by Max Anthony
Suddenly there were more sounds and the sensation of movement, as if the heavy metal bin was somehow being moved from its usual position. Attempting once more to make a pyramid, the mini-necromancers struggled with balance, owing to the shaking and rocking of the bin as it was transported to a new location.
After a time, the feeling of lateral movement ceased, to be replaced by a sensation of weightlessness. This weightlessness passed quickly, being exchanged for a jarring contact with something initially hard, but then yielding. The collective puzzlement within the bin become a feeling of understanding as cold water from the Ten Dams River found its way in through the gaps around the lid. Efforts to escape were resumed and this time the necromancers found they were able to reach the lid of the bin and they exerted themselves to lift it free. These efforts were in vain, for the lid had been locked firmly into place, providing no possibility of escape whatsoever.
As the bin sank thirty feet to the bottom of the Ten Dams, the necromancers trapped inside were left to contemplate the bleak future of being stuck under water in a bin for a possible eternity. The nature of their spawning meant they were incapable of death by drowning and they were also incapable of death through starvation or boredom, which was fortunate for them since they had a lot of boredom to look forward to.
Leaving the remaining mini necromancers to glumly contemplate their fate, Skulks left the Downriver Docks and made haste to the Chamber Building before Zera Graves could accost him with any more of her tricks.
Sixteen
Back at his office, Skulks found Jake the Headcracker had been well looked after. This was not surprising, because Jake was generally an affable fellow and had an appreciation of other people. Skulks had a respect for other people, though not always their property, but Jake the Headcracker had that something about him which made him more naturally likeable. This was surprising - usually men who were nearly seven feet tall and similarly broad tended to attract unwanted attention. Men with such large builds were often the target of much smaller men looking to prove their worth by antagonising and goading them into fights. Not so Jake the Headcracker, who mostly got on well with everyone, particularly Tan Skulks. When Skulks returned, Jake was propped up comfortably in a chair and looked content.
“You’re looking a bit worse for wear,” he said to Skulks in his deep voice.
“I have been attacked by an army of mini necromancers and by a troop of human spiders!” said Skulks indignantly. If he was expecting sympathy, he was to be disappointed.
“Stop your complaining,” said Jake. “You sound like an old man with piles. Look at me without arms or legs. You don’t hear me making a song and dance about it, do you? And what’re you wearing that silly hat for? And is that a smoking pipe? You’ve never smoked in your life!”
Skulks shrugged off the implied criticism of his fashion sense, but put the hat and smoking pipe casually to one side as if he’d decided of his own free will that he no longer required them. He looked closely at Jake. “I see your arms and legs have grown back a bit.”
“Yes, they have. They serve a good steak here – I feel stronger with each bite. I’ll be on my feet again before you know it!”
“Please get a move on with it!” Skulks admonished him. “I’ll need a drink after all of this!” Realising that there was important business to attend to, Skulks dragged his brain away from thoughts of foaming ale. “Have you seen Captain Honey?” he asked.
“She’s got a lot on her plate,” said Jake. “She had to go to the army’s barracks. I think she’ll be back soon. You like her, don’t you?”
Skulks almost jumped at this, for Jake’s words had circumvented the mental walls he’d erected to hide from himself this possibility. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“She’s competent, dangerous and clever. Everything that you are not.”
Skulks was denied the opportunity to respond to this verbal barb by the arrival of their conversation’s subject.
“Captain Skulks!” said Captain Honey. “How did it go?”
Skulks cleared a momentary and unexpected blockage in his throat with a loud ahem. “I found Zera Graves at the Scurtle and Sons International Brewery - as the lady from the Blackened Crumpet suggested. Graves had concealed on herself a number of potions which I suspect she was going to administer to the vats of ale. Had she gone unnoticed, it would not have been long before tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Hardened’s citizens had imbibed a quantity of her concoction!”
“Good work, Tan,” Captain Honey told him.
