The Limbs of the Dead (A Wielders Novel Book 3)

by Max Anthony

  “One of his enemies had hidden a bear trap in the cauldron,” Skulks told him, winging it. “It took his hand off when he stirred the stew. At least he didn’t die without a companion for his lucky hand. He paid it back for its faithful service by giving his own hand up. His head was accidentally torn off when he was carried from the kitchen and his chin became caught on a door handle. It made such a mess on the floor, I’m told.”

  Somewhat lost now and with his cheery mood completely evaporated, the receptionist found himself sniffing sadly at this fabricated tale of woe. “It sounds like it’s what your father would have wanted. With the hand, I mean,” he said. Then, “Our records show your father left here with both hands. We have two people to sign out all of the unclaimed bodies to ensure our records are scrupulous, so I can assure you that your father was accompanied by his lucky hand as he made his final journey.”

  “Thank you for the kind words,” said Skulks, also sniffing and wiping at a corner of one eye with his finger. “Might I ask if my father was buried whole or taken to a crematorium?”

  “Certainly, Mr Lunder,” said the receptionist, making Skulks wince at this assumption of his name. “He was taken to the crematorium. All of those who are relatives unknown are taken there. We have a man who collects them.”

  “Might I speak to this man?” asked Skulks. “He may have the last memory of how my father looked before the flames burned away his physical form.”

  The receptionist thought this an unusual request but since he was out of his depth he wasn’t going to challenge it. “Of course you can Mr Lunder, though the collector does not work for the mortuary directly. We have two more recently-deceased for him to collect later this morning. If you were to wait near our side entrance about an hour from now I’m sure he will be happy to answer your questions - if he is able to remember any details about your father.”

  “Thank you, sir. You have been more than helpful,” Skulks told him, leaving the building.

  Approximately one hour later, a clattering on the pavement heralded the arrival of Silas Parps, driving what he called his Body Wagon. In reality it was little more than a tall, narrow, windowless wooden carriage into which the bodies of those with no traceable relatives could be carried anonymously to their destination. There was no dignity in it - these lost bodies were treated as little more than lumps of meat, with no one to protest if they were thrown carelessly into the back of a carriage.

  Parps himself was an insufferable scoundrel, who did more than simply enjoy gallows humour – he embraced it wholeheartedly. Many was the corpse which, unable to defend itself, found its hand placed upon the buttocks of another body as they journeyed to the crematorium. Other bodies found themselves arranged in inappropriate embraces with their travelling companions, stripped of death’s solemnity in order to provide Silas Parps with some amusement.

  Parps had already tugged his forelock at the morgue assistants who signed out the two dead bodies which comprised his cargo for the day.

  “Two more? Eeesh, it’s such a shame,” he’d said, hanging his head with his hat doffed in respect.

  As soon as the morgue’s overseers were gone, Parps turned to the first corpse, that of an elderly lady dressed in the morgue’s standard-issue blue robes. In total contravention of the rules of decorum, he smacked the poor corpse heartily on the backside.

  “How’re you doing, darling?” he asked it, cackling to himself. “Looks like you had a few too many cakes before you carked it, eh?” he said conversationally, for the cadaver was on the plumper side of average. Parps grunted with effort as he stooped down and slung the body over his shoulder.

  “Oof, you have been eating them pies, haven’t you?” he continued as he straightened. He shuffled off towards the side door, limping slightly because he was not a young man himself. Once outside, he looked left and right before tipping the corpse into the back of his carriage. One leg remained splayed, protruding out over the pavement. Parps used his foot to flick it back inside.

  “You’re a live one, aren’t you?” he asked it as he headed back to the morgue. “You’d better not give me any trouble, that’s all I can say.”

  The next corpse was that of a younger woman, though still somewhat past her youth. Silas Parps observed it for a few moments, even as a hidden Tan Skulks observed Parps. Unhitching a small hand-towel from his belt, Parps approached the corpse. He whirled the towel around a few times with his hand until it became tightly-knit. With a flick of the wrist he used the towel to flick the side of the corpse’s leg, the contact producing a loud snapping sound.

