Did the scrubber with green hemorrhaged eyes framed in scabbed lids join the scholar willingly to “fight the dream disease” or was he just a broken puppet dancing at his master’s commands. We would never know since he had not spoken a word since he appeared and showed no signs that would change. His partner, the morphing and decaying filth walker, could at least be assumed to be an unwilling accomplice, but whoever he had been, he was surely dead by then regardless. My fingers shivered in a cold grip against the mop shaft. The fear I had felt was nothing like my experience in the ether ways even as they had been during the outbreak. It wasn’t worse per say, it had been truly awful then, just different. Yet neither was it as primal as when I had first encountered the scholar. It had the same texture but was much more grounded. Imminent and unstoppable danger was before me, but I was also protected just enough to numb the alarms that would have consumed me, just enough for the same dark humor I shielded myself with in the ether ways to take its place.

  Only a wall of bodies kept me safe, and those bodies were strong but not unbreakable. The twisted arm of the walker grappled and stuck to them. It was unable to be pierced by their steel but neither could it push through the weapons. Three spears had become stuck as a tangent to its arm after his first charge and when it whipped that arm away above his head their three wielders went flying without them out from behind the wall of shields. Of the three, two righted themselves and rushed back towards the walker immediately. It may have seemed reckless, but the wisdom in it could be seen when the possessed finished off the straggler after he was temporarily stunned against a wall.

  With all limbs back against the ground, the walker pushed his shoulder against the shields as it bit at the heels of their holders with his horrifically stretched maroon painted face. For their part, the soldiers pointed their shields downwards to try to pin it to the ground. In that instant the possessed shifted again but this time the soldiers were more ready for him. When he struck with his knife his mark had shifted their neck just enough that the knife caught against the edge of their helm and his legs were cut by two adjacent soldiers. When he shifted away, he did not bleed but he stood with a pronounced limp that hadn’t been present before. At his side the demon stood almost superimposed behind him and, almost as if it was placed to whisper into his ear, chittered incessantly. It was so conspicuous, but until it had made noise, I had barely registered its presence outside of the telling chill in the air.

  The all too human teeth of the abstracted walker had stretched out from the dripping filth and finally bit into the ankle of one of the shielders. He collapsed, but he had made sure to fall forward when doing so. His weight pulled a few others along and the walker ended up pinned to the ground against their shields while thrashing wildly.

  “Now!”

  The sea of bodies before me had parted just slightly enough that we could push forward and approach the range of the walker. Those that made room flanked the pinned monstrosity and did everything they could to halt his wild fit with their spears as the limping possessed came in for another round.

  Karen reached first and lunged her mop low through a gap towards the walker’s head. Two soldiers prodding the walker fell to the possessed, but he was impaled in the knee and the king himself sliced his arm off at the elbow. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the arm holding the knife. Karen’s mop brushed the face of the walker, and the filth began to wash away, but that had also been where the two who had fallen had been holding it with their spears so its face twisted and it bit into the mop. It dug in its lanky limbs and twisted, pulling Karen out from beneath the soldiers and shaking some of the ones on top of itself off in the same motion.

  “Karen”

  I had rushed forward and luckily so did many of the soldiers as there had been nothing I would have been able to do to stop what was coming. The possessed immediately shifted towards her, but a few had been fast enough to impale him as he materialized before he could swing his knife. More had rushed forward as he temporarily shifted away and were once again able to block him as he returned. He was slower after he had been injured and it may have been by just enough to save Karen. My heart thundered in my chest, but I had something I should have been more focused on before I raced too far forward.

  “Douglass, quick, before it gets up.”

  Aaron had yelled this as the crawling walker swapped away his sword along with the spear of his neighbor. I would have been in a better position if I hadn’t rushed ahead, but I was still closer than Thomas and Jossette. I ran back and plunged my mop on top of it in the same manner the soldiers were attempting to do with their spears. It was so close to me and not nearly as bound as it had been only moments before. I vigorously scrubbed against the hide of paint as my heart clamored in my chest. Thomas and Jossette were able to join me before long and the filth started to wear off the mutated walker. Its whipping limbs and snapping teeth slowed only inches from us and we were eventually left with a freakish elongated corpse of a human. It looked as if its skin had been transfigured into the stretchy substance of children’s candies and pressed with iron dough roller.

