Treachery of Kings

by Neal Barrett Jr

  Finn faced her as she asked. In spite of his displeasure, he found it hard not to look into her eyes.

  “It is not your courage at issue. Must I tell you that again?”

  “There are times… “

  “There are, indeed. And I hope you see that this was surely not one of those, my dear.”

  “I can't help but wonder,” said Julia Jessica Slagg, “if it's possible to disembowel oneself twice. The first time, it seems, would strongly discourage attempting the act again… “

  TWENTY-NINE

  THOUGH HIS RAGE, HIS ANGER, HIS WOUNDED pride, were somewhat abated by suppertime, an ember still smoldered here and there, and he was more than ready to pounce on Dostagio when he arrived—ready to impale the fellow with a quiver of questions on Badgies, bells, Bowsers and seers.

  Especially seers, the kind that stunned perfect strangers with a spell, damn near knocked them dead.

  But, in spite of this fervent intent, Finn had drifted back into restful sleep by the time Dostagio arrived. He woke, somewhat later, grumbled for a while, then fell onto the feast of thorncake, clutter soup, peppered kale, and a jug of nutty dark ale.

  “Did he say anything?” Finn asked at last, dabbing his mouth with a linen napkin, bearing the arms of the King. “I wish I could have talked to the fellow. There's plenty these people have to answer for.”

  “He didn't say a thing, dear. Only that the Bowser scare is likely over, and the palace is secure.”

  “That's something, then. If it's so, we can get out of here early. I think I can find Bucerius. He knows that shopkeeper, what's-his-name, the one that sells greens. If he's not there, I expect he's at the balloon grounds. They surely have one here…

  “Letitia, I don't mean to be rude, but that seer's chicanery has left me weak as a child. I cannot seem to stay awake, I'm shamed to say. I'm not at all certain what I was talking about before I dropped off. Was it anything I ought to recall?”

  “Nothing that won't wait till the morrow, Finn. I'm sure you'll feel stronger by then.”

  “Yes, well, if you think so, tomorrow's fine with me.”

  IT MUST BE A MOST DELICIOUS DREAM, HE DECIDED, one granted to the weary and oppressed, the anxious and the stressed, those who deserve a lovely treat in the deep, deep hours of the night.

  The room was dark, except for the dim, pleasant glow of a candle against the far wall. There, the light flickered on golden scales, shimmered in ruby-red eyes, as Julia practiced her imitation of a nap.

  That image vanished in a blur, as a finer, far more dazzling vision took its place.

  There was, to say the least, passion in this dream, wild and joyous moments that took his breath away, swept him up to dizzy, incredible heights. And, just as quickly, took him gently into sweet and lazy bliss.

  A thousand sensations assaulted his body, burned into his soul. There were tantalizing scents, elegant caresses, and secret delights. There were hollows, hills, slender limbs and iridescent eyes. There was love remembered, and whispers in the night.

  “That was most elegant and fine,” Finn muttered to himself, “truly the loveliest dream I ever had.”

  “Call it what you like.” Letitia smiled. “Now go to sleep, dear… “

  FINN WAS WOKEN BY THE SOUND OF A GENTLE, but quite persistent tap, the kind you know simply won't go away. He pulled on his breeches, grabbed up his Eastern blade, in case it was the Badgie again, and stumbled to the door.

  “I do hate to bother you, sir,” said Dostiago, “I know it's not a decent hour, but I must ask you to dress and come with me.”

  “Where and what for? What new foolery is this? I have followed you before, and it always leads to trickery and deceit, lunch on a battleground, a cardiac attack.”

  “I am appalled that you would think I do not hold you in the highest regard, Master Finn. I am deeply pained, sir.”

  “I strongly doubt that.” Finn peered around the fellow, checking to see if any rogues or rascals were about.

  “I don't believe I've ever seen you pained, Dostagio. Or, for that matter, delighted, saddened, concerned with anything at all.”

