CZM Book Club: "Confession to a Dead Man" by Margaret Killjoy

This woman is a humble woman. She has a podcaster and an author by the name of Margaret Kiljoy.

turned it into RPG stuff. Nice, but I can't remember. Do you play RPG as much? Yeah?

got there. No, yeah, I mean I would have killed him. It tried to even just missed my chance. The man sitting on the bench opposite of her just stared, waiting for her to say more. He was wiry, so was his beard. He was nearly enveloped by thick wool overcoat, but a hint of his pale gold uniform stuck out near his collar. ELECTI could just make out. The insignion is lapel, a sword crossed with a shepherd's crook. It's a cute name, ALECTI said, I'll give you that what

the King's Boys and Girls Club. It's a cute name, like you're just a bunch of bootlicking murderous cops. Was the irony intentional when you came up with the name? I don't know, the man said, it was before my time. Maybe that's not what matters. What matters, ELECTI asked. Blood was starting to trickle down from her right nostril. It tickled. What happened tonight is what matters, The man said, If you didn't kill the reverend who did, tell us what

you know, we'll let you walk. Oh honey, ELECTI said, I don't like when you lie to me. Who says I'm lying. The man asked, if you didn't kill him, we'll just hold you at Hazard long enough to get everything sorted. Let you go. The only thing we agree on, Electi said, licking the blood off of her upper lip, is that you're going to let me go. The road sounds changed from mud to gravel to cobble, and Electi

looked out the tiny window. She couldn't make anything out through the rain and grime, but she knew they must have made it to p Number North at this snail's pace. It was another thirty or forty minutes before they reached Hazard Penitentiary. Electi and her friends didn't spend much time in Panumber North, where the streets are made out a street and the people are made out a misplaced loyalty. She said aloud, what nothing, Tell me what happened? The

cop said again, yeah, fine, She said, no reason not to. Besides, she missed her therapy appointment that week because her therapist, Joan, had been on a bender with the squad from the South Docks. The dog girl what was his name? Dog girls all had stupid names like wrench or carburetor or Petunia or whatever Petunia that was. It had a nice bike didn't even explode very often, so he claimed he

was cute. Couldn't blame Joan for missing the session. Yeah fine, I'll tell you what happened, but only because I'm gonna kill you. So it started, like every good evening does, at a party thrown by the anarchists. It's the fun anarchists, of course, the Errenian, not the boring anarchists, the Corsaurians of course. The don't call us anarchist anarchists from the North Docks where are even more boring. The industrial workers

of Harrow, not them. It started at a party. It was a good party, mostly on a rooftop one of those weird theaters in the shadow of Triumph Tower. So you've got the sunset coming pretty through the ash haze over the factories, and you've got the stupid glow from the stupid Silver Church, which I do not like admitting is pretty. Some of the clackers were up for their warrens, trying out those bulbs you run electric through and they glow all handsome and light the evening up, and most

of them don't even explode. There was a troop over from the Dead Quarter doing a pantomime plus half an orchestra from the Alps with their heirloomcellos and shit. So I'm having a good time because I love all that shit. I love the shitty mushroom beer that's all we get to drink because your God's dumble or as all the farms blown up and a forbid he bother importing some barley. I love the potluck snacks everyone brings. Who knew you could fry a rat in so much oil that it

tasted good? Who knew you could grow hot peppers in the top of Triumph Tower. We're a little bit more sun peaks in. You know what I love the most about all these parties, though, I love that we fucking have fun despite how hard you and your immortal bag of dicks of a boss God try to make us suffer. I love that we still have music even if we barely have food. I love when you fail to take things like that away from us. I know what you're gonna say to that. You're not trying to make us suffer.

You're trying to, like what, bring us back into his grace so we can win the war, rebuild the farms, and go back to living boring lives of quiet mediocrity like we supposedly had seventy years ago, right, get people trusting that money will feed us instead of us feeding

each other. However, we can return the flock to the fold. Well, you got to get a new metaphor, because there's no more flocks of sheep anywhere anymore because they all got slaughtered for food ten years ago and all of their fields have been bombed as shit for half my life. But anyway, the party, party good, that's not the part you want to hear about. I guess who am I to deny you your last wishes? You want to hear

about the Reverend Lemon hened the fourteenth. You want to hear about who it was who decided his ear would look better with an eighty bity teeny tiny spike stuck into it until it hit the brain. I mean, let's be honest, lots of us would have decided that. But you want to hear about the guy who actually pulled it off. Who wasn't me? So I'm at the party.

