“All finished,” she said at last. While the coat had technically been mended, it had not been done in a way that anyone might have referred to as well. No one who’d ever worn—or seen—clothing, anyway. The faded black wool was all bunched up where the rip had been, and the mended sleeve was several inches shorter than its counterpart. But she was beaming at him, and her smile was making him feel all warm in a way that quickly turned troubling.
“Er, thank you.” Sloot stood up abruptly and took a step backward. He was her boss! He was committing enough moral turpitude as it was. This was dangerously close to flirting! Any more of this and a congress of goblins would likely name themselves The Sloots, get it embroidered onto jackets and everything.
“What’s the matter? Is there a problem with the stitching?”
“Not at all,” said Sloot, followed by a very loud cough to cover up the sound of a goblin popping in. Goblins like lies, especially polite ones meant to spare feelings. Lies masquerading as etiquette are particularly dastardly in their opinion.
Myrtle exhaled sharply and frowned a bit.
“Oh, stop it,” mumbled Myrtle in a very Arthur sort of way. “If you get all moony, it could very well interfere with my pondering, and I won’t stand for it.”
Myrtle’s eyes went wide and turned toward Sloot. Her cheeks went so deeply scarlet as to resemble a crime scene that needed mopping.
“I’ll just be off to bed then,” she quavered, then turned and nearly ran down the hall.
“No good can come of that,” said Roman.
Sloot jumped. “How long have you been there?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? Not to worry, once you’ve completed your spy training, I’ll never be able to sneak up on you again. Anyway, you’re a lucky lad.”
“How do you figure?”
Roman nodded down the hallway in the direction Myrtle had run. “She fancies you. Walk with me for a moment.” They headed down a different hallway.
“But you said no good can come of it! And you’re right. I’m her boss after all.”
Roman shrugged. “Just because it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Some of my best ideas have been bad ones.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Listen to yourself,” said Roman, pushing Sloot into a sitting room and closing the door behind them. “Why do you put so much stock in good ideas that make sense? What good have they ever done for you?”
“I’d say I’ve done all right for myself.”
Roman said one of a lower tier of swear words that goblins considered too tame to warrant their attention. It rhymed with “crabapple” and, when delivered mockingly, conveyed very mild derision.
“You’re the least relaxed person I’ve ever met! You’re hiding acts of high treason, a crazy old bat with a broom, and who knows what else?” Roman poured them each a brandy from a glass decanter. “You’re charged with making a man out of a stuffed shirt, and the most dangerous woman in Salzstadt is eager to see you fail. That’s what sensibility has gotten you.”
“I get it,” said Sloot, gripping his drink with both hands to stop from shaking. “If I don’t go after Myrtle now I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, is that it?”
Roman chuckled. “You and I are too young to start looking at women and wondering ‘will she be the one that got away?’ No, my pupil. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Then I shouldn’t pursue her? I was right all along, and you’re just … I don’t know, testing me?”
“The point is that if you don’t get to dabble in bad ideas every once in a while, all of the sensible ones have been for nothing. It’s your reward, don’t you see?”
“Yes,” replied Sloot, who had no idea what Roman was talking about. Sloot loved the rules and all the security that they offered. The straight-and-narrow had never steered him wrong before, and he was now more convinced than ever that his current predicaments were nothing more than a string of very unfortunate coincidences; and yet, the way Myrtle had blushed before had stirred something in him.
“Something happened last night,” said Sloot, desperate to change the subject. “I heard a voice in the trophy room.”
“What’d it say?”
“Just asked if the goblins were all gone.”
“I thought that was obvious.”
“I did, too, but I don’t think whoever was asking was really there.”
“Where?”
“There, in the room with me.”
“Someone down the hall, then.”
“No,” said Sloot, “it was coming from inside the room. From everywhere in the room!”
“Oh.” Roman gave a dismissive wave. “Probably just a ghost.”
“A … ghost.”
“I’ll bet the place is full of them,” said Roman. “Oh, by the way, how’d it go with the permits?”
Philosophical Affliction
Despite Roman’s insistence, Sloot had no confidence that the matter of the permits would work itself out, wink, wink. He ultimately agreed to let Roman work it out through back channels, though he’d much rather have just paid the fines that the UQPE alone referred to as “reasonable” and then contract with them for services.
Sloot was actually relieved to have the permits off his plate for the time being. He had other things on his mind. The world was still spinning on its axis, much to the chagrin of the fire-and-brimstone soothsayers peddling prophecies on Proclamation Street. Many of them had predicted the end of the entire ball of wax several times over, including one cult that only wore red and insisted that the world was, in fact, a ball of wax.
Not only were any recently-foiled lunatics forced to revisit their sacred texts, any financiers similarly still drawing breath would have their end-of-week balance sheets due for their lords’ perusal. Therefore, Sloot was as near to giddy as any self-respecting mathematician could manage at the prospect of balancing the accounts.
Aberfoyle’s Theorem states that the time required to complete a task is inversely proportional to one’s skill with the matter at hand. So it was that the ledgers were balanced and double-checked (not that Sloot’s work needed even single-checking) in a matter of minutes.
