Steven Erikson - The healthy dead

“You fool,” Storkul said, sneering, “those clothes belonged to a puppet. I can still see the strings.”

In a small voice, the thing said, “A puppet? Oh! I’m wasting away!”

“You are Vice,” she said. “You are Ineb Cough. Why aren’t you dead yet?”

“Oh, you don’t understand! It was all I could manage to crawl to you! The lure of your desire-I heard it!”

“You are mistaken-”

“Ah, a lie! Good! Yes, lies are good. Lies are where I begin!”

“Be quiet! People will hear.”

“Better and better. Yes, we will whisper, you and I. A drink, yes? Spirits, yes? I have caught a trail, leading out through Inland Gate. A trail, I tell you, redolent with all manner of indulgences. Liquor, rustleaf, durhang-”

“Inland Gate? Why, I was just there!”

“Someone has entered the city, my dear…”

“Someone? A foreigner? Yes, a foreigner!” She knew it!

“We must backtrack along his trail, you and me, Storkul Purge. We must!”

She was silent, thinking. Visions raced through her mind. Dramatic pronouncements, scenes of triumph at the fall of both the foreigner and Invett Loath. But it would not do to act too quickly. No, the two must become further entwined, each the champion of the other in their grand deceit. Yes, she could see it now. Soon, there would be a new champion of purity in Quaint.

But first… “Very well, Ineb Cough, backtrack we shall.”

“Delicious! Pick me up, then, my dark-hearted woman. Through Inland Gate, onto the open road beyond!”

“Quiet! You’re getting too loud!” She reached down and collected the puny creature that was Ineb Cough. “Say nothing more,” she whispered, “until I tell you it’s safe.”

Approaching the gate, she saw a guard step out, his eyes on her. “Well Knight, what have you there?”

“A most horrible child,” she replied. “Infected.”

The man edged back slightly. “Infected?”

“Children are not innocent, only inexperienced. It is a common enough misapprehension. This one is loud, boisterous, aggressive and cares only for itself.”

“A singular child, then.”

As any mother would tell you, you stupid mule-turd, I just described every child in this world. “Indeed, so singular we have no choice but to remove him bodily from the city.”

“And what do you mean to do with him?” the guard asked.

“Leave him to the wolves. Launch him in a basket on the outgoing tide. Sell him to pernicious but unsuspecting slavers. I have not yet decided, guard. Now, if you would stand aside, lest the vapours of this wretched imp poison you…”

The guard took another step back, then waved her on with a nervous gesture.

Once out on the road, she paused. “All right, no one’s close. Which way?”

“Straight ahead,” Ineb replied, “forty paces, then left on the drover’s track, up the hill. The very top. Gods below, the scent is strong and oh so lovely!”

Her basest desires urged her every step onward. Very disturbing. True, she’d once been, long ago, a most indulgent creature, sweet seductress in service to this very demon tucked under her arm. Like honey in a wasp trap, a furry mouse in a snake-pit, a whore at the temple backdoor. And it had been a good, if toxic, life. She admitted that she missed those days, rather, those nights. Yet, had not that foreigner and Invett Loath conspired her imminent downfall, she knew she would have gone on in her new, unstained life as a Knight of Wellness, pure of thought-all right, most of the time-and in the pious straits of healthy living. Respected and feared, representative and exalted far above the miserable mass of wretches crowding Quaint’s streets. Wretches deserving little more than her sneering contempt.

And there was a little known truth. Healthy pursuits should have noticeably extended lives by now, but the sheer stress of the endeavour was killing people like mayflies. Clearly, your average citizen wasn’t up to the task of living well. Victims of exercise and too many vegetables. Beneficence was a costly glory, it turned out. The chirurgeons were reporting that the most common complaint these days was blocked bowels. “And there you have it,” she muttered under her breath as she climbed the drover’s track, “what this city needs is a good dump, hah.”

“For starters,” Ineb Cough replied. “Yes indeed, a good clearing out of the system. An explosive expulsion of-”

“That’s enough from you,” Storkul said in a growl. “I was talking to myself.”

The demon sniffed in a muffled fashion, “Didn’t sound like it to me.”

“Well, I was.”

“Fine, but that’s not what I heard, that’s all.”

“You heard wrong.”

The creature spasmed under her arm, gaudy limbs writhing. “All right! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“That,” said a third voice, “was well done.”

It originated from the summit, three strides ahead. Storkul Purge halted, stared up at the man. “What?” she asked. “What was well done?”

“You are a ventriloquist, yes? A fascinating profession, I have always thought, fraught with arcane sorcery and strange mental peculiarity-”

“She’s not a ventriloquist,” Ineb Cough snarled, still thrashing about.

The grey-bearded, elegantly dressed man almost smiled. “Please, ah, both of you-I am a most appreciative audience and you will be pleased at the gratuity I shall pay you for the performance.”

“I am Well Knight Storkul Purge, not a caster of voices! Who are you and what are you doing here? Is that a camp on the summit behind you? Answer my questions, damn you, in the name of the Lady of Beneficence!”

“Answer her!” the demon added in a vicious rasp.

The man clapped his long-fingered hands. “Oh, very good indeed.”

Knight and demon howled their outrage.

“Spectacular!”

Storkul Purge flung the demon down and advanced on the man. Flopping in the dust behind her, Ineb Cough screamed, “I smell rustleaf!”

The stranger took a step back, thin brows rising. “Exquisite drama,” he said. “And highest sorcery, since I do not see the strings-”

“Silence, you wretched cur!” She saw the wagon at the far edge of the summit, and two bone-white oxen lolling stupidly as oxen were wont to do-although as both beasts swung their heads to regard her, the Knight faltered upon seeing their onyx black eyes. Nearby was the remnant of a cook fire, and lying close to the ring of stones were two wine bottles. “Alcohol! As I suspected!” She rounded on the foreigner. “Ignorance of the prohibitions is not an acceptable defense! I should have you arrested and-”

“A moment,” the man interrupted, lifting one finger, which he then set to his bearded chin. “Whilst ignorance of prohibitions may not be an acceptable defense, what of ignorance of what constitutes an acceptable defense?”

“What?”

“And what of your ignorance of the proper charge to be made against me?” the man inquired, the finger now tapping a steady rhythm. “Do you have an acceptable defense regarding that?”

“I know which are the proper charges!”

“Then why are you being so vague about them?”

“I’m not being vague!”

“Ahh,” he said with a slight smile, and the finger wagged lazily.

“Be quiet both of you!” the demon shrieked as it clawed its way to the summit. “Storkul Purge, have you forgotten your own desires? Forgotten what has brought us here?”

The Knight spun round and stared down at Ineb Cough, struggled against the impulse to crush him underfoot. Then, mastering herself, she faced the foreigner once more. “The demon is right. I am not here in the capacity of a Knight of Wellness.”

“A Knight of Wellness? I see,” the foreigner said, slowly nodding. Then his placid gaze slid down to Ineb Cough. “And a demon in truth, although much diminished. Mind you, well suited to ornamental functions. Had I a mantelpiece… alas, such are the vicissitudes of travel.”