The Empire of Gut and Bone (13 page)

With a flourish of buzzing instruments played by boys in peaked caps, the panels were drawn aside, revealing the dark, crayoned interior of the throne room. There sat the Imperial Council in unmatched chairs painted gold. The largest chair — the Regent’s — was empty.

The Stub rested upon its cushion. Someone had placed a collar of white ermine around it and laid a crown on its lump. The single eye darted about fearfully, wincing at the honking fanfare of fairy trumpets. The crown was starting to slip.

Gregory, Brian, and Gwynyfer were at the back of the crowd of courtiers. Brian had to keep bobbing up on his toes to see.

Lord Dainsplint came forward and announced, “His Sublime Highness the Stub, Emperor of Old Norumbega, New Norumbega, and the Whole Dominion of the Innards, Elector of the Bladders, Prince of the Gastric Wastes, Sovereign of Ducts Superior and Inferior, Lord of All, is prepared to hear the supplications of his people. Come forward and prostrate yourself before his mercy!” He bowed and retreated to his seat.

One of the refugees — an old man — tottered forward. He stopped a few feet from the Stub and, with a show of joint pain, slowly got down on his knees, then his belly. He lay facedown, arms spread.

His muffled voice floated faintly over the silent crowd. “… of Dellwich … His Imperial … wishes to present his complaint to …”

“Louder!” yelled courtiers. “Louder!”

“Speak up!”

The old man on the floor cleared his throat, and, louder, said, “… presents his compliments to the Court of New Norumbega. May Your Imperial Highness never see sorrow. May Your Highness never see tears.”

“Story!” someone shouted.

“Yes, story!”

The man lying spread on the floor said, “The Mannequin Resistance surrounded our town, Your Highness.”

“Quite impossible,” said Lord Dainsplint. “They can’t raise a hand against a Norumbegan.”

“They have worked out
excuses,
your lordship,” said the man. “Lies to themselves that allow them to act against us. They took most of our townspeople prisoner. They called it picnicking. Most of the population of the town is still picnicking behind a barbed-wire fence.”

At this, the Court stirred uneasily.

“And, sir,” said the Earl of Munderplast, “how did you and your family escape?”

“Hopping in sacks, your lordship. The mannequins could not fire upon us, seeing as we were merely entering into the spirit of the picnic. They had no excuse. The sheriff of Dellwich and his deputies almost made it out by simulating a three-legged race. Until they tore their handkerchiefs and neckties off their ankles and began to sprint in earnest, firing their guns. They destroyed three or four of the mannequins. Then the mannequins … they raised their muskets and killed them all.” The man shook his head. “All dead,” he whispered into the floor. “The sheriff, the deputies.”

At this, there was a mutter of horror. Men growled: “They should allow us to kill them.” — “The impudence!” — “They are ours to kill.” — “They die when we say, ‘Die!’ ”

“What are … what do the blighters want?” Gugs asked anxiously.

“They claim that we have no right over them or their land. They want the guts for themselves. They want the
Regent to declare them independent of the Empire. They say that if they are not given their independence, then they will depose the Regent … for the good, they say, of the Norumbegan people. They claim they fight for us, Your Highness, not against us. This is their excuse. And at the same time, they threaten us.”

More refugees were asked to come forward. They all had stories of terrible politeness, unutterable courtesy: a heavy knock on their doors at midnight, followed by a beautifully engraved invitation to be arrested … robot captors shaking hands before shackling their prisoners … clockwork men kicking in windows and grabbing screaming kids, all the while apologizing profusely for the mess and promising to clean up if madam would simply direct them to a dustpan and broom.

Hearing these tales, Brian didn’t know what to think. Up until this point, he had, he realized, kind of been on the side of the mannequins. He could completely understand why they would want to rebel against the Norumbegans, who strode into their villages and shut them all down, who killed them without even believing that they could feel pain or sadness or horror.

