Crack’d Pot Trail

What follows? Why, not much. Usually, nothing. He dozes. She starts chopping dirty carrots or heads out and beats stained garments against a rock (said gestures having no symbolic significance whatsoever). The baby looks on, eating the cat’s tail and the cat, knowing nothing of guilt, stares with bemused regard upon the wretched family it has adopted, before realizing that once again the horrid urchin is stuffing it into its mouth, and once again it’s time to use the runt as a bed-post. The mind is a dark realm and shadows lurk and creep behind the throne of reason, and none of us sit that throne for long in any case, so let them lurk and creep, what do we care?

“As night came to the Imass camp,” said I, “she led the Fenn warrior towards an empty hut which he was free to use as his own until such time that he chose to depart. In the chill darkness she carried a small oil lamp to guide their way, and the flame flickered in the bitter wind, and he strode behind her, his footfalls making no sound. Yet she did not need to turn around to be certain he followed, for she felt the heat of him, like a kiln at her back. He was close, closer than he need be.

“When she ducked through the entrance and then straightened his arms crept round her. She gasped at his touch and arched her back, head against his lowest rib, as his huge hands reached to find her breasts. He was rough in his need, burning with haste, and they descended to the heap of furs unmindful of the cold and damp, the musty smell of the old rushes.”

“That nastiness obsesses you!” said Arpo Relent.

“Nastiness, sir?”

“Between a man and a woman, the Unspoken, the Unrevealed, the-”

“Sex, you mean?”

Arpo glared. “Such tales are unseemly. They twist and poison the minds of listeners.” He made a fist with one gauntleted hand. “See how Calap Roud died. All it took was a hint of something-”

“I believe I was rather more direct,” I said, “although in no way specific, as I had no chance-”

“So you’ll do it now! Your mind is a filthy, rotted tumour of lasciviousness! Why, in the city of Quaint your skin would be stripped from your flesh, your weak parts chopped off-”

“Weak parts?”

Arpo gestured between his legs. “That which Whispers Evil Temptation, sir. Chopped off and sealed in a jar. Your tongue would be cut into strips and the Royal Tongs would come out-”

“A little late for those,” Apto said, “since you already chopped off the-”

“There is a Worm of Corruption, sir, that resides deep in the body, and if it is not removed before the poor victim dies, it will ride his soul into the Deathly Realm. Of course, the Worm knows when it is being hunted, and it is a master of disguise. The Search often takes days and days-”

“Because the poor man talked about fornication?”

At Apto’s query the Well Knight flinched. “I knew you were full of worms, all of you. I’m not surprised. Truly, this is a fallen company.”

“Are all poets filled with such corrupting worms?” Apto pressed.

“Of course they are and proof awaits all who succumb to their temptations! The Holy Union resides in a realm beyond words, beyond images, beyond everything!” He gestured in my direction. “These… these sullied creatures, they but revel in degraded versions, fallen mockeries. Her hand grasping his this, his finger up her that. Slavering and dripping and heaving and grunting- these are the bestial escapades of pigs and goats and dogs. And woe to the wretched fool who stirs in the midst of such breathless descriptions, for the Lady of Beneficence shall surely turn her back upon They of Rotten Thoughts-”

“Is it a pretty one?” Apto asked.

Arpo frowned. “Is what pretty?”

“The Lady’s back, sir. Curvaceous? Sweetly rounded and inviting-”

With a terrible bellow the Well Knight launched himself at Apto Canavalian. Murder was an onerous mask upon his face, his hair suddenly awry and the gold of his fittings shining with a lurid crimson sheen. Gaunteleted fingers hooked as they lashed out to clutch Apto’s rather scrawny neck.

Of course, critics are notoriously difficult to snare, even with their own words. They slip and sidle, prance and dither. So elusive are they that one suspects that they are in fact incorporeal, fey conjurations gathered up like accretions of lint and twigs, ready to burst apart at the first hint of danger. But who, pray tell, would be mad enough to create such snarky homunculi? Why, none other than artists themselves, for in the manner of grubby savages in the deep woods, we slap together our gods from whatever is at hand (mostly fluff) only to eagerly grovel at its misshapen feet (or hoofs), slavering our adoration to hide our true thoughts, which are generally venal.

Sailing over the fire, then, uttering animal roars, Arpo Relent found himself clutching thin air. His hands were still grasping and flaying when his face made contact with the boulder Apto had been leaning against. With noises that would make a potter cringe at the kiln, the Well Knight’s steely visage crumpled like sheet tin. Blood sprayed out to form a delicate crescent upon the sun-bleached stone, a glittering halo until his head slid away.

Apto Canavalian had vanished into the darkness.

We who remained sat unmoving. Arpo Relents fine boots were nicely settled in the fire, suggesting to us that he was unconscious, dead or careless. When the man’s leggings caught flame our venerable host leapt forward to drag the limbs clear, grunting as he did so, and then hastily snuffed out the smouldering cloth.

Tiny Chanter snorted and Flea and Midge did the same. From somewhere in the darkness Sellup giggled, and then coughed something up.

Sighing, Tulgord Vise rose, stepped over and crouched beside the Unwell Knight. After a moment’s examination, he said, “Alive but senseless.”

“Essentially unchanged, then,” said Apto, reappearing from the night’s inky well. “Made a mess of my rock, though.”

“Jest now,” Tulgord said. “When he comes to, you’re a dead man.”

“Who says he’ll come to at all?” the critic retorted. “Look how flat his forehead is.”

“It was that way before he hit the rock,” the Mortal Sword replied.

“Was it leaking snot, too? I think we’d have noticed. He’s in a coma and will probably die sometime in the night.”

“Pray hard it’s so,” Tulgord said, looking up with bared teeth.

Apto shrugged, but sweaty beads danced on his upper lip like happy bottle flies.

“You, Flicker,” said Tiny Chanter, “you was telling that story. Was finally starting to get interesting.”

“Sore stretched indeed,” said I, “and maiden no longer-”

“Hold on,” Tiny objected, all the flickering flames of the hearth mirrored in his ursine mien. “You can’t just skip past all that, unless you don’t want to survive the night. Disappointment’s a fatal complaint as far as I’m concerned. Disappoint me and I swear I’ll kill you, poet.”

“I’ll kill you, too,” said Midge.

“And me,” said Flea.

“What pathetic things you Chanters are,” said Purse Snippet.

Shocked visages numbering three.

Starting and blinking, Relish squinted at her siblings. “What? Someone say something?”

“I called your brothers pathetic,” explained the Lady.

“Oh.” Relish subsided once more.

Tiny jabbed a blunt finger at Purse Snippet. “You. Watch it.”

“Yeah,” said Flea. “Watch it.”

“You,” said Midge. “Yeah.”

“The most enticing lure to the imagination,” said Purse, “is that which suggests without revealing. This is the true art of the dance, after all. When I perform, I seduce, but that doesn’t mean I want to ruffle your sack, unless it’s the kind that jingles.”

“Making you a tease!” Tulgord growled. “And worse. Tell me, woman, how many murders have you left in your wake? How many broken hearts? Men surrendering to drink after years of abstinence. Imagined rivals knifing each other. How many loving families have you sundered with all that you promise only to then deny? We should never have excluded you from anything-you re the worst of the lot.”

Purse Snippet had paled at the Mortal Sword’s words.

I did speak then, as proper comportment demanded. “A coward’s ambush-shame on you, sir.”

The knight stiffened. “Tread softly now, poet. Explain yourself, if you please.”

“The tragedies whereof you speak cannot be laid at this lady’s delicate feet. They are one and all failures of the men involved, for each has crossed the fatal line between audience and performer. Art is not exclusive in its delivery, but its magic lies in creating the illusion that it has done just that. Speaking only to you. That is art’s gift, do you understand, Knight? As such it is to be revered, not sullied. The instant the observer, in appalling self-delusion, seeks to claim for himself that which in truth belongs to everyone, he has committed the greatest crime, one of selfish arrogance, one of unrighteous possession. Before Lady Snippet’s performance, this man makes the foulest presumption. Well now, how dare he? Against such a crime it falls to the rest of her adoring audience to place themselves between that man and Lady Snippet.”

“As you are doing right now,” observed Apto Canavalian (wise in his ways this honourable, highly intelligent and oh-so-observant critic).

Modest the tilt of my head.

Visibly flustered, Tulgord Vise grunted and looked away, chewing at his beard and biting his lip, shifting in discomfort and shuffling his feet and then suddenly finding a kink in the chain of his left vambrace which he set to, humming softly to himself, all of which led me to conclude, with great acuity, that his flusterment was indeed visible.

“I still want details,” said Tiny Chanter, glaring at me in canid challenge.

“As a sweet maiden, she was of course unversed in the stanzas of amorous endeavour-”

“What?” asked Midge.

“She didn’t know anything about sex,” I re-phrased.

“Why do you do that anyway?” Apto inquired.

I took a moment to observe the miserable, vulpine excuse for humanity, and then said, “Do what?”

“Complicate things.”

“Perhaps because I am a complicated sort of man.”

“But if it makes people frown or blink or otherwise stumble in confusion, what’s the point?”

