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.