Empire of Gut and Bone Read online

  “One led us to this place. We carried everything with us. We demanded he and the remaining automatons build us a palace here. They had barely begun when they were gone. They, too, left us. Fled in the night.” He took a sip of his wine and looked sharply left and right. “Ingrates. Varlets,” he muttered. “We built them. We made them. We taught them.” He noticed the two humans staring at him in wonder and dismay. He held out his hand. “I am the Earl of Munderplast, Munderplast being a verdant land out in the Throttling Pipes. I am the head of the Party of Melancholy.”

  Gregory asked, “Is that a good thing?” Brian shook the man’s hand.

  “Is anything a good thing?” asked the Earl of Munderplast in dreary tones. “Will anything come to anything? I think not. It is all dying.”

  The three of them — two boys flanking the old man — looked out over the glittering tin roofs of the shanty city, on the walls of which were painted advertisements for Norumbegan products: DOCTOR STYMSON’S MAGICAL PITUITARY PILLS…HALOGEN RECEIVERS BY GALVO-BRITE…AUTO-DRONES BY BEDWYR & CO.…MADAME MABINANT’S FRIPPERY AND FROCKERY — WE FEATURE DRESSES FOR THE DARLINGEST DEBS. Shadows rolled over the city, cast by bubbles in the veins above.

  “You can go back to Old Norumbega,” said Brian. “That’s what we’re here to tell the Emperor. All you have to do is stop the Thusser. They’ve cheated.”

  “They’re moving in,” Gregory added. “It’s awful. You have to go back. Have a big smack-down. Wham! They’ve messed up the Game. Completely. You’ve got to go back.”

  Brian urged, “Then it would be yours again. The old city under the mountain. All the caverns. You wouldn’t have to live here anymore.”

  The Earl of Munderplast looked at them both through tired eyes. “Warms the heart, to hear young, energetic bairns such as yourself drivel on about how after night comes morning … believing something can happen … other than the ruin that shall eventually devour us whole … taking you and your little smiling faces with us. Indeed. ‘Twill be sad, to see your bright, shining cheer turn to horror as you’re washed away in brunch or drowned in flux or cut apart by rogue mannequins.” He shook his head. “Alas.”

  Brian said, “You can’t just give up. I’m telling you that the Thusser have forfeited the Game! By the Rules, you can just go in and end the whole contest! You can take your old kingdom back!”

  Munderplast smiled sadly. Somewhere in the hall, a phone was ringing insistently, ignored by all. “My boy,” said Munderplast, “I can do nothing. The Party of Melancholy is currently in the minority in the Imperial Council. The ruling party there at the moment is the Norumbegan Social Club. A very different band of people. Jolly. Fond of giggling and swell pleasance. Our fine Regent is at their head. Duke Telliol-Bornwythe. He and the Norumbegan Social Club hold all the power. Unless he were to die — Great Liver forbid such a sad turning — and an election be held for a new regent, we of the Melancholy Party shall be sitting in the backseat of this dismal jalopy for some years.”

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Of course,” said Munderplast, “if the Regent were to die, then it might be possible for a statesman such as myself to suggest to the young Emperor that —”

  “Does no one have hands?” shouted the Regent across the crowd. “Will someone get the phone?”

  “Sorry, old thing,” said someone wearily. “Can’t reach it from here. Arm isn’t long enough.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement. None of them had arms long enough. The phone was fifteen feet away. It kept ringing.

  “You have to help us,” Brian pressed the Earl of Munderplast. “Not just with that. Our friends have been locked up.”

  “Oh,” said Munderplast. “Those automatons? You call them friends?”

  “We brought one of them from Old Norumbega,” said Gregory. “The troll. He’s part of the Game.”

  “He’s more than that,” said Brian.

  Behind them, the Regent was surging through the crowd, trying to get to the phone.

  “I see. You sympathize with the metal help.”

  Another man standing nearby — a handsome, youngish nobleman with black hair slicked back and a polka-dot bow tie — said, “Clockwork-lovers, hmm? I wouldn’t get your hopes up, chaps, for a fond reunion, tears in every eye, embraces all round, picnic in the gills, tra la la. They’re being reeducated. The two automatons.”

