The Incompleat Nifft

by Michael Shea

  We found one high in the hills by the light of its cookfire. We studied it carefully from among the rocks. It had a man's leg and haunch on a spit—the skin was flaking away in ash, and the thigh-muscle swollen with its juices. The rest of the man lay in pieces by its side, limbs and head pulled from the trunk like a torn fowl's—for ghuls use neither steel nor stone. The huge hands that had done the tearing were crusted with black blood.

  Let's say you were to take our friend Grimmlat. Leave his arms the same length but start his hands at his mid-forearms, and crowd all his muscles into the shortened arm that's left. Give him feet of the same proportions with toes like fingers and knees jutting backward. Double the size of his poppy eyes, undersling his jaw an inch and give him haggle teeth as long as your thumb, and you've got a ghul.

  I picked my position in the shadows. Barnar heaved a loud sigh and called out: "Hail there! Is that a ghul?" He trudged noisily into the ghul's camp and under the cover of his noise I moved up into the spot I'd picked. The ghul sprang up at Barnar's entry.

  "May I sit down, friend ghul?" my friend asked. "I want you to do me the service of ending my life."

  The ghul, for all its ugliness, had a profoundly sad expression due to the way its great eyes droop at the corners, and you rather feel for them when you're not involved. This one was in a defensive crouch, otherwise I would have had my shot at once. In almost all postures the things keep their shoulders folded forward, with their breastbone sunk in between their chest-muscles. They're only vulnerable at the moment of attack. That was the point of Barnar's scheme. He sat down crosslegged, like a man who means to stay. Anger began to replace wariness in the ghul's face.

  "Are you deaf?" snapped Barnar. "Why do you hang drooling like an idiot? Kill me!"

  The ghul didn't like this. It snorted and sat down again, and resumed turning the spit with a stubborn glare.

  "Why should I?" it said. They have small, spidery voices, like a hag's.

  "Why not?" boomed Barnar. "You could eat me! Are you so stupid you can't see that I'm a man like the one you're cooking there?" He gestured indignantly at the head that lay on its side by the ghul. The man had had an enviable black moustache. "You'd kill me quick enough if I didn't ask—you make no sense!" Barnar complained.

  "I'm no idiot, you're one," the ghul quavered bitterly. "You'd rot before I got hungry again. Don't you know anything? And anyway I'll do whatever I please and I won't take any orders from you, you big sack of horse-flop!" And it licked its ragged teeth loudly to drive the insult home.

  "Insults!" cried Barnar, "and I thought I'd be doing you service for service." He heaved a great sigh, and rested his forehead on his hands. The ghul looked interested now.

  "Why do you want to die?" it asked grudgingly.

  "Why?" Barnar's head came up in disbelief. "The world so grey and spongy and futile and cold as it is—life so short and nasty and poor and hemmed in on all sides by destruction—and you ask why? I've had enough of it all, that's why!"

  The ghul looked musingly. It stood up slowly and took its supper's head in its hand—the hand was big enough for the head to roll several times over from the blood-black claws to the heel of the shovel-wide palm. It rolled the head thoughtfully for a moment, and then drew back its arm to throw. That was my shot.

  I pinned it so solid that half the haft re-emerged from its spine, but ghul vitality is terrible, and it actually finished the throw with my spear in it. Barnar moved in time, and the head struck the rock behind him so hard that it flew in pieces like a burst earthen jar.

  We took the ghul back to where we had cached the lurk, getting there by dawn. Now we had to build up the lurk's body. We were sure it could be considerably collapsed, and with some experimenting we found how to fold back the legs over the head part, and flatten and fold the back part. We tied it snugly into this reduced position with thongs, and wrapped the whole thing in oilskin. The finished bundle was about the size of a small man who has folded himself up to sleep. We bled the ghul, too, but didn't prepare it any more than by tying the wrists and ankles together. Barnar slung it crosswise over his shoulder and back, and we entered the swamp again. We walked the mudbars openly now, hustling the lurk through the water where we had to, making fairly quick time.