I'm there with my friends. Malice, she was a marine before she went a wall kept her armor and her trauma pretty useful in a fight, which is good because she gets us into a lot of them, Sannie the rat king God. They're weird. Most people who use they them pronounsi us them singularly. Right, Sanni uses them plural. See a has the royal we se sees a god king. He says, we do not approve of you a lot having fun in the one and only life you have on this planet. We are not amused by your mockery

and all of that. Right, Sanny uses the vermin. When you talk about Sannie, you're talking about the human kid buried under all those rats, But you're talking about the rats too. Love Sannie and Losa was there, of course. Honestly, I'm not sure about Losa. Are we even friends anymore? We hang out together, sure, do crimes, but we haven't talked in ages, not like really talked. God, you know, it really feels good to just get to open up about all this stuff, say, all the stuff that usually

just lives inside my head. I really appreciate that. I appreciate you. I just want you to know that you're gonna be inside kind of a living nightmare soon enough, which you deserve because you're trying to lock me into a cage. But I just want you to know that you're appreciated as a person, even if not as a cop. Los is a patchworker. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, back, alley surgeon who flays corpses and mixes up fungal paste and sows the skin of dead people onto living people

in order to heal wounds. You're thinking, A scary bitch with a scalpel who doesn't think a thing about ripping the bones out of living people. You're thinking, right, Losa's a scary bitch. He does all those things. Also a hell of a dice player, a good cook, and would you believe it, and honest to a the vegetarian. And we really did used to be close. I was at all three of her weddings and the four resultant funerals. But after that time in the basement of the club

fighting all those giant centipedes, it just hasn't been the same. Plus, I think she's jealous of how close I've gotten with Malice, or maybe it's the other way around. Right, So the four of us are at this party and I'm just trying to have a good time, But malice is all We need a mission. Let's do a mission, and Losa is kissing up to her about it, so she's like, yes,

look at me, I'm Losa. I will temporarily pretend I share your ethical framework in worldview in order to get closer to you and drive a wedge between you and Electe. Or at least that's what I assume she said, because suddenly she wants a mission too. Guys, can't the mission Sometimes get drunk and maybe high, and maybe just ave forbid, get late. No, no, no, it's time to do crimes for the good of humanity or whatever. I look at Sanny, but they're just feeding bits of mushroom to those rats,

and their eyes start spinning and they whispered. Whatever happens, we're in, just like you can be in on these sweet, sweet deals of capitalism that interrupts this podcast. Here we go and we're back. So that's how I knew I wasn't gonna get late at the party, because every single one of those bitches would have died a thousand times over if it weren't for my spookyes saving them with a well timed curse or a jaunt into the ether.

We find a guy with the Ernni knows everyone. I guess that's repetitive all the ERRENNI know everyone, we find a guy. He's cute, but I'm not allowed to see if he's down a fuck because we've got work to do for some dumb reason. And he says, there's this elbow guard. I know you know what I'm talking about. I know you care more about that fucking thing than you do about the life of the poor dear Reverend Lambin Hend the nine hundred and fiftieth of his name

or whatever. I know that's why you followed us. Anyway. The cute guy, he tells us and everyone else at the party, besides about his elbow guard, holy to the outsiders, ancient made out of granite and quarts in the ceremonial style. Let's see if I get this chain of events right. Lamban had this tenant, an old outsider lady who got entired of sleeping in a crypt in the Dead Quarter. And I tried to do things proper and get a room in North Pannumber. Only now there's no money and

everything is favors and reputation and shit. Mister Hend doesn't really like unprestigious guests, so he got into his head that she owed him something, so he marches into her house and picks up the most valuable thing he sees, Like the prick that he is, the elbow guard, he takes it to the esteem to see what it's worth. Only I think a skip saw that go down. And

