Fantastic Metropolis

“I had thought you must be decorating a gallows by now,” she said. Their old foe, General Anforth and his Army of Heroes, liked leaving enemies alive no more than Gwynn did.

Gwynn cocked an eyebrow. “I? A jig was never my favourite dance, you know.”

Raule heard less bravado than self-mockery in his words. Having become famous, or at least infamous, Gwynn had always professed amusement at the disparity between the grandeur that myth demanded of a famous man’s life and death, and the bathos and indignities that actual circumstances tended to force upon both.

“Is Anforth still after you? I can’t imagine he’s given up,” said Raule.

“Oh, he never will. The old bulldog pursues me as ardently as ever. He’s made me worth a fortune. If only one could buy shares in oneself, I could be a rich man. You must have been keeping well to the backblocks if you haven’t seen my face on a reward notice lately.”

“I’m afraid I’ve dropped out of the social circuit.”

The unpleasant smile crossed Gwynn’s face again. “I’ve heard all the parties are deserted this year. Even people of quality only want to hobnob with the lynch mob of an evening. I take it you’re doctoring in this territory?”

“Around and about. There’s enough work.”

“Of the paying kind?”

“No, not really.”

In fact, Raule was close to destitution. Few of the people she treated had the means to pay for her services with anything more than a night’s shelter and a frugal meal. When they did manage to scrape up a little money, she couldn’t always bring herself to take it. Not wanting to dwell on the subject of her poverty, she asked Gwynn whether he had news of anyone else.

“I saw Casvar at Flat Mountain,” he answered. “He was rotting in a cave, with gangrene in a broken leg. He asked me to do the decent thing, and I obliged him. In Quanut I saw a grave with Red Harni’s name on the marker. Have you seen anyone?”

“Evoiry, a few months back. He was selling firewood at a souk. He looked all right.”

Gwynn nodded. His left hand fingered the hilt of his sword. Raule’s eyes went to it. Gwynn had brought it with him from the north. It was of Maghian manufacture and its true name was Heron’s Wing Scythes Over A Mountain Lake, but Gwynn had given it another name in his native Anvallic: Gol’achab, meaning Not My Funeral.

Raule noticed that the gemstones which had decorated the hilt were no longer there. Gwynn saw her looking. “Some time ago I traded all that rock-candy for a few necessities,” he volunteered. “She might have lost her beauty, but she still works, and she saves me bullets from time to time.”

Raule glanced in the direction of the late innkeeper. “Was that one?”

“No.” Gwynn stepped back and nudged one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. “This fellow took exception to something the man said, and was somewhat over-enthusiastic in his response.” Looking down at the corpse, he shook his head. “Poor bastard. His nerves were wound up like piano wires. I never saw him look happy. Life must have been a burden to him.”

“They all must have been pretty high-strung, to get in a four way firefight over cards,” Raule commented.

“I dare say.”

“What are your plans, then?”

Gwynn walked past her. “Sleep. I want to leave at nightfall.” He disappeared outside, and shortly returned with a sack. He took off his gloves and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and began stripping the corpses and gathering up what money had escaped drowning in the blood on the floor. Raule left him to it and went out into the comparatively fresh air. She squatted on her heels under the palm tree, surveying the street, where the oldtimers slumbered on. I know how they feel, she thought.

In a while, Gwynn came up from the back yard, gloves tucked in his belt, shaking water off his hands.

Raule crossed her arms behind her head, and yawned. “Well, I don’t think anyone here will try to arrest you.”

Gwynn took a long, yellow-grey cigarette and a box of matches out of his waistcoat pocket. He struck a match on the metal wall, lit up and inhaled deeply. “A pity,” he said, “to have to leave this place…”

“I don’t know. I think I’m ready for somewhere quieter.”

“I know of a nice graveyard.”

Raule gave a little smile. The grave would come soon enough. She asked which way Gwynn was going. He said east. She told him she was going west and south.

He pointed his cigarette at the buildings over the street. “There’s no work for you here, then?”

Raule shrugged. “I saw a dog in need of a wooden leg.” She cocked her head towards the doorway. “Who were those men, anyway?”

“Some fellows I travelled with for a few days. They weren’t the best company.”

Gwynn moved away and took the four camels off the rail and around to the back. Raule lifted her mount’s saddle off its hump, then sat down on the porch and stretched her legs out. The three-legged dog appeared again and trekked back over the street. Raule fanned flies away. It crossed her mind that the bodies indoors ought to be buried. They would spread disease.

That might be good for business.

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K. J. Bishop’s The Etched City is published by Prime Books.