"Gregor? Gregor, wake up. Randolph’s gone and copied you.” Mildred shook the poor wizard from his sleep shift.
Gregor rose quite quickly, feeling that he’d slept enough for it to not matter.
“Explain.” He demanded, groping around for his hat and scanning the room, which were difficult things to simultaneously do when in possession of only one eye. For this, he was reminded unnecessarily that he needed to hurry his progress on the replacement.
“Randolph seems to have hunted himself a monster. It’s quite disgusting.”
Gregor caught sight of the abomination on the ground beneath the dumbwaiter, from whose mouth a troupe of rats had presumably dropped it. Randolph sat triumphant before the corpse, covered in blackish blood and gore that weren’t his.
“Is it a kind of rat?” Mildred asked, maintaining a decent expression of disgust. “A magically monstrous ratty thing?"
“No. Maybe. Hmm…”
It was certainly of rattish aspect, but it was at least four Randolphs long, sans part of the tail which had presumably been bitten off, and there was also the baldness, and the pustules and the tumorous-looking growths which might have been unassociated clusters of muscle, as well as the nictitating membranes which Gregor saw partially drawn over the abyssal eyes, and the mouth, which had real, proper fangs alongside the glistening yellow buckteeth common to rodents. It was also leaking and reeking prodigiously. Evidently, Randolph had ripped out its throat. “…I can’t say.”
“You’ve never seen one before?”
Gregor frowned. Things like this should not be new to him, for it was his business to know the aberrant and the obscure and to be able to identify and murder every single creeping or crawling thing that went bump in the night, and he did. He knew of grand and secret abominations that slumbered for millennia between hallowed nights of feast, and he had discoursed with demons and devils and could name alphabetically every type of ghoul or ghost or zombie, conjurable or otherwise.
In a more relevant vein, he knew intimately the magical vermin which inhabited cities, and the bizarre and rare articles of genuine evil which lurked in untouched wildernesses. Alien realms were not alien to him, and he had learning enough to steer himself through psychonautic voyages beyond reality.
Consequently, he felt very certain that if this thing in fact belonged to a species and was not the sole example of itself to be found, as was the case for most creatures, then it could not be unknown.
Yet this it was unknown. He couldn’t fathom that a heteromorphous monsterat existed in the world, but not in his memory. An academic urge built up inside of Gregor, and he wanted very badly to study it.
He assumed, then, that it must be the product of intentional creation or corruption by some local sorcerer, or the happenstance mule-product of hybridisation with such a beast, escaped or purposefully let run free to impose itself upon the local rat population.
It was a very irresponsible thing to do, letting your abominations run wild. Poor form.
If they weren’t in a hurry, Gregor would probably make time to petition the imperials for a reward, then track down this local sorcerer and instruct him in professional ethics.
As it was, however, they needed to make careful use of their daylight, and the immediate problem had been exterminated by Randolph, Slayer of Abominations.
He must be a hero to the local rats, permitting that they were capable of such a concept.
“Splendid work, Randolph. I shall buy you the finest cheeses.”
Randolph squeaked proudly, and Gregor moved to prod the aberration.
“Not with your hand.”
“Hmpf.” The hand was a very potent analytical instrument, but some peculiar quality of Mildred’s voice made her whims pleasing to accommodate, so he abstained and began prodding with a little dissection knife instead.
***
Breakfast for Mildred was a great sloppy plate of eggs and bacon, and Gregor observed that she was really a prodigious eater when given the chance. The meal failed to outlast her appetite, and she subsequently called for a plate of fruits and nuts and things so that she might continue eating, forcing him to wonder if he’d been underfeeding her.
For his part, the food was long-finished, and he sat puffing on one of the complimentary cigars.
Smoking wasn’t for him, Gregor had discovered, but he kept at it because it very definitely made him look more dark and brooding.
“How do you think he managed it?” Asked Mildred between bites of some green fruit she’d never seen before, and Gregor noticed for the first time a very tiny freckle at the corner of her mouth. It was perhaps the most perfectly placed freckle he had ever seen.
“What?”
“Randolph. That thing was quite a bit larger than him.”
“Well, the throat-”
“Yes, but how could he do that? How was he able to manage it?”
“Well, he’s my rat. Of course he’d be able to kill monsters.”
“But… How? Is he some kind of special? Does he have magical rat powers?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Before the circular conversation could begin again at the starting point, a loud voice ploughed through the pleasant breakfasting atmosphere of the dining lounge.
“Gregor, you bastard! I hear that you’ve been fucking up my shit!” The speaker was a gaudily-clothed man, all slick grooming and dandy manner, “I prefer my shit to remain unfucked!” He informed.
