Strange Tales From the Nile Empire Read online

  Welcome to the Nile By the time I made it to my apartment, my heart was pounding against my rib cage like it wanted out. I was almost out of breath. Shouting Pilar's name, I burst into the loft over the corner grocery store, only to trip over a small stool that had been tossed in front of the doorway. Even as I was falling and grumbling to myself about someone's poor choice in rearranging the furniture, shots rang out, and two bullets pierced the air where my head had been.

  Lucky.

  As I hit the floor, I rolled to my left and took cover behind a high-backed couch that was there. Then I pulled out my gun and took a deep breath. The shots had come from near the window on the other side of the room.

  I counted three and then popped up on my knees, saw two soldiers looking in my direction and drew a bead on the man holding the smoking gun. After pumping three bullets into the shocktrooper's bare chest, I realized that I probably should've shot his pal first. He had the Tommy gun.

  — from "Crocodilopolis"

  Torg: The Possibility Wars

  created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek The Near Now ... Later today, early tomorrow, sometime next week, the world began to end.

  They came from other realities, raiders joined together to steal the awesome energy of Earth's possibilities. They have brought with them their own realities, creating areas where rules of nature are radically different — turning huge portions of the Earth into someplace else.

  Now a primitive realm of dinosaurs and spiritual magic exists in North America, a fantasy realm of magical creatures and high sorcery invades the British Isles, and a theocratic Cyberpa-pacy™ springs up in Western Europe. A high-tech espionage realm takes control in Japan, a terror-filled reality of horrific monters dominates Southeast Asia, and a realm of Techno-Horror decends on Los Angeles. Egypt, along with much of Northern Africa, is a realm of 1930s pulp science fiction.

  But Earth is not helpless. Standing between these Possibility Raiders™ and total victory are the Storm Knights™, men and women who have weathered the raging storms of change with their own realities intact.

  Introduction

  Greg Farshtey.

  .. With pounding heart, I advanced the last few steps and opened the great stone door. Would that I had gone blind before I saw that horrible sight! A dozen beautiful young women chained to dank dungeon walls, straining at their bonds and screaming for release. In the center of the room was a vast pit, from which a horrible hissing sound came, as if the king of all serpents waited there to feed.

  And above it all, there stood the Oriental mastermind I had come to defeat — the Devil incarnate, clad in his flowing silk robes and wearing an expression of pure malice on his face. He beckoned me within with an almost skeletal finger.

  "Enter, honored foe, and share in the pleasures of this place," he said. I could barely hear him above the agonized shrieks of the women, which he seemed to regard as if it were a symphony.

  "You have proven to be a most worthy enemy, but the play is now over," he continued, a cruel smile on his face. "Still, I am a fair man. I will offer you a bargain: swear allegiance to me, and I will free these fair young things."

  His expression grew dark. "Refuse me, and watch these women die, one by one. Choose, Detective-Inspector — now!"

  My very soul rebelled at the thought of serving this monster who had murdered everyone I ever loved. Yet if I refused, the innocent girls I had come to save would meet their doom at the hands of this black-hearted villain.

  I realized then that I had no choice. I reached for my revolver and —

  "Dhalsim? Where are you? Your lunch is growing cold."

  The youth returned to the real world with a start. It took him a long moment to realize that he was no longer by the side of Detective-Inspector Hobbes in an underground chamber of horrors, but in his grandfather's attic in Cairo. He looked down at the tattered yellow pages of the book he had been reading — a "pulp" Grandpa had called it, one of a number the old man had collected during his younger days in America.

  He heard his grandmother call again and hurriedly slipped the book back into the trunk. She did not approve of his reading the old stories and often chastised her husband for keeping the "moldy old things" around.

  "When I was a child, we didn't have time for such frivolous pursuits," she would say. When you were a child, everyone was too busy seeking the secret of fire, Dhalsim would reply, but only in his thoughts.

