fraction or two. ‘I’m looking to embarrass a friend, you see,’ she said, then released the lungful of smoke towards the black-stained rafters.
‘Well,’ he sourly drawled, ‘in that case…’
‘Rallick’s furious,’ Cutter said as he sat down, reaching for the brick of cheese to break off a sizeable chunk which he held in his left hand, an apple in his right. A bite from the apple was quickly followed by one from the cheese.
‘Kruppe commiserates. Tragedy of destiny, when destiny is that which one chooses given what one is given. Dear Cutter might have retained original name had he elected a life in, say, Murillio’s shadow. Alas, Cutter in name is cutter in deed.’
Cutter swallowed and said, ‘Hold on. I wasn’t making a point of walking in Rallick’s shadow. Not anybody’s shadow-in fact, the whole idea of “shadow” makes me sick. If one god out there has truly cursed me, it’s Shadowthrone.’
‘Shifty Shadowthrone, he of the sourceless shade, a most conniving, dastardly god indeed! Chill is his shadow, cruel and uncomfortable is his throne, horrid his Hounds, tangled his Rope, sweet and seductive his innocent servants! But!’ And Kruppe held aloft one plump finger. ‘Cutter would not speak of walking in shadows, why, not anyone’s! Even one which sways most swayingly, that cleaves most cleavingly, that flutters in fluttering eyelashes framing depthless dark eyes that are not eyes at all, but pools of unfathomable depth-and is she sorry? By Ap-salar she is not!’
‘I hate you sometimes,’ Cutter said in a grumble, eyes on the table, cheese and apple temporarily forgotten in his hands.
‘Poor Cutter. See his heart carved loose from yon chest, flopping down like so much bloodied meat on this tabletop. Kruppe sighs and sighs again in the deep of sympathy and extends, yes, this warm cloak of companionship against the cold harsh light of truth this day and on every other day! Now, kindly pour us more of this herbal concoction which, whilst tasting somewhat reminiscent of the straw and mud used to make bricks, is assured by Meese to aid in all matters of digestion, including bad news.’
Cutter poured, and then took another two bites, apple and cheese. He chewed for a time, then scowled. ‘What bad news?’
‘That which Is yet to arrive, of course, Will honey aid this digestive aid? Pro-. ably not. It will, one suspects, curdle and recoil. Why in it, Kruppe wonders, that those who claim all healthy amends via rank brews, gritty grey repast of the raw and unrefined, and unpalatable potions, and this amidst a regime of activities in-vented solely to erode bone and wear out muscle-all these purveyors of the pure and good life are revealed one and all as wan, parched well nigh bloodless, with vast fists bobbing up and down in the throat and watery eyes savage in righteous smugitude, walking like energized storks and urinating water pure enough to drink all over again? And pass if you please to dear beatific Kruppe, then, that last pastry squatting forlorn and alone on yon pewter plate.’
Cutter blinked. ‘Sorry. Pass what?’
‘Pastry, dear lad! Sweet pleasures to confound the pious worshippers of suffer-ing! How many lives do each of us have, Kruppe wonders rhetorically, to so constrain this one with desultory disciplines so efficacious that Hood himself must bend over convulsed in laughter? This evening, dear friend of Kruppe, you and I will walk the cemetery and wager which buried bones belong to the healthy ones and which to the wild cavorting headlong maniacs who danced bright with smiles each and every day!’
‘The healthy bones would be the ones left by old people, I’d wager.’
‘No doubt no doubt, friend Cutter, a most stolid truth. Why, Kruppe daily encounters ancient folk and delights in their wide smiles and cheery well-mets.’
‘They’re not all miserable, Kruppe.’
‘True, here and there totters a wide-eyed one, wide-eyed because a life of raucous abandon is behind one and the fool went and survived it all! Now what, this creature wonders? Why am I not dead? And you, with your three paltry decades of pristine boredom, why don’t you just go somewhere and die!’
‘Are you being hounded by the aged, Kruppe?’
