Empire of Gut and Bone Read online

  “I hate the sky,” said Gregory. “It looks like lightning got lazy.”

  “I think,” said Brian, “that it’s not a sky. I think it’s actually a surface.”

  Gregory grimaced. He didn’t like any of it.

  The place was too empty. The landscape looked, somehow, like defeat.

  They spent some time below, in the cabin. The stove was warm, lit with something like coal, and Brian and Gregory huddled close to it, trying to get the chill out of their hands. Most of the cabin was crammed with appliances. The boys couldn’t tell what the gadgets did. They had cranks and revolving chains and (in one case) four sets of little riveted wings.

  The troll sat up above, watching the sticky tundra pass. The goateed man saw that Kalgrash’s arm was damaged, and, clenching his cigar in his teeth, went below for tools. As the troll sat and watched the three lumbering beasts pull the sleigh, the man carefully soldered his arm, slashed back on Earth by the crystalline kreslings. It was not a complete fix, but it improved the break.

  They passed an islet of dull green rock. There was nothing else for miles.

  Later, as Kalgrash and the two boys sat near the stove, Brian said glumly, “It’s not like I expected here.”

  Gregory snorted in agreement. “Yeah. I thought it would be like when we traveled into the past. The palaces and all the noblemen in wigs. I thought there would be more fanfares, and the Emperor would be here —”

  “Remember him?” said Brian warmly. “The guy you stole the crown from? And the Empress? And that bishop? The ones we saw on the barges and in the Haunted Hunting Grounds.”

  Gregory grinned. “Right. Exactly. The long coats and all the silk stuff. That’s what I was expecting.” He waved his hand with repulsion. “Not so much sludge.”

  The boys were getting hungry. Brian said he’d go ask the man when they were going to eat. He clambered up the little staircase to the bench where the man sat, holding the reins of the three ruddy steeds.

  Their host was talking into a speaking-horn. He growled into it, then held it up to his ear to listen. He seemed testy. Brian quietly went back down into the cabin.

  “He’s on the phone,” he told Gregory.

  “I could eat a horse.”

  Kalgrash cautioned: “Hooves.”

  Brian mused, “It sounded like he was arguing. I’m worried. Where do you think he’s taking us?”

  Gregory flopped backward on the cot. “A Chinese buffet,” he groaned, his arms trailing backward over his head. “Spring rolls. Pot stickers. Chicken lo mein. French fries. Five Vegetable Pleasures.”

  He stood and went up to reason with their host.

  “French fries?” Kalgrash muttered. “What kind of Chinese buffet do you people go to, anyway?”

  Gregory shut the door to the cabin. Their host was off the phone. He leaned forward, smoking his cigar, watching the dark, wet terrain. The beasts yanked them untiringly across the waste.

  Gregory pointed to his mouth. He clapped his jaw open and shut.

  The man mistook his meaning. He apparently needed no food himself, and perhaps did not understand eating at all. He assumed Gregory wanted a bit and a bridle to help pull the sleigh. A little mystified, he went below and got one, handed it to Gregory, and pointed down at the sloppy tundra before them in invitation. He signaled that the bit should be gripped in the teeth. Gregory, in despair, held the bit dangling.

  So there was no food, and it took what might have been days to cross the marsh. Brian had a headache and lay on his side near the dead, cold stove. Gregory’s stomach rattled. Kalgrash usually only ate food for show — he didn’t need it — but he was worried for the boys, and kept watch over them while they slept.

  Above, the cracks in the sky turned from blue to white. And the sleigh for the first time switched direction, according to some knowledge or agreement of their host. It crossed miles toward some uncertain destination, its ski tracks and wake ebbing behind it, dimming in the sludge.

  THREE

  An elf was in the soups.

  He chose chicken and stars — hurled three cans in the cart. He had the veg already, and baggies of sliced meats.

