Crack'd Pot Trail Page 16

  Steck Marynd still rode ahead, crossbow at the ready. Two thousand paces ahead the trail lifted to form a rumpled ridge, and behind it was naught but sky. Flanking this ominously near horizon was a host of crooked, leaning standards from which depended sun-bleached rags flapping like the wings of skewered birds. Every dozen or so heartbeats Steck twisted round in his saddle to look upon the Chanters, who being on foot were dictating the pace of this avenging army. He visibly ground his teeth at their insouciance.

  Purse Snippet, with visage fraught and drawn, cast pensive glances my way, as did Sardic Thew and indeed Apto Canavalian, but still I held my silence. Yes, I could feel the twisting, knotting strain of the Nehemothanai, possibly only moments from launching forward, but I well knew that neither Tulgord nor Steck were such fools as to abandon the alliance with the Chanters upon the very threshold of battle. By all counts, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach were deadly, both in sorcery and in hard iron. Indeed, if but a small portion of the tales we had all heard on this pilgrimage were accurate, why, the necromancers had left a trail of devastation across half the known world, and entire frothing armies now nipped at their heels.

  No, the Chanters, formidable and vicious, would be needed. And what of Arpo Relent? Why, he could be host to a terrible god, and had he not promised assistance?

  Yet, for all this, the very air creaked.

  “Gods,” whispered Brash Phluster clawing at his hair,’let them find them! I cannot bear this!”

  I fixed my placid gaze upon the broad furry back of Tiny Chanter. “Perhaps the enemy is closer than any might imagine.” So I spoke, at a pitch that might or might not reach that lumbering shieldwall. “After all, what secrets did Calap Roud possess? Did he not choose his tale after much consideration? Or so I seem to recall.”

  Apto frowned. “I don’t—”

  Tiny Chanter swung round, weapons shivering. “You! Flicker!”

  “Lady Snippet,” said I, calm as ever, “There is more to my tale, my gift to you, this offering of redemption in this sullied, terrible world.”

  Tulgord barked something to Steck who reined in and then wheeled his mount. The entire party had now halted, Mister Must grunting in irritation as he tugged on his traces.

  Arpo looked round. “Is it raining again? Bouncing cat eyes, how I hate rain!”

  “Through gritted teeth and clenched jaws,” I began, eyes fixed upon Purse Snippet’s, “do we not despair of the injustice that plagues our precious civilization? Are we not flayed by the unfairness to which we are ever witness? The venal escape unscathed. The corrupt duck into shadows and leave echoes of mocking laughter. Murderers walk the streets. Bullies grow hulking and make fortunes buying and selling property. Legions of black-tongued clerks steal from you every last coin, whilst their shrouded masters build extensions to their well-guarded vaults. Money lenders recline in the filth of riches stripped from the poor. Justice? How can one believe in justice when it bleeds and crawls, when it wears a thousand faces and each one dying before your very eyes? And without justice, how can redemption survive?

  We are whipped round, made to turn our backs on notions of righteous restitution, and should we raise our voices in protest, why, our heads are lopped off and set on spikes as warnings to everyone else. ‘Keep in line, you miserable shits, or you’ll end up like this!”

  Now that I had their attention, even Nifty’s, I waved my arms about, consumed by pious wrath. “Shall we plead to the gods for justice?” And I jabbed a finger at Arpo Relent. “Do so, then! One is among us! But be warned, justice cuts clean, and what you ask for could well slice you in two on the backswing!” I wheeled to face Purse Snippet once again. “Do you believe in justice, Lady?”

  Mutely she shook her head.

  “Because you have seen! With your own eyes!”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I have seen.”

  I hugged myself, wretched with all my haunting thoughts. “Evil hides. Sometimes right in front of you. I hear something ... something. It’s close. Yes, close. Lady, to our tale, then. She walked in the company of pilgrims and killers, but as the journey went on, as the straits grew ever direr, she began to lose the distinction—there among her companions, even within her own soul. Which the pilgrim? Which the killer? The very titles blurred in blood-stained mockery—how could she remain blind to that? How could anyone?

  “And so, as dreadful precipices loomed ever closer, it seemed the world was swallowed in grisly confusion. Killers, yes, on all sides. Wearing brazen faces. Wearing veiled ones. The masks all hide the same bloodless visage, do they not? Where is the enemy? Where? Somewhere ahead, just beyond the horizon? Or somewhere much closer. What was that warning again? Ah, yes ... be careful who you invite into your camp. I hear something. What is it? Is it laughter? I think—”

  Bellowing, Tiny Chanter pushed through our ranks and thumped against the carriage. “Everyone quiet!” And he set the side of his head against the shuttered side window. “I hear... breathing.”

  “Yes,” said Mister Must, looking down, “she does that.”

  “No! It’s—it’s—”

  “ ‘Ware off there, sir,” rumbled Mister Must, his stained teeth visible where they clenched the clay stem of his pipe. “I am warning you. Back off... now.”

  “An old woman, is it?” Tiny sneered up at the driver. “Eats enough to shame a damned wolf!”

