Timing now was everything. Flipping the rock into carving position, she coiled every muscle in her body. She would have one nanosecond....and one only.....during which she was close enough to the rock but not yet only a pleasant recall in one of Sid's memory chips. NOW! Her arm moved in a blur of motion. Alex pulled the Countess into his lap, closing his eyes tightly shut as everything went suddenly black.

**********

"If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an ending as to be worthy of remembrance."
                           

"W...what?" thought Joimus, listening as the strange...and unexpected....words made their muffled, yet rumbly, way through many folds of thick faux fur. In the pitch blackness, her first thought was that Sid had replaced Maximus with some...other...more legendarily-inclined character, someone who had obviously been spending a bit too much time on the walls of Helm's Deep. But, upon more closely examining this thought, she decided that, of all the characters, Maximus himself would fit in the best were orcs battering one's gates. She stretched forth tentative fingers in the darkness, pulling slightly downward on the fauxfur.

"Halt!" Maximus shouted, grabbing her wrist firmly. "Friend or foe?"

"Faux," Joimus answered, her brain clearly not fully removed from furrish thinking.

The grip tightened, purpling her fingers a bit if one had had the light to see such coloration.

As if by some cosmic cue, sunlight burst through the windows of the bus. Maximus sprang to his feet, unfolding his cape with his free hand. He narrowed his aqua eyes at Joimus. Why was she lying about her identity? Joimus, in the sudden illumination, was busily studying Maximus' eyeballs. Enough seagreen had mixed with the oceanblue to turn them swimmingpoolaqua. He must have sweated out a lot of the nanogoo, she thought, pleased... until he swooshed the cape up and over his shoulders. Who knew that the rust-colored cape had a black lining like that....or...further....that the faux fur shoulder-drapey-part was not only detachable, but when folded properly in the technique developed by the Roman army during its long winter campaign on the slopes of Mount Fuji, made a quite passable mask?
                          

"Z..z....zorro?" stammered Wanda, peering over the seatback in front of the General. She, too, received the narrowed aqua gaze.

Bunny hadn't realized how long she had held that last breath...that deep breath before the plunge. How good it was that bunnies were known for being fast! And our particular English rabbit was faster than most. Why, there were times when she not only played fast, but also even a bit...well... loose. This tendency kept Sid a happy computer chip. But we digress! In that one all-too-brief nanosecond, the cotton-tailed one had carved a bus-sized tunnel into the rock wall of the lava plug and the vehicle had whooshed onwards into the innards of the strange mountain.

Her fingers grown tired from their grip on Bud's belt, BertiWise looked out the bus windows. Rolling grassy hills with some scrub and a few scattered trees met her gaze. Where WERE they, she wondered, but, accustomed as she was to the strangeness of life trapped within the confines of epidom, was not all that surprised open land lay within the lava plug. She knew better than to have expected solid rock. She also knew, being BertiWISE and all, that despite their nonsplatteringness on the rocks of the lava plug, that the bomb beneath was still ticking. She hollered down, "BUD! How's it goin' with your Mickey Mouse activites?"

Just then the bus crashed through the first of a series of 27 wooden gates across the simple dirt track that the expressway had become now that they were within the lava plug itself.

"Twenty seven?" BertiWise thought, beginning to mull possibilities in her brain. She just KNEW she'd once heard of SOMETHING involving a series of 27 gates across a long dirt road. But WHAT??

Meanwhile, in the back of the bus, Wanda, stared in wonder at Maximus, who had leapt to the seat, gladius in hand, his black cape all aswirl, his black mask concealing the top half of his face. Any second she expected a zigzaggy Z to be carved in the vinyl. But no....with the most gallant of bows, he leaned forward, proffering the gladius, pommel first, to Joimus.

"Watch for the thorns," he rumbled gently as she took it carefully into her own hands. She gazed in some puzzlement into his swimmingpoolaqua eyes. They were dancing with delight and pleasure in the presentation of his sword.

As pleased as she was at the General's newfound ability to move and communicate, yet she was deeply concerned about those very movements and communications. Like Wanda, she, too, murmured, "Z...zorro?"
                       

Maximus, with a laugh bordering on a giggle, jumped down beside her. Placing his nose a bit too close to the gleaming blade, he inhaled. "I know pale yellow is your favorite," he remarked, smiling. Joimus and Wanda exchanged worried looks.

