by Mark Eller
Chapter 9— Spawn’s Fee
Robar Joiner released a sigh when he settled his abused body onto a tavern barstool. He rubbed a battered hand over the swollen lumps on his face, across his lips, and grimaced at the too familiar pain of a split lip.
Carrid Brewer eyed Robar while he poured three ales from the main cask and set the filled oak cups on a battered wooden tray. A thin smile played about the corner of his lips, but his eyes were gauging as he studied Robar’s bruised face.
Scowling, Robar eyed the man back. Carrid might be huge, but to Robar size did not matter. No matter what the bartender expected Carrid would not get the best of him again.
“You might be the bravest man I know,” Carrid finally said, “but you never did have much sense.” His mocking smile grew larger. After a few moments of continued silence, he lifted the drink filled tray and headed onto the floor.
Still scowling, Robar turned his head to watch the man wind past a scattered array of empty tables and broken chairs. Half of those tables leaned hazardously. Some lay on their side while others were supported by having the back rail of a broken chair shoved beneath a sagging corner. By any reasonable reckoning the place was a total disaster. Robar figured less than a quarter of the Hellhole Tavern’s twenty-three tables were actually stable and solid. A week earlier the number would have been closer to half, but fights over dice games and women and the color of another man’s hair had taken their toll. In this place broken furniture was one of the costs of doing business because its environs were often filled with a dark miasma which rose from the pit leading to Hell located in the tavern’s cellar.
For most businesses, the miasma and the resulting violence would have been a death knell. Because of the king’s newfound tolerance for hellborn, Carrid Brewer’s tavern thrived on it. Carrid made a fortune off those who were drawn through the tavern’s door. Gamblers, thieves, slavers, whores, murderers, shifters, and all the other dark elements of the city found the place a comfortable fit for their natures. He made even more money off the rich and influential who wanted to feel brave and daring by taking a drink in such a notorious den, but now, at this early hour, the Hellhole was almost empty. The sun had not yet settled out of the evening sky. Most of the Hole’s habitual patrons had not stirred themselves from their beds. Selnac, the thief, and Mathew Changer, the half-were fence and crime lord, occupied one table along with Glace, Mathew’s apprentice. A hunched figure, barely visible in the dim light, sat on the floor in the far corner. Head bowed, its folded arms pressed in upon itself so tightly Robar instantly knew what the figure was.
Another escaped spawn. Pity, contempt, and distaste welled up in him. Like most other humans, he knew spawn were almost always the thin remnants of children sacrificed to Athos by one of their parents. Once their souls descended into Hell, they were given new bodies and trained by Athos’s demons to be the unwilling servants of Hell’s elite. As a rule, the parent who sacrificed his child gained wealth or power or some other glittering promise that soon became a nightmare when their new gift slithered away. Most knew a person never gained when he bargained with Hell, but there were always a few brave fools who were willing to try.
Almost as if it felt the weight of Robar’s stare, the spawn stirred, raised its head, and met Robar’s eyes. It started, shifted its gaze nervously, and bowed its head once more. Robar turned his attention back to the tavern’s owner, dismissing the frightened and eternally damned creature from his mind.
Carrid’s mocking smile, Robar observed, became thick and false while he served the two thieves and the half-were. Robar wished the man was half as eager to pay his debts.
When Carrid returned, he laid the tray on the bar’s knife carved surface, placed his elbows on the front rail, and studied Robar’s face.
Accepting the unspoken challenge, Robar leaned forward to push his spare body’s presence into the other man’s space. Carrid was large and heavy and strong enough to frighten the worst of his customers. He sometimes needed reminding that no man intimidated Robar. Like always, Carrid seemed to pay the invisible message no mind, but deep inside Robar knew Carrid took note of Robar’s unwillingness to ever back down.
“So you lost your fight again,” Carrid finally said. He was, Robar suspected, deliberately bypassing the reason for Robar’s visit. “When are you going to give up on the woman? There isn’t a whore out there who’s worth the price you pay or the beating you take every week.”
“She isn’t a whore!” Robar snapped. “She’s a prize, and by the Seven Gods and Two, she’s a prize I’ll win. A week with her would be enough to satisfy any man for life.”
“I doubt it. That Heriod fellow has won her every week for the last half year, and you don’t see him passing her on.”
Robar snorted. “No, what I mostly see is his fist just before it knocks me down. I’ve made it to the final round for the last six weeks. I can hit him easily enough, only he’s too big, and I’m not strong enough to make those hits count. I figure the time will come when he either gets tired of beating me up or he gets tired of the succubus sucking on his soul. I’ll get her then.”
