The Corpse-Rat King

by Lee Battersby

  “Now where,” the dead soldier asked as he lifted them from the ground and turned them towards the suddenly silent multitudes, “do you think you’re going?”

  Marius searched desperately through a mind suddenly bereft of witty rejoinders, and settled for mute acceptance of his fate. He allowed himself to be dragged to the small space at the feet of the King and deposited in an untidy heap. He sat still, staring up at the ceiling, until a crowned skull leaned into his vision and tilted in polite enquiry.

  “Care to join us?” Scorbus asked, in a voice so polite Marius could hear the sword swinging down towards the back of his neck. He rubbed at the tingling skin just under his hairline.

  “Majesty,” he managed.

  Scorbus leaned back against his rude throne, and bid him rise with a languid wave of his hand. Marius stared at him. That’s the difference, he thought. He’s a skeleton, held together by Gods know what, not an ounce of flesh or sinew to his name, with a bent gold bracelet around his forehead and rags on his back, sitting on a pile of shit that looks like it’s been slapped together by a class of blind orphans, and still he looks like a king. He shook his head in mute amazement. No wonder he conquered the world before he was thirty.

  “Gentlemen,” Scorbus said, and Marius became aware of Gerd standing silently at his shoulder. “We are indebted to you. Our first act as Lord of this realm is to grant you a boon.” He interlaced his fingers, and placed them before his jaw. “Ask me one thing, and I shall grant it.”

  Marius blinked, stared around him. How many dead surrounded him? How much gold in their rotting teeth, how many grave goods filtering down through the soil to lie in piles in hidden chambers of this endless warren? How much could he carry with all his dead strength? He had barely begun to calculate when Gerd cleared his throat, and spoke.

  “Please, sire,” he said, in a voice that reminded Marius just how young the boy was. “I’d like to go home.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Marius closed his eyes, yet still, somehow, knew that Scorbus was nodding.

  “I cannot restore your life to you, young master. I am but a conduit to God. I do not share his powers.”

  “I know sire. I just… I just want to go home.”

  “Very well. I release you from my service. Now…”

  Marius kept his eyes closed, aware of the countless gazes fixed upon him, two ageless, empty sockets in particular.

  “I was told I’d get my life back.”

  The room became very still. The dead can become unseemingly still when the need arises. Marius waited. After several long, uncomfortable seconds, he frowned, and nodded once.

  “Fuckers,” he whispered, very softly. He pictured the stupid boy beside him, with all the riches of the dead his for the asking and all he wanted was…

  “Fuck you, then,” he said at last, opened his eyes, and glanced angrily at his young companion. “I want the same.”

  “So be it.” Scorbus stood, and clapped his bony hands together. “Clear a space!” he commanded. The crowd parted, leaving an empty circle around the throne. Scorbus stepped down from his makeshift throne and indicated the roof above.

  “Go with our thanks,” he said.

  The soldier appeared once more at Marius’ side.

  “Need any help, sir?” he asked, sarcasm thick in his voice. Marius smiled, the nasty little smirk of someone who has won when he shouldn’t have and knows the other side was robbed.

  “Don’t worry.” He stepped away and looked up at the roof overhead. “I’ve learned a thing or two about being dead.” He raised his hands above his head, palms outwards, closed his eyes and concentrated.

  The earth above him remained still. Someone at the back of the crowd giggled. A small pebble fell from the roof and bounced from Marius’ forehead. After another minute or so he opened one eye, then another, then dropped his arms and sighed.

  “I don’t suppose anyone wants to give me a hand up?”

  Several volunteers stepped forward and thrust him overhead. Marius dug into the roof with his fingertips, and glanced back at the assemblage below.

  “I’d say go to hell,” he said, as those at the outer edge of the crowd began to drift off into the dark. “But, you know…”

  Those still gathered made no response. Marius set his face forward and began to dig for the surface.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The night was cold and still. The pauper’s graveyard outside the walls of Scorby City was as empty as anywhere else that had nothing to steal and no chance of witnessing a good street fight. Only the sound of a passing owl on the hunt broke the silence. Toward the back of the graveyard, a mound of dirt without a headstone began to shiver.