  I quickly turned to see what had become of Karen and was relieved to find her once again encircled as the soldiers faced off with the possessed. A corner of his scalp had been carved off, and I wondered if the demons deal only effected the injuries he had already had when near death, then would a new injury of that severity eventually kill him? We would never have the chance to find out in that instant because when he next shifted, the head of a spear had met him through the chest. He fell to his knees as the shaft was pulled out and his vacant stare went hollow without a sign of surprise before he fell forward. A chorus of violently chittering animals could be heard coming from the demon as the strange cloak-like body drifted apart into a cloud of black feathers. Inside it, I had just barely been able to see a shadowy stem with the scare crow-like head atop it fall over before vanishing.

  My nerves were so shot that I felt like my brain was rattling in my skull, but I rushed over to Karen without letting the tension paralyze me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes of course. It was a nice bit of fun sliding down the hall, really settled my nerves.”

  So she said, but her hands had been shaking when I grabbed them. I felt like, if only a little, our trembling softened in each other’s hands, but it wouldn’t be quite enough to put us at ease. Not yet.

  “I can’t believe we haven’t even gotten to the worst of it yet. I just know the queen’s going to be a royal pain if she’s got the worst qualities of both of these two.”

  “And twice as ugly at that, just imagine what she’s going to look like when we give her a good wash if this poor bloke’s the example we got to go by.”

  Thomas approached us while taking that potshot at the queen followed by Jossette and King Slumnier.

  “If you think she looks hideous now you should have seen her in the mornings.”

  It took us a moment to register such a flat but ridiculous joke coming from the dour king’s mouth so there was a long pause before we broke out in laughter.

  “Oh, so our vaunted sourpuss can lighten up after all. I wish you told me earlier, maybe I’ll even be able to feel some respect towards you before this whole thing’s over.”

  “I’ve never met a commoner as disrespectful as you in my life. How’d you like to become a minister?”

  “Seriously? Of course!”

  “I was expecting you to say no. That was a joke.”

  The king was grinning the whole time he spoke with Thomas. I was sure this time. There really had been soft currents of blue filth in the dark red beneath us. I let the mood sweep my anxiety and fear further into the same veal of dark humor I always wore in the ether ways. The same I wore when singing my inane dark parodies in my head. Perhaps, I thought, it wasn’t such an odd reaction. Perhaps, for me, that humor was the same as Karen’s smile and maybe it was time I didn’t constrain it to my head alone. At that moment It was not unlikely I would need it before long.

  So, when my mind drifted to a melody once more to protect itself, I did not hold it within.

  “You all must know the queens favor I’m imagine?”

  Aaron snorted

  “That silly children’s song about a queen who keeps giving away gifts until she has nothing left? If only our queen could have been the same right? Better to be a pauper than a monster.”

  “Well then how about this.

  Oh queen Oh queen

  What’s left to say?

  You were granted a nation, but threw it away

  Did you enjoy the finery, dining, and carriage?

  Well then, maybe you should have thought to honor your marriage

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  Some might say it was fair to prefer life on the run

  But that gave you no leave for mistreating your son.

  Where is your crown and where is your wealth?

  When you’re hoisted by the noose and covered in filth

  When the demon comes crawling, we’ll all want you dead

  Is that enough reason for nodding your head?

  Oh, why care to fall why care to fall, when you take what is given then give filth to all, spread on the streets a ball held for sin, you’ve given the grave we’ll all put you in"

  A few of the soldiers snickered as I went on and after hearing it once some even joined in on the chorus. Ray’s lips were terse and he was less amused than everyone else, but he hadn’t made any comment and remained as quiet as he had been since we set out. I imagine he felt he didn’t have the right, even though the words directed at his former lover surely struck a nerve. I had no sympathy for him but understood his thoughts towards the queen must be complex.

  “A bit on the nose sure, but still a bit to simple in terms of poetry. If the original song didn’t make it memorable, I wouldn’t rate it very highly.”

  “Wasn’t expecting an evaluation. I did just make it up on the spot you know?”

  I was laughing as I said so. It seemed that out of place melody lightened the mood just as much for everyone else as it had always done for me. The light blue filth beneath us was no longer subtle even though no one commented on it. We carried it forward towards the rooftop like an aura.

