Philospher Quinn

Fezzel Tom, scourge of the low road, butcher of innocents, came flying through the door of the Comptroller’s extremely tasteful office. Tom crashed against that worthy’s polished oak desk, cutting his forehead nastily and upsetting the Comptroller’s careful array of pens. He fell whimpering to the floor. “There’s your sodding bandit!” Maris spat. “Scourge of the low road, my eye! Broke just one leg and he cried like a baby.” She kicked the poor criminal. “Didn’t you?”

The Comptroller stroked his beard. He had a very fine beard, and he loved it dearly. He was a very scrawny man, and a sneaky man as well, but when he stroked his beard the Comptroller felt all the power and authority inherent in one who compts. He regarded the woman. She was tall, with a face that could cut marble: a hawk nose, a prominent chin. Long black hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she was perpetually blowing locks out of her face. Her hair looked soft. The Comptroller had a distinct urge to stroke it, but something about the tremendous collection of knives at her belt, or the heavy scimitar on her back, or the lean, corded muscles gliding under her tanned skin told him: “Lay a hand on me and you’ll lose it.”

“And that’s twenty gildan for the bounty, right?” she said. “I’ll go ahead and take it now.” The Comptroller replaced the pens on his desk, thinking hard. He worked for the State. He had a duty to save the State every expense possible. If he could convince this mercenary of the necessity of government thrift, then the State would be most grateful to him, and, being grateful, would certainly not mind or notice if he kept the twenty gildan himself, as recompense for his hard work in preserving it.

“Certainly,” he said. “Just fill out this form.” The Comptroller pushed an inch-thick stack of papers across the desk. “And this one, too. And this one needs to be completed in triplicate.”

Anger creased Maris’s brow. “I’m not filling out any forms. This is simple. I bring in the bad guy, you pay me.”

“Perhaps it works that way in Koort Brasni,” the Comptroller sniffed. “But this, madam, is civilization.” He tilted his chin, and the sunlight caught his beard just so. “There are expenditures to be considered. The Federal Defalcation Deduction. The Peculation Percentage, and the Embezzlement Emolument. Must all be considered, madam. I warn you of the perils of inadequate paperwork.”

“Sounds like it’d be easier to let me go,” Frezzel Tom said.

“Maybe I will just let him go.” Maris arched an eyebrow. “What do you say to that?”

“No hard feelings,” Fezzel Tom said.

“Let him go, if you wish.” The Comptroller spread his hands, palms upward, displaying invisible handfuls of apathy. “You have already maimed him. We will recapture him easily, and you will receive no bounty. Now, if you’ll just have a seat, and fill out these forms, in six to eight weeks we can begin the initial pre-payment process…”

“In six to eight seconds we can consign you to the broiling pits of hell!” she cried. The Comptroller leapt back, startled, knocking over his chair as Maris buried one of her daggers in his beautiful desk. He stared at the quivering blade for a moment, then tugged a bell-rope close at hand. A low gong rolled through the building, two dozen boots clattered in the hall, and half that many soldiers appeared at the door, armed with long pikes and condescending patronizing grins.

“There a problem, sir?” asked the sergeant.

“That is for my esteemed guest to decide,” the Comptroller said. “Madam? Will you use one of my exquisite pens, or have you your own?”

“Keep your sodding pen,” Maris snarled. “I’ll catch you out, you sniveling bureaucrat.” Her voice was low and deadly. “Keep your twenty gildan, at that. I don’t want it. I’ll be taking it out of your hide instead. See if I don’t.” Maris shouldered past the sergeant and was gone.

The Comptroller ordered Fezzel Tom executed or imprisoned, one of those, and was left alone in a slough of anxiety. “Have I gone too far?” he worried aloud. “Have my grasping ways led me into danger? Some day – the great and terrible gods will swallow me up in payment for my crimes.” He dug in his desk for a small ivory comb and ran it through his beard, brushing it to wooly fullness, and soon forgot all about the unpleasant woman.

#

Maris stomped home. Her anger was ferocious. That little man – that grubbing wretch! Had she not braved peril to capture Frezzel Tom? Had she not overcome great obstacles to snare her quarry? Had she not – well, all she had done was catch him half-dead with drink and thrash him soundly, but, still, it felt like work. And when Maris worked, she expected to be paid.

