the left breast, since Nauseo Sloven had burgeoned to fill the entire alley, flesh piled up against either wall, more flesh sprawling and tumbled down to just short of the alley-mouth. “Even so,” Ineb said, loosing a beery belch, “I need you up and around. We’ve a journey to make.”
“A journey? Where?”
“Not far, I promise.”
“I can’t. It’ll be too hard. I’m ready to explode-gods, where did all that greed come from?”
Ineb squatted down and scratched his pocked jaw. “All pent up, I suppose. Hiding, lurking. As for the food, well, seen any dogs in the streets? Cats? Horses? Me neither. The night’s been a blood-bath, and it’s not even half done. Who could have imagined all this?”
“What’s happened, then?” Nauseo asked.
“Someone in the city’s gone and hired two necromancers, Nauseo, to bring down this reign of terror.” He pulled at his nose, which was itchy and runny with all the powder stuffed into it. “Seems they’ve made quite a start.”
“Necromancers?”
“Yes. One of them’s a conjurer and binder of demons, too, which makes me very nervous. Nervous, Nauseo, oh yes. Even so, he’s yet to try for me, which I take as a good sign, weak as I was back then.”
“No worries now, though, is there?” Nauseo shifted slightly and mounds of flesh rumbled and rolled beneath Ineb. “We’re too strong, now. There’s not a binder alive who could take us, emboldened as we now are.”
“I expect you’re right. So, it does seem as if these necromancers are staying true to their word. Pluck Macrotus from his throne, prop someone less horrible in his place, and Quaint returns to its normal, sane, decrepit state. Might even be Necrotus himself-the other one raised him, you know.”
“Oh, joy!”
“Anyway, we’ve got to go. Have you seen Sloth lately?”
“Why, she was here earlier-”
From somewhere below came a faint moan.
Those among the denizens still capable of motion had moved on by the time Emancipor Reese spied Bauchelain, his master slowly walking with hands clasped behind his back, pausing every now and then for a word or two with various crippled dead and undead citizens, as he made his casual way towards the palace steps where sat the manservant.
Bauchelain peered up at Emancipor. “Is King Macrotus within?”
Emancipor nodded. “Oh yes, he’s not going anywhere.”
“I was in the company of King Necrotus,” the necromancer said, looking round, “but it would seem we have become separated-there was a mob… well, the details aren’t relevant. I take it, Mister Reese, that you have not been accosted by a corpse intent on entering the palace?”
“Afraid not, Master.”
“Ah, I see. I am curious, has it struck you, Mister Reese, that events have quickened with a decidedly rapacious pace?”
“From the time that Invett Loath charged out of this building behind me, the whole city seems to have lost its mind.”
“Invett Loath?”
“The Paladin of Purity, Master. Lord of the Well Knights. I am afraid…” Emancipor hesitated, “well, uh, I loaned him a kerchief. He’d bloodied his nose, you see. It was just common courtesy, how can I be blamed for that? I mean-”
“Mister Reese, please stop. I so dislike babbling. If I understand you, one of your many kerchiefs is now in the hands of this Paladin. And this is, in your mind, in some way significant.”
“Master, do you recall that D’bayang field we passed through, oh, five, six days past?”
Bauchelain’s eyes narrowed. “Go on, Mister Reese.”
“Well, the buds were open, yes? They call ’em poppies but they aren’t really poppies at all, as I am sure you know. Anyway, the air filled with spores-”
“Mister Reese, the air was not filled with spores, provided one remained on the road. As I recollect, however, there was some tumult, in your mind, at least, that resulted in you running madly through that field-with a kerchief covering your nose and mouth.”
Emancipor’s face reddened. “Korbal Broach asked me to carry that woman’s lungs, the ones he took that morning-Master, they were still breathing!”
“A small favour, then-”
“Forgive me, Master, but it wasn’t small in my eyes! Granted, it was unseemly, my horror and the ensuing panic. I admit it. But anyway. As you know, I so dislike enlivening alchemies-stupor and oblivion, yes, of course, at every opportunity. But enlivening, such as comes from D’bayang poppies? No. I despise that. Hence, the kerchief.”
“Mister Reese, the kerchief you loaned the Paladin was not the one filled with D’bayang spores?”
“Alas, Master, it was. I’d meant to wash it, but-”
“The Paladin was afflicted?”
“I believe so. Of a sudden, zealousness overcame him.”
“Possibly leading to… indiscriminate adjudication?”
“That’s one way of putting it, aye.”
Bauchelain stroked his beard. “Extraordinary. The guise of reasonableness, Mister Reese, permits all manner of intolerance and indeed, pernicious attack. Once that illusion is torn away, however, the terror of oppression becomes a random act, perhaps indeed an all-encompassing one.” He paused, tapped one side of his nose with a long finger, then remorselessly continued, “That chest of coins rightly belongs to you, Mister Reese. Raising the dead? Entirely unnecessary, as it turns out. All that was required was a single, subtle push, at the hands of an innocent, somewhat naive manservant.”
Emancipor stared at the necromancer, desperate to refute the charge, to deny all culpability, yet unable to speak. In his mind, a risible refrain: no, not me, no, no, it wasn’t me. It was him. Who him? Anyone him! Just not me! No, not me, no, no…
“Mister Reese? You have lost all colour. Did I mention that I have not before seen your eyes so clear, the whites veritably startling? It is a force of nature that draws all things down to the earth. I therefore imagine the flow of a multitude of toxins now swelling your poor feet. They must, I fear, be bled. Thoroughly. Of course, now is not the time-no, make no entreaties otherwise, Mister Reese. Now, if you please, lead me to King Macrotus.”
Emancipor frowned, then blinked. Feet? Bleeding? Macrotus? “I am happy to lead you to Macrotus, Master, and you may speak to him all you like, I am sure, although I suspect it won’t do much good.”
“I rarely speak in order to do good, Mister Reese. Now, shall we be on our way?”
Invett Loath had never felt more alive, so alive it was killing him, but that was fine since it seemed he was doing a fair share of killing himself, if the blood smeared on his sword was any indication, and he was reasonably certain that it was indeed fairly indicative that he had been practicing holy adjudication upon the unwholesome unwashed cretins who dared consider themselves worthy citizens of Quaint, adjudication that was only proper, as was his right, nay his obligation as the Paladin of Purity, the Paladin of Perfection, leading the vanguard of vigor to their healthy, thankful deaths, and if he and his blessed vanguard trod on a few babies, toddlers and weak-boned old folk along the way, well, there was nothing to be done for that, was there, not when the cause was just, so just it blinded like the sun’s own fire, all-consuming, scouraging the meat from the bones and yes, he was sure scouraging was a proper word and why shouldn’t it be, was he not the Paladin of Proper, he most certainly was and look! the night’s still young, exceedingly bright, in fact, given all those burning hovels and their burning denizens, none of whom deserved a less sordid, less scorching death because adjudication came in all forms, in all sizes including ratty blankets swaddling shrieking undeniably irritating whelps all laid out plump and yummy by the nuns who might well be pretty behind those veils who could tell not that such thoughts were acceptable, they being nuns and all, and he the Paladin of Probity marching down this street of flame was there not some cavern in the underworld that was nothing but fire and torment, maybe not but there should be, as far as Invett Loath was concerned, some preserved place of eternal pain just for all those unhealthy turds badly clothed in human skin, the
