Ra-Ra-Rasputin

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

Nope, wrong dude

By mid morning the next day they had grown used to the routine.

Gorden and Cola connied the oars. (You know the score - it's like manning the oars, but done by rabbits) They couldn't exactly row the raft, but they could use them to direct the way in which it drifted. Plessey stood near the front (You could call it a prow if you wanted to, it just doesn't seem pointed enough to be a prow) and offered advice as to whether Gorden or Cola should be pushing at any one moment.

David lay face down in the middle of the raft, eyes shut, holding on as tight as he could.

Suddenly something blotted out the sun - a sharp-edged shadow passed over the raft, and the exactness of the edge caused them all to look up.

Obviously, all except for David.

"What the hell's that?" Chorused two rabbits and a snail.

David, eyes still tight shut, mumbled something under his breath which could have been "It's a fleet of flying saucers, what do you think it is?"

He didn't know how right he was.

Well, not about the "fleet" part.

And it wasn't exactly saucer shaped either.

"It's square!" Cola exclaimed.

"It's pointed!" Gorden cried.

They looked at Plessey.

"Is it a bird?" David whispered to himself.

"It's a pyramid." Plessey said.

"I've heard of them," Cola said, "Are they supposed to fly?"

Plessey shook his eye-stalks, "No. Look - it's getting lower!"

"I don't want that landing on me!" Gorden worried, "It's rather large!"

The pyramid slid over them exactly the way that huge stone edifices normally don't and seemed to be aiming to land on the shore just a short way in front of the raft.

Plessey barked orders; Cola and Gorden pushed and oared and steered the raft to bring it close to the river bank. Gorden jumped ashore with a rope and mooring pin and, expertly this time, hitched the raft up.

David shuddered as the raft jerked to a stop. He whimpered a little. Just a little.

Gorden raced to the other end of the raft, Cola threw him another rope and he held the raft until she could jump off with another mooring pin.

A few seconds later Plessey was sliding off the raft. David clambered over him to reach solid ground first.

David threw himself at the ground.

"I LOVE YOU!" He shouted, trying to throw his arms around the world.

"Careful!" Cola shouted to him, "You're getting close to The Edge!"

"Wow!" Gorden exclaimed, staring at the pyramid.

It was an impressive sight. About fifty rabbits tall, it dwarfed any structure Gorden had ever seen. It appeared to made of stone; perfectly carved stone blocks, each one of which would weigh more then ten rabbits.

The outside was pock-marked with a million small indentations, none exactly regular but all roughly circular.

It seemed out of place on the bank of a river, next to a wood, in England. It belonged somewhere else.

No one present had any idea where it would fit in.

Entranced, the four friends stepped carefully towards the misplaced object.

A sharp crack appeared in the side of the pyramid, a thin splinter of bright pure white light shone out.

Gorden gripped his staff tightly in his left paw, he raised his right hand to shade his eyes.

The crack spread and the light seemed to race a semicircular path, peaking about three rabbits high. With an industrial KER-SHUNK the inner part swung inwards. The light attempted to blind them all, suddenly the light was dimmed - a large shape appeared in the doorway and a voice boomed out:

"I say," It began, "Does this happen to be the Nile by any chance?"

David recovered from surprise first "Neil?" He said in a characteristically hard-of-hearing manner, "No 'Neil's here?" He paused for a second and tried to make out the shape in the light. "But if you turn the light off, we might be able to think enough to help you find him."

"Good idea." Cola said, squinting.

"Oops, Sorry there chaps," Said the voice, he barked a command back into the pyramid and the light cut off.

Barked was the word. The 'creature' was a small dog.

"Hello there," he said advancing on the four adventurers, "I'm looking for a king, oh what was his name?" The dog frowned for a second or so, looking down, "Ah! 'Rameses' That was it!" He looked at the four bemused animals, "Anyone of you chaps, oh and chapp-esses, sorry there didn't notice at first, my apologies, happen to be him?" He read their looks. "I take it the answer's no?"

