Scrambling through the streets, they felt the great heart rock with cannonades. Walls jumped around them. Gravel fell — who knew from where? People were surging through the streets, screaming. A fiery glow lit tenements and stores and bars.
Brian was running neck and neck with Gregory and Gwynyfer. As they ran, Brian studied the girl’s face. She looked nothing but stern, glaring back down the slope at the mannequins who stood outside their ring of imaginary stone, waiting for invisible walls to tumble down. She set her eyes on the palace, slid them sideways at Brian, then ran past him, dragging Gregory by the hand.
Another round of explosions burst the city asunder.
Houses tore apart. Chunks of balcony hung on electrical lines, swaying, swinging. Wires fell, sparking along the street. Brian threw himself out of the way of one line that went striking past him like some demon worm.
Panicked wails went up from the citizens. The mannequins, trying to save the people, were destroying them.
Another shell hit — quite close — the detonation so loud they felt it in all their bodies.
Brian fell.
There was darkness — things were falling toward him: rocks, concrete, wood, metal roof.
He reached up, as if a soft hand could ward off tumbling stone —
He screamed once.
And the debris smacked into something invisible and slid to the side. Brian lay completely still — seeing the brick crowd the air, ready to pounce down on him. He didn’t understand. He blinked.
Gwynyfer and Gregory were lying next to him. The Wizard Thoth-Chumley knelt near them, holding up his arms, quivering.
“Ski-Jack’s Miraculous Bumbershoot,” the mage explained, nodding toward the glow of his spell in the air. Charred beams slid off a force field above them.
When the trash had fallen, he dropped his hands. A few final things plunged down around them. He took a deep breath.
“Let’s go,” he said, and gave Brian a hand up.
The four of them fled toward the palace.
The throne room smelled of frightened sweat. The folding doors were pulled aside, and across the Grand Hall, out the broken glass doors, the distant armies could be seen, massed by the city’s edge.
The Ex-Emperor Randall Fendritch sat near his wife, looking white and weak. His clothes were too large for him and were cuffed and collared with smudges of dirt. The courtiers around him did not speak. They all were too aghast at the flames they saw reflected in the debris of the Grand Hall.
The Ex-Emperor spoke in a high, anxious voice, though no one listened. He said, “We don’t fear anything. Not really, old top. We’re Norumbegans. Hey-ho, anyone for a round of golf? A gent could exorcise his demons with a few choice chip shots right about now.” A cannonball, trailing smoke, lofted past the windows. There was a loud crash somewhere in the tower. The floor shook. “I say,” said the Ex-Emperor, blinking rapidly. “Speak of the devil. Looks like someone knows his niblick.”
“Oh, do shut up, Randers,” said his wife, bowing her head. “We none of us can understand a word you’re saying.”
The Earl of Munderplast cleared his throat. “This might be a moment for us to think solemnly of the past. Sadly recall the happy days of yesteryear. Stare straight forward. And prepare for the end, which shall come in the next few minutes, I wys.”
Down at the end of Imperial Avenue, where it trailed off into the desert, the mannequins slung a real battering ram into a make-believe portcullis gate, waiting for it to fall.
And then, as Brian and his comrades jogged across the blasted Imperial Square, the bombing stopped.
It took them a moment to realize: The air no longer whistled. There was no longer a rhythm of detonations. They realized that all they still heard was flame and the calls of people rescuing other people. The Mannequin Resistance had ceased their attack for unknown reasons.
They looked at each other in amazement.
They had made it.
Slowly, they walked through the gates, into the palace.
They headed up the grand staircase toward the throne room.
The Court sat gathered around the throne. The floor was covered in fragments of plaster. Everything sparkled with dust. Many of the Court were wounded, and bled on their silks. Hanks of their hair hung out of circlets and cloche hats. Women dressed in sharp pink suits stooped to pick broken glass out of their feet.
There were the Ex-Emperor and the Ex-Empress, the Stub beside them. There were the Earl of Munderplast and Lord Attleborough-Stoughton and the Duke and Duchess of the Globular Colon. There were Kalgrash, Dantsig, Chigger, and Alice, all of them in handcuffs, standing dutifully by the guards. There were maids-in-waiting, Knights of the Bath, governors from far-flung colonies in distant fringes of the circulatory system.
Everyone waited for someone else to speak. No one wanted to be first.
A wind blew in through the broken glass doors. It stirred the plaster dust, and people coughed.
Brian cleared his throat. He said, “Someone should … someone should organize rescue parties or something. Of guards. Maybe. Because people are looking for help out there.”
Courtiers looked anxiously at one another. No one stirred.
“Who?” asked the Ex-Empress Elspeth as if she was wickedly and brilliantly scoring a point. “Who would you like to organize ‘rescue parties'?”
“The Imperial Council,” said Lord Dainsplint, stepping forward, his hands cuffed behind his back. (It gave him a keen debaters’ kind of look.) “I hereby call the Imperial Council to order.”
The Earl of Munderplast rolled his eyes. “My good wight, the Council is in shambles and cannot legally rule. We have no Regent and at least one of our Council members is an assassin who dinged down the previous Regent.”
“I did not!” said Lord Dainsplint. “As I have said, I killed only Gugs.”
