Vampire in the Banyan Tree

The Meeting

Spetulese was asleep in a doorway with an empty bottle. He had listened to the king rave, then crept away after he fell asleep. He'd had a horrible nightmare, of a golden girl in a tower, a filthy, ragged hag, drooling through broken teeth, standing above her, it's eyes glowing like a rabid dog's, and woke to discover his back in pain from the uncomfortable stone. He skulked towards his room. Another day. He felt his spirits rise despite himself. The sun diffusing from the high brackets was painfully bright, and he didn't feel he wanted to fight gravity all the way up the spiraling stair to his garret chamber.

He felt nauseous, and looked around for some dim recess into which he could discreetly vomit.

He went down a less used side corridor. The place was a maze, stuffy and poorly-ventilated, smelling of timber and stone dust. The Embarcarion's interior was an intestinal maze of fluted, asymmetric chambers, full of forgotten niches and relics. Humans had modified them - slowly, the stone was hard and hard to work - over the years. Steep-sloped passages had had stairs bedded in their floors. Ventilation shafts had been bored, to bring air to the deeper chambers. In many places, existing gaps and cavities had been chiselled into straight edges and fitted with doors. For defensive purposes, some gaps had been sealed, and there were probably whole sections of the complex that had been walled up, at some point, and forgotten. It was in one of these, in fact, that the Magician Mandelbourge had uncovered a long-forgotten chamber, called an Inviolate Vault, some sort of wizard's storage room, in which he and the old king had had discovered the weapon that they had eventually used to destroy the Serpent Queen's lair, the Jeweled Cavern, and presumably kill her. No one knew what had happened inside. Only the Khrysloch, by some province of its divine nature, had washed out of the mouth and been retrieved from the fens. Of the champions, entrusted by the King to enter the complex while the army battled the queen's horde of abominations, none had emerged, not even Mandelbourge, despite his reputed powers.

Because the internal chambers were so irregular, many had been walled with paneling and plaster, to create more conventional rooms. This often created irregular cavities between the interior walls and the stone, called round-offs, which were often used as storage, stacked with junk, made into smaller chambers, or used as discreet corridors for servants or guards. Sometimes, their entrances were wall-papered, or boarded over, and forgotten. There were many such in the ancient citadel.

Spetulese stepped down a human-carved stair-tunnel, so narrow it crowded even his thin shoulders, and into a little, kidney-shaped recess. Here a round hole in the roof, again, of human manufacture, mated a hole in the floor, as if some rock-eating worm had descended through the stone and passed through the cavity. Down this hole, icy water crashed and tinkled. The room was pleasantly cold. This was a gutturniform, there were many in the citadel. About a dozen invisible and inexhaustible sources of water, existed somewhere, in the upper regions of the massive complex, walled off and hidden. They were almost certainly hydrospheres, the duel, synchronous surfaces, selectively permeable to water. Only two nations in the world produced synchronous materials, Empyrea and the Sea Empire. Both were superpowers. Spetulese knew, he had been born in the former - making him that rarest of creatures in these far and barbaric regions, an Empyrean expatriate - and he had been shipwrecked by the latter.

How hydrospheres were operating here, in the Swampland, nobody knew.

The streams, after flowing though unknown twists and hidden cisterns, eventually exited at the floodgate and rolled around the causeway channel to the cistern in the tombs. Cutburt, acting on Spetulese's insistence, back in the days when he'd had influence over the king, and power, had forbidden shitting in them, and now the citadel's night soil was taken out by carters. Spetulese washed his face in the icy water and felt better. He cupped and drank. Then he walked back up to the main corridor. A bric-a-brac of half-walled chambers extended to his right and left, hollow and neglected. It seemed to him that this filling-in and trimming, the ensconcing of the raw curvatures, had been brittle, subtle, and rather magnificent.

For the first time, it occurred to the doctor how empty the palace seemed. It always seemed empty. But today, something was different. Spetulese realised, with an eerily feeling, that he has seen, literally, no one.