  “How’d you like that one?” Parps asked it as he flicked it again and again. It appeared to be something he was well-practised in, with each flick bringing forth a similarly loud snap. When his game was finished, Parps tucked the towel back over his belt. “That’ll hurt in the morning,” he told the corpse matter-of-factly. Parps reached under the arms of the poor dead lady and hauled her over his shoulder in the same fashion as he had done with the first. Finding this corpse to be lighter in weight, he whistled a jaunty tune as he left by the service door.

  Once outside, Parps bent over at the rear door of his wagon and allowed the corpse to slip over his shoulder and onto the back of the body which had preceded it. Even though there were two biers, one to each side, he left both of the bodies in repose upon the carriage floor. It took him three or four efforts to close the door, for a foot was still jutting out. When Parps realised that slamming the door harder wasn’t going to push the foot inside, he sighed as if he’d been mightily wronged and kicked the foot back within using the toe-end of his boot.

  Showing his horse a greater amount of respect than he had the dead bodies in his carriage, Silas Parps clucked softly to it and they rattled away down a side-street, with Tan Skulks following. If Skulks had hoped that Parps would stop off at a shady-looking house, where the corpses would be exchanged for coin, he was to be let down. The epitome of efficiency, Silas Parps drove his carriage directly to the city’s crematorium, where Skulks watched the two corpses being handed over as Parps adopted a suitably respectful pose. The only break from etiquette Skulks could detect was Parps telling one of the crematorium’s employees that he could do with an ale or two to clear the dryness from his throat.

  Twenty minutes later, Silas Parps’ horse and carriage were tethered up outside the Grimy Tanner. Parps himself was within, sipping at a cup of their least-expensive ale, for he was a man with short arms and very deep pockets. Next to him at the bar, was a man of indeterminate years with dark hair and sharp features. This man ordered a mug of the Grimy Tanner’s most expensive and fashionable artisan ale.

  “And another one for the gentleman next to me!” insisted Tan Skulks to the barman. “And please add a double-measure of your single-vat Cow’s Piss into the top of it!”

  As the barman slid over the fortified ale, Silas Parps looked suspiciously at his unexpected benefactor. Like all misers he delighted in taking advantage of other peoples’ generosity, but only once he’d assured himself that he wasn’t expected to return the favour.

  “Thanks for the drink,” he muttered, reluctant show gratitude as if it carried a monetary value. “But you’ll not be getting one out of me. I’m a poor man.”

  “Don’t you worry about paying me back, good sir. I am here celebrating!” Skulks told him.

  Having been reassured, Parps pushed his own drink to one side where he could return to it once he’d finished the free ale. He knocked back over half of the drink Skulks had bought him in one desperate gulp, before he responded to the conversation.

  “It’s a bit early in the day to be celebrating,” Parps said. “What’re you celebrating anyway?”

  “My ship, the Vindictive Purse docked last night and all the crew earned a fine bonus. We’re sailing again tomorrow, so I’m determined to do my best to spend as much of that bonus as I can today.”

  “That’s mighty good of you,” said Parps, beckoning the barman over. “I’ll have th
e same again and this man’s paying,” said he, pointing to Skulks.

  Allowing Parps to get away with his miser’s gall, Skulks reached into a pocket and paid the duly requested Slivers for the drink. He looked over at Parps and spoke:

  “I’m Twi’zzle Norberry,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “I’m Parps,” grunted Parps noncommittally. “Silas Parps.”

  An hour later, Skulks had treated Silas Parps to five more heavily-fortified drinks and a plateful of food. As Parps imbibed with gusto, Skulks held back and ordered his own ale without a Cow’s Piss fortification. At this point, Parps’ surliness had been replaced with a greater willingness, nay an eagerness, to talk.

  “So I carry the dead, you see,” he told Skulks, pausing to let this juicy snippet sink in. “I load them into the back of my carriage and I take them off to get burned.” Parps was obviously expecting Skulks to be shocked, impressed or both, so Skulks obliged him.