  “What do you mean?” Brian demanded.

  “Scrubbed. Fixed. So they’re no longer rebellious.”

  Brian felt his fingers grow cold. He and Gregory looked at each other in horror.

  “No!” said Brian. “You’ve got to stop people from doing it! You can’t let them!”

  “Why ever not, old thing?”

  “Because they’re our friends. We won’t — we won’t tell you our message. We won’t tell you anything, if you don’t release them, if you don’t —”

  The young man said, “Afraid, chaps, you don’t have much choice. You’re rather over a barrel, being in our midst and surrounded by armed guards and all.”

  “See and behold,” droned the Earl of Munderplast to the boys. “Only two and half minutes into our parley, and already sorrow has come to you. Verily, nothing shall turn out —”

  “HUSH!” hissed the Regent from across the room.

  The crowd had gathered around the door into the hall. Right outside the door, there was an old wooden phone box with a mouthy phone like the one in General Malark’s headquarters. The Regent was speaking on it theatrically, loud enough so that everyone could hear.

  “Ah. Mr. Malark. Yes, we were expecting your call…. I said, ‘Mr. Malark’…. Mister … Mister … Because, sir, you are not a general…. Allow me to clarify: I am the Regent of the Empire of the Innards, which extends through the whole of the Great Body, explored and unexplored. I am therefore the only current head of the armed forces. There is but one army in the Empire, and it has no generals named Malark. I was explaining this to your lackey only an hour ago.”

  There was a general murmur of appreciation from the crowd, a rumble of approval. The Regent put his finger over his lips and silenced the Court with his hand.

  “Yes, sir, he arrived here…. Yes…. Yes, indeed, we have the two little human cublings with us here in the Grand Hall…. They’re a little greasy and they have no conversation, but no, they’re no worse for wear…. Oh? … Oh? But surely you’ve heard all this from the excellent Mr. Dantsig…. No? … Really? You haven’t heard from your submarine? … No? … Now, isn’t that a bit rum? Very odd.”

  The crowd, finding this hilarious, started snickering and talking. The Regent, who now looked fit to bust with laughter, squeezed his eyes shut and waved them all back vigorously. He mimed a big, comic Shhhh!

  Brian and Gregory exchanged a frantic look.

  “Yes, well, I do have an explanation, Mr. Malark.” He paused for dramatic effect, then said, delighted, “We do have some sense of what might have happened. Because we have imprisoned your envoy, your marines, and your troll, and they’re all going to be reeducated…. Yes … Tutored … Sternly … What do you think of that? … Insofar as you can think … Oh, I’m so sorry…. So very sorry … Perhaps there is a can opener there into whose arms you can cry? …”

  At this, the young nobleman in the polka-dot bow tie let loose a loud guffaw. “Classic,” he muttered.

  “You’ve got to stop this!” Brian hissed urgently.

  “Hush,” said the Earl of Munderplast. “Can’t you see, the Regent is speaking on the telephone. There.”

  Brian, loud on purpose, mustering his courage, proclaimed, “We’re not going to tell you our news if you don’t release our friends right now!”

  Dark eyes swiveled to glare at him. Mouths were sour. The end of his sentence was still loud, but it was awkward, weak, and uncertain.

  He did not speak again as the Regent continued, “And what? And what will you do? … Ah? … Ah? … But you can’t…. You can’t even call me a name…. You aren’t bui
lt for it…. Try…. Just try…. Oh, I say, that was actually rather good…. Hmm, yes, that will do…. Yes … Well, I think that perhaps this conversa — What? … What? … Oh, I’d like to see that…. That really would be rich…. Yes, of course I invite you to try…. Please, by all means … Yes….” Then he snarled, “You little hand-pump, you wouldn’t dare,” and hung up, slamming down the mouthpiece. The call was over.

  With a gentle smile, the Regent turned to the Norumbegan Court.

  “I am pleased to announce,” he said, “that the Mannequin Resistance has just declared war. They say they’re coming to besiege New Norumbega.”

  The room went wild with confusion, anger, and delight.