The Ex-Empress said, “Yes, you’re rather awful. I do believe he was quite fond of you. I suspect that later this evening we shall all decide to strip you naked and hurl you off the balcony.” She spread her hand dramatically. “Splatters,” she said.
“Then there must be another among us who is guilty of the assassination,” said the earl. “We cannot rule thus. The Council is riddled with vacancies, madmen, and murderers.”
“I don’t see,” said Lord Dainsplint, “how that is any different than usual business, old man. You just want to sound off in the midst of crisis so the Melancholy Party gets the Regent’s seat.”
They glared at each other across the room. From outside, distantly, came the sound of fires.
“Um, hey,” said Gregory, raising his hand. “Really, someone has to take charge here.”
Ex-Emperor Randall said, “Well, why not Chigger? He seems awfully keen. The scepter in his eye and all.”
Chigger bowed. “I should be glad to accept the charge to rule.”
“All that are in favor?” said the Ex-Emperor, raising his hand.
The Earl of Munderplast swept forward and exclaimed, “I demand a full investigation of the Regent’s murder before we put anything to a vote. We cannot allow the Council to be stocked with those who murdered His Excellency.” He frowned. “As opposed to those who planned to, but — oh, night of rue — did not get the chance.”
Everyone looked suspiciously at one another.
“Oh, very well,” said the Ex-Empress Elspeth. “Let’s clear all this up right now. Someone must know by now who punched the old Reejer’s ticket.” She looked around brightly. “Come along. Fess.” She clapped.
No one confessed to the murder.
The earl said grandly, “I accuse Lord ‘Chigger’ Dainsplint of the assassination of the Regent.”
“Utter rot,” said Chigger. “All we need do is take ten minutes to force Alice to speak her memory and you’ll see I was with her all that evening. I am not the guilty party.”
The earl shifted uncomfortably. “There is one other,” he said. He looked briefly at Brian, then at the throne. “Your Highness,” he said, bowing to the Stub, “it may be that Lord Dainsplint, who was, we might well find, not present at the murder, was nonetheless involved with another on the Council who committed the very deed.” He smiled secretively. “Would you not all fall back, astounded, if I revealed who this might be?” He paced back and forth.
Brian glanced at Gwynyfer. She cowered next to Gregory.
The earl said, “It has been brought to my attention that there is one other councillor whose alibi for that fateful night was not adequate. Most of us were with our own beloved and revered Ex-Empress and Ex-Emperor. A few of us were involved in some pleasant and convivial conversation in the basements of this palace. But one claims — one! — claims to have been ‘with his family.’ Yea, my friends — ‘with his family.’ Who are, therefore, the only witnesses that he was not dressed and bedight as a guard, creeping through the corridors of this palace — dirk in hand, murder in his heart — as he sought to kill our most gracious and beloved Regent in the flower of the man’s youth.”
The earl smiled harshly. “That man is … the Duke of the Globular —”
But before he could even finish, Gwynyfer had let forth a wail. She rushed forward to her father — mustached, sagging in his tux — and she threw her arms around him, saying, “No! Daddy! Daddy!”
Sadly, the man greeted his daughter, mumbling, “The Duke of the Globular Colon greets his daughter, Miss Gwynyfer Gwarnmore, upon this sorrowful day … and wishes —”
“Do you deny it?” cried the earl.
“… and wishes that there shall be brighter days for his beloved daughter in years to come.” The man looked up at the earl. “I, of course, deny it. I was at home with my family. We returned to our manor after the dance. You have no evidence.”
“Do I not?” said the earl. He looked quickly at Brian. “Do I not?”
Brian was frozen to the spot, watching this unfold in front of him. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t ready to accuse anyone. He didn’t know — couldn’t figure out —
And now Gwynyfer faced him, tears running down her cheeks, and said, “Tell them — Brian — tell them what you’ve found. It couldn’t be my father.” She faced the whole Court and screamed, “It can’t! You can’t!”
Brian didn’t know. Gregory looked at him angrily. The earl waited. The Court waited.
Gregory walked out in front of them. He glared at Brian, then began. “Lords, ladies,” he said, “Your Highness.” He bowed to the Stub. “The Duke of the Globular Colon could not have committed this murder. The murderer had to disguise himself as Dantsig. That was part of the plan: to make it look like Dantsig was guilty. Whoever it was stuck on a fake beard like Dantsig. So whoever it was could not have had a white mustache, too — as the duke does!” He pointed furiously at the duke.
“I say,” said the duke. “No need to point at my ‘stache.”
“By the breath of the Morrigan!” the Ex-Empress swore. “It must have been one of you on the Council! Will someone simply accuse someone else who can’t make excuses? So we can be done with it?”
The Wizard Thoth-Chumley did not look comfortable. He stared down at his notebook and scribbled something.
Meanwhile, Brian had just realized something. He had just thought about the murder in a way he’d never thought about it before. He’d just realized one thing that had blinded him all along. He looked around wildly: noble faces strained and confused; chalky dust lit with shafts of sunlight; the Stub, his eye wheeling wildly; battered drones clanking forward with sandwiches. He saw things he’d never seen before.
He said, “Excuse me. Excuse me.” He walked to Gregory’s side. “I think I know who killed the Regent, and why.”