The Hypnotherapist

Jefferson Marlowe leant back on the hypnotherapist's couch, tucked his thumbs beneath his braces and prepared to regress.

"Ok, Jefferson," said Dr Mandrake, "are you ready to go under?"

Jefferson sighed.

"Yes. Yes, I am," he mumbled as the dubious doctor produced his pendulum.

This was Jefferson's fourteenth appointment with Dr Mandrake and almost certainly his last. So far he had uncovered a gamut of traumatic experiences: as an infantryman at the Battle of Fondu Dyke, as a bankrupt blacksmith in the remote mountain village of Ashling Potsville and as an exceptionally comely courtesan in the ancient kingdom of Mavlavia.

Jefferson did not believe in reincarnation, but he did believe in con men, and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that Marcel Mandrake "M.D." was making most of this stuff up. He was certainly no closer to triggering his memories of the blank patch between his altercation with Alfonso Barsquador on the road to Batahausen and his sudden arrival at the Quinto Rock Mining Collective seven months ago. What on earth had happened? Who the hell was "Marukash"? If he was ever going to find out, he needed a new and, if necessary, drastic approach.

He reached out and grabbed the swinging stone.

"Jefferson!" cried the quack.

"I'm sorry, Dr Mandrake. I don't think I'm getting anywhere here."

"But we've unearthed so much already. Please just give it one more try."

"No, Dr Mandrake. I need to tackle this head on. I'm going to go and see the Carletian Oracle."

"But she charges three hundred groats an hour! That's seven whole sessions with me!"

"I've spent six hundred on you already," Jefferson replied, as he donned his poncho. "Anyway, you'll thank me for this when I'm saving you from Marukash."

"Who's Marukash?"

"No flipping idea, mate. No flipping idea."

Jagalath, Marukash, Jefferson and Clive

Rarely can a pair of demons have been much more demonic than the fearsome twins, Jagalath and Marukash, two ancient terrors birthed by a belligerent black hole, which spat them spiralling away to wreak havoc across the embryonic stars in the very earliest days of the universe.

And what havoc they wrought, toppling gods and gobbling up galaxies: the Kray twins of Cassiopeia.

But then one day the chaos which they had caused was suddenly brought to an end, as the brothers were trapped by a canny old wraith named Clive under the surface of a planet called Earth in a patch marked out by a field of silver dandelions in the mighty shadow of the Aquamarron Mountains.

Jagalath and Marukash spent several millennia buried away in their underground jail, stewing bitterly and plotting their revenge on the race of wraiths who had devised their downfall.

Yet the two terrors were not without hope, for, when he had imprisoned the demons, Clive had cunningly left a method by which their dungeon might be opened, should any future warrior come up with an ingenious plan by which the dastardly twins might finally be banished from the universe for good.

The key to the prison door (blowing every seed off the head of a dandelion flower picked from the field) was passed down through the generations lest the demons be inadvertently set free before a plan to destroy them had been devised. Thus the dungeon remained closed for thousands and thousands of years...until one day a hapless young buffoon by the name of Jefferson Marlowe blundered in and sprung open the prison door.

With the red carpet rolled out by Jefferson, the twins might both have emerged there and then, but they opted instead to hedge their bets; Jagalath came out first, whilst Marukash lay in wait to see what would befall his brother.

Once Jefferson had atoned for his idiocy by slaying the first demon himself (an experience so traumatic that he immediately forgot all about it), Marukash chose to lurk still beneath the surface in his freshly re-bolted cell, waiting for some fresh imbecile to blow on another dandelion and let him loose to avenge his brother's miserable demise.

A Breath Through the Window

Jefferson Marlowe was settling down to some cross stitch when an unseasonably chilly breeze blew in through his kitchen window. He bristled, wearily rose and flipped the porthole shut.

He dropped back down into his armchair, took a couple of puffs from his pipe and returned to the nascent tapestry. But, just as he had rethreaded the needle, the cool draught wafted through once more, chilling his hands and tickling his patience.