  We soon struck one of the marked routes to the pyramid, a series of yellow poles that followed an almost continuous system of mudbars. We stayed with this and late in the evening, we came in sight of the pyramid. It is truly immense, tall enough to join the flat, dark waters with the ragged cloud ceiling. We laid ourselves down atop a broad bar amidst the bushes. We found it easy to sleep.

  IV

  In the morning we weighted the bundled lurk and sank it in a pool by the sixth route marker out from the palace—more than a mile out. Then we headed for the palace.

  I've taken these eyes of mine to many places, and have been no Jack-out-of-the-way, but I'll tell you I had sense enough to be impressed by that pyramid. It had to be a good three hundred feet high to thrust its upper tiers into the clouds as it did. It was a mighty, terraced hill of a palace. It had quays and docking berths all around its skirts, for it stood in the center of a lake, and water unbroken by solid ground spread half a mile around it on all sides. The lower two-thirds were all of stone, but its upper tiers were built of wood. Those great beams were as massive-looking as the monumental stone under them, and could have come from no nearer than the Arbalest Forest, on the fringe of the Iron Hills. One could read the wet of the fog up at the summit from the wood's deep blackness.

  By the time we got to the fringe of the palace's great lake, we'd been passed by several inbound boats. The lake was alive with taxi rafts, for it's quickest to get from one side to another of the palace by sailing round it. The interior is a master maze of corridors and chambers. We saw only one archer-squad going out to patrol. They gave us a wave. Bountymen are liked there, and to be traveling palaceward with a dead ghul over one's shoulder, is to go with as much guarantee of welcome as a stranger may expect. At our signal a taxicraft came promptly away from the palace's bustling perimeter.

  Our pilot liked bountymen but seemed to think they were a bit stupid for taking on such a hard job. A man never gives away more than when he speaks in friendly contempt. We wore no teeth or fangs and thus had to be beginners, and this gave countenance to very particular questions about the pyramid's interior, and the god-making rite. The answers confirmed Kerkin's tale.

  "We hear the whole top of it is made of big beams," Barnar said with yokelish awe. We were drawing near. Light leaked down the sides of the pyramid from rifts in the cloud, but it was weak light that was itself just leakage from higher clouds. Still, anything so huge, and alive, and old, raised by the hands of man, must fill you with awe—that's my view. The pilot spat in the water to say it all wasn't that wonderous if you knew it like he did.

  "You should see the beams in the vaulted ceilings at the top, where the King begins his pilgrimage," he said. "Some of them weigh a ton each, yet are groined and dovetailed just as neat as a fly's whiskers."

  The pilot was most reassuring on every important point. From his description a man could move through the entire top level among the ceiling beams, and never touch or be seen from the floor. And the guard on the King's door was two spearmen, no more—for the King was administered a paralytic beverage in his preparation for the pre-ritual vigil. He sat, immobile and awake, in his windowless cell. And even though the level just below would be sealed off on the night before the rite, barring access to the top, the guard up there would not be added to. For it is part of the ceremonial assumption that the King awaits his god-making eagerly, and that his guard is just an honor guard.

  We got off at the west quay, by far the most public one. The Queen's Cabinet uses the entire east quay for military and economic business, while the terraces on the north and south sides are interrupted by several water-level exits—channels let into the palace's foundation, to permit the launching of craft directly from its interior.
On the west are all the major markets and bazaars, and more than half of the inns and wineshops.

  We loitered in the plazas, browsed at the scarfmakers and swordsmith's stalls, and had wine at several different places. We got ourselves seen and made chat with merchants—fitting in. Feeling the mood of the place, and establishing our role, you see. The ghul on Barnar's shoulder was an excellent introduction. Most showed us the condescending warmth the pilot had. Bounty hunting is a common way for the rustic youths of the northern hills to get their first look at the metropolis, and folk are used to finding them sufficiently simple. A man whose eye is awake would have been alerted by our mature age, but as we know, most people don't look at things very closely. At one winestall the tapster overcharged us for the amusement of the other customers, then stopped me as I paid up, smiling, and revealed the joke. We all had a good laugh and when we left I was able to steal the lidded goblet I'd had my wine in. It was just what we would need.