  NINE

  New Norumbega’s Imperial Prison was not impressive: a messy ring of huts strung together around a circular courtyard that was paved with flagstones of ancient jerky ripped from the wall of the Dry Heart, striped with fats.

  Dantsig and Kalgrash, handcuffed, were marched through the yard. They stumbled past pits where prisoners called up through wooden gratings for food, drink, and mercy. Guards goaded the two automatons on.

  “All right, all right, all right,” said Kalgrash irritably. “Stop shoving! I bite.” He clacked his pointed teeth.

  In lean-tos, soldiers played cards or snoozed.

  “What’s the big —” Kalgrash started, then stopped himself, nearly slamming into Dantsig.

  Dantsig, mouth dropped open, was staring to the side.

  One wall was lined with rough wooden shelves that had been sloppily painted blue. Kalgrash saw, lined up on those shelves, stretching for forty feet or more, rows and rows of mannequin heads, caught in expressions of fear and surprise. Necks that had been disconnected from bodies that still floated out there in the mire, in Three-Gut. Eyes that were blank. Brains that were shut down. The prisoners taken at the siege of Delge.

  Then he grew truly terrified. The Norumbegans really did see him and his kind merely as machines. Not like Wee Sniggleping, who adored each of his creations and took pride in its successes and eccentricities.

  A guard shoved Kalgrash in the back, and the troll stumbled forward.

  They were led into a dark shed, pushed into the center of the room, and a plywood door was dragged across the uneven floor to shut them in. Kalgrash heard it latch.

  A guard looked through slats of wood and said, “Promise you won’t escape.”

  Dantsig looked shifty. He nodded.

  “Say it. I command you to say it.”

  Dantsig flinched as if there was some inner battle. And then he growled, “Yeah, I promise.”

  “There’s a good automaton. And you?”

  Kalgrash looked at the guard like the man was crazy. “What do you want?”

  “Promise you won’t escape. Your word.”

  “I promise,” said Kalgrash, crossing his fingers behind his back.

  The guard walked away.

  Kalgrash and Dantsig sat in the dust.

  Dantsig looked defeated. His face was pale. His arms were limp.

  “You saw them?” Kalgrash said.

  Dantsig nodded grimly.

  “There were so many,” said Kalgrash.

  The two mannequins didn’t speak for a long while.

  Their cell was made of uneven bits of wood and metal. Though it was gloomy, it wasn’t entirely dark, since light fell in through cracks between the panels of fiberboard. Somewhere nearby, there was a hive of wasps. They came in and out on errands.

  After a time, Dantsig stood and paced around the cell, his eyes narrowed.

  “Damn them,” he said. “We’ll never get out of here.”

  Kalgrash thought this was odd. “We just need to wait until there aren’t any guards around,” he said, “and we can untie the twine that holds the door on.”

  “Are you tweaking my beard?” Dantsig said to him. “This place is tied up tight as a Christmas roast.” He kicked at the wall. The whole hut shimmied. “These walls must be six feet thick. The door is banded with iron. The Norumbegan breathers are masters of construction.”

  Kalgrash stood and looked at Dantsig carefully. “Is that really what you see?” he said. “’Cause I see something a whole lot different.”

  “What do you see?”

  “This place is built like a doghouse. For an old dog. Who doesn’t lean too much on walls.”

  “Are you out of your tin can? The Norumbegans don’t do anything half gut. It’s all full-on with them. They build their cities to last a million years. This prison will keep us locked up until the blood runs out of the Body’s veins and the gorge rises and the Innards split with rot.”

  “Dantsig,” said Kalgrash, “part of the wall is made out of old orange crates.”

  The troll walked over to the door. The bottom part of it was plywood, and the top was some slats of rough wood. Kalgrash surveyed the room beyond them. A couple of guards sat at a table, talking quietly in the language of the Norumbegans.

  When he turned back to Dantsig, the man was staring at him moodily. Dantsig asked, “Are you serious?”

  Kalgrash nodded. “Here,” he said, “read the writing on the wall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kalgrash pointed. “There’s writing. There’s the picture of an orange, and some writing. Read it.”

  Dantsig walked over and glared at the wall. “Stone,” he said.

  “Balsa wood,” said Kalgrash. “Read it. See the words?”