Wanda could not help herself. "Zorro?" she asked again, more firmly this time.

Maximus turned his focus toward the redhead. "Zorro?" he repeated, totally confounded. Then he saw her studying his black garb and felt he understood her confusion. "Ah!" he said, fingering the edge of his cape, "No, my dear. Ralph."

"Ralph?" both Joimus and Wanda repeated, brows knit. (Well, Wanda's were sort of, er, crocheted.)

"Yes," he continued pleasantly, "Father Ralph de Brickasort."

"AIEEEE!" the scream escaped BertiWise's lips as she nearly lost her Budbeltgrip.

Just then Russell plastered his face against the bus window. Had that been a kangaroo he'd seen hopping by? Was he HOME?? "Phyllis! Did you see that?" he asked, excitement bubbling up in his heart.
                          

BertiWise frowned over Bud's back in the general direction of Joimus, knowing as she did certain...er...events... in the Pittsburgher's real life background. Was she actually going to do the priest storyline? Were they even now in the midst of the ThornToads, blasting along the road to DroogHeeda? Had Maximus taken vows of celibacy in his addled brain? As they crashed through the second of the 27 gates, all doubt left her. "Bud! Hurry!" she cried to the dangling cop.

Bud had become...um....put out...with his constant dangletudeiness. He had endured numerous speed bumps trimming his haircut even more closely to his scalp, he had just grasped the bomb when everything went black for a moment, and now...well...now gatesplinters careened past his ears as the odor of sheepdung filled his nostrils. It was too much! Enraged, he grabbed the bomb, biting off both of Mickey's arms with no mercy, sending the timing device into wild staccato beats of ticking.

With an unprintable expletive, he flung the bomb out from under the bus and shouted to BertiStrong to pull him back up through the open floorboard panel. Alex pressed the pedal to the floor as the bomb exploded behind the bus. And so it was that at 120 miles an hour, they arrived at the front portico of the large stone mansion of DroogHeeda, screeching to a jarring halt at the base of its entrance steps.

Lucilla screamed in despair. Some of Maximus' seed lay slopped not only on the floor of the bus but had splashed onto Susan Guildford's Fuegan gown. Susan just sat there, a large smile plastered across her face, staring at it. Maximus' seed being so...unique...and....large...she had known instantly its identity. Quickly casting a lowered-lid look at Zack beside her on the seat, she was glad to note he was completely unaware of this unexpected turn in her fortunes. For the first time she was actually pleased at the soiled state the long months of travel had brought about in her gown. She had been wearing it month after month, nary a washing machine in any epi anywhere. Slyly, she lifted a fold of the silky material and draped it over the seeded portion. Who knew? Perhaps it might take root and she would have little baby Maximus gourdlings adorning her gown before the summer was done? She would worry later about some explanation to give Zack on just how she had come into such close proximity with the General's seed.

As Alex braked, Bunny had flopped off the hood of the bus, rolling in a rather tumbleweedy fashion across the wide dirt space in front of the house until she came to rest against a fence near the shearing shed. Dizzy, she looked up. Was that...could it be....Sid...standing there so jauntily at the top of the sheep ramp?

The Chipman strode down the ramp, offering her his hand to steady herself as she got to her feet. He kicked one of the fenceposts, remarking with a bit of a smirk, "It IS rabbitproof, you know."

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him. "You let me get on the bus," she said, equal portions of accusation and hurt in her tone.

"Yes," he nodded in agreement, "but you had THIS, did you not?" And he tapped the carving stone still tightly clutched in her hand. "I knew you would carve your way out of the....situation," he added with a large grin, carefully aimed at melting her heart. She sighed. How hard it was sometimes to be so smitten with a man so criminally insane.

Seventy-five year old Mary came out the large front door of the mansion, sizing up the arrivals at her sheep station in New South Wales.

"Wait a minute!" young Grecian Mary cried as she read that last sentence. "I thought I'd been advanced to 33 and was on the bus with Cort!!!"

Joimus came up beside her, "Sorry, Mary, but you are the only castmember named Mary and, as we all know, Mary owns the sheep station and is having her 75th birthday party this evening. You're stuck."

