Virtue Inverted

by Piers Anthony

  “Tourist junk,” Beranger said, disgusted. “Fake gold trinkets, false pearls, glass gems, polished brass coins. The idiot thought anything that sparkled was valuable. Put it back.”

  Benny took the box and shoved it back in its hole. He had been fooled too.

  “You worked at the inn, boy,” Beranger said. “You know what to do.”

  Benny did. They closed off the cellar, then Benny ground some of the grain in the giant's huge mortar and pestle and used the flour to make crude pancakes for dinner, cooked on the out-sized grill. It wasn't nearly as good as what Laughing Jack or Nadia routinely made, but it sufficed. The men ate them without comment, evidently not expecting anything better.

  They slept on the second floor platform. “Want to take your turn?” Beranger asked.

  He had a choice? “Yes.” Benny was determined to pull his weight.

  “First shift.” The other two flopped down and were immediately asleep, or emulating it, despite the hours they had spent snoring in the wagon. Benny sat up, gazing around and listening. After a few minutes the snoring stopped; they were no longer faking it. But they would surely wake instantly if there were any reason to. That business with the giant proved that; Beranger had been more than ready when the time came.

  The giant. Now that he had quiet time, Benny pondered that. Yes, Kidneywart had been a rough brute who preyed on travelers and ate people, literally. But Benny had steered into his lair despite the posted warning. The giant had played fair, letting travelers know the danger; they could readily have avoided it. So while Benny didn't like Kidneywart, he really could not blame him for being what he was. Had it been right to kill him? True, little short of that would have saved Benny's life, once he had blundered into that trap. He did owe Beranger his life. So it was better not to question the man's decisions.

  Beranger: he was rough and tough, all right, but his abilities had to be respected. Interesting that he tolerated Benny's presence, knowing that Benny had joined them on a foolish whim.

  And what of Nadia? Was she justified in hankering for Beranger despite his appearance? Women liked men of power, just as men liked women of beauty; such combinations were standard in marriage. Maybe it showed that she was at heart sensible.

  And finally himself: why had he done it? Abruptly deciding to join the adventurers, instead of staying safely home or at the inn? When trouble came, he had never even thought to try to use the fine old sword Jack had given him. Some warrior he was! He was not at all cut out for this rough life. Yet here he was. He could make no real sense of any of this, least of all his own place in it.

  Cycleze stirred, stretched, and sat up. “My turn,” he said.

  Had his shift passed already? Benny realized that hours had passed while he pondered. So he didn't argue. He lay down and soon slept, satisfied that he had done his part.

  In the morning they woke, pissed, pooped, washed, and ate more pancakes. They closed up the stronghold; soon enough another giant would discover it and make it his own. Then they were on their way again.

  The giant's trail intersected the main road, and that led to the town of Galver Dorn. It was larger than Gant, with many outlying fields, orchards, and huts. It had a more civilized look. Benny realized that he had grown up in the hinterland, out of touch with the larger world.

  Beranger took over the reins and guided them to a meat wholesaler on the edge of town. “Got a fresh load of meat for you, harvested yesterday,” he told the attendant.

  “What kind?” the man asked.

  “Giant.”

  The man laughed. Then Beranger lifted the canvas cover. The man stopped laughing. “Oh.”

  “It's good meat, and cheap,” Beranger said. “You don't need to advertise where it came from. It'll be just as good in stew and meat pies and to feed the dogs.”

  “Uh, yes,” the man agreed. They bargained for a price, and hands unloaded the wagon and hosed it off to clear most of the blood.

  Benny was relieved that they hadn't actually eaten any of it themselves.

  Duke Dijon resided in a downtown multistory building. Benny tried to conceal his amazement at his first experience with either downtown—villages lacked them—and many-floored buildings, ditto. The Fox Den Inn was the only one he had known with a third story. He really was a country boy.