  Dantsig concentrated. He muttered, “They make us worship them. That’s how we’re built. For worship. They can do no wrong. We think every single one of them is beautiful. More beautiful than we can ever be. That’s what they’ve done to us. They could have horns and yellow claws and we’d think they were the belles of the ball.” He was getting angrier as he glared at the wall. “We just take a little look at them and we’re chockablock with ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir,’ ‘Very good, sir’ … and bowing and scraping and ‘By your leave.’ Fresh Poictesme Navel Oranges.” He stopped short. Then he crowed, “Fresh Poictesme Navel Oranges!” He looked toward the guards in the outer chamber and dropped his voice in hushed excitement. “I can read it. I can see something’s there. Or if there was something there, it would say, in Norumbegan, ‘Fresh Poictesme Navel Oranges,’ and there would be a picture of an orange right next to it!” He grinned wolfishly. “Is that what you see?”

  “I see a battered old box that’s been tacked onto the wall with brads. You know, those little nails? And it says something in runes, and then there’s pictures of oranges, and I know I don’t need to eat, but I’d really like one right now. Oranges are great. The way they split into sections is like they’re built to be eaten.” Kalgrash got a sad, citrusy look on his spiky face.

  Dantsig was squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again, staring hard at the wall. “I’ve lost it. I can’t see it anymore. But you’re right, I bet. I can tell. You’re right.” He looked around him carefully. “Let’s sit in the middle of the floor,” he said.

  They sat back-to-back in the middle of the floor.

  “So,” whispered Dantsig, “tell me what you see. Can we break out?”

  “Sure. There are guards.”

  “We wait for our moment.”

  “Got it.”

  “Then we move.”

  “Sure.”

  “Forget our promises.”

  “Mine’s forgotten.”

  “You’ll have to be my eyes. Tell me what things are made of.”

  “They’re mostly made of junky stuff.”

  “Let’s keep quiet now. Don’t want to attract attention.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “We’re going to do this.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  So they sat, facing opposite directions, their arms on their knees.

  Through the afternoon, people came to examine them. Guards came, and a wizard, and a servant from the palace tasked with looking them over and providing a report for the Imperial Council. No on
e talked to them. Guards lifted up their arms and opened up panels in their backs and took notes, then swung the panels closed and left them alone.

  At some point, the generators that lit the lux effluvium so bright shut off to bring night to the Dry Heart. The cracks in the walls faded. The shed got dark.

  Finally, Dantsig got up and walked to the door. He looked out through the wooden slats. “The guards have left the table. Is that what you see?”

  “That’s what I see, Captain.”

  “So you think you can get this door open?”

  “The only thing holding us in here is you thinking we have to stay,” Kalgrash said.

  “You lucky little dingus,” said Dantsig. “You’re not built like the rest of us. Do you see how they do this to us?”

  “Sure, sure, sure.” Kalgrash fiddled with the door. He lifted it carefully out of its rut in the dirt. He fiddled with its catch. Then he reached over to the twine hinges and began to untie the knots.

  When a few of the twine hinges were untied, he lifted the door from its setting. He and Dantsig scuttled out, glancing around watchfully for guards.

  Kalgrash and Dantsig crouched behind the table.

  “How are we going to deal with them?” Kalgrash asked, nodding out at figures in the courtyard.

  Dantsig made a face and thought long and hard. He looked around.

  Then he smiled.

  He pointed at something on a chair.

  “That’s how,” he said. “Right there.”

  TEN

  Gregory had met a girl. She wore a gown of silk, but her shoulders were bare. Her skin was smooth as lotion. Her hair shone. The two were talking. They had been introduced by the Earl of Munderplast. (“Ah! Your eye, my boy, is upon that fine young creature…. Follow me thither…. Gregory Stoffle, may I present you to a true angel of delight, a very paragon of sweetness, and (as the young people say) a ‘solid sender’ yclept Gwynyfer Gwarnmore, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of the Globular Colon…. It warms an old heart to see you two smile at one another as if you were unaware that the flesh you so much admire will soon be dust and dry straps of muscle on a frame of rotting bone…. There we are. Enjoy!”)