The Lot of a Lichnik/8
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It is, of course, a terrible cliché to say that the Harvestfall Revolution changed everything. The trope was taken up predicably enough by the chattering classes, with "iconic" this and "watershed" that - just another confirmation that history was, and always will be, written by the winners. But while there were plenty in Novodolor's undead caste who contested the assertion that things had changed for the better, it was rare to find anyone who failed to recognise that things had, indeed, changed.
We all saw it first hand, after all. We watched our fellow liches, including fellow Lichniks, collapsing into common corpses around us - often without relation to their apparent phylacteric strength. Those who fell down and never rose again were not always the timid; those who were spared the creeping lethargy and its fatal conclusion were not always the strong. The ley lines of lichdom, and the energies which sustained them, fluctuated and withered in random patterns which even the Deathgivers could not understand.
And with those faltering energies, the old certainties faltered too. The infallibility of lichdom, our death-given right to rule all Minarboria by virtue of our unbreakable persistence over the ephemeral living, all of it was gone from the mind of the common citizen in the space of weeks - as if some cosmic rent collector had toured the Empire, collected it into his bag and whisked it away. Suddenly the social order was inverted; we were the vulnerable, ours was the hourglass which was pouring away before our eyes. And in &zeter, they panicked and rioted.
Like good little Lichniks we remembered our oaths; the Houndmaster did not utter a word of objection when my colleague Shepilov skipped his duty, to go to &zeter and assist the Blue Hundreds in their running street battles against the Argophylacterist rebels. He was always reluctant to speak of what followed, but I imagine he would have been in his element for a brief period. One almost feels sorry for the poor rebels who ended up capturing him, even in their superior numbers; he wouldn't have made it an easy fight. By the time he had been returned to us through a prisoner exchange, there was a certain subtle difference in his character which nobody but myself seemed to notice. His taste for brawling was no less enthusiastic, but the underlying gallows jollity I had known in him was less frequent.
Perhaps it had been too much to expect the rest of the Novodolorsk Kennel to notice. They were too busy lionising Shepilov as a hero, a welcome distraction from our own conduct in his absence. Our singular failure to prevent Karymov's lichcossacks from raiding Novodolorsk's arms factories hung heavily upon us all. They were just too quick and too numerous. Those Lichniks at the right place and time resisted as best they could, but they were the first to be scapegoated for the Kennel's failure and purged. Not that I fail to understand the Houndmaster's motivations in denouncing them; it was them or him.
So now, post-Harvestfall, we liches found ourselves in a brave new world. The Lichniks' numbers were cut in half along with the other undead, zombots had gone from a constant presence to a specialised rarity, and the streets of Novodolorsk were eerily sleepy except for those districts which had seen an influx of the living. The Empire was being run by the breather Regent who, it seemed, had never entirely shaken off the influence of 'Doron the Moron' and now surrounded himself with Deep Singers, letting thousands into the Empire from the Old Garden. The venerable old Colonel Nerrolar had seen the writing on the wall and fled from public life, although we often got reports of him being sighted in Novodolor's Tee-al zone. As a role model for undead Shrublanders he had been replaced by the bandit Karymov, who had leveraged his power in the west to charm his way onto the Council of Necrarchs. Credit where credit is due, I suppose, but we all cheered in the Kennel when word arrived that Colonel Nerrolar had shot Karymov's arm off in a duel - many of our collapsed Lichnik brethren had been replaced by retirees from Nerrolar's Black Rangers.
As for the Empress to whom we had sworn our oaths, there was no sign. Rumours of her crawling into her siblings' graves in Sangun had become stale, and our detentions of those spreading such stories had fallen off sharply. Now we owed our fealty to her designated Regent, a breather of all things. He appeared aware of the awkward situation in the Lichnina, and allowed most of our orders to be refracted through the undead Governor of Novodolor to make them palatable. The Lichnina had its name for a reason, and while most of us were resigned to our fall from social supremacy in the wider Empire, each of us still believed in maintaining a place where liches called the shots. It was, perhaps, the last thing keeping us animated at all.
"Harks, I need your assistance on something," said Shepilov one morning as he stomped into our shared office and threw his black greatcoat on the hook. His pained expression was more pronounced than usual.
"The thesaurus is on my desk right here," I said without looking up from my own paperwork. "I've told you before. You're welcome to borrow it whanever you want, instead of asking me the definitions of words all the time."