“Dear me,” said I, “here you are, elected as Judge, yet you seem entirely unaware of the magical properties of language. Simplicity, I do assert, is woefully overestimated in value. Of course there are times when bluntness suits, but the value of these instances is found in the surprise they deliver, and such surprise cannot occur if they are surrounded in similitude-”

“For Hood’s sake,” rumbled Tiny, “get back to the other similitudes. The maiden knew nothing so it fell to the Fenn warrior to teach her, and that’s what I want to hear about. The world in its proper course through the heavens and whatnot.” And he shot Apto a wordless but entirely unambiguous look of warning, that in its mute bluntness succeeded in reaching the critic’s murky awareness, sufficient to spark self-preservation. In other words, the look scared him witless.

I resumed. “We shall backtrack, then, to the moment when they stood, now facing one another. He was well-versed-”

“Now it’s back to the verses again,” whined Midge.

“And though heated with desire,” I continued, “he displayed consummate skill-”

“Consummate, yeah!” and Tiny grinned his tiny grin.

From the gloom close to the wagon came Mister Must’s gravel-laden voice, “And that’s a significant detail, I’ll warrant.”

So did I twist round then to observe his ghostly visage in its ghostly cloud of rustleaf smoke, catching the knowing twinkle that might have been an eye or a tooth. Ah, thinks me, a sharp one here. Be careful now, Flicker.

“Peeling away her clothing, unmindful of the damp chilly air in the guest hut, he laid her bare, his rough fingertips so lightly brushing the pricked awakening of her skin so that she shivered again and again. Her breaths were a rush of quick waves upon a rasping beach, the tremulous water sobbing back as she gasped to his touch where it traveled in eddying swirl about her nipples.

“Her head tilted back, all will abandoned to his sure embrace, the deep and steady breaths that made his chest swell and ease against her. Then his hands edged downward, tracking the lines of her hips, to cup her downy-soft behind, and effortlessly he lifted her-”

“Ha!” barked Tiny Chanter. “Now comes the Golden Ram! The Knob-Headed Dhenrabi rising from the Deep! The Mushroom in the Mulch!”

Everyone stared for a moment at Tiny with his flushed face and puny but bright eyes. Even Midge and Flea. He looked about, meeting stare after stare, a little wildly, before scowling and gesturing to me. “Go on, Flicker.”

“She cried out as if ripped asunder, and blood started, announcing the death of her childhood, but he held her in his strong hands to keep her safe from true injury-”

“How tall was she again?” Flea asked.

“About knee-high,” Apto answered.

“Oh. Makes sense then.”

Relish laughed, ill-timed indeed as her brothers suddenly glared at her.

“You shouldn’t be listening to this,” Tiny said. “Losing maidenhood ain’t like that. It’s all agony and aches and filth and slow oozing of deadly saps, and shouldn’t be undertaken without supervision-”

“What, you think you’re gonna watch?” Relish demanded, flaring up like the seed-head of a thistle in a brush fire. “If I’d known brothers were like this, I would have killed you all long ago!

“It’s our responsibility!” snarled Tiny, that finger back up and jabbing. “We promised Da-”

“Da!” Relish shrieked. “Till his dying day he never figured out the connection between babies and what he and Ma did twice a year!” She waved her arms like a child sitting on a bee hive. “Look at us! Even I don’t know how many brothers I got! You were dropping like apples! Everywhere!”

“Watch what you’re saying about Da!”

“Yeah, watch it!”

“Yeah! Da!”

Relish suddenly crossed her arms and smirked. “Responsible, that’s a joke. If you knew anything, well, ha ha. Ha!”

I cleared my throat most delicately. “He left her exhausted, curled up in his arms, stung senseless with love. And much of the night passed unwitnessed for our lovely woman for whom innocence was already a fading memory.”

“That is the way of it,” Tulgord Vise said with solemn nod. “When they lose that innocence to some grinning bastard from the next village, suddenly they can’t get enough of it, can they? That… that other stuff. Rutting everything in sight, that’s what happens, and that boy who loved her since they were mere whelplings, why, all he can do is look on, knowing he’ll never get to touch her ever again, because there’s a fierce fire in her eyes now, and a swagger to her walk, a looseness to her hips, and she’s not interested anymore in playing hide and seek down by the river, and if she turned up all slack-faced and drowned down on the bank, well, whose fault was that? After all, she wasn’t innocent no more, was she? No, she was the opposite of that, yes, assuredly she was. The Sisters smile at whores, did you know that? They are soft that way. Innocent, no, she wasn’t that. The opposite.” He looked up. “And what’s the opposite of innocence?”

And into the grim silence, in voice cool and low did I venture: “Guilt?”

Some tales die with a wheezy sigh. Some are stabbed through the heart. At least for a time. It was late and for some, dreadfully too late. In solitude and in times broken and husked and well rooted in contemplation, we find the necessity to regard our deeds, and see for ourselves all that which ever abides, this garden of scents both sweet and vaguely rotting. Some lives die with a sated sigh. Some are drowned in a river.

Others get eaten by the righteous.

At certain passages in the night the darkness grows vapid, a desultory, pensive state that laps energy like a bat’s flicking tongue a cow’s pricked ankle. Somnolent the wandering steps, brooding the regard, drowsy this disinterest. Until in the murk one discerns a tapestry scene of the like to adorn a torturer’s bedroom.

A mostly naked woman stood in fullest profile, her arms raised overhead, balanced in her hands a rather large boulder, whilst directly below, at her very feet, was proffered the motionless head of a sleeping sibling.

Soft as my approach happened to be, Relish heard and glanced over. “Just like this,” she whispered. “And… done.”

“You have held this pose before, I think.”

“I have. Until my arms trembled.”

“I imagine,” I ventured, drawing closer, “you have contemplated simply running away.”

She snorted, twisted to one side and sent the boulder thumping and bounding through some brushes in the dark. “You don’t know them. They’d hunt me down. Even if there was only one of them left, I’d be hunted down. Across the world. Under the seas. To the hoary moon itself.” She fixed wounded, helpless eyes upon me. “I am a prisoner, with no hope of escape. Ever.”

“I understand that it does seem that way right now-”

“Don’t give me that steaming pile of crap, Flicker. I’ve had my fill of brotherly advice.”

“Advice was not my intention, Relish.”

Jaded her brow. “You hungry for another roll? We damned near killed each other last time.”

“I know and I dream of it still and will likely do so until my dying day.”

“Liar.”

I let the accusation rest, for to explain that the dream wasn’t necessarily a pleasant one, would have, in my esteem, been untimely. I’m sure you agree.

“So, not advice.”

“A promise, Relish. To free you of their chains before this journey ends.”

“Gods below, is this some infection or something? You and promises to women. The secret flaw you imagine yourself so clever at hiding-”

“I hide nothing-”

“So bold and steady-eyed then, thus making it the best of disguises.” She shook her head. “Besides, such afflictions belong to pimply boys with cracking voices. You’re old enough to know better.”

“I am?”

“Never promise to save a woman, Flicker.”

“Oh, and why?”

“Because when you fail, she will curse your name for all time, and when you happen to succeed, she’ll resent you for just as long. A fool is a man who believes love comes of being owed.”

“And this afflicts only men?”

“Of course not. But I was talking of you.”

“The fool in question.”

“That’s where my theories fall apart-the ones about you, Flicker. You’re up to something here.”

“Beyond plain survival?”

“No one’s going to kill you on this journey. You have made sure of that.”

“I have?”

“You snared me and Brash using the old creep, Calap Roud. You hooked Purse Snippet. Now you shamed Tulgord Vise and he needs you alive to prove to you you’re wrong about him.” She looked down at Tiny. “And even him, he’s snagged, too, because he’s not as stupid as he sounds. Just like Steck, he’s riding on your words, believing there are secrets in them. Your magic-that’s what you called it, isn’t it?”

“I can’t imagine what secrets I possess that would be of any use to them.”

She snorted again. “If anybody wants to see you dead and mute, it’s probably Mister Must.”

Well now, that was a cogent observation indeed. “Do you wish to be freed of your brothers or not?”

“Very deft, Flicker. Oh, why not? Free me, sweet hero, and you’ll have my gratitude and resentment both, for all time.”

“Relish, what you do with your freedom is entirely up to you, and the same for how you happen to think about the manner in which it was delivered. As for me, I will be content to witness, as might a kindly uncle-”

“Did you uncle me the other night, Flicker?”

“Dear me, I should say not, Relish.” And my regard descended to Tiny’s round face, so childlike in brainless repose. “You are certain he sleeps?”

“If he wasn’t, your neck would already be snapped.”

“I imagine you are correct. Even so. It is late, Relish, and we have far to walk come the morrow.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

Watching her walk off to find her bedding, I contemplated myriad facets of humanly nature, as I selected the opposite direction in which to resume my wandering. Capemoths circled over my head like the bearers of grim thoughts, which I shooed away with careless gestures. The moon showed its smudged face to the east, like a wink through mud. Somewhere off to my right, lost in the gloom, Sellup was singing to herself as she stalked the night, as the undead will do.