“I don’t think he has enough soul left to make the decision on his own,” Carrid observed, “If you’ll take my advice on the matter, you’d do well to let her have him instead of you. I’ve made it my business to stay out of her way ever since she climbed out of my cellar. The thought of her turns my knees to water. Truth is I think she might be the scariest hellborn I’ve ever encountered.”
“She has no fangs,” Robar insisted. “She has no claws or poison. She’s only beautiful and alluring. I‘m telling you, Carrid, I’m not afraid of her, and I’m going to prove it.”
“She’s a succubus,” Carrid replied, “and you’re a bantam with no sense. I suppose you’ll continue proving how brave you are until it’s the end of you, but that’s your business, and I’ve business of my own.” Turning away from the bar, he poured an ale from a keg set against the back wall and turned back to Robar, setting the ale before him. “I’ve a need for new tables and chairs. My customers have pretty much worn this set out, and it didn‘t take them long to do it. I don’t think you made these as sturdy as you did the stools.”
“Your customers would break a table made from solid rock,” Robar said, “and you’ll never again see wood as strong as the stuff I used on those stools. Still, a new supply of hardwood just came in. I’ll see what I can put together, but I’m not joining two boards until I see some money.”
“But I’m your friend!”
Robar snorted. “Only when you want something from me. You haven’t paid one rugdle for the last job. I have to eat, and so do the girls.”
“You’d eat better if the contest didn’t use up so much of your money.”
Robar waved the concern away. “I can’t afford to work for free.”
“You could work cheaper if you gave the brats to your wife,” Carrid said.
Shrugging, Robar tried an experimental sip of the ale and grimaced. Carrid was, at best, an indifferent brewer. When this fact was added to the miasma inundating the tavern the piss flavored result was often something undrinkable by civilized men. Fortunately for Carrid, few of his customers were civilized.
“She’s been gone for more than six months,” he said after setting his drink back down. “Don’t know where she is. Don’t care enough to look. I got my workshop and my two girls out of her, and I don’t want nothing more. So, how about my money?”
He heard a stirring from the tavern’s corner. Turning his head, he saw the crouched figure rise. This spawn looked mostly like a man, but the body Athos had given it was thin and pale and perhaps too tall. Its gaunt face was partly hidden in the shadows, but Robar saw it well enough to know its expression held the typical fear all its kind wore. Using short, clumsy steps, it shambled toward the bar in a jerky, hesitant way. Its arm motions were tight, protective, typical for every spawn Robar had ever seen, but an evilly pointed jade green hook was attached to its left arm where a hand had
once been, and this surprised Robar. To the best of his knowledge spawn were not supposed to be armed. In fact, he once heard a demon say spawn were too unstable to be trusted with any weapon no matter how small.
He gestured toward the figure. “He’s what, the fifth escaped spawn this last half year. Why don’t you seal the damned hole up so they’ll stay where they belong?”
“Four,” Carrid corrected. “I don’t seal it because the hellborn are good for business. Every week a few of the city’s rich put on their servant’s clothes and come down here just to see what something out of Hell looks like. Of course, one of my regulars normally rolls the fools so they never come back again, but I get a quarter of the take so that doesn’t matter too much. Besides, these spawn are always too frightened to cause me trouble. In fact, they’re too scared to even step outside the tavern’s door. I generally let ‘em hang around for a week or two, and then a demon comes up to fetch them back.” He smiled. “I get a bit of something from those demons, too, though I don’t know what to do with most of it. Got a jar of ‘damned souls’s on a shelf in the cellar, and one cheery fellow gave me the scars off a hanged man’s neck. Took ‘em out of the jar once just to see what they felt like.”
Refusing to play this game by Carrid’s rules, Robar sat silent for several minutes while Carrid waited expectantly. Finally, Carrid shook his head with exasperation.
“You’re impossible. Aren’t you even a little curious about what they felt like?”
“A little,” Robar answered truthfully, “but not enough for you to lead me into it.”
“Do you remember the fellow who came by here about four years back, the one who had a roughly formed ball that could bounce?”
Frowning, Robar cast his thoughts into the past, trying to draw out a memory of something he probably cared nothing about at the time. “Maybe.”
“Well,” Carrid said. “The ball was made out of something called rubber, and rubber’s what those scars felt like. What do you think of that?”
