Making Plans in the Sand

<Snip>
Mr. Plisken, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" Artemis said happily. "Now Mr. Plisken, you never did tell me why you care so much for the others"
</Snip>

“Hm, maybe one day you’ll understand,” said Plisken with a smile.
Plisken spurred his mount on, Artemis following. Jade was likely to be close, unless of course the courier had been lying. The sand dragon was a strange creature: it had the appearance of a fierce and wild beast but it seemed quite docile and happy to be under the command of a master. Its long back provided a comfortable ride and gave ample space for cargo. And it looked like it could take a bullet or two, the thick scaly skin protecting itself.
“Does it rain here?” asked Plisken as they covered another sand dune. It could of course be the same sand dune but that would just complicate things.
“I doubt it. Look at this place- dry as a bone.”
“I guess you’ve never cut someone’s arm in two. In my experience, bones tend to be quite slick with blood. And this desert is. I’ve been around death long enough, and so have you I would assume, to know that more than a few have died in this desert.”
Artemis shrugged but he knew what Plisken had meant, “Why do you ask?”
“Just checking. Here, we need to see someone if we’re going to find Jade.” Plisken pointed to a little shack not to far from their current position. The shack was perched near the edge of a cliff face and looked down onto the town below.
“Who lives there?” Artemis asked as he turned his mount to the direction of the little house.
“Well, hopefully I still do.”

The door to Plisken-2’s shack had been repaired somewhat. Plisken-1 lacked the skills that were needed to put up a Swedish bookshelf and he reasoned that Plisken-2 was deficient in the manly DIY department also. Plisken-1 gave a little rap with his metal fist on the metal door only to find that the door fell backwards and crashed on the floor of the house with a loud bang.
“Och, I spent ages trying to fix that!” said Plisken-2 as he turned around in the simple office chair in his ‘dining room’.
“A lack of greeting? That’s not very me,” said Plisken-1 as he propped his rifle up against the wall, Artemis doing the same.
“Yeah, well life’s full of little ups and downs. Now I take it you’re looking for Jade or Jaxx or Jamie or Jacky or Jay or someone else with a name beginning with a J. Yes, don’t look too shocked, Artemis radioed ahead.”
“Well then you would be right Mr. Plisken,” said Artemis as he stepped forward, taking the hand of Plisken’s counterpart in a warm handshake.
Plisken-2 shook Artemis’ hand with equal warmth. When the handshake was over, Plisken-2 motioned to the large map on his wall.
“The courier that saw Jade passed by here a little while ago. He said she was seen heading with Alex to the temple,” explained Plisken-2 as he traced the streets of the town to the temple.
“What does this town need a temple for?” asked Plisken-1 as he squinted to see the map.
Plisken-2 handed Plisken-1 a pair of reading glasses. They were old. Not old from use but from a different era old. Unless Plisken-2 was a time-traveller (which, let’s be honest here, is not that far fetched) the glasses must have drifted through one of the portals.
“It’s for Ra, their god. A living god might I add,” said Artemis, calling upon a conversation he’d had with Artemis-2, “He’s the god of the Sun but also of fertility, inebriety and music.”
“So, sex, drugs and rock and roll then?” said Plisken-1 jokingly but silently resented the fact that he’d be taking down another ‘god’. Too many times in his past had he led an army or navy against someone who claimed to be God.
“Indeed, his court is often filled with such. However, he is still powerful- more so than we could ever take on.”
“How powerful are we talking?” asked Plisken-1, already making a mental plan of attack.
“I don’t know but I would suspect that he is their god for a reason,” replied Artemis.
“Do either of you know your Egyptian mythology?” said Plisken-2 with a laugh. Plisken-1 and Artemis gave blank face; Egyptian mythology never really came of importance in either science or battle. “Ra is the god of the sun and day, so we need the god of the night- Apophis.”
“Is there such a god or being on this planet?” asked Plisken-1.
“Maybe, but I don’t know where you’d find one. You could of course pretend to be Apophis. Plisken, you haven’t been in the town, have you?”
“No, but you have. You might not have noticed that we look the same but we do in fact have very similar looks.”
“Well, yes but I never made myself known. I would doubt that anyone of note would be able to pick me out in a crowd.”
“Fine, let’s say I do pretend to be the God of the Night, what do I do then? I don’t have any powers to command the respect of Ra’s followers.”
Plisken-2 laughed and turned to rummage in a large chest that was against the wall. The chest was old and wooden with what looked like the Flag of Queen Anne’s Revenge emblazoned on the lid. Plisken-2 threw a couple of things out, a broken staff weapon of the town guards, an old revolver, a brown coat, a colourful orange and red bobble hat.
“Aha!” he exclaimed when he produced a sleek black Short stake with a spring-driven clapper at one end. “This is something I made a while ago- called a Thumper; it’ll attract those worms in the desert. Artemis, if you use these then we can make it look like Plisken is calling the worms.”
“Sound’s good, your Artemis told me about your sightings of the sand worms. They sound like extraordinary creatures,” said Artemis happily.
“Well that’s all well and good but I can’t go waltzing in saying I’m a god. I’m going to need a whole army to get me in the palace,” Plisken-1 said as he studied the map through the spectacles.
“No, that’s true,” said Plisken-2, “And we’ll need to get some guard armour as well. And we’ll have to change it- we can’t use the armour of the enemy or we’ll end up killing our own guys. We could modify the armour to resemble another god, say Osiris. We could recruit the Dwarfers from my reality as the army.”
“This might take longer than the time that we have,” said Plisken, thinking the plan through, “Artemis, what do you think?”
“Yes, I think this might go rather well.”

***
“This is agent Omicron 57. Ma’am, subject 15, his parallel and dimension 66-8A’s Artemis have made a plan to rescue their allies in the local despot’s temple. Requesting orders.”

<Tag Artemis>