SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Ten And A Half Quests

Every story has to start somewhere. Just for the sake of argument, just to be difficult, we'll start this one at the end.

The Special Service were detectives. With an age range of 69 years and one member who had more than once disguised himself as a lampshade, they could certainly not be described as conventional – even by detective standards. They had an air of unapologetic peculiarity about them that tend to leave people floundering, wondering exactly why the little girl in pink had steel-capped boots and where that smell of pickled goat was coming from.

Marcus liked to think of himself as the sanest. Thrown out of the University of Wizardry after a particularly unpleasant incident involving a large gerbil, a double bass and a shocking inability to perform magic, he'd gone in search of other options. He'd been shamelessly lulled by the oh-so-compelling slogan "Join The polise Force the pays Quite Good!!!" and had signed up, only to be told that saying he was a wizard on the form was technically illegal and therefore they should technically arrest him. He'd scarpered and given life a go as a private detective, which gave him an excuse to skulk around. Flaming orange hair, a fondness for pointy wizard hats (of course, he technically shouldn't wear them) and infuriating clumsiness had made this difficult.

He'd met Ylva in a bar. He didn't like telling this story very much – although Ylva enjoyed it immensely – but the long and short of it was that she'd saved him from a particularly sticky situation and after that they'd become a sort of double act. At least, he'd thought that's what they were, until it turned out that if you wanted Ylva she came as part of a package. You also got Darla – a silent little five-year-old prodigy with a calculating mind and blonde pigtails – and Kip – a seventy-something who smelt strongly of fermenting sheep and always wore a large top hat pulled down over his ears, almost meeting the collar of a beige duffel coat.

As if Ylva wasn't enough to be getting along with. Marcus had to admit that he'd been under the illusion that this wasn't simply a business partnership (a lot had changed since then. Sure, she was pretty, but she bit and Marcus didn't like women like that) but a few sharp words and teeth had put an end to that particular train of thought.

The trouble was, Ylva wasn't an ordinary woman. In fact, she wasn't even a woman at certain times of the month, when she'd disappear mysteriously and the Special Service would find themselves a wolf companion with a familiarly volatile temper. Nobody ever said she was a werewolf, though. That would be ridiculous. Werewolves don't exist, and even if they did, she had very sharp teeth and it seemed sensible not to mention it.

They were happy enough, as people go, and had solved a surprising amount of cases. Currently between jobs, they were sharing a rather basic picnic between the four of them when things went dark.

"Seems like someone switched the light off," Kip said cheerfully, excavating his left ear. "Eclipse?"

"A what?" Marcus asked, looking rather worried and stroking the tip of his hat – a comical habit that irritated Ylva no end. She slapped his hand away in the darkness and he yelped. "It's gone all dark."

"Dear lord, he's a genius." Ylva rolled her eyes.

"Why have people started screaming?" Kip mused, curious. "And running around a lot?"

"Stinks of panic around here," Ylva commented, wrinkling up her nose. She felt a little hand creep into hers and tried to sound reassuring. "It's alright, Darla, you don't need to be scared."

Darla scowled. She didn't get scared. She withdrew the hand and peered up at the sky, tugging one pigtail thoughtfully.

"Is it just me, or is it getting rather chilly?" Marcus asked tentatively. The screaming was getting louder and he heard a heavy thump. "Listen – err… You don’t think that…"

"The signs are all there," Kip said, scratching his elbow through the duffel coat. "Screaming, coldness, absence of light…"

"But it can't be – "

"Yes," Kip said finally, in a pensive sort of way, "I'd say this might well be the end of the world."

Marcus screeched and lay on the floor with his hands over his head.

"What are you doing?" Ylva asked, looked in panic from the vague, Marcus-shaped lump of shadow to the sky. "It isn't going to fall down."

"How do you know?" he squeaked. "I don't want to die!"

"Listen, this can't be the end of the world – stop screaming, will you?" Ylva snapped loudly at a passing blob of darkness, "It doesn't help!" The blob faltered for a moment and then ran on, still shouting and waving its indistinct arms over its head as if warding off flying ants. "Oh, for goodness sake!"

"We're all going to die!" Marcus moaned. "I don't want to die!"

"If this is the end of the world," Kip went on helpfully, "it probably means oblivion – you might not even notice dying, Marcus."

Marcus whimpered. "Oblivion! Ye gods, I don't deserve to die!"

Darla sighed and stuffed a sock in his mouth, sitting herself down on his chest and drawing her little knees up to her chin.

"You really think that this is the end, Kip?" Ylva asked quietly.

"Have you got any better ideas?" Kip replied, gazing up at the sky.

Marcus spat out the sock. "Maybe the Sun ran out," he suggested hopefully. "Like lightbulbs do. Just needs replacing."

Ylva paused and looked at her colleague. "We really are going to die!" she wailed. Darla sighed, got up, and stuffed a sock in Ylva's mouth too.

An alarm rang. Its tinny sound jostled dust and cut through the musty air, heading with purpose for four sleeping figures.