He looked across. The little window was firmly closed and he could not see how the breeze was still getting in. He stood up to inspect the wall, but, as he did so, the flame of his stubby little candle was blown clean out and the bungalow was suddenly as black as can be.

The breeze came again, but now he could hear that it was not simply a breeze but a breath, ushering out a fragile but gently coercing voice.

He listened intently.

"Jefferson...", it drawled sweetly. "Jefferson..."

"Yes."

"Jefferson..."

"Yes, yes, it's me," he answered impatiently. "Who the hell is this?"

"An old friend..."

"An old friend?"

"We need you, Jefferson...We need you...Soon...We will come back for you soon...Marukash is awaking...It is not safe for you just yet but you must be ready...Soon, Jefferson, soon..."

The breeze stopped and the lights flashed back on. Jefferson felt a dull shiver of recognition. He knew not whose voice it had been, but he knew he had heard it before, a faintly familiar murmur from his past, a past which he had almost totally forgotten, but which now he knew was destined to come again.

The Most Important Amnesiac

After six months working for the Quinto Rock Mining Collective, Jefferson Marlowe had become a little restless. Chipping away at a coal face for fifteen hours a day was not wholly unsatisfying, but it was nothing compared to the thrill of rescuing Princess Yolande from the implausibly tall belltower at Stankingham Castle or hunting for diamonds hoarded by the legendary five-eyed giant Lorcando in the Jungle of Chrysling Grub.

But Jefferson knew that such adventures were a thing of the past. Which was fine, for the most part. It was a relief not to be freelance, no longer to have to hunt for work, to have a more straightforward tax return, to be settled in one location with a recently-established regular girlfriend and three flat viewings planned for next weekend.

Jefferson was sure that this current pang of restlessness would pass - it was time, he knew, to resign himself to the fact that he wasn't particularly special, that there wasn't anything extraordinary about him at all. He was just a bloke - an unusually handsome bloke, but a bloke nonetheless - with a straightforward haircut and a modest talent for chiselling.

Yet, at that very moment, less than fifty miles away, just on the other side of the Aquamarron Mountains, a statue of our humble hero was being unveiled by a grateful race of wraiths. It was a monument to the man who had rescued their community, the man whom they desperately needed to come to their aid one final time: Jefferson Marlowe - in truth, a far from ordinary bloke and the most important amnesiac the world had ever known.

Jefferson Marlowe, Hero

Jefferson Marlowe woke and sat up. He did not know where he was or how he'd got there, but he was sure that he was awake.

"Hello Jefferson."

He turned around. There was a very tall, very blurry figure floating a few metres away.

"Um...hello," he replied.

"Do you know where you are?"

"No."

"Do you know how you got here?"

"No."

Jefferson's eyes began to adjust to the light. The figure's features started to come into focus. He saw that it was a woman, a beautiful woman, long black hair draped over her shoulders and framing her unfathomably delicate features. He could see now that she was not floating, but appeared to be standing on an invisible box.

"I'm going to leave you now, Jefferson."

Now he could see her more clearly, he wanted her to stay. "No. Stay."

"I just want to say thank you, Jefferson. I know you don't remember, but we owe it all to you. No-one here will ever know what a hero you were, how you slew the mighty Jagalath, how you saved all our lives. But we won't forget. Good luck to you, Jefferson Marlowe. You can find your own way home from here, yeah?"

"What happened? What did I do?"

It was too late. The speaker had disappeared.

Jefferson looked around. He appeared to be in a big hole. No, now he could see that it was a quarry. There were miners chipping away at the huge chalky white wall not fifty metres away from where he was sitting. Little lads in purple uniforms. Must be the Quinto Rock Mining Collective, he thought. So that's where he was: Quinto Rock.

One of the miners put down his tools and ambled over.

"Hello! How did you get in then?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know, eh?"

"No."

"Well, come on. Make yourself useful. We've had a couple of fatalities recently. Could do with some new staff."

"Aren't I a little tall?"

The miner looked him up and down, and tried to suppress a laugh.

"Nah, mate. You're just right."

Jefferson picked up a loose chisel and wandered over towards the rock face. Typical, he thought. He'd finally done something magnificent, the huge deed that he'd been preparing to perform for his whole life... and neither he nor anyone else could remember the first thing about it.

