Rook

new leg was tremendously exciting.
    I watched as they sliced mice and hounds and horses in half and then proceeded to glue them back together. Gerd was entranced, and my mind raced with the possibilities. We worked out a deal: I agreed to fund their research, and they signed several binding contracts. Then they returned to their work, which we later moved to one of my more remote properties.
    And so it all began.
    W ell, that’s fascinating,” said Myfanwy. “And a few centuries later, you’re sitting naked in my chair. The chain of events is obvious.”
    “You know the rest of the history,” said the Belgian coldly. “I have no doubt that the Checquy has it documented thoroughly. Our rise to power, our connection to the government, the attempt at conquest, the forcible dismantling.”
    “Yeah, although after that, things get a little shady. A few hints of your presence in Europe,” she said. “But you were careful.”
    “We were obliged to be,” the Belgian replied ruefully. “So many of our primary resources had been lost. We were stripped of our estates, and we came close to being utterly destroyed. Fortunately, I have always endeavored to be prepared. Positions to fall back to, hidden funds and resources. It took us several decades to build ourselves up to where we had been technologically. Several of our master
handwerksmannen
had died during the Checquy’s counterstrike. Key experiments were destroyed. Both Gerd and I were forced to watch ourselves be killed. We were wearing new bodies by that time, of course. We sat ten feet from the kings of my country and yours and toasted our own corpses. And then, when the gasps had finished and the blood was cleaned up, we walked past the Court of the Checquy and the elite of two countries and out into the world.
    “We rebuilt, retrained, and continued to innovate. Our research was on a smaller scale, of course. Our wealth was far more modest. We had to be even more secretive. But still, we grew in power. And then… Well, then I’m afraid that’s when the corruption set in.
    “Some of our
handwerksmannen
are fascinated by the concept of corruption. They have dedicated centuries to weeding it out of the human body, to staying its inevitable progression. They always chatter on about it. The molecular level. Enzymes. Organs. Unfortunately, there was so much focus on the small scale that the larger corruptions were missed. Instability crept in. Priorities became… skewed,” said the Grafter, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Some of us became erratic.”
    “Erratic?” asked Myfanwy.
Because you were so completely sane tobegin with,
she thought.
Nothing says normal like invading England on horses with antlers.
    “One of our premier scholars, Jan, developed an alarming penchant for cutting off his own toes. They grew back, of course, but you could hardly have a conversation without having to watch him take off a shoe.”
    “Charming.”
    “I think,” the Belgian mused, “some people simply may not be meant to live so long.”
    “You don’t think it might have been all the genetic messings-about?” asked Myfanwy through a yawn. Tension and fear were fighting a losing battle against exhaustion.
    “Yes, well… no, I don’t like that idea,” he said.
    “No, of course not. How many bodies have you had?”
    “You lose count after a while,” the Grafter replied. “I have sometimes thought that we may attract the wrong people. My cousin has a troubleshooter, a young man named Van Syoc. He is a monster, with disturbing habits.”
    Yeah, like tearing the faces off prostitutes,
thought Myfanwy. She thought about telling him that Van Syoc was dead but decided against it.
    “In any case,” said the naked man, “I became concerned—”
    “About the toe thing?”
    “Well, no, not so much the toe thing.”
    “You weren’t concerned about the toes?” asked Myfanwy, mentally kicking herself for prolonging the conversation.
    “No, it wasn’t really doing him any harm,” he said dismissively. “It was not even interfering with his work. What concerned me about the toes was that it was a new habit—he had gone several hundred years without doing it. Now it was compulsive.”
    “Uh-huh.”
As long as it didn’t interfere with his work.
    “Yes, but I am digressing. I had noticed some alarming trends. Communiqués were bypassing me. Gerd had become more secretive and was suddenly much more engaged in the details of our international