The sun roasted her. Shimmering waves emanated from the sandy road. She sweated profusely, hating the heat, her anger waxing. A small Cono lizard, a burrowing creature with a narrow head and only two short forelegs, emerged from the ground before her, chirping cheerfully. Without missing a step, she caught it in a marvelous kick that lifted the small animal cleanly from the earth, and sent it, piping its terror, sailing over the horizon. Maris smiled grimly.

Ahead the road broke over a jagged ridge; beyond the ridge lay Maris’s shack, a squat affair constructed of scavenged centipede skins and sand-mammoth tusks. She hated it, as she hated everything in the gods-forsaken continent of Syrodecia, but it was a temporary solution. She had only to make enough to buy passage home Koort Brasni, then – back to a land where you could open your mouth without sand filling it – where the ale ran cold and dark – where there were things to kick besides Conos.

She crested the ridge and her anger flared from a bonfire to an inferno true. “Piss!” she screamed. “Storm and stress!” she cried. “Dog’s vomit!” Maris sat on the ground. Before her, where her home should have been, was only a yawning crater. She tossed a pebble into the unwonted abyss.

The ground shook. A tremendous rumble rocked the earth. Maris sprang to her feet, and a tremor knocked her down again. The ground before her split in a widening fissure; she gasped in surprise at the sight of gleaming metal at the bottom of the fissure. Then the shape of the surfacing thing became apparent, a shining dome, rising through the sand, shedding great gouts of sand and rock as it rose, clawing from the earth, a colossal Cono lizard, a hundred feet high, built of hammered brass. Smoke poured from its nostrils. The eyes glowed an infernal red. Each tooth in its hungry maw would have been fit to impale a sand-mammoth, and that same terrible jaw now dropped open as the monster advanced on Maris. She ran, feet spinning in the soft sand, and the behemoth pursued her, gobbling the earth inches behind her – she could not escape, it was on her, it had her! “Bloody…” she cried weakly as she tumbled into the omnipotent mouth of the beast. Then darkness.

#

“Tis a lovely gamler.” A voice rough and raw.

“Tis a lady, you imbecile.” This voice smooth as velvet – velveteen, rather.

“Regard to breedin’ aside, yer honor, tis some lovely gamler any ol’ way.” The rough voice again. I’m dead, Maris thought.

“Address me as captain, churl!” I’m dead, Maris thought, and the Lord of Creation calls himself captain? I fear for my immortal soul.

“Aye, captain. Anything else ye require, captain? It is my endurin’ joy to serve ye, captain.”

“Then squelch the sarcasm, peasant.”

“May I grovel, captain?”

“Grovel away,” said the velveteen-throated man, and Maris heard the owner of the other voice fall to sniveling and scraping. Maris suddenly found herself in possession of a pair of eyes, and she willed them open. “Good morning, beautiful.” A handsome face was posed directly above her own. Strong cheekbones, fair complexion, blond curls – a face nigh cherubic, now with a radiant smile. “Among the living, I see.”

“Good news,” Maris grunted. “I suppose I should know your name, if you’re going to remain atop me.”

“Apologies.” The handsome young man wriggled off. “You were unconscious, and I was hoping to revive you with the, ah, warmth of my own body. A technique I learned amongst the Kolodo tribesmen, you know. I’ve been all over the world, you see. My name, at any rate.” He snatched a plumed hat from a peg and donned it so he could sweep it off in a gracious, deep bow. “The Bold – the Magnificent – the Miasmatic Quinn.”

Maris erupted in laughter. “You know what that means, right?”

“Of course.” Quinn returned the hat to his head. “It means handsome.”

“… okay.” Maris turned her attention to her surroundings. The room was rather large. Metal ribs buttressed the curved ceiling, and the walls had the appearance of dark leather. A constant rumbling filled her ears. Behind Quinn a filthy man, short and swart, was engaged in a parody of groveling, wringing his hands and occasionally bowing low enough to scrape his forehead on the floor.

Quinn followed her gaze. “This creature is my man Cheggs,” he said. He indicated a character much resembling Cheggs, but fatter. “And this is my man Gretch.”

“How do you do, Miss,” Gretch said.

Cheggs rubbed one hand over the other as if he intended to remove the skin. “She’s a belle gamler, this one,” he slavered.

“Silence, cur!” Quinn bellowed. “I must apologize for the brute, Miss… ?”

“Maris,” she said.

“Miss Maris. A lovely name. Gretch!”