Is there anything more fraught than family? We do not choose our kin, after all, and even by marriage one finds oneself saddled with a whole gaggle of new relations, all gathered to witness the fresh mixing of blood and, if of proper spirit, get appallingly drunk, sufficient to ruin the entire proceedings and to be known thereafter in infamy. For myself, I have always considered this gesture, offered to countless relations on their big day, to be nothing more than protracted revenge, and have of course personally partaken of it many times. Closer to home, as it were, why, every new wife simply adds to the wild, unwieldy clan. The excitement never ends!

Even so, poor Relish. Flaw or not, I vowed that I would have to do something about it, and if this be my weakness, then so be it.

“Flicker!”

The hiss brought me to a startled halt. “Brash?”

The gangly poet emerged from night’s felt, his hair upright and stark, thorn-scratches tracked across his drawn cheeks, his tongue darting to wet his lips and his ears twitching at imagined sounds. “Why didn’t anyone kill him?”

“Who?”

“Apto Canavalian! Who won’t vote for any of us. The worst kind of judge there is! He wastes the ground he stands upon!”

“Arpo Relent attempted the very thing you sought, dear poet, and, alas, failed-perhaps fatally.”

Brash Phluster’s eye’s widened. “The Well Knight’s dead?”

“His Wellness hangs in the balance.”

“Just what he deserves!” snarled the poet. “That murderous bag of foul wind. Listen! We could just run-this very night. What’s to stop us? Steck’s lost somewhere-who knows, maybe Nifty and his fans jumped him. Maybe they all killed each other out there in the desert.”

“You forget, good sir, the Chanters and, of course, Tulgord Vise. I am afraid, Brash, that we have no choice but to continue on-”

“If Arpo dies, we can eat him, can’t we?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“And maybe that’ll be enough. For everyone. What do you think?”

“It’s certainly possible. Now, Brash, take yourself to bed.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Gods, it’s not fair how us artists are treated, is it? They’re all vultures! Don’t they see how every word is a tortured excretion? Our sweat drips red, our blood pools and blackens beneath our finger nails, our teeth loosen at night and we stagger through our dreams gumming our words. I write and lose entire manuscripts between dusk and dawn-does that happen to you? Does it?”

“That it does, friend. We are all cursed with ineffable genius. But consider this, perhaps we each are in fact not one, but many, and whilst we sleep in this realm another version of us wakens to another world’s dawn, and sets quill to parchment-the genius forever beyond our reach is in fact his own talent, though he knows it not and like you and I, he frets over the lost works of his nightly dreams.”

Brash was staring at me with incredulous eyes. “That is cruelty without measure, Flicker. How could you even imagine such diabolical things? A thousand other selves, all equally tortured and tormented! Gods below!”

“I certainly do not see it that way,” did I reply. “Indeed, the notion leads me to ever greater efforts, for I seek to join all of our voices into one-perhaps, I muse, this is the truth of real, genuine genius. My myriad selves singing in chorus, oh how I long to be deafened by my own voice!”

“Yearn away,” Brash said, with a sudden wicked grin. “You’re doomed, Flicker. You just made me realize something, you see. I am already deafened by my own voice, meaning I already am a genius. Your argument proves it!”

“Thank goodness for that. Now, sing yourself off to sleep, Brash Phluster, and we will speak more of this upon the morning.”

“Flicker, do you have a knife?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m going to make Apto vote for me even if I have to kill him to do it.”

“That would be murder, friend.”

“We are awash in blood already, you fool! What’s one little dead critic more? Who’d miss him? Not me. Not you.”

“A dead man cannot vote, Brash.”

“I’ll force him to write a proxy note first. Then we can eat him.”

“I sincerely doubt he would prove palatable. No, Brash Phluster, you will receive no weapon from me.”

“I hate you.”

Off he stormed, in the manner of a golit bird hunting snakes.

“His mind has cracked.” With this observation, Purse Snippet appeared, her cloak drawn tight about her lithe form.

“Will no one sleep this night?” I asked, in some exasperation.

“Our cruel and unhappy family is in tatters.”

To this I grunted.

“Do doubts finally afflict you, Avas Didion Flicker? I intend no mercy, be certain of that.”

“The burdens are weighty indeed, Lady Snippet, but I remain confident that I shall prevail.”

She drew still closer, her eyes searching mine, as women’s eyes are in the habit of doing when close we happen to stand. What secret promise are they hoping to discover? What fey hoard of untold riches do they yearn to pry open? Could they but imagine the murky male realm lurking behind these lucid pearls, they might well shatter the night with shrieks and flee into the shelter of darkness itself. But this is the mystery of things, is it not? We bounce through guesses and hazy uncertainties, and call it rapport, bridged and stitched with smiles and engaging expressions, whilst behind both set of eyes maelstroms rage benighted in wild images of rampant sex and unlikely trysts. Or so I fancy, and why not? Such musings are easy vanquish over probable truths (that at least one of us is either bored rigid or completely mindless with all the perspicacity of a jellyfish, and oft I have caught myself in rubbery wobble, mind, or even worse: is that intensity merely prelude to picking crabs from my eyebrows? Oh yes, we stand close and behind our facades we quiver in trepid tremulosity, even as our mouths flap a league a breath).

Where were we? Ah yes, standing close, her eyes tracking mine like twin bows with arrows fixed, whilst I shivered like two hares in lantern light.

“How, then,” asked Purse Snippet (eyes tracking… tracking- I am pinned!), “do you intend to save me, noble sir? In the manner of all those others, in a tangle of warm flesh and the oblivion of sated desires? Have you any idea just how many men I have had? Not to mention women? And each time a new candidate steps forth, what do I see in those oh-so-eager eyes?” She slowly shook her head. “The conviction writ plain that this one can do what none before was capable of doing, and what must I then witness?”

“I would hazard, the pathetic collapse of such brazen arrogance?

“Yes. But here, and now, I look into your eyes and what do I see?”

“To be honest, Lady, I have no idea.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Do you see? She had crowbar in hand, the treasure chest looms (mine, not hers, we’re being figurative here. We’ll get to the literal in a moment), and the lock looks flimsy indeed. And in her eyes what do I see? Why, the conviction that she and she alone has what it takes (whatever it takes, don’t ask me), to crack loose that mysterious lockbox of fabulous revelations that is, well, the real me.

Bless her.

Do you all finally understand my angst? I mean, is this all there is? What is this anyway? I don’t know. Ask my wives. They pried me loose long ago, to their eternal disappointment, of which they continually remind me, lest I stupidly wander into some impractical daydream (such as this: Is there some woman out there who still thinks me mysterious? I must find her! That kind of daydream). As tired old philosophers say, the scent is ever sweeter over the garden wall. And my, how we do climb.

What a tirade of cynicism! I am not like this at all, I do assure you. I have this lockbox hidden inside me, you see… do come find it, will you?

It is a sage truth that there can never be too many disappointed wives.

Her lips found mine. Have I missed something? I have not. Quick as a cat upon a mouse, a cock upon a snail, a crow upon a sliver of dead meat. And her tongue went looking for the treasure chest. She didn’t believe me, recall? They never do.

In my weakness, which I call upon in times of need, I could not resist.

Was she the most beautiful woman I ever knowingly shared fluids with? She was indeed. Shall I recount the details? I shall not. In protection of her sweet modesty, of that luscious night my lips shall remain forever sealed.

Oh, forget that. I cupped her full breasts, which is what men do for some unknown reason, except perhaps that it has something to do with the way we gauge value, upon scales as it were, replete with aesthetic appreciation, engineering terminology and so on. With a dancer’s grace (and muscle) she drew one meaty thigh up along my left hip, grinding her mound against my crotch with an undulating, circular gyration that snapped the buttons of my collar and burst seams everywhere. With nefarious insistence, that leg somehow wrapped itself to rest athwart my buttocks (buttocks, what a maddeningly absurd word), her taut calf appearing upon my right, curling round (was this even possible?) to hook over my hip. If this was not outrageous enough, the very foot at the end of that selfsame leg suddenly plunged beneath my breeches to snare the rearing tubeworm of my weakness, between big toe and the rest.

At this point, she’d already closed one hand about the bag and was rolling the marbles to and fro, whilst her other hand was driving a finger against previously unexplored areas of sexual sensitivity in that dubious crack people of all genders cannot help but possess.

And my thoughts at this stage in the proceedings? Picture, if you will, a newborn’s expression of interminable stunned witless stupidity, wide as a bright smile following wind, eyes spread to the wonder of it all when every bit of that ‘all’ is entirely beyond comprehension. If you have reared children or suffered the fate of caring for someone else’s, then you know well the look I faint describe herein. This was the state of my organ of thought. Immune to all intrusion as my clothing miraculously melted away and she mounted herself smooth as perfumed silk, only to suddenly pull free, unwind herself with serpent grace, and step back.

“You get the rest when I am redeemed.”

Women.

I am at a loss for words. Even all these decades later. At a loss. Forgive.

For all our conceits we are, in the end, helpless creatures. We grasp all that is within reach, and then yearn for all beyond that reach. In said state, how can we hope for redemption? Staggering off to my bedroll, I slept fitfully that night, and was started awake just before dawn when Steck Marynd returned on his weary horse, the trundled form of Nifty Gum straddling the beast’s rump.

