L Neil Smith - [North American Confederacy 03]

by Their Majesties' Bucketeers (epub)

  “Get out of my way, you oafish churl!” rhe shouted. “You minion of the Statist elite! Begone from my path, I tell you!” Here rhe brandished some metallic object, which I recognized to be the large and heavy ring of keys rhe carried out of continuous and proprietary habit to the numerous apartments rhe rented out. “One of my lurries is in trouble of some kind here! You’ll produce rher for me this very instant or I’ll have the Bucks on you!”

  “But, but, but, but . . said Fatpa, dodging the old lurry’s substantial brass collection as it whirled viciously about his carapace. “But, but, but, but . .

  “Madam—” Mav attempted, his tone and pelt nearly as urbane as the fashionable dressing gown he affected.

  “Don’t you call me that,” retorted the landlurry, “not in this place!”

  My detective friend recovered quickly. “Your pardon, dear lurry, I am Agot Edmoot Mav of Their Majesties’ Bucketeers. May I be of some—”

  “A Bucketeer?” Rhe looked him over carefully. “I might have known! The corruption in high—”

  Suddenly there was a resounding crash! The front doors, bolted once again by Fatpa, groaned and splintered, then gave way. A squad of half a dozen Bucketeers rushed in from out of doors, the wagon axle they’d employed as a battering ram still in their hands until they dropped it where they stood, grease spattering in the carpet sand.

  “Here now, what’s goin’ on?” Their leader, a short, abrasive fellows wielded a fire ax as his lamn began to search about, undecided, by their attitude, whether they were here to stop a fight or extinguish a blaze. One zealot among them seized upon the landlurry and started locking lamacles upon rher wrists. Rhe shouted angrily at him and began again to swing rher keys. Another, with similar ambitions toward Fatpa, faced that imposing worthy squarely, looked him over, up and down, gave a sheepish ripple, and turned his intentions elsewhere. His fellows now were overturning cushions and ferreting out suspicious wrinkles among the draperies.

  Vyssu watched this for a while, shrugged her arms in boredom, and went out to get some kood started.

  Mav reached into the folds of his dressing gown as if to produce credentials, but the squad leader, who did not know him, drew his service revolver. “Keep yer hands in sight now! Keep ’em up, I say!”

  Behind me, the Archsacerdot, now fully clothed in a voluminous and concealing cloak, eased out of the little room he’d occupied and attempted to sneak past me on the stairs. “Your Eminence,” I cautioned, “I would not go down there, if I were—”

  My landluny, freed suddenly by rher startled would-be captor, began striking the poor fellow in earnest with rher keys as he cowered in anguish. Behind rher, through the broken doors, a little unkempt group of strangers entered at a run, spied rher with the Bucketeer, and fell upon him. Unarchists, then, I gathered. Some of the other officers leapt into the fray and soon there was a milling, noisy mass of lamviinity battling across Vyssu’s parlor and entry-way. I determined then to remain precisely where I was standing, safe upon the upper floor.

  Suddenly, behind me, a window crashed and tinkled. An oddly garbed lam swung through the shattered frame upon the end of a large length of rope, collided with a hatstand, and fell over it in a tangle of arms and headpieces. He sorted himself out, leapt to his hands, and tied the rope’s end to the metal wall bracket of a converted gaslamp, straightened out his cloak, and reached beneath it to produce a large, long-barreled hunting pistol. It was not until this moment that I realized I still held my own life preserver, both barrels now discharged, and that the spare ammunition for it was somewhere across the crowd-filled street in my medical bag. The fellow saw me and raised his gun, yet before he could so much as say a word, another of his sort slid awkwardly down the rope, and another and another.

  The rope went slack an instant, then tautened once again. With a screech and an alarming shower of electrical sparks, the light fixture was wrenched from its place upon the wall and carried out the window, where a blurry form whipped by, his mournfully resigned wail descending both in pitch and position until it terminated with a crash in the alleyway below.

  The surviving intruders lay piled upon each other in a heap. Considerable grumbling, cursing effort and much rough diplomacy were required before they separated themselves from one another and the hatstand. As one, they trained suspicious eyes upon me, along with an impressively mismatched array of weapons, making toward the stairs in single file. Here they paused abruptly, jamming into one another once again as they espied the crowd below, still engrossed in an enthusiastic and deafening fight. A shout of recognition came from one of the newcomers and from all. “Third Contraconventionals!” They clenched their fists and gnashed their jaws.