  A dirt-encrusted finger broke through, then another, and another. Soon, an entire hand cleared the grave’s confines. A twin followed it, and they flapped around until slowly, with inexorable effort, they drew out the arms to which they were attached. It took another fifteen minutes of frantic activity before Marius pulled himself chest-deep out of his hole. When he was finally able to rest and look about, he was not amused.

  “You could bloody help, you know.”

  Gerd smiled from his perch atop a nearby grave and leaned back against its simple stone.

  “And deny you the satisfaction of your victorious exit?”

  “Very… fucking… funny.” Marius wiggled another inch closer to freedom. “I am going to slap the smartarse right out of you when I get out of here.” He looked down at himself. “If I get out of here.” He leant forward on one elbow and raised his other arm. “Please?”

  “Ah well,” Gerd rose and dusted himself off. “If you insist.”

  He grasped Marius’ hand, and together they succeeded in hauling him out of his predicament. They fell onto the ground, rolling over to gaze up at the stars.

  “How did you get here so fast, anyway?” Marius eventually asked. Gerd waved his hands in front of his face.

  “I am the dead,” he intoned in his best “scary ghost” voice.

  “Ha ha. Seriously.”

  “Seriously.” Gerd placed his hands behind his head and made himself comfortable. “It just comes to me, you know? Like a skill you get.”

  “A skill I could have used.”

  “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  Marius sighed. “I’m not, actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marius sat up, and examined the back of his hands as they hung loosely over his raised knees. “You are dead, and I’m sorry about that, I really am. But the thing is, I’m not. Oh, I know…” He raised one hand and waved it at Gerd, showing the white and withered flesh in the moonlight.

  “But didn’t they say…?” Gerd nodded at the open grave.

  “Yeah. They did.” Marius set his jaw. “I don’t have to listen to them. It’s like… remember I told you I spent three months imitating a eunuch at the court of the Caliphate of Taran?”

  “Um, yeah?”

  “Well, the only way I could get away with it, the only way I could make anyone believe I was a eunuch, was if I believed it as well. It’s something that Jemefie, my first acting master, told me. It’s easy to take an audience along with you when you’re on stage. But if you want them to have faith in you after they’ve left the tent then you have to believe yourself.”

  “So you believe you’re dead, is that it?”

  “No.” Marius concentrated, and his hand filled out in response, growing more pink as blood rushed in to fill expanding capillaries. “But the mob down there,” he tilted his head at the ground, “They have faith in their own deaths. They made me believe in mine, made me forget that I belong with the living. Thing is,” he concentrated again, and watched his hand shrivel and die, then blossom once more into life, “look what I can do now.” He smiled, and even though his face was ruddy and in the bloom of health, Gerd saw something dead lurking just below the surface, and shuddered. “I can make myself believe anything, as long
as I need to.”

  Gerd sat up. “What now, then”

  “What am I going to do with this?” Marius examined his hand, “I don’t know.”

  “No, I mean, what are you going to do at all?”

  Marius stared over the simple headstones, away from the open earth at their backs.

  “Good question. What about you? Back downstairs with our friends?”

  Gerd grimaced. “I don’t think so.”

  “You have a choice?”

  “Well,” Gerd smiled. “In all the excitement of the new king, and your hilarious exit, nobody thought to wonder about what my release from service actually meant. So I guess I can do as I will, hey?” He leaned back, and stared at the sky. “Granny’s going to die, soon. She knows it, too, that’s why she wants me with her. I’m the only family she’s got. I’ll be there when she goes, then I’ll be ready. Meet her below, help her adjust, show her around. That sort of thing.” He stood, and turned to get his bearings. “The mountains are that way.”

  Marius followed his finger, and nodded.

