Martin leaned forward. Caval fell even further back, the spear of light coming from the tear in the sheet illuminating his unkempt hair and his unshaven, blister covered face.
“What was his name? What was the name of the man who never rotted?”
“Buen. His eyes were wrong. They were all black, like a dyitzu’s eyes. And his skin was wrong too. It looked like stone. Like marble. He never spoke, except once to tell us that the name of the God that ruled us corpsemen was Nephysis.”
“And you’re sure Buen is the leader, not this Powell?”
“I am. He had us do things, too. They could have been hallucinations, but I remember him making us knock down a wall. We worked at it for weeks.
“And there’s more. You’ll say this is a hallucination, I know you will, but you’ve got to believe me. One of us got angry with him. He demanded that Buen answer, or he’d shoot him. Then he did shoot him. Nothing happened. Buen’s got some magic. The bullet didn’t even bounce off of him. It just touched him and fell to the ground.”
Sounds like almost Icanitzu, except for the marble skin. He must have been tripping.
“Can I ask what you are going to do with me?” Caval asked. “Will I be punished for being a corpseman?”
“No one here blames an addict,” Martin said. “Don’t worry. We’re going to take care of you, okay? You just have to tell us what you know so we can help the rest of your people. As long as you cooperate, you’re going to be just fine.”
“It was all Buen. He’s the seer. He’s the one who ordered us to kill your people. He communicated that to us through visions. He’s the one who had us eat them after they’d come back as corpses.”
How could anyone want to eat a corpse?
Martin thought this, but the image of his own people, staring into nothingness as they sat starving to death in the wilds, gave him a sudden stab of empathy. A man can get very hungry, Martin knew.
“Look,” Martin said, “Hell’s a tough place. We just need to stop the bad things from happening. We can rescue your friends, if they’re still alive. Can you show us where to find your people?”
“Of course, of course. You just have to take me to the big river. The big one with the red bricks.”
Martin began pacing across Staunten’s quarters. “We call that the Kingsriver.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Not just yet,” Martin said. “I’ve got to get some scouts ready, and today isn’t the day for it. I’m going to take you to Klein. Eating the flesh of corpses is a sin, and you’re going to want to confess to him. You a Christian man?”
The corpse eater broke back down into tears. “I tried to be.”
“You and me both, Caval. You and me both. Wait right here, I’ll get Klein.” Martin turned to the door. “Ben, come on in please.”
Ben opened the door, Martin’s food bowl in his right hand. Martin took it and gave it to Caval. Caval descended upon it like a vulture, and Martin couldn’t blame him.
Martin and Huxley walked out of the room, down the hall, and through the door curtain which led back to the feast. Martin headed straight towards Kylie.
“Hey!” Huxley called after him, pointing to a group of people sitting on the church steps. “I thought we were getting Klein? He’s over there.”
“Are you shitting me?” Martin shouted. “I just gave that man my food. Klein can wait.”
Ellen was happy with how well her ankle was holding up. They had to wrap it tightly again in the morning so her ankle would have enough support, but she could walk on it well enough to keep up with the infidels.
El Cid and her crew seemed almost lackadaisical at times, moving through the wilds of Hell without showing any sign of fear. At other times, and for no reason that Ellen could detect, they would become highly alert, almost paranoid. Then they would keep their rifles raised to the level of their eyes and move with short quick steps that kept those rifles level. They’d enter rooms in bursts, their guns waving in front of them. Two would always remain behind, watching the rear exits, but which two always changed. It took Ellen a while to realize where she had seen this kind of movement before. In movies, SWAT teams had acted the same way. Then, as quickly as they’d started, the Infidel Friends would go back to walking like they didn’t have a care in Hell.
“It’s right through here,” Q said, pointing at a low corridor. “A great view of the swamps.”
El Cid nodded and entered. She had no trouble going through the tunnel, but everyone else, including Ellen, had to duck. They emerged into a natural cavern that had a large opening at one end. Wind blew in through it, tousling the strands of hair which had escaped from El Cid’s pony tail. That wind gave Ellen chills as it dried out the sweat in her clothes. It took her a moment to notice how high up they were.
El Cid walked to the edge of the cavern and peered down below. The rest of her team spread out around her. Alice whistled when she looked, and Molly quickly stepped back. Ellen walked up to the edge herself.
Whoa.
She was looking into the chamber which held the Cypress forest. The mist clung to the swamp in places, but for the most part the chamber was clear. She could see for miles. At first Ellen thought the forest was now empty, but as she continued to stare, she began to pick the corpses out. A few were moving, slogging their way through the root filled water. Others were still, standing beneath trees. Ellen shuddered when she remembered how their hands had held her limbs. The bite one had taken out of her calf began to hurt.
“Rick,” El Cid asked, “how full was it when you boated through?”
Rick shrugged. “Thousands. Tens of thousands.”
“Too many. We have to destroy them.”
“I don’t know that his estimate is likely to be accurate.” Jessica’s blonde hair shook with her head. “Besides, do we have time?”
El Cid shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “This is Cris’ mission. We’re a redundancy.”