Mild and fleeting my curiosity at the absence of the Entourage, until exhaustion plucked me free of the miserable world one last time before the sun rose to announce the twenty-fifth day upon Cracked Pot Trail. A Recounting of the Twenty-Fifth Day

His face bleak, Steck Marynd crouched before the ash heaped hearth, and told his tale whilst we gnawed on what was left of Calap Roud. Bludgeoning the heat with the sun barely squatting on the eastern hills. Turgid the dusted air through which crazed insects flitted. Squalid and pinched these faces on pilgrimage to expressions of ecstatic release. Unmindful the implacable mules and unhampered the innocent horses.

The host sat in fret. Tiny, Midge and Flea crouched and picked like rock-apes over the last of the unspoiled meat. Relish braided blades of grass, making small nooses. Mister Must puttered about the carriage, pausing to scratch his backside every now and then, before adding more leaves to the pot of tea, stirring and whatnot. Apto Canavalian huddled beneath his threadbare blanket, as if withering beneath the murderous glares of Brash Phluster. Purse Snippet sipped at her steaming cup and a hand and a foot was visible from the ditch where Sellup was lying.

Tulgord Vise paced, fondling his pommel as knights will do.

Arpo Relent, alas, had not moved a single twitch from his facedown deliberations, and this was ominous indeed.

As for Nifty Gum, why, from what could be seen in that bunch and fold of cloak, that haystack of once glistening gold hair now as disheveled as a hairball spat up by a dragon, he was at the very edge of gibbering unreason, as might afflict a famous person no-one wanted to know anymore. Buffeted by our disregard, he sat like an overgrown milestone, head lowered, hands hidden, his boots splashed with dark stains and churning with flies.

Steck Marynd prefaced his recount with a shudder and hands up at his face, as if in horror of memories resurrected. Then he lowered those weathered hands, revealing a visage of guttered faith, and began.

I am a man of doubts, though with eyes set upon me none would say such a thing. Is this not fair? Stalwart and firm, is Steck Marynd. Slayer of demons, hunter of necromancers, the very spine of the Nehemothanai-you will be silent, Mortal Sword, for even you must accept that this is a bloodied trail I have followed far longer than you. I am the cutter excising the cancer of evil, the surgeon setting blade to the tumour of cold malice. Such is the course of my life. I have chosen it and do not begrudge this nest of scars.

Yet, there are doubts within me, the begat of the very life I have chosen for myself. I tell you all this: when one looks into the eye of evil, one’s very soul is shaken, and trembles but one tug from uprooted and forever lost. The ground becomes uncertain underfoot. Balance tilts awry. To then strike it down, to destroy it utterly, is an act of self-preservation. In defense of one’s own soul. It is like that. Each and every time. But there are moments when it is not enough, not nearly enough.

Are we the children of gods? If so, then what god would so countenance such ignoble spawn? Why is the proper and good path so narrow, so disused, while the cruel and wanton ones proliferate in endless swarm? Why is the choice of integrity the thinnest branch within reach? While the dark wild tree is a mad web across half the sky?

Oh, yes, I know. You poets will sing to me of value gauged in the strain of the challenge, as if sheer difficulty is the meaning of worth. If righteousness was easy, you say, it would not shine like gold. And do not beggars dream of gold, just as the fallen dream of salvation, and the coward dreams of courage? But you do not understand anything. Do the gods exult in the temptations they fling before us? Why? Are they insane? Are they, in fact, eager to see us fall? Give us the clear and true path, and in the act of seeing the darkness falls away, the lures vanish, the way home beckons us all.

If you would awaken our souls, dear gods, be so good as to then sweep the shadows from the road ahead.

No, the gods have all the moral rectitude of children. They created nothing and are no different from us, knuckled to the world.

Listen! I have no faith in any of you. And naught in me either. Do none of you see how this pilgrimage has already failed? Oh, easy enough for the poets to comprehend that hoary truth- seeking fame we step into their path and cut them down, and then gnaw on their bones. And what of you, Sardic Thew? And you, Lady Snippet? And the Dantoc and her footman? You have eaten of the flesh and it was the easiest road of all, wasn’t it? And who stood tallest with armoured excuses? Why, none other than Tulgord Vise, Champion of Purity, and indeed the Well Knight Arpo Relent, paladin of virtue.

One day I shall stand before the Nehemoth, before Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. I shall look upon true evil. And they will see in my eyes all the evil that I have done, and they will smile and call me friend. Companion. Cohort in the League of Venality. Could I deny them?

Faith? Look upon Nifty Gum, this broken thing here. An artist beloved, so beloved his retinue of worshippers would bare fangs against the envy of the gods themselves.

I found their trail, even as the shadows of dusk closed in. A rampant, rabid thing, skittering this way and that, a small herd led by a blind bull. Rocks overturned, plants torn loose-yes, they hungered. They thirsted. And suffered. Two women, the man they honoured with their loyalty.

In darkness I came upon their first camp, and from the scuffs and signs I was able to reconstruct the dreadful events with nary a test to my woodsmanship. See me claw my face yet again? The youngest was set upon, the other two in cahoots, a pact forged in a demon’s hole, that one. The innocent child, strangled, all the soft parts of her sweet form torn away by savage teeth. Teeth. Ah, Midge, do I see you pause in your breaking fast? Well you should. You see, when those eager mouths drank and fed, poor Oggle Gush was not yet dead.

They ate themselves sick, did Pampera and Nifty. And they left the body in their wake, spoiled, rotting. I see your shock, Brash Phluster, and I do mock it. If you had but one adoring fan in your wake, and starvation loomed, you would not hesitate-deny it not! See Nifty Gum, huddled there. No hesitation stuttered his hands.

When I renewed my tracking, I admit my thoughts were black as a pauper’s pit. Now, I did hunt. I believed I could forge this distinction, you see, between what they had done to that child, and all that we have done on this here trail. Is not the soul a thing of sweet conceit?

So now, consider this. He had but one worshipper left, and she was close in that she shared his crime, a murderess, a belly-bloated beauty he could touch with familiarity so absolute no mortal could step between them. You might think. And you might fold tight your arms and whisper easing words to yourself. She but followed his lead-what else could she do, after all?

Was it guilt, then, that launched her upon his back? That sank teeth into his shoulder, striving towards his throat? The mouth-fuls of spurting flesh she gobbled down, even as he shrieked and thrashed? And what of Nifty Gum? That he should twist round and bite her in turn, fatally as it transpired, snipping through her jugular, whereupon he bathed and did drink deep. Even as she died, she gnawed upon his right calf, and so was left in a pose of blessed defiance.

I caught him twenty paces down from this final atrocity, limping and streaming crimson. Oh yes, all of you set eyes upon him now. This poet of appetites. Study him in your arrayed expressions of horror and disgust. Hypocrites one and all. You. Me. The wretched gods, too. Aye, I should have killed him then and there. A quarrel through the back of his head. I should have. But no. Why should the blood stain my hands alone? I give him to you, pilgrims. He is the end of this path, the one we have all chosen. I give him to you all. My gift.

As his last words drifted and sank into earth and flesh, Brash Phluster licked his lips and said, “But, where is she? Can’t we still-”

“No,” growled Mister Must, in a tone that stirred awake his soldier days, “we cannot, Phluster.”

“But I don’t want to die!”

And at that, Steck Marynd did weep.

For myself, I admit to a certain satisfaction. Oh, don’t look at me like that! Given the chance, what artist wouldn’t eat his fans? Think of the satisfaction! Far preferable than the opposite, I fervently assert. But let us skip and dance from such admissions, lest they unveil things even more unsightly.

Sellup crawled from the ditch, her split lips stretched back in a ghastly smile, her eyes fixing upon Nifty Gum. “All for me!” she cackled, dragging herself closer. “I won’t eat you, darling! I’m not even hungry!”

The wretched poet, thrice named Artist of the Century, lifted his bedraggled head. The modest balance of his features was gone, each detail inexpertly reassembled into a pastiche of Gumdom. Old blood stained his chin, flaked the edges of his tunneled mouth. Flanking the ill-ruddered nose, each eye struggled with the other, fighting over proper alignment, which neither could quite manage. And if a lockbox waited behind those orbs, it was kicked over, contents strewn in tangled heaps. From the weep of his crusted nostrils to the coagulated clumps in his stringy hair, he was indeed a man bereft of his Entourage, barring one dead hag avowing undying servitude.

“It was the eggs,” he whispered.

At this even Sellup paused.

“I was so hungry. All I could think of was… was eggs! Sunny side up, scrambled, poached.” Trembling fingertips touched his mouth and he flinched, as if those fingers did not belong to him at all. “Those tales. A dragon spawn trapped in a giant egg- that’s just stupid. I–I don’t even like meat! Not real meat. But eggs, that’s different. Like an idea not yet born, I could eat those.

