The Empire of Gut and Bone

by M. T. Anderson

  The generator was in the basement of the Keep, buried deep in the tissue of the Dry Heart. The door read No ADMITTANCE.

  Gwynyfer threw it open, and they walked in.

  Gwestin and another servant, dressed in grubby overalls, shoveled dry manure from carts into a huge furnace. The heat was unbearable.

  “Mr. Gwestin!” Brian yelled over the roaring. “Mr. Gwestin, it’s Brian Thatz.”

  Gwestin turned from his work. He said something to his partner, jammed his shovel in the heap, and walked over, wiping his hands on a handkerchief.

  “No admittance, sirs and madam,” he said, pointing to the door.

  “We’ve just got to ask you one question,” said Gregory.

  The man frowned.

  Brian rushed to add, “We’re really sorry you’re down here. We think it might be on our account.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I am sorry I am down here, too. What have you come to ask me? You need to leave. If Lord Dainsplint discovers I’ve talked to you, it could mean …” He rumpled his mouth and shrugged.

  Brian and Gregory looked at each other. Then Brian explained, “It’s about two days ago. Were you asked to take a uniform down to the prison and leave it on a bench there?”

  “Yes.”

  “We were wondering,” said Gregory, “by who?”

  “By who?”

  “… were you asked?”

  “By note,” said Gwestin. “The uniform and a note were tucked in my mail slot. They had the seal of the Imperial Council on them. The note asked me, on behalf of the Council, to go down to the prison and ask to see the automaton Dantsig. I was told to leave the uniform folded on a bench without any of the guards observing.”

  Gregory said, “And you didn’t ask any questions?”

  “The note had the Imperial Council’s wax seal on it.”

  “You didn’t think it was at all suspicious?”

  Gwestin looked a little annoyed. “I have learned, sir, in my capacity as a servant to a court of pranksters, that I should not ask questions when told to fill a bed with herrings, or burn off another servant’s hair, or apply glue to certain gargoyles. We do not have much choice in what we do, sirs, madam. We are in debt to the Court and we serve them. They are our rightful rulers, whatever we may think. Though we may fear they make a mockery of our Imperial Highness’s wishes, it is not our place to question.”

  “Can we see the note?” Brian asked.

  Gwestin shook his head. “I destroyed it, sir, when I was done. It specified destruction.”

  “Because the handwriting …” Brian began, but Gwestin interrupted him.

  “And now I am here in the basement shoveling dung, when I wished only to serve our gracious monarch, the Stub — may he long prosper, and may his eye never shut. I wished only to wait upon the proud Imperial throne that my family has bowed before for millennia. But Lord Dainsplint, seeing you speak with me, felt this service would prove to be a better channel for my enthusiasms.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  Brian, Gregory, and Gwynyfer thanked him. He stood looking at them accusingly. He still had to go back to shoveling manure. Brian felt awful. He didn’t know what to say. He apologized again. Gwestin nodded and walked away, back to his shovel. He dug it into the mound, and began heaving.

  The furnace roared.

  They had not gone far when they ran into a Court sorcerer striding through a door from the huge hillock of trash outside. The stench of garbage blowing in was overwhelming. The wizard was an old, thin-nosed man with a short, clipped, salt-and-pepper beard. His double-breasted suit was too wide for him, and slumped at the shoulders. He was followed by a troop of guards. The door slammed shut behind him with the clatter of a crash-bar.

  They knew he was a wizard because he introduced himself. He bowed to Gwynyfer and said, “The Wizard Thoth-Chumley presents himself to the daughter of Duke Gwarnmore of the Globular Colon and expresses his wish that the entrails of this Great Body shall align to bring the young woman great luck and happiness.” She curtsied and flattered him in reply.

  When he bowed to the boys, the suitcoat drooped and his necktie almost slithered out. Catching it, Thoth-Chumley said, “To the human ambassadors, Brian Thatz and Gregory Stoffle, I present my greetings. I have been charged with the investigation of the murder of our late Regent, Lord Telliol-Bornwythe. I think you know the mannequins who are under suspicion. Is that right?”

  Keeping an eye on the guards, Brian nodded cautiously.

