Treachery of Kings

by Neal Barrett Jr

  “The exception being when Master Finn babbles to himself. I think I see now.”

  “You don't, and no one asked your opinion, as far as I can tell.”

  “No one ever does.”

  “And might that tell you something? Might it be some kind of clue? Julia, what are you doing out here? Do I ap pear lonely, in need of company tonight? Is this what's whirring about in your head?”

  Julia opened her silver snout and showed him a row of razored teeth.

  “I was somewhat anxious. I simply couldn't sleep.”

  “Of course you couldn't sleep. You're not supposed to. You're a mechanical device.”

  “We've discussed this before. You say I don't, I say I do. Finn, I have to tell you Letitia is handling all this much too well. She fell into bed, went right to sleep. She hasn't let herself believe what is happening here. Our imminent departure, the gravity of the event, the danger most apparent in such a voyage, has yet to fully hit her. When it does, I strongly urge you to be prepared for weeping and wailing, hysterics of every sort.”

  Finn shook his head. “I had no idea you were qualified to give medical advice.”

  “Play me for a fool if you like, but tell me I'm wrong. Tell me she will take your almost certain impending demise with perfect ease.”

  Finn looked Julia in the eye. In a set of ruby, unblinking eyes, as it were.

  “I grant your concern is well founded. Still, I believe she'll handle this better than you think. And, on two grounds, Julia, I have to say you're quite wrong. One, in spite of the fact that it's suicidal to even get close to a balloon, I intend to survive and get back here intact.

  “Two, you mentioned our departure. It's not our departure, it's mine. You're not going, you're staying here.”

  “What?” Julia gave a rude and horrid squawk, like the howl of rusty iron.

  “You're joking, of course. You'd be daft to embark on such a treacherous journey without my presence. Why, you wouldn't last a day without me at your side. You've lost your reason, Finn, what little wit you have, you—”

  “Stop. Right there.” Finn raised a restraining hand. “There can be no argument here. None. Stop squawking for a minute and listen to me. Yes, this is a fool's journey, I've the wit to know that. I feel I'll throw up a lot, and risk death a number of times.

  “I could surely use your help. But I need you more here. I'll regret these words the rest of my life, but it's true you have uncanny senses, beyond the ken of any human or Newlie alive. You can hear things, smell things, see things no other creature can.

  “What you can do is protect Letitia Louise. Warn her of danger, and fight all intruders, if it should come to that. This is why I need you here. I'm sure you understand, now that I've made it perfectly clear.”

  Julia flicked her brass tongue. Her scales seemed to quiver, though the air was perfectly still.

  “What I see,” she said, “is what you'd have me believe. What I'm thinking, is that while I am truly invaluable and superior to fleshly creatures in every way, Letitia is intelligent, resourceful, and completely capable of taking care of herself. You have left her alone before, and never mentioned any great concern. What greater threat do you feel is lurking about Ulster-East now?”

  “You weren't there, or you wouldn't ask.”

  “Wouldn't ask what?”

  “The Prince. Aghen Aghenfleck. His eyes drank her in, Julia. Tasted her with his filthy gaze, as if she were some fine exotic wine brought to court for his pleasure. ‘I will speak to you more, my dear, at a later time,’ he tells her. ‘You could help me learn much of the Mycer folk,’ he said.”

  “Surely a creature like the Prince befouls every female he looks upon,” Julia said.

  In spite of a warming breeze, Finn felt a sudden chill. “Surely indeed. And many get more than a glance, and have no wits about them when the Prince has filled his needs. That will not happen to Letitia Louise. And, if I'm not thinking better on this on the morrow, I'll not take this damned mission at all. I will take you and Letitia and leave behind everything I've worked for here, and flee to some other land.”

  “And where would that be?” asked Julia Jessica Slagg. “Where are the kings and princes wise? Where are the nobles truly noble, Finn?”

  Finn, gazing off into the darkness of the night, had no ready answer for that. …

  NINE

  INDEED, AS JULIA HAD SAID, LETITIA WAS DEEP IN peaceful sleep when Finn finally cast his thoughts aside and quietly joined her in the small bedchamber above The Lizard Shoppe.