"I'm not after your fancy words," said Shepilov. "I've just got back from a meeting with an informant."
"Oh?" I said, looking up. "Anyone I know?"
"No, it's one of mine. A pupil at Gimnazium number six."
"You've recruited a child?"
"Keep your voice down, Harks. You promised you'd keep quiet about the kid thing. Anyway, yes... this one's been helping me out since prep school."
"Since prep!? Shrub almighty, Shep. How many more of Novodolorsk's little brats are doing your bidding?"
"None of your business. Compartmentalisation and all. But this kid's thrown up something interesting."
"Go on."
Shepilov slumped into his chair, and his desk jolted as he propped his jackbooted feet up on it. "My informant's civics class has been swapping pupils with another one. Three so far. The management cites minor behavioural problems requiring certain kids to be seperared from others. But one of the kids transferring into my informant's class has given him some interesting background. It seems everyone transferred out of the other class has been expressing suspicions about their teacher. Word's going round that the teacher has been replaced by an impostor, who's messing around with the curriculum. The three kids transferred out were the most vocal in challenging him."
"And you're saying this is at the Gimnazium? It sounds like kindergarten stuff."
"Which is why I'm taking it seriously," said Shepilov. "This is the top school in Novodolorsk. The kids are lined up for Sansabury or &zeter. They barely get time to sleep, let alone make up tattle tales."
"If they had an impostor, the management would have to be in on it," I said. "We screen their staff ourselves. I doubt they'd be the type. Unless it's an op of ours that I'm not aware of. Did you check with the Houndmaster?"
"And reveal that I'm consorting with schoolkids?" yapped Shepilov. "Shrub no. He'd think I was some kind of pervert or something."
"So you want me to make enquiries on the quiet," I nodded. "I get it."
"Well, and some other stuff."
"What other stuff? It's not my job to sit around waiting to take your caseload, you know."
Shepilov nodded toward my in-tray, which was relatively empty. "It's not like you have anything better to do," he said. "Besides, the Houndmaster would be more willing to allow an investigation if it had your name on it. Can you see him letting me anywhere near a school?"
"Alright," I said. "But you're going to owe me."
"Put it on my tab."
"What do you want me to do, anyway?"
"I need you to go undercover. As a teacher at the Gimnazium. Find out what's happening."
"Merciful Minarbor!" I said. "I don't know how to control a classroom full of little turds! That's your gift!"
"Keep. Your. Voice. Down," growled Shepilov, glancing nervously at the office door. "Listen, it'll be easy. I've run background on the principal. Solid gold. We can get him in on this. He can give you an easy class, a part time gig, whatever. Besides, it's not the kids you need to please. Your objective would be to get close to this suspected impostor, and those around him."
"And what will you be doing all this time?"
"I'll talk my way into his home, take a look around on some innocent made-up enquiry. Stake the place out for a while, follow him around, the usual."
"The easy stuff, you mean."
"It's only easy until it goes wrong, Harks."
"Well I hope for his sake that it doesn't," I said. "Lest it involve you seperating his head from his shoulders."
To my immense relief, the class I was assigned at Gimnazium No. 6 consisted of older, relatively well-behaved pupils. The subject was Benacian history, and the 'teaching' consisted of me reciting a master copy of various reference items for the pupils to write down. Having spectacularly failed the entrance examination for this place in my own youth - I had ended up at Tekhnikum No.184 instead - I found much of the material educational myself. The bullshitting powers I had learned from the subjects of countless Lichnik interrogations equipped me well to fend off the occasional question by these smart adolescents. Eventually, to my further relief, the recess bell came and I headed for the staff room.
My target was already there when I arrived. One Adipocerus Ouissarde, a well-respected alumnus of the Hall of Leaves Pedagogical University No. 1 in Sansabury - or at least that was who he claimed to be. I had cross-checked his records in the principal's office with the Hall of Leaves and run his name through the Lichnik Kennel files, and had no doubt that the original Mr. Ouissarde was indeed a legitimate teacher of some standing. The question was whether the grand, black-bearded lich who stood stood chatting among the other teachers was this same person; or, as the pupils recently purged from his class had claimed, someone entirely different. From my vantage point by the lich-gravy dispenser I noticed that his face matched his file photo perfectly, and his fellow teachers showed no suspicion about his authenticity; or they knew, but didn't care.