"But...but...but," Mary spluttered.

"Don't worry," Joimus said, patting the shoulder of her white gown, "it probably won't last."

Mary sighed. Thirty-three had been quite bad enough, but SEVENTY-FIVE!

Phyllis, walking up the steps on Russell's arm, just smiled to her 33-year-old self.

The General, believing himself Ralph de Brickasort, walked past them, taking Mary's hand and placing a long kiss upon it. "Hmmmmm?, " thought Mary. "This might not be as bad as I'd expected." She smiled at the handsome form all in black as she fluffed her carefully coifed white hair with her other hand. "Welcome to DroogHeeda, Father Ralph, "she cooed, really getting into her role as the lusty-hearted matriarch.

"How lovely you look, Mary, " he gallantly replied, "not a day past seventy-four and one half."

She gave him a rather enigmatic smile as she led the way into her spacious sitting room. Joimus, still holding the gladius, wandered off alone into the huge rose garden and sat on one of the white wrought-iron chairs. Before long Maximus joined her, as she had hoped he would. "I see you still have the yellow rose, " he smiled, indicating his sword with a slight gesture.

"Yes," she replied softly, attempting to hide her level of distress at his obviously still-malfunctioning brain. "It's lovely."

A clear glass vase, handily filled with water, rested upon a small table nearby. "Would you like me to put it in water for you?," he asked.

"Please," she replied, glad to be rid of the heavy weapon. He dropped it, point first, into the small vase....which shattered and sent the gladius clanging to the paving stones. He stared at it, amazed that the rose had broken the vase.

Joimus quickly picked up the sword, laying it across the pale yellow gossamer folds of her gowned lap. "Never mind, Maxim...er...Ralph. I'll just keep it with me after all."

His lips, below the lower edge of his mask, curved into a tentative smile. "I've been too long in Rome," he murmured, his thoughts a bit foggy and not easily grasped.

"Yes," she replied again. "Rome has been very....hard....on you, I fear."

Without knowing why, his right palm curved up and over his left upper arm as though some old, forgotten ache suddenly hurt again. He shook his head, attempting to clear it."I'm glad I could come for Mary's

birthday, " he said, forcing brightness into his voice.

Joimus smiled tenderly up at him. "I'm glad, too, that you could come. I've....missed you."

She thought back to the time in the Ugandan clearing when his hand had reached for his sword. Looking down at it, lying now across her lap, she studied her fractured reflection in its blade. A single tear, unable to be restrained, splashed down, further fracturing her image with its wetness.

"Don't cry!" he said softly, on his knees beside her. She leaned the sword against the table and wrapped her arms about him, pressing his masked cheek tightly to her breast. She held onto him with everything that lay in her, the long weeks of his having forgotten her breaking like waves against the walls of her ventricles. Even now he thought she was his little Meggie in her ashes of roses gown. A great and ragged sigh shook her.

He looked up, flooded with concern. Had he caused such sadness in the heart of one he loved so dearly? "Oh, Jeggiemus," he said, half in and half out of some sort of reality, "have I done this to you?"

He had, there was no doubt about it. He had. But she, unlike certain evil emperors, was truly merciful. She stroked the left side of his mask with her palm, then cupped his neatly bearded chin, gazing into his swimmingpoolaqua eyes. "It will be all right, Maxim....Ralph," she said. "Nothing has....really...been your doing." She thought of how desperately he had squeezed the plasma ball in his attempt to return Captain Jack, losing himself even as he saved Aubrey.

As though pulled by the thoughts of his name, the good Captain, Juditha on his arm, came then into the rose garden. Moved by the sight of the couple at the wrought-iron chairs, Judith's fingers clutched tightly into Jack's dark woolen sleeve. "Oh, Jack," she sighed, "must they always suffer so?"

Jack looked fondly down at the slim, blonde form beside him. How tender a heart she possessed. Placing his other palm protectively over her hand on his sleeve, he kissed the top of her head. "Epis," he rumbled softly and wisely, "are full of suffering and the overcoming of suffering."

"Do you think," Juditha continued, "Joimus read a bit too much Dickens as a child?"

"Well," he replied, "we haven't had any cold gruel in cracked bowls for quite a while."

Juditha sighed, "Give her time."