It had been six days since Hart and Aleron had gone. He found their absence saddening and unsettling. Spetulese had made a project out of the boys. He considered it his quixotic service to humanity to inject some culture into the rude sons of royalty. If your kind have been selected to rule this world, he thought, I'm going to make you understand, at least, a little bit of it. They were always around, ignored by the powers-that-be, while not being trained to ride horses or women or hit things with sharpened pieces of metal until they died, so it wasn't too difficult to get his hands on them. Poor impetuous, violent little Aleron - Spetulese almost loved him, and Hart - decent, serious and distressingly intelligent. It was Spetulese who taught them to write, Spetulese who taught them, if not the thoughts of the great philosophers (he wasn't a miracle worker), then, at least, of their existence. Spetulese, their fellow hostage, in this great, empty palace. Hyacinth he could not reach, she was shut up since she was two, when her father had returned from the south, sick, raving, hollow-eyed, and without his companions.

Spetulese decided to go for a walk. Why not. A little exercise. And, though he didn't like to admit it, he wanted to allay the uneasy feeling he had. He'd walk until he saw someone. A hunched menial, scrubbing pointlessly at some expanse of floor, a kitchen boy, hurrying across a distant intersection with a crate of produce under his arm.. somebody.

But, as he walked, he saw no one.

He walked down the long junction corridor that circled the middle belly of the fortress guts, giving access to much of its most active area, the place of the house keepers and servitors. He walked along a long line of portraits and paintings, in primitive, wood-cut style, of unknown personages. He turned left, through a human-chiseled portal, and into the kitchens.

The cooking implements were cleaned and hung in racks, the benches and tables empty. The ovens were cold and unlit.

This was weird. Spetulese was starting to feel distinctly alarmed. He had no idea how many people staffed the vast palace. Certainly not enough to fill it, but there must be at least a hundred. Servants, maids, guards, assorted functionaries and officials. The kitchens worked all day long. Spetulese kept irregular hours. Often, he would walk down to the kitchens and, even in the darkest hours, night staff were working, keeping pots warm, preparing food for the coming day. He could always get something, a side of cold beef, a bowl of soup and some bread. The kitchens were never empty.

Spetulese stood, at a loss, then turned back to the external corridor. Again, he stood in thought. He considered calling out, but something in the vast hollows of the silent palace made him uneasy. He always turned right, when he left the kitchens. The right hand turn led back, eventually, to the spiral stairs and his tower chamber. He turned left.

Now he was walking away from the hall of portraits. He felt a faint sense of transgression, although what he was doing was not forbidden. Just going for a walk, just looking around. There were more side openings and doors, then the doctor found something interesting. In an alcove, he saw a small, booth-like room, secured by a metal gate. It was padded in green, diamond-patterned leather and a great switch of copper was mounted on its wall. Spetulese knew what it was, an elevator.

He went to examine it. The cage was of machine-worked brass, it must have been imported. Maybe from Tholia. How did it work? No doubt a cable system, but what was the motivating force? Or did the car itself rise through the shaft by the means of some sort of magnetism?

Spetulese considered riding it. Perhaps just up to the top of its shaft and back down again. There was no sign, marking it off-limits, or any lock on its mechanism. It was probably nothing more than a servant's utility, to serve the upper levels from the kitchen. The place is deserted, I came to find someone, that would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say to anyone who discovered him. He entered, pushed the little gate across, and regarded the copper switch. It only had two positions, up or down. He clicked the switch over and felt the ground lift under him in an unsettling way. He almost immediately entered a pitch black shaft. Probably the elevator booth had a lamp in it somewhere, but it wasn't lit. The cage vibrated and clattered. Spetulese kept his hands well clear of the walls. Then there was a stomach-upwarding feeling of deceleration and the cubical came to a halt. Spetulese was confused and a little alarmed. He was still in darkness, but as he extended his hands, he felt flat wood, and thought he detected a line of thin light. A door. He felt around its surface until he found a catch and lifted it. There was a click, the panel pushed away from him and he saw light spill in. With relief, the doctor pulled aside the safety gate, and exited the elevator.