"Ah, Mister Klabishev!" rasped a voice by the door. It was the principal, who was aware of my true identity but unaware of who I was investigating. Klabishev was my cover name, and now the principal approached me. "Well now, let's not be shy!" he said. "Come and talk to the others!" he led me across the room to the cluster of other teachers. "Everyone, may I introduce mister Klabishev! On temporary placement from Gimnazium thirteen in Benacia Hamlet. Mister Klabishev, this is Mister Lenardin, Mister Avuncule, Miss Cherimukha, Mister Ouissarde, and a sign of the times..." He indicated the sole Deep Singer in the group, a slim female with four eyes who was visibly un-amused at the comment. "...Miss Nezene." Out of loyalty or fear, the principal seemed to be trying to help me out.
"Ah, Gimnazium thirteen!" said Mr. Avuncule. "I'm just back from a secondment there myself, although I don't recall meeting your good self. Tell me, did the Deathgivers manage to save Mister Dispepsin? We were all very worried after the accident."
"I haven't heard anything new from the hospital," I bluffed. "Last I heard, he was stable."
"Well there's that, at least," said Mr. Avuncule. "Who would have thought a silk handkerchief could cause so much damage!"
"Quite," I said with a feeble smile, as I wondered about the incident in question. Unfortunately I was not the only one.
"Sounds like a curious mishap," cackled Mr. Lenardin. "What happened, exactly?" He was looking directly at me.
"Well, it was, er..." I began, as the first vague fob-offs assembled themselves in my mind.
"Such incidents," butted in the principal, "are generally subject to a formal investigation. I don't think it would be Shrubly for us to go gossiping about it while proceedings are ongoing, would it?" He flashed me a covert wink, and I found myself understanding Shepilov's glowing characterisation of him. He may not have known what in the Shrub's name I was doing here, but for the sake of old-fashioned patriotism it seemed he wanted me to succeed - either that, or he was positioning himself for a mitigation of any complicity that might be ascribed to him later on. Either way, it helped me.
During all of this conversation the apparent Mr. Ouissarde regarded me with a calm but curious eye, but made no effort to converse with me directly.
On my way out of the history classroom during second recess, I caught up with the Deep Singer Miss Nezene, who had been teaching in the adjacent classroom. For all my mild distrust of the Deep Singers, I was a little embarrassed by the principal's earlier comments toward her.
"A sign of the times..." I repeated the principal's statement as I walked level with her in the corridor. "...I only hope he recognises your teaching ability too."
"Oh, I get worse from the children," she said with an almost Tieyan tunefulness. "I've been here a while. The other teachers are slowly getting used to me."
"Part of me wants to apologise on behalf of the undead," I said. "I'm sure integrating with an all-lich staff is hard enough without..."
"They're kind to me really," said Miss Nezene. "A new face like yourself certainly shouldn't worry about them. Well, apart from Ouissarde I suppose."
I managed to avoid stopping in my tracks, and replied as casually as I could while we descended a staircase. "Oh? What's wrong with him?"
"He used to be fine," said Miss Nezene. "One of the better ones, in fact. But these last few weeks he's become... strange. He's lost his old jollity. He's doing odd things in his lessons too, skipping over important parts of the curriculum. I overheard him having an argument with the head of his faculty about it. He got his way in the end, but he never used to be so bitter with his opinions. His classes have noticed too. The kids think he's been replaced by someone completely different, and I can't blame them. The odd thing is, he transfers anyone who questions his identity out of his class. The old Mister Ouissarde was never so thin-skinned. He would have laughed it off."
"Bizarre," I said. "Do the management know?"
"They know alright," said Miss Nezene. "I've told them a few times myself. But they don't seem to think he's changed at all. Neither do the other teachers. They even brushed me off about the mushroom thing..."
"The mushroom thing?"
"Mister Ouissarde has developed a sudden obsession with mycology, out of nowhere. He keeps little pots full of mushrooms in his class. He even carries a pot around with a little string handle. He probably talks to them when nobody's looking. It's weird... but look at me, little gossip goose here. I suppose you'll have to judge him for yourself." She stopped at a restroom door. "Nature calls," she said with an apologetic smile. "Good luck with your next lesson!"
"Thank you," I said, as she closed the door in my face.
