Sugarland Saga - BD6

by Fleedleflump

The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
The author has placed a warning on this post for sexual content.

Background
In protecting an angelic baby, Mike Radshaw's lost friends, a loved one, and about 73.6% of his sanity. Now he's followed the Death Demon who took the baby into its own domain.

Home is where the heart is, I thought as I surveyed my surroundings. If that was true, Mr Black's heart must be a ball of candyfloss in a green field, surrounded by rabbits and flowers.

Somehow, that was more disturbing than the black fear and violence I'd envisioned.

A breeze tousled my hair like a playful lover, carrying with it the smell of fresh-baked cookies and aromatic roses. It sent shimmers across the immaculately tended lawn before me, filling the distance between the pavilion I'd arrived in and a hedgerow maze. Beyond the maze, everything was obscured by a grey pall, but right here the sun lit up the landscape like a thousand floodlights, saturating colours and soaking everything in comfortable warmth.

I wondered idly whether the butler had to traverse the maze every time he travelled through the garden. Something told me he knew a few shortcuts. I strode forward beneath a sky so blue, it looked like cartoon characters could drown in it. Whatever I might find or accomplish here, it was obvious I'd have to get through the maze first - something I found both twee and deeply irritating. I mean, as a device to slow down your enemies, it's not exactly original or fitting, is it?

Sighing sarcastically in the hope someone might hear, I plunged into the maze.

After an hour of walking with one hand brushing the left hedge, I came to the conclusion the maze was cheating. My hand looked like an inflated rubbed glove with a skin condition - some git filled the maze's hedges with stinging nettles.

I'd been hearing occasional rustling from behind me. Initially, I'd assumed it was the wind until I realised there was no breeze blowing when most of the sounds issued. Something was following me, trying to be sneaky. If it was that stereotype pastiche butler, he'd get a hiding like he'd never imagined. I felt the anger rising like a tide through my guts. I'd come here to get things done - to rescue the Angwrath and show that tosser Mr Black why he shouldn't have messed with Amy. Getting lost in a stupid, cheating maze wasn't part of the plan, and every moment wasted felt like swallowing a hedgehog.

When the noise sounded again, tentative and clumsy, the anger bubbled into my brain.

"For fuck's sake, you're not being subtle! You'd better show yourself, or I'm going to open up such a can of whoop-arse, you'll think harpies are nestling in your skull. Do it - face me or fuck off."

A shadow rose over my silhouette on the ground, casting its shape from behind. I couldn't turn to face the caster because I was busy watching horns emerge from my head as another shape overtook mine. Oh, bollocks. All at once, my head was conjuring up its myths and legends. I was in a maze, and it was a pretty mystical maze. It was here to guard a great evil. What creature does one expect to find in such a place?

"Hello, Wadshaw," said a gruff voice. Two things struck me. First, it didn't sound like a naturally deep voice - more like a child trying to sound grown up. Second, as ominous opening lines went, 'Hello, Wadshaw' was about as scary as Jonathan Ross in a pink tutu.

I turned around and immediately fought a laugh. I lost.

The creature before me put cute hands on cute hips, further accentuating his general cuteness. "Now see, that's just wude."

Okay, so let me paint you a picture here. He's a minotaur, right? So take that as your base image, then shrink it to three feet tall (if it was already three feet tall in your mind, there's nothing I can do for you). Now let me add some details. Candy floss hair, waving like a performing poodle-rocker. A Polo mint through his bull's nose, making me shudder at the thought of peppermint in my sinuses. Ice cream cone horns - yes, seriously; they even looked stuck on with actual ice cream. A chocolate fake tan covered most of his visible skin but lick marks showed on his arms. Thankfully, he was wearing a teeny loincloth, allowing me one mystery I was happy to leave unsolved, but it was his nipples that really drew my attention.

They were Fruit Pastilles.

"I know what you're thinking, so please stop." Even with his high voice, he sounded weary and fed up.

I shrugged, just about containing my laughter. "What?"

"You're thinking can I put one in my mouth without chewing? The answer's no you can't - and no, you can't."

I sniggered - I just couldn't help it. "It's a shame they're not green ones - nobody likes those."

He scowled down at me from his position on the top of the hedge. "Come on, get it out of your system. I know there's more."

"Dude, you're pink."

"If only I had her singing voice." He shrugged his proportionately gigantic shoulders, dislodging a sprinkling of popping candy.

"No, I mean-"

He growled but it sounded more like a cat's purr. "I know what you mean. You think I chose this colour?"