Gretch grunted.

“Gretch, set course for the Halfred Valley.” Gretch grunted and disappeared. A moment later the pitch of the rumbling rose a bit.

“Where am I, anyway?” Maris asked.

“Inside my truly amazing, wonderful ship.”

“Ship? The last thing I remember was a monstrous Cono, made of brass…”

“Truly amazing and wonderful, yes?” Quinn grinned.

“Your ship is a giant metal Cono?”

“Yes. The Juggernaut Scourge.”

“Clever name,” Maris said.

“I believe it strikes fear into the hearts of my enemies,” Quinn replied. “It lets them know that I like a juggernaut, I cannot be stopped. Like a scourge, I am deeply unpleasant. The deserts quake at my might.”

“I’ve never heard of you.”

“Tis some mistake. My exploits are legend.” Quinn thumped his shirtless chest, and Maris noticed that he was not badly formed.

“What are your exploits, then?”

“I destroyed the fort at Sar Station.”

“Before or after the hurricane destroyed it?”

“Uh. I attacked and destroyed an amassing of Imperial soldiers at the Leel River.”

Maris snapped her fingers. “I have heard of that one! Quite impressive!” Quinn’s radiant smile returned. “By ‘amassing,’ you mean ‘annual family picnic,’ right?” The smile vanished.

“Impudent wench!” he snapped, raising his fist. Maris was unimpressed by his fury. “I will show you the true might of this vessel! We are currently bound for Halfred Valley, the premier caravan route in all Syrodecia! There we will set upon the hapless merchants, seizing their goods and violating their senses of self-respect!” He laughed, hands on hips. “Oh, the blood will flow! The river – how red it will run!”

Maris rolled her eyes. “Bound how? This ship of yours – does she sail under the sand?”

“Aye.” Quinn’s eyes gleamed proudly. “I will show you. Come, thou sauceling.”

Quinn led her to the bridge. Cheggs stumbled behind them, begging to know whether Quinn wanted a refreshing beverage or foot massage with revivifying oils. They came out on the bridge, a large room with a ceiling that sloped down to the floor in the forward section. The ceiling had large windows through which Maris could see the earth rushing by. Sand streamed over the windows, lit eerily by the glowing red eyes of the monstrous machine. Gretch sat behind a cluster of knobs and levers and knobs with levers on them.

“She propels herself by the motion of the two short forearms,” Quinn explained. “The jaw crushes and swallows the sand and rock before us, and it is excreted from a chute at the rear. So we glide through the earth, leaving no passage behind.” He shrugged. “I suspect magic is involved as well.”

“You mean you don’t know? You didn’t build this?”

“Of course not!” Quinn laughed heartily. “As daring and agile and handsome as I am, I could never build such a thing as this! I found it.”

“Explain.”

Quinn shrugged again. “Found it still and lifeless in the desert. An old man inside – strange-looking fellow, no eyes, four arms – on the brink of death. Before he croaked, he told me, ‘We entrust this mighty vessel to you, young one. But beware! It has mighty power, and you must always use it wisely!’ Anyway, I kicked his carcass overboard and used the Juggernaut Scourge to chase camels. Good times!” Quinn rubbed his chin, growing contemplative. “But soon I realized that a higher calling awaited me. The world had failed to acknowledge my genius, and, so, rejected by the world, I rejected it in kind. I am above the laws of man. I have carved out my own kingdom, here, beneath the earth, where – why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry,” said Maris, wiping her eyes. “That’s very nice and all, but – what are you, sixteen?”

“Eighteen and three-quarters. What of it?”

“A teenager. Where’d you get Gretch and Chaggs?”

“Cheggs. They were family servants, but I offered them the chance to serve in my paradise, and they leapt at the opportunity.”

“Beats shovelin’ stables,” Gretch said.

“Verily, captain, our thanks is right bottomless. Does it please the captain for me to sop his boots with my tongue? The mud is honey in my mouth,” Cheggs said.

“Disgusting peasant!” Quinn kicked Cheggs, who howled and begged for another. “You see I am quite occupied keeping these curs in line. But that’s what they are – curs compared to philosophers like you and me. Mostly me. We are of a different breed than these villains. And that is why I have decided to allow you the honor and privilege of becoming my slave.” He smiled magnanimously.