Lifting his mug, Robar took another sip of the foul brew and set the cup down. “Don’t think much about it at all. I only heard of the fellow you’re talking about. Never met him and never touched his rubber. Better yet, I don’t really care what those scars feel like. I’m here about my money. You owe me.”
Carrid’s fingers twitched irritably and then stilled. “I don’t have enough here. The wife keeps her hands on most of it, and she’s at home. I’d have to talk long and hard to get her to part with a single coin.”
“Then you better moisten your throat before you start talking,” Robar warned, “because I’m not joining one board to another before I get paid for the last job.”
Sighing, Carrid straightened and brushed his hands on his shirt. “Dealing with you is a sight harder than bargaining with any hellborn I ever met. Watch the bar while I’m gone. This will take a while.”
He left. Robar noticed he took the tavern’s money box with him.
Once the tavern’s batwing doors squeaked closed, Robar thought about sipping his ale, but the memory of its urine taste and the sight of several strands of something floating on its surface, changed his mind. Instead, he pushed the cup away and rubbed once more at his bruised face, wincing at the familiar pain. As usual, his eyes were half-swollen shut. It was a blessing he could even see. For some reason beyond his understanding, his eyes were always the first targets Heriod went for. To Robar’s way of thinking, this was unnecessarily cruel since Heriod could beat him just as quickly whether or not his eyes worked. Sometimes, after a fight, it took days before Robar could see well enough to work again.
“Please— please, sir?” a thin voice pleaded.
Lowering his hand, Robar turned his head to find the thing standing four feet away, crouched and cringing, sweating out its sulfur stink. Fear swirled darkly in its eyes. Its arms were held tight against its body. Its right hand partially hid the hook’s curve. Robar thought briefly about ordering the disgusting thing away, but pity overcame his contempt when he remembered his recent thoughts on Heriod’s cruelty. Even though spawn were almost human, they were slow and clumsy. Most were stupid, and even the smartest ones were cowards. During the last several years Robar had encountered more than two dozen spawn. Not one had acted as if it owned half the spine or a tenth the soul of a man.
“What do you want?”
“Your drink, sir. That is, you don’t look as if you are going— I’m hungry and thirsty and— I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again.” It cringed further in upon itself until it stood less than five feet tall. Robar considered this an amazing feat because he was positive the being would stand at least six feet if it straightened.
“Take the drink and leave me alone,” Robar ordered.
The thing did not move.
“Well!”
“If you please, sir,” the spawn said. “I have very good hearing. You mentioned a succubus, and I wondered if she might have light blue skin, green hair, and dark eyes.”
Robar’s heart stilled. He waited for it to regain its accustomed beat before he carefully spoke. “What do you know about Belthethsia?”
The spawn’s lips twitched nervously. “Then it is her. Belthethsia was once my mistress. She had a deft hand with a whip, and she was accounted one of the most accomplished soulwrights in our section of the underworld. It was quite a scandal when she left, but I was glad for it because I was given to a lesser demon who was not nearly so accomplished at disciplining its servants.”
“The woman I speak of is a succubus, not a soulwright.”
Pausing for a moment, the thing drew in a shuddering breath and released it slowly. “If you please, sir, she is both, born of mixed parentage and not nano set to one or the other while still in the womb. I–I know Belthethsia from long ago, and I’ve known many devils who were her lovers. Sir, their satisfaction was complete just so long as they rejected her before a month passed.”
Apparently nervous, the spawn stopped speaking and looked jerkily around.
Frustrated, Robar grabbed it by its jaw. “A month? Why is a month important?”
“Be–because after that she has eaten far too much of their souls. Her mixed heritage allows her to dine on flesh and soul alike.”
Robar scowled. When the spawn caught his look, the thing raised its arms protectively before scrambling back several clumsy paces. “Please, sir! I can give you strength.” It gestured feebly with the hook. To Robar’s amazement, the hook glowed a faint jade green. “I can help you win Belthethsia if you’ve the courage to accept it.”
Robar’s hand leaped forward and grabbed its wrist. Sinking lower to the floor, the thing released a small sob. Its skin felt cool in Robar’s grasp, almost parchment dry. The wrist he held, the arm, the entire being trembled before him.
“I’ve the courage to dare anything,” Robar growled, low voiced. “I’ve wanted Belthethsia ever since I saw her seven months back. At first, I thought I had no chance at her body, but she started the contest, the challenge. I’ve fought to win her since then, but I’ll use her only for a week. I know I can’t survive her attention for long, but I’ve the courage to take her for a week, or maybe two.”