  Wee Snig was at the Halt’N’Buy. It was his turn to buy provisions. It was hard to get enough to eat, with time passing so strangely, so quickly, within the barriers of the Thusser settlement. In the few hours it took to walk from the base of Norumbega Mountain to get groceries, a day passed beneath the mountain and in the haunted suburb on its slopes. For whichever of them stayed behind, watching the portal in the catacombs — Wee Snig or Prudence — it felt like forever.

  Snig selected bread. He was not doing well at looking unobtrusive among the humans. He looked a little crazy. His vest was open, his shirt collarless and dirty from imprisonment. His pants were rolled up above the shins and patched like a clown’s. He wore an orange, knit ski hat — though it was eighty degrees out — to hide his ears.

  He quickly scanned the cart. Every moment counted, amplified. He had what he needed. He got in line. The line was intolerably long. He stared impatiently at the glossy magazines in the rack — Chic, TV Guide, and Me. He thought of Prudence crouched there in that infernal darkness, amidst the blackened scabs of long-burned monsters.

  In the line, it was his turn. He didn’t know exactly how checkout worked, but he figured that he couldn’t go wrong if he approached the whole process in a lordly and commanding manner.

  He threw his items onto the conveyor belt. He handed the cashier Prudence’s card. “Madame!” he said to the girl. “Make money come out of this card to pay for these foodstuffs.” He waved his hand.

  She stared at him.

  “Make — make the money happen!” he said. “She told me a number! I tell you the number, and you make the money happen! Why do you look at me as if I’m insane?”

  The girl gave him the keypad to type in the PIN. As he jabbed with his finger, he berated the boy bagger: “My friend, I wonder if you would be so good as to stop staring at me as if I were your day’s gift of lunacy and just deposit those bananas in that fine paper sack. Come! Stop gawping. Don’t you have opposable thumbs, child of Eve? Use them. Pinch. Lift. While you dawdle with my dinner, empires fall. Generations of moth spring forth, flourish, and die. My gums recede, my flesh shrivels! Time passes, children! Your pink face pales, young woman — old woman! Beneath it lies the skull, awaiting its moment to burst out and show its teeth!”

  The kid with the bags said, “This is your dinner?”

  “Indeed. Bag it, bagger!”

  “It’s dog food.”

  “Horse,” said Wee Snig proudly, “can be perfectly succulent.” He grabbed his bags by their handles and swept out.

  Wee Snig was in a snit, so he did not notice the photocopied pictures taped on the door — photos of two boys missing for four days.

  He tramped behind the Halt’N’Buy and headed down a path through the woods. It was late summer, and the sun was bright.

  In another forty minutes or so, he reached the perimeter of the Thusser settlement. There was no marker, but he could feel time slither differently as he passed through. It moved faster. Five minutes later, and he was walking through fall. The leaves were browning.

  He climbed an outcropping to see Rumbling Elk Haven. (“Where Nature Meets Class! Affordably!”) He gazed through the branches.

  He swore. It had gotten much worse since he had left for groceries.

  There was no longer any semblance of order. Cars were deposited on lawns or in ditches. The doors on some were open. The batteries had died days before. No one moved in the houses. People were hiding or had already been absorbed and were dreaming. They were the surface on which the Thusser would settle, the medium through which the Thusser would move. Some lay asleep on their lawns, slumped as if discarded.

  The webbing of Thusser construction was spreading from the center outward. Houses wobbled in the wind, becoming more like the filmy nests in which the Thusser roosted.

  There was one
spot of human motion. It was near Prudence’s old place — a little sixties ranch house in the midst of the new construction. Kids rode in slow, hypnotized circles in front of it. They did not stop or speak. They looked very thin.

  And then Sniggleping saw someone else.

  A door opened. A man came out on the front stoop. He was dressed in sneaks, Dockers, and a cardigan. He walked down the brick path that led from his door to the street. On the way, he stepped on the hand of the house’s previous owner, who now slept sprawled out on the drive.

  All at once, Snig saw that the man’s ears were pointed, and there were dark rings around his eyes.

  The Thusser had arrived. They had taken possession while he was out getting dog food and soup.

  The man paused by his new mailbox — hesitated — and looked up into the hills.

  His eyes met Snig’s.

