A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

CHAPTER

  34

  As they settled into the fabulously disgusting flesh-and-bone cabin of the Tothan seabeast that would take them all back to the Star, Best looked so down in the mouth that Purna thought she might actually cry. Purna liked a good clean scrap as much as the next girl, and it had been one hell of an epic fight, but being so disappointed about not getting another rematch against the devilish witches who had whipped you good the first two times? Well, it definitely wasn’t out of character, but that just went to show that this particular character was out to lunch.

  Both Best and Keun-ju remained standing in the wide chamber long after they were under way, seemingly reluctant to touch anything in the pulsating cabin, but Purna had immediately claimed one of the top bunks—it was a long voyage to Othean so why not embrace the vile novelty of sleeping in a nice warm flesh pocket? Keun-ju’s upbeat mood was much more in line with Purna’s, although the moist and meaty mode of transport seemed to have made him seasick before they’d even left the antediluvian white harbor. Fighting was fun, duh, but it was wasted on war, where everything was terminally serious, and, as Digs would have it, everything serious was terminally dull.

  Well, most things—for as hard as he fronted at being the carefree bon vivant, it was common knowledge that the pasha had a sentimental streak seven leagues wide. And looking down at the devil licking the fleshy floor of the cabin, she knew there was one thing he took even more seriously than throwing parties or throwing shade. As if reading her thoughts like a fuzzy little Tothan corpselord, Prince stopped his icky swabbing of the deck and looked up at her with his tiny black eyes.

  “Say goodbye to Prince, chums,” said Purna, dropping back down from the bunk onto the rubbery floor to give him a final scratch.

  “Already?” said Keun-ju, not moving to pet the devil. “I’m not surprised, given who I’m talking to, but you only have one chance to make the right wish. Why rush things, when keeping a devil around is good for your health?”

  “Can’t get rid of it soon enough,” said Best, beginning to pace as the muscly walls of their cabin bowed to one side, the seabeast presumably banking through the deep.

  “No wishes,” said Purna, scooping up the little bastard to show him that somebody still cared, even if Best and Keun-ju weren’t dog lovers. It was like she’d always said, devils were just animals that mortals hadn’t figured out yet. “But I need your word, both of you—when we see Pasha Diggelby, none of this ever happened. If it can’t be helped you can fess to my having bound a devil dog and then turned it loose, that way nobody’s caught in a fib, but the details … the details might upset him.”

  “Diggelby loved that creature,” said Keun-ju. “I heard so many stories involving canine shenanigans I swore I never wanted to see another spaniel. So why not keep him, reunite Prince with his old master? Ji-hyeon’s owlbat Fellwing was once her second father’s, and I always got the impression some bond remained between them.”

  Prince looked up at Purna as if to ask, Yes, why not? Or maybe she still had some snail salad on her face from lunch, you never could tell with him. “I’m telling you as Digs’s best droog, that shit would not fly. He feels bad enough about having kept a bound devil the once, and I show back up to tempt him with his old pup? No and no. Prince wins because he’s free, and I win because I don’t have to tell Digs nuthin’ about how me and his devil had all kinds of adventures together … and how I didn’t set him loose immediately, but kept him on hand for emergencies. I mean, obviously that was the smart play, since I’m pretty sure this little guy miraculously kept my black powder dry enough to pop that priestess back in soggy Jex Toth, but even still I know it would sit poorly with the pasha. So swear it—Prince was never here.”

  “I will not take part in deception,” said Best, her rapid pacing making her even more annoying to talk to. “But then I do not intend to speak to your friend Diggelby ever again.”

  “Diggelby is everyone’s friend,” said Keun-ju, “but I see your point, Purna, and I swear it. But again, what is your wish?”

  “No wishes, I told you,” she said, addressing Prince as well as Keun-ju. Remembering Diggelby’s ghastly story of the devil melting into a soup when he’d saved her on the battlefield, she set the dog back down. “Prince, I release you from your bond, no payment necessary.”

  The lapdog-shaped hellspawn cocked his head at Purna in that adorable way he had.

  “I don’t think it works that way,” said Keun-ju. “They want to serve. They have to serve. You’ve got to give him something to work with.”

