The Disposable

by Katherine Vick

  “She knows, doesn’t she?” Flirt wandered back from the garderobe, where she had been securing the rope they were to use in their escape. “She’s heard us explain it enough times.”

  “But have you ever explained it specifically to her?” Dullard opened his palms with a wide shrug. “There’s a world of difference between overhearing what your captors are up to and having someone sit down and respectfully explain it.”

  Though he could intellectually see Dullard’s point, Fodder’s mind refused to reconcile the kicking, screeching ball of threats and insults they’d been hauling around with a calm and reasonable young lady who’d listen to their ideas and give the matter some thought.

  “You’re more than welcome to try it, if you like,” he told Dullard with a wave of one hand. “Just expect screaming.”

  “My eardrums are sturdy enough.” Dullard’s reply was crowned by a hint of a smile. “But honestly, I think after all she’s been put through in the name of your cause, it’s only fair to at least give her a chance to understand why, don’t you think?”

  Shoulders shrugged as he bent down to scoop up the supine princess, ready for transport down the privy bowl. “It’s your funeral. Or your hearing’s funeral anyway. Just don’t expect us to learn sign language for you.”

  Dullard winced as Shoulders flung the limp form of Pleasance heavily over one shoulder, her head missing the sturdy stone of the fireplace by the narrowest of margins and the force sending her showy necklace flying across the room to ricochet off a bookcase.

  “Why don’t you let me carry her?” he intervened anxiously. “I know it must be a terrible burden to you, and I’d be quite happy to…”

  “She’s all yours, mate!” Shoulders’s expression was that of a man whose characters had all come at once. With unseemly speed, he tossed the velvet bundle towards Dullard’s hurriedly extended arms. “In fact, you can keep her! My back’s more sick of her than the rest of me!”

  Only the Rejected Suitor’s quick reactions saved Pleasance from a heavy tumble. Juggling her limp form awkwardly for a moment, Dullard hoisted Pleasance rather more gently into the cradle of his arms.

  “Perhaps,” he offered delicately, “if someone were to take the sack off…?”

  Looking unconvinced but nonetheless opting to play along, Flirt reached out and pulled the sack away. With a firm look, she grabbed one of Dullard’s handkerchiefs from a nearby bureau and fixed it sturdily over the much-ruffled curls as a gag. She sighed at Dullard’s look.

  “She’ll scream the place down if she wakes up before we’re out of the city,” she reiterated firmly. “And then we’ll be done for, won’t we? Sorry, Dullard, but the nicely-nicely approach is going to have to wait until we’re out in the sticks. Now come on. We need to get moving or we’ll run out of night!”

  Dullard frowned, but he conceded the point. “Very well. But speaking of sticks, before we go, did you want to try your luck with Poniard the Assassin? He has lodgings over the river in the Respectable Quarter. And at this time of night, so Smelter told me, he’s usually to be found in the Rowdy Tavern. It isn’t far from the bridge.” He pulled a face. “I understand he spends a lot of time there these days. It has to do with his…issues.…”

  By now, the four of them had moved into the narrow corridor that led into Dullard’s garderobe. With a great deal more care than Shoulders had ever mustered, the prince laid the princess down and secured her to the rope, ignoring with considerable grace Shoulders’s muttered suggestion that she just be dropped.

  “We could do,” Fodder said. With The Narrative on its way to the city, the idea of dealing with the princess problem right there and then held a certain appeal. But odd sort of stick was ringing in Fodder’s ears almost as loudly as issues. “What sort of issues are we talking about here? Is he going to be a problem?”

  Dullard’s face as he clambered to the edge of the garderobe could best be described as cagey. “Well…that rather depends. You see, the problem with Poniard is that what he wants more than anything simply isn’t something anyone is in a position to offer him.…”

  * * *

  The Rowdy Tavern, currently perched on the waterfront of the Respectable Quarter between the present locations of the district of the Artisans and of the Merchants, was exactly what any good Narrative would expect of such an establishment. The sign depicting a hanging bunch of grapes was crude and badly drawn, creaking in the gentle breeze that rose up off the nearby river. There was a manky water trough full of green, algae-riddled water suitable for drunkards to have their heads dunked in mere moments after they muttered the immortal line “You and whose army?” to appropriately irritated Merry Band members. The battered wooden door creaked suitably and, after numerous of its patrons had been ejected through it the hard way, had the look of something nominally held together by nailed boards and frayed lengths of cord.