  Dijon was a portly bald man in a dark suit. If he was really a duke he didn't show it, but there was an air of authority about him. He greeted Beranger like an old friend, as perhaps he was. It was clear that Beranger had many obscure connections. “We have two situations, each dire in its own way. We really need your help,” he said. He didn't ask who Beranger's companions were; maybe he preferred not to know.

  Beranger got to the point. “We'll take them one at a time. What's the fee?”

  “One pound bag of gold.” He presented the bag.

  “Per situation,” Beranger said.

  Dijon opened his mouth to protest, then reconsidered. “You always were a hard bargainer.”

  Beranger took the bag, opened it, and dumped it out on the table, making a small pile of bright gold coins. He carefully bit each coin, verifying its nature. “This is no ordinary mission,” he said. “You could buy a small army for this.”

  “That's right. No ordinary man will tackle it, and no army either, but the need is desperate. I'm depending on you. You have a way of accomplishing things.”

  “You can depend on me,” Beranger agreed. “But before I take this money, I need to know what it's for. I'm not into political assassination: too many legal complications.”

  “No politics,” Dijon agreed. “Zombies.”

  “Shit!” Beranger swore. “I don't like zombies.”

  “Nobody does,” Dijon said evenly. “That's why this is a problem.”

  Beranger looked at him. Then he looked at the gold. “I should have known it would be something like this.”

  “Will you do it?”

  Beranger looked at Cycleze. Cycleze shrugged.

  Beranger looked at Benny. “Uh, I don't know anything about zombies,” Benny said. “Except that I prefer to stay far away from them.”

  “We'll do it,” Beranger said, piling the coins back into the bag and putting it away. “Now you tell Benny here exactly what he needs to know.”

  Benny was startled, but Dijon didn't question this. Evidently he was used to Beranger's nuances. Maybe it was Beranger's way of not admitting that there were things he didn't know about zombies. “There are different kinds of zombies,” he said. “They are all half dead, really animated corpses. They have no feeling of pain and are virtually mindless. Those who are freshly dead can seem almost alive, while those that have been dead for years can be walking tatters of rotten flesh. New ones can still see and hear, to a degree, and have fair coordination, but all that fades in days. Old ones lose their ears and eyeballs and can readily be avoided. Some keep largely to themselves; others go looking for human flesh to eat. Some will even do odd chores in return for being tolerated, and females can have their clienteles though it's not safe to kiss them. It is important to know which kind you are dealing with. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Benny said with a shudder. “What kind must we deal with?”

  “New ones, maybe three days old. That means they can be dangerous when they attack, despite going blind and their inoperative digestive systems.”

  “Why do they attack?”

  Dijon smiled mirthlessly. “We don't exactly know what goes on in the so-called minds of zombies. But we conjecture that they vaguely know that they will soon enough rot away unless they get infusions of fresh living flesh. So they crave it. Their senses are degraded, but they know when living flesh is near, and go after it. That is the problem in our sister city of Elim Dorn: only about a quarter of the citizens were zombied, but those ones immediately went after the living ones, and will continue until all are consumed. So the population may now be down to half its original total, and diminishing daily. The citizens are too freaked out to figh
t back effectively. They need efficient leadership. Speed is of the essence.”

  “But how did that quarter get zombied in the first place?”

  “Some background here: a wizard--” He paused. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “Not really,” Benny said.

  “You'll get over that when you encounter it. The leading wizard of the city set up to craft a spell to cure a plague of flu they were experiencing. He's a good wizard, but he's getting old, and he made a mistake. He converted the flu virus to a zombie virus, and suddenly there were zombies in place of flu sufferers. So these are fresh ones, and there are many of them. They have to be promptly abolished, so that the damage spreads no further. The only way to abolish a zombie is to kill it, and that can be tricky.”

  “How can you kill something that's already dead?”

  Dijon nodded. “How indeed! More correctly, you have to disable it, usually by pulling it apart and scattering the pieces, so that they can't function as a unit any more. It's a dirty business. They may twitch for weeks, but eventually they'll rot away. They can be dumped in a pit and left alone, and the pit can be sprayed to abate the odor.”