At the end of the day I watched the apparent Mr. Ouissarde stroll purposefully out of the school gate. Then I went to his classroom. A quick rifle through the contents of his desk revealed nothing especially interesting. Then I turned my attention to a sturdy mahogany cabinet on a shelf. On top of the cabinet and along the rest of the shelf, clear patches in the dust suggested the recent removal of some round objects. Half a minute with my lockpick set got the cabinet open; from within its dark interior a forest of gangly, long-necked mushrooms looked out at me. They grew from pots which matched the size of the imprints on the shelf. They were obviously put in here at the end of each day, safe from any molestation. I took a pocket knife and sliced a few slivers off one mushroom, placing them into a small paper bag. Then I closed the cabinet, left the school and headed directly for the Lichnik Kennel; the laboratory deep within its basement would find out what was so special about this fungi, which had become so important to the apparent Mr. Ouissarde.
The next day as I made my way to my first lesson, I noticed an roar of angry, undead bellowing coming from Ouissarde's classroom. Later that morning, as first recess began, I took my chance to approach the apparent Mr. Ouissarde in the staff room. He looked visibly perturbed.
"Hello there," I offered cordially. "Ouissarde, was it?"
"Hm?" said the apparent Mr. Ouissarde, seemingly lost in thought as his undead fingers combed his beard. "Oh yes, yes. Hello."
"Was everything alright in your classroom earlier?" I asked. "Only I heard some... commotion."
The apparent Mr. Ouissarde's head spun round and his bloodshot eyes glared at me, like those of an owl. "How do you know which is my classroom!?" he hissed. "You've only just started here!"
"Your name is written on the door," I answered coolly.
"Oh yes, yes, of course," muttered the apparent Mr. Ouissarde, his eyes falling. "Forgive me. It's been... a difficult morning."
"Troublesome pupils?" I said.
"Oh yes, very much so," huffed the apparent Mr. Ouissarde. "I cultivate mushrooms, you see. Just a little hobby of mine. Yes, just a little hobby... the brats know how dear it is to me, but yesterday one of them damaged one of my prime specimens. I didn't notice when I put them away yesterday, but this morning..."
"Little monsters," I smirked.
"I would ask you," said the apparent Mr. Ouissarde, "If you hear anything about who did it, please tell me, won't you? The children here are well behaved on the surface, but all of a sudden they can take against you. You've probably heard the story about me being replaced by an impostor. They tell all kinds of spurious tales."
"I wasn't aware of that," I lied.
"Oh you will be," said said the apparent Mr. Ouissarde. "In good time. It's only a shame I didn't notice the mushroom damage yesterday, or I could have enlisted a Lichnik friend of mine..."
"You have Lichnik friends?"
"Hm? Oh yes... well, not so much a friend. I was visited by one just last night, a fellow by the name of Shepilov. He was investigating a tomb robbery in the necropolis scross the street. I knew nothing of it so I couldn't help him, but if I had known of the vandalism of my mushrooms at that point, he could have helped me! And the little maggot responsible would have been shaking in his shoes by now! Shaking!"
"Your own efforts to find the culprit came to nothing, then?"
"Well, I locked the whole class in for this recess." He held up a silver key on a chain. "I'll go back there in a minute, and see if they're ready to own up to it. To apologise to my dear little mushrooms and treat them with respect. I'll bring them around eventually, I'm sure. They'll come to appreciate the splendour of slow growth, one way or the other."
'The Splendour of Slow Growth' "- I immediately recognised the phrase as an Argophylacterist slogan, from the Harvestfall revolutionaries of &zeter. One of the more obscure of their sayings, too; I only knew it as a well-briefed Lichnik, and he only knew it because...
I forced the sinews of my face to relax, but it was too late - he had noticed my stern glare of recognition.
"Well I'll be getting back to them now!" he said, hastily rising to his feet. As he passed the staff room door, he glanced nervously over his shoulder at me as if to ensure I was not following him. Whether he took me to be a fellow Argophylacterist or one who hunted them, he knew he had said too much - the penalty for revolutionary agitation in the classroom was, after all, severe.
During the next lesson I recited historical texts to my class with some difficulty, the activities of the apparent Mr. Ouissarde turning over in my mind. I tried to deduce how spooked he would be, now the secret of his 'eccentric' teaching style was no longer limited to upstart pupils with a credibility problem. If he was perturbed enough to make a move of some kind, he would be making it soon.
"Mister Klabishev?" A squat breather secretary was peering round the door of the classroom. "A telephone call for you, in the office. Urgent."
Maybe this was it. "Theodore," I said to one of the more eloquent pupils, "can you come up here and carry on reading where I left off, please? I won't be long. I want at least two more paragraphs done by the time I get back."
