by Max Anthony
Determined to kill these hateful offshoots of his body, Skulks wasted no time in dashing towards them, hoping to clonk their heads together as a stern father might do to his wastrel children. Before he could reach them, something powerful took hold of his leg and hoisted him into the air. Skulks wriggled and struggled, but the owner of the grip was immensely powerful and was reluctant to release him. He felt himself whirled around a single time in the wide corridor before he was contemptuously hurled with the greatest of ease a good thirty feet along the remaining length of the corridor and into a room, where he crashed against the far wall. As he flew, Skulks did his best to turn in the air in order to cushion the inevitable impact. Having been sorely misused by a variety of magely repulsion spells in the recent past, Skulks was now quite adept at the mid-air flip and therefore suffered little more than severe bruising when his progress was finally halted. The collision jarred him badly and sent his remaining dagger-sword away across the floor of this new room, but he was otherwise only mildly concussed.
“You have been a thorn in my side for far too long!” came the petulant voice of Zera Graves. She was in this very same room, with her rear parked upon a desk. “And my king is most desirous of your demise, which I have been instructed to deliver to you in a thoroughly unpleasant and painful manner! Furthermore, it is my intention that…”
Her oration was interrupted by the abrupt disappearance of he to whom she spoke. Notwithstanding the danger he found himself in, Skulks was not a man who enjoyed listening to ramblings of nonsense, except where he was uttering said nonsense himself. Having overcome Jake the Headcracker by taking advantage of his love of free chicken, Zera Graves had begun to consider herself something of an expert in the field of Wielder catching. However, in the same way that Skulks knew little about the ways of necromancers, Zera Graves knew very little about the ways of stealthy Wielders. Consequently, she failed to move fast enough and it was with great delight that Skulks punched her in the side of the head, toppling her over onto the desk. A split second later, he’d emptied her pockets of the two stolen potions, thirty-two Slivers and also stolen a navel stud which she’d evidently purchased to replace the one Skulks had purloined at the Scurtle and Sons International Brewery.
Before Skulks could confirm that Graves was dead, a shape charged into the room. In here he was able to get a better look at it, confirming his worst fears. It comprised three huge, muscular arms stitched together at the top to form a tripod. As they ran, they made the pitter-pattering noise that had pursued Skulks along this floor of the morgue. Perched on top of the tripod was something that looked undeniably like a saddle with prominent handles, as if this strange beast were meant to be ridden like a horse. Skulks knew where these arms had come from - their former owner was currently in his office at the Chamber Building. Atop the saddle were Saucer Face and mini-Skulks, each holding a dagger-sword.
Not wishing to confront the arms and the two replicas of himself, Skulks kept hidden. The creature showed no particular skill in detection and it snatched up the prone body of Zera Graves. Then, it dashed back out of the room, running with two arms while the third held her over the saddle, between the two other passengers. There was a crashing noise in the distance and with that, it was gone.
Nineteen
Now very much sick of this grim building, Skulks stood alone in the silence of the room and spoke of his feelings about the missing dagger-swords.
“Balls!” he said. When this expletive failed to fully express the depths of his disquiet he spoke two more. “Bosoms and privies!”
Skulks had never been particularly articulate where expletives were concerned, but these words did provide him a small amount of succour and allowed him to focus his mind on the options before him. Having stolen the two potions and having incapacitated Zera Graves he had accomplished two tasks, but still had other tasks before him. Namely he had to revive Doris Grumps and Chamber Member Heathen Spout, destroy the work of Zera Graves and finally ensure that she and her steed were disposed of. As he pondered the matter, it became clear that he’d accomplished almost nothing.
On top of these most important issues, there were the smaller problems of Saucer Face and the mini-Skulks to deal with. Not only that, but the morgue was now teeming with re-animated bodies, the disposal of which probably fell under the remit of the Office of Covert Operations. Then there was the dratted Demon King Meugh, who kept popping up like the proverbial bad quarter Sliver.