The few other guests stared, and some stood.
At the heel of this man was the concierge, head low and his shoulders bunched, looking skittish. At his sides were a near-identical trabant pair in full uniform. Brothers, presumably.
With a folded newspaper clutched in his hand, he strode up to the table and sat down between Gregor and Mildred, arms crossed.
One of the bodyguards, concierge in tow, went around evicting the spectators and ushering them out into the lobby with apologies that seemed far too firm to be actually apologetic. The other stood silently by the table.
Mildred kept snacking. “Good morning?” She offered to the new tablemate in bemusement.
The man blinked, raised his brow, made a quick visual assessment of Mildred, then blinked again. “You don’t know who I am.” He paused, giving time for her to dispute his claim, then began again when she did not, “You don’t know me. Brilliant! Nobody is to tell her!”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Mildred,” spoke the wizard, “this is Prince Wilhelm, of obvious lineage.”
The prince whirled on Gregor with an evil eye, coiffure flopping in a way that seemed dashing by design, almost as if he’d practised it.
“Gregor, do you recall mere seconds ago when I voiced my displeasure at you fucking my shit? Why did you have to go and do it again? Are you a shit-fucker? Do you love fucking shit? It’s a strange hobby, but I wouldn’t be holding it against you, so long, of course, as you stuck to fucking the shit of other people, but you don’t! You fuck shit indiscriminately, and this time it was my shit!” He slapped the newspaper to the table. “Now I am forced to confront the reality that you just love fucking shit, and that’s disgusting!”
As if suddenly remembering that he was in the presence of a lady, Wilhelm turned to Mildred. “Pardon my language,” he plead, “I was speaking in euphemism. Gregor does not, so far as I know, actually enjoy copulation with excreta.”
“Is that so?” She remarked, picking up the newspaper in search of a record of Gregor’s shitfuckery, assuming that she too must have been party to the event, and thus that the prince was also accusing her of fucking his shit. It was an exceedingly rude accusation.
“Attack on Harsdorf University.” Mildred read from the front page of the paper, “Dozens slain by villainous wizard. Mysterious message p.2., read in full.” She fixed Gregor with a frown. “Dozens?” She asked after significant pause, flipping to the second page.
“Probably dozens.” He shrugged, eye tracking the freckle and noting the way it stretched to be slightly oval as the skin around it tugged down. “It’s good for you to be unhappy about this. Normal people need to retain a healthy distaste for mass murder.” Gregor wondered if there a term to describe the act of becoming ovular. Ovularizement? Ovulation? That was probably it. Ovulation. He found that he rather enjoyed Mildred’s ovulation.
With a huff and a heavier, more angry frown, she continued to read.
“The following message can be found at time of writing scrawled in flame in the sky above the rubble; quote, ‘Take this result to be a warning from I, Gregor the Cripple: Harsdorf was employed to kill me. They could not. If you are less capable than them, no payment is sufficient. If you are more capable than them, consider also that I have killed my master. If you are not also greater than he, you will be the next weight behind my warning.’”
“Deterrence became necessary.” Was Gregor’s only explanation. He needed to publicly and powerfully curb the value of whatever incentives the Worldeater’s promised, or else every place they visited would be likely to plunge a knife in his back. He needed people to fear him if possible, and consider him an enormous risk at the very least.
“…We’ll talk about this.” Mildred said. She wasn’t as surprised as she would have liked at finding that Gregor had left behind some delayed danger for the mages, but her thoughts on the matter were disorganised and in poor agreement.
She wasn’t blind to his point, but his retaliation against Harsdorf had been indiscriminate. According to the newspaper, it seemed as if he had caused damage so as to ensure that he’d generally be killing people, rather than causing damage for the sake of damage, or trying to kill a few deserving people in particular.
Students and visitors were among the dead, and she hardly imagined that they’d deserved it.
“Those were my people, Gregor. Harsdorf pays taxes to me. Do you know how hard it normally is to get those inbred mage lineages to pay me what they owe? Very hard! And now it’s going to be politically impossible. There’ll be funerals. Many funerals, and many of these many will be state funerals that I’ll need to attend, and there are seven whole magic-dimension-whateverthefuck buildings they need to rebuild. Now I am expected to give them money for their hardship, entirely because of you, and I’m going to do it too, because they’re one of the big sticks we wave around to scare our neighbours. To that effect,” he continued, “I am having you charged with a great many villainous things to appease them, which is almost half the reason I’m making such a public spectacle of this. The other near-half is that I’m actually very angry.”