  “Her appetites are her business—”

  Steck kicked his horse closer. “Flicker—”

  “By my bloody altar!” cried Arpo Relent, “I just noticed!”

  Tulgord raised his sword, head whipping round. “What? What did you just—”

  The pipe stem snapped between Mister Must’s teeth and he set most narrow eyes upon the Well Knight. “Let the past lie, I always say. Deep in the quiet earth, deep and—”

  “I know you!” Arpo roared, and then he launched himself at Mister Must.

  Something erupted, engulfing the driver in flames. Arms outstretched, Arpo plunged into that raging maelstrom. Braying, the mules lunged forward.

  Tiny flung himself onto the side of the carriage, hammering at the door. An instant later Flea and Midge joined him, clambering like wild apes. Where Mister Must had been there was now a demon, monstrous, locked in a deathgrip with Arpo Relent, as flames writhed like serpents around them both.

  The carriage heaved forward as the mules strained in their harnesses.

  Everyone scattered from its careening path.

  Tulgord Vise fought with his rearing charger, and the beast twisted, seeking to evade the mules, Arpo’s tethered horse and the crowded carriage, only to collide with Steck Marynd’s shaggy mare.

  The crossbow loosed, the quarrel burying itself in the rump of Tulgord’s mount. Squealing, the beast lunged, shot forward, colliding with Steck’s horse. That creature went down, rolling over Steck Marynd and loud was the snap of one of the woodsman’s legs. Tulgord had lost grip on his reins, and now tottered perilously as his horse charged up alongside the carriage.

  More flames ignited, bathing the front half of the rollicking, thundering conveyance.

  Tulgord’s mount veered suddenly, throwing the Mortal Sword from the saddle, and down he went, rolling once before the front left wheel ground over him in a frenzied crunching of enameled armour, followed by the rear wheel, and then his weapon belt went taut in a snapping of leather, and off the man went, dragged in the carriage’s wake, and in spinning, curling clouds of smoke, the whole mess thundered ahead, straight for the edge of the Great Descent.

  Steck Marynd was screaming in agony as his horse staggered upright once more, and the beast set off in mindless pursuit of the carriage, Tulgord’s mount and Arpo’s falling in alongside it. Relish howled and ran after them, her hair flying out to surround her head in black fronds.

  Mute, we followed, stumbling, staggering.

  None could miss the moment when the mad mob plunged over the crest and vanished from sight. It is an instant of appalling clarity, seared into my mem
ory. And we saw, too, when the horses did the same, and through drifting smoke and clouds of dust we were witness to Relish Chanter finally arriving, skidding to a halt, and her horrified cry was so curdling Nifty’s head went rolling across our paths as Sellup clapped greasy hands to her rotting earholes. Relish set off down the slope and we could see her no more.

  There are instances in life when no cogent thought is possible. When even words vanish and nothing rises to challenge a choke-tight throat, and each breath is a shocked torment, and all one’s limbs move of their own accord, loose as a drunkard’s, and a numbness spreads from a gaping mouth. And on all sides, the world is suddenly painfully sharp. Details cut and rend the eyes. The sheer brilliant stupidity of stones and dead grasses and clouds and twigs strewn like grey bones on the path—all this, then, strike the eye like mailed fists. Yes, there are instances in life when all this assails a person.

  It was there in the face of Apto Canavalian. And in Purse Snippet’s, and even in Brash Phluster’s (behind the manic joy of his impending salvation). Sardic Thews oily hands were up at his oily lips, his eyes glittering and he led us all in the rush to the trail’s edge.

  At last we arrived, and looked down.

  The carriage had not well survived the plunge, its smashed wreckage heaped in the midst of flames and smoke at the distant base, three hundred steep strides down the rocky, treacherous path. Bits of it were scattered about here and there, flames licking or smoke twirling. Astonishingly, the mules had somehow escaped their harnesses and were swimming out into the twisting streams of the vast river that stretched out from a cluster of shacks and a stone jetty at the ferry’s landing. Immediately behind them bobbed the heads of three horses.

  Of the demon and Arpo Relent, there was no sign, but we could see Flea’s body lying among boulders just this side of the muddy bank, and Midge’s bloody form was sprawled flat on its face two-thirds of the way down the track. Tiny, however, seemed to have vanished, perhaps inside the burning wreckage, and perhaps the same fate had taken Tulgord Vise, for he too was nowhere to be seen.

  Skidding and stumbling, Relish had almost reached Midge.

  And the ferry?

  Fifty or more reaches out on the river, a large, flat-decked thing, on which stood four horses, and a tall carriage, black and ornate as a funeral bier. Figures standing at the stern rail were visible.

  Sardic Thew, our most venerable host, was staring intently down at the burning carriage. He licked his lips. “Is she—is she?”

  “Dead?” asked I. “Oh yes, indeed.”

  “You are certain?”

  I nodded.

  He wiped at his face, and then reached a trembling hand beneath his robes and withdrew a silk bag that jingled most fetchingly. He settled its substantial weight into my palm.

