‘I’ve been ready for a week,’ said Symon The Knife, collecting up his blade and twirling it one-handed, until it slipped from his grasp and embedded itself in Barunko’s meaty thigh.
The huge man sat up straighter, looking around. ‘We in a fight? Is this a fight? Let me at ’im!’
The broad, blustery face of Grand General Pin Dollop, Commander of the Royal Farrogal Army, beamed. ‘Say what you like about this new king,’ he said in a voice that should have been low and throaty, perhaps even a growl, but was instead thin and reedy, ‘he understands the importance of protecting our borders.’
Seneschal Shartorial Infelance paced before the General in the cluttered Strategy Room, her silk robes swirling with restless motion. ‘I think you need to explain this to me one more time, Dollop. How is it that raiding beyond those borders constitutes a defensive gesture? Think well on your answer. These are the Imperial caravans of Nightmaria your troops are savaging. Granted, we don’t know much about the Fiends but all that we’ve heard bodes ill. Stirring up that nest seems precipitous.’
‘Nonsense,’ Pin Dollop replied. ‘It’s been too long we let those inhuman spawn squat nice and cosy in those mountain keeps, watching our every move from on high. The old king flinched at his own shadow. It was all appease this and placate that. Concessions on the tolls and tithes, all that merchantware skipping right past poor Farrog, making the Fiends filthy rich and us scraping the coffers year after year.’ His small eyes tracked Shartorial Infelance. ‘Now, this new king of ours, he’s got spine. And the Grand Bishop’s just this evening signed the Proclamation of Holy War against the Fiends of Nightmaria.’ He made a fist and ground it into the cup of his other hand. ‘Scour the scum from their caves! Roast their lizard hides on spits!’
Shartorial sighed. ‘They’ve always respected the closed borders between us, General, and have made a point of hiding their hideousness through intermediaries—’
‘Barring that slimy Ambassador of theirs!’ Pin Dollop shivered. ‘Makes my skin crawl and creep. Well, enough of that. We got us a real king now and I don’t care how he got to the throne – tell me, are you mourning the old king? Honestly?’
Frowning, she shook her head. ‘Not much, granted. But,’ and she halted her pacing to face Pin Dollop, ‘something about this new one …’
‘Give him time. Besides,’ the General rubbed at his jowls, ‘the man sports a very fine beard. Very fine indeed.’
Shartorial’s frown deepened as she studied the man. ‘Well,’ she allowed in a neutral tone, ‘there is that.’
‘Precisely. Anyway, the army’s chewing at the bit. We’ll field the whole complement. Five Legions, four thousand soldiers who’ve been training for this for months.’ He made stepping motions with one hand. ‘Up into the mountains, killing every damned Fiend we come across! Investing the keeps, burning them out and if that doesn’t work, starving them out! I’ve waited my whole life for this! Conquest!’
She cleared her throat. ‘Our defensive strategy.’
‘In the name of security,’ Pin Dollop said, wagging a finger, ‘all measures are justified. Fiends skulking in shrubbery. Unacceptable. You don’t tolerate a viper’s nest in your backyard, do you? No, you burn it out, scour it clean, make the world a better place.’
‘The citizens are certainly fired up,’ Shartorial allowed.
‘Exactly. Have we ever been so unified? No. Do recall, we came very near a civil war only three months ago! If not for the new king enforcing order, this city would be a shambles – and you can swear to the Indifferent God himself that the Fiends would have pounced!’
‘General,’ Shartorial Infelance said, ‘I’d hardly call dissension over this year’s Artist of the Century a civil war.’
‘Anarchy in the streets, Seneschal! The new king’s first act was decisive.’
‘He arrested all the artists.’
‘A brilliant move! Enough of these stupid festivals and all those snivelling poets! They didn’t have much to sing about writhing on spikes on the city walls, oh no, hah!’
Shartorial sighed again. ‘It’s late. When do you march?’
‘Soon,’ Pin Dollop promised. ‘Let the Fiends quiver and shake in their slimy holes!’
‘Indeed,’ she replied. She left the General at his map-table, his fist grinding rhythmically in the cup of his other hand.