I smiled. "I really needed that moment of levity, mate, so you've done me a great favour. I'm wondering if you can do me another one."

He jumped nimbly to the ground. "You want me to lead you out of the maze."

I nodded.

"I can help you, as long as you pwomise not to eat me." He reached up a hand in offewing. Sorry, offering.

"Not a sentence I expect to ever hear again." I took his hand, and we plunged ahead towards rumbling thunder and encroaching grey.

*****

A short while later, we were in a different part of the maze and I was absently licking my sticky hand. When I caught the mini-minotaur glaring at me, I wiped it on my trousers and took his hand again. He was adamant we needed to maintain physical contact to get me out of the maze, but that was getting uncomfortabe. It didn't help that he hadn't stopped bitching since we set off.

He sighed. "The weal twagedy's downstairs - twust me."

"Do I want to know what it's made of, beyond something sweet?"

"Exactly what it is ain't the problem." He looked up at me and I looked into his anguished eyes. "Imagine being the guy evewyone offers blow jobs - you got something hanging off you chicks actually want to put in their mouths."

I smiled. "I can see how that would be an advantage, yeah."

"You'd think." He scowled. "Believe me, it felt amazing that first time. There I am, laying back while a flower-petal Miss Bo Peep does the business, and after a few sugar-sywupy minutes, I get welease and she gets pudding."

"So far, so..." I winced. "Sticky."

He nodded. "Pwoblem is, laying back afterwards, I notice a lightening of the load. I look down, only to see my piece's shrunk! That's not cool."

"Ahh," understand dawned over me. "So, it's like a gobstopper - keep sucking and you keep getting flavour, but eventually it withers away." I paused. "Well, if nothing else comes of this mad excursion, I'll never be tempted by gobstoppers again."

He sighed. "I wouldn't call it a gobstopper any more, more like a half-melted Malteser."

"Strike them off the list, too. Seriously, can we talk about something else?

"Such as?"

"Such as why the demon of death populates his domain with sunlit fields and sweet-shop mythical beasts."

He sneezed, then offered me the hand he'd put over his nose. "Want some gum?"

"No, and stop avoiding the question."

"We're not supposed to talk about it, on pain of ... well, pain."

I stopped walking, forcing him to a halt. "So you do know what's going on."

"Nope." He pursed his lips and shook his head, wafting the sticky scent of candy floss into the air.

"If you don't tell me, I'll eat you, starting with your toes and working my way up. Then, when the only bit left is Little Bo Peep's leftovers - 'cause I ain't putting that in my mouth - I'll auction it off on ebay."

He stared at me for a few moments. "Man knows how to bargain. Okay, I'll tell you how it is."

I nodded and we start walking again. "Are we nearly out of this bloody maze?"

"A few more minutes and we'll be clear. So, here's the deal. This place used to be a black nightmare, filled with tewain that made Mount Doom look like a marshmallow cat-nipple. Clouds of dwy acid swarmed through the air like angwy hornets and shadows without light sources slunk through the deep voids of blackness. I was a dark flame back then, spweading my anti-illumination, a pall of grim tastelessness and humour's dearth."

"Like Jim Davidson."

"Then, a few decades ago, it all started to change. From nowhere, there was light and all us occupants were burned away, leaving us floating like ghosts on the wind. We watched the dawning of colour, washing over our beloved hell like a sea of giggling children drowning out a great death metal tune. The air turned sweet, wivers of wancid magma turned to caramel and what once threatened ... beckoned. Worst of all, he brought us all back as new beings, wediwecting our essences into howifying yummy bodies like the one I'm forced to inhabit.

"That was when we wealised the Master was bwinging the Angwath here. You see, it's more than just angelspawn - the Angwath is a creature of both light and dark, product of a union twixt angel and demon, heaven and hell. An ancient agreement between Her upstairs and Him below makes sure two - usually unwilling - participants meet once evewy millennium or so. They get with the sweaty and the wesult is an Angwrath."

"Please don't use the word 'twixt' again." I grimaced. "It makes me think about Twix bars, and I don't want to think about eating sweets when I'm holding one's hand."

"And there I was thinking it was 'get with the sweaty' you'd object to."

"That was next on my list. Can I just ask?" I dragged him to a halt again. "You seem to have inherited my penchant for overblown analogies - is that intentional?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I can't help that. I'm a mental being - by which I mean I'm constructed of thought processes, not bonkers. My name's Azza, which would mean more to you if you knew your theological lore."

I raised my eyebrows and he chuckled.

