ARC: The Corpse-Rat King (26 page)

And missed.

The trailing edge of the tapestry waved to him as he sank past, flailing in despair at the three inches of space between his fingertips and the fabric. The deck of the
Nancy Tulip
was thirty feet wide, and there was only a foot or so between each outer wall and the outer railing. Marius had launched himself at an angle, and his despairing movement caused him to tumble as he fell. He didn’t see the wall that jutted out from the rear of the building, only felt the solid edge as he crashed against it. Something snapped, and Marius had time to hope it was the wood and not his hip as he spun away and collided, back first, with the lower wall.

He slid down until he lay in the crook of wall and floor, staring up at the gloom through which he had fallen. Slowly, details began to emerge – from this angle he was able to make more sense of the interior architecture than he had when hanging from the other wall. To his right, a massive sliding door hung loosely upon its frame, its control wheel clearly visible. A bas relief was carved into its inner surface. Marius squinted, trying to make out details through the carpet of barnacles and plant life. A series of human figures. A procession of women, bearing whips and carrying saddles. Marius turned his attention to the rear wall. There were some aspects of kingly life that were better hidden, he decided. That was one side of Nandus he could live without understanding. He found the wall against which he had crashed, and smiled in relief as he saw where a chunk towards the end had been removed by his fall. The wall protruded several feet into the room, and now that he was looking, Marius could see another one maybe four feet above it, and another above that. Huge, triangular hinges hung downwards from the front edge, and the remains of what appeared to be a gate hung from lowest wall. Marius tilted his head to take in the view from the right angle. The gate reached about halfway up the wall. In fact, if he pictured it closed, and another one over the space above, he could easily see the spaces as some sort of cubicle, like the brothels of Hayst, or… Marius blinked in astonishment. Stables. They were stables. This entire stateroom, with tapestries of immeasurable wealth hanging from gold-plated walls, and floors, he realized as he attempted to stand, of the same slippery substance, turned over to horses. Well, one horse, he supposed. Littleboots, favoured friend of the King and the only four-legged member of the imaginary Scorban senate. In a way, Marius was relieved, particularly when he considered the whip-wielding women on the interior of the doors. But if this was the horse’s realm, one question remained. Unless he slept in the stables along with his horse, where were the King’s quarters?

Marius slid along his perch until he reached the point where walls and floor coincided. A pile of bones lay in an untidy bundle. He grabbed an elongated femur and used it to lever himself upright, where he could raise his hands on either side and balance against the three surfaces. He glanced down, and saw a heavy, equine skull staring up at him.

“Evening, senator,” he thought, and almost overbalanced as a fit of giggles took him. The horse’s skull made no reply, so Marius put his foot against it and levered himself upwards. The lowest stable wall was out of reach. Marius leaped at it anyway, and floated gently down to lose his footing against the slick gold floor, landing in a heap amongst Littleboots’ bones. He lay there, tapping his hand against Littleboots’ forehead in frustration, ignoring the swirl of sediment.

You’re underwater, you fool. Swim up.

Marius could not swim. But he could thrash his arms and legs about like someone trying to catch arrows shot at him by a thousand angry archers. He carefully placed one foot on either angled surface beneath him, crouched down to gather as much strength as possible into his legs, and leaped. He sailed forward in a graceless arc, whipping the water to a froth. Miraculously, he began to rise. Marius kept his eyes fixed upon the prize – the wall, ten feet above him, but getting closer, closer. He beat the water with renewed urgency, until the muscles in his shoulders and thighs began to seize up from the exertion, and rose in a series of little gulps, his efforts growing more and more frog-like as he lost what little sense of rhythm he possessed. His fingers brushed the underside of the wall, then again. He gave one last, almighty effort, and with the sound of his shoulder popping echoing through his skull, wedged three fingers over the top of the wall. And there he hung, a half-inflated parade puppet, while his muscles twitched and spasmed, and he realized with incredulity that he was gasping in pain. Barely had he time to register the sensation before his fingers began to lose their precarious grip. Marius heaved his other arm up, and found purchase for his hand. Legs pumping and kicking, he drew himself up until his arms were fully over the edge and he could lever his upper body up. He plumped forward like a seal leaving the ocean, until, at last, he swung his legs over and lay on his back, gasping, no longer caring that he drew in only water and microscopic particles of filth. If it was instinct, then so be it. He needed the release, needed to calm the fandango in his chest cavity and let die the painful thumping behind his eyes.

