by Sam Hooker
“The Serpents do not make mistakes,” said Grumley. “Your son is the Soul, and Mrs. Knife is the Eye of the Serpent.”
If anger is the stormy sea of the emotional spectrum, then the tantrum is the unspeakable behemoth that should be sleeping at the bottom of it. Constantin unleashed his inner child, who had grown up with as many silver spoons as it could fit in its mouth, and had never once quietly accepted a limitation. His eyes went black and his voice did the same low-register rumble that Willie’s had before. The behemoth, it seemed, had awoken before naptime was up.
“Who would deny me,” Constantin snarled, “you? You haven’t got the—”
Constantin was still shouting, but suddenly he was doing it in silence.
“I have, in fact.” Grumley was holding a single finger up toward Constantin. It was the “shush” finger, not the lascivious one that was tantamount to waving goblins in. “Now, is Lord Hapsgalt’s financier here, at least?”
“Yes,” said Sloot, surprising himself at his lack of hesitation in answering. That settles it, he supposed to himself. Nothing as trivial as death could release him from his duty.
“Good,” said Grumley. “Let’s sit you down with Schweinegesicht and Schlangenkessel. We need to get you up to speed.”
There is a common misconception among the living that death is the end of it. Go vigorously onto the business end of a sword, wear the colors of a west-end boulderchuck team into an east-end pub, or simply hang around long enough for your organs to start switching off, and that’s the end of the line.
On the contrary, there is such a thing as death for the dead. No one is really sure how long it takes, but eventually, each and every ghost withers away and ceases to be.
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” said Hans Schweinegesicht, financier to Constantin’s mother, the late Otthilda Hapsgalt. Sloot had seen portly men with upturned noses in life, but none were so intrinsically porcine as Hans. He looked as though he’d stood up from the slop trough on his hind legs, put on a suit, and sallied forth in pursuit of an accounting degree.
“Isn’t it?” asked Geralt Schlangenkessel, financier to the late Constantin Hapsgalt. He looked a lot like Sloot, who recognized him as a fellow worrier right off the bat. A lot of them ended up in the accounting profession, owing to its steady pay and low-risk lifestyle. (Financiers to leaders of sinister cults aside, of course.)
Hans shook his head, his meaty jowls swaying in an off-putting way. “Of course not. I mean, ghosts wither away, but that’s no more the end than the first death was!”
“Oh,” said Geralt, “I didn’t know. I’ve only been dead since Lord Wilhelm’s wedding.”
“Ah,” said Hans. “The Fall of Salzstadt! Terrible tragedy.”
“The what?” Geralt and Sloot exclaimed in unison.
“The Fall of Salzstadt,” repeated Hans with a partially exasperated air. It had a giddy undertone that said hooray, I never get to do exasperated! “Everyone’s talking about it, you must have heard.”
“Nonsense,” said Geralt. “I know things got a bit messy, but fallen? Salzstadt? It’s simply not possible. The Domnitor wouldn’t hear of it, long may he reign.”
“Long may he reign,” echoed Sloot. “Hear, hear!” Even in death, and despite secretly having been a Carpathian his entire life, Sloot Peril was a true salt of the Old Country, through and through. He wasn’t about to sit there and listen to such seditious talk.
“Long may he reign,” said Hans, but with a bored sort of obeisance that revealed his heart wasn’t in it. It was the reflexive response of having said it countless times during life, unlike Sloot, who still felt a swell of pride every time. It was perhaps more like a swell of subservience that had been ground into his psyche by draconian propaganda over the course of his cut-short life, but Sloot didn’t have the wherewithal to tell the difference.
“Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Hans continued, his toothy grin betraying his glee, “but the news is everywhere! Besides, what do you care? You both lost your lives in the cathedral. Your head popped off, didn’t it, Peril?”
“Did it?”
“That’s what I heard.”
Geralt squirmed with indignation. “That’s beside the point. I was a loyal and true salt my whole life! It’s not like that changes just because I was trampled by a horde of the walking dead.”