now the whole city knows. They especially know that there's an inscription in the damn thing, and half of it is written in the language outside, and half of it is written in whatever fuck weird language related adult p number, and that no one can read that scrawled across the hole under city. So it's valuable to lots of people. So first, yeah, the ideas that we're going to steal the damn thing, get it back to the outsiders where it belongs. It's just the right thing to do. And

sure none of us would mind that. They'd be grateful and maybe let us use their gunsmithies sometimes. Then Losa, though, see she grew up on the streets mostly because her mom was from Panumber North Like she's fourth generation patchworker. You see where I'm going with us. You remember when your little King's Boys and Girls Club rounded up the patchworkers, called them unholy, drove them out of your territory. What was that? Ten years ago? When you know Loso was ten. Well,

guess who were mom's landlord had been? Guess who had told you all Los's mom in the first place. Lemon fucking henned the fourteenth. Sorry, Reverend Lemon hand the fucking fourteenth. He ain't so revered as this title implies, not by most of the city. Losa says her bit about what happened to her, and what do you know, half the party has stories about this guy hired some thugs, not you, other thugs to blow up a pie shop run by the lords of the New Order that was competing with

the one he had interest in. Ain't too good to the people he hires either. He was one of those thugs he'd hired who was at the party, turns out Hand and tossed him to the lords as soon as it was convenient. His friends rescued him. Funny thing about friends. It's nice to have friends anyway. More and more people saying this shit. He's a bad landlord, a shitty boss, awful of the people he fucks. He's just this is

not a redeeming bone in that man's body. So pretty quick we go from let's rob the guy, so let's kill the guy you know how that goes. And a couple of dog girls are around with their bikes, and one of them even a a sidecar, and they figure, what the hell, why not go for a joy ride or I guess I'll kill Ride up to p number North, find this guy's house, swap out his insides for his outsides, grab the stolen elbow guard. Wham bam, thank you, ma'am. All the good night's work. Nope, you fox her on

the prowl. Good thing. The dog girls are smarter than you.

there's blood on the pillow. I know a thing or two about a thing or two, And while everyone else is just like what the fuck happened here? I can tell them that, like Okay, bear with me. You know that the world is made up of three worlds, right. I know A tries to keep you in the dark on basic cosmology. But there's three worlds form a triangle. We live on the material. Then there's the ether, which is I guess where you could call the angels. That's

where they live. Then there's the rot with you know, demons. Right, we touch both other planes, and each of those other planes touches ours and the other one. It's a triangle, not your dumb hell or of heaven linear hierarchy you've been lied to. So as humans live on the material, right, But we're made out of stuff that transfers from one

to the other. What you call your higher soul than your lower soul, which are dumb words for it, by the way, I say, it's a gape and thelema, and maybe those are dumb words for it too, Who knows. When you die, your stuff moves on. A gape goes in the circle clockwise, heads over to the ether till it heads over the rot, till it heads on back to the material. Thelema goes caraclockwise over to the rot, then the ether, then back to here. You get the idea,

what has this got to do with ear spikes? See, back before your fucking god kings ascended, people here knew a thing or two about the planes, and more people than just us weirdos could communicate across those borders. And those people whose name is lost to us, probably forever in my society, the hermetic order of nothing, we call them the forgotten people, which is not super original, but it is descriptive. Those people, the forgotten people. They used to

kill people by jamming spikes into their ear. That's my point. It's kind of classy and not much mess. Didn't even wake the guy up. You should try it. No, actually, well not you. You shouldn't try it. You're a cop. You actually shouldn't kill people or exist. I'd say quit your job and find new friends, but it's too late for that. So there we are, and I'm trying to explain a Gape and Thelma to everyone, and they're kind of ignoring me, because everyone does when I talk about

that stuff. And Malice is looking through the guy's bedroom and there's like it's like a dumb, goddamn museum and they are complete with stolen artifacts, pine glass and plaques. There's an old, rusty saber from Kirik and a rovy and rare book. And wait, get this, there's a human skull labeled as having belonged to a chieftain of Sore. Can you believe it? You're just staring at me. You don't get it. Soor doesn't have chieftains. It never did.

The whole country is built on a plateau no one was able to reach until the god King Sore lifted his people up with his mighty magic or whatever. Come on. Their whole religion is based on that. How do you not know that Sora is even friends with eighth right now? You should know that. And there's a glass case where the elbow guard should be, But of course it's empty because someone stole it, probably whoever earspiked our good friend.