  “Yuk!”

  “You will have proper tools, of course: protective over-clothes, waterproof boots, gauntlets, face masks. Swords. They are not actually contagious, even when they bite you; the flu was contagious, but when it became a zombie virus it infected only those already infected, if you appreciate what I mean. But it remains a challenge. If you receive enough zombie bites, you will die of trauma, or you could be smothered under piled bodies.”

  There was a pause. Then Beranger stood. “We'll take care of it.”

  “Then go and get outfitted. We wish you the best of success, and that is most sincere. We can't renovate Elim Dorn until it is entirely clear of zombies.”

  They departed the office without further word. Beranger knew where the outfitting store was, and before long the three of them were properly equipped. Theoretically they were ready, but Benny dreaded what was to come.

  Chapter 8

  It was afternoon as they rode the wagon on the road to Elim Dorn, with Beranger holding the reins. Now Cycleze spoke to Benny. “Two things for you, lad.”

  “Me?” Benny asked, startled because this was the first time the strange man had addressed him directly.

  “First: why didn't the Duke throw a fit when we doubled the price?”

  Benny hadn't thought of that. “I guess he knew it was pointless to argue terms with Dale.”

  Beranger let out a laugh that sounded almost like breaking wind.

  “Try again, lad,” Cycleze said.

  So this was another test. Why was Cycleze doing it, instead of Beranger? That was a question for another day. “I guess he really wanted the jobs done, whatever the price, and knew he couldn't get anybody else.”

  “Closer,” Beranger said, amused. “But your naivety could kill you.”

  “Don't miss it again, lad,” Cycleze said, and there was something in his tone that made Benny shiver.

  He struggled. This seemingly innocent question was not innocent at all. There was a deadly purpose behind it. Something he needed to figure out in a hurry. That his life could depend on. Not from any threat by the men, but by what he didn't understand. What could it be?

  Then he got it: “Dijon thinks we won't survive the zombie mission! So what's the point arguing about what the second one will cost? He won't have to pay it anyway. He might even recover his gold from our dead bodies. With luck, we'll have taken out most of the zombies, reducing the problem for others.”

  Both men nodded. It seemed that Benny had learned proper cynicism for this kind of life. To understand hidden motives.

  “And the second thing,” Benny said. “We need to act to make sure we do survive it.”

  There was no response. That meant his answer was incomplete.

  “And since I'm the weak spot in this team, you need to train me how to survive zombie combat. So I don't mess up and put you in unnecessary danger.”

  Both men nodded. He had passed.

  They halted in a secluded glade in the forest, and let the horse graze while they practiced. Beranger scouted around and fetched three dead pine branches. “Here's your sword,” he said, handing one to Benny. Cycleze took the third.

  “We can't practice with our real weapons?” Benny asked. Then he corrected himself. “Because I'd be dead before I learned my mistake.”

  “The kid's got promise,” Beranger remarked to Cycleze. “Okay, I'm a zombie. So's Cy. Fastest way to nullify me is to cut off my head so I can't see or hear.”

  “Or bite,” Benny said with a shudder.

  “Zombies do have a bit of brain, enough to enable them to orient on living prey. Failing that, cut off my arms so I can't grab you. Or my legs, so I can't chase you. Now for this practice, don't hit hard; we don't want to hurt each other.”

  “Not hard,” Benny agreed nervously. He stepped away from Cycleze, suspecting that the man would rap him if he didn't, having been labeled a zombie. Cycleze nodded and did not pursue.

  Beranger came at him, suddenly clumsy. He took wide, tottering steps and flailed his arms, seeming just about to fall over. It was almost comical, and Benny laughed.

  Beranger's stick rapped against his shielded neck with a loud thwack! “You're dead,” Beranger said.

  Oops. There was nothing funny about a zombie, no matter how he walked.

  They tried again. This time Benny blocked Beranger's deliberately clumsy blow and thwacked him neatly on the neck guard. Then he reconsidered. “Wait! Do Zombies use swords or sticks?”