  “Yes, sir. The King would like your presence at once. You are to bring your gift to His Grace, and the device you call your lizard. Do hurry, sir. The King is anxious to get to sleep. … “

  THIRTY

  AFTER THE AWESOME SIGHT OF THE HOLY Place of Emperors, Tyrants and Kings, the splendor of the Great Dining Hall, Finn was prepared for anything that might lie beyond the great oaken door. The portal was fully nine feet tall, and nearly twice as wide, intricately carved with legend and myth from Heldessia's ancient times.

  He would have liked to study this fine example of talented artisans’ work, but there was clearly no time for that. Moreover, the door was guarded by seven green-robed Badgies, stout and grim-faced fellows at rigid attention, gripping enormous pikes. And, to Finn, they all looked closely related to the fiery, wild-eyed, Maddigern himself.

  “Just go in, sir,” Dostagio said. “His Grace is expecting you.”

  “So I do what? Bow, grovel, fall on my face? They always have rules about this sort of thing.”

  “Oh, nothing like that tonight. Enjoy your visit, sir.”

  “I'll do that,” Finn said, certain that would not be likely at all.

  CAKES AND SNAKES,” HE SAID ALOUD, SOMEWHAT rooted in his tracks—certain, now, Dostagio for some bizarre reason had led him to the wrong door.

  Instead of a great and vaulted chamber, a stately columned hall, he was facing a small, unimpressive room with bare, chiseled stone walls. The monarch himself was a spindly, ruddy-faced fellow in a pink-and-orange nightshirt that came to his knobby knees. Perched on his head was a tasseled cap to match.

  So why am I surprised? Finn wondered. The only time he'd seen King Llowenkeef-Grymm he was wearing tatters and rags, his features cold as the grave. If he was alive at the moment, why not look cheery and bright?

  “Please,” said the King, in quite a pleasant tone, “sit, Master Finn, and pour yourself a cup of ale.”

  “Why, thank you, sire, I will. And let me say I am grateful to be in your presence. It's an honor to meet Heldessia's King. I shall treasure this moment for the rest of my life.”

  The King waved him off, for he heard this a hundred times a day.

  The ale was very nice, much like the nutty brew Dostagio had brought to his room. He was greatly relieved to find there were comfortable, cushioned chairs in the King's small chamber, as well as a sturdy table and several frosty pewters, in case they ran low.

  No grim, funereal vaults here, only the homey surroundings of a middle-aged fellow who liked a comfy chair instead of a miserable throne. And, wonder of wonders, Finn and the King were alone. There were no guards or toadies about, unless they were hiding somewhere.

  “You're the fellow who brought me a present from that scoundrel, Aghen Aghenfleck. Would I be right in that?” “Yes, sire, you would indeed.”

  “Nasty, witless boob is what he is. Nitwit, soft in the head. Useless lout. Scatterbrain. Dull, shallow, mean-spirited wretch. A scalawag, a sneak. Worthless, sniveling beggar, not fit to call himself a prince. Ought to be working in a sewer, you ask me. I expect you'd agree, Master Finn.”

  “Ah, well, sire… “

  “Loyalty, that's the thing, boy.” The King shook a finger at Finn. “Never speak evil of your master, even if he's unworthy scum, which Aghenfleck surely is. That bundle there, that's for me?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. It's a birthday present, I believe.”

  “Don't believe in birthdays. Everyone's got one, what's the fun in that? I do not want the fellow's present, don't want to see it at all. Put it somewhere. That thing thrashing about beneath your cloak. That's this mechanical device you carry about. Let's have a look at that.”

  At once, before the King's command was scarcely out of his mouth, Julia Jessica Slagg scrambled out of Finn's cloak, onto the floor, and up onto the table in front of Llowenkeef-Grymm.


  “Well now, if that's not a splendid thing to see!”

  The King leaned forward, hands on his knees, devouring every inch of Julia with his dark and penetrating eyes, taking her in from her spiny tail to her golden scales, iron teeth and shiny silver jaws.

  He made no effort to hide his great delight. He clasped his hands together, and his face creased in a joyous smile.

  “Amazing, I say. Astonishing device! Truly a work of art, something we appreciate here in Heldessia's halls, which I can't say for that uncultured, illiterate collection of louts in Aghenfleck's court. No offense, of course.”

  “None taken, sire.”

  “Yes, well. Ah, what is it?”