"My name means 'the strong' - my angel name. When I fell, I was stwipped of all native physical form, left only my thoughts without the chemical restrictors of a body. As a result, I pick up the conceptual essences of entities near me. Effectively, I'm starting to talk and act like you because of our proximity. It's probably why I'm helping you - I followed you long enough for your underlying sense of nobility to infect my consciousness. There was your threat of torture too, of course."

I snorted. "Great, now I'm an infectious disease as well as a pain in the arse."

"Don't talk to me about pains in the arse. This one time-"

"Nope." I dragged him into motion again to cut off his sentence. "I'm ninety eight percent sure I don't want to hear the rest of that sentence. You have at least explained why you've started pronouncing more of your Rs, which is a relief - you were a little too cute with that impediment. So come on - the Angwrath is a product of celestial entities bonking, a product of both heaven and hell. What does that mean for the baby?"

"It means it goes both ways." I threw him a scowl and he smiled wryly. "The purpose of an Angwrath is to create balance. That's why the powers that be agreed to a regular timeframe of a thousandish years. Most humans believe it will be a force for good, improving the world as it grows and lives - you know, like that Jesus kid."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah - no bull." He chuckled when I stared down at him. "Sorry, couldn't resist."

I shook my head. "A mad old gypsy lady told me the Angwrath was a calming influence on the populace, designed to chill things out. I'm not sure 'that Jesus kid' really calmed things down. She said Angwrath meant anti-wrath."

"No, ang is the ancient word for tranquillity, and wrath hasn't changed. An Angwrath is literally a good-bad. Trust humans to misinterpret everything. Jesus turned into a force for improvement because the world was pretty damned shitty at the time. Entities like Mr Black - actually, you should think of him as Abaddon, that might help you if you face him - were in their ascendance, so the Angwrath's nature drove his powers to lessen theirs. The same would have happened in the 1040s, but Abaddon and a posse of fellow dark demons - the four horsemen - mounted a raid and killed the child in her first few days of life, when she was still vulnerable. That caused all kinds of unrest, and ended up changing the political make-up of England drastically."

I rolled my hand. "So how does this lead to the sugarland saga level we're walking through - why didn't they just try to kill this baby too?"

The pink mini-minotaur grimaced. "This time, he's got an even eviller plan. Yeah, I said eviller - it's a word because I say so. A few decades ago, Mr Black realised the world was heading down the poop chute of destiny, and the next Angwrath would change that if it was allowed to develop. So he turned his pocket-hell - the lovely land we're currently traversing - into the most lovely, blissful, sickly-sweet place imaginable. Now, he's brought the Angwrath here, where everything is overbalanced towards beauty and justice and everyone gets everything they want."

"Except an unshrinkable penis."

"Well, there are always exceptions."

I sighed. "Sorry, I still don't get it. What's the point?"

"You really are a fucktard, aren't you?"

"Oi!"

"Hey, it's your word, Wadshaw. I picked if from your thoughts."

"One of this generation's few worthwhile inventions," I nodded. "And don't think I don't know that last W was intentional.

"The point," said my miniature guide, chuckling, "is the Angwrath, in such an unbalanced environment, will grow to create balance. It'll turn things here bad, at least enough to even things out. Black's plan is to bring it up in such a good place that everything it's driven to do will be evil. Then, once it's a teenager and its powers get locked in..."

"He'll unleash it back on Earth," I finished.

"Exactly. Oh, and just to warn you, it's probably about ten by now. You know, thanks to inter-dimensional time dilations and all that guff."

"Of course. We wouldn't want it to be easy or anything, would we?" The end of the maze loomed ahead - an arch carved from hedgerow. I heaved a great sigh of relief. Finally, I felt like I was making progress. "And just how much damage can this Angwrath do, in that situation?"

"Imagine the new testament, but inverted. Plentiful food turned to a single fish, wine turned to water," he shuddered, "the rewarding of evil deeds, the lauding of debauchery."

"So, not all bad," I snorted.

He smiled and it didn't have an ounce of humour in it. "Or, if you'd like a visual representation..." He paused and beckoned through the arch. I stepped into the gap and stopped, stunned, staring at the roiling vista before me.

"Fuck my arse with a jackhammer."

The sugar creature's chuckle was sarcastic when it drifted to my ears. "If you're determined to carry on, Radshaw, you should be careful what you wish for."

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I'm continuing to revive chapters from this story, and this is 6 of 8.

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Mike Radshaw's story goes from weird to bonkers

A chapter in the book Mike Radshaw and the Black Dawn

Sugarland Saga - BD6

by Fleedleflump

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