The Devil Delivered and Other Tales

by Steven Erikson

  His burning eyes fixed on the legislative dome, and beyond that, the Pyramid, Arthur took one gigantic step forward, his talons curling with desire. He opened his mouth, and a swarm of ladybugs poured forth in an eager, bloodythirsty cloud. He paused, confused, then—on a breath of cool wind came a scent that froze him in his tracks. “Peaches!” he hissed. “I smell peaches! Faye! Faye!” Arthur whirled about, found the faint scent once again, then surged forward on its delicate, wonderful trail.

  * * *

  Maxwell Nacht stepped into the hall beyond the theater and saw the remains of bloody chaos. The long tables on which sat the finest culinary profferings of Culture Quo had been shattered, strawlike foodstuffs scattered everywhere. More bodies lay about, motionless, horribly motionless. The waiters and waitresses all crouched against the far wall, their eyes dulled, their mouths hanging open.

  One of them spoke, “He—he didn’t touch us. He came over and … sniffed us, then he left—he drove them on, on, ever onward!”

  Max didn’t spare them another glance. He went through the shattered entranceway and arrived at the landing. The wind gusted calmly across his sweat-beaded face. He looked below, down the 666 steps, and saw exactly what he expected to see. He also saw Penny off to one side, halfway down the steps—she looked up to him.

  “My God!” she screamed. “The city’s entire art establishment is dead!”

  The savage had driven them, like buffalo, Max realized, off the steps—and Max could see the horrible little man, down there among the piled bodies, cutting out tongues, collecting ears and other delectable trophies. And now Penny saw him as well.

  “Ohmigod!” Max heard her say. “She—she—she remembers! You! You down there! Oh, my noble one! You!”

  The savage glanced up at all the screaming, and watched bemused as the scantily clad woman rushed toward him, down the steps, over the bodies, running straight for him, arms stretched out.

  Sool Koobie bleated as Penny leapt on him, her legs spread wide.

  Max stared as she writhed over the hapless creature.

  “She remembers! Oh God, she remembers! I’m—I’m—I’m … Croona! Queen of the Cavemen! I’ve come home! Home! Oh, take me take me take me take me!”

  And Sool did, grabbing her thighs and boldly throwing her on her back, there atop the hundreds of dead politicians, professors, obscure but powerful artists, business leaders, he rogered Penny Foote-Safeword in the fashion of hunky, smelly, grunting primitive men the world over.

  Max sighed, actually happy for them both, and wishing them well in whatever squalid hole the savage would no doubt drag Penny into. As for himself, well, enough of the loner jaunt, the gamble of youth—past at last for Maxwell Nacht of the Nacht Lingerie Empire. Time to go home to the millions, the swimming pools, the high society, the tennis lessons, and the maids in the bushes. He’d had his fun pretending to be the artist, he was tired of going hungry, tired of the cockroaches on the kitchen counter, tired of moldy bread and Kraft Dinner, and the endlessly arguing drunks on welfare next door. “I’m going home,” he whispered. “Home, my God.”

  At precisely this moment, the 57 Wells tore through the legislature, destroying everything, absolutely everything, including the late-night session where politicians of various stripes had been arguing with no one in particular against any reduction in personal pay, benefits, and the double-dipping loopholes in their fat pension plans. The huge steam engine retired them all, permanently, but the train didn’t stop and indeed was only marginally slowed in its passage through the historical edifice.

  Max could only watch as the mechanical demon plunged across the street and crashed into the 666 steps of the Pyramid, flinging bodies and concrete and dead Boy Scouts, and, as the cars behind the engine piled up and burst apart, hundreds of homeless people flew in all directions, thus providing a demographic slice of modern Western society.

  Even before the dust cleared, someone flashed by close to Max and scurried down the steps—a figure that seemed able to disappear as it turned sideways, blinking into and out of existence as it descended toward the rubble below.

  The minister. Paul Silverthump. Nice trick, that sideways disappearing act. Beauty. The man’s a born politician. Look, not even a hair out of place. Gotta admire the bastard. Hell, he’s the only one left, too. Which means he’ll be taking the reins of power shortly, before the dust down there’s even settled. And who says God isn’t just?