Maris arched an eyebrow very slowly, as if the eyebrow weighed half a ton. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

Quinn nodded graciously. “You display a certain animal cunning that I find endearing. In time, I may condescend to take you as a concubine.”

“Now I can think of a few things to say.”

“I believe,” Quinn continued, “that the chance of promotion provides the servant class with hope.”

“You are a most progressive slave owner, I’ll agree. I have a counter offer.” Maris unsheathed her scimitar. “I could just hack you into tiny pieces of manflesh. How’s that?”

“Oh… Trotters!” Quinn clapped his hands. Soldiers flooded the room. To Maris’s astonishment, they were quite kempt, with shining sabers and tall, pointy hats that imparted a highly professional appearance. Six sabers flashed from scabbards, and Maris found herself ringed with blades. “I hope you won’t judge my enterprise by the poor example of Gretch and Cheggs. In addition to those lowly servants, my family also employs a private guard, some of whom came with me, as you see. Gentleman that I am,” and here Quinn could not resist another graceful bow, “I would hate to see you slaughtered, especially after I took the effort to capture you, my wenchly one. Thank you, Colonel Trotters.” Quinn nodded to an older fellow with handlebar moustaches, who beamed at Quinn.

Maris returned the scimitar to its sheath, mind a-buzz with confusion. She could no longer consider her captor (as amazing as that word was to her) a buffoon; she must instead consider him a buffoon supported by half a dozen trained soldiers.

She smiled broadly, a horrifying rictus promising pain and mutilation – later. “All right. I’m your slave. I’ll go ahead and tell you, I’m not licking any boots.”

“That’s fine.” Quinn waved dismissively. “That office is taken. For now – ” A terrible tremor rattled the Juggernaut Scourge. Maris sprawled on the ground, senseless with the shock. Then, a sensation of weightless falling – bone-shattering impact. Maris lay panting and stunned, but Quinn was already on his feet, shouting, “Report! Gretch!”

Gretch frantically cranked knobs and hauled levers. “We broke into a cavern,” he said. “Er. We crashed in through the top, if you’re wonderin at the fall. Ship – still livin, captain, so that’s good.” The soldiers stirred, getting to their feet slowly. Quinn’s back was turned, and Maris saw her opportunity; she could draw her sword or any of a dozen knives and have the blade to him in half a second. She fumbled for her knife-hilt. The touch of cold steel on her neck stopped her. Her gaze traveled up the saber-blade to Colonel Trotters, frowning behind his moustaches, and she went limp.

“Lights,” Quinn said. Trotters removed his blade; Quinn gasped in astonishment. “We’ve found treasure, Miss Maris,” he said.

Maris stood and looked through the window. A forest of towering crystals caught the light from the Juggernaut Scourge, broke it in a million incandescences, and threw it back. Reflected by the crystals, the Scourge’s meager lights filled the cavern, revealing a vast glittering dome. Silence reigned on the deck. Finally, Quinn ordered Trotters to ready his men: “I want to take a walk.” He jerked a thumb at Maris. “You too, Miss.”

#

They crept from the Juggernaut Scourge timidly. The silence of the cavern was oppressive; Maris felt the weight of the world overhead. She could tell that the men were uneasy, as well, though Quinn maintained his fearless bravado, and Maris wondered whether she was starting to respect him for it. She quickly extinguished that idea.

Quinn carried a flag wrapped around a short pole; he unfurled it, revealing an elaborate “Q,” and staked it in the shining sand. “Mine!” he exulted, surveying his discovery. “These crystals are amazing – the least of them must be worth a fortune!” he cried. “Let’s take a look around,” he said, and plunged ahead.

The crystals were smooth as glass. They arched overhead in great swooping whorls, branching in smooth liquid shapes, beguiling the eye. Quinn touched each admiringly as he passed, occasionally ordering Trotters to hack at them with a shovel and bending to examine the shards. The discomfort of the men had no apparent effect on him, but Maris shared it, keeping one hand on her knife-belt and scanning the swimming pockets of darkness among the brilliant reflections.

And there – her soldier’s ear caught a sound. Insignificant at first, like a handful of pebbles rattling down a drain, but the pebbles became stones, the stones boulders, and soon the cavern was a-roar with the clamor. The men shouted alarm, unsheathing their weapons and looking from one to the other as though the next man could explain the cacophony. Gretch tugged Quinn’s sleeve, begging, “Master, master, let’s quit this place, let’s get back to the ship…” and Quinn shrugged him off. Gretch fled wildly and vanished in the psychedelic forest. Quinn called after him, but a fury of screaming from Gretch’s direction drowned his call. The party sprinted as one after Gretch.