  Next we bought rope and bowstrings. We needed quite a few yards of each; we split up to make the purchases, and both of us went to several different places to make up our halves of the quota. Less professional men would have been lulled by the holiday extravagances all around them, and the amazing number of people. It seemed the whole northern swamp—the drier part where most of the population lived—had joined the already large resident population in the palace. We knew that all you need is to raise a few doubts in a few chance souls to have your best-laid plans buggered and blasted.

  At noon we went to the Audiences, held in the central chamber of the pyramid's water-level. The Queen presided here, tirelessly, most of the year. She was now in her seven days' retirement in the catacombs under the foundations, below even the swampwaters. There she communed with the mummies of Year Kings past. She would ceremonially rise from thence on the eve of the god-making, and at the same time the King would be brought down from his cell on the pinnacle, which was called the "heaven" station of his ritual "pilgrimage." The pair would meet in the same Chamber of Audiences which we now entered. After their meeting, the King's body would be taken down to the catacombs—the "night" station of his pilgrimage—there to join the other Year Kings. There they stand in the dark, all gods together—gods of Night, you understand.

  Now take an inn the size of this one, friends—you could have put five or six of them in that chamber. Three of the Queen's priestesses were hearing the representations of the people—it's a job Vulvula handles alone, such as her wit and memory—and dozens of under-judges occupied tribunals throughout the hall. There must have been a thousand litigants there, which did not begin to fill the palace. Let it be said here: no one we talked with ever denied the Queen's justice is thorough and scrupulous, treating the great as strictly as the small. True, in her domain some dozens of people each year wake sick and groggy after horrible dreams, and must keep their beds a month after, and a dozen or so others each year do not wake at all one morning. Still, fair rule is only had at a cost, eh?

  Routine matters like tax payments had their own designated tribunals, and we found the one for bounty payments. The clerk there assigned us a skinner. The man rose from a bench where he sat with two other dirty-aproned men. He led us out of the chamber and through a good half mile of corridors. The building is fascinating. You get no sense of pattern at all, even after moving through it for a quarter of an hour. The ceiling heights vary and some halls are short with many rooms, while others are long with doorways that are few and large. Residents here—and the halls thronged with them—rarely know more than their immediate "neighborhoods" very well. We came out of the municipal quay on the east side.

  The man brought the whole skin off in one piece, so fast I couldn't follow his moves. They make parchment from it, and clothiers use it for rich men's slippers and ladies' dagger-sheaths. The guts and bones he threw in a bin on a raft, to be used for baiting the lurk-traps around the lake's perimeter. The head he threw in also, after breaking the jaws with a sledge and removing the teeth for us. It had ten—big grinders with cutting edges. He gave us a runt-pearl in payment.

  On the same quay an old coppersmith sat on a stool. He offered to bind our teeth with wire for wearing round the neck. His work was cheap and quick, and we came away wearing our trophies—a five-tooth row apiece. This established our role, with a small disadvantage. Accomplished bountymen wear "jaws"—ten-tooth strings, row under row. They tend to be rough with novices of their own guild—they give them the treatment that greenness gets everywhere, and a bit more besides, if you see my meaning. There were surely some ace bountymen in this convocation. It would just have to be taken as it came.

  We did next precisely what a pair of bumpkin's would have: we went up to the peak of the pyramid to bribe the guards for a gawk at the Year King in his cell.

  V

  As I've said, the pyramid's top is in the clouds. From its outer terraces you can't see anything but sweating-cold whiteness—above, below, all around. Standing there gave you a desperately lonely feeling. That blind whiteness made it a place without time, a kind of Death. You felt as if you might have been dead without realizing it, that all your busy actions had been grave-dreams, and you yourself a skeleton, a rack of hard white bones that had stood there without moving for a thousand years. We went inside and ascended to the last and highest level, which can only be reached from inside the second-to-last.

  There were others coming and going, but the custom of peeking at the King still had enough of the illicit about it to keep people brisk and quiet up here. As rustics turned bountymen we had some countenance for moving slower and staring around us.