Skulks reached into his pockets and took out the three potions he’d stolen from Zera Graves, along with the bag of powder and the original potion which had started it all. As he was drawing them forth, the stolen spectacles, earrings and navel stud fell onto the table as well.
“I seem to have stolen a few things besides,” he admitted nonchalantly.
Captain Honey held the two identical potions, one in each hand. “From what we’ve seen of their effect on my mother and Chamber Member Spout, we can assume that they would have put everyone into a state of permanent slumber,” she stated. “But what about these two other potions?” she wondered.
“Want me to open them up and have a sniff?” asked Skulks.
“NO!” came the quick answer from both Captain Honey and Jake.
“What about this powder, then? I could have a little taste of it? Or do either of you have an unwanted pet I could sprinkle it onto?”
Skulks thought these were eminently practical suggestions, so it was lucky that Captain Honey had much more common sense. “I think we should probably leave the powder alone as well, Tan,” she told him fondly, knowing his preference for action, however reckless it might be.
Common sense is a wonderful thing, however in many cases it could be described as a little bit boring. Captain Honey was definitely not boring and was capable of talking excitedly and animatedly about a number of varied and interesting topics, but she was careful when the situation demanded it. Tan Skulks, emboldened by his Wielder’s powers and an in-built affection for the chaotic was rarely careful. As such, while Captain Honey was speaking the words “leave the powder alone”, Skulks was withdrawing a large pinch of the fine red dust and sprinkling it on the back of his hand. When no reaction was forthcoming, a despondent Skulks rubbed it vigorously over his flesh and watched as it started to congeal into a paste, though there was no fluid present to precipitate this reaction.
“What are you doing, Tan?” asked Captain Honey.
Feeling likely a guilty child, Skulks quickly hid his hand behind his back. “I’m not doing anything. Please proceed with what you were saying,” he told her. He could now feel a burning sensation and he tried to surreptitiously rub the powder away on the back of his trousers. Captain Honey and Jake looked at Skulks with varying degrees of concern, their eyes drawn to the thick plume of smoke rising from behind him.
Jake the Headcracker chortled. “What’ve you done now?” he asked. “You can’t be trusted with anything, can you?”
The time to act like nothing had happened was gone and Skulks flapped his arm in the air, worried in case the powder was about to set his flesh alight. The burning pain had become quite intense.
“Water!” he cried. “Get me some water!”
Before any water could be drawn, the smoke stopped billowing from Skulks’ hand and the pain subsided. However, the powder hadn’t finished its work and as Skulks studied the area he’d administered it, he noticed his skin starting to bubble and foam. Tiny skin-coloured droplets formed, which slid over the back of his hand, before falling to the floor. Where each drop landed, there was more frothing and foaming and in front of their very eyes, something expanded and grew, gradually taking on a new shape.
Although fascinated, Skulks was a practical man and he trod on the first of these growths, confident that nothing good was likely to come from whatever was happening. The growth was tough and he had to press down firmly in order to squash it
completely. As if aware of the danger, the remaining two growths expanded rapidly in size, taking on the shape of something distinctly human.
“Should I stab them, do you think?” asked Captain Honey, also transfixed by what was happening.
Before an answer was forthcoming, the two shapes ceased their expansion, taking on familiar features.
“They are replicas of me!” exclaimed Skulks happily, his mind already giddy with the thoughts of what mischief he could enact with two smaller versions of himself to act as decoys.
Skulks was correct and a few moments later, two knee-high versions of himself stood in the middle of his office, blinking as if their eyes were adjusting to the light. Their eyes were not like those of a normal person, being the same jet-black orbs of the mini Zera Graveses that Skulks had so recently defeated.
“I can see your todger!” exclaimed Jake. He bellowed with laughter, for the knee-high Skulkses were entirely naked.
Faced with the opportunity to talk to a replica of oneself, what words would one first say? Surely even the wisest of ladies or gentlemen would stumble for a moment over the possibilities before uttering something particularly banal. So it was with Skulks.