When he was able to open his eyes without seeing dancing purple blobs, he turned his head and gazed along the floor of his new haven. What he saw made him stifle a sob. The stable was empty. Thoroughly empty, without even a pile of mouse bones left behind after all the hay had rotted away. Marius swung his stare towards the other wall, wavering in and out of vision above his head. It was only four feet or so, a fraction of the distance he had already travelled. It just seemed such a very large fraction, that was all. Marius raised himself to his hands and knees, and slid clumsily over to the lip. He leaned back, and raised his arms so his fingers curled against the upper wall. Such a little effort, to rear up and pull himself over the edge. Such a small thing, to have a heart attack and die,
again
, under the water where nobody would ever know what had become of him. Then Gerd could go about his dead man’s business as it suited him, and Keth could find herself a nice, rich, gentleman and settle down and have a hundred babies and as many cats running about as many gardens as she liked. Marius closed his eyes. No. He’d be damned if he was going to let Gerd get away with things that easily. And as for Keth, if she was going to settle down and have a hundred babies with anybody…

Marius sank back onto his haunches, then his backside, staring dumbly out into the room. Across the way, sideways women beckoned to him with whips and smiles that still seemed a little too knowing for just a horse. Something small and very important inside him fell over and broke with a sound that may have been his subconscious slapping itself on the forehead. Marius stared into the dark for a long time, the memory of everything he had ever done with Keth, and everything they had ever said, scrolling slowly past his internal eye. When he got to their last meeting, Marius winced. The broken thing inside him cramped, and stayed that way. Oh God, he thought. She already knew she loved
me
. He regained his knees, and reached for the wall above him. It was no longer a matter of visiting a mad practical joke upon those who had bestowed this death upon him. He had a real mission now, one that sank into his bones with an urgency he had never before experienced. Getting back to the dead was only the first part. After that, he had to get to Keth. After
that
, well, he would get what he deserved. His grasping fingers found the edge, and he pulled himself upwards with renewed strength.

The first thing he saw as he crested the wall were the bones. A small heap of them, tucked into the back of the stable, pushed into untidy confusion by the gentle movement of the water. Marius slid down towards them. There was no skull visible, nothing that could be identified as king or sailor, nor even, Marius noted, as human. From any sort of distance they were simply a confused jumble. Marius came to a stop and plunged his hands into the pile, pushing bones to either side as he rummaged amongst them. The eddies created by his movements brought the discarded bones nudging back against the pile, and Marius quelled the desire to pick them up and fling them away. If this was Nandus, he would need them to piece together the skeleton once he found a way to transport them all ashore.

He was almost at the bottom when his hands met with a smooth, round object just smaller than the ball he had owned as a child. He grasped it firmly, and slowly pulled it out—a hard sphere, shining dully yellow where it was not stained black by the rotting of flesh. Two dark orbs stared out over a small triangular opening, and a row of off-kilter teeth grinned at him from a multitude of angles below. Marius felt a sudden surge of elation – ringing the top of the skull, glued on by a thin line of dark matter he chose not to examine too closely, was a corroded circlet of gold. A vertical wedge of metal rose from the spot between the eyes, containing a single, large emerald. Marius recognized Nandus’ crown, and closed his eyes for a moment in thanks. He could have kissed the mad, dead bugger, if not for the fact that he was a rotting skull, and hanging from the circlet was something that very closely resembled a bridle and bit. Marius decided not to re-examine the look on the whip-lady carvings. He picked away at the clasps until he was able to peel away the bridle, holding it between forefinger and thumb and flicking it away behind him. Well, he thought, raising the skull so they faced each other eye to missing eye, hello, Your Majesty.

“Who are you?” a voice boomed inside Marius’ head. “Why do you greet me in such a manner?”

Marius screamed and dropped the skull, reflexively pushing himself backwards until he teetered on the edge of the drop, and only saved himself by clenching every muscle below his navel
really
hard. The skull rolled to the edge of the pile of bones, and as Marius stared at it in terror, it slowly swung around until it faced him.