  Thoth-Chumley looked unhappy. He fished in his suit pocket and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag. In it was what looked like a furry, brown bug.

  “All morning, men have been sifting the hill of trash. And we found this.” He shook the bag.

  “What is it?” said Gregory.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Yeah. Shouldn’t you flush it?”

  Thoth-Chumley shook the bag again. “Mr. Stoffle, it is a goatee. We found a false goatee in the garbage.” He smeared its tendrils through the plastic. “See the glue? It has been attached to someone’s chin.” He waved his hand vaguely, and a guard stepped forward with an extra helmet. “The goatee was found concealed in litter, rolled in a tunic, and crammed in this helm. We assume these disguised the killer. He or she took some trouble to bury them in the trash heap.” Thoth-Chumley stuffed the bag of beard back in his suit pocket. He crossed his arms. “Perhaps the young people understand what this means?”

  Gregory shook his head, confused, but Brian exclaimed, “It means Dantsig didn’t do it, and you know it.”

  Thoth-Chumley nodded, a grim look in his eye. “For your machine Dantsig, there would be no faux goatee. You’d only need a faux goatee if you wanted to look like him and you didn’t have anything on your chin. And there’s also the helm and uniform we found. The automaton Dantsig left his on the bench in the prison, right back where he got them. He didn’t want there to be any suspicion the next morning. So it appears, boys, Miss Gwarnmore, there were two false guards wandering through the palace that night. And one of them was trying to frame your mechanical friend for the Regent’s murder.” The Wizard Thoth-Chumley frowned. “The Court will not be pleased with this news. I wish we hadn’t found this. No one wants to hear the murderer is one of us. I don’t think things will go well for me.” He shook his head. “I don’t like my chances of outliving the week.”

  Brian, however, was excited. “But now you know it’s not Dantsig!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you believe he’s innocent!”

  “It could be anyone. The whole Court had their motives. The whole Imperial Council. Lord Dainsplint, his friend Count Gugs Ffines-Whelter, all of them … These people own New Norumbega. The Dry Heart belongs to them. They own huge estates in other organs. They would have been ruined if the Regent’s plan had gone through, and the Court had abandoned this city for our old kingdom on Earth. They all probably wanted to kill him.” He looked like he had a headache. “So many people to question.” He scraped his shoe on the floor and a wad of wet cling wrap dragged behind it. He said, “At least we’re out of the garbage for a while.”

  He waved to the men behind him. “Come on,” he said. “We need to arrange interviews.” He bowed to Gwynyfer and spoke politely of her future fortune.

  As he walked off down the corridor, they heard him issuing orders: “We have a lot to do, gents. Eochaid, find me the Lord High Seneschal. Edward, take the evidence to the office. Aillil, find a sandwich for me somewhere. I need to stop by my chamber and grab a protective amulet. It’s a cinch there’s going to be a formal curse on me by dinnertime.”

  He left behind him the clot of cling wrap sticking to the floor.

  Upstairs in the Grand Hall, the Court gathered to hear the refugees from distant Throats tell tales of the Mannequin Resistance. Gregory, Brian, and Gwynyfer squeezed in, peering over shoulders.

  The noblemen and women, the counts and countesses and duchesses and lordlings, were dr
essed as if for some weird underground medieval banquet. They wore spreading hats and long sleeves and tunics and gemmed stockings, and they waited on either side of an aisle that led directly to the foldaway panels that hid the Stub. The refugees stood humbly in a line, waiting for their turn to approach the throne. Their clothes were blackened with smoke.

  With a flourish of buzzing instruments played by boys in peaked caps, the panels were drawn aside, revealing the dark, crayoned interior of the throne room. There sat the Imperial Council in unmatched chairs painted gold. The largest chair — the Regent’s — was empty.

  The Stub rested upon its cushion. Someone had placed a collar of white ermine around it and laid a crown on its lump. The single eye darted about fearfully, wincing at the honking fanfare of fairy trumpets. The crown was starting to slip.

  Gregory, Brian, and Gwynyfer were at the back of the crowd of courtiers. Brian had to keep bobbing up on his toes to see.

