The Minister's Tale

"What blazing furnace has brightly exploded before the hindquarters of our mild, fresh companion?"

"Yeah," Plin said. "That's about the short of it."

Percy stormed through the stronghold like a bootless mapmaker through the swamp. And, indeed, to his two companions trailing desultorily behind, some unknown danger lay ahead of them, something that with a little time and energy they could protect themselves against.

But they did not have time, though energy seemed to have consumed the young green guard.

"Do you think he genuinely liked that ass?"

"My fair compatriot, were your master to attain corpse-like stature, would you not wish to avenge his passing in whatever fashion was available?"

"You mean, if you died, would I care?"

"Indeed."

"Let me consider that one for a while." Plin stopped, his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. "Hey, Percy. Hold on a minute!"

The mapmaker slowed. "We haven't got time! If the weard-killer reaches the dux, he'll be dead."

"Oh, you underestimate the magnificent lord of this region," Duk said, standing upright and dabbing at his cheeks with a moist towel. "Certainly, a personage who could arise to supreme ruler of Flasten is more than a match for any worthy or unworthy opponent."

"Yeah, give us a break," Plin said. "Besides, no alarm's been raised. That means no one's died."

"But ..."

"This invader would have to get past a dozen guards just to get to the dux," Plin went on. "Think logically. You're a mapmaker, right?"

Percy's brow furrowed, his face growing red. "I'm a weard."

Plin looked at Duk. "I thought we hired a mapmaker, not another magocrat."

Duk's gaze shifted to Percy. "I did as well. Perhaps we were incorrect, Plin. Let us depart, and seek better companionship."

"Indeed," Plin said, in a fair imitation of the magocrat. They turned away.

"Is this going to work?" Duk whispered to him.

"Dunno," Plin said.

They counted to five under their breaths, then heard a scream behind them. Plin kept walking, his back stiff, but Duk's fingers turned him about.

"Look," Plin said agitatedly. "I don't like this situation any better than you."

"Our corps engineered the circumstances of this cacophonic outburst." The magocrat started walking toward the diminishing scream, the mundane in irresistible tow.

"Eh? Seriously, Duk, you're growing a conscience now?" Plin squirmed. "All right, I'll follow. Just let me ... you know, walk solo."

Percy stood just inside the doorway at the end of the hall, hands clawing at his face, brain fighting muscles to keep his eyeballs in their sockets. Duk slapped him from a far, forcefully binding his arms to his sides. Then Plin and Duk saw what had the young weard catatonic.

This was a bedroom, a large, high-ceilinged, well-ventilated expanse of wood and rugs. Giant, slatted windows, screened with magic, opened out into the lower branches of trees. They felt as though they were in a tree house, not Flasten stronghold.

In the room, among other things, was a massive bed. On the bed, in a mass of crimson sheets, was Haile, the minister for taxation and finance. She was quite obviously dead.

"What ..." Plin said, coughed, then gathered himself valiantly. "I thought you were looking for the dux," he said pointedly to Percy. His voice rose a bit. "This is not the dux. This is a woman missing most of her stomach!" He shook with a rabid cocktail of rage and fear.

"My mind would confess," Duk said, carefully, his face pale as he approached the corpse. "That these are the ruler's personal dwellings." He touched her cheek lightly, then, holding his cloak out of the blood, he pushed his fingers against her neck. After a few seconds of silence, he nodded and backed away.

"What! ... why would she! ... wait." Plin stepped out into the hallway and shouted obscenities at the wall.

Duk looked at Percy, who remained mostly frozen, his eyes jerking back and forth. Next to Percy was a desk, and on the desk was some paper. The magocrat approached the desk and glanced at the paper. There was a small book next to it. He leafed through it.

"Plin," he called. When the mundane looked inside, his eyes closed and his hand pinching his nose, Duk said, "Some light may manifest itself in this minister's journal."

"Great, if only we can find it."

"You misunderstand me," Duk said, picking up the journal and guiding Percy and Plin out into the hallway. He shut the door behind them. Plin finally opened his eyes to the sight of Duk's nose buried in a book.

"Here," Duk said. "She writes of the dux's obsessions with drugs."

********

Undated excerpts from the journal of the Flasten minister of finance and taxation:

"O sweet haze (of air) and pot (of tea), make for this account expressions unique (and rare), statements pure (and clean), and formulate eternal dreams to bend reality (and life). ...

"... The dux gives as he breathes and lives, his stature hardly slowing him come the morning, come the evening, come the early afternoon. The dux takes with passion all that is given, drinks deeply of the fermented fruits, gorges heavily on the planted delights, inhales greedily the mass of perfumed cocktails. The dux demands his desires fulfilled at all hours, and perhaps alone in this journal can I explicate on how exhausted this makes me. ...