  “You must be a very important man!” said Skulks, open-mouthed in a mixture of admiration and distaste. “Don’t all of those dead bodies scare you?”

  “No, don’t be silly,” replied Parps. “You work on a ship. Does the sea scare you? Of course it doesn’t! In the same way as the dead don’t scare me! You get used to it, driving around with a carriage full of corpses. It’s funny in a way,” he started, before tailing off.

  “What’s funny?” asked Skulks-Norberry.

  Parps looked like he might be thinking better of elaborating, before the alcohol overrode his brain and took control of his tongue. “All they are is just pieces of meat. People think they still love them, but all they are is meat. Whatever was inside is gone. At least the ones that have no relatives are worth something.”

  “Worth something?” asked Skulks, trying his best to show no particular interest. “They’re just pieces of meat, aren’t they?”

  “Yes they are just pieces of meat. To the relatives they’re more than just meat and to some people they’re more than just pieces of meat as well. But to people like you and me? Nothing but meat.”

  “What sort of people think these corpses are more than just pieces of meat? Do you sell them to a butcher or something?” Skulks made a play of studying a piece of gristle left on his plate, prodding it with his knife. Parps didn’t answer immediately, so Skulks nudged him a little further. “Because we’ve always got men dying on the ship. Fevers mostly, though the cook’s food runs it a close second. It’s bad luck to throw the bodies over the side, so we wrap ‘em up and stick ‘em in with the cargo. We’ve got four dead ones on the Vindictive Purse already. Just waiting for the dockmaster to sign them off to be brought ashore.”

  “Maybe I should thank you, then,” said Parps, chortling nastily. “’Cos I’ll get twenty Slivers apiece for them. Less if they’re missing any bits, so I hope they’ve not lost any hands or anything.”

  “They were all intact last I saw them,” said Skulks. “Anyway, what sort of man pays twenty Slivers for a dead body? It’s not like you can do much with them.”

  “I don’t ask questions,” slurred Parps finishing his seventh ale, just as the eighth arrived. “I just drop off the bodies, forge the paperwork I give to the crematorium and take me twenty Slivers. It’s a bargain, if you ask me.”

  Skulks wasn’t sure which person in the transaction Parps thought was getting the bargain, but he pursued his question. “Do you think it’s someone selling them for meat? I had a funny-tasting sausage before I got here. It definitely didn’t taste like pork.”

  Parps’ head was drooping now. “I dunno, Twi’zzle. He has a carriage and I just dump the bodies in there for him. He gives me twenty Slivers and I head on my way. I followed him once, on foot so he wouldn’t know. He takes them around the back of a shop on Gate Git Street, up near the Chamber Building.”

  As Silas Parps fell asleep with his forehead in the gravy left on his plate, the last thought that entered his mind was that he could smell something a bit funny. It was like flowers, mixed with cheese.

  Ten

  At the words ‘Gate Git Street’, Skulks had left the Grimy Tanner immediately, having been struck with a sudden enlightenment. On Gate Git Street there was an apothecary, known to sell remedies for ailments large and small. The ailments his remedies purported to treat ranged from something as simple as an itchy hand, to more serious afflictions like an unknown and seemingly incurable sleeping sickness.

  As the hour approached mid-day, the Wielder Tan Skulks approached the back door to the apothecary’s shop, which was two stories up and next to a butcher’s shop. The back door was reached by means of a rickety wooden staircase which was missing numerous braces and supports and Skulks had to put a certain reliance on his Wielding powers to complete the ascent without bringing the whole structure tumbling down. The door itself was unlocked, evidently in acknowledgement of the fact that no normal thief would be able to reach it without falling and breaking a leg. Skulks opened this door confidently, for he had arranged a distraction to buy himself some undisturbed time in the apothecary’s private rooms. It was the smell that hit him first: dung. The next thing to hit him was not a surprise fist coming from the gloom, but the sight of that which he could smell. It appeared that the apothecary used baboon dung as the chief constituent in all of his unguents, because there was a thigh-high pile of it in this back room. Propped up against one wall was a wide-bladed shovel, evidently used for the shovelling of baboon excrement. This store-room of ordure was of no interest to Skulks, who left it post-haste by means of the single tightly-sealed exit door.

