Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

any of us are here.
    The Twenty-Second Century Magik Shop had a special sale on Pickled Pixies, Flying Slippers, Old Ones Repellent, and a new exorcism plug-in for your computer. I lingered a while before the window of a specialist bookshop called Pornucopia, which sold specially bound editions of the private pornography written by famous authors, for their own pleasure, never intended for publication. But once you’re dead, it’s all fair game, so ... Miss Marple at the Isle of Lesbos , Lady Chatterly’s Gang Bang , and Barbara Cartland’s Strap-on Frenzy .
    Sometimes I think if it wasn’t for bad taste, the Mammon Emporium wouldn’t have any taste at all. I made a mental note to look back later. If there was a later.
    I realised my path was taking me right past the Emporium’s one and only real oracle, so I decided to pay it a quiet visit. On a mission like this, information is ammunition. The oracle doesn’t look like much: just a traditional stone-walled wishing well, with a circle of stained glass round it, a patchy red slate roof, and a bucket on a chain. It couldn’t be more tacky if it tried. A sign in appallingly twee language invited you to throw a coin into the well, make a wish, and toss your worries away. Whoever wrote that clearly knew nothing about oracles. Officially, it was all a harmless bit of fun for the kiddies. What better disguise for one of the few truly reliable oracles in the Nightside? I had approached it for help once before and knew better than to expect anything actually helpful. Like everyone else in the Nightside, the oracle had its own agenda.
    The well knew I was coming before I did. I hadn’t even turned the corner when it called out to me.
    “Well, well, the one and only John Taylor; which is just as well because I don’t think I could stand it if there were more of you. Your entire existence plays merry hell with the time-lines. Look over there in the corner; see that woman, crying her eyes out? That’s Fate, that is. Hello again, John. Knew you’d be back.”
    “I never knew an oracle that was so in love with its own voice,” I said. “Now do me a favour and keep your voice down. The soulbomber isn’t far from here, and we really don’t want to upset him.”
    “I know! I know he’s there, and I know why he’s there, which is more than you do. I know everything. Or at least, everything that matters, and I fake the rest. I even know what you’re going to ask before you ask it, and you really aren’t going to like the answers.”
    “Tell me anyway,” I said, leaning heavily on its stone wall. “What can you tell me about this soulbomber?”
    “Cross my palm with silver, sweetie, and I shall unfold wonders and marvels ...”
    “Cut the crap. I’m not a tourist. You haven’t got a palm, and no-one’s used silver coins for years. You get the usual—one drop of blood, and that’s it.”
    “You have no sense of drama.”
    I pricked the tip of my left index finger with the sliver of unicorn’s horn I carry in my lapel to warn against poisons and let one fat drop of blood fall into the dark interior of the well. The oracle made a really disgusting satisfied sound, and I winced despite myself.
    “All right, you old ham,” I said. “You’ve had your payment, now answer the question. What do I have to do to stop the soulbomber?”
    “There’s nothing you can do. The soulbomb will detonate some forty-one minutes from now.”
    I blinked a few times. “That’s it?”
    “Afraid so. There isn’t a single possible future where the soulbomb doesn’t detonate.”
    “No way of avoiding it?”
    “None at all.”
    “Can’t I try talking to him?”
    “If you like.”
    “Will that help?”
    “No. Doesn’t matter what you do or say: Mr. Soulbomber, he go boom.”
    “Well, you’re a lot of use!”
    “Lot of people say that to me ...”
    “All right,” I said, searching desperately for some solid ground. “Let’s try something else. What can you tell me about Excalibur?”
    “You mean that appallingly powerful thing hanging off your back? Burning so brightly I can’t even look at it? Well, to start with, it’s not really a sword. It only looks like one.”
    “What is it, then?”
    “Reply cloudy, try again later. I told you, it’s so potent I can’t even get a good look at it. You could cut the world in half with a weapon like that.”
    “I thought you said it isn’t a sword?” I said.
    “It isn’t. It’s much more than a sword. More