‘The world is so unfair,’ moaned Brash Phluster, trying to loosen his shoulders, but with the rack on the third notch there was little give. He whimpered. ‘What time is it? Where’s that Royal Torturer? He’s late! Why’s he always late? He’s forgotten me! How could he do that? Whose turn is it? Who’s next? Someone bribed the bastard, didn’t they? Which one of you? You disgusting pieces of filth! Every one of you! Oh, it hurts!’
‘You’ve been there for less than half a bell,’ said Apto Canavalian.
‘It was you!’ Brash accused, twisting about on the rack, turning his head in an effort to glare at the man chained to the wall to his right, but the angle was too sharp and spasms of agony lanced through his neck. ‘Ow, you bastard!’
‘I won’t change my vote,’ Apto taunted, rattling the chains. ‘That’s why I’m still alive. I’m too sane to kill, you see. For all the usurper’s faults, he knows enough to admire a rational compatriot—’
‘Shut your face,’ growled Tiny Chanter. ‘There ain’t nothing rational about the Nehemoth. Tiny knows rational and this ain’t it, they ain’t it, you ain’t it. Isn’t that so, Midge?’
‘It’s so,’ agreed Midge.
‘Flea?’
‘Yeah. So.’
‘So shut your face, y’damned weasel. Besides, you know you’re next on the rack, so it’s not like you got no stake, is it? I know you’re next ’cause I’m right after you—’
‘No you’re not,’ said Midge. ‘I am.’
‘What? No, brother, I’m sure it’s me. The fucking poet and then the fucking critic, and then Tiny Chanter.’
‘I’m on the rack after Apto,’ said Midge stubbornly. ‘Then you, Tiny, and then Tulgord Vise—’
‘What about me?’ Flea demanded.
‘You’re after Steck Marynd, Flea, and he’s not there long on account of his broke leg and all his screaming, and then it’s back to the Century’s Greatest Artist.’
‘That title’s a curse!’ Brash Phluster hissed. ‘Oh, this is what being an artist is all about, isn’t it? You paying attention, critic? It’s suffering, misery, torture! It’s grief and pain and agony, all at the hands of people too dim-witted to appreciate talent, much less understand the sacrifices us poets make—’
‘He hasn’t killed you yet because he likes the joke,’ cut in Apto Canavalian.
‘What joke?’ Brash screamed. ‘Ow, it hurts to scream! Ow!’
‘The joke,’ the critic and short-lived guest judge in the Festival of Flowers and Sunny Days explained, ‘that is you, of all people, winning the contest. Thief of talent, imposter and charlatan. This is the curse of awards. Their essential meaninglessness, their potential for absurdity and idiocy and crass nepotism—’
‘Listen to you!’ crowed Brash Phluster. ‘Took so many bribes you bought a villa on the river-side!’
‘That’s right. I took them all, which in turn cancelled them all out, freeing me to judge on merit alone—’
‘They arrested you before the vote! Before that necromancer murdered the king and took the throne!’
‘And look at the hypocrisy of that fiasco!’ Apto retorted. ‘The same people calling for my head were the ones who bribed me in the first place!’ He let out a long breath. ‘Of course, it’s my newfound wealth that permitted me to buy a day off from the rack. You’ve been doubled up, Poet. And why not? Like you said, artists suffer and so they should. Leeches on the ass of society, every one of you!’
‘I knew it! Listen to him! Mister Bitter! Mister Envy!’
‘Keep it up and I’ll buy you another notch, Phluster.’
‘You disgusting piece of filth!
Death to the critic! Death to all the critics!’
‘All of you,’ grated Steck Marynd from across the chamber, ‘be quiet. I’m trying to get some sleep here.’
Tulgord Vise cursed under his breath and then said, ‘And so I am betrayed. By all of you! We should be planning our escape, not bickering about this and that. The Nehemoth now sits on the throne of this city, luxuriating in his evilness. We need to be devising our vengeance!’
‘Tiny’s got a plan,’ said Tiny. ‘Tiny goes on the rack all meek and nice. The Royal Torturer likes Tiny Chanter. It’s all part of Tiny’s plan.’
‘Tiny’s a nitwit,’ said Apto Canavalian.
‘When Tiny escapes,’ growled Tiny, ‘he leaves the critic behind.’
‘Yes!’ cried Brash Phluster.
‘And the poet.’
‘What? What have I ever done to you, Tiny? That’s not fair!’
