The Fall of the House of Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard

‘Because Abyssinia is frightfully hot and sunny and so forth, and you’re all pale and interesting. You’ll fry like a sinner, and furthermore it will bleach that lovely straw colour out of your hair. It cannot be permitted.’
    Leonie looked askance at Zarenyia. ‘You’re pale, too,’ she pointed out. ‘A redhead.’
    â€˜And—important point here that bears remembering—a devil. Not human in any sense that would delight the heart of a doctor. Denizen of Hell and all that? Everything is a warm afternoon to me, from pole to equator.’
    Horst considered this. ‘Doesn’t that get boring?’
    â€˜No.’ A thought occurred to Zarenyia, and she partially lifted her skirt to show her ankles. She regarded them with dissatisfaction. ‘I am sure that you are all thoroughly delighted to be bipedal, but really, you don’t know what you are missing out on. So wobbly.’ She dropped the hem and looked around. ‘So the scorching plains of Abyssinia for Johannes and me, and the louche pleasures of Constantinople for handsome Horst and lovely Leonie, then.’
    And so that matter was settled, too.
    *   *   *
    It is further traditional to explain, in great detail, every footling detail of the trip from here to there. Why this should be is a mystery; one suspects it has something to do with contractual obligations with regard to the number of pages for such stories. Given that it is a novel that you are currently reading and not, for example, a travelogue or a hideously inaccurate biography of Sir Richard Burton, we shall therefore dispense with the travelling beyond the following few points.
    It took Johannes Cabal and Zarenyia six days to reach a small township in the northern reaches of the country.
    The trip was wholly uneventful, apart from the business with the slave traders. That all worked out well in the end as Zarenyia was given the opportunity to kill a few men, which improved her mood immeasurably, the rolling of the ship and the reduction in the number of legs she sported having combined to put her in a mild dudgeon.
    There was also an attempted train robbery, but those happen all the time, so it’s hardly worth noting.
    It would be remiss not to mention, albeit in passing, the affair with the tomb guardians. And now that it has been mentioned, we may pass on.
    Also, a matter of some giant ants, but—given Zarenyia’s true form and some chemical ingenuity of Cabal’s part—dealing with them was a trivial matter requiring only the inflammation of some five thousand gallons of aviation spirit and the destruction of a dam.
    Thus, after six days of restful travel, Cabal and Madam Zarenyia arrived at the small township in the northern reaches of Abyssinia, formerly described by some European observers as being the seat of Emperor Prester John.
    This came as a surprise to the Abyssinians, who pointed out that they’d never heard of a ‘Prester John,’ and that ‘John’ was a fairly unlikely name for an Abyssinian in any case. Also, that they didn’t really have an exact term for ‘Emperor’ in the European sense, such creatures being surplus to requirements to the people of the region. * Therefore, of the name ‘Emperor Prester John,’ the first word was redundant and the last unlikely. They didn’t know what a ‘Prester’ might be, either. Nor did the Europeans, but that didn’t stop them from dismissing the Abyssinian protests as dilatory, distracting, and irrelevant. Wise heads in Europe had decided that—as it hadn’t turned out to be somewhere in Asia after all—then here lay the empire of Prester John, and the locals were too ignorant to have noticed it, or they might possibly be hiding it along with the Ark of the Covenant in a hut somewhere.
    â€˜So is it here or isn’t it?’ asked Zarenyia. She was dressed in a summer frock of