Down in the school office, I leaned into the teak-pannelled alcove which served as the telephone booth. "Klabishev," I answered.
"Harks," came Shepilov's voice down the line. "Are you alone?"
"Not really," I said, looking at the breather secretary who was seated at her desk within earshot.
"Is HE nearby?"
"No."
"Alright, here's what I've got. I got into the guy's house last night, gave him some crap about a tomb raid..."
"Yes he mentioned it. He spoke fondly of you."
"Yeah, the glibness was unbelievable. He buttered me up like a bagel. You know when you take a sociopath by surprise and they crank the charm up to maximum? It was basically that."
"So what's his place like?"
"Well, all the personal effects match the Mister Ouissarde we have on record, but dear Shrub almighty the mushrooms. They're everywhere. All in little pots, on every surface. every piece of furniture, half the floor. Then your samples went to the lab. The results just came back. That's why I'm calling."
"Go on," I said.
"They're emitting... a humanoid numen signature. Do you know what that means?"
The revelation hit me like a bullet, but I refrained from confirming it out loud. "Oh, Shrub almighty," I said, my head thumping against the wooden partition in frustration. "Of course! All you need is..."
"A body," said Shepilov. "Records show this guy has a cottage just off the &zeter road. The Rottweiler Team are suiting up to go there now. I'll head there with them."
"Listen," I said. "Don't go ripping the place apart. Not yet, anyway. Do what you need to do, but do it... gently."
"You know me, Harks," came the answer, which was as good as No. "How are things at your end?"
I glanced at the breather secretary and dropped my voice to a whisper. "Not good. I think he's on to me."
"Damn it, Harks, I knew you'd screw it up!" said Shepilov. "Look, get to him right now and keep him stalled. Depending what we find at the cottage, we'll be coming for him."
"I'll do what I can," I said.
"Woof woof," said Shepilov. "Shepilov out." The line disconnected with a sharp click.
That explained the mushrooms, at least - quite unlike green plants, as they thrived on the necromantic energy obtained by rot and decay. They were, according to the Deathgivers' model, as undead as us liches. And if grown on a decayed lich body, they could adopt that lich's necromantic aura. During the worst of the Harvestfall breakdown, they had become briefly popular as a Memento Mori for those liches who had lost other, beloved liches to phylacteric failure. The scope for abuse was obvious, and we had cracked down on it some time previously - precisely to avoid incidents like this. The fact was, poor Mister Ouissarde - the real Mr. Ouissarde - was more than likely rotting in a heap somewhere, and mushrooms grown on his remains were now convincing the staff of Gimnazium No. 6 that the lich walking among them was the Mr. Ouissarde they had always known. Ignorance of his demise, and a little cosmetic surgery on the impostor's part would be all it took to maintain the illusion. The comforting sense of presence emitted by the mushrooms would do the rest, but only to the undead. The living were immune to such things, hence the scepticism from the impostor's more assertive pupils who were still young enough to be breathers, and from Miss Nezene the Deep Singer.
On my way back to my class, I took a detour past Ouissarde's classroom. I listened at the door, but the interior was eerily silent. Not a squeaking chalkboard or a scraping chair leg to be heard. My phylactery sank; had he made his escape already? I formulated an excuse about borrowing the classroom's phonograph and knocked on the door. No answer. I opened it gently. The classroom was completely empty. Neither the impostor nor his class were anywhere to be seen. Chairs stood neatly pushed in under rows of empty desks. The mushrooms, however, were still out on the shelves. I went over to the teacher's desk and began looking through it again. The drawers had been cleared out, with the exception of a single typewritten note:
Klabishev, or whatever your true name may be -
True to your indulgence in breather modes of thinking, you so-called Lichniks have slipped up yet again. If you had thought your outcomes through beforehand, at a proper lich pace, you would have arrested me on the spot. You play a good game, you and your friend Shepilov, but a lich of less-rushed consideration will always concatenate your true nature in the end.
You need not worry for the children - I dismissed the class early, and they were naturally happy with that. I will find others, in good and gradual time. The slower phylacteries will hum the longest, and we will outlast you.
NONMORTEM, NE MORTEM
I screwed up the note, hissing a few expletives. My thoughts turned to the Houndmaster's wrath, and a future career in zombot maintenance.