Skulks was at his best when he worked alone, but he was not an accomplished multi-tasker. Generally, his goals could be distilled into a simple ‘steal X from house Y’, or ‘it’s time to head to a tavern’. Though he was learning fast, he was not too proud to know when he was in danger of being swamped, so he decided he should try and obtain some advice. Firstly, he had something he wanted to try, with a sneaky idea shouting out for attention in his mind. He was disturbed that his brain even had the temerity to come up with this particular idea, but now that he’d thought of it, he couldn’t unthink it.
“You’d be a fool not to try it!” spoke this idea. “Just think how happy everyone would be if it worked!” it continued, trying to appeal to the childlike desire to please that Skulks was vulnerable to.
Once he’d decided that no harm could come from his idea, Skulks made himself unseen and then checked the area for signs of an approaching mini-Skulks or Saucer Face. There was no indication that they had left the safety of their saddle in order to come back for a second go at killing him, which was unfortunate as Skulks desired the return of his stolen blades.
Off he crept, back to the waiting room on the ground floor. The re-animated dead were still here, lacking the imagination to wander off and find something interesting to do. Once again they were joined by a new member, who acted like one of their number, though this new entrant distinctly over-egged the pudding in terms of groaning and shuffling.
This time, the new corpse skirted around the edges of the pack instead of making its way across the room. Clumsily, it reached into its gown as if to root out an itch that it had suffered when alive. Had the other corpses been either curious or observant, they would have seen an unstoppered vial of some description appear in the hand of this new corpse. Wheezing through its dead lungs, the corpse spun and wheeled, distributing small droplets from the vial upon its compatriots nearby. Soundlessly, these nearby dead keeled over onto the floor and lay still.
“Aha!” exclaimed the new corpse, drawing unwanted attention upon itself. Quickly, it resumed its moaning and restless wandering until the suspicious eyes had diverted to other areas of the room.
Shortly, the new corpse had a different vial in its hand, also unstoppered. Droplets from the new vial were scattered upon those corpses which had so recently been toppled by the earlier administration of droplets from the first vial. These corpses twitched and jerked violently, kicking and banging the floor as they dragged themselves once more to their feet.
“Splendid!” shouted the new corpse, drawing yet more attention to the area in which it lurched. Suddenly aware of this attention, the new corpse looked accusingly at a second corpse nearby which was walking in a small circle. As the animated dead fell upon this wrongly blamed corpse, the newcomer tottered its way out of the room, gurgling as it headed towards the morgue’s main entrance. Twenty minutes later and with his gown discarded, Skulks entered the Chamber Building and thence into his office.
All was not as well as he’d hoped. There was no shining-eyed Captain Honey to tell of his discovery, for she was prone in one corner of the room, with her broken sword in three pieces nearby. Jake the Headcracker was still present, though he was in no mood to exchange wisecracks and manly insults.
“Beaten to a pulp by my own arms!” he stated miserably from his position on the floor. “It must have been Graves. Here we were talking pleasantly when a woman riding on three of my arms came jumping in through the window. There were two little fellers riding with her. Captain Honey tried her best but her sword
broke. You should ask her out somewhere. She’s a good girl. Somewhere nice though. Not one of your usual squalid little lowlife dives. Anyway, one of my arms knocked her over there, punched me a few times and then Graves stole the potions you left behind. Then the whole lot of them buggered off out of the window again. It’s all a bit shit, if you ask me.”
As Jake talked, Skulks checked Captain Honey, who was already developing what would be a black eye of monumental proportions. To his relief, she groaned quietly to indicate she had not perished.
“This Zera Graves is proving to be a somewhat bothersome opponent!” said Skulks. “How I wish I could strangle her or mete out to her a fatal drubbing!”
“If my arms and legs would grow back a bit quicker, perhaps I could be of more assistance,” said Jake ruefully. As it happened, his body was making good progress. He had consumed an inordinate amount of steak and a not-inconsiderable quantity of cakes, all of which provided the fuel his Wielding needed to rebuild that which had been cut away from him.