  Slipping out of his clothes, he snuffed the single candle and slipped in beside her in the dark.

  As ever, Finn was awed by the touch, by the presence, by the magic of this lovely creature who shared his bed and brought joy to his life. Fate, he thought, not for the first time, bestows its wonders in ways no mortal can comprehend. Less than a year had passed since Letitia had come into his home as housekeeper and cook, someone to do those tasks that needed doing while he spent long hours pursuing his craft.

  It was clear, when he hired her, that she was a most attractive Newlie, a charming Mycer girl with dark, iridescent eyes, small, but pouty lips, and a rather pointy nose that turned up nicely at the tip. Her ears rose to delicate points beneath her ashen hair, and her skin had the soft, downy texture of her kind.

  All these qualities he noticed, but cast them in a corner of his mind for the time, most of his head being crammed, jammed with thoughts of silver wheels that whined and hummed, golden wires thin as gnat whiskers, tiny cogs and gears, and gems no bigger than poppy seeds.

  Then, on a day much like the one before that, when a lizard that peeled potatoes didn't seem to work at all, he suddenly looked up and saw her standing there, holding a cup of clover tea.

  Finn was struck dumb at the sight, dazzled by her opalescent eyes, eyes that seemed immersed in dark and fragrant oil. Stunned by the way every beam of sunlight shimmered in her hair.

  That moment of wonder passed; nothing was said or done, nothing for a time. Letitia, though, felt a flush at Finn's glance that began at her toes and nearly exploded through the top of her head. For she had fallen for him the instant she walked into his house—and, until that moment, was sure he'd seldom looked at her twice.

  Misadventure and dread, fearsome times kept further declarations at bay. But, as fortune would have it, these dire events seemed to bring them closer still, and, finally, toss them into one another's arms, and they had seldom been far from one another since

  HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?” FINN HAD asked her a hundred times since. “I should have known at first sight you were the love of my life.”

  “The important thing is, you did come around, my dear,” she told him. “And, often, love takes its time to strike.”

  Especially for the male, who has to be struck in the head before he can open his eyes…

  THEY WOULD EVER PAY A PRICE FOR THEIR devotion, and both knew it well. They might be husband and wife to one another, but never in the public eye. Any sort of intimate relations between a human and a Newlie was forbidden by the law. While many folk no longer cared just who did what with whom, others were filled with righteous gall, wouldn't stand for habits different from their own, and handed out dread judgment in the dark of night.

  Would it ever be different, Finn often wondered, or would the world always be the same?

  THE “CHANGE” HAD TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE down, and many Newlies—as well as humankind— thought turning beasts into something similar to Man had brought great sorrow to everyone.

  Shar and Dankermain, the seers who'd done this deed three hundred years before, had paid for their crime with their lives. The spawn of their sin, though, were left behind to breed in a world where they didn't belong.

  Now, as well as Mycers, there were Bowsers, Snouters, Foxers, Yowlies and Grizz. Vampies, Bullies, Dobbins and Badgie kind, strewn all about the known world.

  And, if the Mycer folk were one of the Chosen Nine, and if a man named
Finn fell in love with a being who was, truly, not solely a person at all, what was he to do— shut out his feelings, or sleep with one eye open, in case some loony decided to “purify” them both some dark and sorry night?

  And you, Finn thought to himself, not for the first time or the last, why did you do the same, and break such laws as well?

  For, much like the two mad sorcerers themselves, he had flouted nature himself, giving life to Julia Jessica Slagg, a creature not of flesh, but brass and copper, gold and iron and tin. More that that, he had given his creation the brain of a ferret, a poor creature caught in a trap and nearly dead.

  And why? He had answered that question long ago. Though his was no act of magic, he had done this deed for much the same reason as the seers: Because he had the talent, the flair. He had dared the act of creation because he could.

  UNABLE TO PUT SUCH THOUCHTS ASIDE, FINNsatup, eased himself out of bed, and walked to the window to peer out into the dark. The sky was clear and a million stars blazed with a cold and fearsome light.

