Moreaugarin's crusade

That was more to the point. We kept weapons hidden I our bodies. We could say we were fallen angles, perhaps. Casual passers-by. Where as deep down we were beasts. Downright frightening. In short, the Knights of Apocalypse!

"Look, Moreaugarin, you say we should go on a crusade?" Brulla asked him halfheartedly as he was stroking the ruffled feathers of his talking parrot. "What about the diamonds?"

"Hah! Moreaugarin laughed. "Is immortality itching you?" Now I see what you mean! You’ll be immortals. That much I can promise. You’ll ride through the centuries by my side!"

"Hold on a minute, don’t burn yourself out. You gave us the slip once before!" Totora the Circus man bleated out, making faces. "We want to know the price. That’s where it hurts. The clink of money is the real tune for us. Then we shall see about immortality. The crux of the matter is, what’s in for us if we slaughter the Pilgrims?"

"Oh, what a pity! God poured a drop of spirit in a whole barrel of hogwash! Look at yourselves, poor Totora! You’re festering with pus! We shall cure you by fire. I’ll burn you with the hot iron, you misbegotten son of a bitch. I’ll give you money. But glory? Did you think of that? We shall deliver the Ideal City! We shall throw Its gates wide open. So God’s sheep will drink the ancient light. On your knees, you God-for-nothing bums!"

We all fell in the dust full with shame. Moreaugarin stepped on a pedal and a green RAY hurled into the sky. The air sputtered. Oh, God, that scholar was going to hoodwink us again. We were hopeless. We’d bought ourselves a lot of trouble, for sure. We were his puppets. He could strangle us. Or break our heads open, fumble inside and suck up our vital fluids. Or he could slash open our chests and play with our hearts and make them sing by driving in his fingernails. We were mesmerized. Fallen in the trap. All hope of escape gone.

We went aboard Moreaugarin’ s battle cruisers and started crossing the ocean, on and on, to the walls of the Ideal City.

Near the Horn of Africa we sank a pirate’s ship already cut to ribbons by a pack of cuttlefish, which had been doing a spate of foolish things for the last hundred years. We took on supplies in Gibraltar and lied to the people telling them we are going to fish for whales in the Far North. Well, the Americans, the Russians and the Spanish and the English got wind that something was afoot. Even the Genovese had inkling. Add to that the people beyond Tibet. Others on a nuclear submarine followed us, as they wanted to take part in that terrible crusade, too. We laughed in their faces, cracked our chests and pulled out our heavy artillery and sent them flying. Poor Earthmen! How could they fight the Pilgrims if they had no idea how to shift time phase and tune themselves in on frequency of the Ideal City? We had to conquer it, first to get our pay, then to rebuild it in the holy lands.

"Hey, can you see anything?" Moreaugarin kept shouting from early morning till late at night at the man in the crow’s nest.

"Just a desert of water!"

For a while we used the sail, keeping our store of coal for the great battle.

"Ship ahoy!" Vlasko the Trumpeter yelled one morning like a madman.