The thing raised its eyes and looked fearfully into Robar’s. “And so you murdered your wife to clear the way.”
Robar felt his face pale. “I murdered nobody!”
The thing gathered itself together. From somewhere inside it seemed to find a small trace of the courage that had led it to escape Hell. “I heard it when you spoke of her. I heard her murder in your words. It made me think you might welcome me.”
“I’ll kill you if you speak of it,” Robar warned, gripping the wrist harder, sinking his fingers deep into slack flesh.
“Please,” the thing whimpered, squirming. “All I want is to be free. I want— I want to dare looking at the sky. I want to never go back. I can give you strength if you give me what I need. I can give you almost anything you want.”
Snorting disbelief, Robar relea
sed his grip on the pathetic thing’s wrist. “There’s nothing you can do for me.”
“There is,” the spawn whispered, waving the hook before Robar with small movements of its arm. The hook’s glow intensified, casting its ghastly green light deeper into the tavern, covering Robar with its essence, its influence. The sensation made Robar’s skin crawl, made him feel as if he were dirty inside, filthy. Even so, it drew him, pulled at his greed, his desire, and the sensation was insidious. Robar’s fascinated eyes noted that no leather cuff attached the foul hook to the spawn‘s wrist. He saw nothing but a small blurring where metal met flesh.
“Belthethsia removed my hand. I wanted something to replace it.” The spawn’s whispered caress cut into Robar’s flesh, a promise sinking deep into his brain. The spawn’s voice was stronger, its bearing more insistent, perhaps even bolder. “I stole this hook from a mage after he fell into a magma pool. His duty was to prepare us spawn for our position and tasks. He used the hook to remove our resolve and our will and other things. It holds the strength the mage took from us. The strength can be yours. All I ask is that you give me a chance to leave here. I want to walk beneath the sun.”
Shuddering, Robar drew slightly back and studied the spawn. This one was different from the others he had known. More intelligent perhaps. Stronger, though it still quavered before him even in its unusual boldness. “Why don’t you use the hook on yourself?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” the thing sighed. “I wear this. I can’t take anything directly from it.”
Nodding with sudden understanding, Robar smiled. His dead wife had been a minor mage. He knew a mage could seldom use their tools directly on themselves. The restriction would be worse for a being with no training. So yes, perhaps he could make use of this spawn if he were careful. After all, it suffered from far more restraints in this matter than did he.
“And how,” he demanded, feeling a need to know the deeper story, “did this mage fall into the pool.”
“I helped him fall,” the thing admitted. “A dead soul, a woman, taught me how to set a trap. I waited two weeks before the mage fell into a magma pool. When little more than melting bones remained, I reached in and grabbed the hook. The magma destroyed the last shreds of my hand, and the hook merged with my flesh, so you see, we both have our murders.” Its tentative smile was half-eager, half-fear. “The strength? Do you want it?”
Robar wanted to laugh with delight at the possibilities. The image of Belthethsia’s pale blue face wavered before his inner eye. She was more than beauty. She was allure, whim, and glory. Even an idle glance from her half-lidded, smoky eyes made him feel more the man than he had ever felt before. A week lying between Belthethsia’s thighs was worth everything, his wealth, his wife, and even his children if such a price were asked of him. Surely she was worth taking a chance on this pathetic thing’s fable.
“Give it to me then,” Robar ordered, “but I swear to you if this is a trick, I’ll rip your heart out.”
“No trick! No trick. I’ll give you great strength. All I ask is that you give me what I need to leave here. I want—”
Slashing his hand through the air, Robar cut the spawn off with a curt gesture. Before speaking, he cast a glance toward the table where the thieves and fence had been sitting, but Mathew and the others were gone. Nobody else was in the tavern.
“I’ve the courage for anything. Do it. Do it now.”
The spawn nodded, and then its hook flared brighter than Robar had seen it before. A sickly green light oozed from its razor tip, pulsating, pulling. Nearing him, it almost touched the clothes over his chest, almost sank into his flesh.
With a yell, Robar shook himself from its spell and grabbed the being’s wrist again. The thin wrist trembled in his grip, bent almost to the point of breaking. Robar’s hand tingled.
“Wait, Hell spawn. You know what I’m called, but I know almost nothing about you. What name do you go by?”
The thing looked confused for a moment. It licked its thin lips, blinked, and then appeared faintly surprised. “A name? I remember a name. When I was a human child, a crying man, my father, laid me on a slab of stone. Sometimes, when Belthethsia played by peeling away my skin, I remembered hearing my father whisper ‘sorry Jolson’ before plunging a knife into my heart. Belthethsia used to laugh when I cried out to him. She said he gained great power by killing me.”
