The Incorruptibles

by John Hornor Jacobs

  We mounted the steps to the Croesus Mining Company building under the watchful gaze of two over-muscled bullyboys. They did not look happy, but opened the door for Livia and scowled at me as we passed inside.

  It was a beautiful building, white stone, and the interior was accoutred like any affluent counting house or seat of industry in New Damnation or Harbor Town – even Sulla or Novo Ludnum – with dark imported woods, leather chairs, bookcases and filing cabinets filled with tomes and ledgers.

  We were led into a waiting room. The bullyboys remained with us, breathing through their mouths and fingering shotguns. After a few minutes, another brute appeared in the door and waved us back into a small but well-appointed office. The guards withdrew.

  A tall, studious-looking man sat at a large desk littered with papers. His suit-jacket was slung over his chair-back, and his vest looked rumpled. Ink stained his fingers, speckled his cuffs. He was as lean as a harpoon and stared over his spectacles down his long nose at us. He had the officious look of a secretary, bred in the bone.

  Behind him was a large closed door, with a gilt C embossed on its front.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We’re here to see Mr Croesus.’

  He put down his pen, leaned back in his chair. ‘Are you, now? I don’t recall Mr Croesus having any visitors on his schedule.’

  ‘Good.’ Livia smiled ‘Then he shouldn’t be too busy to talk with me.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand, ma’am, but Mr Croesus isn’t a man to have conversations with every passerby. It’s my job to weed out the crackpots and ne’er-do-wells.’

  ‘My message for Mr Croesus is of the utmost importance. I assure you, he will want to speak with me.’

  The man held up his hands in a reasonable gesture. ‘You are a person of means and high-birth, judging from your speech and manner of dress. But why should I allow you access to Mr Croesus? After all, you could have weapons stored about your person and a desire to do him harm. Will you submit to a search?’

  Livia looked disdainful at this – quite an expression on her beautiful face. You never want to be on the receiving end of her scorn. She said, ‘My name is Livia Saturninus Cornelius, daughter of Gnaeus Saturnalius Cornelius, and I am here on Imperial business.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Cornelius, eh? And why would the governor of the Hardscrabble Territories send a woman – however fetching – to our little town, accompanied only by a dvergar servant?’

  Livia sighed and removed her gloves. ‘We came here with more in our company. But one is dead, and another you have incarcerated and intend to hang.’

  The man steepled his fingers and narrowed his eyes. I had the distinct impression that he was enjoying himself. Immensely.

  ‘Ah, the possessed man who destroyed the hotel and killed the guards.’

  ‘Yes. He bears something that is vital to the safety of this region.’

  The man laughed and said, ‘The black hand that we cannot remove?’

  ‘Yes. We are on a mission of the utmost importance.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I think that information would be better suited for Mr Croesus’ ears.’

  He pulled an ornate watch from his vest pocket and checked the time. ‘Very soon, your companion will be hanged by the neck until dead. I suggest you start talking.’

  Livia hesitated only a moment before outlining our mission. She told him of Isabelle, Banty, and the vaettir, the Cornelian locked frozen in a stretch of the Big Rill, miles away from anything else.

  ‘If we cannot reclaim her, there will be full-scale war. I must make sure Mr Croesus understands that even this little town will be drawn into it.’

  The man laughed, throwing back his head and holding his stomach. A full laugh. He was vastly amused. This went on until I thought he might have lost his mind or been drinking cacique. But finally he stopped and began wiping his eyes.

  ‘Oh, gods, that is rich.’ He chuckled again and placed his spectacles back on his long, bladelike nose. ‘You Rumans have fucked things up royally, haven’t you?’ He looked to the atrium. ‘Mykos! Dinus!’

  Two bullyboys popped their heads around the corner. ‘Yes, Mr Croesus?’

  The expression on Livia’s face wasn’t one I’d like to see again. It seems being duped wasn’t high on her favourites list.

  Ia-damn him.

  ‘Take our visitors into custody.’

