Wednesday, September 3
Belly of the Beast: Part 1 – The Guard Office
Kham rolled over. Gresty took the feeble movement as encouragement to keep talking.
“I am to take Atkinson’s place when the old man dies. He cannot live two years at most. He says I am here for the Goat. But he owes me too and I will be paid what he owes me. The woman at Nug’s Farm, well Mr. Carbo’s wife…the old man never had her. The child is not his.” Gresty giggled. “I laugh when I think he can make things wilder than dreams and blacker than nightmares but he cannot climb into her bed. How his old loins must itch when he thinks of her.”
“Women…got me into this mess in the first place.”
Gresty waved the notion away. “So first we must play the last cards with Edwards and the King he follows. Edwards needs Mr. Roby and if he gets him there will be hell to pay. Worse I think, for hell is a weak imagining.”
“Lucius’ case is coming up soon,” said Kham. “Real soon…don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
“Edwards will call on me too. He needs me. I will not answer.”
“Like when Quelch called for Coombs before.” Kham sat up, rubbed his eyes. “You’re the same Gresty who wrote me that note.”
Gresty nodded. “The world’s unstable now. The King in Yellow is coming to Arcanis, and I’m the only one who knows how to stop him. We must call on…” he looked over his shoulder at the other prisoners in the adjoining cells, “the Old Gods.”
Kham tried not to look at Gresty. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I cut mouths in my hands.” Gresty held up his hands, which were bandaged but bloody from the gashes right across the palms. “And I went to the old Altherian temple. That temple sits there, growing fat sucking on the plague pits, pulling up power like the ssanu did from their own death pits. I went to make my appeal to our Old Gods. I called on Tizzhet, the Black Goat of the Woods, to leave the greensward to bring her Thousand Young.”
“Althares’ ass,” said Kham. “You’re one of those.” [MORE]
Labels: arcanis
posted by Mike Tresca at
6:58 AM
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