He was now in a long corridor, wood panelled, of a finer gloss and finish than the servant's quarters. It was punctuated by several doors, all heavy and forbidding-looking and was capped, on both ends, with T-junctions, leading to regions unknown. The air felt fresher, he was probably in one of the towers.

Spetulese was pleased with his own daring. However, as he stood, looking about the unfamiliar passageway, he heard a metallic click behind him, soft but clear. He whirled around, to find that the elevator door had closed. The panel was designed to be indistinguishable from the wall and Spetulese, to his horror, could see nothing to betray its outline.

He forced himself to be calm. It wasn't a trap. The servant's door was merely designed to be discreet. There would be some device to released it. He started feeling around the edges of the panelling, looking for a button or lever. As he did, the sounds of loud voices and boots echoed suddenly up from the right hand end of the corridor. A number of people were coming towards him, perhaps ascending stairs, tramping on the wooden boards and talking loudly.

Spetulese panicked. He darted along the passage and around its bend, hoping the unseen newcomers would take one of the side doors. However, the sound of boots and arguing voices did not recede, but seemed to be coming right towards him. He fled, as silently as he could, and immediately ran himself into a trap. He was in a wide meeting room. A great table stood at its center with many chairs around it. The sloping ceilings were lined with a colossal ossuary of trophies, deer antlers, tusks and teeth, ascending upward, like a barn roof.

There were no exits.

He saw a wall tapestry, to his right, twitch, as if some object had lightly struck it. He ran to it, switched the hanging aside, seeing that a section of paneling stood out from the wall. It was another servant's door, this one slightly open. He unhooked it and slipped through, as the dueling voices barrelled and jostled into the room, seconds ahead of their owners. Spetulese heard them through the muffling wood. He looked about, finding himself not entirely in darkness. Numerous holes punctuated the walls, through which outlined a gloomy series of spaces, cluttered with stacked benches, more trophies, folded stacks of canvas and rope, and so on. He was in a round-off, a long, irregular passage made by the walling in of the cavity. It ran the length of the hall. The holes in the wooden side of the cavity seemed to have been drilled in twos. Spy holes, thought the doctor. Probably they had been for guards, waiting to leap out and protect some forgotten despot.

Spetulese exhaled the tension in his chest. Then, at the far end of the cluttered cavity, he saw something. Though it's source was invisible, he saw an illuminating glow, as if some window had opened up on the sun. It flickered, as if a body obscured it, then, silently, vanished.

Carefully, Spetulese picked his way up to the end. There, at the far wall, was a great, oval mirror, on a wooden frame. Unlike everything else here, it had no dust coating its upper surfaces. It was glass, unusual for those parts, where mirrors were mostly made of polished bronze, but not unusual in itself. More of such civilised goods had been making their way into the heart of this uncouth land over the past decades, with the wind of trade from the ocean towns and the taming and draining of the swamp. There was see exit here, no window or door that could have let in the sudden, powerful diffusion of light he'd seen.

More eye holes had been cut in the wooden wall, here, and there was a stool, at just the right height for sitting at them. It, also, was without dust.

Spetulese sat, not knowing what else to do and, in trembling, put his eyes to the holes to watch. Spetulese saw the chamber filling with milling people. They were all extraordinarily dressed, in the most elaborate style Spetulese had ever seen. One had what looked like two boars springing out of his shoulders, one wore only bright red, in a quilted body suit secured by a gold belt chain. One wore a shot cloak made entirely of feathers and had a cap carved to form a bird's beak, and there was much glitter of jewels and gold.

There were about a dozen men, in ages between thirty and fifty, and one handsome, middle-age woman in a black dress who had entered wearing a vast hat that swept back from her head in the appearance of two swan-like wings, which she had removed and was presently requiring one of the men to carry for her.

There wasn't one of them that didn't have his chest out as if he had a mind to go bumping away one of the others. Altogether, they looked like pack of very wealthy circus clowns.

         'Gentleman, gentlemen, gentlemen and lady, let us come to order!' came the voice the doctor hated, and Malefluent strode into the room, past the milling newcomers towards three chairs that were at the head of the table. Being him Spetulese could see the other legs of the usurping triumvirate, The waddling Pusp, and the strutting General Hortenze.