  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a patrician of high intelligence and fierce motivation curse because she has been thwarted, but it is something very memorable. When she was done, Croesus’ smile had faltered and he looked grim.

  ‘Ah. There’s the Ruman superiority we’ve come to know.’

  He stood up, picked up his jacket from the chairback, and put it on. ‘Fortunately, the cell we have for you has a good view of the gallows.’

  Livia looked like she wanted to throttle the man, and I wondered if she truly did have the shotgun under her dress.

  ‘But why? Why would you want to risk war? Surely that can’t be good for business?’

  He gave a tight smile, opened an ornate box on his desk, and withdrew a cigar. He trimmed the end with a pocketknife, scraped a match on his desk blotter and then stood there puffing on the cigar, getting a good cherry going and filling the room with redolent smoke.

  ‘Well, that’s an interesting speculation, ma’am, but one that’s not quite on the mark.’ He smiled again, but this time there were teeth involved. Seeing the smile, my stomach sank a little. I was reminded of Beleth, and his thousand cuts. ‘I don’t like Rumans. But that alone is not enough reason for me to execute Imperial emissaries, which I am planning to. However I’ll think of something.’ He pointed at Livia and me with the burning tip of the cigar. ‘Once the man is dead, you’ll be dangling shortly after.’

  ‘But why? I demand an answer!’

  ‘You are in no position to demand anything.’ But that smile crossed his features again and he said, ‘War. That’s my favourite word. You know what goes with war? What goes with war in this age of the infernal?’

  He walked around his desk. One of the bullyboys grabbed Livia’s arm. I was wrenched around by the elbow and felt something hard jam into my side – a pistol nose.

  ‘Silver. The whole world will war on – and for – silver.’

  He made a great bow, hand in flourish, his head almost touching the floor. ‘I thank you for the advance warning. We will be well fortified when the first shots are fired. And if I give better rates to the Medierans? Who will know?’

  Livia laughed then, even though her arm being twisted behind her obviously hurt.

  ‘You’re an idiot, Croesus,’ she said, and the scorn, the complete disdain for him, was like acid. ‘If you think you’re going to be allowed to keep this little—’ She wiped the air with her free gloved hand to indicate the building, the town. ‘This pipedream, well, there are three legions between Harbor Town and Fort Brust. And Mediera? They have maybe five hundred men in Passasuego, you fool. The only reason we Rumans haven’t taken this whole land with Hellfire and sword are certain treaties that will mean absolutely shit if Isabelle cannot be recovered. You’ll be overrun and the silver ours.’

  Croesus nodded at his guards, and they hauled us through the waiting room and into the cold air of the street.

  ‘We shall see, ma’am. Unfortunately, you won’t.’ He turned to her guard. ‘Mykos, make sure she has a view of the gallows.’

  It seemed like a long walk, back down the main street to the gallows. Strange how time can stretch when your life is coming to an end. The two guards kept our arms twisted behind our backs quite painfully, and there was no way for Livia to get to her gun, if she even had it.

  I had a short blade I could get to, but to what end? Livia being killed? A bit of Hellfire ripping through my back?


  The jail was built of the same white stone as the Croesus Mining Company building, but it resembled a short squat block, more reminiscent of a legion’s carcer – the army holding cell – than a jail. They led us in and placed us in a cell with a barred window facing the gallows, but not before frisking us. Although they did frisk Livia, either her outraged expression – or their reticence to maul a woman – kept them away from her most private areas. It amazes me that propriety would make even brutes act so stupidly.

  ‘Do you still have your—’ I whispered, leaving the question unfinished. At the front steps of the jail two guards stood with their backs to our cell, looking toward the gathering crowd waiting for Fisk’s hanging.

  Livia didn’t reply but I somehow I got the impression that she did. They had removed all my sharp pointy things.

  We watched the gallows. A single guard accompanied by a swinging noose stood on the upraised platform, holding a shotgun.

  The time stretched out and a dog barked hoarsely into the morning air. The murmur of the crowd increased, and a trio of dirty boys ran around the gallows, swinging sticks. Soon the noise grew – something was happening. But even craning my neck I couldn’t see what was occurring on the street.