"What what?" spluttered one, shaking himself awake with a general wobbling of chins and rippling of stomachs. His face resembled an uncooked pie, lumpy and pale and perfectly circular. Nestled in folds of fat sat two black eyes like little currants, and a flat-tipped, bulbous nose protruded in its centre. His mouth was a surprisingly large opening, unpleasantly red lips moistened by a wriggling pink tongue. "Time already?"

The figure beside him coughed, the grating, phlegm-filled cough of a dedicated smoker, and opened one bloodshot eye. She groaned and sat up, bringing her face into relief: plagued with fiery red acne and puss-filled boils, the skin was painful to look at. Her limbs were laced with scratch-marks, scarlet against dry skin, and she spat absent-mindedly on the floor beside her.

To her right, the next figure woke. Saying that, it was difficult to tell – his eyes were dark holes in a face that could hardly be described as anything other than a skull. It was ivory white and the mouth was set in a constant, humourless grin. As he bent an arm bones cracked, but he didn't seem to notice the harsh sound any more than the woman beside him winced at her rasping cough.

The last figure woke more leisurely, yawning and running a hand through a mane of dark red hair. As she moved her enormous bosom shifted, trapped beneath a dull brass breastplate and tamed by some ridiculously complex contraption with a series of hoists and straps to keep the things in check. Her face was cheerful but could not be described as friendly.

"Another drill?" the spotty woman asked. Her voice was like sandpaper.

"Golly!" cried the redhead, jumping to her feet with startling ease and a certain amount of defying gravity, "I do believe it's time for the real thing!"

"The calendar?" mumbled the fat one, attempting to stand but thinking better of it. The skeleton stalked over to the wall, flicked back a few pages and pointed one bony finger at the circled date beneath a picture of a kitten in a boot: November the sixteenth. "Today," he said. His voice had a similar effect to that of very cold water – unpleasant, jolting and rather a shock.

"By Jove!" shouted the woman in the breastplate. "We'd better get going!"

"Someone turn off that alarm," whined the puss-filled one. The skeleton stalked over and hit the thing repeatedly, with a precise vigour that was rather alarming.

"The horses!" shouted the redhead. "To the horses!"

The fat one groaned and accepted the brittle hand of help offered by the skeleton before lumbering after his friends.

"I mean," Ylva began more reasonably after a sizeable, sock-filled silence, "there's so many things we'll never find out."

"Like what?" Kip asked, cleaning away a thick circle of dirt from under his fingernail.

"Well, you know," Ylva said vaguely, into the scream-laden darkness, "like, who created the world?"

Kip laughed. "Do angels exist?" he offered.

"Where is the line between right and wrong?" Ylva said, warming to the subject.

"What is love?"

"Why is it," Marcus began thoughtfully, present predicament forgotten, "that when you drop a piece of toast and marmalade it always falls marmalade side down?"

There was a pause and then Ylva grinned. "Why is it that men can never say the right thing?"

"What does flying feel like?"

"Is there a person who is pure evil?"

"Why does the grass always look greener on the other side?" Kip asked, with an audible scratch of his chin. "Is it some sort of optical illusion?"

"Who are Darla's real parents?" Ylva asked in the contemplative silence that followed Kip's question. Darla ducked her head and, as usual, said nothing, tugging even harder at her pigtails with two sticky fists.

The sounds emanating from the stables were not ones of man-and-beast companionship.

"Bloomin' horse!"

"It stamped on my foot!" whined the sandpaper voice.

"Feed him a carrot," came the full-bodied, effortlessly loud voice of the redhead.

"Not me," snapped the fat one, "the horse. I don't want a carrot. And it wasn't me that stepped on your foot, neither."

There was general whinnying and neighing, and a couple of 'oof's.

"Be good, Mr Horse," said the voice like a bucket of cold water. The whinnying continued, and there was a thud as a stable wall shuddered; presumably one terrified beast had been given the option of skeleton-man or trying to run through a wall and had opted for the latter.

"Saddle them up, that's right," said the encouraging redhead, no doubt mounted upon her steed without too many "golly"s and "crikey"s.

"Are you sure he can support my…weight?" came the dubious voice of the pie-faced man.

"By gad, look at the thing! Muscles like an ox. Come on, up you get!"

"Mr Horse will not co-operate."

"It's making me sneeze!" someone said, before sniffing and sneezing, as if to prove a point.

"By Jove, we'll never get out of here if you don't pull yourselves together. Corner him, that's right, then up you get. Don't worry about the bucking, he'll soon calm down. There we are, slowly does it, see – he's growing fond of you already, you silly old goat!"

They sat in companionable silence in the darkness, Darla curled up in Ylva's lap and Marcus and Kip sharing the last (ever?) packet of salami. Marcus even let Kip have half his share. The screaming hadn't stopped but, as with all repetitive noises, the Special Service had rather blanked it out. The darkness didn't seem nearly so dark now that their eyes had adjusted – more of a half light, as if the world was stuck on five in the morning – and objects could still be clearly seen but had lost colour, anything too far away taking on greyscale.

"Umm," said Marcus.

