The Empire of Gut and Bone Page 14

  Far out past the outskirts of the city — out where he had first entered the Dry Heart with Dantsig and the marines — valves had popped open, and rank after rank of soldier was crawling out.

  The veins far above shone down on metal muskets and cannons raised on winches from holes in the ground.

  The Mannequin Resistance had arrived, and its soldiers were surrounding the capital city.

  NINETEEN

  The Rebellion Courteous, as later historians called it, culminated in a siege of New Norumbega.

  Mannequins had set out from Pflundt and other fortresses carved into the phlegm floes of the gut — some in subs, others on foot. The submarines could navigate through the flux all the way to the Dry Heart. There were far too many mechanized warriors gathering from around the Great Body to all fit into subs, however. The rest had a long, gastrointestinal march up from stomachs to throats, where they now waited until someone could shuttle them through blood to the hearts and to the capital city in its desert aorta.

  The aristocrats of Norumbega, as they stood on their palace’s balcony, staring sullenly out across the salty plains, had no idea of how many more mannequins still waited to be shipped to the siege. They saw only that the numbers of the invaders were great.

  With spyglasses, they made out butlers and chambermaids, nurses and ladies-in-waiting, all of them armed to defy those who had built them, those whose hair they had once adorned with jewels. Soldiers from ancient wars stood next to cannons. All the clockwork mannequins who had once served the Norumbegans now demanded to be left alone.

  “Well,” said Ex-Emperor Fendritch, looking down sadly at his pointy medieval slippers and waggling them, “I suppose if it’s really and truly war, I should put on some sensible shoes.”

  The Earl of Munderplast spoke from the back of the crowd. “It is not war,” he said. “Because they are incapable of attacking us. We are their government. They have been built, they have been shapen to bloody well obey.” He explained, “They have to twist the truth to convince themselves that the good of the Norumbegan people is served by attacking its government. But we, my friends, have a wonderful surprise, an ace in the hole.” He bobbed his eyebrows, and said, “They’ve come here to oppose the Regent. But the Regent is dead. When we tell them this, they won’t be able to attack us. They’ll have no excuse.”

  He swept toward the hallway. “Your Graces,” he explained, “I wish to speak upon the telephone.”

  As a few days before, the Court had gathered around the door and the phone while the Regent had spoken to mannequins, they crammed themselves into the hallway again. “Do you admire the vigor and bravery and gentilesse with which I assume command?” asked the earl loudly, as he dialed a number on the phone’s rotary dial. “Then you might consider voting for me, O vox populi, in a few scant days. I still propose that we reconquer our old territories, so that we may better weep for — Ah, yes, hello. Goodly maiden, may I speak to Mr. Malark of the Mannequin Resistance? … No, not ‘general,’ ‘mister.’ … Yes, I shall wait.”

  He stood, slightly stooped, with the phone held to his ear. With the other hand, he played with the cord that attached it to the box on the wall. Then he flipped through a phone book idly. The crowd stirred uneasily.

  “Ah, hail and fair welcome,” said the earl. “The Earl of Munderplast greets his servant Mr. Malark…. I call on behalf of the Imperial Court of Norumbega…. Yes, there appears to be an expeditionary force of soldiers and warriors doughty and brave surrounding our capital city, and we wish you to remove them. Or order them to submit, and we shall allow them to return to service posthaste. By this evening, they may be laying out our nightshirts upon our beds, building us roads, sewing us zoot suits, arranging fondant roses in our bakeries…. Listen, varlet, you have no choice. No excuse …” The earl smiled in triumph. “You came to confront the Regent — and he is dead. Verily, dead! No enemy of yours any longer! Enemy only of the crocodile spirits who haunt the next world, the shadow land of Tuat. Gone.”

  Everyone smiled in satisfaction.

  The earl repeated, “No excuse, thou lowbred gizmo! If you stand up now against us, you stand up against your own government. And that, you may recall, you are incapable of doing. You’ve hied yourself all this way for nothing.”

  And then his face fell.