  “It's a lizard, Your Grace.”

  “A lizard.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “And how did you come to call it that?”

  “No reason I can name, sire. While I was working on it, it simply seemed to fit. I liked the sound of it, and it stuck. I called them lizards from that day on.”

  “Them?” The King raised a brow. “So you have crafted more than the one?”

  “Oh, indeed, sire. It's my invention, and mine alone. I own and operate The Lizard Shoppe in Ulster-East. Lizards are my trade.

  “I don't mind saying, in all modesty, sire, I come from good craftsman stock. My father worked in metals as well, and made a number of contributions to the common good. It was he who was responsible for the all-brass lice hammer used in households around the world today. He also did significant work at the Royal Fish Works, though he got little credit for that.

  “Proud though I was of his accomplishments, I yearned to go out on my own. I began with a lizard that picks up debris about the house. I followed that with the lizard bellows, which works quite well, though small children are frightened by the noise.

  “Then, there is the lizard cleaning rod for muskets of any bore. The special tongue gets in there and sucks out powder and soot that might cause a weapon to explode, resulting in bodily harm. And then—”

  “Yes, fine,” said the King, who had little interest in bellows, lice or soot.

  “And this model here, what does it do? Dostagio says it talks, but I can scarcely credit that.”

  “It does, sire. Entirely too much, I'm bound to say.”

  “What Master Finn means, Your Grace, is that my vocabulary is easily twice as extensive as his… “

  “Ha! Wonderful!” The King slapped his knees twice. “Impertinent, too. I wouldn't stand for that, but apparently you do. So. How do you do it? How do you make it think? I find that most unique in a mechanical device.”

  “It's really not as difficult as you'd imagine, sire. Double wiring of futanic preen, a pair of copper doffits on the major boskin gear. Triple pankers, of course.”

  “Of course, yes… “

  The King looked thoughtful, and tapped the side of his nose. Finn took a care to show no expression at all. A bit of prattle on doffits and preens always did the trick. There was no way to ask any questions after that, for it all came out of Finn's head. The one thing he dared not discuss, of course, was the fact that Julia had a ferret's brain within her silver skull.

  Tampering with life in any fashion was something one simply didn't do. No one had forgotten the sin of Shar and Dankermain, the seers who had brought about the Change. It had been three hundred years since Newlies appeared, but the fears and hatreds that awesome event had brought to bear were still very much alive.

  And, if they didn't hang him for Julia, Finn knew, there was always Letitia Louise. Intimate relations with nonhu-man creatures was not unknown, and most people looked the other way. Still, it was against the laws of every land…

  “May I say,” Finn said, for he knew his host had noticed his attention had strayed for a moment, which was not the thing to do with a king, “may I say this is the finest ale I have ever had the pleasure to drink. Such fullness, such exquisite taste.”

  “Of course it is,” the King said, ruffled, peeved, slightly annoyed, “it damn well better be. Now, that infernal present you brought—which I will not accept, by the way—what is it, boy, what did you bring?”

  “It's ah, a clock, Your Grace. It is known far and wide that King Llowenkeef-Grymm is the world's foremost collector of rare and unusual clocks. Prince Aghen Aghenfleck has—”

  “Lummox! Blockhead!” The King slammed his mug on the table with such a fury, the creamy ale flew this way and that.

  “Exactly what that fool would do. Send me a clock. As if he had the foggiest notion what a fine timepiece even looks like, what it—what it—”

  The King stood abruptly, unfolding like a broken spring.

  “This way, Finn. Hurry along, I can't stand a sluggard or a slouch. Get moving, boy!”

  Without a word, Finn followed the King through a back door of his quarters, a door that led to a hall exactly like the halls he'd seen before.

  “Stay here,” he told Julia. “I don't have any idea what this is all about.”

  “Tell him you made the clock. See what he says about that.”

  “Stay put and keep your snout shut, Julia. That's all I need from you.”

  He pretended not to hear a rusty cackle as he bounded after the knobby-kneed fellow in gaudy nightshirt with tasseled cap to match. …

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE CORRIDOR WAS DARK, EXCEPT FOR A TORCH now and then on a bracket in the wall. The walls, the ceiling and the floor, were standard Heldessia decor—great slabs of granite in colorful black.

