Iskaral Pust’s love was pure and perfect, except that his wife kept getting in the way. When he leaned left she leaned right; when he leaned right she leaned left. When he stretched his neck she stretched hers and all he could see was the mangled net of her tangled hair and beneath that those steely black eyes too knowing for her own good and for his, too, come to that.
‘The foolish hag,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t she see I’m leaning this way and that and bobbing up and down only because I feel like it and not because the High Priestess is over there amply presenting her deliciously ample backside-know-ing well, yes she does, how I squirm and drool, pant and palpitate, the temptress, the wilful vixen! But no! Every angle and this horrid nemesis heaves into view, damning my eyes! Maybe I can cleverly send her off on an errand, now there’s an idea.’ He smiled and leaned forward, all the armour of his charm trembling and creaking in the face of the onslaught of her baleful stare. ‘Sweet raisin crumpet, the mule needs grooming and tender care in the temple stables.’
‘Does it now?’
‘Yes. And since you’re clearly not busy with anything at the moment, you could instead do something useful.’
‘But I am doing something useful, dearest husband.’
‘Oh, and what’s that, tender trollop?’
‘Why, I am sacrificing my time to keep you from making a bigger fool of yourself than is normal, which is quite a challenge, I assure you.’
‘What stupidity is she talking about? Love oyster, whatever are you talking about?’
‘She’s made her concession that you are who you claim to be. And that’s the only thing keeping her from tossing us both out on our scrawny behinds. You and me and the mule and the gibbering bhokarala-assuming she can ever manage to get them out of the cellar. I’m a witch of the spider goddess and the High Priestess back there is not at all happy about that. So I’m telling you, O rotted apple of my eye, if I let you try and jump her we’re all done for.’
‘She talks so much it’s a wonder her teeth don’t fall out. But wait! Most of them already have! Shh, don’t laugh, don’t even smile. Am I smiling? Maybe, but it’s the indulgent kind, the kind that means well or if not well then nothing at all though wives the world over, when seeing it, go into apoplectic rage for no good reason at all, the cute, loveable dearies.’ He sighed and leaned back, trying to peer under her right armpit, but the peripheral vision thing turned that into a hairy nightmare. Flinching, he sighed again and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Go on, wife, the mule is pining and your sweet face is all he longs for-to kick! Hee hee! Shh, don’t laugh! Don’t even smile!’ He looked up. ‘Delicious wrinkled date, why not take a walk, out into the sunshine in the streets? The gutters, more like, hah! The runnels of runny sewage-take a bath! Piss up one of those lampposts and not a dog in Darujhistan would dare the challenge! Hah! But this smile is the caring kind, yes, see?’
The High Priestess Sordiko Qualm cavorted up to where they sat-this woman didn’t walk, she went as much sideways as forward, a snake of seduction, an enchantress of nonchalance, gods, a man could die just watching! Was that a whimper escaping him? Of course not, more likely Mogora’s armpit coming up for air made that gasping, squelching sound.
‘I would be most pleased,’ the High Priestess said in that well-deep voice that purred like every temptation imaginable all blended into one steaming stew of invitation, ‘if you two indulged In mutual suicide.’
‘I could fake mine,’ Iskaral Pust whispered. ‘Then she’d be out of our way-I know, High Priestess of all my fantasies, I can see how you wage war against your natural desires, your blazing hunger to get your hands on me! Oh, I know I’m not as handsome as some people, but I have power!’
Sighing, Sordiko Qualm cavorted away-but no, from behind it was more a saunter. Approaching was a cavort, leaving was a saunter. ‘Sordiko Saunter Qualm Cavort, she comes and goes but never quite leaves, my love of loves, my better love than that excuse for love I once thought was real love but let’s face it love it wasn’t, not like this love. Why, this love is the big kind, the swollen kind, the towering kind, the rutting gasping pumping exploding kind! Oh, I hurt myself.’
Mogora snorted. ‘You wouldn’t know real love if it bit you in the face.’
‘Keep that armpit away from me, woman!’
‘You’ve turned this temple into a madhouse, Iskaral Pust. You turn every temple you live in into a madhouse! So here we are, contemplating mutual murder, and what does your god want from us? Why, nothing! Nothing but waiting, always waiting! Bah, I’m going shopping!’
‘At last!’ Iskaral crowed.
‘And you’re coming with me, to carry my purchases.’
‘Not a chance. Use the mule.’
‘Stand up or I’ll have my way with you right here.’
‘In the holy vestry? Are you insane?’
‘Rutting blasphemy. Will Shadowthrone be pleased?’
‘Fine! Shopping, then. Only no leash this time.’
‘Then don’t get lost.’
‘I wasn’t lost, you water buffalo, I was escaping.’
‘I’d better get the leash again.’
‘And I’ll get my knife!’
Oh, how marriage got in the way of love! The bonds of mutual contempt drawn tight until the victims squeal, but is it in pain or pleasure? Is there a difference? But that is a question not to be asked of married folk, oh no.
And in the stables the mule winks at the horse and the horse feels breakfast twisting in her gut and the flies, well, they fly from one lump of dung to another, convinced that each is different from the last, fickle creatures that they are, and there is no wisdom among the fickle, only longing and frustration, and the buzz invites the next dubious conquest smelling so fragrant in the damp straw.
Buzz buzz.
Amidst masses of granite and feverish folds of bedrock veined with glittering streaks, the mining operation owned by Humble Measure was an enormous pit facing a cliff gouged with caves and tunnels. Situated equidistant between Darujhistan and Gredfallan Annexe and linked by solid raised roads, the mine and its town-sized settlement had a population of eight hundred. Indentured workers, slaves, prisoners, work chiefs, security guards, cooks, carpenters, potters, rope makers, clothes makers and menders, charcoal makers, cutters and nurses, butchers and bakers the enterprise seethed with activity. Smoke filled the air. Old women with bleeding hands clambered through the heaps of tailings collecting shreds of slag and low quality chunks of coal. Gulls and crows danced round these rag-clad, hunched figures.
Not a single tree was left standing anywhere within half a league of the mine. Down on a slope on the lakeside was a humped cemetery in which sat a few hundred shallow graves. The water just offshore was lifeless and stained red, with a muddy bottom bright orange in colour.
Scented cloth held to his face, Gorlas Vidikas observed the operation which he now managed, although perhaps “managed” was the wrong word. The day to day necessities were the responsibility of the camp workmaster, a scarred and pock-faced man in his fifties with decades-old scraps of raw metal still embedded in his hands. He hacked out a cough after every ten words or so, and spat thick yellow mucus down between his bronze-capped boots.
‘The young ’uns go the fastest, of course.’ Cough, spit. ‘Our moles or so we call ’em, since they can squeeze inta cracks no grown-up can get through,’ cough, spit, ‘and this way if there’s bad air it’s none of our stronger workers get killed.’ Cough… ‘We was havin’ trouble gettin’ enough young ’uns for a time there, until we started buyin’
’em from the poorer fam’lies both in and outa the city-they got too many runts t’feed, ye see? An’ we got special rules for the young ’uns-nobody gets their hands on ’em, if you know what I mean.