Sloot sighed. He was disappointed in the way that only the flawless performance of duty could make him.
Perhaps a walk would lift his spirits. He’d been so busy lately with committing treason and heresy that he’d neglected to see how the staff were getting on with sprucing up Whitewood. He’d seen about half the inside of the place, but very little of the grounds.
Mr. Dirtsmith had done some truly magnificent work with the trellises lining the back garden. The roses would be coming in any time now, or perhaps not—Sloot knew as much about gardening as anyone who graduated with his accounting class at the University of Salzstadt, which was to say that he knew absolutely nothing about gardening.
It didn’t matter. Sloot knew pretty when he saw it, and that’s what the trellises were. In fact, he was almost convinced that he was using the word “trellises” correctly.
Speaking of pretty, there was Myrtle. He’d been so intently focused on the trellises―or “big walls with roses on,” if “trellises” really meant something else―that he’d nearly tripped over her, sitting on one of the little stone benches in the garden.
“Well hello, Mister Peril,” she said. “Fine day for a walk. Or for a ponderance. Or at least it was until you came along. Arthur! Terribly sorry, Mister Peril.”
“Er, sorry,” said Sloot. “I’ll just leave you to it then.”
“No, please stay! Sit, there’s plenty of room.”
Myrtle shifted to one side of the little bench and patted the other, smiling up at him. Sloot sat. Between his natural impulse to obey anything that sounds remotely like an order and the way Myrtle’s lips curled when she smiled, it was the inevitable outcom
e. Not even the presence of her undead philosopher chaperone could have dissuaded him.
If history were any indicator, disaster was imminent. Sloot knew all of the warning signs, most of which were a pretty girl sitting anywhere near him. It was only a matter of time before some combination of profuse sweating, nervous vomiting, high-pitched laughter, and/or fainting dead away brought the occasion to a close. She’d be polite to him after that, but she’d never give him that smile again. The sincere one that curled up at the ends.
But then, something genuinely worrisome happened, or rather didn’t. Sloot neither vomited, nor did he faint or sweat through his clothes. He even managed to keep his laughter in the tenor octaves, though experience had taught him that he was a serviceable soprano when his insecurities demanded it.
Their conversation was pleasant. She was easy to talk to, even going so far as to ask him about his day, and sound remotely interested in hearing the answer.
“Ask me a question.” She was still smiling at him.
“Oh. I’d rather not.”
“Really? You’re not curious about me?” Her smile faded.
“It’s not that,” Sloot replied, “it’s just that I’ll ask the wrong thing.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you.”
“I can’t see how that would work unless you’re going to ask the question for me.”
“I can’t do that, but I can promise to consider whatever you ask to be exactly the question I feel like answering.”
“That would require seeing into the future.”
“Yes, but not very far. Just the sort of thing that women’s intuition was invented for.”
Sloot had heard of women’s intuition before and regarded it with an abundance of skepticism. He didn’t like to believe in things that he couldn’t experience first-hand. He only placed faith in things like mathematics, gravity, and the infallibility of the Domnitor, long may he reign.
“Oh, get on with it. She won’t leave it alone until you do.”
She smiled again and batted her eyelashes. Sloot wasn’t able to resist that, not even long enough to think before he blurted out the first question that came to mind.
“How’d you get possessed?”
“Oh,” said Myrtle. “Getting right to it, I see.”
“I’m terribly sorry, I just―”
“No, no,” said Myrtle, who may or may not have wished at that moment that she was not honor-bound to uphold the mystery of women’s intuition. “There’s not much to it, really. Do you remember the Philosophers’ Rebellion? Glorious days! We really gave them what for!”
“A bit,” said Sloot. “I was just a boy when it happened.”
“Me too. A child, I mean. I was a girl though.”
“That adds up,” said Sloot. He realized too late that she might not get how funny that was, not being an accountant.
“Anyway, the headmistress was walking us back to the orphanage after our shift in the salt mines. It was right after they’d squashed the rebellion, and they were hanging some of the upstarts in the square. Revolutionaries, you mean! The very soul of the proletariat, crying out for justice!”
Sloot bristled. Though the Philosophers’ Rebellion was barely a footnote in history, the state-issued textbooks left no doubt that it was the worst sort of heresy against the Domnitor, long may he reign.
“We stopped to watch,” Myrtle continued. “Entertainment was hard to come by in the orphanage, and the headmistress had a severe allergy to exercise. She needed to catch her breath.
“I was looking right into the eyes of this skinny, bespectacled man with enormous sideburns when the guillotine came down on him. One moment, he was yelling at the top of his lungs about who owned farm implements or something—the ownership of the means of production by the proletariat!—right, that; and then I could still hear him over the cheering of the crowd, even though his head was off. More like jeering of the crowd. Tell him how they rushed the stage in protest! Sorry, I don’t remember that. Anyway, Arthur has been with me ever since.”