"Maxim...er....Father Ralph," Jack called. "Mary is waiting for us to rejoin the party."

Maximus stood and, taking Joimus' hand, followed the Captain and Juditha back toward the big house. Sounds of celebration greeted their approaching ears. Russell obviously had brought along his collapsible guitar and was leading the gathering in song. When he saw Captain Jack come into the room, he grinned and launched directly into "Sail Those Same Oceans" in his honor. Jack smiled, wishing he had not left his violin in the pocket of his other uniform. He turned, though, to Juditha, and holding out his upturned palm, invited, "Dance with me, my lady."

Joimus knew what a good dancer, in spite of having taken the cloth, the actual Father Ralph was. Besides, that musical part of Russell lay deep within the heart of every character, did it not? Not having wanted to leave the gladius in the rose garden where someone young and innocent like Andy might hurt himself with it, Joimus had brought it with her and now slipped it quickly under the sofa.

"That was a strange place to put your rose," Maximus commented as she led him onto the dance floor. She only smiled, not answering. They had not done more than 3 or 4 twirls when a strange sound rang through the room. Absolutely everyone stopped to listen to the grating, rasping, croaking noise.

Maximus explained, "It's the ThornToads. They spend their lives looking for that one perfect rose and when they find it, they impale themselves upon its thorns, and, singing, die. But their one song is so lovely that the whole world stops to listen."

Joimus crouched, looking under the sofa. Sure enough, a large ThornToad had stuck itself with Maximus' gladius.

"Ah, your yellow rose, Jeggiemus, " he commented as he, too, looked. "I had thought myself that it was the loveliest rose of all."

                                  
Joimus just shook her head. "Such a thorn it has," she murmured , "such a very....large....thorn." Later....after the party....someone would have to deal with the dried toad juice on the blade. Her eyes sought out Wanda, their resident toad juice expert. Perhaps.....? No, she looked too happy there, her arms wrapped about Lachlan's waist. Joimus sighed. She would tend to it herself. Some epis were just a bit more.... disgusting....than others.

"Dinner!" called out Mary.

The sight of the toad juice had rather taken the edge of Joimus' appetite, but she followed along as the guests streamed into the adjoining room. There, lined up along the magnificent sideboard, was a long row of cracked bowls containing cold gruel.

"See!" pointed Juditha. "What did I tell you?"

"Um, are those for us?" gulped Amanda.

"Those?" Mary replied, with a wave of her hand. "Heaven's no! Those are for some other plot entirely!"

Afraid to ask the meaning of that, the guests turned toward a lavish and definitely more appealing table filled with epicurean goodies, a giant birthday cake serving as its centerpiece.

Jack Corbett, the handsome young Australian officer character, was about to lift an oyster to his lips, when a large wagonload of singing sheepshearers passed the house on their way to the shearing barn. He wandered, midbite, to a window, then almost choked. "Bryan Brown!" he hissed, his seagreen eyes hardening. "Not Bryan Brown in an epi! Ack!"

"What is it, my dear?" asked Amanda, coming up beside him in some concern.

Corbett turned toward her, the color draining from his handsome, sweaty face, his shoulders sagging. "It's him," he said resignedly, pointing out the window. "It's bad enough in Crowedom that so few have seen my movie and really know much about me, but....but....when I have to share scenes with...with....HIM....he gets all the dialogue and I become mere elbow decoration. What's HE doing here on Droogheeda anyway?"

Joimus, overhearing, replied, "Why, Corbett, he marries Meggie in the ThornToads. Don't you remember?"

He did not, and, moreover, was suddenly stricken by the way he never even got to be called "Jack" but always was relegated to his last name since the Captain had dibs, by right of rank. Life could be so cruel. He let his oyster shell fall, unheeded, to Mary's carpet, and strode out onto the porch, watching as the wagon disappeared around the far side of the barn.

"Did someone think Far Side thoughts?" asked Aubrey, a bit into his cups, as he came out on the porch. He clapped Corbett heartily on his shoulder, "Ahoy, there, young Jack," he said loudly, "what seems so amiss?"

Corbett turned, facing his older, beefier counterpart, amazed someone had actually used his given name. "Sir," he said respectful of Aubrey's rank, "I think....."

"FIRE!" cried Biebe. "Fire on Droogheeda!"