  I buttonholed the last in line, a little fellow carrying a meat cleaver. “What, pray, is a Third Contraconven-tional?”

  He growled self-righteously, pointing toward my land-lurry and rher friends. “Revisionists and traitors to the Cause! We’ve run across a nest of ’em, it seems!” His companions, muttering agreement with his sentiments, started down the stairs. He moved to catch them up.

  “A moment, sir, if you will be so kind. May I ask what you are, in this connexion?”

  “A Second Contraconventional, of course, an’ soggy well proud of it! Now unhand me, missur, please, for I am needed by my comrades!” He followed his friends and together they trooped down the stairs—past the Archsacer-dot, who clung timidly to the handrail—plunging with a single, sanguine shout into the battle. I felt a momentary pang of disappointment, for I greatly wished to inquire further—for example, about the First Contraconventionals— but it seemed that the Seconds and the Thirds were now happily preoccupied with one another and the Bucketeers and disinclined to answer questions.

  Were there Second, Third, and even First Convention-als? I must ask this of Niitood someday, I thought. Politics were growing more and more complex by the moment.

  As I turned to give my last attentions to the remains of Reverend Adem, yet another flurry of shouts arose above the sounds of violence below. A shot rang out! Rushing to the stairs once more, I saw Mav calmly poking a finger into a large, ragged hole in Vyssu’s parlor wall, where it appeared that someone had just shot at him—and missed, fortunately. Across the crowded chamber, Fatpa, now swinging a screaming Bucketeer from a length of chain, plunged a heavily muscled hand into a curtained alcove from which there issued a considerable volume of whitepowder gunsmoke. He retrieved his arm and, with it, the disheveled figure of a lam held, securely, if without much dignity, by the fur atop his carapace. Retaining his hold upon the chain connected to the Bucketeer, Fatpa seized the weapon in the would-be assassin’s fingers. A large-bore shrimp-hunter—Great Merciful Pah (as Mav would have it), it was that fellow, the little gray Middle House bureaucrat from Tis’s offce. Why—

  FLASH! That from the front door, where Niitood the reporter had just appeared, readying his camera for another shot. “Imperial Intelligencer!” he shouted absurdly, striding across the room, dodging bodies locked in mortal combat. Flash! He made another photograph. The leader of the Bucketeers turned, swung a vicious blow at the correspondent, who danced back, protective of his camera, and flashed! another picture.

  Fatpa had a hand now upon each end of the shotgun, having turned a length of chain tightly about the bureaucrat’s upper limb and hung both him and the unfortunate Bucketeer whose chain it was from a chandelier, where they swung and crashed together, punching at each other vigorously. Vyssu’s bodyguard gave a grunt clearly audible even from my vantage and bent the gun almost in two, its stock splintering in his hands. He tossed it away, and before it landed on the floor, it struck one of the Unar-chists—a Second Contraconventional, I believe, but it may have been a Third—upon the carapace. He sank groundward in oblivion.

  Behind Niitood, a crowd of roughly dressed strangers barged indoors to claim their own place in the meelee. Some of these I recognized from the crowd outside, likely disappointed now with what had turned out to be the bogus fight A
dem had no doubt arranged to entertain and divert them. One picked up a sizable lounging cushion and threw it in my general direction the length of the room, staggering the Archsacerdot, who’d made it to the bottom of the stairs. The cleric stumbled, narrowly missing Niitood’s camera, and fell across the half-disrobed carapace of one of Vyssu’s females, who screamed and promptly fainted.

  As if that were their cue, a freshly arrived troupe of stem and dignified individuals in sacerdotal robes nearly tripped over the form of their august superior, who was by this time crawling toward the door between the legs of the combatants. Someone struck one of the priests with yet another cushion, and the group of them was somehow absorbed into the fighting before they realized what had happened to them. These worthies’ heels were nearly trod upon by a character in Imperial Navy uniform, his dress sword dragging upon the floor and the rest of his attire in careless, unmilitary disarray. I suspected this was Hedgyt, Sra-fen’s old friend whom Mav had interviewed, for he carried in his arms some ungainly and complex device half-draped in a ragged length of sailcloth. The elderly Navy surgeon looked about, bewildered by the riot he’d blundered into, spotted Mav, and started toward my friend, clearly intent upon conversing with him. Through some fanatical transformation I have sometimes noticed in inventors, he quickly became oblivious to his surroundings once he had engaged the detective.