“Funny,” said Sloot. “Of all the executions I’ve seen in my day, you’re the first person I’ve met to have been possessed as a result.”
“Not surprising. Most people aren’t well-versed in Plucky the Dithering’s Laws Regarding the Dual States of Consciousness.”
“You sound like you’re from Stagralla.”
“I might be, I don’t remember anything from before the orphanage.”
“I’m sorry, I meant Arthur.”
“I’m originally— Now don’t you start!” Jumping to her feet, Myrtle set her finger about the business of a very severe waggle. “I’m not Arthur, so don’t talk to my face as though I were!”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said Sloot. “I don’t have a lot of practice with people afflicted with philosophy.”
“It’s just―” Myrtle shook her fists in frustration, then exhaled sharply. “I didn’t ask for this, you know?”
“I know,” said Sloot, who was glad to hear that she didn’t willingly truck with former heretics. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”
“What about me? No one can speak to me directly just because I don’t have a body of my own? Yes, that’s exactly what that means! You should count yourself lucky that I don’t spend my time figuring out how to exorcise you! Oh, that’s nice.”
“It must have been strange,” Sloot remarked, “growing up possessed.”
“It was a lot of work,” said Myrtle. “Arthur helped me convince the courts to emancipate me from the orphanage because of inheriting destiny, or something like that—the strictures on destiny inherent in state-imposed welfare!—Right, that. He was good at that bit, but then I didn’t have a place to live or anyone feeding me. He was less helpful with that.”
“Not a lot of opportunities for young urchins outside the state welfare system, I imagine.”
“You imagine correctly. We did all right busking for arguments at the University of Salzstadt. Not many people expected to lose to a little girl. Ahem. Well, they didn’t know I was possessed, did they? If they’d known they were losing to the undead, we might have had different problems!”
Myrtle went on to describe, with frequent interruptions from Arthur, how she brought herself up on the streets of Salzstadt with no formal education. Philosophers are notoriously lazy, so it was entirely up to her to find something to use as a table and put food on it. Arthur argued in his defense that he didn’t need to eat, being dead and all, so that was Myrtle’s business anyway.
“At least I learned to read from him.”
“He taught you how to read?”
“Oh no,” said Myrtle. “He just insisted that I stare at the pages of books so that he could read. But I can sort of hear his thoughts, so I started recognizing the letters over time, and I picked it up.”
“That’s clever,” said Sloot. “The benefits of a university education without having to matriculate.”
“I don’t know anyone who would resort to that just to go to university. ‘Matriculate’ means ‘to go to university.’ Oh.” Myrtle blushed. “So I hear you’re going to Nordheim?”
A Fine Welcome Home
Nordheim was unique in that the gods of the Vikings lived there among them, as opposed to everyone else’s gods who respected the way things were supposed to be done. Other gods had the decency to show themselves infrequently (if at all), speak to their constituencies through a select group of devotees (thus adding jobs to the economy), and let their followers work things out for themselves based on signs and innuendos.
The Vikings were not so fortunate. They saw their gods every day, hurling thunderbolts on a whim and riding golden chariots across the sky. The Vikings never get to tell tales of the might of their gods, because they’re always showing off.
“Settle down, children, and I’ll tell you about the time
that Heimdall ripped a tree out of the ground, roots and all!”
“No thanks, Granddad, we were there. It was yesterday.”
They were no help at all with calming unruly children, the gods of the Vikings. It was no wonder they had so many berserkers in Nordheim.
If you’ve seen one deity drink up the sea or pulverize a mountain with a single hammer blow, repeat performances are less impressive and more worrisome—especially if you happen to be a fisherman or a miner.
Perhaps the most challenging part of negotiating with Vikings is the fact that they trust nothing and no one. They have one god in particular who’s known for being a trickster, but in truth, they’re all at least mildly mischievous from time to time. Walking with one’s gods means one is always surrounded by a fog of myth and reality intertwined. Discerning truth from some trick of a bored god trying to spice up eternity can be problematic at best.
“Still,” said Willie, “they sold it to me, didn’t they? They didn’t want to, but I’m a shrewd negotiator.”
The journey to Nordheim had only taken a couple of weeks. Thanks to Roman’s familiarity with the mountain passes between the Old Country and Carpathia, they’d managed to skirt the border with no trouble at all.
“They were all too happy to sell it,” said Sloot, “once they’d decided that we weren’t part of an elaborate prank from their gods.”
“But there was that part, wasn’t there?” Willie said a swear word with an impish grin. Sloot heard a pop a few feet away, and then the sound of a goblin cackling and rustling around in the brush.
“We’re back in the Old Country,” Roman told him.
“That’s enough, Willie.” Nan had insisted on going along with them and complained the entire way. “You’ll make a habit of swearing, and the house will fill up with goblins!”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Willie. “I’m a famous explorer now, better tune up my dignity a bit.”
“Famous explorer,” mumbled Roman, just loud enough for Sloot to hear. “More like a rube who can follow someone who can follow a map. What’s he going to do with that thing, anyway?”
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