The Empire of Gut and Bone by M. T. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

down a ladder and released the hatch. They led Dantsig, Gregory, Brian, and Kalgrash up into a clammy circular stairwell. The stairs were rusted. The little party ascended.
    “Prepare yourselves,” said Dantsig. “Keep your cool. Sure, New Norumbega’s fancy. But they want to hear what you have to say. Hold your chins up high and keep your hands in the open.”
    At the top, there was another hatch. Dantsig unscrewed it and raised himself up into brilliant light. The others followed.
    It took some moments for their eyes to adjust. They were standing on a bright, salty plain. The overwhelming light came from seams in the sky shining whitely. Distantly, several figures labored toward them across the granules.
    There, beneath the harsh light of strange veins, was a shantytown made of planks, old iron, and what looked to be clippings of flesh. Rising up in the middle was a great lumpy tower the color of beef jerky, with wooden gantries hanging on the side of it and uneven turrets sprouting out of the top. It looked like a potbellied stove with five chimneys.
    “There it is,” Dantsig announced. “New Norumbega. Home of the Emperor. Capital of the Empire of the Innards.”

SEVEN
    T hat’s the
palace
?” Gregory protested. “Looks more like a slum.”
    Dantsig snorted. “If that’s a slum, I’d like to see the cities back on Earth.”
    “Pflundt is nicer than that,” said Brian. “Your own fortress.”
    Dantsig looked at them, unbelieving. “You two are feeding me the biscuit, right? Because that place is stumendous.”
    Brian was about to say something further when trumpets began to play a fanfare. The Imperial delegation was approaching.
    Two ranks of armed elfin soldiers accompanied several royal carts pulled by several of the headless, seven-legged beasts that had drawn Dantsig’s sleigh. The beasts were marked with tribal paint in broad stripes of white or spots of earthen red. The carts they lugged were adorned with golden canopies and symbols of powerjutting up on staves. Strings of beads hung from their rigging, glittering in the brilliant light.
    On the foremost cart rode the heralds, blowing their trumpets and ghoul-snouted trombones. In the next cart rode a crowd of sullen, imperious courtiers, jostled by the uneven terrain. The men wore navy blazers. The women wore suits with matching skirts and little jackets in coral pink or powder blue.
    Then came another cart with an oldish man on a throne. And behind him finally, a cart with racks of immobile heads — the dismantled prisoners, Brian guessed, who would be exchanged for him and Gregory. The mannequin heads stared sullenly in front of them. They were surrounded by guards.
    “There they are,” whispered Dantsig. “Everyone wins. You get to talk to the Emperor. We free the heads. The Court hears your spiel about the Thusser Horde.”
    Brian held his hand above his eyes to cut down on the glare. The carts were pulling up in front of them. He was excited, but anxious. He couldn’t believe that, after all this time, he was finally going to meet the Norumbegans. He examined them closely — these mysterious eldritch beings who had, in ancient days, created the Game and the City of Gargoyles.
    A herald climbed down from the cart and approached Dantsig. He asked a question in the language of the Norumbegans. Immediately, Brian, Gregory, and Kalgrash could feel images and traces of language sliding across their minds, the psychic residue of Norumbegan speech.
    Dantsig responded. The herald nodded. Dantsig pointed to the kids and explained something. He and the herald spoke briefly.
    Then the herald turned toward the throne cart and cried in English, “Dantsig, Explorer, calling himself Envoy of the Mannequin Resistance, requests permission to approach the cart of His Excellency the Imperial Regent, Duke Telliol-Bornwythe.”
    The man on the throne said something to a page boy in a parti-colored tunic who stood up and repeated in a high, girlish voice,