“A damned important one,” Jessica said. “At least five teams should be sent for something like this. Maybe we should just pass them by.”
Using her boot, El Cid kicked a stone over the lip of the cliff. It tumbled downward, bouncing off of the chamber’s wall before splashing into the water. The Cypress forest was suddenly alive with moving corpses. Some rose, bloated to the point of bursting, up out of the water. Others, unseen amongst the trees, began walking towards where the rock fell. A few more, who had been still for so long that the trees had grown up around them, struggled against their bonds.
Rick inhaled deeply.
Eagan put his arm around Jessica.
“Damn,” Jessica said. “There could be that many.”
Ellen watched El Cid’s expression carefully. The woman was thinking hard about this problem.
“You may still be right, Jessica,” El Cid said. “Q, lead everyone to a good place to set up a base camp. We’ll see if we can’t build a crusher for these dead.”
“What’s a crusher?” Ellen asked.
“Roach motel,” Eagan said. “Except for corpses.”
Q took one last look down the cliff, his hand absently rubbing his shaved head. Then he turned and walked out of the chamber. “This way, people.”
El Cid did not move as the group started leaving. Ellen lagged behind, studying her. The woman was so small, so slight, that Ellen had difficulty understanding why the other infidels listened to her. The woman’s green eyes were on the massing corpses below. Did she hate them? Had a corpse stolen away someone that she loved? El Cid’s face was an emotionless mask, but it was possible that it hid great sorrow. Maybe she’d understand about Turi?
The breeze which had given her such a chill earlier continued, now carrying the putrid smell of the waterlogged dead.
I have to ask her.
El Cid turned around and moved towards the exit. Instinctively, Ellen reached out and caught her arm.
Ellen’s wrist was suddenly in burning agony. The force of El Cid’s now spinning
figure was somehow twisting her arm in a way which it could not turn. Ellen dropped to her knees, forced downward by the pain. El Cid’s ponytail kept spinning even after she stopped, slapping across the infidel’s face before falling down across her shoulder.
Ellen looked up at the woman from her knees. One of El Cid’s hands had an iron grip on Ellen’s fingers, keeping her wrist bent at an uncomfortable angle. El Cid’s left arm and shoulder were cocked back, her tiny hand balled up into a tight fist.
I’m helpless. She could kill me without a thought, and there’d be nothing I could do about it. Turi would understand.
“There’s a boy I love,” Ellen was surprised by the strength in her voice.
El Cid’s expression softened.
Ellen swallowed. “He went into the Carrion to try and rescue a friend. He had five days to get back. Five days. He didn’t come back.”
El Cid’s fist unclenched and fell to her side. Her other hand let go of Ellen’s wrist.
Ellen began to massage the pain out of it. “So they built a wall. He can never come back now. Do you understand? We buried him alive in the Carrion.”
Ellen didn’t want to cry in front of such a woman. The Infidel Friend would surely judge her for it, so Ellen fought her tears as hard as she could. “I didn’t want to. I would go to the wall we built each night. I would place my hand upon it and try to feel him out there. He might be dead. Maybe that’d be for the best. But he could be out there now. Wounded, hurting, bleeding to death in some corner of Hell. I don’t know why he had to go. Men can be so stupid. He wanted to impress his father. He wanted to save his friend. He shouldn’t have gone. He was just a boy.”
El Cid’s head cocked to one side, and she crossed her arms as she listened.
“They say you infidels are godless. And maybe you are. Maybe you don’t have to do things like the rest of us. But on Earth, whenever I wanted something, whenever a loved one was dying in a hospital, or whenever I was dying inside, I’d pray. Even if what I prayed for didn’t come, I knew it was for the best. I knew that somehow things were going to get better. I knew that at the worst, they were only trials God sent to make us stronger.”
El Cid reached down and put a hand on her shoulder.
Ellen didn’t shrink from the touch. “But there’s no one to pray to here. There’s the Devil, but he’d take away my love. And there’s no fate. If Turi dies, it won’t make the world get better. It won’t be for a reason. He’ll just die because he died. A pointless, horrid death. And I can’t stop it. There’s no one I can speak to too make it right. No judge. No fairness. And no one to pray to. No one except you.”
El Cid knelt down in front of her. “No child, you must not pray to me.”
Ellen clasped her hands together. “I pray to you, El Cid, I beg you. You are the only thing that can make this right. You are the only person with enough power to help. Turi is my age. Just a few inches taller than me. He has brown hair and grows peach fuzz as stubble. I love him. You’ll be going into the Carrion soon, to find Cris and the City of Blood and whatever else—but I want you to look for him. I want you to save him. If he’s alive I want you to bring him back to me.”
Ellen felt El Cid’s arms wrap around her. Ellen’s hands, still clasped in prayer, were pushed tightly into her body. She sniffed quickly to keep her nose from running and shut her eyes against her tears.
El Cid’s soft voice whispered into her ear. “I will be in that Carrion soon, as you say. If I find him, if he is alive and I find him, this Turi of yours, I will save him. No devil, no group of people, no wall, no river, no cliff—nothing in Hell will stop me.”