Hortenze had a new uniform. It was red and black, with sheer cut to emphasize his athletic legs. The front was emblazoned by medals and buttons, as if it had been designed to defeat its enemies by blinding him.

When he was fourteen, seven Minskes, members of a rival aristocratic clan, one in long and deadly rivalry with Hortenze's Kortli family, had taken hold of Hortenze after a night of drinking, and castrated him. It had been a scandal at the time, and allot of blood money had had to change hands to prevent reciprocal atrocities. Hortenze was an eunuch, which made him the only person of royal blood in the country that Malefluent trusted with control of the army. Because he could never be king. Because he could never produce an heir. It was, unfortunately, his only qualification. Spetulese watched him. He had always felt a pity for the General, regardless of his posturing and abuse. He seemed a twisted vessel. As for Pusp, he didn't if the High Holy was anything worse than a regular coward and hypocrite. It was Malefluent he hated. How on earth did you come to rule us? He wondered, at the man's serine, and rather handsome profile.

Now the underlings sat, and the table quieted.

         'Ah my friends,' said Malefluent and the genuineness and honest warmth in his voice was chilling, 'what joy it is to have us all back together like this. We who have done so much together, built so much.'

There was a general disaffected mumble at this, people didn't want to seem churlish, but they had little patience for prevarication.

         'What's this meeting about, Malefluent?' asked a man on the table's left.

         'Good, Tomel Toft, the lord of the bricks,' said Malefluent, turning to him first. 'When we speak of builders, no better example could be produced. How many stout houses, how many sturdy drainage works, have you lined?'

         'One or two, I suppose', grunted the man.

         'And Elimina Beskets, first in philanthropy, our conveyancer past all excellence' continued the High Councillor, indicating the woman in the swan hat. 'What luxuries, from the sublime to the trifling, have not passed through your warehouses?'

         'Oh, I'm sure there's a bar of soap somewhere' answered the woman, cheerily.

         'And here, good Master-Wright Stenly, Mayor of Sealhearth, our builder of bridges, figuratively and literally.' This was the man in red. He smiled but said nothing. 'Bracley Tode, money lender of first and last resort, Felsep Felsop, was there ever a purveyor of fine dried fish for the army and more rapacious scourge of the sea? And here is our national landlord, the lovingly titled King of the Slums by his grateful tenants, Ghormad Pot. Look now, at these three captains of southern industry, the Vrekingweet Brothers, Ulmavey, Blolavey, and Kardelmavey, each alike in wit and dignity. What road of quality or dike of renown have your labourers not exchanged blows over? And here is Spequius Gooth-Eetterly, grower of grain for our hungry capitol and pillar of the nation (for what is greatness without bread?) and Lord Buntingroy, licensor of the wagons that carry it to us. Finally, but not least, (who could be counted least in this band of eminences?) is that master of cloths and dyes, Bigteeth Kar, our weaver of greatness. Greetings, all.'

Malefluent sat down. He steepled his fingers, the put them down on the table. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'we're broke.'

         'Who's broke?' demanded Ghormad, startled to full wakefulness.

         'We are. You are. Me, all of us, the whole kingdom. In fact, if we were only broke, that would be alright. You can always make more money, I'm told. But we are, in fact, indebted.'

There was a general explosion of conversation, shouted disagreement and questions. Malefluent gestured for silence.

         'Waddaya mean, indebted?' demanded Blolavey, and it was an open question as to whether he was inquiring to the amount or the meaning of the word. Malefluent proceeded assuming the former.

         'The kingdom's finances have suffered some small reverses, due to the vagarities of the international financial system and an initial tranche of loans the previous administration failed to negotiate properly' he replied.

         'How small?' asked Felsep

         'Answer the fucking question, Malefluent,' yelled Bracley, 'what do we owe?'

         'Thirty tons of gold. That's about one billion tholars' replied Malefluent, referring to the currency of Tholia, a large regional power of moderate credit worthiness and stability whose currency was often used in the region for trade.

Blolavey appeared to have been struck dumb. It had probably not occurred to him that so much money existed.

         'The state is a billion tholars in debt?' yelled Bracley.