“Ooh my head!” said the voice of Captain Honey. Having woken, she immediately attempted to get to her feet, though her body was not yet ready for the rigours of this endeavour so soon after the punishment it had suffered.
“Captain Honey! You must lie still!” cried Skulks.
“Bugger that,” she said, attempting once more to rise. This time she was successful and managed to stumble her way to Skulks’ chair, into which she gratefully plopped.
“Graves stole the potions,” said Jake, bringing Honey up to speed with the information she had already guessed.
Honey looked glum. “My mother is going to die, isn’t she?”
“I hope to have found a solution,” Skulks advised her. “Although Graves has hoodwinked us by stealing these potions, I have also hoodwinked her by stealing the originals from her pockets before she made her escape on her unusual steed. During the course of some testing I had the opportunity to indulge in, I noticed that one of the potions removes life, whilst the other bestows it. It is the first potion which sent your mother and Heathen Spout into slumber and I am confident that the second will rouse them from it!”
Hope glimmered in Captain Honey’s eyes. “Do you really think it will work?”
Skulks found himself both unwilling and unable to lie. “I don’t know. I tried it on some corpses that Zera Graves had animated in the morgue. It worked on them, but I don’t know how safe it will be on Lady Grumps.”
“I don’t want to risk it on my mother, Tan. Is there anything we can do to make sure it’s going to work?”
Skulks had a bright idea. He’d been having a few of them lately. Perhaps it was the city air, or perhaps it was all of the sausages he’d been eating.
“I’ll be back soon!” he said, jumping out of the window without further explanation. Captain Honey and Jake the Headcracker exchanged glances. Jake shrugged.
Though the hour was getting late, the Grimy Tanner was still open for business. Into this tavern burst a flustered-looking individual dressed in dark clothing. He strode immediately to the bar where he ordered a mug of Choller’s Gasp and a steak pie.
As these items arrived upon the bar, this individual enquired as to the good health of a certain Silas Parps who had drank himself to excess earlier on that same day.
“Yes I remember him. Drinking with you, wasn’t he?” said the bar keep. “Shortly after you left, he keeled over so I put him where I put all the drunks - down in the cellar until he wakes up. If they’re going to vomit, I’d rather they did it down there instead of on my new carpet in here.” The new carpet in question was already looking somewhat worse for wear and this new customer, being Tan Skulks, surreptitiously tried to kick a recently-dropped piece of gravy-matted steak pie crust out of sight beneath a bar stool.
“And he’s not woken up yet?” enquired Skulks.
“Nope. He was still asleep last I looked in on him twenty minutes ago.” The bar keep was familiar with the ways of drunks. “It’s been quite a long time though. I’d have expected him to be awake by now.”
Finishing his ale and pie in record time, Skulks left the Grimy Tanner through the front door, returning shortly by means of the locked street-side cellar entrance. A whistling snore cut through the darkness, leading Skulks to the place where the unsavoury Silas Parps had been deposited. Rolling the man onto his back, Skulks slapped Parps across the face a few times. His ministrations were not gentle - Parps was a dislikeable chap and Skulks was in a hurry. After a few more slaps, Skulks was finally convinced that Parps had succumbed to the same sleeping affliction that had Doris Grumps and Heathen Spout bedridden. Reluctantly, for he was not convinced that Parps was worthy of a second chance, Skulks let fall a tiny drop of the second potion onto the sleeping man’s face. The result was immediate, with Parps jerking awake.
“What?” he asked in confusion, blinded as he was by the darkness of the cellar. This was quickly followed by pitiful groaning when Parps realised that he had a stonking hangover and though he was not to know it yet, this hangover would persist for a full five days.