  “Oh, you’ve done this a lot, have you?” said Purna, and putting her hands on her hips and considering the devil, she had herself a wee ponder. “I wish that in exchange for your freedom, you … you go wherever and do whatever you wish, free of my bond.”

  Prince yapped at her, and Keun-ju was just saying something smart when the spaniel exploded. Not, like, into gory pieces, but as a foul cloud of grey smoke that smelled like everything bad that could possibly come out of a dog. They were obliged to flee the windowless cabin, Best and Keun-ju coughing and Purna cackling. They took shelter in the room across the hall, letting the veiny door ooze shut behind them.

  “Do you mind?” asked Hoartrap, looking up from the stack of parchment he was sorting. He was sitting on the floor using his wicker pack as a kaldi table, a monocle securely embedded in the too-soft flesh of his face. He was still but a shadow of his former self but growing bulkier by the day—unfortunately, his improving health and increasing mass corresponded to a powerful, pus-like aroma emanating from his baggy robes. Zosia lounged in a bunk a safe distance away, leafing through more of the papers. Choplicker had somehow gotten into an upper berth, yawning at the interlopers.

  “They will,” said Zosia, her dour face brightening. “You’ve all just been enlisted by the ambassador to Jex Toth to do some very important work. You can split my stack among you.”

  “I do not read.” Best said it like it was a point of pride.

  “Happy day, more for both of you!” said Zosia, waving Purna and Keun-ju over with her documents. “We’re looking through these Chainite records for priests and nuns and such who aren’t the absolute worst. So far it’s a short list.”

  “Why don’t I get any input?” groused Hoartrap. “I retrieved the damn files for you, and put the fear of me into the People’s Pack and their tame Chainites to make sure they heed our counsel.”

  “You don’t get any input because you said instead of stacking the new Holy See with our own appointees we should round up every single Chainite and sacrifice them,” said Zosia, taking out a supremely cool-looking pipe and tools as Purna and Keun-ju divided the papers between them. “So what you kids are looking for are disciplinary hearings, interesting transgressions on their penance reports, basically anything that marks them as trouble for the old guard—any member of the clergy who has a good report we don’t want in power. Got it?”

  “Ah, not to sound harsh …” said Keun-ju. “But Hoartrap does raise an interesting point. Why not just execute them all, after what they did?”

  “Well, more Chainites rebelled against the Black Pope’s madness than you might expect, and we can’t very well treat the reformers in Diadem the same as the swine who sailed to Jex Toth,” said Zosia. “Besides, indiscriminately massacring everyone is exactly what the old Burnished Chain would do, if they got ahold of their enemies, and in all things we shall endeavor to be unlike the Chain.”

  “And because she doesn’t wish to make martyrs of them,” Hoartrap chimed in. “Lest we forget a young lady who told me she wished she could execute them all. And meanwhile she has the tool to grant her every desire still languishing at her heel.”

  “Your way’s more gratifying, but my way’s better,” said Zosia, packing her pipe. “There’s always going to be a Burnished Chain, or something like it, so the most we can hope for is to exert our influence on what direction it takes from here. The wildborn clerics and their sympathizers in Diadem see
m to have mostly gotten their reformation off on the right hoof, but especially after how they treated me and Indsorith I’m not convinced they wouldn’t benefit from a little oversight. What a happy day for the mother church, that I have such learned clerks as you lot to help make the difficult decisions.”

  “Maybe this is a dumb question …” said Purna, taking out her own pipe as conspicuously as possible so Zosia could see the piece she’d made for Maroto had ended up in steadier hands. “But why would the Burnished Chain defer to our judgment on anything, let alone something as important as choosing their new leaders?”

  “Lots of reasons,” said Zosia, “ranging from the practical to the political to the self-preserving. The abridged version is if they don’t make my life easier I’ll make theirs a whole lot fucking harder, and they know it. Lucky for them the Stricken Queen is quick to compromise these days, and since anyone I nominate for the Holy See will be pulled from their own ranks they can’t cry too loudly.”

  “Maybe you should just convert,” suggested Hoartrap. “Move back to your old place, swap one throne for another?”