‘We should’ve eaten you first on the trail,’ said Tiny Chanter, shifting in his chains. ‘Not those others. Instead, we’ll just tighten things up another ten or so notches, ripping you apart. Pop! Pop, pop! Hah hah! Right, Midge?’
‘Hah hah,’ laughed Midge.
‘Flea?’
‘Why am I before the poet? I thought I was last!’
Emancipor Reese watched the headless corpse shuffle into the throne room bearing the gilded broken circle that symbolized the Holy Church of the Indifferent God, and a moment later the Grand Bishop strode in, dressed in heavy brocaded robes of vermillion and rose. He paused then, frowning as if ambushed by a sudden thought.
Clearing his throat, Bauchelain went on from his seat on the throne, ‘Tyranny, as I was saying, Mister Reese, is a delicate balance between the surety of violence and the inculcation of passive apathy. The latter is presented as an invitation permitting a safe haven from the former. In short, keep your head down and your mouth shut, and you’ll be safe. By this means once pacifies an entire population.’
Grunting, the Grand Bishop turned around and departed the chamber, the headless sigil-bearer turning and following.
Emancipor plucked a grape from the laden bowl beside his stool. He bit lightly and sucked out the juices before casting the wrinkled pulp into a spittoon at his feet. ‘I get all that, Master. I was just saying how things have gotten kind of quiet, even boring, now that all the poets and singers and musicians and dancers are gone.’
‘Art worthy of the name, Mister Reese, is the voice of subversion. Oh to be sure, there is a place for its lesser manifestations in the ideal civilization, as a source of mindless entertainment and indeed, eager escapism. One can appreciate the insidious denial promulgated by such efforts. Dance and sing whilst everything falls to pieces and the like. Have you ever perused – carefully and with diligence – the face of an ecstatic dancer or reveller? In some, Mister Reese, you will find the bliss of a trance state, an elevation of sorts you might say. But in most, you can see the glimmer of fear. Revelry is a flight, a frenzied fleeing from the misery of daily existence. Hence the desperate plunge into alcohol and drugs, to aid that escape.’
Emancipor squinted up at Bauchelain, eyes narrow. ‘Is that so?’ he said, reaching quickly for his goblet of wine.
‘Maintaining a state of pensive terror of course has its limits,’ the new king of Farrog went on. ‘Hence the identification and demonization of an external threat. At its core, Mister Reese, the notion of “us” and “them” is an essential component in social control.’
Draining the goblet dry, Emancipor reached for his pipe and began tamping it with rustleaf and d’bayang. ‘The Fiends,’ he said.
‘Just so. Convenient, wouldn’t you say, that our kingdom borders a xenophobic but wealthy mountain empire of unhuman lizard people? Such an enemy obviates the convoluted abuse of logic required to differentiate and demonize neighbours who are in fact little different from the rest of us. Hair colour? Skin tone? Religious beliefs? Blue eyes? Yellow trousers? All patently absurd, of course. But unhuman lizard people? Why, could it be any easier?’
Emancipor lit his pipe and drew hard. ‘No, Master, I suppose not.’ He blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Mind you, sir, I’ve got some experience when it comes to peering at maps and whatnot.’
‘Your point?’
‘Well, Master, it’s this, you see. Blank patches, on maps, make me nervous. The Unknown Territory and all that. I’ve sailed plenty of seas, come up on those patches, and well, usually they’re blank for a reason, right? Not that they’re unexplored – there ain’t nothing in this world that ain’t seen some adventurer creeping in to see what there is to see. So, blank patches, sir, are usually blank because whoever went in never came back out.’
‘You certainly become voluble, Mister Reese, once the d’bayang floods your brain, diminishing, one presumes, its normal addled state. Very well, I do concede your point.’
Emancipor glanced again at Bauchelain. ‘Aye? You do?’
‘Let it not be said that I am unreasonable. We have travelled in step for some time now, haven’t we? Clearly we have come to know one another very well indeed.’
‘Aye, Master,’ said Emancipor, quickly reaching for the carafe of wine and topping up his goblet again. He downed three quick mouthfuls and then resumed puffing the pipe. ‘Very well, uh, indeed.’
‘General Pin Dollop, however, being a native of Farrog, speaks with certain familiarity regarding the Fiends.’
‘Aye, Master, he’s a man full of opinions, all right.’