I so want to! It was the maiden he stole. The Egg Demon, I mean. Stole-stole away in the night! I tried to warn them, you see, I really did. But they wouldn’t listen!” He stabbed a finger at Sellup. “You! You wouldn’t listen! I’m out of ideas, don’t you see that!? Why do you think I plundered every fairy tale I could find? It’s- it’s-all gone!”

“I’ll be your egg, sweetie!” She picked up a rock and rapped it against the side of her head, eliciting a strange muted thump. “Crack me open, darling! See? It’s easy!”

As one might imagine, we stared in morbid fascination at this tableau and all its bizarre logic, and I was reminded of that cabal of poets from Aren a few centuries back, the ones who imbibed all manner of hallucinogens in a misplaced search for enlightenment, only to get lost in the private weirdness that is the artist’s mortal brain when it can discern nothing but its own navel (and who needs hallucinogens for that?).

“Get away from me.”

“Sweetie!” Thump-thump. “Here take my rock!” Thump! “You can do it too!” Thump! “It’s easy!”

As it turned out, even Nifty Gum was of no mind to discover what hid inside the skull of one of his fans. Instead, he whispered, “Someone end it. Please. Someone. Plea-”

I would hazard the notion that this heartfelt utterance referred to a wholly natural desire to see Sellup expunged from his (and everyone else’s) sight, and in that regard Nifty won my sympathies entire. For reasons unknown, however (oh how I lie, don’t I?), Tulgord Vise misinterpreted the Great Artist and in answer he thrust his sword between the poet’s shoulder blades. The point burst from Nifty’s chest in a welter of blood and splintered bone.

Nifty’s eyes gave up the struggle, and he sagged, leaning heavily on the sword blade before, with a grunt, Tulgord heaved the weapon free. The poet fell back in a puff of dust.

Sellup moaned. “Thumbsy?”

Seeing the man’s lips moving, I edged closer-after a wary glance Tulgord’s way, but he was already cleaning his blade in the sand beside the trail-and then I leaned close. “Nifty? It is me, Flicker.”

Sudden horror lit up Nifty’s eyes. “The eggs,” he breathed. “The eggs!”

Whereupon, with a strange, blissful smile, he died.

Is this the fate for all artists who wantonly steal inspiration? Certainly not, and shame on you for even suggesting it.

Our family was indeed in tatters. But this morning was yet to give up the last of its shocking revelations, for at that moment Well Knight Arpo Relent sat up, blinking the gobs of mucous from his eyes. The crack in his head dripped pink tears, but he seemed unmindful of that.

“Who dressed me?” he demanded in an odd voice.

Apto Canavalian lifted his gaze, and a most forlorn and dejected gaze it was. “Your mother?”

Arpo stood, somewhat unsteadily, and tugged clumsily at the straps of his armour. “I don’t need this.”

Poor Sellup had resumed her crawling and was now curled up on Nifty’s sundered chest, tentatively licking at the blood. “Look at this,” she muttered, “I have no taste at all.”

“Well Knight,” said Tulgord Vise, “do you recall what happened to you?”

At that Apto Canavalian started, and then stared up at the Mortal Sword in horror commingled with blistering hatred.

“The blood dried up,” Arpo answered. “Miserable shits, after all I did for them. Open the flood gates! Who pissed on that altar? Was that a demon did that? I hate demons. Death to all demons!” He succeeded in shucking off his coat of mail and it fell to one side with a golden rustle. “All dogs must hereafter walk backwards. That’s my decree and make of it what you will. Pluck one eye from every cat, bring them in buckets-of course I’m serious! No, not the cats, the eyes. It’s tragic the dogs can’t see where they’re going. So, we take those eyes and we-”

“Well Knight!”

Arpo glared at Tulgord Vise. “Who in Farl’s name are you?”

“Wrong question!” the Mortal Sword snapped. “Who are you?”

“Well now, what’s this?”

We all stared at what Relent now gripped in one hand.

“That’s your penis,” said Apto Canavalian. “And I say that advisedly.”

Arpo stared down at it. “Kind of explains everything, doesn’t it?”

Personally, I see no humour in that statement whatsoever. In any case, Arpo Relent (or whoever happened to be inhabiting his body at that time) now focused his entire attention upon his discovery, and moments later made a mess of things. His brows lifted, and then he smiled and started over again. “I could do this all day. In fact, I think I will.”

With a disgusted grunt Tulgord Vise turned to saddle his horse.

Sardic Thew clapped his hands. “Well! I think today’s the day!”

Tiny Chanter belched. “Better not be. Flicker’s got stories to finish and he ain’t getting away with not finishing them.”

“Dear sir,” said I, “we have the breadth of the sun’s passage, if our host’s assessment is correct and why would we doubt it? Fear not, resolutions abound.”

“If I don’t like what I hear you’re a dead man.”

“Yeah,” said Fl-oh, never mind.

Studiously, I avoided Purse Snippet’s piercing regard, only to be speared by Relish’s. The maddening expectations of women!

As if chilled, Apto Canavalian drew tighter his cloak. He rose to stand close to me. “Flicker, a word if you please.”

“You need fear nothing from Brash Phluster, sir.” I raised my voice. “Is that not true, Brash?”

The young poet’s face twisted. “I just want things to be fair, Flicker. Tell him that. Fair. I deserve that. We both do, you and me. Tell him that.”

“Brash, he is standing right here.”

“I’m not talking to him.”

Apto was gesturing, clearly wanting the two of us to walk off a short distance. I glanced around. Mister Must had reappeared with his tea pot. Sardic Thew held out his cup with shaky hands, whilst Purse Snippet offered the old man a frail smile as he went to her first. Our host’s visage flashed dark for a moment. Relish was now braiding a whole string of nooses together, reminding me of the winter solstice ritual of an obscure Ehrlii tribe, something to do with hanging charms upon a tree in symbolic remembrance of when they used to hang bigger things from trees. Her brothers were throwing small rocks at Sellup’s head, laughing when one struck. The deathless fan, however, gave no indication of noticing, busy as she was eating Nifty’s heart out. Steck Marynd sat staring at the ashes of the campfire, and all the knuckle bones that glowed like infernal coals.

Arpo Relent had worked his penis into exhaustion and was now slapping the limp tip back and forth with all the hopeless optimism of an unsated woman on a wedding night.

“We have a few moments yet, it seems,” I conceded. “Lead on, sir.”

“I never wanted to be a judge,” Apto said once we’d gone about twenty paces up the trail. “I shouldn’t be here at all. Do you have any idea how hard it is being a critic?”

“Why, no. Is it?”

The man shivered in the wretched heat, leading me to wonder if he was fevered. “It’s what eats at us all, you see.”

“No, I am afraid I don’t.”

His eyes flicked at mine. “If we could do what you do, don’t you think we would?”

“Ah.”

“It’s like the difference between a fumbling adolescent and a master lover. We’re brilliant in squirts, while you can enslave a woman across the span of an entire night. The truth is, we hate you. In the unlit crevices of our cracked soul, we seethe with resentment and envy-”

“I would not see it that way, Apto. There are many kinds of talent. A sharp eye and a keen intellect, why, they are rare enough to value in themselves, and their regard set upon us is our reward.”

“When you happen to like what we say.”

“Indeed. Otherwise, why, you’re an idiot and it gives us no small amount of pleasure to say so. As far as relationships go,” I added, “there is little that is unique or even at all unusual here.”

“All right, it’s like this, this here, this very conversation we’re having.”

“I’m sorry? “

“ ‘Entirely lacking profundity, touching on philosophical issues with the subtlety of a warhammer. Reiterations of the obvious’- see my brow lifting to show just how unimpressed I am? So, what do you think I’m really saying when I make such pronouncements?”

“Well, I suppose you’re saying that in fact you are smarter than me-”

“Sharper than your dull efforts to be sure. Wiser, cooler of regard, loftier, far too worldly to observe your clumsy maunderings with anything but amused condescension.”

“Surely it is your right to think so.”

“Don’t you feel a stab of hate, though?”

“Ah, but the wise artist-and indeed, some of us are wise- possesses a most perfect riposte, one that pays no regard to whatever murky motives lie behind such attacks.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Well, before I answer let me assure you that this in no way refers to you, for whom I feel affection and growing respect. That said, why, we forge a likeness in our tale and then proceed to excoriate and torture the hapless arse-hole with unmitigated and relentless contempt.”

“The ego’s defense-”

“Perhaps, but I am content enough to call it spite.”

And Apto, being a critic whom as I said I found both amiable and admirable (shock!), was grinning. “I look forward to the conclusion of your tales this day, Avas Didion Flicker, and you can be assured that I will consider them most carefully as I ponder the adjudication of the Century’s Greatest Artist.”

“Ah, yes, rewards. Apto Canavalian, 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.”

All chill had abandoned Apto upon our return to the others. Light his step and fair combed his hair. Brash Phluster bared his teeth upon seeing the transformation, and stewed to a boil of suspicion was his glare in my direction. Mister Must was already perched and waiting atop the carriage, small clouds of smoke rising from his pipe. Steck Marynd sat astride his horse, crossbow resting across one forearm. He wore his soldier’s mask once again, angled sharp with a strew of discipline and stern determination. Indeed, backlit by the morning sun, the exudation surrounding this grim figure was an aura of singular purpose, a penumbra ominous as a jilted woman’s upon the doorstep of a rival’s house.