  Eight hundred and twenty-three feet overhead in the smoke-filled darkness, a wheeling pigeon outfitted with infrared goggles spotted its target. The bird banked, folded back its wings, and dived.

  Few regarded pigeons with much respect, it knew, a lack that was about to be remedied in an act of singular, heroic self-sacrifice. The pigeon picked up even more speed, becoming nothing more than a blur of unstoppable intent, and it knew, in its last moments, that God was on its side, and failure was out of the question.

  Max saw Paul Silverthump stop suddenly, entirely visible, and totter slightly on the steps. Something was sticking out of his head, fluttering darkly. Half a pigeon, in fact. The other half was embedded in the man’s head, which even for a politician was likely fatal. And, true enough, Max watched the man topple limply onto the steps, then slowly slide down to join the disaster scene below.

  Sorry for ever doubting you, God. Never again, I promise. My God, I’m going to join a monastery! That’ll put the old man in a tizzy! One hell of a tizzy! Hee hee!

  * * *

  Arthur Revell arrived at the hospital, and saw her. The night shift, taking a smoke break outside the doors, dear Faye of the blushing bosom. His shadow swept over her and she looked up.

  Arthur expected her to scream. It would have been an entirely natural response. Instead, she took one last, deep drag on her cigarette, flicked the butt to one side, and delicately held out her hand.

  “I’m an artist!” Arthur boomed down at her.

  “I know!” she said.

  “I need—I need—I need—”

  “I know! I know what you need, darling Arthur!” She pulled a metal flask from her hip, her pack of smokes from her pocket, and waved them both in the air over her head. “I’m a nurse, remember!”

  Arthur straightened for one last roar, a roar of intent, as dark a promise as it had ever been, but this time it was also a roar of sheer joy. “I love life!” he bellowed. “Aaargh!”

  * * *

  On a poorly lit, emptied street, Kit dismounted, hobbled Moopsy, then approached, in great curiosity, the tiny woman riding the motorized submarine steadily down the street’s center. She held her penknife under one arm like a lance, and was muttering something about commercial artists and wildlife painters lucky enough to be born Native.

  Kit felt a surge of inevitability deep inside his generally amorphous body, as if a thousand instincts had been triggered at the sight that met his eyes. He slimed forward on an intercept course.

  The woman screamed as the submarine’s splayed nose rammed into Kit, who tried a scream of his own and was pleased at its shrill, bestial madness. His tentacles lashed out, gripping the submarine and holding it fast. Lucy Mort stood up and hefted the penknife, her legs spraddled to keep balance on the pitching deck. “Die, bastard from the deep!” she yelled.

  Idly, Kit reached up, flipped the puny penknife from her hands, encircled the woman, and boldly lifted her into the air. Her arms thrashed, her hair tossed, her legs kicked, all with equal ineffectivity, and her last shriek was a tinny, hopeless cry. “Help me! Help meeee!!” Kit studied her a moment longer, then ate her in a blinding flash.

  He finished the scene by shrilling some more and bashing the submarine into pieces; then he returned to Moopsy, who’d watched the whole thing with tail wagging. Kit mounted up, and they road westward to their date with destiny.

  * * *

  Max sat on a piece of rubble and observed the proceedings. The media had arrived, adding to the chaos of the scene at the foot of the Pyramid’s steps. What was wors
e, they’d found the homeless—most of whom had survived the crash, which had proved unlucky for them, as the media crews, upon discovering real homeless people, had descended on them with a flurry of heart-bleeding angst.