Bauchelain smiled from his throne. ‘Ah, do I sense some resentment, Mister Reese? That he should have ventured so close in my confidence? Are you feeling somewhat crowded?’
‘Well, Master, it’s only that I share the Seneschal’s caution.’
‘Ah, the lovely Shartorial Infelance. Of course, caution is an essential virtue given her responsibilities.’
‘Caution,’ Emancipor said. ‘Aye.’
‘Mister Reese, the Royal Treasury is somewhat bare.’
‘Well, sir, that’s because we’ve looted it.’
‘True. However, tax revenues are down.’
‘Aye, we’ve squeezed them dry.’
‘Just so. Hence the pressing need for an influx of wealth. Tyrannies are expensive, assuming the central motive of being a tyrant king is, of course, the rapid accumulation of vast wealth at the expense of the common folk, not to mention the beleaguered nobility, such as it is.’
‘I thought it was all about power, Master. And control. And the freedom to frighten everyone into submission.’
‘Well, those too,’ Bauchelain conceded. ‘But these are only means to an end, the end being personal wealth. Granted, there is a certain pleasure to be found in terrorizing lesser folk. In unleashing a torrent of fear, suffering and misery. And let it not be said that I have been remiss in addressing such pleasures.’
‘No, Master, not at all. Who’d ever say something like that?’
‘Precisely. In fact, I would proclaim such bloodlust a potent symbol of my essential humanity.’
‘Well, Master, let’s hope those lizards don’t share that particular trait.’
The headless sigil-bearer returned, and behind it the Grand Bishop. ‘Bauchelain,’ said Korbal Broach in his high, thin voice, ‘I just remembered what I was coming here to tell you.’
‘Most excellent, Korbal. Out with it, then.’
‘That ferryman, Bauchelain. The one we put in the deepest dungeon.’
‘Our possessed prisoner, yes, what of him?’
‘He’s dead.’
Bauchelain frowned. ‘Dead? How did that happen?’
‘I think,’ said Korbal Broach, ‘death by masturbation.’
Emancipor rubbed at his face. ‘Well, of all the ways to go …’
‘Very well,’ said Bauchelain. ‘I see. Ah, of course.’
Korbal Broach nodded. ‘Not possessed any more, Bauchelain.’
‘In other words, old friend, the Indifferent God has escaped his mortal prison, and now runs free.’
/> Korbal Broach nodded a second time. ‘That’s bad.’
‘Indeed, very bad. Hmm.’ Abruptly Bauchelain rose to his feet. ‘Mister Reese, attend me. We shall retire to my Conjuration Chamber. It seems that on this gentle night, we must summon and unleash a veritable host of demons. Korbal Broach, do you sense the god’s presence in the crypts?’
‘I think so. Wandering.’
‘Then a most lively hunt awaits us, how delightful! Mister Reese, come along now.’
Trembling where he sat, Emancipor Reese tapped out his pipe. ‘Master, you wish me to help you raise demons? You never asked that of me before, sir. I think—’
‘Granted, Mister Reese, I may have been remiss in neglecting to mention the possibility in our employment contract. That said, however, these are most unusual circumstances, would you not agree? Fear not, if by some mischance you are rent limb from limb, be assured it will be a quick death.’
‘Ah, thank you, Master. That is …’
‘Of some comfort? Happy to set you at ease, as ever, Mister Reese.’
Korbal Broach said, ‘I’ll raise the rest of my undead, Bauchelain.’
Bauchelain paused and studied his old friend. ‘Any risk that one might be suborned?’
‘No, Bauchelain. None of them have any heads.’
‘Very good then. Well, on a hunt such as the one awaiting us, the more the merrier. Mister Reese? Time’s wasting!’
Mortari crouched in the shadows of the alley mouth, Le Groutt crowding his side. He peered at the high wall of Royal Palace. ‘I see handholds,’ he whispered.
‘I see footholds,’ Le Groutt whispered back.
‘So, we got handholds and footholds.’
‘Handholds and footholds.’
‘Can’t be done.’
‘Not a chance.’
Together, they turned about and crept back to where waited the others. Mortari edged up close to Plaintly Grasp. He rubbed at his terrier face, scratched behind an ear, licked his lips and then said, ‘Not a chance.’
The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire Page 31