But now he didn’t know. In spite of their politeness, the mannequins sounded brutal. They imprisoned whole villages. They shot people who tried to escape. He couldn’t figure out who was right.

And the anxiety of not knowing struck him as awful, like not knowing which way was up after stumbling off a fairground ride. He put his feet down as if the ground was solid, but discovered instead he’d been spun around too
much, and the pavement retreated and the grass got closer and he thought he’d throw up his cotton candy.

He took a deep breath and got into line behind the last refugee.

He had something to say.

Brian stood in front of the Stub. “Your Highness,” he said, and he bowed.

“Get on the floor,” said Lord Dainsplint.

Brian would not get down on the floor in front of this Court. He was no servant of theirs.

“I’m not …” he said uncertainly, “I’m not getting down on the floor. I’m a, you know, an ambassador. I can stand.” He didn’t wait for anyone to argue against him. Feeling himself blush, he simply launched into what he had planned to say. “I just want to say to the Court that you have got to think about your ancient rights. Um, my lord the Earl of Munderplast, you’re always talking about how things were better in the olden days, and you, Lord Dainsplint, you’re always talking about how you want to have great parties. Well, I need to remind you that everything you used to have could be yours again. It’s all just sitting there — a whole kingdom from the good old days — and all you have to do is go kick out the Thusser. The Earth is … well, the Thusser Horde is spreading over the face of the Earth, and human cities will fall. And then they’ll start to look for new places to conquer, and who knows, maybe they’ll look here? So, I
suggest that you think about what the Regent said before he was killed, and —”

“Didn’t the runt try this once before?” Gugs asked. He tapped his head. “Unless my old wiring’s on the fritz.”

“No, we’ve heard it before,” said Lord Dainsplint.

“I know it might be hard to fight the Thusser,” said Brian, “but you’re the only ones who can enforce the Rules and —”

“We can’t enforce the Rules of your Game,” said Dainsplint.

“It’s not
my
Game,” said Brian. “It’s yours.”

“But,” said the Ex-Empress Elspeth,
“we
wouldn’t enforce the Rules. What, with a whistle and a pair of grubby shorts? No, I recall — do you remember, Randall? The sorcerers at the time engaged some Rules Keepers. Referees. They would enforce the Rules. We’d just have to activate them. Then they would take care of the whole ruddy mess.”

Brian was wild-eyed with hope. “So why don’t you do that? You could just
do
that?”

“Because,”
Lord Dainsplint insisted, “we have better things to do with our afternoons.”

“That’s crazy!” said Brian. “All you have to do is claim what’s rightfully yours! You could so easily save the Earth!”

“Not quite so eazers, Mr. Thatz,” said the Ex-Empress Elspeth. “Do you know how to activate Rules Keepers?”

“Where are they?” Brian demanded hysterically. Wildly, he pictured a big on-off switch.

“In another
world,
darling,” said the Ex-Empress. “And don’t forget, we’ve lost all of our
paperwork
over the last several hundred years. No one remembers the Rules of the Game. The Thusser wizards set it up with us and no one wants to ask
them
for advice, the old cows.”

“And the rest of us,” said Lord Dainsplint, “are too, too bored. Let us move on.”

Brian got the distinct and irritating feeling that the elfin councillors were being so stubborn precisely
because
it would be so easy for them to help.

Then the Earl of Munderplast rose. He wore a scarlet velvet shift and a skullcap. “Beausires,” he said, bowing to the Court, “I argue for our ancient hunting grounds and palaces. I do not think that the human cubling is necessarily wrong. Imagine, I ask you, the glories that were once Norumbega. If we could walk again among those ruins, would it not be a grand thing?”

Brian looked at the earl, full suddenly of hope.