  He could hear her heels clicking on the wooden floor as she came looking for him. He scrambled down the ladder and shut the trap door to the attic as softly as he could. His timing was bad, however — she turned the corner and saw him as he dropped the last two rungs.

  "So there you are!" she snapped, advancing on him with steel in her eyes. "I've been calling and calling—you were upstairs reading that trash again, weren't you?"

  He tried to think of a way to explain to her that Brides of the Beast wasn't bad literature, just not the same as what she liked. But he was too young to know the right words, so he simply nodded.

  "Now you listen to me, Dhalsim. Those are not books for you. You should be reading stories about great men exploring —"

  — exploring secret chambers and long-sealed tombs, where unknown terrors lurk —

  "— heroic armies winning important battles —"

  — battles against the forces of evil, which would otherwise engulf the world and crush all free men beneath their heels —

  " — yes, Dhalsim, and even tales of friendship and love."

  — love between a man in black and his trusted confidante, the lovely Cathy Simpson, the only person who knows whose face is hidden behind the Raven's mask —

  "Are you listening to me?"

  Dhalsim ate his soup, but paid little attention to the taste. His mind was occupied trying to figure out just what Detective-Inspector Hobbes was going to do: shoot the villain? Shoot out a light and make his escape under cover of darkness? Well, a few more minutes and he could tell his grandmother he was going to play outside. Then he could sneak in his bedroom window and go back up to the attic.

  Then his world collapsed.

  His grandmother walked into the kitchen twirling an iron key on her finger. He had never seen it before, but somehow he knew which lock it fit.

  "The attic door is locked, Dhalsim," she said with an air of triumph. "It's too dangerous for a boy to be playing up there. The floor boards are rotten. One wrong step, and you would fall right through."

  "But what about all the stuff up there?" Dhalsim protested, the soup now completely forgotten.

  "Most of it is junk we don't need," his grandmother said. "We won't miss it. As for the rest, well, perhaps we'll sell it."

  Sell? Give away the Raven, Doctor Diamond, Sartor the Sorcerer and all the rest in exchange for a few coins? How could she even consider such a thing?

  Dhalsim threw down his spoon and fled from the table. He stormed into his bedroom, slammed the door behind him, and dove on to his mattress. He would stay in here forever, he decided, taking no food and no water until he starved. Then his grandmother would be sorry, but it would be too late. Grandpa would cast her out of the house in shame and she would be arrested for throwing away someone else's books ...

  A stray thought crossed his mind, settled for a bit, then fluttered on the edges of his consciousness. What if he were to climb out his bedroom window, shimmy up the tree outside, and climb in the attic window? Then maybe he could somehow get the books out and hide them in his room, where his grandmother would never think to look for them.

  He actually made it all the way to the sill before reconsidering. The tree branch was very thin, and besides
, there was a storm brewing. A big storm, from the looks of it. Good, he decided. I hope it washes away the whole city.

  Over the next few hours, it seemed as if it his wish would come true. The rain pounded against the window, the wind ripped branches from trees, and lightning that seemed to contain a thousand colors in its bolts struck building after building. Where what his Grandpa used to call "spears of heaven" struck, the very structures of the houses seemed to change. From his window, he could see men and women rushing out on to the street, trying to flee the fury of nature. But their cars would not start and so they sat inside them, some crying, some praying, waiting for the end they felt sure was to come.

  The storm lasted for days. Dhalsim heard his grandmother pounding on his door for the first few hours, calling for him to come with her to the basement. He ignored her. It took more than a little rain to frighten somebody who had traveled with Captain Eternity to the Hall of the Snow Devils.

  After a while, she went away. He stayed in bed, listening to the storm, until he began to get hungry. He fought down the pangs and strengthened his resolve to stay in his room until his grandmother had regained her sanity. With that thought in mind, he let the sound of the rain lull him to sleep.