  “Ugh,” said Zosia. “Not funny.”

  “I could convert!” said Purna, imagining the look on Diggelby’s face if she nibbled his style after all the times he’d chomped hers.

  “You’re certainly deranged enough to pass for a Chainite,” said Keun-ju, then self-consciously glanced at Best. Perhaps suspecting that their Flintlander friend’s ever-deepening frown stemmed from the irreverent tone of the conversation, he added, “No offense intended, Best—we’re only joking.”

  “Conversion is nothing to laugh at,” said the holy-minded Horned Wolf.

  “I couldn’t agree less,” said Hoartrap. “There’s nothing funnier than the thought that you three scalawags nearly ended up joining the Vex Assembly. It almost would have been worth the end of the world just to see what came of that conversion!”

  Purna hated to admit it when Hoartrap’s cryptic shit went right over her head, so she was relieved when Best didn’t let the aside fade away unanswered.

  “What insult is this?” demanded the Flintlander. “Every one of us would have chosen death before joining those witches.”

  “Quite so, quite so!” said Hoartrap, and seeing their confusion, his ugly mug broke into an uglier grin. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t guessed why the Vex Assembly lured you to their throne room and kept you within snatching distance throughout the ritual!”

  “We weren’t lured anywhere,” said Purna, happily accepting the leather tubq pouch Zosia offered her and returning the woman’s knowing nod at her barrel-shaped briar. “We stole a pair of sky-devils and invaded their lair because we are solid brass badasses, like I told you. And they hung us up over the Gate to interrogate us because they recognized we were solid brass badasses and knew we had valuable information, also like I told you.”

  “Oh yes, yes, I’m sure that’s all there was to it,” said the difficult warlock with a snicker. “It all sounds terribly plausible.”

  “Hoartrap,” groaned Keun-ju. “Have mercy on we feeble mortals who lack both your brilliant intellect and superior sense of humor. Enlighten us, I beg you.”

  “Very well, but only to put an end to your groveling. Really, I’m embarrassed on your behalf to see you debase yourself so—”

  “Hoartrap,” said Zosia, and at her exasperated tone he finally spilled the kaldi grounds.

  “The Vex Assembly drew you to them in case any of their number was lost during the Battle of Othean. Three devil-ridden Tothans were on the field that day, and so the Assembly kept three mortals in reserve, lest the need arise to replace their fallen fellows. The corker is that their newest convert did indeed die that day, so at least one of you would have ended up on the wrong side of a devil summoning ceremony if Zosia hadn’t arrived when she did!”

  Hoartrap obviously found that scenario pretty funny, but not Purna … and not Keun-ju, or Best, or Zosia, to go on their unified frown front in the face of his ghoulish giggle. Purna wasn’t the most devout adherent to the Thirty-Six Chambers of Ugrakar, admittedly, but even she knew the whole moral behind the legend of the Living Saint was that immortality is a curse, not a blessing. And that wasn’t even taking into account just how gnarly the Vex Assembly’s version of immortality truly was! To be lowered into a Gate as a sacrifice, and have a devil take up residence in your flesh … well, at least now Purna knew what she’d be having nightmares about for the rest of her damn life. Thanks, Hoartrap.

  “So here’s a question for you,” said Keun-ju. “Since you obviously know everything about everything and are generous with your wisdom—who is the Procuress Vex Ferlune?”

  Purna perked up at the mention of Diggelby’s Jackal Woman contact in Thao—ah, to think of a happier time when the statuesque Procuress was the scariest witch they had encountered! Other than Hoartrap, of course.

  “I told you back in the Haunted Forest, I’ve never had the pleasure,” said Hoartrap.

  “Yes, but after meeting the Vex Assembly I assumed you were feigning your ignorance,” said Keun-ju. “It hardly seems a coincidence that Vex Ferlune would use that same ancient honorific of Jex Toth, and since you and the Assembly obviously have a history I thought—”

  “No, you didn’t think, you just thought you thought!” snapped Hoartrap. “If you actually had enough sense in your skull to have a real thought you wouldn’t always assume the worst about me. I may have massaged the truth a time or two, yes, but only ever for the greater good, and in this matter I am as honest as I am bored. If you want answers about mysterious mummers who flatter themselves with stupid titles like Vex, Y, or Z, I suggest you swim back to the Sunken Kingdom and inquire at the Tothan pity party.”