It was a long shot, but catching up with the impostor at Ouissarde's home was the only action I could think of; with any luck, Shepilov would catch him if he rolled up at the cottage. My progress to the school gate was frustrated by the ringing of the bell for second recess, and the crowds of uniformed schoolchildren who poured into my path. Then, just as I was able to break free of the crush and sprint toward the parking lot, a shout:
"Harkavin!"
I whipped round to identify the child, who had called me by my real name. He was one of the older pupils, a fair-haired lad with a maniacal grin who ran up to me.
"I knew it was you!" he said. "The fake Ouissarde has only just left! He got on the tolleybus along Yugi Prospekt, going south!"
'Cometh the hour, cometh the kid,' I thought. "You're Shepilov's contact," I said. "Right?" I had no idea he'd been briefed on my presence, and was amazed he'd kept the secret.
"Yes sir!" said the lad. "Berius Grotkin, at your service! I saw him running off! I knew he was up to no good! The whole class saw it! Mister Zermaginsky wouldn't let us go until recess but I've sent a few guys ahead on the next trolleybus to try and catch up! I've told them to help you, if you can catch up with them!"
"Shrub almighty, you crafty little pup, you enlisted your whole class?" I said. "Listen, I've got a car just over there. Are you coming?"
"Yes sir!" said Grotkin.
No sooner had we started running across the parking lot than another voice accosted us: "Klabishev! Where are you taking that child!?" Miss Nezene was trotting up to us, her four eyes fixing me with a suspicious glare.
"You were right about Ouissarde," I jabbered as quickly as I could. "He really is an impostor, an Argophylacterist infiltrator. But his cover's blown and he's escaped. Young Grotkin here is helping me find him."
"I knew it!" said Miss Nezene. "Well I'm not happy about you two going off on your own.. I'm coming with you!"
Being undercover, I had been denied the usual high-power Lichnik limousine in favour of a more modest runaround in the shape of a flat-bottomed sphere made by a factory in Whisperwood. It was reputed to get one from Klymhigh to Gloomburg on a teaspoon of biodiesel, but it was less than ideal for high-speed pursuit. Nonetheless it was all I had; Grotkin, Miss Nezene and I duly crammed ourselves into it and we took off through the school gates, rising briefly onto two wheels as I squeezed all the power I could through the turn. Miss Nezene be damned - if anything was a sign of the times, it was tearing through the streets of Novodolorsk in a little wheeled vegetable.
Before we caught up with the trolleybus, Grotkin suddenly pointed at a schoolgirl standing on a street corner. "That's Flora!" he cried. "She's waiting for us! Stop there!"
I pulled over and slammed on the brakes. Flora recognised us instantly and came running to the window, dropping her satchel in the process. "He got off the trolleybus!" she shrieked. "He's heading down Stantsishosse! Viktor and Quentin are following him!"
I slammed on the accelerator again, leaving poor Flora to cough her way through a cloud of burnt rubber. Ouissarde's impostor was not heading for his apartment or his cottage - he was making for the rail station, to get out of the Lichnina. In this vehicle, at least, I had a Lichnik radio. I grabbed the handset as we weaved through the traffic and tuned it to Shepilov's personal set.
"Shep!" I yelled into the handset. "Shep! You'd better be there!"
The handset crackled. "Yeah I'm here," said Shepilov.
"Are you still at the cottage?"
"Yeah I am. We've found Mister Ouissarde... or what's left of him. Some of these mushroom stems are ten feet long. They're everywhere."
"Never mind that!" I said. "His impostor's rumbled me. He's on the run. I've got your lad Grotkin here helping me find him. He's heading east on Stantsishosse. Going for the rail station, by the look of it."
Shepilov's irritable growl crackled through the radio. "Dear Shrub, this is the last time I trust you with my work," he said. "I'll come right over. Keep me updated. Shepilov out."
The lad Grotkin pointed again. "There's Quentin! Stop!"
I slammed on the brakes again - this time a little too hard. Miss Nezene shrieked as the little car lurched forward onto its front, then did a complete forward roll on its round roof until it was sitting on its wheels again. The windscreen was a maze of cracked glass. "Sorry," I muttered, as Grotkin hauled himself upright without hesitation. He appeared to be enjoying this little outing.
The lad Quentin ran upto the car, tugging the buckled door open. "He's right over there!" he said. I followed his finger to see Ouissarde's impostor, walking casually toward the entrance of the rail station with another lad in school uniform, presumably Viktor, following cautiously behind him.
"Gather the kids," I said to Miss Nezene as I scrambled out of the car. "They've done well. Gold stars all round."
