Lee Battersby - The Corpse-Rat King

“Well, no. Not as such.”

“No.” Marius leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “Because if you had, you’d know that the dearly departed monarchs are ‘displayed’ inside stone vaults, the lids of which are carved from single blocks of granite or alabaster, and which probably weigh in the vicinity of several tonnes. And the only side entrance is the one that leads to the rather smaller and less enjoyable Hall of Queens, where Scorby’s proud centuries-long tradition of treating your wife like a second class citizen can be seen at its most emphatic.” He sighed. “Nice try, though.”

Gerd sat back. “You’re right. We should probably just wait for the dead to drag us back below ground so we can admit failure.” He matched Marius’ sigh with one of his own. “Wonder what they’ll do to you?”

“What?” Marius opened one eye and squinted at his companion.

“Well, when you tell them you didn’t get them a ruler. I wonder what they’ll do to you for failing them.”

“Don’t you mean, what will they do to us ?”

“No, no.” Gerd leaned back, and knitted his fingers behind his head. They interlaced with the ribs of a cherub who stare malevolently at Marius over his head, but he didn’t seem to notice. “My charge was to stay with you and keep an eye on you. I’ve done that to the best of my ability. You’re the one who had to get them a king. It’s a pity,” He took a deep breath, exhaled, and shifted position to one of utter comfort. “But you’re on your own on this one.” He crossed one leg over the other, wriggled around a bit on the stone floor, and lapsed into silence. Marius stared at him through his one open eye. Slowly, his gaze slid towards the darkness of the nearby Hall. Then his head turned towards it. He frowned in concentration.

“I suppose…” he said at last. Gerd gave no sign that he’d heard. Marius lapsed into silence. “We could…” Again, his friend made no response, and again, he let the thought fall away. Marius stared into the blackness for long minutes, a frown creasing his features. Gerd lay on the floor at his feet, for all the world as if he were sunning himself on a Tallian beach. Eventually Marius nodded, checked himself, then a minute later, nodded again.

“Okay,” he said. “This is what we do…”

Gerd smiled and sat up. “About bloody time.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Even in the full light of the day, the Hall of Kings was a gloomy sepulchre, a vast white circle filled with columns like knotted ropes, whose walls and ceiling were one long bas-relief of human carnage. Skeletons played out life-sized friezes of glorious battles, bloody victories, noble and wholly fictitious death scenes. Stone crypts lay side by side like fallen dominoes, the lid of each tomb carved with a list of the dead man’s glories, each monarch quite literally weighed down by his achievements. Statues dotted the floor like twisted guardians, intermixing myth with reality – here, a depiction of Tessimus and the Snake, there a visualisation of Beldo holding up the Carlanian Wall, still further on the lover Malanar and his goddess wife Pheleon. With all the sconces lit it became a procession of ghosts, each flickering light rebounding from a multitude of curved and warped surfaces until the whole area seemed a shadow play just beyond the scope of recognition. In the dead of night, without even a single clump of half-terrified schoolchildren and a droning docent to add a human touch, it felt like the throne room of ghouls. At least, it would to the living . The two men who snuck from pillar to pillar were, of course, corpses themselves, and had seen the way the dead live. To them, it was just creepy.

“So what’s the plan?” Gerd whispered, eyeing a nearby battle scene with distaste. Marius pointed along the row of tombs before them.

“Twenty eight Kings of Scorby,” he said. “From Scorbus the Conqueror to Wet Somnac, missing only Felis Twain, who went mad and fed himself to his bears, and Nandus, who I’ve met.” He smiled. “A smorgasbord of monarchy, and all we have to do is move a one tonne block of granite to get at it.”

“Right. So. How?”

“First things first.” He stepped from the shadow of a column and approached the first tomb. “We need to find a live one.”

“You what?”

Marius placed his hand on the tomb. “Dethel of Alongia,” he read. “Conquered Scorby in 1108, declared the entire Somarrian peninsula a possession of the Alongian Empire, and spent the next twenty years systematically murdering anyone who didn’t fit the Alongian physical ideals. Still,” he winked, “he made the coaches run on time.” He knocked. “You in there, Dethel old son? Wakey wakey.” Only an echo answered him. He returned Gerd’s worried stare with a shrug. “Nothing in there but ashes, anyway. Alongians cremate their dead.” He moved across to the next one. “Ah. Veen the Liberator. Dethel’s eldest son. Had gone completely native by time the old man kicked on, mobilised the army and re-established Scorban independence. Reintroduced the ale races, established trade with the Faraway Isles, and most importantly for our purposes, was entombed like a proper Scorban.” Again he knocked on the wall. “Veen, calling Veen. Are you in there, Veen?” He paused, then knocked again. “Hey, anyone in there?”

After several silent seconds, Gerd coughed.

“We have a purpose in doing this?”

“Yes, of course.” Marius stared at the vault thoughtfully. “I thought we’d get something from him at least. Maybe we’re better off starting at one end. Come on!” He strode purposefully towards the crypt nearest the entrance then stopped, and came back. “Changed my mind,” he said as he passed Gerd. “Begin at the beginning.” He strode to the far end of the line, at the deepest part of the curved hall. The crypts here were smaller, the decorations that adorned them worn smoother by time. The first was little more than a stone box with a giant skull made from smaller skulls perched at the head.

“Scorbus,” said Marius, pausing to read the inscriptions on the lid. He pulled a face. “Maybe not.” He moved to the second. “Thernik, son of Scorbus. The Bone Collector. Builder of the cathedral of Tovis, established the University of Scorby, all-round nice guy and defender of the faith. Also collected bones.” He gestured towards the walls. “Lots and lots of bones. He should fit right in, don’t you think?” He knocked on the lid. “Hello? My Lord Thernik? Do you hear me?”

From within the crypt came a muffled sound, as if someone was quietly shifting their weight. The tomb robbers exchanged glances, and Marius leaned back over the lid.

“Hello?” he said again. Gerd clapped his hand against his forehead; “Of course,” he said, then, “Use your dead voice.”

Marius straightened. “Ah, of course.” He took a deep breath, stilled himself, willed the life and vitality out of his flesh. He felt his skin tighten, the muscles of his jaw loosen and drop, looked down and saw the skin of his hands fade to grey and start to peel. His young partner nodded, and he spoke again, this time from the dead part inside himself.

“Thernik, son of Scorbus,” he said. “Do you hear me now?”

There was a pause. If Marius had any breath left in his body he would have held it. Then, a voice returned his call, deep and resonant as only a voice produced by the mind, without the aid of breath or voice box, can be.

“Fuck off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The voice giggled. “Fuck off. Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off…”

“Oh, Gods,” a second voice intruded, from somewhere further down the line. “Who woke Thernik?”

“Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off…”