  Soon enough, Croesus’ lean figure appeared, along with a brace of guards leading a hooded figure in dusty grey garb. Fisk.

  The murmur of the crowd died, and the mass of folk in front of the gallows parted. Croesus, the guards and Fisk mounted the steps up to the gallows. It was very short work whipping the hood off Fisk’s head and replacing it with the noose.

  Fisk looked drugged and bleary, and I remembered that Titus had brained him good with the cardsharp’s pistol, to the point he feared he might have cracked Fisk’s skull. Fisk was pale, and his mouth was slack.

  But the daemon hand still hung from his neck.

  Croesus walked to the front of the platform and raised his arms as though welcoming the multitude before him to a dance or a dinner.

  ‘My friends,’ he said, his voice loud. He was a politician, born and bred. He infused his tone with goodwill and understanding tinged with regret. ‘I’m sorry you are all gathered here today to witness this. This has to be the worst part of my job as city founder and mayor – the execution of criminals.’

  He bowed his head and appeared overcome with emotion. But when he looked again at the crowd, his face was furious.

  ‘Friends, this man …’ Croesus pointed a finger at Fisk. ‘This monster! He came into our loving town, our beautiful hamlet, and killed! Many of you witnessed his violence at the hotel, saw how he was possessed of some infernal madness.’ He jabbed a long finger at the sky. ‘But I will not allow this to stand! It is my duty to protect you all. And in the course of my investigation into his origins and companions, I discovered a terrible secret! This man has brought with him agents, agents of Rume, working toward the downfall of our beloved town!’

  He looked to the crowd and held out his hands. ‘We happy here. We have good jobs. The Croesus company keeps us all safe from vaettir and the infernal influences of the perverted Ruman Emperor and his engineers and warmongers.’

  He paced the front of the gallows like an intemperate cat stalking the bars of its cage. ‘But this man, this creature of Rume, came among us. To kill. To interrupt the honest flow of industry! And he brought with him conspirators!’

  Croesus’ long finger jabbed at us. Two hundred heads turned as one and stared at Livia and me, framed in the jail window. A woman spat and cursed in a thick tongue. A hunk of muddy ice was chucked at the jailhouse by some hidden crowd member.

  ‘So, today we take a stand. By executing these conspirators, these—’ He paused here, thinking. ‘– these assassins, we take a stand against Rume and all of its corruption and evilness.’

  The crowd turned back to the gallows, and Croesus moved to stand beside the dazed Fisk.

  Livia shook her head, and I saw the tears of rage and frustration in her eyes.

  Croesus put his hand on the lever that would release the gallows trap. A guard cinched the noose to the side of Fisk’s head so that his neck would snap – a small mercy.

  ‘By the power invested in me by the good people of Hot Springs, I do condemn this man to death.’ And then, without any more ceremony, he pulled the lever and Fisk dropped beneath the platform.

  Livia closed her eyes and hit the window casement with her hand. I don’t know what I was feeling then.

  Sorrow, maybe. Anger.

  Everything remained silent. I looked away from Livia and back to the gallows and the dark crowd gathered around it, steaming in the hard, cold air. The wanton boys with sticks had stopped their play, and the townsfolk, far from clapping and exuberant at the hanging, remained utterly still.

  A dog gave one long, painful wail.

  On the gallows, the guards and Croesus peered into the open hole of the trapdoor. Smoke rose.

  I touched Livia on her arm, and with a hoarse voice, said, ‘Miss Livia. Something is happening.’

  She opened her tear-stained eyes and gasped.

  Flames licked up the rope that held the noose and Fisk. Soon the smoke coming from the gallows billowed and the guards and Croesus began calling for water.

  And then townsfolk surrounding the platform began to scream in terror.

  The flaming rope around Fisk’s neck went slack as he rose. Up through the trapdoor he came, rising up in the air, still tethered around the neck, his arms outstretched as though he’d been crucified. Grinning.