  “You knew?” he said. “Of his death? Ah, I suppose you did, since your servant killed him…. Your servant, Mr. Dantsig.” He listened intently. Then the earl covered the mouthpiece and told the crowd, “Mr. Malark claims that Mr. Dantsig is innocent of the assassination…. And how do you know, then, that our Regent was killed, if you did not order it yourself?”

  There was, apparently, no response on the other end of the line.

  “Thing,” said the earl, “I demand a response, thing.”

  He looked at the earpiece. He tapped at the mouthpiece. “Hello?” he said.

  And then the blast hit the palace.

  The sliding glass doors in the Grand Hall blew in, blasting shards against the wall. Shutters and wallboard clattered across the floor. Gregory collapsed, dragging Gwynyfer with him, and they crouched together in the silence afterward. Their ears rang.

  Smoke and plaster dust filled the air.

  He looked around to find Brian. The Court was on its knees, hiding behind walls, knocked flat. Many were cut. In its recess, on its throne, the Stub bled.

  Finally, Gregory saw Brian untangling himself from a society dame who was slapping at him with her lorgnette. Brian helped an old couple to their feet.

  The mannequins had lobbed a bomb into the square at the base of the palace. The smoke still rose, still blew in through the shattered windows. Dukes tottered in from the porch, holding themselves up unsteadily.

  The Earl of Munderplast still stood by the phone, holding the mouthpiece, dazed.

  “I suppose we should all change before dinner,” said the Ex-Emperor.

  “What we need …” said Gugs, coughing plaster out of his lungs, “what one could really do with right now is a person named Sir Something the Brave.”

  Far out at the rim of the city, loud voices were speaking.

  The mannequins were addressing the population through megaphones. The words were indistinct.

  “It appears,” said Lord Dainsplint, looking directly at Brian, “that there was a better spy in our midst than we had previously thought. Well, isn’t it an infernal mystery who that might have been?”

  Gugs suggested, “Anyone fancy a little bet on the outcome of the war? Anyone?”

  The Court looked around the broken room. There was a silence, save for the distant squalling of voices through bullhorns.

  “What are the clockworkers saying?” asked the Ex-Empress.

  Gregory said hastily, “We’ll run down and listen, then come back and report. Come on!” He gestured to Brian and Gwynyfer.

  He led the two of them quickly out of the Grand Hall. They ran down the great staircase and toward the gates of the palace.

  Behind them, the Court of Norumbega prepared for war.

  Down the hill through the shantytown the three kids ran, Gwynyfer leading Gregory by the wrist. The square was a crater. The guardhouse was a crumpled shell. Guards were shoving beams off piles of wall. They were digging through muddy mounds, looking for their brethren. Because they were Norumbegans, several had already given up, and were watching their bloodstained officers scramble through the rubble. They were taking wagers as to how many had lived and how many had died.

  The streets were chaotic. People ran up and down the main boulevard, shouting to one another. Several had already stacked their things in wagons, and were ready to flee.

  But as the kids got down toward the edge of the city, people were quieter. They were listening to the voices broadcast from bullhorns in the desert.

  It took a while before they could make out the words.

  “Hey,” said Gregory, pointing. “Isn’t that the doctor? From the palace?”

  Dr. Brund
ish hobbled along in front of them, looking anxiously around him, his goggles reflecting the light of the veins.

  “Where’s he headed?” Gwynyfer wondered.

  The doctor held a carpetbag in his hand, filled with clanking objects.

  Instinctively, Gregory felt like Brundish didn’t want to be seen. He pulled his two friends behind one of the shacks for a minute. He watched Brundish disappear around a corner.

  “Okay,” he said, and motioned for the other two to follow him.

  “You’re very dashing,” said Gwynyfer.

  Gregory didn’t take time to make a joke back.

  Dr. Brundish, hopping as if his legs weren’t fully human, made his way down an alley. The others followed him. The houses were painted pastel.

  Now they could make out the individual words echoing from the salty desert. “Citizens of New Norumbega — citizens of New Norumbega — we are here to serve you. If you will please be so good as to step aside, we will painlessly rid you of your leaders. We are delighted to announce that the long tyranny is over. Please evacuate the city through the western gate.”