  Rather than being hurt by Hoartrap’s bullying, Keun-ju only gave Purna a knowing look. He’d definitely poked a nerve, which was definitely interesting. Maybe after they met back up with the rest of the Moochers another Thaoan road trip was in order, see if the Procuress could procure them some answers about who she really was … or then again, maybe it was best to let sleeping jackals lie.

  “Hey, here’s a fun idea,” said Zosia as Purna packed her pipe using the complicated Stank Method that Digs had taught her. “Since the kids obviously appreciate just how witty and hilarious you are, Hoartrap, why don’t you tell the story you told me earlier? About how a certain glutton didn’t think about the fact that by eating one demoniac he was ensuring that a different devil-possessed priest would have to follow him around for all eternity, haunting the living grave of its master. I’m sure they’ll have a good laugh at how you got yourself out of that fine mess.”

  “I’m not happy with the punchline on that one …” grumbled Hoartrap, no longer looking very amused. If anything he seemed a bit queasy, putting a malformed hand on his stomach, and Purna almost felt bad for the ageless abomination who had first betrayed his insane society when her own civilization was in its infancy.

  “We could’ve started calling you Hoartrap the Tomb!” needled Zosia. “Hoartrap the Tomb and his Amazing Ant-boy Assistant—sounds like a pretty good vaudeville act. I bet with Maroto’s connections in the industry he could’ve gotten you plenty of gigs. You’d have been an overnight sensation.”

  It was Hoartrap’s turn to groan. “Did you insist we eschew the convenience of traveling through the Gates because you’ve genuinely developed an aversion to passing through the First Dark, or was that but a deception so you could torture me at your leisure?”

  “I’ll admit it’s not a bad bonus,” said Zosia as she took her pouch back from Purna. “But no, in all seriousness I’m never dipping another toe in the First Dark if I can help it.”

  “Nor I,” said Best.

  “Nor I,” said Keun-ju.

  “Yes, yes, because crawling inside a sea monster that smells remarkably like old ham is somehow less sinister,” said Hoartrap, taking out a pouch of his own and popping a salted gumdrop in his mouth.

  “I might be convi
nced to do some more Gate-tripping further down the road …” Purna thought out loud. “But first I need to hook back up with Nemi and feel her out on the subject, see what she thinks about the practice.”

  “And with that we return to work,” said Hoartrap, officiously waving his stack of parchments at them. “Before I am further rewarded for my many gifts by being subjected to lurid tales of Purna feeling up my hideous apprentice.”

  “Feeling out, and former apprentice,” Purna corrected him, her heart beating faster than the pulsing floor of the cabin at the memory of the cutest girl she’d ever kissed. The girl she might be kissing again, before too much longer, and more besides … All of a sudden Purna had an intense craving for a country-style omelet.

  “Hmmm …” Keun-ju scanned the top page of his stack with more interest than Purna would ever be able to fake. “Just to be sure of our obligations, all we need to do is set aside disciplinary documents and the like, so that you might then identify potential candidates? There are not specific individuals we are looking for, merely a general sort of cleric, one who butted horns with the old Chainite establishment?”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing so far,” said Zosia. “I’ve also got a list of possible names the current stewards of Diadem graciously shared with Hoartrap, and once we’ve checked those out we’ll blow the ash from the dottle. Oh yeah, and I meant to ask—does your friend Diggelby really have an uncle who’s a cardinal, or was that some highbrow humor that went over my head? The Chain has all these crooked requirements where the best jobs require a hereditary connection to the church, and to keep things looking legitimate we’d rather bend the rules than break them.”

  “He told me he did, though I don’t remember if it was a cardinal or a bishop,” said Purna, squinting at the crawling Cascadian script on the top page of her stack. “I can’t read this either, I thought it’d be in Immaculate.”

  “Pity that pasha of yours isn’t a virgin or we’d have the solution to all our problems,” said Hoartrap, making Zosia choke as she was lighting her pipe. “Can you imagine?”