  In spite of the absence of The Narrative, the tavern keeper apparently felt obliged to maintain a familiar ambience: the low-roofed, heavy-beamed room was smoky and close; the dirt floor was strewn with straw; and the tankards were bent and rusty. The furniture consisted of rough, splintering wood hammered together with bent nails that looked on the verge of collapse—the beautifully crafted shoddiness was probably some Artisan’s pride and joy. The counter was filthy, the barrels leaky, and the fireplace solidly black. If it wasn’t for the fact that all but one of the patrons were neatly dressed, cheerful, and only marginally tipsy Artisans, the place could have been lifted straight from The Narrative itself.

  The one exception, unfortunately, turned out to be the man they’d come to see.

  Dullard led the way. In spite of his assurances that the Rowdy Tavern was a perfectly respectable establishment most of the time and that the patrons were generally of a sensible and sober disposition, Fodder had seen far too much potential for bum pinching and use of the word wench behind that sign. He had therefore opted to leave Flirt and Shoulders outside to guard the still thankfully unconscious princess in a nearby alley. Dullard, much to Fodder’s surprise, had hailed the barman and several of the patrons with familiar ease; under his breath, he admitted to Fodder that he had spent several happy evenings here, discussing the art of swordsmithing with some of the more experienced smiths.

  “I did show them a few of my pieces, of course,” the Rejected Suitor had added softly. “But they went ever so quiet and then Smelter suggested strongly that I shouldn’t tout them around to anyone who might be in a position to compare my work to theirs. I thought that was very kind of them, really, to consider my feelings like that. After all, I’d hate for my meagre efforts to look foolish by comparison to experts.”

  Fodder, who had spotted the tight, nervous looks a couple of the leather-aproned smiths had tossed in Dullard’s direction when he’d greeted them, privately suspected that Dullard’s feelings had been the last thing on their minds when they’d laid eyes on his workmanship. Fodder had seen a goodly number of swords in his time and been cut down by most of them, and he knew that the meagre efforts of the prince were nothing to be sneezed at.

  But Artisan politics were not the reason they had come. The reason was the unshaven man plonked down at the rough table before them, grasping a slopping tankard of finest tavern swill in one hand and, rather alarmingly, a very sharp dagger in the other. His eyes were bleary; his dark hair a scruffy, tangled mess; his dark leather clothes stained liberally with food and spilled beer. His gaze, such as it was—for in his present state of partial inebriation, he seemed unable to focus more than one eyeball at the same time—was currently swirling somewhere in the region of the ceiling beams.

  He wasn’t massively drunk, as far as Fodder could tell, just erring on the distant side of tipsy. He was more accurately, as Dullard had stated, an odd sort of stick.

  “The thing is, right, the thing, the thing that matters, is that nobody, no, nobody respects what I do!” Poniard punctuated his statement with a violent stab of the inoffensive air with his vicious dagg
er. “I mean, other people, right, when they do something, it stays done, doesn’t it? They can show it off to friends and neighbours, can’t they? But I can’t do that! No one ever cares what a fine job I do, oh no, not when it never stays done long enough for people to admire!” He paused long enough to allow himself a hearty swig out of his tankard. “All that panache and craftsmanship wasted! It’s enough to drive a man to bloody drink, let me tell you.”

  “It’s as we’ve explained, you see, Poniard.” Fodder had to admire Dullard’s persistence. He’d handled the Assassin’s half-cut, depressed ramblings without so much as faltering from his smile. “I think the problem is that you’ve never really had the right target. I don’t know, perhaps if you were to kill someone that The Narrative needed? Someone whose death everyone would take note of? I mean, it would be there in The Narrative for all to see, your workmanship set down forever, and no one would ever forget.”