As Parps smacked his dry mouth and tried desperately to get his bearings, Skulks left him to it without saying a word. He did, however, burp once before he made his escape. Left alone in the darkness, Silas Parps sniffed at the air and detected an unusual smell. It was a bit like ale mixed with gravy and steak.
Running flat out, Skulks returned to the Chamber Building, this time arriving with a tray of thirty pies which he had stopped to purchase on the way. The effort of disappearing in front of Zera Graves in the morgue was going to require him to eat a whole lot of pies in the near future.
“Good news,” said Skulks to Honey. “Where is Lady Grumps to be found?”
Twenty
Not thirty minutes later, Skulks and Honey were convened in Heathen Spout’s office alongside a distinctly angry Doris Grumps and the three members of the Chamber Council. It was now past midnight and Skulks marvelled that he’d been able to find all three of the Chamber Council still in the building. In spite of their long time asleep, both Grumps and Spout had bleary eyes and looked groggy. Skulks felt hungover just looking at them, for they both bore the expressions of a person woken up much too early the day after the office party. Skulks was aware of these offices, working as he did in one, but he had never been invited to one of the parties that were purported to be held therein.
Everyone was now up to speed on the recent events which had transpired and a number of soldiers had already been sent to the morgue to round up the re-animated dead. The dead were expected to be on their best behaviour when visitors came, rather than walking about the lobby area as if they owned the place.
“So let me get this straight,” said Harman Granulis, giving one of his familiar palm-chopping motions. “King Meugh is at it AGAIN? Only this time he was trying to put us all to sleep?”
“That would be my best guess,” said Honey, standing close to her mother. “Though I think that he has further hopes of turning Hardened into an army of unquestioning, dead slaves, with our flesh compliant to his every whim.”
Skulks startled when he heard this idea spoken, though he’d already had similar suspicions himself. His shock came not only because he didn’t wish death upon the entirety of the city, but also because he knew that dead people tended not to carry much in the way of coin around with them. When one became a shuffling, re-animated corpse, one tended to lose one’s taste for those activities that might necessitate the carrying of a large purse, such as drinking, eating, gambling and purchasing false facial hair.
“How am I going to earn an honest crust if everyone’s dead?” he asked himself. Other people in the room were also shocked:
“This is preposterous!” Granulis spluttered. He’d developed a recent fondness for the word ‘preposterous’ and used it whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“We’re going to have to take more direct action against King Meugh,” said Spout as she poured herself a third cup of fruit
juice. “He doesn’t seem to know when it’s time to give up.”
Skulks brightened when he heard these words. It had been a few weeks since he’d been able to put his knowledge of international relations into practise by stabbing the demon King Meugh in the back and he was eager to give it another try.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Skulks said. “Zera Graves is as formidable as a powerful wizard and she is determined to carry out her plans to incapacitate our populace. She still has the sleeping potion and another potion which is surely malign.”
“Mobilise the army!” demanded Glady Fulup. “Have them stationed around every brewery to prevent this Graves from putting her plans into action.” It was a compliment to the drinking habits of Hardened’s citizens that polluting the city’s ale supplies was the best way to ensure maximum dispersion of said pollutant.
“Is there any other way that Zera Graves could disperse her potion?” asked Skulks. He was starting to become a bit of a thinker and a questioner in his old age. The room fell silent as the occupants pondered the question which had been put to them.
“Could she go to a dairy and put it in our milk?” asked Granulis. “Or get it into the smoke from a factory chimney somehow?”
“How about you make another Saucer Face to find Zera Graves?” suggested Heathen Spout.
“No!” cried Skulks at once. “There must be another way?”
In the end, there was no answer forthcoming. The city drew its water from many sources and there was no other way they could think of that Zera Graves would be able to put a majority of the population to sleep by using her potion. One-by-one they left Heathen Spout’s office. Captain Honey made haste to the barracks in order to marshal her troops for some late-night patrolling and guarding. It was very late and she’d have dearly liked to get a few hours’ sleep instead. Skulks returned to his own office, not affected by his lack of sleep.