Tulgord Vise was in turn swinging himself onto his mount in a jangle of chain and deadly weapons. Stalwart in pose, vigorous in defense of propriety, the Mortal Sword of the Sisters cast grating eyes upon the much-reduced party, and allowed himself a satisfied nod.

“Is this my horse?” Arpo Relent asked, glaring at the beast that still stood barebacked and hobbled.

“Gods below,” growled Tulgord. “You, Flicker, saddle the thing, else we linger here all day. And you, Phluster, give us a song.”

“Nobody has to die anymore!”

“That’s what you think,” retorted Tiny Chanter. “The Reaver himself is your audience, poet, as it should be. A blade hovers over your head. A sneer announces your death sentence, a yawn spells your doom. A modest drift of attention from any one of us and your empty skull rolls and bounces on the road. Hah, this is how performance should be! Life in the balance!”

“And if was you?” snarled Brash in sudden courage (or madness).

“I wouldn’t waste my time in poetry, you fool. Words-why, anyone can put them together, in any order they please. It’s not like what you’re doing is hard, is it? The rest of us just don’t bother. We got better things to do with our time.”

“I take it,” ventured Apto, “as a king you are not much of a patron to the arts.”

“Midge?”

“He arrested the lot,” said Midge.

“Flea?”

“And then boiled them alive, in a giant iron pot.”

“The stink,” said Midge.

“For days,” said Flea.

“Days,” said Midge.

“Now, poet. Sing!” And Tiny smiled.

Brash whimpered, clawed at his greasy mane of hair. “Gotho’s Folly, the Lullaby Version, then.”

“The what?”

“I’m not talking to you! Now, here it is and no interruptions please.

“Lie sweet in your cot, precious onnne

The dead are risin from every graaave

The dead are risin, I say, from every graaa-yev!

Bright your little eyes, precious onnne

Bright as beacons atop that barrowww

“Stop your screamin, precious onnne

The dead ain’t deaf they can hear you fine

Oh the dead ain’t deaf I say, they hear you fiii-yen!

Stop your climbin, precious onnne

Sweet it’s gonna taste your oozin marrowww

Oh we never wanted you anywayyy-”

“Enough!” roared Tulgord Vise, wheeling his horse round as he unsheathed his sword.

Tiny giggled. “Here it comes!”

“Be quiet you damned necromancer! You-”Tulgord pointed his sword at Brash, whose poor visage was pallid as, well, Sellup’s (above her mouth, that is). “You are sick-do you hear me? Sick!”

“Artists don’t really view that as a flaw,” observed Apto Canavalian.

The sword trembled. “No more,” rasped Tulgord. “No more, do you hear me?”

Brash’s head was bobbing like a turd in a whirlpool.

Done at last readying the horse I gave its dusty rump a pat and turned to Arpo Relent. “Your charger awaits you, sir.”

“Excellent. Now what?”

“Well, you mount up.”

“Good. Let’s do that, then.”

“Mounting up involves you walking over here, good knight.”

“Right.”

“Foot into the stirrup-no, the other-oh, never mind, that one will do. Now, grasp the back of the saddle, right, just so. And pull yourself up, swing that leg, yes, perfect, set your foot in the other-got it. Well done, sir.”

“Where’s its head?”

“Behind you. Guarding your back, sir, just the way you like it.”

“I do, do I? Of course I do. Excellent.”

“Now, we just tie these reins to this mule’s harness here-do you mind, Mister Must?”

“Not in the least, Flicker.”

“Good… there! You’re set, sir.”

“Most kind of you. Bless you, and take my blessing with solemn gratitude, mortal, it’s been a thousand years since my last one.”

“Then I shall, sir.”

“For that,” Tulgord said to me, “it’s all down to you for the rest of the day, Flicker.”

“Oh Mortal Sword, it is that indeed.”

I would at this moment assert, humbly, that I am not particularly evil. In fact, if I was as evil as you perhaps think, why, I would have killed the critic long ago. We must bow, in either case, to the events as they truly transpired, though it might well paint me in modestly unpleasant hues. But the artist’s eye must remain sharp and unforgiving, and every scene’s noted detail must purport a burden of significance (something the least capable of critics never quite get into their chamber-potted brains, ah, piss on them I say!). The timing of this notification is, of course, entirely random and no doubt bred and born of my inherent clumsiness.

Leapt past that passage? Good for you. (And I do so look forward to your collected letters of erudition, posteritally)

“Just like the dog, tally ho!” shouted Arpo Relent as the journey resumed, and then arose a milked joccling sound followed by an audible shudder and visible moan from the Very Well Knight.

We set out, in the scuff of worn boots, the clop of hoofs and the rackle of carriage wheels, leaving in our wake Nifty Gums corpse and Sellup who was now gnawing beneath the dead man’s chin, in the works a love-bite of appalling proportions.

Shall I list we who remained? Why not. In the lead Steck Marynd, behind him Tulgord Vise and then the Chanters, followed by the host and Purse Snippet, then myself flanked by Apto upon my right and Brash upon my left, and behind us of course Mister Must and the carriage of the Dantoc Calmpositis, with Arpo Relent riding his mount off to one side at the trail’s very edge.

Pilgrims one and all, and the day was bright, the vultures cooing and the bees writhing in the dust as the sun lit the landscape on fire and sweat ran in dirty streams to sting eyes and consciences both. Brash was gibbering under his breath, his gaze focused ten thousand paces ahead. Apto’s mouth was also moving, perhaps taking mental notes or setting Brash’s latest song to memory. Relish punched one of her brothers every now and then, with no obvious cause. Usually in the side of the head. Which the brothers endured with impressive indulgence, she being their little sister. Purse walked in a drugged daze which would not ebb until mid-morning, and bearing this in mind I pondered which of two tales would prove most timely at the moment, and, a decision having been reached with modest effort, I began to speak.

“The Imass woman, maiden no longer, awoke in the depths of night, in the time of the watch, which stretches cold and forlorn before the first touch of false dawn mocks the eastern sky. Shivering, she saw that her furs had been pulled aside, and of her lover no sign remained. Drawing the skins close, she drank the bitter air and with each deep breath her sleepiness grew more distant, and around her the hut breathed in its own dark pace, sighing its soot to settle upon her open eyes.

“She felt filled up, her skin tight as if someone had stuffed her as one would a carcass, to better stretch the curing hide. Her body was not quite entirely her own. She could feel the truth of this. Its privacy now a temporary condition, quick to surrender to his next touch. She was content with that, as only a young woman can be, for they are at their most generous at tender age, and it is only in the later years that the expanse contracts and borders are jealously guarded-trails carelessly trampled are by this time thoroughly mapped in her memory, after all.

“But now, this night, she is young still, and all of the world beyond this silent and unlit hut is blanketed in untouched snow, plush as a brold’s virgin fur. The time of night known as the watch is a sacred time for many, and one of great and solemn responsibility. Malign spirits are known to stir in the breaths of the sleeping, seeking a way in, and so one of the tribe must be awake in vigil, whispering wards against the swollen darkness and its many-eyed hungers.

“She could hear nothing past her steady breathing, except perhaps something in the distance, out across the bold sweep of snow and frozen ground-the soft crackle from among trees, as frost tinkled down beneath black branches. There was no wind, and somehow she could feel the pressure of the stars, as if their glittering spears could reach through the layered hides of the hut’s banked roof. And she told herself that the ancestors were protecting her with their unwavering regard, and with this thought she closed her eyes once more-”

I paused a moment, and then continued. “But then she heard a sound. A faint scrape, the patter of droplets. She gasped. ‘Beloved?’ she whispered and spirits fled in the gloom. The hut’s flap was drawn to one side, and the Fenn, crouched low to clear the doorway, edged inside. His eyes glistened as he paused.

‘“Yes,’ said he, ‘“It is I,” and then he made a soft sound, something like a laugh, she thought, though she could not be certain for it left a bitter trail. ‘I have brought meat.’ And at that she sat up. ‘You hunted for us?’ And in answer he drew closer and now she could smell charred flesh and she saw the thick strip bridging his hands. ‘A gift,’ he said, ‘for the warmth you gave me, when I needed it most. I shall not forget you, not ever.’ He presented her with the slab and she gasped again when it settled into her hands, for it was still hot, edges crisped by fire, and the fat streamed down between her fingers. Even so, something in what he had said troubled her and she felt a tightness in her throat as she said, ‘Why would you forget me, beloved? I am here and so are you, and with this food we shall all bless you and beg that you remain with us, and then we-’

“ ‘Hush,’ said he. ‘It cannot be. I must leave with the dawn. I must hold to the belief that among the tribes of the Fenn, those beyond the passes, I will find for myself a new home.’

“And now there were tears in her eyes and this he must have seen for he then said, ‘Please, eat, gain strength. I beg you.’ And she found the strength to ask, ‘Will you sit with me when I eat? For this long at least? Will you-’“

“That’s it?” demanded Relish. “She gave up that easily? I don’t believe it.”