“Fancy coming for a quick mug of ale?” he asked of his smaller selves. “You’ll need to cover up first, though.”
Tentatively, the first mini-Skulks walked towards its larger form. It looked around as if still adapting to this strange new world into which it had been catapulted. Then, it reached up and punched Skulks squarely in the balls.
“Give it back to us!” it demanded.
Shocked by the trauma to this most sensitive of regions, Skulks gasped in pain. The mini-Skulks aimed another fist at the same place, but Captain Honey got there in time to punch this tiny foe in the side of the head, knocking it straight to the ground. Captain Honey knew how to throw a good punch and the mini-Skulks was dazed by the impact, but still managed to regain its feet. Not for long did it remain standing, because Captain Honey followed up her punch with a sword thrust through its chest. The blade passed clean through, continued into the wooden frame of the desk and stuck there, with the skewered mini-Skulks kicking feebly.
“Stop it! Quickly!” shouted the voice of Jake. Skulks and Honey were just in time to see the second mini-Skulks grab two of the potions from the desk, at which point it vanished.
Skulks was not to be fooled by this disappearing act. He saw his cloaked self sprint across the office floor, heading for the open window. Skulks attempted to give chase, but a badly-placed rug skidded out from beneath him when he tried to accelerate. As he watched from the floor, the mini-Skulks jumped from the window with its two stolen potions. By the time Skulks and Honey got there, the thief had vanished amongst the shrubbery of the Chamber Building gardens.
Ever a cheery fellow, Jake bestowed his wisdom upon those present in the room.
“Never trust a thief,” he said, hugely amused by what had happened.
Seventeen
“Whatever are we to do?” wailed Skulks in an unusually melodramatic fashion as he and Honey stood next to the desk, surveying their losses. The mini-Skulks had managed to steal the original potion and one of the other two which had unknown purposes.
“We can be fairly sure that one of the two stolen potions is meant to afflict sleep upon as many of Hardened’s citizens as Zera Graves can manage. Hence her recent attempts at the Scurtle and Sons International Brewery.” So spoke a woman’s voice of reason. “Therefore,” Captain Honey continued, “we must assume that she will attempt to do something similar once she gets the potion back again.”
“If only Chibbles were here still,” said Skulks.
“Chibbles?” queried Jake.
“My clockwork monkey. It would track down this vile potion thief I am sure!”
“Can you make another Chibbles?” asked Captain Honey, once more cutting through the veils obscuring their chances of recovering the potion.
“I’m not sure,” admitted Skulks. “I don’t have any of the components I need to construct another Chibbles. It would likely take me some time to find a craftsman to make all of the pieces again.”
“Does it have to be another monkey?” asked Honey. “Could you make a Chibbles from the parts you might have lying around? It doesn’t have to look perfect - it only has to track down the potion.”
Captain Honey was asking difficult questions and Skulks was not used to being asked difficult questions. However, he was eager to please and also eager to impress, so he didn’t want to come across as a man who accepts failure and gives up at the first hurdle. He opened his mouth and performed a wonderful trick whereby a hidden and underused part of his mind accessed his tongue directly, ignoring the part of his brain that might have put obstacles in its way.
“Well…it would need to be able to see. And hear, I suppose.” He strode with purpose to the chest of precious items originally stolen by Chibbles. “This monocle might do for an eye,” he said, putting it on his desk.
Jerry the Ratchet’s hearing trumpet was still where he’d left it some days ago, also on the desk. “This trumpet might work as an ear.” Skulks looked pleased with himself as he gained in confidence. “All we need now is a pair of legs and arms.” He suddenly had an idea and strode around the desk to where his simulacrum was dangling with Captain Honey’s sword through its chest. Its legs had stopped kicking now and it was still.
“You’re not seriously suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” asked Jake.