“Do you mind?” the voice asked indignantly. “How dare you come into my presence, and scream like some sort of madman? What kind of gaoler are you?”

Slowly, Marius raised his hand to his mouth. As he stared, something shifted within the pile of bones. “Well?” the voice demanded. Marius opened his mouth, then closed it. This is impossible, he thought.

“What is impossible?”

Marius blinked.

“You can hear me?” He directed the thought towards his disembodied Yorick.

“Of course I can hear you. You’re no more than four feet away from me, you idiot. Which damn god sent you to torment me? Oceanus? Is it him? Come out, damn you!” Marius winced at the volume inside his head. “Come out, Oceanus, you watery coward!”

While Nandus’ skull ranted and shouted for Oceanus to show himself, Marius took the opportunity think quietly for a moment. That the pile of bones was Nandus was plain, and equally plain was that the madness he bore in life had stayed on beyond his death, needing only the appearance of another soul to draw him into conversation. With no way to form words, it was his life force that spoke, burrowing directly from Nandus’ bodiless consciousness to his. We can
talk
, Marius realized. We can converse. I don’t have to simply carry him back to shore and dump him on the dead. I can persuade him that it’s the right thing to do. He snuck a peek at the raving King, and all thought stopped. The pile of bones was on the move. What’s more, it had grown smaller, because a number of them had found their neighbours. A hand and forearm had risen from of the pile. As Marius watched, it drew out a socketed bone, which it fit on to its base, before finding another and fitting it alongside. A leg slid out from underneath, and a pelvis emerged to nestle against its upper end. Oh, my good God, Marius thought. It seems I won’t even have to carry him.

“Carry me where?” the voice intruded, and almost without thinking, Marius lowered the mental partition that separated his conscious and unconscious thoughts. Almost three decades of removing his facial features from his inner workings made such an action automatic. He counted to three, and projected what he hoped was a suitable air of secrecy.

“Not so loud, my liege,” he projected. “They’ll hear you.”

“Hear me?” Marius was gratified to hear Nandus lower its voice. “Who?”

“Your tormenters.” He made a great show of turning from side to side, as if seeking out approaching strangers. “We don’t have much time.”

“Who are you?”

Marius was fascinated by the sliding bones. As he and Nandus talked they slithered across each other like petrified snakes, fitting into each other soundlessly, almost absent-mindedly. Of course, the part of him that he had shielded from Nandus thought. He doesn’t know he’s dead. He doesn’t see it, so therefore, it can’t be. He sees a full body, so his body behaves in the right way. I could probably steal half his bones and the rest would simply compensate, and he’d never notice anything was wrong.

“Marius don Hellespont,” he projected. “Son of Raife, Your Majesty. Seventh generation Scorban, loyal to the crown.” That, at least, was mostly true. His father, like any good trader, was loyal to the crown, no matter who wore it, or which crown it was. Can’t make a living in prison, he’d always said. He’d been wrong, but Marius did not treasure the ways in which he had found out. The skull swivelled on its axis, imitating his movement, and Marius did his best not to shiver.

“Why are you here, don Hellespont?”

“To… to rescue you, sire. Your loyal subjects need you.” Again, that was mostly true, he thought. No need to define exactly
which
subjects they were. The skeleton’s hands reached down and picked up the skull, gently lowering it into place atop the completed vertebrae and setting it in place with a quick twist. Moments later, the final ribs were in position, and the skeleton swung about until it knelt on hands and knees, its blank, empty face pushed next to Marius’.

“Lead on, don Hellespont”, it said, and Marius nodded once, before turning his back upon it with a sense of relief and surveying the room. The corner from which he’d swum lay a dozen feet below him, barely visible through the gloom. Almost as far across lay the massive black opening of the doorway. Marius measured the distance. If he could get that far, push off hard and swim for all he was worth, he should be able to avoid falling past the lower edge of the door, some four feet or so below his current level. As long as he could make that perch it should be a small matter to clamber through and make his way back on to the outer deck of the ship. From there, he could climb down the incline of the boat to the sand, and use the alignment of the hulk to get his bearings. Then all he had to do was keep Nandus on side until he could get back to shore and find a way to contact the dead. Simple. Memories of his effort to rise from the stable floor made him gulp. The hard part would come first. He pointed towards the door.