They found half of him scattered in the sand. A trail of viscera led to a gaping black well in the ground, from which a cold wind issued. The wind preceded an enormous head alive with twitching antennae and grasping jaws – rubescent eyes the size of grapefruit – and a nightmare army of legs rising from the pit two by two, an impossible amount of jointed, hairy legs.

“A centipede,” Maris whispered. “I built my house from their skins.”

“Only the babies,” Maris said.

“What do you suggest we do?” Quinn asked of the air where Maris had just stood.

Maris tore down the path, thinking only of reaching the Scourge and the dubious safety it offered. Behind her she heard the men stumbling over one another, cursing, Quinn urging them on, shouting, “Faster, you dogs! Run!” Then the thunder of the centipede’s legs overtook her; she glimpsed a blinding rush of chitinous shell as the monster raced ahead of the little group of men, barring the path between them and the Scourge with its bulk. From a scaly coil the head rose on a neck three feet across; the sword-like mandibles clicked in anticipation of their feast.

“We can’t run anymore,” Quinn panted. “What do we do?” Maris wordlessly drew her blade. Trotters followed suit. The centipede lunged.

The impact of the gargantuan head scattered men like tenpins. Maris stepped aside, the bristles scraping her skin as the monster rushed past. The head reached the terminus of its lunge and stopped just short of crushing Quinn, who, astonished, struck dumbly with his saber. The blow glanced off the thick shell, and the head recoiled, preparing for another strike. But Maris, scimitar flashing, leapt at the beast. She struck at its forelegs and severed two; purple ichor gushed from the stumps, and the centipede, hissing in pain, slashed sideways at her with its jaws. Maris ducked the attack, stabbing upwards with her scimitar and cutting into the soft underside. She turned the blade in her fist and raked the creature’s belly lengthwise, putting her weight into the evisceration. The centipede reared, seeking instinctively to escape the steel that sought its life, but Maris kept the scimitar buried in the monster, forcing it deeper and deeper into the hide, splitting the monster from stem to stern. With a final fatal twist she extracted her weapon, and, writhing, beating its mighty tail on the ground with thunderous but diminishing force, the colossus became a corpse. A last death-spasm drenched Maris head to toe in stinking purple-black sludge.

Her panting was the only sound in the cavern. The screaming of the men had ceased; she realized that they were all looking at her with awe. Quinn came forward silently, removed his fine cape, and draped it over her shoulders. Wordlessly, his face contorted so reverently that Maris had to struggle to resist laughter, he kneeled and kissed her slimy hand. “You are amazing,” he said. “Verily, like a warrior angel. My warrior angel.” And now Maris had to laugh.

#

They returned to the Juggernaut Scourge. Cheggs shook his head sadly at news of Gretch’s demise, then sneered, “Well, if it was in the service of our Master, I’m sure it was justified.” Quinn, wounded, retreated to his chamber after giving orders to get underway, lest they draw further attention from the arthropod community, and presently Maris heard him playing a flute, a sound most mournful and atonal. It was, no doubt, a proper way for Quinn to mourn.

Trotters showed Maris to a room where she could bathe, departing with, “We’re awful shook up about Gretch, Miss. He was a great man, and a poet, too. Wrote the loveliest sonnets.” Maris scrubbed the slime from her body, and, feeling neat and clean, donned a nice silk robe left out for her. An embroidered “Q” told her that the robe belonged to that great leader of men, and she smiled, thinking, “That little dandy!”

Trotters waited outside. “The Captain wants to see you, Miss. Private-like.” He led her to Quinn’s room.

He had, Maris assumed, lifted the chamber entirely from the Sultan’s palace. Gauzy curtains hung from every wall; heady incense perfumed the air, tickling her throat and threatening a pleasant asphyxiation; all was red and gold. The man himself reclined amidst many cushions and much importance. His eyes blazed at Maris’s arrival, and he jumped to his feet. “My lady,” he said to his shoes, bowing low as he was, “I welcome you to my sanctum.”