  Lord Dainsplint came forward and announced, “His Sublime Highness the Stub, Emperor of Old Norumbega, New Norumbega, and the Whole Dominion of the Innards, Elector of the Bladders, Prince of the Gastric Wastes, Sovereign of Ducts Superior and Inferior, Lord of All, is prepared to hear the supplications of his people. Come forward and prostrate yourself before his mercy!” He bowed and retreated to his seat.

  One of the refugees — an old man — tottered forward. He stopped a few feet from the Stub and, with a show of joint pain, slowly got down on his knees, then his belly. He lay facedown, arms spread.

  His muffled voice floated faintly over the silent crowd. “… of Dellwich … His Imperial … wishes to present his complaint to …”

  “Louder!” yelled courtiers. “Louder!”

  “Speak up!”

  The old man on the floor cleared his throat, and, louder, said, “… presents his compliments to the Court of New Norumbega. May Your Imperial Highness never see sorrow. May Your Highness never see tears.”

  “Story!” someone shouted.

  “Yes, story!”

  The man lying spread on the floor said, “The Mannequin Resistance surrounded our town, Your Highness.”

  “Quite impossible,” said Lord Dainsplint. “They can’t raise a hand against a Norumbegan.”

  “They have worked out excuses, your lordship,” said the man. “Lies to themselves that allow them to act against us. They took most of our townspeople prisoner. They called it picnicking. Most of the population of the town is still picnicking behind a barbed-wire fence.”

  At this, the Court stirred uneasily.

  “And, sir,” said the Earl of Munderplast, “how did you and your family escape?”

  “Hopping in sacks, your lordship. The mannequins could not fire upon us, seeing as we were merely entering into the spirit of the picnic. They had no excuse. The sheriff of Dellwich and his deputies almost made it out by simulating a three-legged race. Until they tore their handkerchiefs and neckties off their ankles and began to sprint in earnest, firing their guns. They destroyed three or four of the mannequins. Then the mannequins … they raised their muskets and killed them all.” The man shook his head. “All dead,” he whispered into the floor. “The sheriff, the deputies.”

  At this, there was a mutter of horror. Men growled: “They should allow us to kill them.” — “The impudence!” — “They are ours to kill.” — “They die when we say, ‘Die!’ ”

  “What are … what do the blighters want?” Gugs asked anxiously.

  “They claim that we have no right over them or their land. They want the guts for themselves. They want the Regent to declare them independent of the Empire. They say that if they are not given their independence, then they will depose the Regent … for the good, they say, of the Norumbegan people. They claim they fight for us, Your Highness, not against us. This is their excuse. And at the same time, they threaten us.”

  More refugees were asked to come forward. They all had stories of terrible politeness, unutterable courtesy: a heavy knock on their doors at midnight, followed by a beautifully engraved invitation to be arrested … robot captors shaking hands before shackling their prisoners … clockwork men kicking in windows and grabbing screaming kids, all the while apologizing profusely for the mess and promising to clean up if madam would simply direct them to a dustpan and broom.

  Hearing these tales, Brian didn’t know what to think. Up until this point, he had, he realized, kind of been on the side of the mannequins. He could completely understand why they would want to rebel against the Norumbegans, who strode into their villages and shut them all down, who killed them without even believing that they could feel pain or sadness or horror.

  But now he didn’t know. In spite of their politeness, the mannequins sounded brutal. They imprisoned whole villages. They shot people who tried to escape. He couldn’t figure out who was right.

  And the anxiety of not knowing struck him as awful, like not knowing which way was up after stumbling off a fairground ride. He put his feet down as if the ground was solid, but discovered instead he’d been spun around too much, and the pavement retreated and the grass got closer and he thought he’d throw up his cotton candy.

  He took a deep breath and got into line behind the last refugee.

  He had something to say.

  Brian stood in front of the Stub. “Your Highness,” he said, and he bowed.

  “Get on the floor,” said Lord Dainsplint.

  Brian would not get down on the floor in front of this Court. He was no servant of theirs.