  Despite the obvious perils of negotiating the intervening distance, I thought at once to join them, there being nothing further I could do for Adem, and took a measured step again toward the stairs, when I was pushed violently from behind and lost my balance, tumbling down several steps, trampled over by a dozen of Vyssu’s female and surmale employees, followed closely by a fresh squad of Bucke-teers, who’d likely come in by the roof trap. As I regained a vertical attitude and orientation, yet another wave of hurrying lamviinity overwhelmed me; Vyssu’s customers and yet another Departmental brigade. By the time I had recovered my full sensibilities a second time, I somehow found myself at the bottom of the flight; those who had used me so unkindly were now indistinguishable from any of the others fighting with one another (for reasons they’d apparently forgotten long since) in Vyssu’s front hall and parlor. Indeed, the melee had extended itself to the kitchen and to every other nook and cranny upon this floor. There was a surge and sally that threatened to spread deliberations up the stairs, the way I’d come, as well. I ducked out of the way, only to trip over the Archsacerdot, and fell sprawling with him. The unconscious trollop he’d tripped over had caught a cheap and garish bracelet in his cloak; he’d dragged her with him until they were both directly before the front door.

  I shook myself again to stimulate a sorely bruised apprehension of reality. Two trines of walking hands appeared before me, looking somehow familiar; I glanced up. There, of all the people in the world to choose among, was my vile, perfidious maidservant, Zoobon, and beside her, my mother, father, and surfather. A flying cushion struck my male parent between the eyes. He swayed, by dint of doughty character remained standing, straightened his hat with an angry wrench, and glared down at me, his nostrils quivering with reproof.

  “Good day, Papa,” I preempted. "Mama, Sasa—Zoobon, you’re dismissed this very minute—won’t you join us in some kood?” A heavy ring of brass keys whirled across the room, striking Zoobon on the ear. She slapped a palm over the orifice, cried in anguish, whirled to confront her attacker, and got a cushion of her own for the trouble of it. She lacked Papa’s stem disposition; it knocked her over and she was instantly trampled by a passing gaggle of Bucketeers and Unarchists. Sasa stepped back out of harm’s way, seizing Mama, but the Bucketeers leapt upon my father, clamping all his legs in irons despite his most vociferous and threatening protests.

  Despite my better inclinations, I giggled, glad that I had lived to see my father’s dignity deflated just a little. There would be a reckoning for this, I knew. I hoped that I would live to see that, too.

  FLASH! Niitood caught Papa in a most embarrassing condition, all his arms and legs bound up together above his jaws (Mav was having some influence, it would seem). Someone heaved a vase at the reporter, but he ducked, once again narrowly preserving his camera, and the object took Fatpa on the jaws. When his eyes cleared, Fatpa picked up a Bucketeer at random—also the two prisoners he was attached to—and in retaliation threw the whole lot back at the vase-thrower. There was a splendid crash!, but I could not quite make out where, nor upon whom, this trio of unfortunates had come to rest. Mama and Sasa huddled close beside the front wall to the left of the entrance, where they remained safe when the pair of original combatants, those watu-drivers, tumbled in, still entwined in deadly struggle—their sham dispute, it would appear, had somehow been transformed into an honest duel—and bleeding copiously from a dozen minor wounds apiece. One of them tripped over the Archsacerdot, the other stumbled danger-ouly close to Niitood and his precious camera. The reporter danced and ducked away.

  This whole affair was rapidly assuming the shape of an outrageous nightmare. The next time I dared to look up, my father, rocking on his carapace, was preparing to swing one single liberated fist at the person next to him, who turned out to be my own Battalion Chief, Waad Hifk Tis!