He dropped to his knees. “My warrior angel. It is my happy privilege to offer unto you… a happy privilege. I would have made you my concubine, a toy for my pleasure, a jewel to adorn my harem. But – after your display of prowess today, my heart’s desire was awakened and aroused most prodigiously. My heart beats as one with yours. My aortas intertwine with your aortas. The muscley ventricles – each pulse with nothing but admiration, respect, and – love, love, love.”

“Um,” Maris said.

He laid a finger on her lips. “Say naught but love, my love. My love loves your love and, loving, loves love’s lover. Which is you. My love.”

“Uh.”

Quinn pinched her lips ardently. “Ssh! Words matter not between such soul mates as we. The mighty warrior in me recognizes the mighty warrior in you, and this draws us together. It is thus that I offer myself, with all the humility that my great and magnanimous heart can summon, as your husband. Be thou my bride, Maris.”

“Oh, Quinn,” Maris sighed, squeezing his hand in hers. “Are we quite alone in here? I fear emotion might o’erwhelm my disposition, flustered as I am by the magnificence of your offer. I would be most dismayed if the soldiers could hear me – or you – screaming in delight.”

“My dear, I assure you, our privacy is complete.”

“Then, may I say, my dear, that you have made me so happy,” Maris said, and, squeezing his hand in hers, broke his third and fourth fingers. They snapped like kindling, and Maris grinned, quite happy indeed. Quinn howled in the agony of shattered bone, but, true to his word, no one beyond the room heard his cries. “Who’s the captain, Quinn?” she demanded.

“I don’t understand,” Quinn pleaded. “I’m the captain!”

Maris crushed his hand, and heard two more pops. “Who’s the captain, Quinn?”

“Ahh!” he sobbed, pain distorting his face. “You’re the captain! You’re the captain!”

#

Quinn, his hand wrapped in a thick mitten of bandages, summoned the soldiers to the bridge. “I have decided,” he said, very somber, “to abdicate. Miss Maris here is overwhelmingly superior in all areas – tactics, combat…” Maris poked him in the ribs, and he continued, wincing. “Intelligence, cunning, and, ah, scent. You must address her as ‘Miss Maris’ or ‘Ladyship’ or – gods preserve you. That is all! Clear the bridge.”

The troops stomped out, confused but more or less indifferent, and Maris remained with Quinn. “Well done,” she said. “You display a certain animal cunning. How endearing. In time, I may condescend to take you as a concubine.”

Quinn flashed. “Really?”

Maris regarded the boy. He was handsome, and – blast it – dashing, after all. “If you’re lucky,” she said. “Now, where do we take this thing?”

“Anywhere you want,” Quinn said.

“Can it take me to Koort Brasni?” Maris watched the earth tumble by the window. Sand upon sand. Good riddance to this gods-blighted land, she thought.

“You bet.”

“Set a course, then,” Maris commanded. “No – wait. There’s one stop I’d like to make. Just a quick one.”

#

“You see, I was like you once,” the Comptroller advised his clerk. “Spineless, sniveling, stuck behind a desk. Not a nice desk, like this one, either.” He thumped his beautiful desk. A paperweight artfully concealed the knife mark. “And what did I do? I took initiative. Behold.” He indicated his beard. “Took ten days off to grow it, and when I returned, right away the supervisor said, ‘There’s a lad with initiative. He is the man I want.’ That’s my advice to you, and it’s the best you’ll ever get.”

“My beard, when grown, is patchy and thin!” the clerk moaned.

The Comptroller frowned. “Then you’re doomed to failure,” he said. “Quite likely a poxy death, as well. I hope at least you aren’t married.”

“My poor wife…” The clerk stumbled out.

The Comptroller opened his desk drawer and took out a little bag of coins. This was his office bag; he had a home bag, a club bag, and a traveling bag. He liked to have some money on hand at all times to count, and this he did, touching each shining gold coin, one by one, turning them over and singing a gold-counting song of his own composition.

The coins rattled on the desk. Odd. The Comptroller frowned. The coins rattled again, then bounced as the desk shook. They rolled off the desk, bouncing as the floor trembled violently. Dust fell from the ceiling, the timbers of the building creaked; the windows shattered. The Comptroller squeaked in terror and crawled beneath his desk, which bounced away an instant later. He tried to run, but another tremor threw him to his feet. He sprawled on the floor. This fury of the earth was meant for him, he knew. The floor split, the walls fell into a widening crevice, all tumbled down. The Comptroller saw the hungry iron jaws, the fiery glowing eyes; the gods, the terrible gods had come for him at last!