  When he awoke, the storm had ended. He peered out the window and then rubbed his eyes to assure himself he wasn't dreaming. The street was filled with big black cars like the ones in old movies. Men in pinstriped suits and hats were dashing to and fro, some of them armed with machine guns. Women in old-fashioned dresses and hats were outside, too — they would jump aside and scream whenever a car came tearing down the road, bullets flying from the windows.

  What had happened? Was someone filming a television show on his street? Why hadn't his grandmother come and told him?

  He unlocked his door and ran to the kitchen. His grandmother was there, all right, wearing a dress like some of the ones he had seen in some old pictures once. She was trying to bake a cake in the oven. She smiled when she saw Dhalsim.

  "That was quite a storm, wasn't it?" she said, cheerfully. "Dhalsim, would you come here and turn on the oven."

  Dhalsim dutifully went over and turned the knob to "Warm," hearing the familiar whoosh of the pilot igniting. His grandmother commented that she would have time to get her baking done before the Pharaoh's address on the radio.

  Her comment went right past Dhalsim. He was busy looking at the man coming up the walk, accompanied by what he assumed were soldiers. They didn't look like any Army men he had ever seen before — bare-chested and carrying strange rifles, they seemed to be a cross between the pictures of ancient Egyptian warriors and World War II infantrymen he had once seen.

  What really riveted his attention was the sight of their leader. He was a tall, almost regal-looking Oriental man, anywhere between 60 and 600 years of age. He had thin, bony hands and a black moustache, and wore silken robes of red and yellow. The garments made him look as if he were walking amid a living flame.

  When he was halfway up the walk, Dhalsim remembered where he had seen that face before. This was the evil one in Grandpa's book, the one who was going to feed the women to the snake! Maybe he had found out how Dhalsim was rooting for Detective-Inspector Hobbes to win, and was coming to take revenge!

  Dhalsim screamed and ran to his grandmother, babbling out an explanation laced with references to Oriental masterminds, secret laboratories and missing girls. His grandmother patted him on the head and said, "Now, Dhalsim, that's what comes of spending all your time reading those silly stories. Everyone knows who that is — it's Overgovernor Wu Han."

  The madman was almost at his door. There was no time left! "But he's evil!" Dhalsim said, louder than he intended.

  His grandmother frowned. "Well, it's true that some of his directives have been a bit harsh. But I'm sure it's only until order is restored to the city. Now you be quiet while I welcome our guest."

  Dhalsim impulsively reached into the pocket of her apron and snatched the key to the attic. Then he dashed for the staircase, peering through the bars of the railing while his grandmother opened the door for Wu Han and his guards. He heard the Oriental explain that he was on a "goodwill tour" of Cairo, meeting his new subjects. His grandmother made polite conversation for a bit, then asked how long it would be before all those nasty martial laws would be lifted.

  Wu Han's face clouded over and he seized the old woman's wrist in an iron grip. "I see your years have not taught you the wisdom of silence, woman. Still, I suppose you are still young enough to be of some use ... in the mines. Take her away!"

  Two burly guards seized his grandmother and dragged her, screaming, out the door. Wu Han turned to his remaining men and said, "I thought I saw a whelp in here as we approached. Find him!"

  Dhalsim shot up the staircase and unlocked the attic trapdoor in a fever of motion. He pulled the door shut behind him just as the soldiers finished searching his room. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they would check the attic — desperately, he ducked behind his Grandpa's trunk of books.

  The guards had apparently decided Wu Han had been imagining things by the time they reached the attic. They did no more than poke their heads through the trap, then returned to the kitchen.

  Dhalsim, bathed in sweat, watched as Wu Han and the guards climbed into their car. He could imagine his grandmother trying to escape their clutches, but knew she never would. Wu Han was too powerful—it would take a man like Detective-Inspector Hobbes or the Raven to stop him.