  “I’m not …” he said uncertainly, “I’m not getting down on the floor. I’m a, you know, an ambassador. I can stand.” He didn’t wait for anyone to argue against him. Feeling himself blush, he simply launched into what he had planned to say. “I just want to say to the Court that you have got to think about your ancient rights. Um, my lord the Earl of Munderplast, you’re always talking about how things were better in the olden days, and you, Lord Dainsplint, you’re always talking about how you want to have great parties. Well, I need to remind you that everything you used to have could be yours again. It’s all just sitting there — a whole kingdom from the good old days — and all you have to do is go kick out the Thusser. The Earth is … well, the Thusser Horde is spreading over the face of the Earth, and human cities will fall. And then they’ll start to look for new places to conquer, and who knows, maybe they’ll look here? So, I suggest that you think about what the Regent said before he was killed, and —”

  “Didn’t the runt try this once before?” Gugs asked. He tapped his head. “Unless my old wiring’s on the fritz.”

  “No, we’ve heard it before,” said Lord Dainsplint.

  “I know it might be hard to fight the Thusser,” said Brian, “but you’re the only ones who can enforce the Rules and —”

  “We can’t enforce the Rules of your Game,” said Dainsplint.

  “It’s not my Game,” said Brian. “It’s yours.”

  “But,” said the Ex-Empress Elspeth, “we wouldn’t enforce the Rules. What, with a whistle and a pair of grubby shorts? No, I recall — do you remember, Randall? The sorcerers at the time engaged some Rules Keepers. Referees. They would enforce the Rules. We’d just have to activate them. Then they would take care of the whole ruddy mess.”

  Brian was wild-eyed with hope. “So why don’t you do that? You could just do that?”

  “Because,” Lord Dainsplint insisted, “we have better things to do with our afternoons.”

  “That’s crazy!” said Brian. “All you have to do is claim what’s rightfully yours! You could so easily save the Earth!”

  “Not quite so eazers, Mr. Thatz,” said the Ex-Empress Elspeth. “Do you know how to activate Rules Keepers?”

  “Where are they?” Brian demanded hysterically. Wildly, he pictured a big on-off switch.

  “In another world, darling,” said the Ex-Empress. “And don’t forget, we’ve lost all of our paperwork over the last several hundred years. No one remembers the Rules of the Game
. The Thusser wizards set it up with us and no one wants to ask them for advice, the old cows.”

  “And the rest of us,” said Lord Dainsplint, “are too, too bored. Let us move on.”

  Brian got the distinct and irritating feeling that the elfin councillors were being so stubborn precisely because it would be so easy for them to help.

  Then the Earl of Munderplast rose. He wore a scarlet velvet shift and a skullcap. “Beausires,” he said, bowing to the Court, “I argue for our ancient hunting grounds and palaces. I do not think that the human cubling is necessarily wrong. Imagine, I ask you, the glories that were once Norumbega. If we could walk again among those ruins, would it not be a grand thing?”

  Brian looked at the earl, full suddenly of hope.

  The earl continued, “The Melancholy Party would like to consider investigating the method by which we might call forth the Rules Keepers to enforce the Rules. And I, as a candidate for the Regency of the Stub, proclaim that if I am elected, I will reclaim the sunken kingdom of Norumbega for our use, not so that I may lead us to a brighter future, of course — out of the question, I’m afraid; there’s naught to come but doom and bale — but to a more deliciously gloomy appreciation of everything we shall never again be, all the tears wept which shall never —”

  He stopped speaking. He was looking out over the crowd, his eyes focused peculiarly on the sliding glass doors that led from the Grand Hall out onto the balcony.

  Everyone turned.

  Something flashed, out in the desert.

  A marquis slid one of the doors open and stepped out on the balcony, his hand over his eyes.

  The city below was in turmoil. The sound of horns and cries drifted up to the palace.

  “What’s that?” said Lord Dainsplint. “Sounds like unrest. I suppose one of us should swan out on the terrace and throw down pieces of eight.”

  “My lord,” said the marquis on the balcony. “It’s the valves. Into the flux.”

  People rushed to peer out the doors. Brian found himself crushed against the wall, barely able to see.

  There were gasps and exclamations of surprise. He ducked. He peered through the crook of a baronet’s elbow.