Paula Guran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

“He would kill his sister. Yes. That’s exactly what he had to do. Even though he truly did love Isobel, and even though he knew full well he’d never, ever, ever love another woman, he had to do murder against her. Because, you see, he loved himself far more. Still, the King of Bones also understood that he must take care to proceed with the utmost caution. For though it was true there was no end of ghouls so fanatically loyal to him they’d gladly turn assassin even against their queen, it was also true he had enemies. The inhabitants of Thok were, by and large, a conquered, broken lot, and many were the ghouls who despised the twins and named them usurpers and conspired in secret, drawing plots against the Crown. Isaac Snow’s advisors warned him even the fires of the Basalt Madonna might not save him should there be open revolt. For before, he and Isobel had possessed the element of surprise. They’d never have that advantage again.

“Worse, there were rumors that some among the dissidents had begun making sacrifices to — well, I’ll not say that name here, but I mean the dæmon sultan who serves the blind, insane chaos at the center of the universe. No one ought ever speak that name.”

The children looked disappointed, and the tow-headed girl muttered to herself.

“Anyway, the King of Bones had made up his mind,” continued the peddler, “and nothing could dissuade him from the cold and heartless resolve of his decision. He would see Isobel dead, and he chose the method, and he chose the hour. It was with an especial shame that he cowardly set another to the task. At first he’d intended to do the deed himself, which only seemed right and good to his twisted ideas of right and good. But his advisors convinced him it was much more prudent to order her death by another’s hand. Then, afterwards, he could have the killer tried and publicly executed, and there would be fewer questions about the queen’s sad fate. If it were discovered that the Qqi d’Tashiva had murdered the mother of the child who would deliver all Ghūl-kind and lead them to victory against the Djinn—”

“There’d have been a terrible count of angry ghouls,” the tow-headed girl said.

The peddler nodded, not bothering to complain about yet another interruption.

“Indeed. It’s no small thing to destroy the hope of an entire people, even if the people are so foul a bunch as the ghouls.”

One of the children yawned, and the peddler asked, “Should I stop here? It’s getting late, after all, and you three by rights should be in your beds.”

“No, Aunty, please,” said the tow-headed girl, and she thumped the boy who’d yawned smartly on the back of his head. “We’re not tired, not at all. Please, do go on.”

“Please,” murmured the boy who’d yawned, who was now busy rubbing his head.

“Very well then,” said the peddler, and she set her pipe aside, for it had gone out partway through her description of the Lower Dream Lands. “So, the king commanded that his sister die, and he chose the ghoul who would cut her throat while she slept. He told none but those closest to him, a handful whom he trusted and believed were beyond any act of treachery. But he was mistaken. The Qqi Ashz’sara was every bit as wicked and distrustful and perfidious as her brother, and she’d taken precautions. She’d placed a spy, a ghoul named Sorrow, within her brother’s inner circle. Sorrow was as noble a ghoul as a ghoul may be, which is to say not particularly, but he was in love with his queen, and Isobel did not doubt that he would gladly perish to protect her, should it come to that.”

“That’s a very strange name,” said the tow-headed girl.

“He was a ghoul,” replied the peddler. “Would you expect he’d be named George or Juan Carlos or maybe Aziz? His name was Sorrow, a name he’d found on a gravestone stolen from a cemetery in the World Above and brought into the World Below.”

“But you said,” cut in the boy who’d yawned, “that the Djinn had banished the Ghūl to—”

“—as a whole, yes. I said that, and they did. However, always have there been those few who braved the wrath of the Djinn, hiding among women and men of the Waking World, infesting catacombs and cemeteries.”

“Oh,” said the boy, clearly confused.

“As I was saying,” the peddler began again, “Isobel Snow trusted this one ghoul to bring her word of her brother’s doings, and as soon as Sorrow learned of the plot to murder the queen, he scampered back to her with the news.”

“Scampered?” asked the tow-headed girl.

“Yes. Scampered. Ghouls do that. They lope and they creep and they scamper. And as the latter is the more expedient means of getting about, Sorrow scampered back to Isobel to warn her she and her unborn child were in very terrible danger. Isobel listened, not desiring to believe it was true, but also never supposing that it wasn’t. The twins were, as is generally the case with twins, two peas from the same ripe pod, and she admitted to Sorrow that in her brother’s place she likely would have made the same decision. Sorrow advised her that she had two options. She could try and make a stand, possibly rallying the very ghouls who would see the King and Queen both deposed, currying their favor with promises that she would abdicate and by pointing out that she was, after all, the mother of the prophesied messiah. Or she could run.”

“I’d have run,” said the boy who’d yawned.

“But you’re a poltroon,” replied the boy on the tow-headed girl’s right. “You always run from a fight.”

“Yes, well, have you never heard that discretion is the better part of valor? The greater wisdom lies in knowing when the odds are not in your favor, and Isobel Snow knew the odds were not in hers. So she dispatched Sorrow to enlist the aid of another earthborn ghoul, one who had once been a man of the Waking World, a man named Richard Pickman. In the century since Pickman had arrived in Thok, he’d risen to a station of some prominence among the ghouls, and during the Ghūl War he’d fought against the Snows. Afterwards, he’d gone into hiding, but Sorrow knew his whereabouts, and he knew also that Pickman possessed the influence to arrange the queen’s hasty escape, and that for the right price he would help.”

“But wasn’t he afraid?” asked the tow-headed girl.

“Undoubtedly, but he didn’t believe the prophecy and was convinced that the coming of the albino twins was no more than a coincidence. He was of the opinion that the two were grifters and humbugs who’d seen a chance to exploit ignorance and superstition, and they’d seized it. He certainly did not believe that the infant who’d be born of their union would be the ghouls’ deliverance. In fact, Richard Pickman doubted that there ever had been a war with the Djinn. He was a heretic of the first order, an unbeliever through and through. It wasn’t that he was sympathetic to Isobel’s plight. No. More that he was convinced that as long as her child lived, Isaac Snow would be weakened by his fear of their off spring. And, too, Pickman conjured that the brother’s confidence would be weakened if he failed to murder his sister. Neither of the Snows were accustomed to failure.

“They were extremely arrogant,” said the boy who’d yawned. He rubbed at his eyes and petted a ginger kitten that was curled on the floor near him.

“Sure he was,” nodded the peddler, “and more than words ever can convey. It did not cross his mind that his plot would be foiled, once he set it in motion. They say that the first thing he felt upon receiving the news that one of his confidants, a ghoul named Sorrow — and not George or Juan Carlos or maybe Aziz — had lain in wait for the King’s butcher and gotten the upper hand, the very first expression Isaac Snow’s face showed that night was not rage, but amazement that he could possibly have failed.”