         'How is that possible?' demanded Mayor Stenly.

         'Look around' replied Malefluent, mildly. 'Where do you think the capitol came from to fund our present state of economic advancement? The nation had made great strides, in recent decades, into the modern world. You all know, since none have strode further. In keeping with the policies first laid down by the beloved founder of this economic miracle, King Olbert, the Architect, certain advances on the kingdom's future profitability have been made to us, Guarantees, loans.'

         'But you got all that money from the rock eaters!' protested Kardelmavey.

         'The money renumerated to the state from the liquidation of the dwarvish quarter barely covered the losses of the war. It certainly wasn't enough to fund the drain.'

         'Who did you borrow from?' asked the Mayor, grimly.

         'A consortium of investors. Only offers of funding from the most reliable financial institutions were entertained, I can assure you. '

         'Tholian banks?' demanded Bracley, 'you got us in the pocket of those bastards?'

         'No of course not. Tholia doesn't have the credit we need. Nor does the City Under the Mountain, since the Nepheliadian Fount was destroyed. The funds underwriting us are Empyrean.'

This produced a wave of shock that seemed to silence the table, then;

         'One billion Tolars?' screamed Elimina Beskets.

         'Get him!' yelled Kardelmavey, who thought he more or less understood was going on.

         'Stretch his neck!' yelled his brother, Ulmavey, leaping onto the table and pulling a knife out of his boot.

         'Everyone stand back,' shouted Hortenze, drawing his sword. 'Don't make me summon my men!'

         'Who's asking you, no-balls?' yelled Elimina.

         'What did you say?' roared Hortenze, in fury.

         'You heard me! You let this snake-' she pointed at Malefluent, '-hang us all up by the heels and you did nothing! Did they cut off your self-respect too?'

         'If you weren't a woman I'd cut you down!'

         'I've got a bigger cock than you'll ever have!'

         'Madam,' said Pusp faintly, 'in the name of God.'

         'Sit down!' roared Hortenze, 'Or I'll call my men! There are twenty of them waiting in the walls for my signal!' He waved his sword at Spetulese.

         'You ain't tell me sit down!' yelled Ulmavey, 'You sit down, buttons!'

         'I say we kill Malefluent,' said Ghormad, 'and then we sell everything we have and flee the country.'

         'I second that motion!' said Elimina.

         'Calm, calm!' said Malefluent, as if he was an exasperated nanny, settling a room of rambunctious but well-loved children. 'You can't sell your holdings slow enough to prevent a run on prices. Time is not on your side. You are, after all, deeply enmeshed in our new economy. And anyway, who could summon the cash to buy them? I would be surprised if any of you had gold sitting around. It does one no good in some vault, now, does it? I doubt you'd recover one part in five of your holding's worth.'

         'One in five is better than nothing,' said Tomel, grimly. 'We can start again.'

         'Start again!' replied Malefluent. 'Is that how you got rich in the first place, Tomel Toft? A self-made man, pulling yourself up by the apocryphal bootstrap? You're whole fortune rests on the margins in overbilling you presented to the state exchequer for shoddy cladding bricks you half-baked to save kilning costs, but assume will break down some time after your dead.'

         'Ha!' said Elimina. 'The half-baked brick King! I love it.''

         'And my dear Elimina. You've wormed your way to the centre of high society by being the panderer and producer of every expensive frippery and vice the appetites of our newly enriched merchant class can crave. When the swampland becomes a backwater again, will you be content to return to obscurity? As for Mayor Stenly, you balk at the money owed, but how much of it became available to you, when you petitioned to have your harbor dredged?'

         'That was in the interest of the nation!'

         'Yes, but the additional seven miles of inland river cleared and embanked wasn't, land formerly worthless, that now contain dock and warehouse districts from which you collect rent, along with several other conspirators, including Felsep Felsop, the fish's foe. But when commerce dries up, and there nothing to stock your warehouses or buy your produce, I suppose you can at least try piracy. Ghormad, 'sell' you say. Are you going to put all your hovels on your back and leave the country like the world's biggest hermit crab? Sell to who, anyway? Your tenants? If they had any money, they wouldn't be your tenants. And you might find rebuilding your fortunes in other climes a little more difficult than you found it here, without half your family members occupying positions as housing inspectors, not to mention serving as amenable arsonists, ready to burn down certain waterfront structures standing on land you had a mind to buy.'