Because of course the plaque is just a handwritten piece of paper because there hadn't been enough time to find an engraver. It says elbow guard probably important. We're all having to laugh about the chieftain's skull. Unto a rat runs in, looks up at Sanny, and Sanny looks down at the rat, and they turn to us and tell us that people are on their way a lot of people. That's the good thing about having a swarm of rats

at your command. What kind of people, Losa asked, They don't know their fucking rats, Sanny said, only Sanny probably doesn't curse when they said it. We should get the fuck out here again, probably without the fuck. It's hard not to cuss when I'm in your shitty fucking carriage. Do you people not know how to fix a roof? You keep it shitty just so your guests have it worse. But you have it worse too, you asshole. You're just making the fucking world worse. God, I can't wait to

get out of here and kill you. My nose is fucking bleeding and I can't see shit, and my hands are cramping anyway, so we fuck off right back out the window. The doggirls who drove us there, they're gone. I guess they saw which way the wind was blowing. And those bikers like some of us all right, but not enough to fight off the cops and risks getting killed or sent to hazard. That's how we figure whoever's coming,

it's probably you all. Malice wants to stay and shoot you all with her bolt thrower, which sounds like a reasonable plan to me, but Sanny and Losa don't like it, so we break into the empty house next door and lay low. Sure enough, it's you and your buds who show up. Probably remember this part. You go in search the house, find the body.

body by that rope. I pop over next door and guess whose essence is still lingering, not dissolved yet into the ether proper, Reverend Lemon Hen the fucking fourteenth, that's Who's It's funny because that's how I know you were one of the kingsmen who showed up, because I was in the room with you while you were investigating good eye, catching that feather.

get everything sort of with your paperwork. Tell me in your own words, how you died. He tells me his story, which wasn't too long. He went to bed same as normal, then woke up feeling something weird. Flicked his eyes open, saw a man, gaunt and age leaning over him, pale skin like the lampreman. Then he caught, just a moment's glance, just like the saw some horror the likes of which

he'd never dreamed. Some kind of taxidermy bird gone wrong, six feet tall, feathered, beaked eyes everywhere across his body. What was it? He asked, like I had all the answers I did this time, though, and I wanted to be addict to him and make something up. But I thought, you know what, this guy's like, soular whatever. He is about to disintegrate into the ether and he's never going to experience anything ever again. And it looks like I've got a soft spot for folks who are already dead

or like in your case, basically already dead. So I tell him, and this is where I cut to ads. But I think we're gonna run our don't talk to cops ad because this is a whole story about someone who talks to cops. You shouldn't do this. This is bad. So here's an ad about not talking to cops. And then if any other ads run it was a terrible mistake.

I tell Lemonhon that this guy built a mannequin out of dead animals and then ripped open a portal in the rot and lit a little bit of that weird shit that lives over there into the material to animate his little death puppet, which means he likely made some kind of deal, like you serve me for a week, then you're free to go do whatever you want and the material, which means the city is actually in for some bad luck soon because that fucking thing is still

out there, and that's your fault. You know that people you claim to protect are gonna die anyway. He tells me about the Gaddesist, and I tell him, thanks, buddy, you'll be whissed off soon enough. Don't worry about the slow disintegration of what's left in your mind, all part of the process. I don't tell them about the angels that are going to be eating his soul, same as Maggote to corpse. I just pop back over to my body. Low Sun, Malice are playing dice. Sannie is talking to

their rats. I guess you could say, talking to themselves. I tell them what's up, and Sannie's like, oh weird, dead bird creature rats can track that. Off we go, and you know where we went because you tracked us. Ave only knows how you bastards are good at tracking people.

I'll give you that. All the way through p Number South, around Triumph Plaza down to the South Docks, the rain picked up and didn't help our mood, and it took us half the night to get where we were going, to a little run down shack up against a peer with someone muttering insighed. So we're all set to kick in the door. I've got a bomb out and everything, cigarette lit and the holder in my mouth. When Malice says, you, guys, I don't think this is how we should approach this situation.