The earl continued, “The Melancholy Party would like to consider investigating the method by which we might call forth the Rules Keepers to enforce the Rules. And I, as a candidate for the Regency of the Stub, proclaim that if I am elected, I will reclaim the sunken kingdom of Norumbega for our use,
not
so that I may lead us to a brighter future, of course — out of the question, I’m afraid; there’s naught to come but doom and bale — but to a more deliciously gloomy appreciation of everything we shall never again be, all the tears wept which shall never —”

He stopped speaking. He was looking out over the crowd, his eyes focused peculiarly on the sliding glass doors that led from the Grand Hall out onto the balcony.

Everyone turned.

Something flashed, out in the desert.

A marquis slid one of the doors open and stepped out on the balcony, his hand over his eyes.

The city below was in turmoil. The sound of horns and cries drifted up to the palace.

“What’s that?” said Lord Dainsplint. “Sounds like unrest. I suppose one of us should swan out on the terrace and throw down pieces of eight.”

“My lord,” said the marquis on the balcony. “It’s the valves. Into the flux.”

People rushed to peer out the doors. Brian found himself crushed against the wall, barely able to see.

There were gasps and exclamations of surprise. He ducked. He peered through the crook of a baronet’s elbow.

Far out past the outskirts of the city — out where he had first entered the Dry Heart with Dantsig and the marines — valves had popped open, and rank after rank of soldier was crawling out.

The veins far above shone down on metal muskets and cannons raised on winches from holes in the ground.

The Mannequin Resistance had arrived, and its soldiers were surrounding the capital city.

T
he Rebellion Courteous, as later historians called it, culminated in a siege of New Norumbega.

Mannequins had set out from Pflundt and other fortresses carved into the phlegm floes of the gut — some in subs, others on foot. The submarines could navigate through the flux all the way to the Dry Heart. There were far too many mechanized warriors gathering from around the Great Body to all fit into subs, however. The rest had a long, gastrointestinal march up from stomachs to throats, where they now waited until someone could shuttle them through blood to the hearts and to the capital city in its desert aorta.

The aristocrats of Norumbega, as they stood on their palace’s balcony, staring sullenly out across the salty plains, had no idea of how many more mannequins still waited to be shipped to the siege. They saw only that the numbers of the invaders were great.

With spyglasses, they made out butlers and chambermaids, nurses and ladies-in-waiting, all of them armed to
defy those who had built them, those whose hair they had once adorned with jewels. Soldiers from ancient wars stood next to cannons. All the clockwork mannequins who had once served the Norumbegans now demanded to be left alone.

“Well,” said Ex-Emperor Fendritch, looking down sadly at his pointy medieval slippers and waggling them, “I suppose if it’s really and truly war, I should put on some sensible shoes.”

The Earl of Munderplast spoke from the back of the crowd. “It is not war,” he said. “Because they are incapable of attacking us. We are their government. They have been built, they have been shapen to bloody well obey.” He explained, “They have to twist the truth to convince themselves that the good of the Norumbegan people is served by attacking its government. But we, my friends, have a wonderful surprise, an ace in the hole.” He bobbed his eyebrows, and said, “They’ve come here to oppose the Regent. But the Regent is dead. When we tell them this, they won’t be able to attack us. They’ll have no excuse.”

He swept toward the hallway. “Your Graces,” he explained, “I wish to speak upon the telephone.”

As a few days before, the Court had gathered around the door and the phone while the Regent had spoken to mannequins, they crammed themselves into the hallway again. “Do you admire the vigor and bravery and gentilesse with which I assume command?” asked the earl loudly, as he dialed a number on the phone’s rotary dial. “Then you might consider voting for me, O vox populi,
in a few scant days. I still propose that we reconquer our old territories, so that we may better weep for — Ah, yes, hello. Goodly maiden, may I speak to Mr. Malark of the Mannequin Resistance? … No, not ‘general,’ ‘mister.’ … Yes, I shall wait.”

He stood, slightly stooped, with the phone held to his ear. With the other hand, he played with the cord that attached it to the box on the wall. Then he flipped through a phone book idly. The crowd stirred uneasily.

