“You can’t order-well, I suppose you can. All right, then, upstairs I go.”
She waited until she heard his steps on the creaking stairs, and then leaned forward. “Listen, Emancipor Reese.”
He’d drunk half the rum and when he looked up his eyes were bleary. “What?”
“Golems. They’re sorcery, right? Powerful sorcery.”
“I suppose.”
“And Lord Fangatooth Claw’s got three of ’em.”
The man snorted. “Sorry, can’t help it. Three, you said. Right. Two now, though.”
“Exactly,” she replied. “That’s my point, right there.”
He blinked at her. “Sorry? What was your point? I somehow missed it.”
“Your masters-one of them went and killed one of those golems. That can’t be easy, killing a heap of iron and whatnot.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Emancipor said. “But take it from me, Korbal Broach has killed worse.”
“Has he, now? That’s interesting to hear. Very.”
“But mostly it’s Bauchelain you should be worried about,” Emancipor went on, taking another deep mouthful of the rum.
“That the other one?”
“Aye. The other one.”
“Sorcerors?”
The man nodded. And then laughed again. “Fangatooth!”
She shifted her considerable weight on the chair and tried leaning even closer, but her breasts got in the way. Cursing, she lifted one and thumped it down onto the tabletop. Then did the same with the other. Glancing up, she caught the look in Emancipor’s eyes. “Aye, lovely, ain’t they? I’ll introduce them to you later. Your masters, Emancipor Reese-”
“Mancy will do. Call me Mancy.”
“Better, less of a Hood-damned mouthful anyway. Mancy. They sorcerors?”
He nodded again.
“They’re heading up to the keep, all on their own. Are they stupid?”
Emancipor lifted one wavering finger. “Ah, now that’s an interesting question. I mean, there’s all kinds of stupid, izzn’t there? Ever seen a ram butt its head against a rock? Why a rock? Why, cause there’s no other ram around, thaz why. Your Fungletooth up there, been standing on that rock all this time, right? All on his lonesome.”
She studied him, and then slowly nodded. “Ever since he imprisoned his brother, aye.”
Emancipor waved carelessly. “Up there, then, maybe they’ll all butt heads-”
“And if they do? Who comes out on top?”
“-and maybe they don’t.”
“You’re not getting it, Mancy. Butting heads sounds good. Butting heads sounds perfect. I like butting heads. You think it’s fun living in fear?”
The man stared across at her, and then grinned. “Beats dying laughing, Floovle.”
She rose. “Let’s get some hearty food in you. So you can sober up. We got more talking to do, you and me.”
“Do we?”
“Aye. Talking, and from talking we’ll get to bargaining, and from bargaining we’ll get to something else, something that’ll make everyone happy. Sober up, Mancy. I got girls for you aplenty, and they’re on the house.”
“Kind of you,” he replied, squinting up at her. “But girls just make me feel old.”
“Better, cause then you got us.”
“Us?”
She hefted her tits. “Us.”
From a few paces away, Ackle flinched back when Feloovil proffered the sailor her breasts. “But then,” he whispered, “if there’s any good way to go…” He glanced across at the other patrons, regulars one and all, of course, and he supposed he was a regular now, too. Sort of. Funny how all the things he longed for in life just up and tumbled right into his lap now that he was dead.
But that was, in some ways, typical, wasn’t it? Greatness was happiest with an ashen face, cloudy eyes and a demeanor unlikely to make any sudden unexpected moves. Even a mediocre man could climb into greatness by the simple act of dying. If he thought about history, these days, he saw in his mind’s eye a whole row of great men and women, heroes and all that, and not one of them alive. No, instead they stood guard over great moments now long gone, and through it all stayed blind to whatever legacy their deeds left behind. It was selfish, in a way, but in a good way, too. Dying was a way to tell the world to just … fuck off. Go fuck yourselves, you fucking fucks! Fuck off and fuck off forever and if you don’t know what fucking forever is, take a look at us, you fuckers, we’re fucking forever and we don’t give a fuck about any of you, so just fuck … fuck … fuck off!
He contemplated the possibility, in the wake of these thoughts, that he had some anger issues, which seemed pointless, all things considered. It should hurt swallowing, shouldn’t it? That rope didn’t break my neck, well, maybe it did, who knows. Anyway, it was the choking that killed me. Suffocation, turning blue in the face, tongue poking out, eyes bulging. That kind of suffocation. So swallowing should hurt.
Fuck, do I want to kill them all? Hmm, difficult question. Let’s mull on it some …
It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.
Still, that big, fat man, dragging those corpses. That’s troubling all right. For a man like me, I mean. Dead, but not dead enough.
Between a rope and a pair of giant tits, I know which I’d rather suffocate from, and I doubt I’m alone in my learned opinion here. I doubt it sincerely. Ask any man. Ask any woman, too, for that matter. We’re all heroes, so why not go out like one?
I should be standing in that line, back there in history, with a big fucking smile on my fucking face. But it doesn’t hurt to swallow. Why is that?
Fuck!
Red, the lizard cat, bewildered once again by vague, troubling memories of walking on two feet and wearing clothes, stared at the two figures sitting side by side on the bed. He owned one of them, the one with the soft belly and the soft things above it that he liked to lie across when she slept. The other one, with his hands that slithered and his smells of lust wafting from him in pungent, whisker-twitching clouds, he didn’t like at all.
Among his memories was the even stranger notion that once, long ago, there were more of him. He’d been dangerous back then, capable of ganging up on and then dragging down and killing men who bellowed and then shrieked and screamed that they wanted their eyes back, until jaws closed around the poor fool’s throat and ripped and tore until it was all bloody and in shreds, with air bubbles frothing out and spurts that came in quick succession only to slow down, and finally fade into trickles. That was when he would feed, every one of him growing fat and torpid and eyeing places to lie up for a day or two.
Red wanted to kill the man on the bed.
What made things all the more infuriating, the lizard cat understood everything these two-legged creatures said, but his own fang-filled mouth ever failed to speak, and from his throat came nothing but incomprehensible purrs, hisses, moans and wavering wails.
Lying atop the dresser, Red was silent for the moment, eyes unblinking and fixed on the man’s throat. Every now and then his thin, scaled tail twitched and curled.
The pink-throated man with the slithering hands was speaking. “… not thinking clearly, that’s for sure. Hah hah! But there’s no telling how long it’ll last, Felittle.”
“You can always hear her on the stairs, silly. Besides, we’re not doing nothing, are we?”
“I shouldn’t be in here. She’s forbidden it.”
“When I live in Elin, in that city, where you’re taking me, there won’t be nobody to tell me I can’t have men in my room. So I will! Lots and lots of men, you’ll see.”
“Well, of course you will, darling,” the man replied, with a tight smile that made Red’s scales crackle down the length of his serrated back. “But then, you know, you might not want that.”
“What do you mean?”
“One man might be enough for you, is what I’m saying, my love.”