And if Malice doesn't think direct physical confrontation is the best solution, then it means a really not the right solution, because she solves almost everything with silence. Soon we scoot on over in the dark under the pier and back out comes the candles and the chalk and the rope, and I'm off to the ether for a second time that night. You know how tiring. That is whatever, hop on into the shack. There's this guy, there's the demon.

They're talking. Demons talk weird. Imagine like eight people talking at once, saying almost the same thing but not quite. But the core of it is pretty banal. The getes sist's a spy for her, is going to sell them the elbow guard. That's it. Then the demon says there's someone outside, and the two rush out the door, and I turn around to rush back in my body, but I don't even make it through the wall before I black out. And guess where I wake up? Here with you?

Alecti was silent for a while after telling her story, waiting for the lawman to say something or react in any way. He didn't. A fear came over her for the first time. She was certain that whatever else, her friends were out there in the city looking for her, tracking the carriage. They would call in some favors, and any minute now a crew on dog's wheels were going to roll up, engines roaring, and Malice was going to use that big gun of hers to set her free.

She just thought it would have happened by now. She hadn't figured she'd reach the end of this story. The cop must have been able to see her confidence drain away, because a smile slowly worked its way across his face. She couldn't give up, not on her friends. Yeah, they'd let her get captured in the first place, but they must have been busy dealing with the spy and his demon. Any minute now, she sighed, leaned her head against the

window as rain dropped down on her cheek. Next time, she was going to go to the party alone, and the only call to adventure she was going to answer was the adventure of getting laid or maybe, And she knew she was getting real desperate and sad when her mind went into this the darkest of corners. Maybe she should ask Losa back out. Yeah, they hadn't been good for each other, but whoever was given up? Then the lawman finally asked. She sat upright and glared. The carriage

slowed to a halt. Looks like we're here, he said. Then blessedly, a foot long steel bolt shot through the sidewall of the carriage and impaled the man through the chest, pinning him to the firewall. Blood came to his mouth, dripping into his gray beard, and he looked down with surprise and horror. A scream broke through sudden and shocking silence. ELECTI had heard that scream before. That was the scream of a man covered in rats. Then the scream stopped,

replaced with a gurgling. That was the noise of a throat cut with a scalpel. The driver, you do love me, ELECTI said, as the door to the carriage was wrenched off its hinges. What, Malice asked, tossing the steel door aside. Los and Sanny peered in from behind her. I said, what took you so long? ELECTI lied, Oh, Malice said, looking genuinely Contrite. The demon and the spy slowed us down. They got away too with the elbow guard. Losa stepped into the carriage, pulled out a scalpel and picked the

handcuffs open. Thank you, ELECTI whispered into Losa's ear, where the others couldn't hear it. Fuck I was so scared, me too, Losa whispered. All I could think was that what if I never saw you again? I'm sorry we let them get you. They met eyes for half a moment, then drifted away. All right, you dumb bitches, ELECTI said, standing up glancing over quickly at the still dying cop on the bench across from her. Let's go steal back in artifact. That's the end of the story.

could be like a little bit more free form. Also, Sophie has been asking me to do a love story with this with this show for a while, and I've been struggling to find a good love story, and so that's part of why I chose this one. Okay, okay, Sophie, this is the this is the love story that you asked for.

The world soon became a much more open thing with other designers, but dog Girl was one of the original characters, and I just like, don't I have no fucking clue where I came up with that name.

And so he hired me to write this world. And he was like, I want to write a steampunk world. And I was like, can it be a fuck you to steampunk world? Can it be a this is what it should have been world? And he was like, yeah, okay, fine, And so this was my like fuck you, I quit. This is what it should have been that I started

in like twenty twelve or something like that. Okay, And then and then that publisher just literally disappeared, just like they had a successful kickstarter for some other game and then never finished that game and then.

and it's off in the mail towards people. If you backed it last summer, thank you very much, and your book will be in the mail shortly if it is not already, and you can order it through Tangled Wilderness. Strangers in Entangled Wilderness is a publishing collective that I'm part of, and eventually it'll be available through other distributors and stuff. But we are We're used to printing and distributing books. But every every creative feel has entirely different

distribution systems. And like, if you want to make a board game, you're dealing with an entirely different world than if you make a tabletop role playing game. Then if you make a legally distinct from chooser and adventure book, then if you, huh, it's very annoying.