  And Sniggleping ran.

  He thrashed through the bushes down the rock face, along the path toward the hidden door to the roots of the mountain.

  He had not gone thirty feet when he came upon a new lawn. A new house. Its rooms were still empty. It was built across the path, and had appeared in less than two hours, according to the time that the rest of the world kept.

  The settlement was spreading.

  Snig crouched low. The plastic bags rattled. He ran around the lawn. He didn’t touch it with his feet.

  The path continued, though interrupted by new construction.

  He reached a door in the rock. He opened it and shut it behind him.

  Down through the dark passages into the City of Gargoyles, he ran.

  In the city, there was light.

  It was dim, but lanterns were lit all up and down the avenues. The fleshy bulbs that grew on houses glowed from within. They were Thusser nests, and they were occupied. Thusser walked the streets. They had thrown caution to the wind. They had come through from their world.

  Snig pulled off his cap. His ears sprang free. He stooped near mud, ran his finger through it, and smudged it around his eyes. He needed to look like one of the Thusser.

  Carefully, he walked through the streets.

  Not many had come yet. Those who’d arrived were still settlers, exploring the ruins, setting up shop. A few businesses were open, wares still in crates. At a sidewalk café, two Thusser in nineteenth-century morning coats and cravats relaxed at a table, discussing real estate. Both had drinks in metal flagons hung from hooks near their heads. Long tubes ran from the bottom of the flagons to needles that pierced their throats. They drank directly, without the use of their mouths. It allowed them to talk more freely as the rich vermouth of alien worlds drained directly into their gullets.

  Snig, alone amidst his enemies, was in a panic. He tried to walk like nothing was wrong. He strode like a Thusser.

  Poor Prudence, he thought. Time must be going even faster. She hasn’t eaten for what — two days, then? Three?

  He hurried to get to her side.

  The drawbridge of the castle was guarded by Thusser in military smocks. They did not pay much attention to Sniggleping as he crossed the square. He passed by them, bustling as if he had business.

  The boys must have reached the Emperor by now, he fretted. The Rules must be invoked. This is all in direct violation. He wondered where they were, how they were faring — they and his dear troll.

  He slipped into St. Diancecht’s Cathedral. It was dark. He raced for the back, where the door to the crypt lay.

  Behind him, he heard the great doors open.

  A soldier entered with a torch. In the language of the Thusser, the soldier called out, “Sir? Sir? There’s no one allowed in the cathedral.”

  At once, Sniggleping turned, startled — and one of his plastic bags split. The food tumbled out across the flagstones.

  He turned off his lamp.

  “Sir?”

  The soldier approached, his footsteps echoing in the dark nave. He pulled out his saber. He shone his light around. It picked out faces — angels, devils, saints on bikes, souls smiling as they left behind their bodies. The pool of light from his torch sloshed across cans of dog food and a bundle of celery lying on the cold stone floor. They cast steep shadows across the pews.

  The soldier arrived at the shell of the torn bag. He glanced around nervously, looking for the intruder. No sign. The air itself was white with ancient dust. With his elbow, the soldier adjusted his shako …

  … and was clobbered by a Famished Lad™ Beef Stew.

  Sniggleping stepped from behind a pillar. He had, in his day, been a crackerjack pitcher for the Norumbega team.

  He rushed forward to gather the cans in his remaining bag and descend into the crypt.

  When the guard awoke, there was no sign that anyone had been there at all.

  FOUR

  We changed course while you were sleeping,” Kalgrash told the two boys. “We’re headed for something.”

  The day looked no different than when they had gone to sleep. They were incredibly hungry. They were thirsty. They did not bother to stand up. They stared out the window at the featureless plain.

  Kalgrash went up and tried to make signals to their host. He paid no attention to the troll.

  Down below, Gregory, looking haggard, said to his friend, “I had a dream. The Thusser are everywhere. We’ve lost. Tell me we haven’t already lost.” His voice was husky.