  The predictable end result was being played out below. A woman stood above the still form of Jojum, dead of a microphone shoved down his throat. A cameraman stood opposite her, a mounted spot bathing the reporter and the body in heavenly light. “This is Sandy Grit, MFFB News, coming to you from the central scene of devastation, where an even greater tragedy has occurred. You see this man below me, a poor homeless man, victimized by—I have no choice but to acknowledge it—by a mindless, news-hungry media that views all humanity with a cold, cynical eye. I am ashamed to call myself part of this profession. My God, what have we become? All this just for ratings? For revenue? To shock and entice you with the depravity of modern civilization? Is that all we’re here for? Well, let me tell you all right here and right now, MFFB isn’t like the rest. We’re not … animals, and we’re not going to take it anymore! You’ll see for yourself, my friends, soon enough, and that’s a promise from Sandy Grit, coming to you live from the foot of the Pyramid.”

  The light blinked out.

  “Move it!” the next reporter snarled, being pushed savagely by the rest of the reporters in the long line. “Mike! Get the camera rolling, dammit!” One of the lounging camera operators on the other side of Jojum’s body straightened and shouldered his camera.

  “This is Nick Steel, MKBM News Alive, coming to you from the Pyramid. I’m ashamed, deeply ashamed. Good God, is this what the media has come to? Well, not us at MKBM News, not on your life, nor on his—this poor victim of my senseless, spiteful colleagues—colleagues, how that sad truth galls me—”

  Max sighed. It was true, some things he was going to miss in the monastery, but, truth be told, television news wasn’t one of them.

  * * *

  Miraculously flung half a block from the 57 Wells, Joey “Rip” Sanger and John Gully strode quietly down the street. Each had faced death, had seen with wide-open eyes down its black, depthless maw, and each had emerged greatly changed, delivered, as it were, into a new, bright, promising world.

  Joey well knew the redcap had survived, somewhere, and the mantle of the Sanger legend had fallen to the boy, and it didn’t matter if he was ready for it or not, because that was the way of such things, to have it thrust upon you, leaving you no choice but to make do with what’s landed in your lap. He’ll do fine. So will Chan—just one more accident report to file, at least it straightened his back even if his head, striking dead-on that lamppost, was pushed right in until his eyes barely look over his collarbone. A survivable wound, for Wild Bill Chan. They’ll do all right, they’ll all do all right.

  “Whatcha planning now, Gully?”

  The philosopher shrugged. “Leave the world-changing efforts to Art.”

  “Art?”

  “Arthur Revell. You see him anywhere?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t.”

  “Exactly, he’s been saved, twice, once by his own revelation, and once by someone else—whoever she might be. He’s slipped back into the cracks, and you’ll know in the years to come, as those cracks start spreading, that he’s quietly doing his work, going about the task of intellectual disobedience, defying the rules of constraint, defying even the conventions of propriety, no matter what the context. As it all crumbles, my friend, you’ll know where it started. Right here, right now.”

  “Hot damn,” Joey sighed. “What a night. And you, Gully?”

  “Not sure. I think I’m done, for a while at least. You?”

  “Same for me.”

  They walked on in silence for a long time after that, and moments before they disappeared from view, their hands simultaneously linked—not in any sexual way, of course, but in a manly, proper way—and then they were gone.

  * * *

  Leaving at long last the end of the octopod’s tale. Kit and Moopsy found Andrew clawing his way out of the mangled back door of the Pyramid. After a long chase, Kit lassoed his former master in a wheat field and trussed the gibbering man up and then unceremoniously dragged him toward a hilltop (really just a rise, but for prairie folk it was a hill, damn near a mountain) where waited a flying saucer. Its ramp was down, and two other octopods riding dogs patrolled the perimeter.

  Kit rode Moopsy up the ramp, dragging a weeping Andy Breech in their wake, and then inside, into the blinding white light, where there waited an examination table and odd-shaped instruments with which to probe Andrew’s shrunken genitals for all eternity.

  After a moment the outriders also entered the shimmering craft. The ramp rose flush with the saucer’s underbelly. The vessel lifted into the night sky and climbed blindingly fast into the heavens.

  * * *

  Annie Trollop had been crushed ignobly in the rush and subsequent tumble down the endless steps of the Pyramid. So badly mangled was she that no one knew her, no one at all. Brandon Safeword’s body still haunts the alleys and streets of the city, seeking a head worthy of its astonishingly fit and trim body; and Penny Foote-Koobie lived her dreams out in the company of an increasingly exhausted but otherwise contented Neanderthal, who eventually gave up painting and became a stock analyst for four years before returning to his roots and a reunion with nature and the Mother and the cycles of life and death that, generally speaking, are packed with a lot of death.