"Wait, shoudn't we call the Reapers?" Cried Miss Nezene as I began to sprint away. "Or the Lichniks?"
"I am the Lichniks!" I said, as I ran hard toward the impostor. I overtook Viktor in a matter of seconds, but only got halfway between him and the impostor before the latter checked over his shoulder. He broke into a run and disappeared through the entrance of the rail station. In the five seconds it took me to arrive there, he had disappeared into a crowd of rail travellers.
I seized hold of a middle-aged breather and flashed my Lichnik badge. "The lich with the black beard," I said. "Where did he go?"
"Black beard, schmack beard," came his thick Siyachi accent in response. "You think I got time to admire facial hair all day? I didn't see the guy."
I shoved him off his feet, leaving him to cuss me out with a stream of Yiddish expletives. I ran to the departures board, looking for trains to &zeter. If the impostor was escaping anywhere, it would be back to his fellow Argophylacterists. There was only one such train; platform four, leaving at that moment. I raced up the steps of the bridge which took passengers between platforms, then down more steps onto platform four. The train was already pulling away, and for a moment I ran fast enough to catch up with the last passenger car before it gathered speed and moved away again. Then I ran out of platform, confronted with a futile dash across the rough track ballast. I stood and watched the train rumble into the distance, then turned to the zombot platform guard which had just waved the train away.
"Looks like I'll be one of you before long," I hissed.
"Query. Unclear," chirped the zombot. "For. More. Information. Please. Go. To. The. Station. Mast-" Suddenly it stopped and looked over my shoulder at the departing train, twitching as if in confusion. I followed its gaze to see the train slowing again, before rumbling to a halt in front of a glowing red signal lamp. Then, like a band of avenging paragons, the glorious sound of rumbling jackboots tickled my ears. A Lichnik assault team came pouring down the stairs, clad all in black. They pushed past me and off the end of the platform, crunching their way hurriedly through the track ballast toward the train. In a matter of seconds they had ripped open the side of the rear passenger car with a shaped charge and leapt into its smouldering maw.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to behold the grim familiarity of Shepilov's stout face. "Did not not occur to you to call the Hall of Roots and just stop the train?" he honked with a rictus grin.
I could do little more than shrug. "But that's cheating," I said.
"Then call me a cheater," he said, nodding toward a giant canvas bag which was being wrestled off the train, wobbling to the futile fists of Ouissarde's impostor who was thrashing within. "Part of me wonders if you're losing your edge."
"Funny, he told the same thing," I said, stuffing the impostor's crumpled confession note into Shepilov's gloved hand.
His eyes skimmed across it, stopping on a word. "Concatenate!?" he quacked, his beady red eyes squinting at me. "What does that mean?"
Ouissarde's impostor - one Sollum Lybrett, as it turned out - had attempted to infiltrate no less than three of the Unviersity of &zeter's feeder schools before the Marquisial authorities there had gotten wise to him. So he had come to Novodolor, to escape that heat and prey upon a population of liches he considered more sympathetic. Little did he know that wasn't going to happen on our watch.
&zeter's Harvestfall Student Corps claimed to be unaware of his antics, and for the sake of their continued legality as an organisation they wasted no time in expelling him from their ranks and denouncing his conduct. If he had any other allies in the system, their efforts came to naught - he was sentenced to maceration within a week of us detaining him. Those children who had been exposed to his ideas were packed off to a remedial school as a precaution, all but wiping out dozens of promising careers in Minarboria's more respectable venues. Shepilov and I did manage to secure exemptions for Grotkin and his class; indeed their names were quietly logged for recruitment into our own ranks when they came of age.
Ouissarde himself, a jolly old lich whose befriending of Lybrett had been his downfall, got a statue at Gimnazium No. 6 and a well-attended funeral; his phylactery had been put beyond use by Lybrett, which was the chief factor in the latter's own maceration by order of the Lichgravial tribunal. One can rip the limbs and head from a lich and smash his bones to shards, and it is only so many flavours of assault. But to mess with a phylactery? That is murder.
A few days after Lybrett's arrest, the Deep Singer teacher Miss Nezene sent me a brief letter. Presumably she had gotten my details out of the lad Grotkin. The letter concerned my availability for a night on the town, accompanied by herself and none other. Alas, I had to let her down - one should never mix business and pleasure, especially in this job.
Besides, Shepilov would have been jealous. And that wouldn't have ended well.