  Two brightly liveried footmen I’d not seen before now grappled with Fatpa, who held someone in gentlelam’s attire above his carapace, preparing to throw him across the room. The Lord Ennramo shouted ungenteelly until the former highwaylam was persuaded to release him—-which transpired at the extremity of Fatpa’s swing. Ennramo flew some distance, where he smashed into the Archsacerdot, who had only just regained his walking hands. The pair lay insensate in a lump together.

  A momentary pathway among the fighters cleared along the line of the Lord’s flight, and I could just see Mav and Hedgyt, the physician, still deep in conversation. Every now and again, some ruffian intent upon involving them in the violence would approach with a rush. Almost absently, Mav would stretch out a fist, strike a preemptive blow, and then return to Ms consultation with Hedgyt. The doctor scarcely seemed to notice. Vyssu stood nearby with an exceptionally elongated inhaling tube in her fingers, offering occasional comment of her own.

  WHEETI Above the thundering chaos, a whistle sounded brilliantly, distracting the combatants from their labors and attracting their attention (and mine) to the entrance of the parlor. Leds, the old Museum guard stood in the doorway, and beside him, Sathe. There was a murmur, then a groan, which circled about the room as each enthusiast began to appreciate the extent of his strains and injuries.

  Sathe, surveying the erstwhile field of battle, waited patiently as Mav interrupted his conversation and waded among the damaged carapaces toward her. He paused but once, to retrieve a ring of keys from the floor and return it to the landlurry.

  “I say, Mother! How good of you to come! What on Sodde Lydfe brings you down here to the Kiiden?” He took her hand and nodded to old Leds, then noticed Tis, who had somehow acquired a set of female undergarments, which were draped over his jaws. This apparition Mav tactfully disdained to acknowledge, very likely winning, in the process, a friend in Tis for life.

  “Good evening, my dear,” Sathe replied with equal aplomb. “Why, I read your advertisement in the newspaper and thought to ask you how matters were developing.” She looked around her once again, taking in Ennramo and the Archsacerdot. The Bucketeers had begun to sort things out but were running short of lamacles. “It would appear that you have had results.”

  “By Pah, I think you’re right! Have you met Vyssu— and Doctor Hedgyt? And can you stay for kood?” Mav caught the eye of a Bucketeer who seemed to recognize him. “That’s quite correct, dear fellow, take everybody in— they’re all murder suspects, every one of them. Get up from there, will you, Mymy. There’s a good lurry. I believe your skills will soon be needed at the Precinct.”

  Outside, there was the grumbling of bad weather once again, and rain began to fall. Through the parlor window, miraculously unbroached by the fighting, I watched a cab d
raw up, its watun and driver protected by Mav’s new waterproof garments. “Anybody needs a cab?” he shouted smugly.

  “Mav, will you kindly tell me something?”

  “And what might that be, Mymy?” He fussed with the lapels of his dressing gown and began to dribble fluid into his pipe.

  “The meaning of a word—the Reverend Adcm’s last, that is. And perhaps Podfettian, from the sound of it. The word is ‘danokih.’”

  “I see. How very interesting.” He shook the little flask impatiently and held it once again over the end of his inhaling tube. “It isn’t Podfettian, although it’s close. It’s Old Fodduan.”

  “Whatever does it mean?” I asked.

  Across the room, Niitood flashed! a final photograph, glanced out of the window at the lone cab, and moved briskly toward the door. He took a step, tripped over the Archsacerdot, and fell, crushing his camera.

  I believe the word he uttered then was Old Fodduan, too.

  “You wouldn’t want to know,” Mav answered, glancing in disgust at both his empty flask and Niitood. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

  XVI: Mathas Behind Bars

  Someday, I am confident, there will exist a rational process for determining which victims of mass tragedy, such as an apartment fire or railroad accident, ought to be assisted urgently, which succored at comparative leisure in hospital, and which invited to depart, as it were, under their own sail and rigging. At present, these crucial judgments, inevitably made in haste and never without error, constitute an esoteric art, absorbed by its practitioners pragmatically, and doubtless at the cost of many lives. Perhaps it shall be I who ultimately establishes the principles for this procedure. If so, then I shall have also become an inventor of sorts, like Mav, Niitood, Hedgyt, Law, or any hundred of my other acquaintances, along with nearly everybody else who lives in this highly stimulating epoch of Great Fodduan progress.