“Ah, hail and fair welcome,” said the earl. “The Earl of Munderplast greets his servant Mr. Malark…. I call on behalf of the Imperial Court of Norumbega…. Yes, there appears to be an expeditionary force of soldiers and warriors doughty and brave surrounding our capital city, and we wish you to remove them. Or order them to submit, and we shall allow them to return to service posthaste. By this evening, they may be laying out our nightshirts upon our beds, building us roads, sewing us zoot suits, arranging fondant roses in our bakeries…. Listen, varlet, you have no choice. No excuse …” The earl smiled in triumph. “You came to confront the Regent — and he is dead. Verily, dead! No enemy of yours any longer! Enemy only of the crocodile spirits who haunt the next world, the shadow land of Tuat. Gone.”

Everyone smiled in satisfaction.

The earl repeated, “No excuse, thou lowbred gizmo! If you stand up now against us, you stand up against your own government. And that, you may recall, you are incapable of doing. You’ve hied yourself all this way for nothing.”

And then his face fell.

“You
knew?”
he said. “Of his death? Ah, I suppose you did, since your servant killed him…. Your servant, Mr. Dantsig.” He listened intently. Then the earl covered the mouthpiece and told the crowd, “Mr. Malark claims that Mr. Dantsig is innocent of the assassination…. And how do you know, then, that our Regent was killed, if you did not order it yourself?”

There was, apparently, no response on the other end of the line.

“Thing,” said the earl, “I demand a response, thing.”

He looked at the earpiece. He tapped at the mouthpiece. “Hello?” he said.

And then the blast hit the palace.

The sliding glass doors in the Grand Hall blew in, blasting shards against the wall. Shutters and wallboard clattered across the floor. Gregory collapsed, dragging Gwynyfer with him, and they crouched together in the silence afterward. Their ears rang.

Smoke and plaster dust filled the air.

He looked around to find Brian. The Court was on its knees, hiding behind walls, knocked flat. Many were cut. In its recess, on its throne, the Stub bled.

Finally, Gregory saw Brian untangling himself from a society dame who was slapping at him with her lorgnette. Brian helped an old couple to their feet.

The mannequins had lobbed a bomb into the square at the base of the palace. The smoke still rose, still blew in through the shattered windows. Dukes tottered in from the porch, holding themselves up unsteadily.

The Earl of Munderplast still stood by the phone, holding the mouthpiece, dazed.

“I suppose we should all change before dinner,” said the Ex-Emperor.

“What we need …” said Gugs, coughing plaster out of his lungs, “what one could really
do
with right now is a person named Sir Something the Brave.”

Far out at the rim of the city, loud voices were speaking.

The mannequins were addressing the population through megaphones. The words were indistinct.

“It appears,” said Lord Dainsplint, looking directly at Brian, “that there was a better spy in our midst than we had previously thought. Well, isn’t it an infernal mystery who that might have been?”

Gugs suggested, “Anyone fancy a little bet on the outcome of the war? Anyone?”

The Court looked around the broken room. There was a silence, save for the distant squalling of voices through bullhorns.

“What are the clockworkers saying?” asked the Ex-Empress.

Gregory said hastily, “We’ll run down and listen, then come back and report. Come on!” He gestured to Brian and Gwynyfer.

He led the two of them quickly out of the Grand Hall. They ran down the great staircase and toward the gates of the palace.

Behind them, the Court of Norumbega prepared for war.

Down the hill through the shantytown the three kids ran, Gwynyfer leading Gregory by the wrist. The square was a crater. The guardhouse was a crumpled shell. Guards were shoving beams off piles of wall. They were digging through muddy mounds, looking for their brethren. Because they were Norumbegans, several had already given up, and were watching their bloodstained officers scramble through the rubble. They were taking wagers as to how many had lived and how many had died.