“No.” Hans sighed. “Our old loyalties follow us into death, hence we all still work for one Hapsgalt or another.”
“Then my faith remains in mighty Salzstadt! I’ll not hear any more seditious talk about it falling.”
“But it’s not disloyal to face facts. Salzstadt has fallen! The dead walk the streets, and every building is positively crawling with goblins. It’s an unmitigated disaster.”
“That can’t be true,” said Geralt.
“You sound like them,” said Hans.
“Who?”
“The people still living in Salzstadt. They’re going about their daily lives as if nothing had happened, even though they’re rubbing elbows with the walking dead every day at the market.”
“If the people of Salzstadt are going about their daily lives,” said Geralt, “then Salzstadt hasn’t fallen. Think of St. Bertha and her mighty broom! The city has crushed the goblins before, and they’ll do it again. The walking dead, too. I’m sure the Domnitor has a plan, long may he reign.”
“Long may he reign,” Sloot repeated.
“Fine,” said Hans. “Long may he reign. Can we get on with it?”
“It should probably wait until after supper at this point, shouldn’t it?”
Hans’ eyebrows twisted in on themselves as he looked askance at Geralt.
“Do try to keep up,” he said. “I know you’re only recently dead, but … well, are you even hungry?”
Like misplaced luggage that had finally been delivered to its owner, Geralt’s face revealed he’d only just realized: the dead don’t eat food.
“Toffee,” he moaned.
“Never again, I’m afraid.”
Sloot didn’t have any specific affinity for food, though he’d become rather fond of Carpathian breakfast toward the end of his life. That was doubly problematic. Not only would he never eat it again, it was treason for a citizen of Salzstadt to enjoy Carpathian anything.
While the recently deceased fretted over their gastronomic losses, Hans caught Sloot up on the only economy that really mattered in the Hereafter, and its precious currency: blood.
“There’s vital energy in blood,” said Hans. “The more you have, the longer you live—or rather last—in the Hereafter. Pool up enough of the stuff, and you could effectively be dead forever.”
“The elder Lord Hapsgalt pooled up loads of it while he was the Eye,” said Geralt. “I imagine he’s set for several millennia.”
“And the younger Lord Hapsgalt?” asked Hans.
“What about him?”
“Well, he’s been a member of the Order for most of his life. Surely he’s pooled up some blood for his own security.”
“I doubt it,” said Sloot. “Needles make him squeamish.” As well they should, he added silently. In Sloot’s estimation, anything designed to sneak sips of blood out of a perfectly good body couldn’t be trusted.
“Not his own,” said Geralt. He thrust his eyebrows toward the ceiling and leaned toward Sloot, the universal signal to infer with gusto.
“What, you mean murder?”
“Usually, yes,” said Hans. “Oh, you’ve got fellows like Lawrence the Bleeder who was so gentle when he crept in through his victims’ windows that most of them thought they’d simply come down with a mild case of anemia. But he was an artist, you see? Most don’t have that sort of time. A brutal stabbing, then send in a blood wizard to collect the red kroovy. Easy peasy.”
Sloot was of two minds about this, the first of which he considered the normal and proper reaction to having heard such a gruesome scheme. The horror! The rampant villainy! What sort of a world did he l
ive in, where people would murder each other for the sake of staying dead a little longer?
His other mind was surprised only at the first one, for having allowed itself to be shocked by this. After everything he’d learned about the Serpents of the Earth while he was alive, how could he be so naive as to not see this sort of thing coming? Honestly, it was like being shocked to learn that the milkman didn’t pay his cows. Sloot prided himself on being thrifty in all things, and here he was throwing shock around like it grew on trees.
Just as he was coming to grips with all of it, a third mind floated in behind the other two. If he’d managed to leave any worries behind when he died, this would fill in the gaps and then some. He realized that he hadn’t pooled up any vitality, either.
“He’ll have his allowance,” said Geralt. “I know I was counting on that to pad the elder Lord Hapsgalt’s retirement fund, but now he’s not the Soul, is he?”