Robar snorted disbelief. “Hell’s bargains are never what they seem. I’m not fool enough to believe the strength you give me will last forever. A week is all I need. A week so I can beat Heriod and have Belthethsia.” Releasing his grip on the wrist, he squared his shoulders and thrust his chest toward the foul hook. “Give me strength, Jolson, and remember I’ve your name. Play me false and you’ll regret it.”
Jolson jerkily nodded and moved the hook toward Robar. Its glowing nimbus touched Robar’s clothes, merged with them, and then the green metal sank into his chest. Robar gasped, shook, and used all his courage to remain still when sensations both glorious and foul, both delightful and evil, ripped through him. The hook was heat and chill and the pain of fire. It sucked and radiated, filling and draining until he thought he might collapse. During it all, Jolson’s gaze rested on him, at first fearful, then firming with resolve before he drew the hook out of Robar’s chest. Moments later, the hook’s light dimmed, faded, until it was once again a solid appendage on the end of Jolson’s arm.
Bracing one hand on the bar’s rail, Robar drew in a steadying breath and frowned because nothing had changed. If the spawn’s promises proved false Robar would, by the Seven Gods and Two, make him regret this game. “I don’t feel any stronger, spawn. I’ll rip your head off and send your soul back to Hell if you’ve played false with me.”
He looked at the spawn when he spoke, hearing his own words, his voice, his delivery, and the words didn’t sound right. They were not forceful enough. In some way, they even seemed hesitant.
Lifting a stool with his good hand, Jolson held it out. His gaze was weary, but his eyes exuded confidence. “Hold this to your chest and squeeze it tight.”
The idea seemed ridiculous. Robar knew exactly how strong the stool was. After all, he had built the tavern’s stools out of the only load of ironwood he had ever received.
“Do it,” Jolson ordered.
Robar hesitated, but the spawn’s insistence gave him no choice. He took the stool, held it to his chest, and squeezed. The stool shattered.
“Gods,” he gasped, astounded by the feat. “I did it. I broke the thing. I must be the strongest man alive.” He looked at Jolson and grinned, feeling vibrant and alive despite the slight quiver in his knees. “Heriod doesn’t stand a chance.”
He laughed, but the thought of the other man sent a shudder through him. Heriod really was a heartless monster. Why had he not noticed this before? “I–I think I’m ready to fill my part of the bargain.”
“You already have,” Jolson said, appearing more confident than before. He stood almost fully erect. His arms hung freely at his sides, and for the first time during their conversation his gaze held steady. Worst yet, his voice sounded firm. “The dead soul who taught me how to set the trap was once your wife. She told me you would be here, and she told me what you had to trade.”
Nodding once, Jolson turned and moved with a confident, though clumsy, walk toward the tavern’s closed door. It opened before he reached it. Carrid stepped inside, a dissatisfied smile on his face. He was huge, larger than Robar remembered ever seeing him. Something about his bearing, the confident way he held himself, the dangerous glint in his eye, made Robar wonder how he had ever felt contempt for the man.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Carrid said to Jolson. The sound of his deep voice made Robar tense with sudden nervousness. His mouth went dry, and he took an involuntary step back.
“Out,” Jolson replied. “I am going to see the sun.” He pushed past Carrid, paused briefly when he stepped into the outside air, and then he was gone.
A chill ran through Robar. His nervousness increased, and his hands began to shake. He tried to meet Carrid’s eyes and found he could not. “I–I–I’m sorry.” His damp hands shook, and sweat dripped off his forehead. “I could lower my prices and–and maybe I could not charge you for these last tables. I–I—”
When Carrid‘s frown faded into an expression of bemused confusion, part of Robar’s nervousness dissipated. There was something about Carrid’s frown he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable thing to see. Frightening. Reaching for his courage, Robar found none.
Carrid peered thoughtfully toward the closed tavern door. “What did the spawn do to you?”
His expression cleared with understanding. A thin smile formed on his lips. A calculating light entered his eyes. Turning his attention back to Robar, he pointed a finger, and his eyes narrowed. “Well then, maybe we do need to talk a bit about the price. The way I see it the last work you did for me was inferior. It didn’t last, and I won’t pay for shoddy work. In fact, you owe me a complete new set of tables and chairs for free. Now, if you were to give me your word...”