“Her words were brave,” I replied, “even as anguish tore at her heart.”

“Well, how was I to know that?”

“By crawling into her skin, Relish,” I said most gently. “Such is the secret covenant of all stories, and songs and poems too, for that matter. With our words we wear ten thousand skins, and with our words we invite you to do the same. We do not ask for your calculation, nor your cynicism. We do not ask you how well we are doing. You either choose to be with us, word by word, in and out of each and every scene, to breathe as we breathe, to walk as we walk, but above all, Relish, we invite that you feel as we feel.”

“Unless you secretly feel nothing,” Purse Snippet said, glancing back at me and I saw dreadful accusation in her eyes-her numbness had been burnt away, making my time short indeed.

“Is this what you fear? That my invitation is a deceit? The suspicion alone belongs to a cynic, to be sure-”

“Belongs to the wounded and the scarred, I should think,” said Apto Canavalian. “Or the one whose own faith is dead.”

“In such,” said I, “no covenant is possible. Perhaps some artists do not feel what they ask others to feel, sir, but I do not count myself among those shameful and shameless wretches.”

“I see that well enough,” Apto said, nodding.

“Get back to the tale,” demanded Tiny Chanter. “She asks him to stay while she eats. Does he?”

“He does,” I replied, my eyes on Lady Snippet’s back as she strode ahead of me. “The darkness of the hut was such that she could see little more than the glint of his eyes as he watched her, and in those twin flickers she imagined all manner of things. His love for her. His grief for all that he had lost. His pride in the food he had provided, his pleasure in her own as she bit into and savored the delicious meat. She believed she saw amusement as well, and she smiled in return, but slowly her smile faded, for the glitter now seemed too cold for humour, or perhaps it was something she was not meant to see.

“When she had at last finished and was licking the grease from her fingers, he reached out and settled a hand upon her belly. ‘Two gifts,’ murmured he, ‘as you shall discover. Two.’ “

“How did he know?” demanded Relish.

“Know what?” asked Brash Phluster.

“That she was pregnant, Relish? He knew and so too did she, for there was a new voice inside her, deep and soft, the tinkle of frost in a windless night.”

“What then?” demanded Tiny.

“A moment, if you please. Purse Snippet, may I spin you a few lines of my tale for you?”

She looked back at me, frowning. “Now?”

“Yes, Lady, now.”

She nodded.

“The brothers were very quick to act, and before a breath was let loose from their glowing sister, why, the man she had loved the night before was lying dead. In her soul a ragged wind whipped up a swirl of ashes and cinders, and she almost stumbled, and the tiny voice inside her-so precious, so new-now wailed piteously for the father it had lost so cruelly-”

Tiny bellowed and spun to Relish, who shrank back.

“Hold!” I cried, and an array of sibling faces swung snarling my way. “Beneath that tiny cry she found a sudden fury rising within her. And she vowed that when her child was born she would tell it the truth. She would again and again jab a sharp-nailed finger at her passing brothers and say to her sweet wide-eyed boy or girl: ‘There! There is one of the men who murdered your father! Your vile, despicable, treacherous uncles! Do you see them! They sought to protect me-so they said, but they failed, and what did they then do, my child? They killed your father!’ No, there would be no smiling uncles for that lone child, no tossing upon the saddle of a thigh, no squeals, no indulgent spoiling, no afternoons at the fishing hole, or wrestling bears or spitting boars with sticks. That child would know only hatred for those uncles, and a vow would find shape deep within it, a kin-slaying vow, a family-destroying vow. Blood in the future. Blood!”

All had halted. All were staring at me.

“She would,” I continued with a voice of gravel and sharp stones. “She… could. If they would not leave her be. If they dogged her day after day. Her virginity was now gone. They had nothing left in her to protect. Unless, perhaps… an innocent child. But even then-she would decide when and how much. She was now in charge, not them. She was, and this was the sudden, blinding truth that seared through her mind at that instant: she was free.”

And then I fell silent.

Tiny gaped, at me and then at Relish. “But you said Callap-”

“I lied,” replied Relish, crossing her arms and happily proving that she was not as witless as I had first imagined.

“But then you’re not-”

“No, I’m not.”

“And you’re-”

“I am.”

“The voice-”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll tell it-”

“If you leave me to live my life? Nothing.”

“But-”

Her eyes flashed and she advanced on him. “Everything. The truth! Hate’s seed-to become a mighty tree of death! Your death, Tiny! And yours, Midge! And yours, Flea!”

Tiny stepped back.

Midge stepped back.

Flea stepped back.

“Are we understood?” demanded Relish.

Three mute nods.

She whirled then and shot me a look of eternal gratitude or eternal resentment-I couldn’t tell which and really, did it matter?

Did I then catch a wondering smile from Purse Snippet? I cannot be certain, for she quickly turned away.

As we resumed our journey Apto snorted under his breath. “Flick goes the first knife this day. Well done, oh, very well done.”

The first. Yes, but only the first.

A voice from back down the trail made us turn. “Look everybody! I brought Nifty’s head!”

There is a deftness that comes of desperation, but having never experienced desperation, I know nothing of it. The same woeful ignorance on my part can be said for the savage wall that rises like a curse between an artist and inspiration, or the torture of sudden doubt that can see scrolls heaped on the fire. The arrow of my intent is well trued. It sings unerringly to its target, even when that target lies beyond the horizon’s swollen-breasted curve. You do not believe me? Too bad.

I imagine such flaws in my character are unusual, perhaps even rare enough to warrant a ponder or two, but to be honest, I can’t be bothered, and if I must shoulder through jostling crowds of skepticism, suspicion and outright disbelief, then ‘ware my spiked armour, for my path is ever sure and I will not be turned aside. Even when it takes me off the cliff’s edge, I shall spare you all one last knowing nod. As is only fair.

Is this to also claim that I have lived a life without error? Ah, but recall the beginning of this tale, and find therein my answer to that. Errors salt the earth and patched, sodden and tangled is my garden, dear friends, riotous in mischance at every crook and bend. This being said, I find my confidence unsullied nonetheless, and indeed so replete my aplomb that one cannot help but see in the wild swirling cloak of my wake the sparkle and shock of my assured stride. Nary a tremulous step, do you see?

Not yet? Then bear witness, if you will, to the harrowed closing of this most truthful tale.

“I can’t see where we’re going. Someone make this horse walk backwards. A new decree, where are the priests? Those purple-lipped perverts fiddling under their robes-oh, damn me! Now I know what they were up to!”

Once more we walked Cracked Pot Trail, and somewhere in the distance awaited the Great Descent to the river and its ferry landing. By day’s close, or so our increasingly agitated host had proclaimed. An end to this nightmare-the fevered hope was bright in Brash Phluster’s eyes, and even Apto Canavalian’s stride was a stitch quicker.

Still the heat tormented. Our water was almost gone, the pieces of Callap Roud bubbling in our bellies, and our dastardly deeds clung to our shoulders with talon and fang. It did not help that Sellup was scooping out handfuls of Nifty’s brain and making yummy sounds as she slopped the goo into her mouth.

Tulgord Vise, glancing back and taking note of this detail, twisted round to glare at Tiny Chanter. “By the Blessed Mounds, do something about her or I will.”

“No. She’s growing on me, isn’t she, Flea?”

“She is. Midge?”

“She-”

“Stop that too!”

The three brothers laughed, and Relish did, as well, stirring in me a few curdles of unease, especially the way she now walked, bold, swaggering the way curvy women did, her head held high and all those black tresses drifting around like ghostly serpents with glinting tongues testing the air. Why, I realized with a start, she really thought she was pregnant. All the signs were there.

Now, as any mother would tell you, pregnancy and freedom do not belong in the same sentence, except one indicating the loss of the latter with the closing pangs of the former. That being said, I’m no mother, nor was I in any way inclined to disavow Relish Chanter of whatever comforting notions she happened to hold at the time, and was this not considerate of me?

“Look at me! I’m Nifty Gum the famous poet!” Sellup had jammed her hand up inside the head and was moving the jaw up and down, making the teeth clack. “I say poet things! All the time! I have a new poem for everybody. Want to hear? It’s called The Lay of the Eggs! Ha ha, get it? A poem about eggs! I’m famous and everything and my brains taste like cheese!”

“Stop that,” Tulgord Vise said in a dangerous growl, one hand finding the grip of his sword.

“I have found ruts,” announced Steck Marynd from up ahead, reining in and leaning hard over his saddle as he squinted at the ground. “Carriage ruts, and heavy ones too.”

Tulgord rode up. “How long ago?” he demanded.

“A day, maybe less!”

“We’ll catch them at the ferry! At last!”

“Could be any carriage, couldn’t it?” so queried Apto Canavalian, earning vicious stares from Tulgord and the Chanter brothers. “I mean,” he stumbled on, “might not be those Nehemoth at all, right? Another pilgrim train, or-”

“Aye,” admitted Steck. “Worth keeping in mind, and we’re worn out, we are. Worn out. We can push, but not too hard.” He tilted his crossbow towards Sardic Thew. “You, tell us about this ferry. How often does it embark? How long the crossing?”