  His eyes had vanished, replaced by burning black flames streaming into the air, and he threw back his head and laughed, a booming sound that reverberated off the buildings of Hot Springs, off the slopes of Brujateton. I could feel the vibration of that terrible sound coming through the stonework of the jail floor, shooting through my skeleton. I felt weak, feeling it – weak as though my legs might collapse or my bladder cut loose or I would run gibbering around the cell. It was a sound that blotted out all thought, all reason. A sound like fire, burning away your memory, your kindness, your kinship with your fellow man, and leaving nothing behind except fear and madness and desperation.

  He hung in the air, grinning at the screams of the townsfolk, arms outstretched. There’s nothing left of Fisk now, I remember thinking. He opened his mouth and it was like looking down a well, or the open bore of a shotgun, or the maw of Hell itself.

  The thing that had been my friend and partner Fisk spoke a word, a word I’ve never heard before and I hope I’ll never hear again. It was curdled with hate, twisted by cruelty.

  He spoke in the language of Hell.

  The horror it caused – I can’t do it justice. If his laugh was bad, the sound of that one utterance was a million times worse. I watched as Croesus’ eyes widened and his hair caught on fire. I think I saw the moment when sanity fled him and, even then, could feel some sympathy for the man.

  Even the worst of men didn’t deserve to die that way.

  The guards lifted shotguns and drew six-guns but the weapons would not fire – not against Fisk and the terrible thing he carried with him, carried in him. The men threw down their guns to flee, but it was too late.

  Once the word had been uttered, the flames spread like an explosion. Out from his eyes, out from the open bell of his mouth, out from the burning noose around his neck. Out from the burning daemon hand beneath it.

  Townspeople ignited. They ran to and fro, some dropping to roll in the mud. The gallows became a pillar of fire rising to the heavens, licking at Fisk’s feet as he hung in the air, still with that awful grin splitting his face. The backwash of heat hit me, stinking of brimstone and sulphur and corrupted flesh. The stench of Hell.

  Fisk descended, through the flame and smoke, hovering in the air, his arms still wide in cruciform. His eyes burning incandescent with dark flame. Smoke poured off his body.

  But he smiled.
He smiled.

  And saw us.

  He swept forward, the smoke and flames trailing from him like a robe. Upon his head was a crown of fire and in his hands were a sword of fire and an obsidian sceptre of coalesced smoke.

  And he was so happy.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you two,’ he said. And he raised his sword, bringing it down in a fiery arc.

  There was a tremendous crack, and we – Livia and I – were flung away from the jail wall as it was pulled asunder. Stonework exploded as though it were straw, and the sound was as cacophonous as the world being born into existence from the mind of Ia.

  I never passed out of consciousness, not when Fisk floated through the breach in the jail wall, not when he looked down upon us with eyes so terrible, framed in flame and bearing infernal accoutrements.

  And he laughed.

  ‘We’re running a tad behind schedule, friends,’ he said. ‘I must become whole.’

  My body was lifted up by an unseen hand, and I felt myself moving through the superheated air, out under the sky. The pressure was unbearable and I felt the breath being pushed out of my lungs, my ribs cracking like kindling. In the air I could smell the scent of human flesh burning, hair and clothing and meat all mixed together in a charred greasy odour – fatty and rank and stinking like some charnel house that had caught flame – that clung to my nose and clothes. I opened my eyes. Livia was hanging suspended, too, awake and looking at Fisk with her eyes wide and mouth a grimace.

  I thrashed and squirmed as we floated out and away, past the inferno of gallows, past the burning corpses of the townsfolk, and beyond, to the centre of the main street.

  And then, as we hung ten feet above the slush of the street, Livia threw up her leg, kicking the hem of her dress high. When it fell, she held her shotgun in her hand and had it pointed at Fisk’s face.

  ‘Put us down.’

  Fisk – or the Crimson Man – laughed again. He was having a high old time.

  ‘As you wish, madam,’ he said, and his eyes rolled back in his head.