  The place was perfect—it alone of all the levels was simple in plan: a hollow square of halls with three doors to a side. A Year King must not have his vigil in a predecessor's cell before twelve years of purification have passed. Each year therefore the King waits in a different room. The halls were gloomy. They had very deeply vaulted ceilings because the tier is built to adorn the pyramid with an elegantly roofed crown, though it's never clear enough for this to be seen from below.

  Our greatest encouragement was to see the two guards posted at the end room of a corridor, near a corner. Barnar muttered to me:

  "I can do it. I'll want a catwalk of ropes from just over the door and running round the corner and sixty feet up that next hall."

  "I'll string it tonight then," I said.

  We looked the guards over as we waited our turn at the door's barred window. They were scarred veterans—blank, observant-eyed, and ready of movement underneath their practiced immobility. They would be good men. The post was lucrative and the palace guard had elimination bouts just before the rite to determine who would get the King's Watch. I paid one of them and we took our turn at the window—we'd already noted the door had no lock.

  The cell was windowless, the plainest little box of bare wood you could imagine. By the far wall was a heap of cushions. A young man sat on the floor with his upper body leaned back on them. His legs were sprawled loosely on the floor with his lower body. He wore only a breechclout and moccasins. The garments were silver, signifying moonlight and Night, of which he was soon to be a deity. He was well made, muscled like a runner. It was eerie to see a body so moulded, ridged and knotted with the habit of life and activity, yet lying so unstrung and strengthless. He seemed powerless even to sit upright. His eyes moved slowly and without aim, but for some reason he suddenly fixed them on our faces at the bars. He knit his brow, and his hand stirred from the cushions as if to reach up and touch his own face, but fell back before it could. I wonder now what kind of dreams or portents we were to him. If he had known the truth, he would have known that we would neither harm nor help him.

  We came back down to the lake level without directions. It cost us two extra hours of blundering around, but it sharpened our wits to the place and it taught us a fairly direct route in a way that guaranteed our remembering it. I didn't come out onto the quay with Barnar. In a dark turning I transferred to his pack all m
y share of the bowstring we'd bought, and all my gear except for my rope. He gave me all the rope he had. We had already chosen the wine shop where we would meet later that night. He went off to find an apothecary. I retraced the route we had just figured out, and returned to the upper levels.

  I found an inn and killed an hour with wine and smoked eel. It was full dark when I reentered the dim halls of the Year King's vigil. They call me Nifft the Lean nowadays, but when I first earned myself a name—it was not in these parts, friend, and it was some time ago—I was called Nifft the Nimble. I did the hardest work of this whole glorious nab right there in the next two hours. Right at the door where I entered, I slung up a line I had weighted with my dagger, and hauled myself up among the ceiling beams. I did it with a gaggle of revelers climbing the stairs just behind me, and several others, to judge by the footfalls, just about to round the next corner of the hallway. I was up in a blink, and my line after me.

  I moved through the beams to within fifty yards of the guarded door, perfecting my movements and learning the pattern of the joists and rafters. Then I sat down to prepare my ropes. I suited them to the beam intervals where I was, which of course would be the same everywhere. I tripled the ropes, braided them loosely, and knotted them, three knots per interval. The finished hundred feet of catwalk, when I had it coiled round my shoulder, was half my own bulk. Now came the true feat. I proceeded toward the King's door and coming directly over the guards, I began to anchor the catwalk.

  I strung it high, with two levels of beams between me and them. Though the regular spacing of the beams made me visible enough to anyone who was looking, I was well in the shadow and being seen was not the danger. The risk was in the fact that a mere fifteen feet of empty air separated me from the ears of those guards. I worked slower than a miser's hand moving to his purse to pay. Gawkers at the King came steadily and I managed to coincide the loudest part of my work with the advent and the murmurs of these. This was the knot tightening, for the catwalk must not sag and creak when Barnar used it, as then the halls would be barred to visitors, and the silence complete. But rope noise being sharp, and the noises of the visitors subdued, it took agonizingly long to get even one knot firm.