The Empire of Gut and Bone Read Online Free PDF Page B

they can hurt.” And then he blinked slowly, and finished by saying, “May they have long lives, of course, and may the veins of heaven shine upon all their endeavors.”
    And Brian realized that Dantsig couldn’t say much that was bad about the Norumbegans. Because he was built to serve them.
    Brian was horrified. He couldn’t stand the thought of all those mannequins being disassembled by their former masters. Maybe having to watch, standing in lines, while others before them were taken apart.
    “They can be put back together again, can’t they?” asked Kalgrash. “I mean, someone has taken off my head before and put it on a different body, and I feel like a jillion bucks.”
    “Sure, that’s beautiful, troll. But you need the heads.”
    Brian suggested, “If you take us to see the Emperor, maybe we could petition for the heads to be returned. So the people can be reconstructed.”
    Dantsig looked at him evenly. “Sure, squirt. That’s just what the Norumbegans will do.” He glared off into the belly’s dark evening.
    “That’s great!” said Brian. “We have to see him about alerting the Rules Keepers that the Thusser are cheating in the Game. So if you could take us to him, that would be …” He realized a second too late that Dantsig was being sarcastic, and he felt stupid. Like he was chirping in the dark. Like he was an idiot, whiffling away. He fell silent.
    As soon as possible, Brian, Gregory, and Kalgrash went below.
    The miner was curled on the floor. He did not look well. He gripped his own arms and stared into the tangle of mechanical junk.
    “We need to do something for him,” said Brian. He asked the man if he was okay. If he needed anything. If there was anything they could do. The old man didn’t speak English — just the language of Norumbega. He shook his head and laid it back on the floor.
    Gregory sat with his arms crossed on the bunk. He looked irritably at the stove.
    “That was awful,” said Brian softly. “I can’t believe they just came and took the whole town.”
    Gregory shrugged. “They’re the Norumbegans’ automatons. So the Norumbegans can do whatever they want with them. And plus, the townspeople can be put back together again. Dantsig said so. What’s the big deal?”
    Brian glanced quickly at Kalgrash.
    The troll was clearly angry.
    Gently, but with incredible rage, Kalgrash said, “I could take you apart. And see how well you go back together.”
    Gregory did not laugh. He didn’t make a joke. They glared at each other. There was anger in their eyes.
    And the sleigh carried on, dragged over the slime, pulled through the stomach’s dim night toward the fortress of Pflundt.

FIVE
    A day later, they reached Pflundt. The terrain rose into an infinite gray slope, rough and cut with channels. Coursing down the cliff was a fortress like a floe of ice, a waterfall of wax. It might have been built, or features might have been carved into some ancient deposit there — a weird citadel of blobby towers cut with windows, deep hollow gateways, and cannons mounted on frozen sluices.
    The sleigh sped through the great arch and into a vast stable, a cavern soaring with Gothic pillars made of something that looked like it once had been molten, now gray, translucent, and lit with crystal lanterns. There were wooden stalls for the beasts of burden. Dantsig pulled up beside a stall and dismounted. He unharnessed his steeds so he could wash them down and curry their pimpled flesh. The stall was filled with gravel. Dantsig’s beasts hunkered down in it and covered themselves, delighted.
    When he was done, Dantsig led the boys and the troll into the fortress and its stone town. Hungry and thirsty,they were overwhelmed with Pflundt’s activity. Men in black frock coats rode along the rutted avenues on bicycles with baskets of old gears and cranks. Peddlers offered robotic hands, slim and beautifully carved, inlaid with brass and mother-of-pearl. One old woman at a bench sold