The Dandelion Field

Jefferson Marlowe took a swig of papaya juice. It had been a long trek back to Batahausen - he was hot, sticky and in need of a sit down.

The view from the top of Mount Devesham was really quite something: fields stretching back as far as he could see, out across the valley and up the other side.

But there was one in particular which really caught his eye, standing out against the green and brown. At first it looked as if it was covered with snow, but, as Jefferson scrambled down the mountain, he realised that the field was, in fact, full of dandelions, the heads of every flower blurring into one, stitched together like a thick silver sheet.

_________________________________________________________________


As Jefferson sat down, he felt the dandelions on his bare knees, flicking idly against his canvas shorts. This was the perfect place for a bit of kip, he thought, as he lay back.

He pulled out a flower and blew on it carelessly.

As he did so, a tuft of silver particles flew away, the Sun disappeared behind a cloud and the sky got suddenly darker.

Jefferson shivered.

Before he'd had the time to question himself, he'd blown away another clump.

The night got darker still. He wrapped his arms about his chest and looked up at the sky. The moons were quite visible now, Juliet and Portia, two crescents in the gloam, and the stars were piercing into sight.

He looked at the flower, a few dusty fruits still clinging to its stalk. He brushed them away and the darkness completed its descent.

Jefferson remembered everything at last. The world was coming to an end and it was all his fault. The hoot af an owl signalled that the time had come: Jagalath had awoken and was ready to emerge.

Six Months of Questing

Jefferson Marlowe was riding along the sandy trail from Quinto Rock to Batahausen, when his horse reared up and flicked him off her back.

As Juniper galloped off into the distance, Jefferson blinked away the dust from his eyes and stumbled to his feet.

"Stay down," a familiar voice boomed from over his shoulder.

Jefferson shot back down and buried his face in the dirt. He dared not turn around.

"Do you know who I am?"

"No," lied Jefferson.

"I am Alfonso Barsquador. Now hand over the keys."

Jefferson reached into his right trouser pocket and fished out the keys to Outrock Cave. He tossed them away to his right.

"And now the book."

Jefferson reached into his left trouser pocket and fished out The Ancient Book of Caldidot. He tossed it away to his left.

"Now stand up and walk away."

Jefferson stood up and walked away.

After ten minutes of silence, he decided that it was probably safe to turn around. The wizard had disappeared, as had the keys and the book. Six months of questing, all gone up in smoke.

Jefferson shouted out for Juniper, but she was long gone.

Batahausen was seventy-eight miles away. He wiped away a tear and started to walk.

A Letter for Jefferson Marlowe

Jefferson Marlowe was in the middle of cutting his toenails, when a postdwarf poked his hand round the door and thrust a missive into the tent.

“Darling Jefferson,

I yearn for you, for your body, for the tender ecstasy of your embrace.

Meet me by the dandelion field at 2pm.

Forever yours,

Hermione.”

Jefferson did not know any Hermiones, but he quite liked the sound of the letter. Particularly the bit about his body. News of his exploits must have spread across Berynthia...which was understandable.

He pulled out his fobwatch. Half past one. Just time to make it.

He brushed his toenails down the side of the mattress, saddled up his horse and rode off.

As our hero swept towards the horizon, the postdwarf crawled out of the bushes and made his way towards the tent.

Good old Jefferson, he thought, as he loaded his rucksack.

Jefferson Marlowe's Horn

Jefferson Marlowe blew three times on his magic horn and waited for the pixies to fall out of the sky.

But none did.

So he blew on his horn again, twice as hard and for twice as long.

Still no-one came.

He sat down on his rock and tried to work out what he was doing wrong...

He had taken out his horn at two minutes to three, just as the wizard had instructed. He had pointed it in the direction of the easternmost star, just as the wizard had instructed. He had blown it with his chest out and his chin up, just as the wizard had instructed.

Hmm...

“Bloody horn,” said Jefferson.

“Not enough puff,” said the horn.

Turns out the magic horn needed a magic blower.