Emancipor nodded. “Oh yes, he’s not going anywhere.”
“I was in the company of King Necrotus,” the necromancer said, looking round, “but it would seem we have become separated-there was a mob… well, the details aren’t relevant. I take it, Mister Reese, that you have not been accosted by a corpse intent on entering the palace?”
“Afraid not, Master.”
“Ah, I see. I am curious, has it struck you, Mister Reese, that events have quickened with a decidedly rapacious pace?”
“From the time that Invett Loath charged out of this building behind me, the whole city seems to have lost its mind.”
“Invett Loath?”
“The Paladin of Purity, Master. Lord of the Well Knights. I am afraid…” Emancipor hesitated, “well, uh, I loaned him a kerchief. He’d bloodied his nose, you see. It was just common courtesy, how can I be blamed for that? I mean-”
“Mister Reese, please stop. I so dislike babbling. If I understand you, one of your many kerchiefs is now in the hands of this Paladin. And this is, in your mind, in some way significant.”
“Master, do you recall that D’bayang field we passed through, oh, five, six days past?”
Bauchelain’s eyes narrowed. “Go on, Mister Reese.”
“Well, the buds were open, yes? They call ’em poppies but they aren’t really poppies at all, as I am sure you know. Anyway, the air filled with spores-”
“Mister Reese, the air was not filled with spores, provided one remained on the road. As I recollect, however, there was some tumult, in your mind, at least, that resulted in you running madly through that field-with a kerchief covering your nose and mouth.”
Emancipor’s face reddened. “Korbal Broach asked me to carry that woman’s lungs, the ones he took that morning-Master, they were still breathing!”
“A small favour, then-”
“Forgive me, Master, but it wasn’t small in my eyes! Granted, it was unseemly, my horror and the ensuing panic. I admit it. But anyway. As you know, I so dislike enlivening alchemies-stupor and oblivion, yes, of course, at every opportunity. But enlivening, such as comes from D’bayang poppies? No. I despise that. Hence, the kerchief.”
“Mister Reese, the kerchief you loaned the Paladin was not the one filled with D’bayang spores?”
“Alas, Master, it was. I’d meant to wash it, but-”
“The Paladin was afflicted?”
“I believe so. Of a sudden, zealousness overcame him.”
“Possibly leading to… indiscriminate adjudication?”
“That’s one way of putting it, aye.”
Bauchelain stroked his beard. “Extraordinary. The guise of reasonableness, Mister Reese, permits all manner of intolerance and indeed, pernicious attack. Once that illusion is torn away, however, the terror of oppression becomes a random act, perhaps indeed an all-encompassing one.” He paused, tapped one side of his nose with a long finger, then remorselessly continued, “That chest of coins rightly belongs to you, Mister Reese. Raising the dead? Entirely unnecessary, as it turns out. All that was required was a single, subtle push, at the hands of an innocent, somewhat naive manservant.”
Emancipor stared at the necromancer, desperate to refute the charge, to deny all culpability, yet unable to speak. In his mind, a risible refrain: no, not me, no, no, it wasn’t me. It was him. Who him? Anyone him! Just not me! No, not me, no, no…
“Mister Reese? You have lost all colour. Did I mention that I have not before seen your eyes so clear, the whites veritably startling? It is a force of nature that draws all things down to the earth. I therefore imagine the flow of a multitude of toxins now swelling your poor feet. They must, I fear, be bled. Thoroughly. Of course, now is not the time-no, make no entreaties otherwise, Mister Reese. Now, if you please, lead me to King Macrotus.”
Emancipor frowned, then blinked. Feet? Bleeding? Macrotus? “I am happy to lead you to Macrotus, Master, and you may speak to him all you like, I am sure, although I suspect it won’t do much good.”
“I rarely speak in order to do good, Mister Reese. Now, shall we be on our way?”
Invett Loath had never felt more alive, so alive it was killing him, but that was fine since it seemed he was doing a fair share of killing himself, if the blood smeared on his sword was any indication, and he was reasonably certain that it was indeed fairly indicative that he had been practicing holy adjudication upon the unwholesome unwashed cretins who dared consider themselves worthy citizens of Quaint, adjudication that was only proper, as was his right, nay his obligation as the Paladin of Purity, the Paladin of Perfection, leading the vanguard of vigor to their healthy, thankful deaths, and if he and his blessed vanguard trod on a few babies, toddlers and weak-boned old folk along the way, well, there was nothing to be done for that, was there, not when the cause was just, so just it blinded like the sun’s own fire, all-consuming, scouraging the meat from the bones and yes, he was sure scouraging was a proper word and why shouldn’t it be, was he not the Paladin of Proper, he most certainly was and look! the night’s still young, exceedingly bright, in fact, given all those burning hovels and their burning denizens, none of whom deserved a less sordid, less scorching death because adjudication came in all forms, in all sizes including ratty blankets swaddling shrieking undeniably irritating whelps all laid out plump and yummy by the nuns who might well be pretty behind those veils who could tell not that such thoughts were acceptable, they being nuns and all, and he the Paladin of Probity marching down this street of flame was there not some cavern in the underworld that was nothing but fire and torment, maybe not but there should be, as far as Invett Loath was concerned, some preserved place of eternal pain just for all those unhealthy turds badly clothed in human skin, the fires could crinkle it back, rupturing the meat beneath, and how they would writhe and spit and heave up vile fluids in an endless torrent of foul toxins and all the flesh would tumble out, fold upon fold, gelatinous and pocked with big, suppurating pores, the flesh filling the street and how was he to get past this? By the Lady, it lived!
“Oomph!” the massive body gusted at the sudden impact.
Invett Loath’s wild charge was brought short. He plunged into flabby folds, then popped back out to land on his backside, blinking water from his eyes, fresh blood streaming down from his swollen nose.
“That hurt!” a piping squeal.
The Paladin leapt to his feet, cloth at his face. He could get around this! He had a sword. Cut, cut and dice and chop and cleave and hack in twain! With a roar, Invett Loath raised his blade high.
Twenty-odd paces away, the barrel-sized, misshapen blob that was Nauseo Sloven’s sweaty face, spread out to the sides and above and below in a expression of terror, the tiny eyes widening and bulging sufficient to push away the puffy flesh, and the demon screamed.
And flinched back, narrowly avoiding the descending sword.
Iron rang on cobbles.
Panicked, Nauseo Sloven lunged forward, heaving his mass to grapple with the Paladin before he could swing again. Stretched, oily skin slimed over Invett Loath in a desperate embrace. Pores sprouting curly hairs, the flesh around them enflamed and raised up like tiny volcanoes, pressed indiscriminately against the struggling Paladin, squirting volcanically foul juices.
Nauseo’s arm drew inward once again, dragging the squirming figure into his right armpit.
Where all manner of horrors resided.
Invett Loath could not breathe. But he didn’t need to breathe! He was the Paladin of-of-he was asphyxiating! Swallowed in fleshy darkness, matted hairs like worms sliding across his face, pimples bursting, a crevasse of skin spreading to smear years-old greasy dirt across his lips-oh, the taste, what was it? What did it remind him of? Yoghurt?
Yoghurt. Invett Loath’s last conscious word, sobbing dreadful in his mind.
“Give me that baby!”
Imid Factallo flinched back at that reptilian hiss. In his arms, the babe fell silent, eyes suddenly wide as it stared up at the saint.