  We didn’t encounter another mutant or possessed on the way to the roof, although we did have to make our way through many more walkers. I was certain there had been more possessed present at the queen’s hanging and wouldn’t be surprised if there had been more besides. I did not know why no more of them barred our way, but in retrospect I imagine the scholar did not want to waste them all in defense of the queen. After all, the queen was really just the beginning.

  When we opened the door that took us to the roof beneath the spire the queen nested on, dusk had fallen. The surface of the roof was plain, flat, and relatively small. I think it likely had an area comparable with four standard houses. The surface was the same marbled ivory that coated the walls, but at the time I hadn’t been able to tell through all the filth that was coating it. In the middle a spire rose. It was the last spire and highest segment of Tembralvain. The queen crawled around it like she was a lizard on the branch of a tree and around her filth poured down like a fountain. Much of it had become the same dark red we had seen while approaching and that also coated the queen’s mutated hide, but so much was produced that the colors could not fully settle into a blend. Lines crawled down from her neck like worms and shot down the spire and out over the building like lightning creating a stream of flickering lights. Unlike the alien feelings that had radiated from the jellies, walkers, and ground, the queen had still been radiating the feelings that had been unique to her as she was consumed by the filth before her hanging. It was oppressive and I had seen the way the soldiers around me had to steel themselves in a manner that was tenser than when we had confronted the possessed and mutant, but they managed to hold. I had wondered whether or not the aura of clear blue filth we had carried beneath us had some influence on them. It did not block the rushing lines of filth that splayed out from her, but neither did it erase them.

  Above the slithering queen, at the very top of the spire, sat the scholar grinning down at us maliciously and writing in the tome he had carried. The demon was right behind him like a flag planted over Tembralvain. I gritted my teeth. I knew it was likely there would be no getting at him.

  The queen slinked down the spire while covered in the rusty outline of the setting sun’s glow. When she neared the surface, she leapt down and her feet splashed a rainbow of filth as they impacted. Those colors sent out ripple in the thin sheen of filth that was like the surface of a lake. She moved slowly like a snake evaluating its prey as her demon stood planted at her side subtly shifting with her movements. Then in just a single blink she was upon us.

  Spears and swords assailed her as she rammed the shields, but they couldn’t cut through the hide and stuck to the queen. They held their ground firm and managed to pry their weapons away from the filth when the queen tried to throw them in much the same way the mutant had. I think the increased momentum of the queen’s frantic movements might actually have helped rather than hindered in that regard, but it was just as likely the soldiers had been learning as they continued to fight these aberrations.

  For my part I held steady. It was far from the moment I would need to move so I could only pray and hope she didn’t break into the encirclement before then. I still had the same fear I had just felt before the possessed and mutant, but I somehow felt more secure than I did before despite being in more danger. Since I could only attribute the difference to the light blue filth, I let my mind revel in the humor of standing before a demon with a mop in my hand.

  They may have been able to keep their footing and weapons easier than before, but they also couldn’t approach her in the same way they did the mutant. Holding ready behind the line wasn’t enough, a large portion of the encirclement had to move out and flank her. Her limbs and body thrust at them powerfully nearly knocking many down, but they pushed back with their weapons and shields. It felt as if she had been reduced to nothing more than animal but there must have been at least some intelligence left compared to the walkers, though it was possible the impressions she had radiated out were just vestiges. Regardless, she did seem to be more alert to her surroundings than the mutant had.

  She couldn’t shift to where we were with no space present, but she could shift past the soldiers that surrounded her. She appeared at the back of the encirclement, and I nearly fell over when she rammed into a much thinner wall of bodies that wasn’t that far from where I stood. The possessed had never done this, but maybe there had been less of a reason to when the encirclement was bigger.

  The soldiers quickly turned around and charged towards where she was, but she shifted again before they reached her and she rammed the circle again from another angle. Before she once again flashed into another position the king reached her and knocked his still sheathed broad sword into her head making her stumble back on all fours slightly with her own momentum. He began laying into her before she could right herself, still not drawing the blade, and the others around him joined in from the sides. She snapped back with her gruesome too human face, in which she could still be recognized despite its disfigurement, and swiped with her reptilian arms with enough ferocity to finally send some of her assailants flying. She chomped on the king’s sheath, bending the gilded mettle and he pulled it out as she crunched it in half afterwards. He stabbed in the sword and pushed with all his strength. He couldn’t break through the filth, but there was a thin trickle of blood coming out down the edge. He pushed and pushed further, and she was pressed backwards and then down as more weapons laid pressure onto her, but then she slapped one of her hands onto the ground and a small wave of filth splashed up blinding the king and the others while pushing them away slightly. In that moment she shifted away then back again to bite the king in the lower leg. He cried out and fell over, but before she could finish him off, she was beset by the others again who did everything possible to drive her away.