Our host rubbed his lean jaw. “Once a day, usually at dusk. There’s a tidal draw, you see, that it needs to ride across to Farrog. Reaches the docks by dawn.”

“Dusk?” Steck’s narrow eyes narrowed some more. “Can we make it, Thew?”

“With a decent pace and no halt for lunch… yes, woodsman, I would say it is possible.”

The air fairly bristled, and savage the smiles of Tiny, Midge, Flea and Tulgord Vise.

“What is all this?” demanded Arpo Relent, kicking his horse round so that he could see the rest of the party. “Are we chasing someone, then? What is he, a demon? I despise demons. If we catch him I’ll cut him to pieces. Pieces. Proclamation! The Guild of Demons is herewith disbanded, with prejudice! What, who set the city on fire? Well, put it out! Doesn’t this temple have any windows? I can’t see a damned thing through all this smoke- someone kill a priest. That always cheers me up. Ho, what’s this?”

“Your penis,” said Apto Canavalian. “And before anyone asks, no, I have no particular fascination for that word.”

“But what’s it do? Oh, now I remember. Hmmm, nice.”

“We pursue not a demon,” said Tulgord Vise, straightening to assume a virtuous pose in knightly fashion. “Necromancers of the worst sort. Evil, murderous. We have avowed that in the name of goodness they must die.”

Arpo blinked up from his blurred right hand. “Necromancers? Oh, them. Miserable fumblers, don’t know a damned thing, really. Well, I’m happy to obliterate them just the same. Did someone mention Farrog? I once lived in a city called Fan’arrogal, wonder if it’s, uh, related. On a river mouth? Crawling with demons? Ooh, see that? Ooh! New building program. Fountains!”

You will be relieved that I bit off a comment about pubic works.

Tulgord stared wide-eyed at Arpo, which was understandable, and then he tugged his horse back onto the path. “Lead us on, Marynd. I want this done with.”

Mister Must then spoke from atop the carriage. “Fan’arrogal, you said?”

Arpo was wiping his hand on his bared chest. “My city. Until the demon infestation, when I got fed up with the whole thing.” He frowned, gaze clouding. “I think.”

“After a night of slaughter that left most of the city in smouldering ruins,” Mister Must said, his eyes thinned to slits behind his pipe’s smoke. “Or so the tale went. Farrog rose up from its ashes.”

“Gods below,” whispered Sardic Thew with eyes bulging upon Arpo Relent, “you’re the Indifferent God! Returned to us at last!”

Brash Phluster snorted. “He’s a man with a cracked skull, Thew. Look what’s leaking out now, will you?”

“I’d rather not,” said Apto, quickly setting off after the Nehemothanai.

I regarded Mister Must. “Fan’arrogal? That name appears in only the obscurest histories of the region.”

Wiry brows lifted. “Indeed now? Well, had to have picked it up somewhere, didn’t I?”

“As footmen will do,” said I, nodding.

Grunting, Mister Must snapped the traces and the mules lurched forward. I stepped to one side and found myself momentarily alone, as the others had already hurried after the Nehemothanai. Well, almost alone.

“I’m Nifty Gum and I’ll do anything she says!” Clack-clack.

Ah, a fan’s dream, what?

“Kill some time,” commanded Tiny Chanter, once I had caught up.

“Her tears spilled down upon the furs when, with a final soft caress, he left the hut. The grey of dawn mocked all the colours in the world, and in this lifeless realm she sat unmoving, as a faint wind moaned awake outside. Earlier, she had listened for the sled’s runners scraping the snow, but had heard nothing. Now, she listened for the bickering among the hunting dogs, the crunch of wrapped feet as the ice over the pits was cracked open. She listened for the cries of delight upon finding the carcass of the animal the Fenn had slain.

“She listened, then, for the sounds of her life of yesterday and all the days before it, for as long as she could remember. The sounds of childhood, which in detail did not change though she was a child no longer. He was gone, a cavern carved out of her soul. He had brought dark words and bright gifts, in the way of strangers and unexpected guests.

“But, beyond this hut… only silence.”

“A vicious tale,” commented Steck Marynd. “You should have let it die with Roud.”

“The demand was otherwise,” I replied to the man riding a few strides ahead. “In any case, the end, as you well know, is now near. Finally, she rose, heavy and weightless, chilled and almost fevered, and with her furs drawn about her she emerged into the morning light.

“Dead dogs were strewn about on the stained snow, their necks snapped. To the left of the Chief’s hut the remnants of a bonfire died in a drift of ashes and bones. The corpses of her beloved kin were stacked in frozen postures of cruel murder beside the ghastly hearth, and closer to hand laid the butchered remnants of three children.

“The sled with its mute cargo remained where he had left it, although the hides had been taken, exposing the frost-blackened body of another Fenn. Dead of a sword thrust.

“A keening cry lifting up through the numbness of her soul, she staggered closer to that sled, and she looked down upon a face years younger than that of the Fenn who had come among them. For, as is known to all, age is difficult to determine among the Tartheno Toblakai. She then recalled his tale, the battle upon the glacier, and all at once she understood-”

“What?” demanded Midge. “Understood what? Hood take you, Flicker, explain!”

“It is the hero who wins the fated battle against his evil enemy,” said I, with unfeigned sorrow. “So it is in all tales of comfort. But there is no comfort in this tale. Alas, while we may rail, sometimes the hero dies. Fails. Sometimes, the last one standing is the enemy, the Betrayer, the Kinslayer. Sometimes, dear Midge, there is no comfort. None.”

Apto Canavalian fixed upon me an almost accusatory glare. “And what,” he said, voice rough with fury, “is the moral of that story, Flicker?”

“Moral? Perhaps none, sir. Perhaps, instead, the tale holds another purpose.”

“Such as?”

Purse Snippet answered in the coldest of tones. “A warning.”

“A warning?”

“Where hides the gravest threat? Why, the one you invite into your camp. Avas Didion Flicker, you should have abandoned this tale-gods, what was Roud thinking?”

“It was the only story he knew by heart!” Brash Phluster snapped, and then he wheeled on me. “But you! You know plenty! You could have spun us a different one! Instead-instead-”

“He chooses to sicken our hearts,” Purse said. “I said I would abide, Flicker. For a time. Your time, I think, has just run out.”

“The journey has not ended yet, Lady Snippet. If firm you will hold to this bargain, then I have the right to do the same.”

“Do you imagine I remain confident of your prowess?”

I met her eyes, my lockbox of secrets cracked open-just a sliver-but enough to steal the colour from her face, and I said this, “You should be by now, Lady.”

How many worlds exist? Can we imagine places like and yet unlike our own? Can we see the crowds, the swarming sea of strangers and all those faces scratching our memories, as if we once knew them, even when we knew them not? What value building bitter walls between us? After all, is it not a conceit to shake one’s head in denial of such possibilities, when in our very own world we can find a multitude of worlds, one behind the eyes of every man, woman, child and beast you happen to meet?

Or would you claim that these are in fact all facets of the same world? A man kneels in awe before a statue or standing stone, whilst another pisses at its base. Do these two men see the same thing? Do they even live in the same world?

And if I tell you that I have witnessed each in turn, that indeed I have both bowed in humility and reeled before witless desecration, what value my veracity when I state with fierce certainty that numberless worlds exist, and are in eternal collision, and that the only miracle worth a damned thing is that we manage to agree on anything?

Nothing stinks worse than someone else’s piss. And if you do not believe me, friends, try standing in my boots for a time.

And so to this day I look with fond indulgence upon my memories of the Indifferent God, if god he was, there within the cracked pot of Arpo Relent’s head, for all the pure pleasure he found in the grip of his right hand. Its issue was one of joy, after all, and far preferable to the spiteful, small-minded alternative.

The name of Avas Didion Flicker is not entirely unknown among the purveyors of entertainment, if not culture, throughout Seven Cities, and by virtue of living as long as I have, I am regarded with some modest veneration. This has not yielded vast wealth, not by any measure beyond that of personal satisfaction at the canon of words marking a lifetime’s effort, and as everyone knows, satisfaction is a wavering measure in one’s own mind, as quick to pale as it is to glow. If I now choose to stand full behind this faint canon and its even fainter reputation, well, the stance is not precisely comfortable.

And the relevance of this humble admission? Well now, that’s the question, isn’t it?

Mortal Sword Tulgord Vise had girthed himself for battle. Weapons cluttered his scaled hands, the pearled luminescence of his armour was fair blinding in the noble light. His eyes were savage arrow-heads straining at the taut bowstring of righteous anticipation. His beard bristled like the hackled rump of a furious hedgehog. The veins webbing his nose were bursting into crimson blooms beneath the skin. His teeth gnashed with every flare of his nostrils and strange smells swirled in his wake.

The Chanter brothers walked in a three-man shieldwall, suddenly festooned with halberds and axes and two-handed and even three-handed swords. Swathed in bear skin, Tiny commanded the centre, with the seal skinned Midge on his left and the seal skinned Flea on his right, thus forming a bestial wall in need of a good wash. Relish sauntered a step behind them, regal as a pregnant queen immune to bastardly rumours (they’re just jealous).

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 memory. 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.”