  To the west was the river, dark except for a few dim lanterns on the masts of fishing boats. Finn could imagine the men and Newlies there preparing their nets for the day, and wondered what life was like for those who plied their trade on the twisting waterways.

  Not far from the river, up the rise upon the hill, were the heights of the royal palace. Bright lights always burned there. Sometimes one could hear their reveling far into the night. Princes and their toadies didn't have to work the next day; there were lesser fools hired to do that.

  Finally, Finn forced himself to look to the east. There was the glow of the Royal Balloon Yards, a pale, threatening cloud of dirty orange, and below, an eerie yellow light.

  The light, and the pall of dirty smoke, meant the Grounder Crews were stoking the coals in the great hot furnaces there, pits of fire that never went out through the rains of summer or the howl of winter storms. The work went on under the high, timbered roofs, work that never ceased because the war never stopped, and the great balloons must rise every day. Rise, and float out across the river, past the swampy land where the enemy's balloons waited to meet their foes.

  There, men would fight and men would die. Men would come back bloody and maimed, missing an arm or a leg. Some, who clearly had no luck at all, would live to fight another day.

  And what will I lose, if indeed I do not lose it all? An eye, a toe? An arm or maybe two? A fine lizard-maker that'd

  be

  “Scones and Stones,” he said softly, gripping the sill and staring into the night, “if I'm not whole, I'll not come back at all. I will never burden dear Letitia with some gross and mutilated creature, some piece of a man who drags his poor shell about the streets, begging for a pence or two. By damn, I will not. And if I've not the limbs to do myself in, I'll hire some fellow for the job. I'll do that before I'll—

  “Huh? What's that?” His wretched thoughts slipped away, and he quickly found his wits, instantly aware of the hulking figure looming against the night down below. And, with a chill, he knew at once it was a Bullie peering up at him in the dark, for nothing in Ulster East could match the creature's size. “You, what do you want?”

  “Don't fear, little fellow,” came the deep, yet scarcely heard whisper from below. “I means you no harm. Be coming down here if you will.”

  “It's—Bucerius, yes?” Finn said, searching for the name. “I have that right, do I not?”

  “Close enough, human.”

  “I'll—I shall be right with you, then.”

  Finn quickly found his trousers and slipped into a shirt. His boots were not in sight, and he decided to do without. Letitia stirred in her sleep, and Finn prayed she wouldn't wake up.

  “Shall I come with you?” said Julia Jessica Slagg from the dark.

  “And do what? Wrestle him to the ground?”

  Julia didn't answer. Finn hurried quickly down the stairs, slipped the lock on his thick oaken door—a door he had always felt secure, until this very night.

  “You being at the balloonin’ place,” the Bullie announced. “I sees you there when the sun be rising again.”

  “Did you come here to tell me that?”

  “No.”

  “No. Then what?”

  “We be goin’ to Heldessia Land. If fortune be with us, we be comin’ back as well. I be tellin’ you this. I am not liking human persons at all.”

  “All right, I guess I can live with that.”

  Finn stared up at the Bullie. The sky, the stars, the universe itself had disappeared. There was nothing else to see but the monstrous, somewhat odorous form, that blocked out the night.

  “If you don't like human—persons, why do you work for the Prince? Why don't you do something else?”

  Bucerius shrugged, a major event in itself.

  “Business is business. Money be talkin’, and a Prince be no worse than anyone else.”

  “Point well taken,” Finn said. “Sunrise then, all right? I feel we're off for a really fun time.”

  “That be a humor, is it not?”

  “Sort of, yes. Close enough.”

  “Don't.”

  “Don't what?”

  “Don't be doin’ it again. My folk isn't likin’ joke, whimsy, slappers of any sort. You be joking, keep it to yourself.”

  “Fine, I will,” Finn said. “You have a nice night.”

  “Be watching good, human. Might be trouble you havin’ before it get light.”

  “What? What kind of trouble, what are you talking about?”

  “Something bad. Something like this maybe coming here again.”