  Gwynyfer whispered, “There is no ‘western gate.’ Idiots. There’s no actual wall.”

  Dr. Brundish hobbled along, his carpetbag now dragging in the dirt. He looked carefully behind him, adjusting his goggles.

  The voice in the desert continued, “We have a few humble suggestions for the reorganization of the state. If they are ignored, we are thrilled to announce that we will provide complimentary bombing and detonation services beginning tomorrow at noon.”

  Gregory slid around a corner.

  And felt a hand around his throat.

  The doctor shoved him against the wall. The jowly face grimaced. Brundish’s claw tightened around Gregory’s neck.

  Gregory grabbed the hairy wrist. Brian and Gwynyfer came around the corner, saw what was happening, and ran to tug on the chirurgeon’s arm.

  “Following in my tracks?” he growled. “These shoes fit me alone.” With his free hand, he reached into his pocket. The doctor pulled out a little pistol inlaid with pearl-and-ivory designs. Brian scampered backward — ducked — and a bullet burst in the adobe behind the boy.

  Gregory had torn free. He lunged for the doctor to knock the man’s shooting arm. The doctor fired again at Brian. Brian staggered to the side. Gwynyfer darted behind him.

  The doctor moved like a fat spider, swiveling to block their retreat. He raised his gun again. Gregory jumped on his back and head-butted him from behind. The thick body reared and flailed.

  The gun dropped.

  Brian scrambled forward and grabbed it.

  The doctor shook Gregory off. “Don’t cling,” he grated. “You’re all going to fall. All of you!” He scuttled backward. “I am vanished!” he said. “Before the general doom. The palace will fall. Better to be far away when the bombing starts.” He backed up.

  Then he looked down and saw that Gwynyfer was holding his bag.

  “Give me the bag,” he said.

  “Why do you want it?” she said. “It’s an awkward size. Too bulky for a clutch. Too small for luggage.”

  He scrambled toward her, claw outstretched.

  “And the colors,” she said, swaying it out of his reach, “could not be uglier.”

  “Give me my things, Miss Gwarnmore.”

  “Why are you fleeing?”

  “We all should be.”

  “Why’d you try to kill Brian then? He’s dull, but not criminally dull.”

  The doctor grabbed at the bag, snagged it. He pulled. She pulled.

  It tipped. Came open.

  Out spilled clothes — socks, boxers, sleeveless tees — and devices.

  What looked like a walkie-talkie. And five of what looked like bladed octopi. Little things that might be slipped into a boy’s burger.

  The doctor gasped. He snarled. And he began to run.

  The three kids watched him go.

  “I wonder what frightened him?” Gregory said.

  And then heard the scissory sounds at his feet.

  The octopi had come to life.

  TWENTY

  Running down an alley in a city surrounded by robots, being chased by small clockwork monsters with razor blades on stalks, hurtling along toward a palace filled with cruel elvish aristocrats, Gregory felt that perhaps he needed to make some changes in how he spent his free time.

  He thought, as he hopped over some fallen masonry, that maybe he should waste more time in front of the television, more time playing video games, less time embarking on quests to save North America from interdimensional invasion. Why were people always telling you to go out and play? This — this is what happened when you went to hang out in the woods.

  Brian had fallen behind, and Gregory turned to see how his friend was doing. Brian was still keeping well ahead of the little cluster of metal insects.

  “I wish,” Brian puffed, “sneakers were made of something better. Harder.”

  His rubber soles were sliced and scored.

  Gregory paused to pick up a roof tile in two hands. “Yeah,” he agreed sarcastically. “I don’t know why iron sneaks never took off.” He hurled the tile at the fleet of bugs. It smashed between them. Two spidery units quivered and stopped flailing. The others kept swarming forward.

  It took another several blocks before the kids had outrun them.

  They did not feel safe until they had made it most of the way back up to the palace.

  Behind them, the voices still rang out in the desert air. “Citizens of Norumbega! We are here to serve you….” People hung out of windows, listening.

