Crown of the Cosmos First of many no doubt !

By Le Bob ( honorary gondorian and latrine digger to the army)

Chapter I: Long-Expected Guests

he lambent flames of the hearth filled the small study with warmth, light and snugness. The same cosiness you feel at those nights, when the rain clatters against the window, the lightning incinerates the house of your annoying neighbours and you lie packaged in a woolen blanket with but your copy of Le Bob’s “How to dominate the world in one thousand two hundred and twenty-five easy steps” and a candle to illuminate your room. I just shoved my bookcases and paperwork aside, and thrown my desk out of the window, accidentally squashing the insipid Gondorian tax inner, because this was to be a *very* special day. Sweeping away some drops of sweat, I looked with great satisfaction at the changing. Nay, the metamorphosis, even. Where first the desk stood, was now my old silken arm-chair to be found, it’s back turned to the fire. I descended into the softish pillow, autographed by myself, and faced the twelve chairs, placed in a half circle before me. They were of course of inferior quality, wooden abominations which to my own astonishment didn’t collapse as I tested them. I had covered their terribleness with a cotton cushion. I glanced at the hourglass and noticed, with a sigh of relief, I still had a good five hours until the doorbell would rang. So I grasped my pipe, enkindled it with the snap of my fingers, closed my eyes, and was instanter lost in deep thought.

I woke to the shrill and penetrating sound of the Le Bob Anthem. It took me three seconds to figure it was my doorbell, ten to fulminate down the countless stairs. Out of breath, I swung wide the door, only to discover Annoidur the Whiner with his pony Drivel Pestilence. I heaved a deep sigh, both of relief and of annoyance. The head of the tax inner, red-hot of anger and, to my amusement stripped of his toupee evoked a smile on my face. He was a patron to Orthanc, as well as a subject to my experimental spells and potions, yet it has to be said his perseverance transcended even the hardiest of men. As such was rather a mark of an exceedingly low IQ-level, but still... “Why hello, my friend, what bringeth thee hither” I sarcastically asked him. “You know why I’m here, pesky, little, puny, annoying, rebarbative, pitiful...” His torrent of insults continued for some time, after which it changed in an inimitable flow of unintelligible mutters. Both of us were shaking, me to keep myself from laughing loudly, he to restrain himself from flying at my throat in an attempt to suffocate me. As he figured his insults weren’t insulting, he resorted to trying to stare me to death. A heavy silence fell. Five minutes passed and the rat was still glancing at me, and, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, I stared back at him, gazing at those, if I may quote a writer almost as good as myself, “windows into nothing”. It was of no avail, and discomfort became boringness, thus I gave him one of my extremely disgusting looks. It struck like a meteor. “Since when do we throw desks at tax inners?” His pitched voice reminded me I wasn’t actually talking to a human being, but to a humanoid shell with the brains of a guinea-pig. Like Mormegil. “My desk crushed thy cranium? How most unfortunate, Annie” As his face at first was as red as a paprika, it now became redder than the fiercest of infernos in abyss. “My name is *not* Annie, and I am here to collect the taxes you *owe* the great liege Mormegil Wow son of Mogh, King of Minas Tirith, Lord of the Multiverse, Crown of the Cosmos...” The “not” and “owe” were actually squeezed out, and would pale even the greatest of sopranos. I always feared this moment, when he was about to sum up Mormegil’s thousand names, so I interrupted “Aye, I get the picture, Ann, and I’m not going to pay, thou shouldst know that”. “Then you shall pay with your liiife” The life sounded the same as a thousand pair of nails scratching over a blackboard, and was also Ann’s not-so-brutal warcry. Before he had drawn his blade, I had striked at his jaw, silencing him and leaving but the echoes of his shout to torment me. Still the untamable insect charged at me. I slammed my staff another time in his face, which made him come to a standstill. I then spoke a small incantation, and struck his belly with brutal strength, launching him over the walls of Isengard. In his flight, I could hear a few last words “You shall pay this time!”

He would not return, I knew, so I re-entered my little tower, and checked the hourglass. I had slept for but an hour, so four yet remained. Time galore to finish dinner for me, and for my highly mysterious guests.

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