  They pursued relentlessly and stayed quick on their feet to counter her shifting, but the battle wasn’t going in our favor. We had yet to do any significant damage, and she was growing more ferocious as our forces were dwindling. Those that weren’t injured were still getting massive amounts of filth spread to them. It didn’t seem to be infecting them in any manner, and at the very least I didn’t believe it was something that would turn them into walkers, but it had still seemed to weigh them down in a fashion that wasn’t just from clinging to them. At the rate things had been going, there would be no way for us to approach the queen in safety. I giggled as I envisioned myself charging forward like a knight with a mop in my hand. I prayed it wouldn’t come to that, but my hopes were quickly betrayed.

  As the soldiers had once again formed a circle to try to pin her down, she did something unexpected and leapt into the air. She reached much higher than any human would, but the height still seemed within reason for particularly acrobatic animals. When in the air she shifted then came down strongly from right above our circle. A wave of filth much more massive than the one before swept us up as we fell over and dispersed our formation. I was now completely exposed and on my back. As it happened, when the queen lifted her ghoulish face, her eyes were directly on mine.

  …………

  Did she really look even worse in the morning?

  She crouched and blue lines surged around me as I grinned. It was strange, but it was no matter since I wouldn’t be able to raise myself before she was on me regardless of what it meant. But, I thought to myself, why not give it a shot? After all, if I was about to die, I might as well do it in style as a scrubber standing against a beast, mop in hand.

  That last whimsical thought would be the reason I was able to stand as a final obstacle came between me and her stampede. Ray’s sword did not thrust through her, but it did stop her as her lithe arm impaled him through the chest all the way through his back.

  “Seidria…let’s fall together, one last time.”

  It was only him that fell, but I would never know if that last flash of the radiating filth was some emotion she felt at his death by her own hands or if it was just an instinctual roar before she resumed her charge.

  I laughed aloud and the laughter freed me from all tension. I had been saved, if only momentarily, by the man who had meant to sell me to death for his own pleasure. I was to be killed by the same woman I would have coldly seen hanged just to assuage my fears.

  Maybe there could be a grand morality tale to see in all this, but all I could think about learning in my last moments was to laugh. To, when faced with the absurdity of the world’s filth, laugh, clear and bright as the rippling filth beneath me.

  I would not crawl pitifully through the mud as I had before the scholar. I would die swinging my mop like a caricature of a grand hero. I would meaninglessly do so with all my strength as if I believed the small swipe of water would be enough to wash away that thick caked on hide of filth that loomed over me as she fell upon her prey.

  But when the mop head met her, just before she reached me, it was not coated in water but the glowing light of light blue lines of filth and her filth was swept away just as I had envisioned in my delusion.

  With the stomach and breast of a wildly curved and stretched human body exposed she fell backwards and began convulsing. The limbs still coated in filth scratched at the exposed pale skin of the stomach. Despite what she had been through, her skin beneath still appeared healthy and might even be found sensual if not for how inhuman its shape had become. I was stunned by the sight before me, but I let the humor drive me forward to finish the job. It all washed away with ease in the blue light, and she died so quickly after losing the coat of filth that I couldn’t help but wonder if the demons deal hadn’t somehow gone to the filth itself instead of the queen.

  As that very demon burst into a cloud of feathers over the queen’s corpse, I looked up towards the other demon. The scholar was standing with the tome held under his arm and laughing not unlike the way I had been. He shifted to the next rooftop and continued to do so until he was out of my sight, leaving me behind in a shallow lake of blue and red filled with groaning bodies trying to pull themselves to their feet. Those that had already been standing uneasily crept towards the queen. It would be a long time before the city of Monderlow would once again be able to see the clean stone beneath the veneer of filth, but I imagined I would be there when they did, having done my part to show it to them. It was the same job I had always held, but maybe this time, I thought looking at the light blue filth beneath me, I could show them something worth more than a slate wiped clean.