  “Something like what?—”

  Finn froze in his tracks. The enormous creature reached down behind him, lifted up a big potato sack, then another after that. When both of these burdens hung snugly on his shoulder, he turned back to Finn.

  In the dark of night, Finn was uncertain if what he was seeing was real. The two potato sacks seemed to squirm, seemed to wiggle, refuse to sit still. Something in there shuddered, something in there moved. More than that, vague, incoherent sounds came from the sacks as well.

  “When sun comin’ up, you bein’ there,” the Bullie said. “We be leaving, catching the easterly wind.”

  “Yes, fine. Easterly wind… Look, I don't feel you answered my question about what trouble might appear. And something, I guess you know, is stirring in your sacks.”

  Bucerius rumbled, deep within his chest. His features twisted in disgust. “Human person don't be listenin’ at all. Fellow you be fighting with, fellow be ugly, even for one of your kind. He comin’ here with a friend. Goin’ to be doing you in, is what he got in mind.”

  Finn felt the hairs climb the back of his neck.

  “That lout at the fair…He's in your, uh—”

  “Might be he gots another friend, might be he don't. You be where I'm sayin’, all right? Don't be messing up my business, human person. You hear?”

  Finn didn't answer. He stood on his doorstep, stood very still. He watched, as the Bullie hefted his sacks more easily on his shoulder and stomped down Garpenny Street toward the river way. He wanted to ask what his shipmate, his ponderous companion, his new best friend—who didn't care for whimsy—intended to do down there. On the other hand, he didn't really want to know at all. …

  Ten

  FROM AFAR, FINN HAD SMELLED THE NOXIOUS fumes when the wind was from the west, heard the clamor, heard the roar of the great eternal fires, seen the ruddy glow against the night. Never had he felt the slightest need, the least desire, to go near the horrid place.

  Never, and that included now.

  A horde of men and Newlies swarmed about, shouted, bellowed, cursed one another, caught in seeming chaos, total disarray. Some clutched ropes that dangled from the sky, lines that held the great, sluggish war balloons in tow.

  Some manned the endless complexity of valves, flues, nozzles and such affixed to the pulsing, swollen tubes that snaked across the grounds. The tubes them
selves emerged like multilimbed demons from the fiery sheds where coal, through some alchemic means, conjured itself into gas that fed the ever-hungry balloons.

  Then, having had their fill, these giant, bloated creatures could scarcely be contained upon the ground. It took much effort, strength, and obscenities as well to keep them from breaking their tethers and rising into the tainted air

  “You be gettin’ a move on, human person. We runnin’ out of wind, runnin’ outta time!”

  A shout, coupled with a ferocious grip that nearly took his shoulder off, shook Finn out of his thoughts.

  “If we miss the wind, then what?” Finn said. “We don't have to go?”

  “Not be goin to miss it, you hearing this, you unner-stan’?”

  “Yes, I think I've got it,” Finn said, fully grasping the Bullie's ire. “Perfectly clear to me.”

  “Good. You keepin’ up now, I don’ be askin’ you again.”

  Without another word, Bucerius stomped off across the noisy, crowded flats, through the flurry, through the tangle and the maze of ropes and lines and nets, through the mud and the mire, the curses and the shouts, and the vast, bloated herd of captive balloons that overshadowed them all.

  The Royal Balloon Grounds were a mix of human and Newlie alike. A crowd of Snouters leaped aside as Bucerius plowed through their ranks, scattering the fellows in his path. One went sprawling on his back, giving the others a hearty laugh.

  They were stout, short creatures with ugly noses— noses that gave them their common name—beings with tiny pit eyes and scarcely any chins at all. Most wore the overalls of farmers, for this crew was bringing crates of vegetables and fruits to the balloons. To Finn's eyes, their merchandise was somewhat wilted and overripe, produce that shoppers in the market wouldn't buy.

  Bullies, too, were all about, barely clad giants that loomed above the crowd, hefting loads of every sort upon their broad and muscled backs. Finn didn't fail to notice they all gave Bucerius a fierce and bitter glance, for his dress and manner said he didn't have to make a living with his back, the task so common to his kind.