  Dhalsim opened the trunk and began to page through the old fictions, that now had become horrifyingly real. He knew that, somewhere in this strange new world he had awakened to, there would be men and women who could oppose men of evil and their minions. He had found them once, in the pages of a hundred books — tears burning in his eyes, he vowed that he would never rest until he had found them again, in the flesh, and joined in their crusade.

  He stared hard at the image of the Oriental villain on the worn page of the pulp. He suddenly felt a sense of purpose greater than any he'd known before, as he burned the features of his enemy into his brain.

  Someday, Wu Han, we shall meet again ...

  Welcome to Strange Tales from the Nile Empire, a collection of tales centered on the pulp reality of Torg: Roleplaying the Possibility Wars. In the Near Now, the Middle East has been transformed by the reality-warping power of Dr. Mobius, a mad villain turned High Lord, and his Darkness Device. Now this region of the world is a bizarre combination of the glories of ancient Egypt and the heroic fiction of 1930s pulps.

  Costumed heroes and their arch-foes battle atop pyramids, while inscrutable masterminds plot the fiery ends of entire civilizations. Storm Knights, those who can resist the ravages of warring realities, fight a desperate battle to reclaim the world from those who would use and then destroy it.

  It's a world of high adventure, dark mystery, and an ongoing battle between Good and Evil — and it all awaits you within.

  Crocodilopolis

  Matt Forbeck.

  There I was, nursing my lunch at a corner table in Rick's American Cafe and wondering—amongst other things — how I could talk Afif into shutting off the elevator music streaming out of his damned jukebox, when all hell broke loose. The front door of the joint suddenly smashed flat down on the floor. It narrowly missed crushing the bouncer sitting on the bar stool beside the now empty doorway.

  Now, I've never been overly fond of that man — I mean the bouncer, whose name I can never seem to remember — but I winced when the first of Wu Han's shocktroopers stomped into the saloon and shot what's-his-name down in cold blood. Immediately after which, of course, I grabbed my beer, turned over the table in front of me and sat down behind it.

  I was scrabbled around behind the table. I set down my beer and drew my gun, making sure it was loaded. The rest of the Pharaoh's boys in bronze skin tones waltzed into the place and gunned down everything that was standing. Luckily, the rest of Rick's patrons had taken their cue from the falling
door and had quickly found shelter from the hail of lead falling in their general directions. No one else died.

  Old joke: Why is Mobius so desperate for cash? So he can afford to buy shirts for his soldiers. Okay, so I only heard it a few weeks ago, but I've been told it's been around for a while.

  The bullets hit other things, though. The bottles lining the back wall of the bar burst into sparkling shards of alcohol-covered glass. Light fixtures shattered, half-finished meals spattered off tables and holes pocked the walls. Providentially, a bullet shot right though the front of the jukebox and cut short "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" in the middle of its twenty-second playing of the day. Long live rock and roll.

  No matter what you may read in your favorite pulp magazine, discretion is the better part of valor. I didn't see any sense in wasting my precious hide by capping one of the uninvited guests with my Peacemaker just to be repaid by being knocked six feet under by a burst from a KK81. So I just sat back, sipped the head off of my beer and wondered where the hell those so-called Mystery Men were when you needed them? The old radio-show Shadow might know, but these real-life clowns couldn't find their own shoelaces without directions. Eventually, the racket let up.

  Then I heard a voice shout out something in Arabic. Although I never admit it in public, I do have a rudimentary grasp of the language. It comes in handy in my line of work. People say the damnedest things right in front of you when they think you can't understand them. But this was Terran Arabic, Mobius' language, the Arabic of the invaders, and it still gives me problems from time to time. But I did catch the man dropping my name.

  Nobody had to tell me that when a squad of shocktroopers beats down the door of your favorite speakeasy and starts slinging lead before even asking for your name, it's time to skedaddle. There was a back door near my table. No coincidence — I had planned it that way. Before the guys in the white skirts and way out-of-style headgear could punctuate their question with another round of gunplay, I was gone, lost in the winding, narrow streets and alleyways of Cairo.