"... When his insatiable appetite was formed, I do not know. I know only that what I could provide, at the time we first met, was more than enough. At the time of the Domus road's collapse, his need for my little comforts grew steadily. In a way, his strength, his potence, derived from me, for the unseen hands' destruction of his efforts deprived him of all motivation (and drive). As his demand grew, so my supply dwindled (haha, what financier's humor, we joked at the academy of such things). ...

"... I have to find a new source, for my position becomes more precarious as I find it harder and harder to acquire the dux's pleasures. The road was a hopeful occurrence, but it is deceased now. The toys from Wasfal are generating diversions that should endure for several weeks. In the meantime, I scour the darkest quarters of Flasten, seeking instruction and devices to use for the dux's urges. ...

"... It was in a darkened alley, an excrement-choked street and I in shadowed rags, that the idea manifested itself. Where I dwindle in supply, others revel in it, supplying by demand for exorbitant prices. Where they lack in power, I have the strength of the dux's ear. Thus the dux and I are now engineering a law that will solve the people's problems, empty the suppliers and create an infinite string of enflamed moments for the lord of Flasten. ...

"... Who would have thought it would backfire? Who would have thought the pleasure dealers would hide their products so assiduously? Who would have thought, after a year of endless supply, that the demand would double again? With coffers full, I am sent out, every night, to bring back joy and ecstasy for the dux. ...

"... Last night I tracked the many-colored man - called the weard-killer by many in Flasten - by his reputation, from dark corner to shadowed back room and finally to his own, leaking cellar. The cost to find him was only exceeded by the cost of his product, but as the dux said when he awoke today, it was worth every peg. Seeing the dux glowing so effusively, his old energy restored, draws pride from me. ...

"... The many-colored man's product is destroying the dux. He does not show it in public, but in our few private moments, secretly meeting in the halls and bedrooms of the stronghold, I view in his eyes and shaking hands the addiction to the need. I keep returning to the dealer, nightly, and the prices keep rising, astronomically rising..."

"... The unthinkable has happened. The man demands the most stringent of taxes upon us, and the dux, sobered in shock, promised it. Yet after we receive the product, we intend never to return to pay the man. ...

"... The death threats keep coming. The warnings. The insane pleas. And worse, we have no more supply. The dux grows angry, irritable, withdrawn. The duxy suffers near as much as the dux.

"... We thought it luck when we trapped the magocrat Duk. We thought we had a new supply. We thought we could find more. But these three charlatans prove to be nothing but iron-mongers, and so things continue their precipitous descent. ...

"... Tejun informs me he has captured the mapmaker's weard-killer. I shiver in my boots, for the dux and I last took his product and put a bounty on his head. And now, the most dangerous man we know is in the stronghold. I would have been there, but for an incident with the dux. Again, his needs ... never satisfied. I hope, I pray, I dream, solace to come."

********

"She found her solace," Duk said, after a moment of silence where they all avoided each other's eyes.

"This was about drugs?" Plin said, his brow furrowed. "She writes it as though they were lovers."

"Who's to say they weren't lovers?" Duk said. "This most private of confidences we have violated refers in many ways to her provisions of ecstasy for her employer."

Percy's rigid, mad face had softened as he heard the account. His terror had shrunk to a pea-sized nub in the pit of his stomach, and while it threatened to dissolve into his body at a moment's notice, for now, he held his nausea in check.

"This explains so much," he said finally. The other two turned to him. He stared back at them. "They kept insisting you were drug dealers, though your denials were forthright. And we knew you didn't have any drugs." He shook his head. "Tejun wasn't altogether bright ..."

"He was a horse's ass," Plin said, congenially.

"... But he could follow where he was led. And Haile and the dux led him straight to their supplier."

"There's still the hemp bag," Plin said, breaching another deep, thoughtful silence.

Duk looked back at the closed door. "Plin, we know what was in the bag."

"What was in the bag?" Percy asked.

"No, we don't," Plin said. "You sold our pots for what was in the bag, and you never showed it to us."

"What was in the bag?"

Duk's eyes grew flames as he stared back at Plin. Then they seemed to shut off, and his usual amiable expression returned. Plin held his gaze for a second, then nodded silently to himself. Whatever was in the bag, it didn't matter now.

"What was in the bag?" Percy insisted.

"Percy,"Plin said, his expression shifted from hostility toward Duk to concern for the green, "You're becoming more of a mapmaker every second. Keep treading on dangerous ground without thinking about it. Brilliant!"

"I don't understand," Percy said, honestly.

"Good," Duk said. "Good."

"So," Plin went on. "We still have to find the dux, right? Let's get at it."

Copyright 2005-2006 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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