         'I knew it!' said Bracley. 'Unattended charcoal burner my ass!'

         'That's a calumny!' shouted Ghormad.

         'I owned twenty percent of those warehouses, you fat prick!'

         'And our dear brothers Vrekingweet,' said Malefluent, moving on, 'how many bodies from your construction gangs are buried in their own dikes and earthworks because they tried to negotiate outside your price-fixing cartel?'

         'They was talking smart' said Ulmavey.

         'What's good for the union is good for everybody' glowered Kardelmavey. 'Only get honest prices for working men if we all stick together.'

         'As for you, Spequius, I wonder if the state will look the other way in your new country, when you corner the grain supply and warehouse it to drive up prices.'

         'A man can do what he likes with his own property!' said Spequius. 'Anyway, at least I trade in a useful commodity. Look at Buntingroy.'

         'Ah yes,' replied Malefluent, 'Our most respected colleague, Buntingroy, our sole aristocrat and least liable to survive on a level playing field. Your family holds the concession to run wagons on the Old Salt, by nothing more than ancient custom. Perhaps that's an anachronism that needs to be abolished.'

         'But then anyone could run wagons!' protested Buntingroy, turning grey with horror. 'They could undercut my prices!'

         'Sounds good to me', said Spequius.

         'That would be one good thing to come out of it,' said Bigteeth, 'if we could get rid of Buntingroy and his fucking sinecure.'

         'And Bigteeth, last of all. I wonder-'

         'You can skip me and come to the point, Malefluent,' said Bigteeth, pleasantly 'I wouldn't want to have to come over this table and punch that little custard-tart face of yours.'

         'The point is that each of you is the head of a cartel, that tries to monopolise his or her sphere of commercial interest' said Malefluent, 'which you've managed to do, in large part, through collusion with the state. If you start liquidating your holdings, how long before your associates get wind of it? My friends-'

         'Stop calling us that!'

         'But aren't we? We are all self-made-'

         'Except Buntingroy,' said Elimina.

         '-and we know what it is to build something. If we default on our loan, we risk a great falling back, into penury and deprivation.'

         'If you're so clever, Malefluent, how are you caught in this web too?' demanded Felsep.

Spetulese thought he saw Malefluent hesitate for the first time and, with a sudden flash of insight, realised that the High Councillor had been taken in. That, for all his cleverness, he was just a country bumpkin, a backwoods Machiavelli compared to the real sharks.

Spetulese stared at the side of Malefluent's head, his thoughts hardening in contempt. They took you, didn't they? And now you're on the hook, and the only way to save your skin from these men, who could grab you right now and throw you down the Gatestream, is to scare them into thinking they're in the same boat as you.

         'Where is the king in all this?' demanded the Mayor.

         'That doesn't concern you' said Hortenze. 'Just suffice to say, everything we do is in his name.'

         'The king is fully appraised of all developments,' said Pusp, sounding miserable. 'He wishes us to proceed to the next phase.'

         'What is that, selling our wives into prostitution?'

         'Continued growth and prosperity, of course,' replied Malefluent. 'True, the kingdom has taken on some debt, stimulation of the economy is not cheap. Great infrastructure spending was needed to set the stage for further development. These challenging, but necessary measures have been taken. Now we need to take advantage of them.'

         'The north won't go along' said Ghormad. 'Do you think the Gaelefs will bend to paying a debt they'll say they had no part in acquiring? They'll tell those foreign banks to go fuck themselves for their money. They'll say that if they want it, they come and fight them for it.'

         'And that would be disastrous,' said Malefluent, 'for everybody. Certainly, everybody here at this table. But for the country too, for the progress we've made, and the position we've attained, here on the brink of prosperity.'

         'By prosperity, you mean getting rich, right?' asked Kardelmavey, 'Because how are you going to get rich when you spend more than you earn?'