  The kids walked up the muddy avenue.

  Gregory said, “So the doctor was probably the one who tried to kill you last night at dinner. Some bedside manner.”

  Brian was silent. For one thing, he was still waiting for Gwynyfer to apologize for calling him “dull.” He suspected she wasn’t going to take it back.

  Gregory wondered, “Why would he try to kill you?”

  “I don’t know,” Brian admitted. He looked pointedly at Gwynyfer.

  “Are you waiting for something from me?”

  Brian said, “I’m a little tired of people talking about how boring and stupid I am.”

  “Then,” Gwynyfer suggested, “why not try being clever and charming? Start now: Say something witty.”

  Brian gave her a dirty look and didn’t respond.

  Gregory wished Gwynyfer wouldn’t be so snippy with his friend, but he had to admit that Brian had been kind of sulky ever since they’d arrived in the Dry Heart. He thought Brian could at least make an effort, seeing as everyone in this whole Empire was so sharp, so funny — exactly the kind of people who Gregory wanted to hang out with when he grew up, exactly what he’d always dreamed of being: sly, knowing about things, cool in a crisis.

  “Could the doctor have been the assassin?” Brian asked.

  “I doubt it,” said Gwynyfer. “Your friend, the servant in the dung heap, said that the note he was given was sealed with the official wax mark of the Imperial Council. Whoever wrote that letter must have had one of the eleven signet rings that make the Imperial mark. That means the Regent or the ten councillors. The doctor isn’t a member. He’s not even an aristo.”

  “An aristo?” Brian asked.

  “An aristocrat. A nobleman. He’s not of the first blood. The Children of the Goddess Danaan.”

  “And he wouldn’t have fit into a guard’s uniform,” said Gregory.

  “What do you think this is?” Gwynyfer asked, holding up the old walkie-talkie.

  “Wow,” said Gregory. “Where’d you get that?”

  “It fell out of his bag.”

  They stepped to the side of the road, and Gregory switched it on.

  Nothing came out of the speakers. Gregory turned it over. He rattled it. He opened a compartment on the back. “No batteries,” he said. “Is this a standard size?”

  “Double A,” said Gwynyfer.

&nbs
p; “You have double A batteries here?” Gregory asked. “In the Great Body?”

  She looked at him appraisingly. “You expected something more exotic?”

  “Sure. It’s a world of magic. So maybe rechargeable triple A’s.”

  Brian was looking at the device in Gregory’s hand. “It has a place to talk as well as to listen,” he pointed out. “It’s a two-way radio of some kind.”

  “Funny,” Gregory said. “I wonder who he’s communicating with?”

  “We could search his room,” Brian suggested. “Before anyone knows he’s gone.”

  Gwynyfer looked appalled at the suggestion. “That’s an excruciatingly low idea,” she said.

  Gregory handed her the walkie-talkie. “Still, let’s check it out,” he said. “You’re the one who wanted to break out of your whole tea-at-three, kneeling-on-your-face-in-front-of-a-flesh-blob-at-four Court rigamarole.”

  She shrugged, looking a little miffed that Gregory would support his friend.

  Gregory looked down.

  “Oh,” he said.

  And stepped on one of the metal bugs, which had finally caught up to them again.

  General Malark sat in his command sub, frowning at the telephone.

  The fate of his clockwork people, he knew, was in his hands. The rulers of the various fortresses and outposts and castles of the mechanicals — spread throughout the hollows and corky glands of this infinite body — had all reposed their trust in him. He had at his command a vast force of servants-turned-soldier. He loved them each. He was proud of all. They had eked out their living from nothing once they’d fled, embarrassed, one by one, from their masters. They had built a civilization for themselves in these dripping channels and snotty caverns. Their fortresses were carved into the living phlegm. Their guns, their subs were made of brass and bronze and iron that they’d refined from minerals in the flux and lux effluvium. They deserved victory.

  He climbed up the gangway and emerged, saluting his soldiers, on the plains on the Dry Heart.

  He raised his binoculars and surveyed the citadel of his one-time masters.