Musings on the underground

[Tim Dedopulos]

>>Interesting issue; which historical characters did disappear, or had
>>suitably ambiguous deaths?  
>
>Jesus
>Mohammed
>Buddha
>Ambrose Bierce
>Jimmy Hoffa
>Judge Crater
>Andy Kaufman (hey, hadda put it!)

You could add a load of people to that list 
(such as:
   Lord Lucan
   Buddy Holly & The Big Boppa
   Christian Rosenkreutz (if he ever even existed)
   Shergar (A racehorse *grin*)
... just off the top of my rather odd head!)

But what about people who didn't vanish? Jacques De Molay and
Joan of Arc for example, burnt at the stake - who's to say if 
they ascended or not? Maybe Kennedy ascended, and as he did,
he created a bullet-ridden lich to take the place of his corpse
for his own purposes?

Rasputin (as someone mentioned) didn't vanish though - he was
fed enough arsenic to kill a platoon, then shot repeatedly
at point-blank range, then beaten to a bloody husk with large
metal chains, tied in them, and dumped through a hole in the 
ice in a river. They found his corpse several miles downstream,
where finger-marks showed that he had been trying to claw his
way up out of the ice... (*dislaimer* 8-) At least, that's what 
my history teacher taught me). Pretty damn impressive, either 
way.

Rasputin may not have ascended (but see Kennedy above) but a
man that resilient may well have been faking his own death
once he realised he couldn't get out of the ice. So he lies
there underwater in the frozen stream until Yussopov's bully-
boys dig him out and deliver him to the Tsar for burial,
gets buried, then quietly digs his way out of _that_ situation
and goes on his merry way, quietly, seemingly dead, with no
chance of anyone on his tail. I wonder where he could be
now... Holding court as the mysterious overlord of the 
Underground in Berlin, perhaps? Alternatively, maybe he's gone 
back to ground under his real name of St Germain...

Tim.

       Imagine there are two of you. Which one would win?

Tim Dedopulos, Project Editor **** tdedopulos at carltonbooks.co.uk