  Beranger threw away his stick. “They don't,” he agreed. “But they do swing their arms, and bite.”

  They tried again. This time Benny struck Beranger's shoulder guard, theoretically cutting off the arm. The man staggered and fell against him. Suddenly his gaping mouth was in Benny's face. “You're dead,” he said. “Don't let him clinch you, even one-armed. It's the teeth that will hurt you.”

  He was, of course, correct. Thereafter, Benny made sure not to let him get within touching range without losing his head, literally.

  “You're catching on,” Beranger said approvingly.

  In due course they resumed travel. As evening closed in, they came to the town of Elim Dorn. It looked much like Galver Dorn; there was no sign of mayhem. Maybe this was an undamaged section.

  Cycleze paused to extend his arms up as if addressing some celestial deity. “The case is worse than we thought,” he said after a moment. “There are few if any survivors. The town is lost.”

  He could tell that just by feeling the air?

  “We'd better hole up in a house for the night,” Beranger said. “One with a sealable stable; they eat horses, too.”

  “Did Dijon know?” Benny asked.

  Both men nodded. “We're a suicide mission,” Beranger said. “He thinks.”

  They drew up to an outlying cottage with an attached enclosed stable. Benny jumped down to check it out. A young woman came around the corner of the house, bare to the waist. She saw Benny and smiled, so glad to see a live man. She ran to embrace him, her face coming to meet his.

  And dropped to the ground as Beranger's sword cut off her head.

  “Hey!” Benny exclaimed, appalled. “She was alive!”

  “No. Feel her,” Beranger said. He caught Benny's hand and pressed it against the girl's back. It was clammy cold. Also, her severed neck was not bleeding, just oozing ichor. She was a zombie. “She was going to bite your face off.”

  “But she looked so real,” Benny said. “She smiled when she saw me. She wasn't clumsy at all.”

  “These are very fresh zombies,” Beranger said. “They still have all their flesh. The smile was her opening her mouth to take a bite. She ran like a zombie. You weren't looking at her legs.”

  It was true. Benny had been looking at her bare breasted front. Now, he realized that a real live girl would not have exposed herself that way to a
stranger. Zombies didn't care about clothing; they left it in place simply because they didn't notice it, and soon enough it fell away. And now he thought of it, her breasts had not bounced as live ones would; they had been fixed in place, maybe in a stage of rigor mortis.

  “You're learning,” Beranger said.

  He was, indeed.

  The house was empty. They entered it and found it to be in good order. The occupants must have fled when the zombie menace developed. . . and been caught in the open.

  They put the horse in the associated stall with plenty of feed and water, and boarded it up so that zombies could not get in the openings. Zombies couldn't use tools any more than swords, so fairly simple precautions could balk them.

  They made sure of the house, similarly, nailing boards across the windows, as zombies could break the glass with their unfeeling hands. Then they heated supper over the glass chimney of a kerosene lamp and settled in for the night, alternating watches.

  Benny took the first shift again. Soon there were sounds. Zombies trying to get in!

  Benny checked nervously, and verified it. Clumsy hands were reaching into windows, not caring that shards of broken glass were slicing them. Zombies didn't bleed anyway, or feel pain. But they couldn't get past the boards, and lacked the expertise or insight to remove them. Benny didn't wake the others, he just watched, clenching the haft of his sword, nervously making sure.

  In due course Cycleze came to relieve him. “You didn't panic. That's good.”

  “I would have panicked if they had gotten inside.”

  “They'll all be here by morning,” he said. “We'll be socked in.”

  “Are—are we doomed?”

  “No. We want them to gather in close.”

  “We do?”

  “Easier to wipe them out together.”

  “But suppose we—we get overwhelmed?”

  “We won't be. There are things the Duke doesn't know, and you must not share what you learn here with him, or anyone else.”

  “I won't share,” Benny promised. “But what doesn't he know?”

  “Beranger is pretty much what he seems: a tough, experienced adventurer and warrior. I am not what I seem.”