  “The opposite direction to Borgho City.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.” They sat, staring at the blue line of the horizon, until Gerd eventually stirred.

  “So…”

  Marius sighed. “Yeah. Keth. I should probably, you know…”

  “Tell her you love her. Make things up to her.”

  “Yeah. You know…”

  “Do the right thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Buy her that place you talked about.”

  “Yeah.” Marius closed his eyes, pictured himself at the window of a little cabin, a big, fat ginger cat under his fingertips. Keth walked towards him across the open fields, her hair swinging loose in the breeze, smiling, arms full of fruit for dinner. “That actually sounds good.”

  “Get a job.”

  “Hey?” Marius’ eyes snapped open. “Steady on,” he said, clambering to his feet. “No need to go too far.”

  “Well,” Gerd joined him. “How then?”

  Marius threw his arm around Gerd’s shoulder, and turned him towards the distant city. “There’s a running game at Big Nessie’s, just under the dock fronts. Guys who’ve been at sea for two years and big idiot merchants with more money than card sense. I can work up a stake on the way there. In fact,” he took a few steps, guiding Gerd with his arm, “If I had an off-sider, a stooge, if you like…”

  “Partner.”

  “Yeah, sidekick, who wanted to split the takings…”

  “Partner.”

  “Yeah, like I said…”

  Talking fit to wake the dead, Marius steered his partner down the long road to Borgho City.

  About The Author

  Lee Battersby was born in Nottingham in 1970, departing from a snow-covered city in 1975 directly to a town on the edge of Australia’s largest desert. In November. He’s only just now beginning to recover from the culture shock. He doesn’t like to take credit for it, but there’s nothing to suggest that Angry Robot would have set up shop in town only a mere 30-odd years later had he stayed.

  Lee is the author of over 70 stories in Australia, the US and Europe, with appearances in markets as “Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror”, “Year’s Best Australian SF & F”, and “Writers of the Future”. A collection of his work, entitled “Through Soft Air” from Prime Books. He’s taught at Clarion South and developed and delivered a six-week “Writing the SF Short Story” course for the Australian Writers Marketplace. His work has been praised for its consistent attention to voice and narrative muscle, and has resulted in a number of awards including the Aurealis, Australia Shadows and Australia Sf ‘Ditmar’ gongs.

  He lives in Mandurah, Western Australia, with his wife, writer Lyn Battersby and an increasingly weird mob of kids. He is sadly obsessed with Lego, Nottingham Forest football club, dinosaurs and Daleks. He’s been a stand-up comic, tennis coach, cartoonist, poet, and tax officer in previous times, and he currently works as Arts Officer for a local council, where he gets to play with artists all day. All in all, life is pretty good.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Lyn and the kids for understanding and allowing me the space and time to write, and not rolling their eyes when I was banging on and on and on about the damned book. To Amanda, Lee and Marc at Angry Robot for steering the book through to publication, and Darren for all the cool promo and web grooviness. To my agent Richard Henshaw, for making me rich and powerful so that I can kill minions by the millions without having to fill out a single tax form. Big callout to the Anxious Appliances, and to Chuck McKenzie, with whom I struck a deal waaaaay back in 2002. Here it is, Chuck: How do you make a hormone? Put sawdust in her Vaseline! To my beta-readers – Adam, Kim, Greg, Miffy and David. Can't wait to kill you in the sequel, guys! Big props to all those brilliant Oz SF people who have held my hands, patted my head, told me to shut the fuck up and write, and been friends every step of the way, especially Kate Eltham, Tehani Wessely, Stephen Dedman, Adrian and Michelle Bedford, Dave Luckett, and Paul Haines (Miss you, buddy). Lastly, to my wife Lyn and this kids. I know I've already mentioned them, but they're worth a second call out. Love you, my fambly. If you're still reading this, why not drop into the Battersblog and tell me your dirtiest joke. I need one for the sequel's acknowledgement page…

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