The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness

John Connolly

• Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781982178741
• Subtopic: Literature General

From internationally bestselling author John Connolly, a new short story to brighten the dark months, featuring the beloved character of Samuel Johnson.

The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness are the most feared assassins in the Multiverse.

They are ruthless. They are cunning. They can do interesting things with oranges.

Now they have been hired to hunt down and kill the demon Nurd, along with every friend he’s ever had. But friends come in all shapes and sizes, and with all kinds of talents.

The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness are about to meet their match...

I

In Which We Are Reunited Some Time After the Appearance of the Last Volume. You Look Lovely, By the Way. What Have You Done to Your Hair?

The knight was wearing very shiny armor. It wasn’t just the sort of shininess that comes from hours of buffing, aided by large dollops of Mistress Dolly’s All-Purpose Miracle Polish and Unguent.¹ Oh no, this was a deep, ingrained gleam, a “Look at me!” radiance. The wearer could have fallen down a mine shaft, landed in oil, been set on fire, and still have emerged from the whole affair with the sun bouncing off his helm and breastplate, his cuisses and greaves.² His armor was shiny and clean in a way that demanded to be noticed, just as some people really, really want you to know how good they are, or how good they think they are, and never miss an opportunity to advertise it. The armor made you want to kick the person wearing it really hard, even at the risk of breaking a toe. It was a very, very annoying assemblage of bits of metal, and it suited the wearer because he was very, very annoying, too.

The knight’s name was Sir Magnific the Outstanding. He hadn’t been born Magnific—his real name was Reg—but a lifetime of being unrelentingly good, and always where this goodness would be spotted by the maximum number of people, had resulted in a knighthood and a change of name. Sir Magnific the Outstanding traveled the land with his squire, Orlic the Resigned, rescuing maidens, righting wrongs, and generally making a nuisance of himself, since not all maidens want to be rescued and wrongness is often simply a matter of opinion.³

Sir Magnific the Outstanding was currently seated on his horse, Button. Sir Magnific was smiling the way only someone who is really proud of what he’s just done can smile, all teeth and smugness. Button the horse, meanwhile, was not smiling. It’s hard to appear happy while a bloke wearing fifty pounds of metal is plonked on your back—a bloke, what’s more, who has never been known to say no to a pie.

Before Sir Magnific stood a man dressed in very raggedy rags and an apron that could only have been filthier if it had actually been made of dirt. A cloud of flies buzzed around the man’s head. Occasionally one of them would land on his hair or skin and think to itself, “Oh, this is a bit of all right, isn’t it? Couldn’t ask for a more feculent, unsanitary place to lay a few eggs than here—” before promptly dying.

The man’s name was Peasant. He came from a long line of peasants, all called Peasant, so he was Peasant Peasant, although he had recently worked himself up from Peasant to Chief Peasant. He was very nice to those around him, and was therefore a Pleasant Chief Peasant Peasant. Sir Magnific the Outstanding, though, was testing his patience. Sir Magnific had turned up earlier that morning at the castle gates, spouting some nonsense about righting wrongs and rescuing maidens. He had then proceeded to hit anyone who disagreed with him very hard until they either started agreeing with him or handed in their dinner pail.⁴ As a result, the castle was now in flames, the prince had a fatal dent in his head, and Peasant and his fellow peasants—to only some of whom Peasant was actually related—were stuck out in the cold watching a lunatic on a white horse shining brightly while behind him a castle burned.

“You are free,” said Sir Magnific the Outstanding to Peasant and the other assorted peasants. “You are no longer condemned to a life of servitude. Go, and be happy.”

“Go where?” said Peasant. He liked it here, or had until Sir Magnific arrived and began setting fire to stuff.

“Anywhere,” said Sir Magnific the Outstanding. “The world is your oyster.”

“What’s an oyster?” said Peasant.

“It’s a sort of fishy thing,” said Sir Magnific, “except without eyes or skin. Lives in a shell. Slimy. You have to swallow it in one go because it tastes a bit horrible if you let it hang about in your mouth, and if you eat a bad one, you’ll get sick and most likely die.”

Peasant looked doubtful.

“I don’t think I want my world to be an oyster,” he said. “How about a piece of stale bread, with most of the green bits cut off, and maybe some only-slightly-rancid water?”

Now it was Sir Magnific the Outstanding’s turn to look dubious.

“But ‘The world is your piece of stale bread, green bits optional, and stinky water’ doesn’t sound right.”

“Better than an oyster,” said one of Peasant’s fellow peasants.

“How about a bun?” suggested another peasant. “ ‘The world is your bun.’ Stands to reason. Everyone likes a bun.”

“The world is your bum?” said a man at the back, who couldn’t hear terribly well due to the absence of fifty percent of his ears.⁵

“Not your bum,” said his neighbor. “His bum.”

“Oh, I was worried for a moment,” said the man with one ear. He stared at Sir Magnific in admiration. “I bet his bum sparkles.”

Sir Magnific the Outstanding’s grin was struggling to stay fixed.

“It doesn’t matter!” he shouted. “It’s just a figure of speech.”

“The arsonist on the horse is right,” said a woman with one eye.⁶ “It doesn’t matter whose bum it is.”

“Easy for you to say,” said the man with one ear. He held up his arms. At the end of each was a hook. “I have to dip these in a bucket after cleaning mine.”⁷

“Now look here,” said Sir Magnific the Outstanding, who was getting quite annoyed. “That’s enough talk of bums. What’s important is that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Copyright