  Brian shook his head solemnly. “I’m telling you,” he said. “The Thusser tried to colonize your dreams back in the suburb. It’s not real, whatever you’re thinking.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I remember them. Come on. You must, too. The Thusser were always there, right? They were at my house. One of them used to sit in my room, staring at me all night. It was awful.” He held on to one of his arms with his other hand. He looked weak and pale.

  Brian insisted quietly, “It’s not true, Gregory.”

  “I remember it.”

  Brian wrapped his thick fingers around the padded edge of the seat. “No … you can’t let them fool you. They tried to force their way into your head. You’ve got to stop thinking they’re already in Boston. They’re not. They never have been.”

  Gregory closed his eyes. “I know you’re right. But I can see them. They were everywhere. They directed traffic. They were …” He squeezed his eyes till the lids wrinkled.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Brian said. “They’re not there yet. We can still win. Honest.”

  Gregory stared out at the plain of slime. The two of them watched the dull light and the galloping shuffle of the headless beasts of burden.

  The sleigh mushed past gray outcroppings and into a deeper, thicker mire.

  Kalgrash came down below. He shook his head. Brian watched Gregory toy with the dead appliances.

  In another few hours, they discovered where their host was heading. He was meeting someone. They saw another sleigh approaching. It was larger, with some huge cargo shrouded in burlap tied onto the top, bulging out of the sides.

  The two sleighs pulled up alongside each other. Their host laid a gangplank across the space between them. He hailed the other captain. He signaled for the boys and the troll to sit tight, and then picked up his bag of nerves — which bristled like coils of thornbush — and clomped across the plank to do business.

  The two captains saluted each other. They both took off their coats and, in some kind of greeting ceremony, inserted keys between each other’s shoulders and wound each other up vigorously.

  “He’s an automaton,” whispered Gregory. “That’s why he doesn’t eat.”

  Kalgrash pointed out, “I eat.”

  “But you don’t have to.”

  “I choose to. Just like you don’t have to be a jerk.”

  The captains were making a trade that they had evidently discussed on the speaking-horn. The boys’ host pulled out ten of the cluttered bundles of nerves, shook them to disentangle them, and laid them in a row on the deck
of the other sleigh.

  The other sleigh’s captain attached some alligator clips to one of them and ran some electric current through it. The branching nerves shone bright blue. He seemed satisfied.

  In return, he presented a little canister with rivets and a kind of periscope on it. The boys’ host nodded, asked some questions. For a while, the two men talked. Then the host turned his head sharply away from the other captain and held that pose. The other captain tinkered with small tools, pried open a panel in the side of the host’s neck, and inserted the canister. He made a few adjustments and shut the neck.

  They shook hands.

  Ten minutes later, the boys’ host returned across the gangplank, drew back the bridge, waved, took up the reins, and began slushing again across the endless monotony of the marsh.

  “What was that all about?” asked Gregory.

  “I wonder where we’re going,” said Brian. “We’ve got to try to get him to understand we have to find the Emperor. This is … We’re just wasting time while the Thusser are spreading.”

  “I wonder how close to winding down I am,” Kalgrash said. “Snig winds me usually.”

  “How are we going to tell him we need to see the Emperor?” Brian persisted.

  “Hand signals,” said Gregory.

  “Charades,” Kalgrash suggested, touching his own long nose.

  “Just tell him,” said their host. “Say what you want to say, kid.” He put his cigar back in his mouth.

  “You speak English!” Brian exclaimed.

  “Just had it installed.”

  “What?” Gregory protested. “What’s going on? What is this? Where are we?”

  “You’re in Three-Gut. The Fields of Chyme. We’re headed to Delge. A trading station near a valve. Unless you tell me who’s paying me to take you someplace else.”

  “Who are you?” Gregory demanded. “What’s going on here?”

  Brian said, “Where are the Norumbegans?”

  “You want the Emperor? So I hear?”

  “Yes,” said Brian. “He’s a blond man. With a beautiful wife. They’re very … very fun.”

  The captain shot a murderous look at Brian. He spat off the edge of his sleigh. “Fun,” he said. “Sure, kid.”