“Allowance?”
“Think of it like a mutual fund,” said Hans. “A bit of the blood that results from the Order’s basic murder rate will go straight to the Soul.”
“That’s diabolical!”
“Yes, and it’s automatic. You can get Wilhelm’s wizard to cast … oh, I don’t know the name of it. They have a spell that will fetch the current rate for your ledgers.”
“He’s supposed to have a wizard?”
Hans and Geralt exchanged looks that asked, “How did this idiot’s lord become the Soul?” and replied, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Well, how long can one reasonably expect to, er, remain dead without any … income?” asked Sloot.
“He’s asking about himself,” said Geralt.
“Oh,” said Hans. It was the long, downward “oh” that ends in a silent “you poor fool.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,” he continued. “You’ll draw a bit from the Order’s basic murder rate just for being a member, that’s something.”
“I don’t think so,” said Sloot. “I was never actually inducted.”
“Oh.”
A long, uncomfortable silence settled in like a just-divorced uncle who hadn’t seen why he should spring for an attorney. They could safely assume it would linger through the holidays.
The passage of time is a lot more subtle in the Hereafter than in the Narrative. There’s no sun to cycle through the sky, no nights through which to sleep, and not a single clock that Sloot had noticed thus far.
His mother’s watch! He reached into his pocket and fished it out, but it wasn’t ticking. He pushed the button on the top, but the face didn’t open. It was just the memory of the watch, after all, not the thing itself. That was probably beneath his rotting bones in the ruins of the cathedral, beneath the shambling remains of the walking dead.
“So that’s it then,” said Sloot after an indeterminate amount of time. “I’ll be a ghost until I’m nothing.”
“Well, not nothing,” said Hans. “Not necessarily.”
“Something else, then?”
“Well, there’s considerable debate on the topic. Especially among the philosophers.”
As if things weren’t already bad enough, thought Sloot. He knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time before—
“Did someone say philosophy?” Arthur appeared in the doorway, his moustaches standing on end.
Oh, no, thought Sloot. “Please, nobody say any—”
“Hans was just telling us that no one knows whether ghosts are really gone after we fade away.”
Arthur’s eyes were wild, like a lion who hadn’t eaten in a week. Geralt must have resembled a porterhouse.
“Portnoy the Sacrilegious once chained himself to the doors of the cathedral to prove the impossibility of life after death! He was wrong, obviously, but his arguments are sound if applied to life after death after death.”
“Well said, Arthur,” Sloot blurted. “I think that’s all that anyone can—”
“Malarky,” said Hans. “You’re saying there’s nothing beyond the Hereafter, based on a theory that there is no Hereafter?”
“I’ve still got a few more questions—” Sloot began.
“It’s not that simple!” Arthur was pacing around the room and gesticulating wildly. Myrtle had always refused to indulge him in that while he had her possessed. “It makes sense in light of his Treatise on Bedtime Disobedience—which he wrote when he was eight—but only if you understand the finer points of Mauler’s Unticking Clock. I can solve this in … seventeen moves!”
“I’m sure you can,” said Sloot, “but I really need to ask Hans about—”
“I studied Mauler in college,” said Geralt. “The Unticking Clock is a metaphor for the struggle between hunger and apathy. I hardly think it applies—”
“That’s where you’re wrong!”
Sloot wandered off. He could never stomach philosophy for this very reason. Even if you didn’t know anything about Nutter’s Hungry Clock or whatever, you could join in the conversation with your angriest voice. Philosophy, as far as Sloot could tell, was the art of determining who could have the loudest opinion while not doing anything useful.
He wandered through the corridors of the house, unable to shake the feeling of familiarity he kept getting from it. It was unnerving, like a stranger who walks across a crowded room to reassure you that he has no intention of stabbing you.
He’d never been there before, but he definitely had. Sloot was sure it had something to do with the way the Hereafter works. It’s the collective consciousness. Everyone sort of throws their ideas on how everything should look into a hat, and the hat does its best to make everyone happy.