  Meanwhile, the bell attached to the apothecary’s front door tinkled gently to indicate the arrival of a potential customer. The apothecary looked up from his counter with the gravitas his profession demanded. Regardless of his being beyond his fiftieth year and therefore old enough to know better, his eye was drawn to the chest of the very attractive lady who had entered his establishment. He wrenched his eyes upwards with an effort, to find the lady smiling at him.

  “How can I help you today, madam?” he asked, feeling hot under the collar.

  The customer looked pink in the face as she responded. “It is my husband,” she said. “I think he has found another,”

  “Oh dear,” replied the apothecary. “What makes you say such a thing?”

  The lady in his shop looked even pinker and lowered her tones to a loud whisper. “He shows me little attention these days.”

  “That is a problem,” said the apothecary, already jealous of her husband. He took a guess at the obvious. “Are you looking for something to help you with this issue?”

  “Good sir, I thank you for saving me the embarrassment of having to spell things out for you. Yes, I am looking for something to help me with this issue. My dear, sweet grandmother has suggested a tonic of sorts, which she tells me worked on my grandfather when he became so old that his balls had descended below the level of his knees.”

  Now it was the apothecary’s turn to feel uncomfortable. “Has your grandmother provided you with a list of ingredients for this tonic?” he asked. “I would normally recommend one of my pre-made tinctures, which are guaranteed to reinvigorate.”

  “I am sure your tinctures are all excellent, but I have promised my grandmother that I will follow her recipe to the letter. Firstly, three medium-sized leaves from the Rhultian Gwak-Gwak plant…”

  With that, Captain Jives Honey took the arm of the apothecary and allowed him to lead her to the jar of Gwak-Gwak leaves. At the same time, she allowed him to look over the list of constituents. It was a very long list.

  As Captain Honey kept the shop owner occupied with the promise of a good sale and an eyeful of heaving bosom, Captain Skulks was hard at work searching for evidence of misdeeds. He didn’t have far to look and it soon became apparent that the baboon dung served twin purposes. Firstly, it was used in almost every product the apothecary sold. Secondly, it served to mask the scent of embalming fluid and semi-decayed human flesh. One of the rooms was
sealed off by a rubber-edged door. It held a dozen limbs and a pair of torsos. There were large containers of strong-smelling fluids, in which other limbs were already soaking. There was no desk or chair - Skulks couldn’t imagine anyone would want to stay in here for an extended time. They would be overcome by the fumes very quickly indeed.

  “How on earth did he get the bodies up here?” he asked himself. “And how does he do it without being seen?” The answer to these questions was neither immediately apparent nor important.

  Another room across the corridor had a door similarly sealed with rubber strips, which Skulks unlocked and entered. This was more like an office, with a working area covered in papers. Skulks picked up a couple of sheets and skimmed over the writings. One sheet was a list of accounts and detailed many twenty Sliver outgoings from the shop’s takings. Here and there was a fifteen Sliver outgoing and the occasional ten Sliver payment, presumably in exchange for corpses with missing extremities.

  The second paper was a brief letter:

  Turgos. I must return to Bu’Jo to obtain more ingredients for my potion. If you hear news of the missing one, please let me know. As you are aware, I am most displeased at its loss. This has put us back weeks and you know our king does not tolerate failure. The ‘special’ construct is nearly ready. Let us hope that it pleases him. Zera.

  Underneath the letter there had been three Slivers, left carelessly on the desk. As Skulks exited the room, those Slivers were conspicuous by their absence and one of the Wielder’s pockets was fractionally heavier than it had been moments before.

  A flight of stairs led downwards into the shop below and Skulks could hear words and laughter drifting upwards as Captain Honey played her role immaculately.

  “Oh Turgos, you’re silly,” Skulks heard her say, as she did her best to keep the man charmed.