The streets were chaotic. People ran up and down the main boulevard, shouting to one another. Several had already stacked their things in wagons, and were ready to flee.

But as the kids got down toward the edge of the city, people were quieter. They were listening to the voices broadcast from bullhorns in the desert.

It took a while before they could make out the words.

“Hey,” said Gregory, pointing. “Isn’t that the doctor? From the palace?”

Dr. Brundish hobbled along in front of them, looking anxiously around him, his goggles reflecting the light of the veins.

“Where’s he headed?” Gwynyfer wondered.

The doctor held a carpetbag in his hand, filled with clanking objects.

Instinctively, Gregory felt like Brundish didn’t want
to be seen. He pulled his two friends behind one of the shacks for a minute. He watched Brundish disappear around a corner.

“Okay,” he said, and motioned for the other two to follow him.

“You’re very dashing,” said Gwynyfer.

Gregory didn’t take time to make a joke back.

Dr. Brundish, hopping as if his legs weren’t fully human, made his way down an alley. The others followed him. The houses were painted pastel.

Now they could make out the individual words echoing from the salty desert. “Citizens of New Norumbega — citizens of New Norumbega — we are here to serve you. If you will please be so good as to step aside, we will painlessly rid you of your leaders. We are delighted to announce that the long tyranny is over. Please evacuate the city through the western gate.”

Gwynyfer whispered, “There is no ‘western gate.’ Idiots. There’s no actual
wall.”

Dr. Brundish hobbled along, his carpetbag now dragging in the dirt. He looked carefully behind him, adjusting his goggles.

The voice in the desert continued, “We have a few humble suggestions for the reorganization of the state. If they are ignored, we are thrilled to announce that we will provide complimentary bombing and detonation services beginning tomorrow at noon.”

Gregory slid around a corner.

And felt a hand around his throat.

The doctor shoved him against the wall. The jowly face grimaced. Brundish’s claw tightened around Gregory’s neck.

Gregory grabbed the hairy wrist. Brian and Gwynyfer came around the corner, saw what was happening, and ran to tug on the chirurgeon’s arm.

“Following in my tracks?” he growled. “These shoes fit me alone.” With his free hand, he reached into his pocket. The doctor pulled out a little pistol inlaid with pearl-and-ivory designs. Brian scampered backward — ducked — and a bullet burst in the adobe behind the boy.

Gregory had torn free. He lunged for the doctor to knock the man’s shooting arm. The doctor fired again at Brian. Brian staggered to the side. Gwynyfer darted behind him.

The doctor moved like a fat spider, swiveling to block their retreat. He raised his gun again. Gregory jumped on his back and head-butted him from behind. The thick body reared and flailed.

The gun dropped.

Brian scrambled forward and grabbed it.

The doctor shook Gregory off. “Don’t cling,” he grated. “You’re all going to fall. All of you!” He scuttled backward. “I am vanished!” he said. “Before the general doom. The palace will fall. Better to be far away when the bombing starts.” He backed up.

Then he looked down and saw that Gwynyfer was holding his bag.

“Give me the bag,” he said.

“Why do you want it?” she said. “It’s an awkward size. Too bulky for a clutch. Too small for luggage.”

He scrambled toward her, claw outstretched.

“And the colors,” she said, swaying it out of his reach, “could not be uglier.”

“Give me my things, Miss Gwarnmore.”

“Why are you fleeing?”

“We all should be.”

“Why’d you try to kill Brian then? He’s dull, but not criminally dull.”

The doctor grabbed at the bag, snagged it. He pulled. She pulled.

It tipped. Came open.

Out spilled clothes — socks, boxers, sleeveless tees — and devices.

What looked like a walkie-talkie. And five of what looked like bladed octopi. Little things that might be slipped into a boy’s burger.

The doctor gasped. He snarled. And he began to run.

The three kids watched him go.

“I wonder what frightened him?” Gregory said.

And then heard the scissory sounds at his feet.

The octopi had come to life.