Skulks was indeed suggesting what Jake thought he was suggesting. He tugged the sword from the desk and let the tiny body slide from the blade onto the floor. He gave it a kick to reassure himself that it was dead. It was.
Hesitating only slightly, as one might when asked to perform butchery on a dead version of oneself, Skulks used Captain Honey’s sword to cut the head from the body. It rolled away, bloodless.
Working feverishly now, like a mad surgeon performing beyond the confines of human limitations, Skulks reached onto his desk and pulled down a blue-rimmed saucer, upon which a cup of Ko-Chak hotleaf had once stood. He dropped the monocle onto the saucer and positioned the hearing trumpet next to it, before he dragged the headless body into position nearby. Now his Wielding took over, treating the objects before him as if they were mechanical locks. The monocle clinked as it adhered to the saucer and the hearing trumpet slid across the floor, making a creaking sound as one end flattened against the back of the saucer. Finally, the makeshift head moved into position over the headless body, whereupon it forced itself to embed into the dead flesh.
As Honey and Jake watched aghast, this wretched half-golem twitched and spasmed, before lurching to its feet. It wobbled slightly but was otherwise motionless, with the saucer face pointed directly at Captain Honey as if it were looking at her. If Skulks had been pressed on the matter, he’d have said that his creation possessed an air of satisfaction as it stared at the captain of Hardened’s army. Captain Honey blushed, though the light of the room was poor enough that it avoided notice.
“Why didn’t you just use the perfectly good head that was already attached to its neck?” asked Jake.
Skulks didn’t know - it had just seemed like a good idea at the time to use the saucer. “I think that the head might have been under the control of Zera Graves,” he blurted, winging it. The answer seemed to satisfy and Jake nodded.
“It looks a bit shit though, doesn’t it?” said the Headcracker. “And what about a nose? Does it need a nose?”
“Chibbles didn’t have a nose,” said Skulks defensively. “So I don’t think this one needs a nose.”
“You can’t name this thing Chibbles. What’re you going to call it?” asked Jake.
“Does it need a name?” asked Captain Honey, hoping to avert a drawn-out conversation on the subject. She was a quick learner and already knew how these two Wielders could get distracted easily.
“Saucer Face,” said Skulks with finality. “It shall be called Saucer Face.”
If Saucer Face was pleased to be thus dubbed, it did not celebrate with a smile or a backward flip.
Recalling what he’d learned during his earlier experiences with Chibbles, Skulks cast the spell of spell re-tracking, taking great care to ensure that Saucer Face would know that it was tracking down the creations of Zera Graves, rather than unearthing evidence of Skulks’ own crimes. Though Skulks was not aware, the situation was less straightforward than he’d hoped, for necromancers didn’t use magic as it was conventionally recognized. Nor was the fleeing, potion-stealing mini-Skulks strictly speaking a creation of Zera Graves, having spawned from the flesh of the original Skulks. In addition to this, the stolen potions were not really Skulks’ most treasured possessions, with that honour going to his dagger-swords, followed by his boots and then his trousers. Nevertheless, Skulks’ Wielding took the scrambled raw materials it had been presented with and filled in the gaps where necessary.
Pausing for not a moment, Saucer Face made a bolt for the window, little legs whirring across Skulks’ office floor. Following it, Skulks bade Jake and Captain Honey to look after the remaining potions and headed out of the window after it. Captain Honey felt slightly relieved that Saucer Face was no longer staring at her, but also aggrieved that she would not be of much use if she attempted to keep up with Skulks and his freakish pet.
Skulks ran through the Chamber Building gardens. Saucer Face was very fast. Its small size also gave it an enormous agility, which allowed it to dart around the few people who remained out for a late-evening stroll. As it ran, it flickered in and out of view, using Skulks’ own Wielder’s skills to help it remain unseen. It was good, but even on the run Skulks was able to make out flaws in Saucer Face’s methods. A powerful necromancer Zera Graves may have been, but her powder was unable to copy perfectly the abilities of a Wielder.