         'Because running a country is not like digging a ditch, my honest Kardelmavey. You don't get paid per job. A state can use its collateral, itself, to gain credit. Then that money can be advanced to improve its conditions and become more populated and industrious. The new wealth pays down the deficit, and everyone is better off. Everybody does it. Everybody that's a real country, that is.'

Kardelmavey was thinking of making some cutting reply, belittling the idea of the swampland kingdom being a real country, but realized it would sound unpatriotic. He became confused and lost his train of thought.

         'Wait now,' said Spequius, 'Something doesn't add up. You're saying that, with the drain, more land will be available for use and the kingdom more profitable. Fine. But we're never going to be the Emerald Plain. Even if we convert all that land to crops, and half-starve ourselves, we're never going to be a significant exporter. And there's transport. Our market would be a thousand miles away, at least, over seas filled with pirates. How are we going to pay off a billion tolars?' Also-'

         'Through the miracle of low interest and fixed rate, namely, two percent' replied Malefluent.

This triggered a general uproar. 'Two percent! That's forty million - We're paying forty million tolars a year just on interest - How could we even collect that much in taxes?' and so on.

         'We have more than enough to cover that sum,' soothed Malifluent, 'and leave considerably more for repaying the principle. Unfortunately, however, if we default, penalties apply. The rate is adjusted upward at a rate of point one percent for each ten million added to the principle.

         'So you don't have low interest and you don't have a fixed rate?'

It occurred to Spetulese that, if Malefluent was going to interject information that he knew would cause uproar, he must have felt it less dangerous than the line of inquiry Spequius had been pursuing. One small bead of sweat, had appeared on the back of the high councilor's neck. As he watched, it slid down. Only Spetulese saw it, the rest were baffled, furious, at bay, mesmerized by Malefluent and the doctor was struck by the sight of a man controlling others by no other power than his voice.

When the angry burghers had died down enough for him to speak again, the high councillor's voice had no trace of stress. 'We stand on the brink of the complete modernization of our country, a place of limitless opportunity,' he said, 'especially for those owning enterprises already well-established. But now we come to the heart of it. For us to advance, we need to have men of vision in charge. Builders. For too long, this kingdom has been ruled by men of violence.'


         'What are you saying, you snake?' yelled Felsep, 'say it plainly!'

         'What you are suggesting will lead to a second civil war!' said the Mayor.

         'Not if we are decisive' said Hortenze. 'One swift action, and the country is ours.'

And there it was.

Spetulese watched, barely breathing, his stomach in a knot. A silence fell. The southern grandees exchanged pensive eye language with each other. Feeling stupid standing on the table by himself, Ulmavey got down and resumed his seat.

         'We've got money,' said Elimina, 'at least, we thought we did. They have men with swords and spears.'

         'A rabble!' said Hortenze. 'Mismatched levies drawn up under bickering chieftains. Organization! Discipline! That's what a military rests on. To be ready, at any time, to be called in defence of the nation.'

         'We have the prince and his sister' said Malefluent. 'We speak for the king. And we have the capitol, and the south.'

There was silence. Then a chair scraped. 'No' said the Mayor and stood up. 'I'll have no part of it.'

         'Stenly,' said Tomel. 'We need to think-'

         'Think! You can't see what he's doing? He's trying to stampede us with the oldest sale-trick in the book, like we were shit-footed peasants, right off a fucking turnip field. Something terrible will happen if we don't act now! Act quickly to secure this opportunity to avoid disaster! Are you a bunch of rubes? He did this! He's going to have to face it! And that'll be end of this snake, because there isn't a man in the country who doesn't want to see him hanged. We need to tell the world and we need to tell the king. He's the one who has his back against the wall, can't you see that? He cleared this castle out because he didn't want witnesses! No eavesdropping butlers, no stewards gossiping about the grand swells and their big, secret meeting! And why? Because he's scared! Because he can't trust anybody!'

         'What about the soldiers in the walls?' said Spequius.

         'There's no soldiers in the walls, you idiot! We are alone!'