  I dipped my head in thanks, hid the fee beneath my cloak and then walked a half-dozen paces away to settle my gaze on that distant ferry.

  Behind me a conversation began.

  “Gods below!” hissed Apto Canavalian. “The Dantoc—an old woman—”

  “A vicious beast, you mean,’ growled Sardic Thew. “Relations of mine got into financial trouble. Before I could assume the debts, that slavering bitch pounced. It was the daughter she wanted, you see. For her pleasure pits. Just a child! A sweet, innocent—”

  “Enough!” I commanded, wheeling round. “Your reasons are you own, sir. You have said more than I need hear, do you understand?” And then I softened my eyes and fixed them upon a pale, trembling Purse Snippet. “So few, Lady, dare believe in justice. Ask our host, if you must hear more of this sordid thing. For me, and understand this well, I am what I am, no more and no less. Do I sleep at night? Most serenely, Lady. Yes, I see what there is in your eyes when you look upon me. Does redemption await me? I think not, but who can truly say, till the moment of its arrival. If you seek some softness in your self-regard, find it by measure against the man who stands before you now. And should you still find nothing of worth within you, then you can indeed have my life.”

  After a time, she shook her head. That, and nothing more.

  Sellup arrived. “Anybody see Nifty’s head? I lost it. Anyone?”

  “Do you believe that art possesses relevance in the real world?”

  “Now, that is indeed a difficult question. After all, whose art?”

  To that I shrugged. “Pray, don’t ask me.”

  Knives, garrotes, poison, so very crass. Oh, in my long and storied career, I have made use of them all as befits my profession, but I tell you this. Nothing is sweeter than murder by word, and that sweetness, dear friends, remains as fresh today as it did all those many years ago, on that dusty ridge that marked the end of Cracked Pot Trail.

  Did I receive my reward from Purse Snippet? Why, on the night of the tumultuous party upon the awarding of the Century’s Greatest Artist to Brash Phluster (such a bright, rising star!), she did find me upon a private island amidst the swirl of smiling humanity, and we spoke then, at surprising length, and thereafter—

  Oh dear, modesty being what it is, I can take that no further.

  It was a considerable time afterwards (months, years?) that I happened to meet the grisly Nehemoth, quarry of ten thousand stone-eyed hunters, and over guarded cups of wine a few subjects were brushed, dusted off here and there in the gentle and, admittedly, cautious making of acquaintances. But even without that most intriguing night, it should by now be well understood that the true poet can never leave a tale’s threads woefully unknotted. Knotting the tale’s end is a necessity, to be sure, isn’t it? Or, rather if not entirely knotted, then at least seared, with finger tips set to wet mouth. To cut the sting.

  So, with dawn nudging the drowsing birds in this lush garden, the wives stirring from their nests and the moths dipping under leaf, permit me to wing us back to that time, and to one last tale, mercifully brief, I do assure you.

  Thus.

  “It is a true measure of civilization’s suicidal haste,” said Bauchelain, “that even a paltry delay of, what? A day? Two? Even that, Mister Reese, proves so unpalatable to its hapless slaves, that death itself is preferable.” And he gestured with gloved hand towards all that the passing of the dust cloud now revealed upon that distant shore.

  Emancipor Reese puffed for a time on his pipe, and then he shook his head. “Couldn’t they see, Master? That is what I can’t get. Here we were, and it’s not like that old ferryman there was gonna turn us round, is it? They missed the ride and that’s that. It baffles me, sir, that it does.”

  Bauchelain stroked his beard. “And still you wonder at my haunting need to, shall we say, adjust the vicissitudes of civilization as befits its more reasonable members? Just so.” He was quiet for a time until he cleared his throat and said, “Korbal Broach tells me that the city we shall see on the morn groans beneath the weight of an indifferent god, and I do admit we have given that some thought.”

  “Oh? Well, Master,” said Emancipor, leaning on the rail, “better an indifferent one than the opposite, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I disagree. A god that chooses indifference in the face of its worshippers has, to my mind, Mister Reese, reneged on the most precious covenant of all. Accordingly, Korbal and I have concluded that its life is forfeit.”

  Emancipor coughed out a lungful of smoke.

  “Mister Reese?”

  “Sorry!” gasped the manservant, “but I thought you just said you mean to kill a god!”

  “Indeed I did, Mister Reese. Heavens forbid, it’s not like there’s a shortage of the damned things, is there? Now then, best get you some rest. The city awaits our footfalls upon the coming dawn and not even an unmindful god can change that now.”

  And we can all forgive their not hearing the muttering that came from the ferryman’s dark hood as he hunched over the tiller, one hand fighting the currents, and the other beneath his breeches. “That’s what you think.”

  Table of Contents

  “There will always be innocent victims in th
e pursuit of evil.”

  The Travellers Are Described

  A Recounting of the Twenty-third Night

  A Recounting of the Twenty-Fourth Day

  A Recounting of the Twenty-Fourth Night

  A Recounting of the Twenty-Fifth Day