  “But what’s the use?” Poniard’s intervention was morose. “What’s the use of it? Hmm?”

  “Well, if you want people to respect what you do…” Fodder tried, but it was immediately obvious that the Assassin wasn’t listening.

  “I know six hundred and seventy-three ways to kill a man,” Poniard cut in wildly. “Six hundred and seventy-three! But there’s no point! No point to any of it! Because what’s the point of being a highly trained and sophisticated killing professional in a world where no bugger ever stays dead?”

  On a personal level, Fodder couldn’t help but feel that living in a world where a sword through the belly was nothing more than a minor setback was a definite perk of the job. But in a grim kind of way, he could sort of see Poniard’s point. It was like carving a statue only to turn around and find someone had glued all the spare bits back on and left you with the rock you’d started with.

  “Old age. That’s all anyone ever dies of. Old bloody age.” The Assassin downed another hearty swig of ale. “And it’s those bloody pixies…” His fist clenched so tightly around the tankard that Fodder could have sworn the metal bent. “Every piece of fine work that I do, every stab, every slice, every dagger in the forehead, cut throat, poisoned chalice, sword through the heart, every single drop of blood I spill, they swan in and put right. They fix up every slash and plug every hole with that sparkly, happy dust of theirs! Squick, that smug little bastard…” With a violent gesture, he hurled his dagger into the table top, leaving it quivering. Dullard prudently and rather nervously yanked his fingers away and tucked them safely onto his lap. “It reflects badly on me, that’s all I’m saying! What kind of a reflection is it on me, hmm, what reflection, when I can never ever do the job properly?”

  Although he had to admit that this was one matter of choice that he hoped would never get granted, Fodder nonetheless thought it worth taking one more pass. “But surely the Narrative death is what matters?” he suggested tentatively. “I mean, a character’s death In Narrative is dead forever, isn’t it?”

  Poniard fixed him with as much of a bleary glare as he could manage. “But they aren’t dead, are they?” he muttered angrily. “They get up afterwards.”

  “The person does,” Dullard offered helpfully. “But their character doesn’t.”

  Poniard pulled a harsh face. “What’s the bleeding difference?”

  “A great deal.” Dullard seemed to be hitting his stride again. “A person and their character are two very different things. And while one lives on, you’ve completely done away with the other.”

  Poniard was frowning. “But that’s not real.”

  “It’s real in The Narrative.”

  “But not once it’s gone.”

  “Only once it’s left you. The death goes on within the Quest.”

  Poniard looked very much as though this conversation had stepped several levels beyond his inebriation threshold. “But they aren’t dead,” he repeated doggedly.

  “To us they aren’t. But to The Narrative, they’re lost. And since The Narrative is what makes this world what it is, then surely that’s all that matters. The person who portrays the character is irrelevant as far as the Taskmaster is concerned. It’s character that matters.”

  Poniard squinted at Dullard crookedly. “Are you saying that when killing someone, it only matters if the Taskmaster sees it? And as long as they stay In Narrative, the buggers stay dead?”

  For a brief, euphoric instant, Fodder thought the Assassin had finally caught on. This could soon be over! One quick stab of the princess when The Narrative arrives in the morning…

  Dullard shared his moment of misplaced optimism. “Yes! That’s it exactly! So if you were to kill someone of great significance to The Narrative—I don’t know, Princess Islaine, say—then that death would certainly catch the Taskmaster’s attention. Everyone would recognise and admire your work for Quests to come. Why, the whole world would talk about it.”

  But Poniard’s gaze was already several dozen yards further down a distant tangent. “So you’re saying,” he muttered absently, “that if I want to off those bloody pixies properly, I’d have to do it in The Narrative?”

  Dullard’s mouth closed with an audible snap as Fodder’s dropped wide open.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” The light of maddened fire ignited behind Poniard’s eyes was more powerful than a joint conflagration of Shoulders’s expression when confronted with Clank and Flirt’s when the dreaded wench word was pulled out. “That’s what I’d have to do; that’s the answer! I need to grab hold of that bloody Squick, kill him off In Narrative, and make sure he stayed there! That’d put a stop to magic dust and all that fixing!”