"What?" Ylva asked, sighing.

"I don't want to ruin the moment and everything, umm…"

"You already have, Marcus," Ylva pointed out, taking the last slice of salami that Kip and the wizard had left tactfully between the two of them.

"Well then, err… Can anyone else see four people on horseback, you know, sort of riding across the, umm, park?"

The Special Service looked around. It was true; there, on the other side of the climbing frame, rode four figures on enormous, muscular horses.

"Oh," said Ylva. Darla craned her neck to look at them. "Well," Ylva went on, "I suppose they might be able to help us out."

"Umm, excuse me!" Marcus called, but his voice went nowhere over the shrieks and wails around them. "Excuse me?"

Kip brought two wrinkled fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly. The sound was horribly ear piercing but effective – the figures turned towards them and advanced. Marcus rather lost his nerve and tried to shrink into an inconspicuous little bundle, but was hindered by the two foot tall, pointed hat and knobbly knees.

The horsemen came into view and Ylva's eyes widened.

"Morning, gentlemen! And ladies," shouted a redheaded woman on horseback. She wore a dull, bronze breastplate and what looked like a leather version of the traditional netball skirt, riding up over impressive thighs. Her boots were studded with all sorts of things and reached her knees. The impression given was that a lot of cows would have died for the entire outfit – leather was a big feature, as were studs, straps and numerous shiny, sharp spurs.

Marcus whimpered.

"Is there some sort of problem?" asked a fat man, shifting worriedly in his saddle. The horse's knees buckled slightly.

"Well," Kip said, finding his tongue first, "we'd rather like to know, you see, because it does look a bit like this might be, well, you know, the, err, end, as it were?"

"Spit it out, would you?" said an unpleasantly spotty girl, scratching her back with a sound like nails down a blackboard. Her mount whinnied and shifted unhappily, and the girl shrieked, clinging on. "Horrible beast!" she grated, slapping ineffectually at its neck.

"Ask away, lad!" shouted the redhead. Kip looked surprised. He hadn't been called 'lad' for a good fifty years.

"Is this," he said carefully, "the end of the world?"

"Yes," came a voice like stepping out into the cold air after a long session in a sauna. A black horse stepped forwards, out of the shadows, with what appeared to be a skeleton on its back.

"Look," Ylva said finally, "this is getting ridiculous."

"It's true, we really do need to get going," the fat one added.

"Can't be wasting our time," the spotty one interjected.

"Shut up, would you?" snapped Ylva, patience wearing thin. Marcus groaned and hid under the rim of his hat.

"Are you," Kip continued in the shocked silence that followed, "the four horsemen of the Apocalypse? By any chance?"

"Horsemen and women!" shouted the woman in the breastplate, cheerful as ever. "Everyone gets that one wrong!"

Ylva had been doing a few calculations in her head. "War?" she asked the redhead.

"By gad, she's got it!" War shouted.

"And… Pestilence?"

"What's it to you?" Pestilence snivelled, wiping her nose.

"That makes you Death," Ylva said, pointing at the skeleton.

"Hmm?" he said, looking up from where he had been rummaging around in saddlebags for a lollipop for Darla. "Yes."

"So why," Ylva went on eyeing the large man with a face like underdone pastry, "is Famine so fat?"

Marcus had, at this point, jammed the hat so far down his head that it looked as though shoulders and a neck gave way to a cone-shaped, star-spangled head.

"Haha, jolly good question!" War shouted.

"Must you always shout?" Ylva asked acidly. "And Marcus, get your head out of that thing. And don't pretend that you aren't staring at her breastplate. On second thoughts, do. Death – if you intend to give Darla a lollipop then do so, if not then I'd appreciate it if you didn't let her pet your horse, he doesn’t look friendly. Pestilence, stop swatting at your horse like a fly, and Famine – there's nothing wrong with a bit of insulation but aren't you supposed to be thin? Oh, and Kip, a lampshade really isn't a suitable disguise for this situation so please, don't even try it." She took a deep breath.

"I am…large," Famine said haughtily, "because I have to eat all the food."

"So people can starve," Pestilence explained, twisting her hands through the reins in an attempt to stop swatting at her horse.

"Right," Ylva said, giving up. "Sure, okay."

"Listen," Marcus tried eventually, dragging his eyes away from War, "you wouldn’t like to tell us how long we've got, would you? There's a few things we'd like to find the answers to, you see."

"Oh? We can give you a few weeks at least. Got to get round to everyone, you see. Lots of killing to do." Famine nodded to himself. "Lots to eat."

"You kill each individual person in the world?" Marcus asked, intrigued despite himself.

"Gosh, no!" War exclaimed (it wasn't quite a shout this time). "Only the ones that need guiding. No, we'll give you time to answer your little questions, but no dawdling, mind."

"Else we'll make it painful," Pestilence said with a terrible grin, turning her horse and swatting him into a trot. Death tugged one of Darla's pigtails in a friendly sort of way before following, giving Famine's mount a bony whack on the rump to get it moving as he went.

"Tally ho!" War shouted. "See you on your Doomsday!"