         'Yes' came Malefluent's voice, 'it's true.' He had stood up. His voice was now hard. 'We are alone, and we, alone, understand the situation. In the whole kingdom, only us. And that makes us powerful.'

         'Let's at least talk this out' said Spequius,

         'He's done,' said the Mayor, pointing at Malefluent, 'and if we keep letting him control things, we'll all be done too. Bigteeth, you aren't going along with this?'

         'Let's think about it,' said Bigteeth slowly. 'Does no good to go acting on emotion.'

Wright Stenly, Mayor of Sealhearth, spat on the floor and turned to leave.

         'Stop him!' yelled Kardelmavey, who hated seeing people get away.

The new men leapt up from the table, yelling and remonstrating, but as they did, Stenly whirled around. With the 'zinning' sound of high-quality metal, he produced a rapier blade from his lion-head cane and his peers leapt smartly back.

         'Anyone tries to follow me, I'll slice your cocks off!' he yelled.

         'Come on, grandpa,' said Blolavey, stepping forward. There was a flick of steel, and a flap of skin flipped off his bicep, immediately spraying blood. 'He's cut me down to the bone!' hollered Blolavey, recoiling and falling amidst his brothers, 'Holy Cunt boys, I'm killed!'

         'Stenly, Stenly, my dear-' said Elimina, raising her palms calmingly, 'why don't you-'

Stenly flicked his rapier and a red gash appeared on her cheek from her jaw line to her eye. 'AAAh!' shrieked Elimina, 'my face! My face, you bastard!

         'Get back!' yelled Stenly, leaping forward and sending the mob scattering in panic ahead of the slashing edge. Then he turned and bolted. The new men followed, like a pack of motley hounds, in a general bedlam. 'Kill that bitch's whelp!' Elimina's voice could be heard yelling, amidst it all.

Only the Underlings, and Blolavey, were left, he moaning on the floor, tearing his shirt and wrapping it around his cut. The sounds of echoing shouts and cracking boots faded and reverberated away.

         'It's monstrous, monstrous,' muttered Pusp. 'I know you say there is no other way, but think of the people-'

         'I know what we agreed, Malefluent,' said Hortenze, slamming the table, with his fist, 'but damn me, if I don't know if the northern way to do deal with this isn't the right way. Think of the national honor. Let them bring their armies! We'll take to the marshes and fight them a hundred years!

         'A hundred years in the swamp wouldn't agree with you, General' replied the high councillor.

         'If only there was another way-' said Pusp.

         'I wonder, High Holy,' interrupted Malefluent, 'if you could go pursue our southern delegation, in case there is an emergency of a religious nature. And you, General, perhaps you could go with him. To ensure there is an emergency of a military nature.'

Exchanging glances, the two got up.

         'Take him,' said Malefluent, pointing to Blolavey. Hortenze hoisted the groaning man up and the three left. Spetulese saw the High Councillor turn his head to him with a look that was feral, ecstatic, unlike anything the doctor had seen on the man's face before. For a sicking moment, Spetulese thought he was discovered. But no, the look was meant for someone else. Whoever had been meant to be sitting on this stool, watching.

Malefluent nodded, composed his features, and left the room.

Spetulese sat, breathing, his heart battering like a partridge on a snare. Treason. A plot to overthrow the king. Then what will they do to Aleron and Hyacinth? And Hart?

***

         'When are we going to get to the princess? ' demanded the girl, of the vampire.

         'When it's time to.'

         'And that time is now?'

         'No!'

         'She could be my mother,' said the girl. 'If she's in this story. I'm just saying it's a possibility.

         'You'll have to-'

         'There's been too much boys stuff!' protested the girl.

         'There's only been one fight.'

         'But you described it in too much detail. You could have skipped allot. The bone eater pissing on Hart as it died, for example. You definitely could have skipped that. Also, it would have been better if Aleron thought he saw Hart die. Because we know Aleron doesn't die, because this is before he gets captured by the wizard, so it's less dramatic.'

         'I told you, I'm not making this up. These are real events. Now shut up. I was about to get to the princess soon, anyway, but now I feel like I don't want to because you told me to.'

         'Aw!'

         Anyway-'