Sloot wondered if anyone was ever happy with the results. It was like how camels were created, only they were trying for a horse.
Sloot walked past a closed door and heard faint weeping coming from it. From behind it, presumably, but then he’d met a sentient door once. He hesitated, and then knocked.
“Yes?”
“Er, sorry,” said Sloot. “Just … is everything all right?”
The door opened abruptly. Nicoleta was standing there with a stiff upper lip, still as drab and grey as everything else.
“It’s just … I don’t know what to do,” she said. Her stiff upper lip started trembling, her face contorted into dramatics, and she fell to the floor in a sobbing heap.
“There, there,” said Sloot, in his best approximation of a comforting tone. His hands went out to comfort her, but he didn’t want to be too familiar. He just sort of patted the air around her, as though he were comforting the giant invisible bubble inside of which she wept.
“Magic doesn’t work here,” she managed between sobs. “I remember all of the incantations, all of the hand-waves and wrist-flicks. I mean, I figured I couldn’t do the ones that need a wand, or a cauldron, or animal bits, but a glittering butterfly doesn’t need any of that. Troloch!” She made a one-hand wavy motion with a wiggling pinky. “See? Nothing!”
Thump.
“That wasn’t nothing,” said Sloot, who shivered for coming so dangerously close to having used a double-negative. He trusted that Nicoleta understood the context.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fairly sure,” said Nicoleta. “I’ve tried casting that spell dozens of times since I got here, and it’s never gone thump before.”
She’d stopped crying, at least. That was something. Between unexplained thumps and having to comfort a crying person, Sloot wasn’t sure which was more terrifying.
Thump. Thump.
“Probably just someone walking around in another part of the house,” said Sloot.
“Think again.”
“What? Oh.” Sloot remembered that he hadn’t taken a single step since he’d died. He had the feet for it, but he wasn’t using them. They just sort of hung there, like a ballerina in mid-jump, while he floated around like a proper ghost. Hopefully there was a rational explanation for the thump sounds, and he’d be ab
le to tell the story later and everyone would have a good laugh. He’d think of a more rugged metaphor for his feet than the ballerina one.
The Circle
“You can’t make me.” The ground shook a bit when Willie spoke. That was a chilling touch, really added an edge to the whole demonic-voice-and-monstrous-visage bit.
Willie’s shouting had drawn Sloot into the spare room where a magic circle had been drawn on the floor. Grumley had sent a wizard over to do it, claiming it would help with Willie’s episodes.
“That’s quite enough of that,” said Nan. “You put your proper face back on this instant.”
“You can’t make me do that, either!” Willie snarled and growled, his forked tongue lashing out from between his long, sharp teeth.
“That’s it,” said Nan, her fingers clenching into fists and relaxing again. “Your proper face had better be back on by the time I count to three, or there will be no story time for you, do you understand?”
“I demand a story! You wouldn’t dare!”
“One.”
There was no air in the Hereafter, so it was just empty space in the room that took on a certain onerous thickness. It was no longer the free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky space in which a carefree ghost might float idly, casually wiling away a sliver of eternity. It had tension now. Tension that you didn’t linger in, and you’d think twice about slouching or shuffling your feet through it. Sloot floated backward a couple of paces.
Unbeknownst to Sloot, Nan was invoking a kind of magic older and deeper than anything in a wizard’s book. It was motherly magic, the sort that transcends time, cultures, even death. At that precise moment, it appeared to have given Willie pause.
“Two.”
“Ugh, fine,” said Willie. His smoky wings and horns evaporated, and his eyes returned to their normal, guileless grey. “But I don’t want to sit in the circle anymore! It’s boring and it feels funny.”
Sloot was grateful for the circle, even if he didn't fully trust Grumley. Willie’s outbursts had become unpredictable of late, and Sloot found himself longing for the days when he could see them coming. Being made to wait until the end of a meal for dessert was sure to bring one on, or challenging his expertise in footwear.