  Finn, young and strongly built, could scarcely keep up with the King, who bounded ahead like a boy on his way to the fair.

  It took little thought to guess that the King was leading Finn to clocks. Finn didn't care about clocks, he could take them or leave them alone. The works, the cogs, the little gears and springs were of interest, of course, but he had gone far beyond such simple devices as that. He had stopped taking clocks apart when he was no more than a child.

  “Which is not the point here,” he said to himself. “The point is that Julia, for once, is quite right. I made the clock the King despises, for it came from Aghenfleck, and what am I to do about that?”

  Nothing, the answer came at once. If the King didn't look at that tasteless device, all would be well, and he and Letitia and Julia would soon be out of sight.

  EVEN BEFORE THE KING OPENED THE NARROW IRON portal—with a key he kept under his tasseled cap—Finn could feel the might, feel the beat, that lay just beyond that door. And, when it opened, when the heavy panel swung away, the shock, the power of the place nearly knocked him off his feet, nearly drove him back into the hall.

  The strength, the energy behind this force was a thousand, ten times, twenty-, thirtyfold, a chaos, a din, an endless array of click-tick-clitter-clat clocks. Clocks that covered the walls and the ceiling, clocks that littered the floor. It was, as a matter, impossible to move, to take a step anywhere at all, without running into a hundred ticker-tocks.

  They beggared description, these clocks of every sort. Great, enormous clocks, clocks big enough for a family, if, indeed, they could stand the horrid noise. Clocks so tiny you could scarcely see them at all. Clocks with rusty weights that swung ponderously about. Clocks that moved with such vigor they blurred before the eye. Clocks, Finn saw to his dismay, where little birds ran in and out. Clocks where woodsmen chased their wives, where their wives chased children dizzily around, then started all over again.

  These horrors fueled the air with such heat, such a fierce, concussive beat, that Finn felt his body was under constant siege, that the very air conspired to punch and prod his head, his belly and his chest.

  Before he turned and fled, with a hapless gesture to the King, he noticed that none of these mad, clamoring clocks seemed to tell the same time…

  THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT,” SAID LLOWENKEEF- Grymm, as they reached the King's door, and Finn's hearing began to return. “The Afterworld has its own sense of time. Those of us who follow the faith of the Deeply Entombed are
in tune with the Great Eternal Hour, not the illusion of time we find reflected here.”

  Julia, waiting where Finn had left her, pretended to be immobile, as she sometimes liked to do. Finn ignored her and followed the King inside.

  “Yes, I see, eternal hour, splendid idea,” Finn said, who felt it was best to agree with a lunatic and let him have his say.

  “Don't be absurd.” The King smiled, for he felt it best to be polite to the hopelessly misinformed.

  “You don't see anything, Master Finn. You couldn't possibly understand our beliefs. Why, I scarcely do myself. Besides, we wouldn't have you even if you did. You're not of noble birth, and if you were, I'm certain you're not kin to me. There are only eleven believers in the Church of the Deeply Entombed.”

  “Eleven, sire?”

  “What, you think that's too many? I assure you, they are all sanctified. All blessed and approved by me.”

  Eleven? This whole funereal farce is for eleven rattlepates who like to take a nap?

  “I have a great desire to learn about the many different spiritual paths one comes across in the world, Your Grace. It is most enlightening to understand more about yours.

  I—”

  “Different? Different paths, you say?”

  The King's demeanor, just this side of a frenzy or a fit, told Finn at once he might have put this remark another way.

  “What I meant to say—”

  “I quite understand what you meant,” the King said, his anger quelled as quickly as it had come. “Ignorance, indeed, is a valid excuse. Even the sin of heresy comes into play.”

  He paused, then, to pour them both another mug of ale. “Do you imagine, Finn, the sorrow, the agony I must feel, the burden that weighs upon me, with the knowledge there is no other true path but mine? That everyone outside my immediate family is doomed? Destined to walk the earth as Coldies when they die? It is hard to live with this, my friend.”

  Finn imagined a tear ran down the King's cheek, but surely it was only a trick of the light.