Ellen let her hands separate and then grabbed on to the Infidel Friend, clinging to the woman with all her strength. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
Ellen squeezed her eyes shut even harder. Turi had made her promise to stay alive once. She had agreed just to appease him, but he had kept hounding her about it. Ellen opened her eyes and pulled back. She looked at El Cid. “Say it all the way.”
Ellen felt El Cid’s small hand pressing against the back of her head. She let her head get pushed down onto the woman’s shoulder.
“I promise you,” El Cid said, smoothing out Ellen’s hair. “I promise you, if I can find Turi, I’ll save him. I’ll save him and bring him back to you.”
Calimay stared into her silver framed mirror. The reflection showed her own face and the priestess Tamara, who stood behind Calimay while attentively running a golden brush through her masses of black curls. Calimay watched her own head’s small jerks as it was pulled back by Tamara’s ministrations. Instinctively steadying her head, Calimay let herself get lost in her own green eyes.
This antechamber was her favorite. It contained a marble bath which Calimay would fill with hot water. Each morning she would lie in that water and pretend that she was Maab. Someday, perhaps when she’d made the deal with Lucreas Crassus and after Maab had been weakened by their rising tide, there would be a shift in power. Maab’s priestesses would change allegiances, giving their tribute to Calimay in order to gain protection from the armies of the City of Blood and Stone. Then someday it would be her, not Maab, who ran the great ritual. Who would break the bullman and perform the sacrifices. And when she did strike the deal with Lucreas, then she would have access to whatever Archdevil he prayed to. They would be able to change her body. She could have assets even greater than Maab’s.
And then Galen would submit to her. She imagined him walking through the halls at her elbow. In public he would be perfectly in her thrall. In the bedroom she would let him play his masculine role, but he would know it was just an act. Their love would no longer be a tribute to Ahriman.
She began to hum unconsciously as she imagined the muscular warrior lying over her and between her legs. Her hand would rest on the small of his muscular back. She would . . . Calimay stopped humming.
What the Hell is that?
She raised one arm, and Tamara stopped brushing. The tune she’d been humming kept on going without her. It was distant, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
Hellsong? Here? Impossible.
She had heard hellsong before, in the silver mines south of the Deadlands. Then it had been higher pitched. As before, the tune seemed to conform to her own thoughts.
Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose,
Will I ever see thee wed?
Calimay stood suddenly, bumping her table, disturbing various beauty accoutrements and causing the mirror to rock on its tripod stand. That was Galen’s song, the one he had refused to sing. Was it any wonder she desired to hear that?
I will marry at thy will, sire.
At thy will, sire. At thy will, sire.
“Do you hear that?” Calimay asked.
Tamara shook her head.
The music got louder, though barely so, as Calimay walked out of her antechamber and into her main room. She wrapped herself up in one of her purple robes. Now the music was less malleable to her desires. She could only hear that one song, no matter how hard she tried to listen to another, but she could play any verse that she wished in her mind. After a few attempts, she was able to make the music continuously sing the first line over and over again. Even so, it seemed like all the other lines were being sung simultaneously.
Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose,
Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose,
She walked out through her throne room, Tamara at her heel. The music became louder, lower, and more distinctive. It wasn’t just hellsong. There really was music. All the lines of the song really were being sung simultaneously, and the harmony was breathtaking.
The hell?
The voices grew clearer. “Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, will I ever see thee wed?”
She ran along the black marble halls. The music got louder in one of the spiral staircases. She followed the music down and came out at one of the mining levels. She could hear the individual voices now. They were singing the song in rounds. “I will marry at thy will, sire. At thy w
ill, sire. At thy will, sire.”
The music caused her heart to leap in her throat. This had to be Galen’s doing. He was having this song sung for her. Her footsteps quickened. Tamara was tripping over her own robe, trying to keep up. Calimay rounded a corner and saw them.
Her men, stripped to the waist, were standing in a line all along the corridor. They sang as they worked, moving back and forth between each other, passing wicker baskets filled with gravel down along the line. Galen stood among them. Calimay’s breath caught in her throat.
He was also bare-chested and covered in sweat. Her own daughter, Calista, was standing up on her toes and holding a ladle with one outstretched arm, pouring water over Galen’s head. He flashed Calista a grateful smile and kept working. His broad shoulders tensed as he reached to one side and grabbed a wicker basket full of stones. Quickly and easily, he passed it on to another worker. Galen’s baritone was deep, and looking at him caused warmth to spread throughout her body. Calimay swore that she could feel the vibrations of his singing voice in her loins.
“Excuse me, my Queen,” a breathless male voice called from behind her.
Calimay stepped aside. One of her serfs jogged by, carrying an armful of wicker baskets. He was followed by another, and another. Calimay watched them hurry by. She looked back to the line of workers. She had never seen them work so hard or look so happy. Some were even laughing as they sang. The man closest to her was so off key it was almost comical, but somehow it fit into the harmony of the song.
“I will marry at thy will, sire. At thy will, sire. At thy will, sire.”
Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2) Page 28
