Steven Erikson - The healthy dead

“Nothing dramatic, I assure you. The overthrow of King Macrotus. We shall endeavour to preserve as much of the city’s population as possible.”

“You want Quaint’s throne?”

“For ourselves? Hardly. What would we do with it? No, consider it a favour.”

“A favour?”

“Very well, we are being paid to achieve the swift extinction of this deadly trend toward healthiness. Although, truth be said, I am not much interested in material wealth. Rather, it is the challenge that intrigues me.” Bauchelain straightened and faced Storkul Purge. After a moment, the sorceror drew out a knife.

Imid Factallo’s life had never amounted to much, thus far. Such was his considered opinion in any case. No wife, no children, and he not a man women would chase, unless he’d stolen something from them. And so he’d known loneliness, as familiar as an old friend, in fact. Although, presumably, to have a friend was to be other than lonely. Thinking on that, he was forced to conclude that loneliness was not anything like an old friend. Indeed, had he a friend, he would have been able to discuss his thoughts, since that’s what friends did, and clearly the conversation would have been scintillating.

He sat on the front step of his modest, friendless abode, watching a squirrel twitch confusedly at the base of a tree. It had been busy for weeks storing various things in anticipation of the winter to come. Curiously, it seemed such rodents despised company. Loneliness was their desired state. This is what came, he concluded morosely, of eating nuts and seeds.

The creature’s present confusion had no outwardly apparent cause, suggesting to Imid that the source of its troubles came from within, a particular cavort of agitation in its tiny brain. Perhaps it was experiencing an ethical crisis, making it jump about so in chittering rage.

All the fault of that damned manservant, Imid told himself. Mulled wine and rustleaf and durhang, a veritable cornucopia of forbidden substances, and his indifferent aplomb in the consumption of those items had taken Imid’s breath away. Cruel as a squirrel, he’d been. Driving the Saint of Glorious Labour to distraction, and worse… thoughts of violence.

He became aware of a susurration of noise from down the street, in the direction of the Grand Temple of the Lady. A crowd. Distant screams.

Imid Factallo saw the squirrel freeze in its tracks, head cocked. Then it fled.

The sounds were getting louder.

The saint leaned out slightly, peering down the street.

More screams, shattering pottery, a heavy crash-he saw a mass of motion, filling the space between the buildings. A mob, in full charge now, coming this way.

Alarmed, Imid Factallo rose from the step.

A hundred citizens, maybe more. Faces twisted in terror and panic, Saints of Glorious Labour among them. And worthies. And nuns-what was this?

They swept opposite Imid where he stood, clawing each other, clambering over those who fell. A wailing baby rolled to the bottom step, directly below Imid, and he snatched it clear a moment before a worthy’s boot slammed down on that spot. Staggering backward until his shoulders struck the door behind him, Imid stared as the mob surged past.

And, in its wake, the Paladin of Purity, Invett Loath. He’d drawn his sword, the polished steel flashing as he waved the weapon above his head, marching as if leading a parade. Or driving sheep.

“Weaklings!” the Paladin bellowed. “Run, you assorted pieces of filth! You are all being adjudicated! I have seen your faces! Smelled your foul breaths! Unclean, all of you! None of you shall escape my judgment!”

Noting Imid standing with the now-silent babe in his arms, Invett Loath pointed his sword at them. “You are witness!”

Imid stared. In his arms, the babe stared. From the rooftop directly overhead, the squirrel stared.

In Invett’s other hand was a handkerchief, which the Paladin used to wipe dried blood from his face. The man’s eyes glittered, appallingly bright. “Announce yourselves! Witnesses! Or suffer the fate of the Impure!”

“We witness!” Imid squealed. The babe wisely added a bubbling burble.

Triumphant, the Paladin of Purity marched on, driving his flock ever onward.

Something near the Grand Temple was burning, smoke twisting and billowing in dark, almost black clouds.

A figure approached in the wake of Invett Loath, and Imid was startled to see Elas Sil, moving furtively towards him.

“Elas Sil!”

“Quiet, you fool! Did you see him? He’s gone mad!” She paused. “That baby’s not yours!”

“I never said it was.”

“Then why are you holding it? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? It might void, it might wail, or worst of all, thrash about!”

“Someone dropped it.”

“On its head?” She came closer and peered at it. “That smudge-is that a bruise?”

“It might be-”

“By the Lady, is this a Saint? Imid, you have discovered the youngest Saint of Glorious Labour!”

“What? It’s just a baby-”

“A Saint!”

“What labour? Babies don’t work! Elas Sil, you’ve lost your senses!”

“Look at its face, you fool-it’s working right now!”

Something warm squelched against Imid’s lap, and then the stench struck him.

In the meantime, the mob of the Adjudicated had grown. Four hundred and twenty-six and counting, charging in a stampede up Greentongue Avenue. Whilst, on each side, down alleys and side streets, the riot spread like runny sewage.

A drover who had been leading thirty oxen to a seller’s compound lost control of his terrified beasts. Moments later, they were thundering madly, straight into a number of heavily burdened wagons that had been backed up and were sitting directly beneath the Monument of Singe-an ancient solid brick edifice, twenty stories tall, of dubious origin and unknown significance.

Loaded onto the beds of the wagons were caskets of jellied oil, which had been sweating out the entire day, forming a glistening patina on the sodden wood. Arto the Famous Fire Eater, whose fame had dwindled to pathetic ashes of late, was passing by at that moment. He had time to turn and see the wall-eyed oxen stampeding towards him, then was struck by a massive horned head, the impact throwing him back, the stoke-pot slung from his right shoulder wheeling outward, spraying its coals in all directions.

The subsequent explosion was heard and felt by every citizen in Quaint, and those crews out in the bay, throwing four-finned fish from their nets, looked up in time to see the skyward-pitching fireball and at least three oxen cartwheeling above the city, before the Monument of Singe dropped from sight and flames lit the dust clouds a gaudy orange.

Bauchelain slowly wiped the blood from his knife blade with a bleached cloth. He glanced down at Ineb Cough for a moment, then away, westward to where the sun was crawling down into its cave of night. Poised, like a figure in some heroic tapestry.

The demon was lying prone, trapped into immobility by the straits of the puppet’s clothes.

“All right,” Ineb growled, “cut me loose. But carefully!”

“You need have no concern there, demon,” Bauchelain said, crouching down and extending the dagger. “However, if you continue to squirm…”

“I won’t move, I promise!”

The brief flapping of wings announced the crow’s return. A pungent, musty smell wafted over Ineb, then a second figure appeared at Bauchelain’s side. A huge man, bald, his skin the tone and pallour of a hard-boiled and peeled egg, likely as clammy to the touch, as well. Small, flat eyes regarded the demon with cold curiosity.

Ineb tried a toothy smile. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But no. Not me. Not a homunculus. Not even a golem. I am a real demon.”