Once Guido mentioned it. I started to feel eyes on the back of my neck. In the undergrowth. I thought I saw glowing eyes following our every move.
Pervects don't believe in ghosts. If we have an afterlife. I guess we feel that it's none of anyone else's business. As far as I know none of my ancestors has bothered to come back and tell any of its descendants what it's like. And. if heaven's not a place of unlimited comfort, wealth, food, booze, sex, and entertainment. I'm not sure I care. Outside of Perv, things are different. I know Klahds believe in disembodied spirits, evidence notwithstanding. This was the first place I had visited where the nonliving existed side by side with the living as if there was little difference between the two states.
The trees opened out a little, revealing more extensive stretches of green sludge. Now there seemed to be signs of habitation. In the twilight I saw the outlines of houses, some grand and stately, others no more than shacks. They all shimmered in a haze of blue I put down to the gigantic moon rising just above the line of trees.
'Who lives there?' I asked, pointing to one of the elaborate mansions.
'No one,' Matfany replied.
'Okay,' I said, caught in my own linguistic trap. 'Who occupies it?'
'That'd be the third Lord Protector of the Marshes,' Matfany said. 'He lived about fifteen hundred and twenty years ago. Most of his family is there, too.'
'How about that one?' I pointed at a falling-down shanty with smoke curling out of the spindly chimney.
'Last king but two. Cornelius V never had much use for fancy things. Fishing's good, that's all he cares about.'
'And who are we going to see?' Tananda asked.
'Whoever will talk to us,' Matfany said. 'Keep an eye out for the fox fire. That's where they'll be.'
'What's fox fire?' I asked.
We stepped through an arching avenue of mangrove trees that blotted out the moon. I kept close to Tananda's light. The footing was tricky. It looked like there was only one path that didn't dump pedestrians into the soup. Matfany jumped from hummock to tussock to slippery, moss-covered rock. I heard a curse and a splash behind me, which meant Guido had missed at least one of them. All of us, except the prime minister, had gotten soaked numerous times.
We emerged on the other side. I had to squint at the blinding blaze of blue light that filled the clearing ahead. 'That's fox fire,' Matfany said.
Glimmering figures began to rise out of the ground until I felt like the only unlit candle on top of a birthday cake. In outline they were Swamp Foxes, but when I stuck a hand through one, all I felt was the dank, cold air.
'And those are the Old Folks.'
Their insubstantiality only cut one way. The Old Folks grabbed us and hauled us into the middle of the brilliant blue light, which just happened to correspond exactly with the soggiest and stinkiest part of the marshland. At least they found us a relatively solid piece of turf to stand on, but it was so small that Tananda, Guido, and I were practically doing a group hug to keep from toppling off it into the mire. Bubbling black mud opened up belching bubbles of swamp gas that smelled like a bar at the end of a nine-day drunk. My eyes watered, but I kept my tone friendly and diplomatic.
'Nice place you've got here,' I told the towering flames who guarded me, 'Great weather we're having, huh?'
They didn't answer me.
Matfany stood a few yards away, surrounded by a halo of blue-light specials. These were more defined in shape than the majority of Old Folks. Between their triangular ears they had crowns on their heads, and the streams of ectoplasm that trailed behind them were embroidered.
fur-trimmed cloaks. Even with my keen hearing, I had to strain to listen to what they were saying to him.
'You have violated the sanctity of our wilderlands, and for what?' one long-nosed queen demanded. 'For ordinary cash money?'
'I had little choice, your highness,' Matfany said, with a bow. 'Our resources are depleted.'
'Our resources are endless,' a broad-faced king boomed in a surprisingly low voice. 'You just needed to be patient. Instead, you have interfered with the line of succession.'
'I'm very sorry you see it that way,' Matfany said. 'I don't need to tell you that there have been three different lines of royal house here in Foxe-Swampburg.'
'But she isn't dead! My daughter doesn't have to be the last of her line!' insisted a tenor. He retained more of his shape than even his fellow royals. Matfany looked startled, then bowed deeply.
'King Tinian ... I'm honored,'
'Well, you shouldn't be,' he said. 'Prime ministers serve. They don't rule. If I had realized that you would ever have done such a thing as depose my daughter, I would never have promoted you out of the accounting office!'
'What were you thinking, letting those rude Deveels do that to the Mountains Above Town?' the deep-voiced ghost asked. 'What a mess they made. And where do they go calling The Tallest Peak after a Geek?'
'Let me explain,' I said, pushing forward. I felt my leg go halfway into the mud before Guido hauled me
back onto the squashed marshmallow we occupied. 'Don't blame Matfany. You know Deveels. You give them an inch; they take a mile. I can fix the problem. Just give us a chance. All we need is a little time for them to feel they've gotten their money's worth, then I'll make them take down all the signs and the rest of the junk.'
The Old Folks turned away from Matfany and stared at me. The glowing sapphire eyes were hard to maintain contact with for long. I kept an affable smile on my face.
'I am no! sure,' the deep-voiced king said, 'that we will do any better to depend on a Pervert than on Deveels'
'That's Per-VECT,' I said, holding on to my temper. 'And it's not just me that Matfany hired to haul your cojones out of the cooker. There are also my associates.'
Tananda leaned out from behind me to give them a little wave.
'Klahds and Trollops,' Tinian said in disgust.
'Now, wait just a minute,' I said. 'We're M.Y.T.H., Inc. Maybe you're too far back in ancient history to have heard of us, but we have a reputation for helping people. Effectively.'
'For money.'
'Only a fool works for nothing, pal,' I snarled. 'Yeah, maybe your boy here made some stupid decisions, but he did what he had to with the best intentions. You want to keep your descendants on the throne without problem-solvers on your staff, then make sure they go to business school before they take the crown. They'll have to learn that what goes out has to come in first.'
Fingernails dug into my wrist
'Aahz, maybe the firm approach isn't the best one here?' Tananda whispered to me. I noticed that the shimmering gas flames had moved just a little closer.
'So you think that being ignorant is worthy of being condemned to death?' the long-nosed female asked me.
'Stupidity is the only capital crime in the universe, honey,' I said. 'It's always punishable by death. Commutation comes by way of mercy or pure dumb luck. Matfany here needs to learn to control his temper, but he was smart enough to know he needed help.'
'And you think that letting other people take over our landscape is the way out of the problem?'
'If we hadn't had a creative solution, other people would have taken over the landscape, and not in name only. I've seen your books. I haven't seen so much red ink since I read a copyedited manuscript of the last tell-all
