look, shall we?" I offered, placing the crystal
sphere on a wooden stand at the center of the crowd.
Slowly as we watched, the image materialized, and all around the
people fell silent as the refracted projection of the scene next
door appeared, miniature, in three dimensions. King George stood
on the dais at the centre, surrounded by concentric rows of seats
rising up the hillside. Standing beneath his ridiculous flag,
eyes half-closed, his nose waved condescendingly in the air, with
an expression of mindless bemusement. A few other flags with
George's coat of arms were waving from within the crowd.
He began to address the crowd, looking perhaps a bit less goofy
than usual.
"I speak to you on a solemn occasion. My friends, it is the eve
of war. Y'see, war is differnt from peace," he explained, as if
he alone were capable of grasping the distinction. "Y'see, in
war, there's people dying. But in peace, not so many people
dying. So you might ask what is so great about war? And, well,
um. . ."
Elwrong, seated to the side cleared her throat: "Tsk!"
" -- Aah, terrorists. Lots of terror. Bad people. Lemme tellya,
according to our heavily doctored intelligence. . ."
"Tsk!" Elwrong motioned frantically from the side.
" -- I mean, our only just-a-bit doctored intelligence. . ."
"Tsk!"
" -- I mean, our not-at-all-tampered-with, extremely reliable
intelligence reports, with no massive effort to coerce operatives
to produce false data or blatantly lie to the public. . ."
"Tsk!"
" -- AAH! Terrorists! Oooh scary! Bad people. Mass distraction!
Definite proof, from completely un-fabricated data definitely
proves our non-delusional lunacy. I mean, non-lunacy. Completely
sane, non-fanatical completely non-dishonest, uncoerced lies. --
I mean, not lies, the other thing. The opposite of lies. I'll
think of the word in a minute. The not-at-all-false statements
that are entirely not dishonest, or lies."
"TSK!!"
"Terrorists! Ooga booga! Bad guys! Waah!"
The audience applauded thunderously, and he returned to his seat.
Taking the podium, Elwrong stood at the focus of the
amphitheatre. Presiding over the ritual, she was eagerly attended
by the obsequious throng of followers.
"Thank you, King George, for that brilliant discourse. And now, I
solemnly remind you, that we are on the eve of war. We now know
for certain, that the former Wizard of Sangrelysia, whose place I
have fortunately now taken, did conspire with the empire of
Valeplysia, and with malicious intent did carry out a sinister
plot to kidnap the princess."
The crowd booed and jeered.
"Friends, fear not. For though the night is darkest before dawn,
we shall cling to the unwavering light in our ceaseless struggle
for justice for the people of Valeplysia!"
Applause.
"We have now gathered a fighting force, some hundreds strong,
fully armed, and tomorrow morn, we set out on our quest to strike
back at the axis of terror that lies on our very doorstep! To
strike a blow against these wicked haters of freedom!
The crowd cheered once more.
"But now, it's time to bow our heads, and clear our hearts and
minds."
Now she became the holy minister, gathering her flock in sacred
worship. "We must clear ourselves of the terrible evil of Wenu,
that so clouds the minds of the unwitting!"
They had erected a hideous jewel-encrusted solid-gold flying-
saucer altar that winked and glinted, lid open, in the sunlight
now before us.
It was made up of melted-down jewelry and chalices and so on,
partly contributed by the brainwashed throng, plus miscellaneous
valuables plundered from the Royal treasure chamber, Gwen had
explained before.
There was a sickening predictability to the way Elwrong played
the crowd. One could see how her overacted dramatic presence
magnetized a certain kind of individual, a pretentious attitude
of superiority and pomp which sucked in those of weak will, those
looking for something to believe in, or more insidiously, those
of open mind who weren't knowledgeable enough to dispute her
ridiculous cosmology.
She was leading them all in some sort of light trance
visualization, and they all stood, mostly with eyes closed,
swaying, arms in the air waving like fronds reaching up into the
breeze, holding purses, money-satchels, gems and trinkets.
"Feel the waves of cloudiness radiating from your gemstones! How
the waves of ancient wickedness from the galaxy of Wenu weighs
down your thoughts! Feel the evil in your wicked gold, the
scurrilous remains of the body of the terrible ancient Wenu, how
it seeks to confuse our minds!
"Oh, foul and wicked Wenu, we banish you from our existence! How
joyfully, we liberate ourselves of your awful remains! Rid
ourselves of the corruption!"
With ritual familiarity, her followers fell into line before the
giant golden flying saucer, one by one stepping up the baroquely
ornate golden staircase with latticed railings, each depositing
his or her evil item into its interior.
This procedure took some time, during all of which the church-
organ music in the background swelled with a trite hymn melody of
the sort that had an annoying tendency to get stuck in one's head
when one wished it would go away.
One of the devotees was carrying an unusually weighty load of
gold, and Elwrong stopped him before he reached the top of the
steps. "Why, Tom Bruise, I salute your excellent practice of our
methods of clearing. I believe you're about to reach Operating
Cretin Level Sixteen!"
Mr. Bruise smiled sheepishly and nodded, depositing his heavy
load of gemstones and gold into the giant UFO.
The crowd continued to file by, and the Golden UFO grew
progressively more heavily laden with slinking chains and
clinking coins.
One woman in a threadbare dress only had a single small coin to
toss into the gaping chasm, an act which she carried out with
solemnity and reverence.
Elwrong halted her as she walked away. "Miss McCullough."
"Yes?"
"I notice you haven't been keeping up with your dues."
Her expression filled with anger. "It's the best I can do! The
children have got to eat, you know!"
Elwrong snarled. "Flimsy excuse." She gestured at an empty,
mysteriously phlegmatic empty space beside her, and a dreadful
brutish growling combined with a slobbery sucking sound.
"No!" shouted the woman in the threadbare dress as the crowd
parted to make way for her being dragged off by unseen forces.
Gwen shuddered beside us. "Invisible slime monster. The poor
woman's off to the dungeon, for sure." Elwrong's crowd seemed to
derive deviant delight from seeing the suffering of another.
When the faithful had all finally processed through, Elwrong
waved her wand, the saucer-lid shut, and a dramatically sparkling
tendril encircled the craft, which then levitated several feet in
the air, where it wobbled erratically.
"Clear!" She shouted to the skies. "Clear! We are now clear of
the evil alien mind-waves! We have now cleared out our minds!"
"Wallets." corrected Gwen under her breath.
The organ music swelled, and the clarified crowd commenced to
chant:
Our battered brains are now made pure and clear
as water from the springs of earth so dear
and gladdened tidings hail from everywhere
that banish'd Wenu is, we now declare!
"That's about as much as I can take, I said. "Anyone for a change
of program?"
Chapter 27
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