  Arthur Revell and Faye disappeared, but don’t be fooled. They’re out there. Doing art and thereby conspiring the ruination of modern civilization.

  Hah hah! Ho ho!

  FISHIN’ WITH GRANDMA MATCHIE

  THIS IS WHERE I WANT TO START

  The Meaning of School and All That:

  It’s not my fault! It has to do with a lot of things. Special things, like Bigness. When I think of the world’s Bigness I think of a ball of fishing line that’s all tangled up and no matter how hard Dad tries he can’t find where it starts or where it ends and the tackle box tips over then and he steps on a rubber worm that rolls and the next thing you know Dad’s in the lake. It’s like that.

  So you follow the line this way and it loops into a knot and goes off that way. But you just got to keep following it, because Bigness leads to the Truth, and the Truth’s important. If you don’t know what I mean then I’ll show you just like this:

  Just like this:

  In the Olden Days they used to have Jesters. Jesters talked about Plain Things as if those things were fat and skinny and tall and short. But sometimes the Jesters made those things too fat or too skinny or too tall or too short, and then they were bad and Not to be Tolerated, and then the king would stick them in a corner and make them wear a Dunce Cap.

  Now, the corner is a funny place. You stare at the walls where they meet, and you begin to understand the importance of the Bigness of Things. And it all starts Making Sense. This is the place where children who are Not Yet Considered Adults go, when kings and teachers get all fretful about children with Overwrought Imaginations.

  You see, when you’re sitting there with your feet not even touching the floor, you stare at those walls where they meet and you know you can’t fit between them because there’s no crack. And that’s when you suddenize that no matter how small you are, you’re never small enough.

  Which is just what the kings and teachers want you to suddenize.

  LIFE starts with a Foolish Pleading of your case:

  But it really happened. Just like I wrote it, three weeks during summer vacation, and summer vacation is the time for dreams. Just because school had started it shouldn’t mean things that were true in the summer weren’t true now. Isn’t that right?

  But the Bigness of Things tells you in No Uncertain Terms (that’s what she says: “in No Uncertain Terms”): No, Jock Junior, that is not right.

  You’d think she’d know better.

  Now, the first day of school and how it all came about:

  My teacher was a nose and that�
��s all she was, just a nose and some wispy hair around it. If she had eyes, they were hiding somewhere in the blackness of her giant nostrils. The nose gloomed over all of us, and snarted hotly, and we sweated a lot in that room.

  The first thing you’d notice about that room is that it had four corners, all empty now because it’s the first day of school. And the next thing you’d notice is that none of the corners have cracks, though of course you’d only see that if you were sitting in those corners, one after another. So you can trust me when I say there’s no cracks in them, okay?

  And by the window there’s an aquarium with one fish in it. Sometimes I slip him notes, helping him plan his escape, but he never answers them, so I figure he’s got a plan of his own. Thing is, I don’t think he’s very smart.

  And I’ll tell you a Secret. Something I’ve figured out. Look at the windows. See those cardboard faces pasted to them? There’s a face for each one of us in the room, except Big Nose herself. Look at them. They have holes for eyes and holes for nostrils but drawn-in mouths. And that’s my Secret. So don’t tell anyone, especially Big Nose.

  Of course I’m not old enough to see these things, nor to understand the Importance of Telling the Truth. I’m Not to be Tolerated, I’m Precocious. Only it wasn’t me who said those things, which are Big things. And it wasn’t me who knew how to spell them. But we’re here to learn how to spell.

  Tell the truth about what you did in the summer, Big Nose told us sweating faces. And I made my eyes into slivery slits and thought about things, cool and calculating like. It may have been her understanding that there were no little jesters hiding among us, I think. She didn’t say which summer, but we’ve already been taught to understand the need not to have to say Certain Things. But then I think: It may have been her plan to Ferret me out.