  “Oh lord.” The quiet exclamation dropped off Dullard’s lips into the gap that most persons, including Fodder himself, would have filled with something fruitier. “Poniard, that really wasn’t what we meant.”

  “I mean, all I’d have to do is strap his little corpse to my belt and then stay on In Narrative.” There was a distant, dreamy quality to Poniard’s voice. “I could off as many people as I liked, and there would be no one to fix them! My work would be advertised everywhere! The world would be my oyster!”

  We’ve created a monster. The thought was inescapable as Fodder met Dullard’s eyes and found within them many variations of oops. For once, Fodder found himself heartily hoping that Poniard would be unable to resist The Narrative’s honey-like commands.

  “I really don’t think it would work like that…” he tried, but it was immediately obvious that Poniard was well past listening.

  “Hacked limbs staying hacked, cut throats staying cut, stab wounds that stay wounded…” he rambled on in his psychotic haze. “No more pixies. No more bloody pixies…”

  Dullard leaned carefully towards Fodder’s ear. “I think it might be time to go,” he suggested awkwardly. “I have a feeling we aren’t going to get anywhere.”

  “I think the pixie fixation gave it away,” Fodder agreed, his eyes still watching the Assassin’s distant, carnage-filled gaze. “What worries me is what he might do when we’re gone.”

  Dullard glanced across the room. “I think I may have a way to mitigate some of the damage.” Carefully, he stood up. “Umm, Poniard, we’re going to go now. It was…errr…nice talking to you.”

  Poniard made no reply, his mind apparently lost in a blissful land of slaughter. Dullard nodded to him awkwardly all the same and then, with Fodder following a half step behind, he turned and headed over to a cluster of red-faced, leather-aproned men gathered around a table by the fire.

  Fodder ducked his head sharply into the depths of his hood, hanging back as Dullard approached them. It had been a long time ago, and the odds of his unremarkable face sticking in anyone’s memory were slim, but he did recognise several of those Artisans, and there was no point in taking chances.

  “Hello, Smelter.” Dullard smiled at the largest and reddest-faced of the gathering—a balding, heavily paunched man with arms the size of tree trunks. “Could I have a quick word?”

  Fodder didn’t m
iss the look of mild panic that flitted briefly across the Artisan’s face, but nonetheless the man nodded. “Aye. What kin we be doin’ fer ye, Yer Highness?”

  Dullard flapped one hand. “Oh, there’s no need to waste dialect on me, honestly. I know some of the Nobles expect it, but there’s no need to put yourself out. I just wanted a word about Poniard.”

  “Oh, Poniard. Yeah, I saw you were chatting to him.” The folksy dialect vanished in a split second. “Raving about wanting to kill the world again, is he?”

  “To say the least.” Dullard’s brow furrowed in brief thoughtfulness. “I just wanted his opinion on the balance of a blade I’ve been working on.” The alarm flashed back over Smelter’s face like an igniting lantern. “But he was far too drunk to listen.” The Rejected Suitor bit one lip in artful concern. “I think all this business with the princess might have wound him up a little. He was asking me about this changing The Narrative business that’s been swirling around in the Palace, but then suddenly he was talking about harming Squick the Duty Pixie In Narrative. He seems to think that people will stay dead if he does.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I don’t know where he got the idea from, but I think someone needs to keep an eye on him. If he remembers this when he’s sober, we don’t want this pixie vendetta to get out of hand. I’d hate to see anyone get hurt.”

  Smelter and the other Artisans exchanged long, weary looks. “It’s not the first time he’s threatened Squick,” Smelter replied with a sigh and a puff of his pipe. “Don’t worry your head, Your Highness. We’ll sort him out come morning. A few cups of old Hubble’s best herbal hangover remedy will clean him up. He only gets these violent urges when he’s tipsy. Once he’s sober, he’ll just be morose.”