Gorden nodded, then stretched out a hand in greeting.

"I'm Gorden." He begun, "This is Cola," he nodded to the young lady in question, "Our half-deaf friend is David," David took a small bow, "And the esteemed gentlemen to my right is Plessey, wizard extrordinaire." Plessey nodded his eyestalks at the dog.

"We were on a quest." He suddenly realised how silly it seemed to mention this. It's fine to be on a quest. But when you're on the way home and the object of the quest is laying in pieces in a bag on your shoulder it can be a mite embarrassing explaining matters.

"Oh a quest!" the dog said, excited, "You must tell me how it went! Oh I love quests! Used to send people on them all the time." Then he remembered. "None of you know a king called Rameses?" All shook their heads. "Or a river called the Nile?" Again the negative.

The dog sat down. "Oh Bother!" He said to himself. "Just because I got a little distracted and lost track of what the time was. I knew I should have turned left at that sea. Oh well." He motioned for the friends to sit with him.

"So," He asked, "Tell me about your quest!"

"Well," Gorden began sheepishly, "We were on a quest for the Golden Carrot."

"Golden Carrot!" The dog interjected, "My my! Do you know," They didn't, "My Brother is still looking for one of those you know, It's the only one he needs for the set."

"Set?" Gorden asked, so far beyond 'confused' it needed a new word to describe it. Pity my thesaurus isn't up to finding it.

"That's the one, do you know him?" The dog rambled on, "Oh, my favourite is the Magnesium Mange-Tout, a real whizz at a party." The friends were lost, "Guaranteed to break the ice that one!" He looked thoughtful for a moment, "But then again, the Platinum Pear is altogether the prettiest to look at." He stared hard at Gorden, "You don't know how many packets of crisps my brother has eaten trying to find a golden carrot." They didn't. The dog laughed.

"Oh well," he said standing up, "Can't sit around here chatting all day. Got a king to find. Or at least a river."

He seemed to have ignored them completely.

"Ta-ra!" He said as he turned his back on them and walked back to his pyramid.

"Did anyone understand a word he said?" Gorden asked.

"The words, yes." Cola said, "The sentences. Not one."

"He seemed a nice enough fellow 'though." Plessey added.

"Wonder where that Neil he's looking for is?" David added.

The dog entered the pyramid and the doorway KER-SHUNKed behind him.

A few seconds later the pyramid hopped up into the air like a frog. Well, a frog made of stone and weighing the odd-tonne or so.

It seemed to whooosh and then flew rapidly off into the distance.

David looked at the diminishing shape.

"How about lunch?" He asked. Cola giggled.

The dog padded about his pyramid. The interior was a galaxy of colour. He'd have wanted you to say so because that's where he bought the interior fixtures and fittings.

The floors were tiled in sparkling stones taken from the beaches on a hundred worlds, the work actually done by 'Phisnab And Sons' of the Andromeda-cluster.

From the walls hung a thousand works of art from a thousand orbital habitats, the zero gravity artists were the best, he always thought.

The IPE (**) sound-system was a gift from the arch-duke of Regina from the time he'd fought behind the Zhodani line.

His pilot's seat was crafted in the asteroid belts of Sirius (one of his favourite places).

He padded up to a seemingly blank wall and touched it, Here and Here. A doorway opened and he passed into a small, darkened room. He waited until the doorway had shut before he barked "Shirak!" A bright light sparked to life.

He took a deep breath and smiled. This was his trophy room and he'd worked hard for every item. He walked over to one wall.

He stroked a silvery-white looking rather flat seeming pod of peas. He moved to a shiny pear which was encased in a glassteel case and smiled. Then he stood back and looked up at the wall.

Hung on the wall, crossed, at head height, were two carrots, glorious in their goldenness.

"One day," he said to himself, "I might sell one of these to Sett. But he'll have to be nice to me for a few hundred years first." He smiled, then turned to leave. "Wonder what those chaps are going to do with their one?"

(*) In-Pyramid Entertainment, of course.

***

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