“Gregor, your friend really likes to talk. Perhaps he should stop.” Mildred’s mood was now poor, and her opinion of the prince was decreasing in exact proportion to his ability to annoy.
“Frequent client.” The wizard corrected, though not very seriously, for he new that Mildred was in no genuine danger of thinking that he enjoyed Wilhelm’s company. “I suspect he acts like this to cultivate a disarming impression. It certainly makes him seem far less important.”
Ignoring them, Wilhelm continued. “The third small portion of the reason that I have come to meet you in person is something that you should find quite enticing – a job. You love those.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I am currently engaged.”
“Congratulations.”
“Professionally engaged,” Mildred specified. “By me.”
“Oh.” It seemed somehow that Wilhelm hadn’t anticipated that. “By the way Gregor, where did your hand go? And your eye? And congratulations on slaying that old bastard Kaius.” He pointed to the newspaper Mildred still held. “Half the world’s going to be glad, and the other half’ll be concerned that you might be worse. Not my people, of course. We know that you’re entirely reasonable. And don’t worry about those charges, they’ll only exist on a piece of paper in my office.”
“I was not worried. Your laws are beneath me.”
“…Right. Well. In case you haven’t noticed, this is the most socially opportune moment to introduce me to your beautiful new employer.”
Gregor considered it, but determined that his time would be better spent puffing on a cigar in silence.
“You might not know this because you hate people,” Wilhelm continued without care, “but introductions really are in order. It’s the thing to do, trust me. It’s in fashion. And polite.” He pretended to think for a second. “…And I’m a prince. There’s that, too.” He turned and began speaking casually to Mildred when Gregor didn’t reply. “There are rules about speaking to princes, you know.”
“I’m Mildred.”
“Mildred who?”
“Just Mildred.”
“…And where exactly do you come from?” He began squinting and stroking his chin in an exaggerated display of mental effort.
“Nowhere in particular.”
“Really? I’ve never heard of that country. Nowhere. No-where. Nowhair. Odd name. Could you lend me Gregor?”
“I cannot. I need him to guard my body.”
“Ah, well, I see… but do you really need a Gregor? Seems like overkill. He’s a bit of an extreme solution. If you’d like, I could hire you a wonderful substitute who won’t murder dozens of mages.”
“I certainly would not like that, and even if I asked him to leave me to do your bidding, I doubt he’d listen. You see,” she cupped her mouth and began mock-whispering quite loudly, “I’ve developed a rather bold theory that he doesn’t actually care about the reward, and just guards my body because he likes it. He probably wouldn't stop.”
"...Because he likes your body, or because he likes guarding it?”
Mildred ignored him, and bulldozed his question with her own. “How did you know Gregor was here?”
“Wilhelm has people for that. He’s that kind of prince.” Supplied the wizard in question, who was now also reading a newspaper that he had stolen from a nearby table. "By the way, it is considered exceedingly rude to refer to Wilhelm without a title."
“I do have people for that, but they almost didn’t need to do anything." He splayed his hands wide. "Imagine, if you will, a wizard called… Kregor. He rips a hole in reality in a place called Shmarsdorf, or something similarly ridiculous, and then the next day, a wizard arrives here on the first train out of Shmarsdorf and checks into a hotel using the name Kregor. Where am I to find this man? It’s a big mystery.” He turned again to Gregor. “Who is she, really? Normal people tend to listen to me, and they can’t afford you, and they definitely don’t have problems big enough for you to involve yourself.” He turned again. “Mildred, by chance, do any of your relatives sit on big chairs and wear funny hats covered in jewels? They’re easy to miss, so you might not have noticed, but if you have, I’ve got some good news for you.” He said, only mostly sarcastic.
“Do you really?”
“Indeed I do. You see, I happen to have a nice big palace where you can stay safe and sound and happy. It’ll feel just like home. And while you’re enjoying yourself in there, Gregor can do a few quick things for me. You can have him right back when he’s done.”
“No time.” She responded. “We need to be leaving today.”
Wilhelm ran his hand through his hair “To where? No reason for the question, of course. Just pure and simple good-natured curiosity.” He asked, now having a very definite interest in her identity. Cultivating goodwill with important people was a very large part of his business, after all.
“Eventually we hope to be somewhere a little more… golden.”
“Ah. Very subtle.” The prince’s expression flattened. With those few words, he became convinced that he had no leverage at all to secure Gregor’s assistance. Further, he now feared the diplomatic consequences of Gregor’s failure, and knew that he’d need to get busy making sure that nothing preventable happened to Mildred while she was here.
Unending were the labours of a prince, it seemed.