‘Worse. Dear Murillio moans crabby and toothless and now ponders a life of inactivity. Promise Kruppe this, dear Cutter-when you see this beaming paragon here before you falter, dribble at the mouth, mutter at the clouds, wheeze and fart and trickle and all the rest, do bundle Kruppe up tight in some thick impervious sack of burlap, find a nearby cliff and send him sailing out! Through the air! Down on to the thrashing seas and crashing rocks and filmy foams-Kruppe implores you! And listen, whilst you do so, friend Cutter, sing and laugh, spit into my wake! Do you so promise?’
‘If I’m around, Kruppe, I’ll do precisely as you ask.’
‘Kruppe is relieved, so relieved. Aaii, last pastry revolts in nether gut-more of this tea, then, to yield the bitumen belch of tasteless misery on earth. And then, shortly anon, it will be time for lunch! And see who enters, why, none other than Murillio, newly employed and flush and so eager with generosity!’
Iskaral Pust’s love was pure and perfect, except that his wife kept getting in the way. When he leaned left she leaned right; when he leaned right she leaned left. When he stretched his neck she stretched hers and all he could see was the mangled net of her tangled hair and beneath that those steely black eyes too knowing for her own good and for his, too, come to that.
‘The foolish hag,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t she see I’m leaning this way and that and bobbing up and down only because I feel like it and not because the High Priestess is over there amply presenting her deliciously ample backside-know-ing well, yes she does, how I squirm and drool, pant and palpitate, the temptress, the wilful vixen! But no! Every angle and this horrid nemesis heaves into view, damning my eyes! Maybe I can cleverly send her off on an errand, now there’s an idea.’ He smiled and leaned forward, all the armour of his charm trembling and creaking in the face of the onslaught of her baleful stare. ‘Sweet raisin crumpet, the mule needs grooming and tender care in the temple stables.’
‘Does it now?’
‘Yes. And since you’re clearly not busy with anything at the moment, you could instead do something useful.’
‘But I am doing something useful, dearest husband.’
‘Oh, and what’s that, tender trollop?’
‘Why, I am sacrificing my time to keep you from making a bigger fool of yourself than is normal, which is quite a challenge, I assure you.’
‘What stupidity is she talking about? Love oyster, whatever are you talking about?’
‘She’s made her concession that you are who you claim to be. And that’s the only thing keeping her from tossing us both out on our scrawny behinds. You and me and the mule and the gibbering bhokarala-assuming she can ever manage to get them out of the cellar. I’m a witch of the spider goddess and the High Priestess back there is not at all happy about that. So I’m telling you, O rotted apple of my eye, if I let you try and jump her we’re all done for.’
‘She talks so much it’s a wonder her teeth don’t fall out. But wait! Most of them already have! Shh, don’t laugh, don’t even smile. Am I smiling? Maybe, but it’s the indulgent kind, the kind that means well or if not well then nothing at all though wives the world over, when seeing it, go into apoplectic rage for no good reason at all, the cute, loveable dearies.’ He sighed and leaned back, trying to peer under her right armpit, but the peripheral vision thing turned that into a hairy nightmare. Flinching, he sighed again and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Go on, wife, the mule is pining and your sweet face is all he longs for-to kick! Hee hee! Shh, don’t laugh! Don’t even smile!’ He looked up. ‘Delicious wrinkled date, why not take a walk, out into the sunshine in the streets? The gutters, more like, hah! The runnels of runny sewage-take a bath! Piss up one of those lampposts and not a dog in Darujhistan would dare the challenge! Hah! But this smile is the caring kind, yes, see?’
The High Priestess Sordiko Qualm cavorted up to where they sat-this woman didn’t walk, she went as much sideways as forward, a snake of seduction, an enchantress of nonchalance, gods, a man could die just watching! Was that a whimper escaping him? Of course not, more likely Mogora’s armpit coming up for air made that gasping, squelching sound.
‘I would be most pleased,’ the High Priestess said in that well-deep voice that purred like every temptation imaginable all blended into one steaming stew of invitation, ‘if you two indulged In mutual suicide.’
‘I could fake mine,’ Iskaral Pust whispered. ‘Then she’d be out of our way-I know, High Priestess of all my fantasies, I can see how you wage war against your natural desires, your blazing hunger to get your hands on me!
