“Too late for that.” He gestured and the three worthies standing behind him rushed forward. They struggled with the woman for control of the basket, until one of the worthies poked the mother in the eye. She yelped and staggered back, releasing her grip on the basket, and the worthies hurried off with it down the street. The woman wailed beseechingly.
“Silence!” Invett bellowed. “Public displays of emotion are forbidden! You risk arrest!”
She fell to her knees and began pleading in a most unseemly manner.
“Clean yourself up, woman,” Invett said, lip curling, “and be glad for my mercy.”
He marched off, in the wake of his worthies with their shrieking charge.
Before long they arrived at the Grand Temple of the Lady. The formal front entrance with its raised platform and the blockish altar sitting atop it-from which the Lady’s voice periodically emerged to deliver her pronouncements-had been deemed too public for the delivery of wailing babes. Accordingly, Invett and his worthies approached a side postern where one worthy knocked in elaborate rhythm. A moment’s wait, then the door creaked open.
“Give me that,” Invett said, taking the basket with its blubbering, red-faced infant. He stepped into the corridor beyond and closed the door behind him.
The priestess facing him, veiled and robed but not so disguised as to hide her near obesity, was staring down at the babe with hungry eyes. “Most excellent,” she whispered. “The third today. The Lady is delighted with this new Prohibition.”
“I’m surprised,” Invett growled. “Soon you will have a thousand screaming babes in here, and how will the Lady know peace?”
The priestess reached out and pinched the soft part of the baby’s nearest arm. “Plump,” she murmured. “Good, yes. The Temple’s peace will not suffer for long.”
Invett Loath frowned, wondering what it was in her words that made him slightly uneasy, then with a grunt he dismissed it. Not for the Well Knight to question other servants to the Lady. He handed her the basket.
The baby, that had been screaming all this time, all at once fell silent.
Knight and priestess leaned forward, studied its suddenly wide eyes.
“Like a newborn sparrow,” the priestess murmured, “when a jay is near.”
“I know nothing of birds,” Invett Loath said. “I am leaving now.”
“Yes, you are.”
A crow perched on the buckboard of the wagon, feathers ruffling in the breeze that had sprung up as the sun’s light faded. Emancipor noted its arrival with a scowl. “Is he hungry, do you think?”
Bauchelain, who was seated on a folding camp stool opposite his manservant, gave a single shake of his head. “He has fed.”
“Why are you looking at me like that, Master?”
“I have been thinking, Mister Reese.”
Oh no. “About deposing this kindly king?”
“Kindly? Do you not realise, Mister Reese, how perfectly diabolical is this king’s genius? Every tyranny imaginable is possible when prefaced by the notion that it is for the well-being of the populace. Patronising? Of course, but when delivered with wide-eyed innocence and earnestness, what is a citizen to do? Complain about the benefits? Hardly, not when guilt is the benign torturer’s first weapon of choice. No,” Bauchelain rose to his feet and turned to face the dark city. He used both hands to sweep his hair back, his eyes glittering in the gloom, “we are witness to genius, plain and simple. And now, we are about to match wits with this clever king. I admit, the blood rushes about my being at the challenge.”
“I am happy for you, Master.”
“Ah, Mister Reese, I gather you still do not understand the threat this king poses to such creatures as you and I.”
“Well, frankly, no, I don’t, Master. As you say.”
“I must perforce make the linkage plain, of sufficient simplicity to permit your uneducated mind to grasp all manner of significance. Desire for goodness, Mister Reese, leads to earnestness. Earnestness in turn leads to sanctimonious self-righteousness, which breeds intolerance, upon which harsh judgment quickly follows, yielding dire punishment, inflicting general terror and paranoia, eventually culminating in revolt, leading to chaos, then dissolution, and thus, the end of civilisation.” He slowly turned, looked down upon Emancipor. “And we are creatures dependent upon civilisation. It is the only environment in which we can thrive.”
Emancipor frowned. “The desire for goodness leads to the end of civilisation?”
“Precisely, Mister Reese.”
“But if the principal aim is to achieve good living and health among the populace, what is the harm in that?”
Bauchelain sighed. “Very well, I shall try again. Good living and health, as you say, yielding well-being. But well-being is a contextual notion, a relative notion. Perceived benefits are measured by way of contrast. In any case, the result is smugness, and from that an overwhelming desire to deliver conformity among those perceived as less pure, less fortunate-the unenlightened, if you will. But conformity leads to ennui, and then indifference. From indifference, Mister Reese, dissolution follows as a natural course, and with it, once again, the end of civilisation.”
“All right all right, Master, we are faced with the noble task of confounding the end of civilisation.”
“Well said, Mister Reese. I admit I find the ethical aspects of our mission surprisingly… refreshing.”
“Have you a plan, then?”
“Indeed. And yes, you will be required to play an essential role.”
“Me?”
“You must enter the city, Mister Reese. Unobtrusively, of course. Once there, you must complete the following missions…”
The sightless eyes had been staring a long time without seeing anything. Not surprising, since ravens had long since eaten everything there was to eat within those hoary sockets. No lids left with which to blink, nor any fluids to bring tears to those withered rims. Even so, Necrotus the Nihile, once king of Quaint, was not entirely surprised to find a grainy, misshapen scene slowly form, spreading to fill the vista his soul faced, a vista that had heretofore been naught but darkness-the welcome that was the Abyss.
Being dragged back and made to inhabit this bird-picked desiccated corpse hanging on the city’s north wall, the flesh he had once called his own in better days, was, while not surprising, nonetheless disappointing. Worse yet, he found he could talk. “Who has done this to me?”
A voice answered from somewhere below, not far, perhaps level with his chest. “To that, I have more than one answer, King Necrotus.”
The tether upon which his soul was bound to this body was not so tight as to prevent a slight wandering outward, in order to look down. So that he could see the two crows perched upon the rusty spike projecting out from the wall, upon which his corpse had been impaled. “Ah,” Necrotus said, “now I understand.”
One of the crows cocked its head. “You do? How charming.”
“Yes. You have come to discuss me. My life. My fate, all the lost loves of my mortal years in this world. Only, why must I witness this ironic indulgence?”
“Actually,” the first crow said, “we would discuss, not you, but your brother.”
“Macrotus? That sniveling worm? Why?”
“For one, he is now king.”
“Oh. Of course. I should have thought of that. No heirs. Well, plenty of bastards, but the laws are strict on that. I was planning on officially adopting one, but then he died. And before I could choose another, so did I.”
“Indeed. That strikes me as careless,” the first crow said. “In any case, my companion has done some cursory examination of your corpse here, and has detected the remnants of poison.”
Necrotus thought about that. “That runt did me in! Gods below, I never thought he had it in him!”
“More precisely,” the crow continued, “he fouled your life-extending alchemies, Necrotus. Which strikes us as odd, given his eagerness for health.”