The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “There was a man, among my people,” said Gard slowly. “Everyone said he was so wonderful, so wise, that he was going to save us all. And he didn’t. Things only got worse.”

  “Very likely, with your jungle shamans. But there is such a thing as real Power, you see? And the masters have it. You won’t forget that now, I daresay.”

  “Never again,” said Gard.

  When Gard’s back had healed, Triphammer took him down to his new job.

  “It’s not so bad, the Pumping Station,” Triphammer said, as they approached a cavern mouth that glowed red with firelight. “You’ll have lots of company, at least. You’ll be off your feet too. And I’d find it a more satisfying kind of work if I were you, because after all, it’s more important, isn’t it? Keeping the air and water moving and all. If it wasn’t for these fellows, we’d all freeze and die of thirst. So that’s some compensation, eh? And it could be worse. You could have drawn cesspit duty.”

  Triphammer rambled on at greater length about how fortunate Gard was, but his voice was drowned out as they entered the cavern. The cavern echoed with noise.

  In the center of it a great fire roared; in the roof of it great turning blades of fans were mounted, to send warmed air into the hypocaust. The fans were connected by a series of gears of increasing size to a long mechanism set in the floor, a row of a dozen handles at which eleven figures labored, cranking them, and the laborers sang as they worked, a deep plaintive repetitive chant.

  Another bank of gears was at the far side of the cavern, with a dozen slaves laboring there, hard by where a black river emerged from rock and hurried to vanish over a precipice into darkness, from which mist rose. These gears lifted water to a turning screw that vanished into a shaft in the ceiling. The fire was fed by two demons who went back and forth with armfuls of some red stone, a mountain of which was piled at the back of the cavern.

  The demons turned and stared as Gard entered with Triphammer.

  “It’s the free boy,” yelled Grattur.

  “It’s the little brother,” yelled Engrattur. They dropped the stones they had been carrying and advanced on Gard, grinning.

  “You see?” shouted Triphammer. “You’ve friends here already. Won’t that be nice? Mind you don’t learn stupid habits from them, though. They had a nice secure job carrying litters for Magister Hoptriot, and what did they go and do?”

  “Stole his elixirs to make ourselves drunk!” said Grattur proudly.

  “Stole his powders to get ourselves stoned!” said Engrattur.

  “What’s he doing here? Not gear duty?”

  “Not gear duty, a fine boy like this?”

  “Well, you know—the legs,” said Triphammer, gesturing at Gard’s crutches.

  “Ah. But we’d heard he’d pulled duty on the Big Lantern.”

  “So he did! A nice secure job, and he went and lost it by breaking the rules,” said Triphammer. The brothers howled with laughter.

  “Broke the rules!”

  “Broke the rules! Ah, he’s one of us!”

  “Don’t encourage him, you fools,” said Triphammer, looking about nervously.

  “We say what we like down here, hothead,” said Grattur.

  “As long as the gears keep turning, they don’t care what we say,” said Engrattur.

  “Yes. Well. Maybe so, and maybe not,” said Triphammer. He turned to Gard. “I’m off to see to my other patients. Got a poor fellow lost his arm to the Blood Entertainments. No end of work retraining. You take your place now, and work hard. You’ll be grateful, come the end of your shift, for a good exercise session with your legs.”

  Triphammer left the cavern. The brothers pointed to the empty seat in the nearer bank of gears. “That’s your place.”

  “Welcome to the Pumping Station!”

  Gard hobbled to the gear bank and took his seat under the massed glare of the other workers. Their song had fallen off—not to say fallen silent, in the unceasing commotion of that place.

  “Who’s this big prick?” demanded the nearest. Gard scowled at him, then started as he saw the speaker had no legs. His body ended at the hips, in a smooth asexual curve. Looking along the line, Gard could see that most of the others had suffered the same fate.

  “What happened to your legs?” blurted Gard.

  “I was made without any,” said the other. He jerked his head in the direction of his fellow workers. “Them too. No need for legs, in this job. They cheated us.”

  “Only half-bodied them,” said Grattur, leaning down. “But they’re just as trapped as we are. That’s the masters for you, eh?”

  “Lure a poor creature in with promises of fun, and then leave off the most important bits,” said Engrattur.

  “Grab your damned handle and help us,” said the worker. Gard obeyed. Raggedly, from the other end of the line, the song began again.

  Grattur and Engrattur took it up, as they kicked bits of dropped fuel into the fire. Gard listened a little while, and then he joined in too.

  If I ever get out of here

  I will drink their blood

  It will be my wine.

  If I ever get out of here

  I will eat their hearts

  Roasted over slow fire.

  If I ever get out of here

  I will rape them all

  With a thunderbolt.

  If I ever get out of here

  I will fly so high

  On the smoke of their pyres.

  If I ever get out of here.

  Gard learned the song well, over the years, as his arms and shoulders thickened, as his beard grew out full. The shrunken muscles of his legs filled out again too, with Triphammer’s patient work. The hour came when he was able to take a few tottering steps around the edges of his cell, leaning on the walls. The hour came when he hobbled to work with the aid of a cane only. The hour came when he walked unaided, but limped.

  This caused some slit-eyed resentment among his fellow workers, but only for a little while. They soon had another focus for their dislike.

  The hour came when Gard was returning to his cell, walking free, and was met by Triphammer running from the other direction.

  “Hai, it’s you! Hurry, hurry, get under cover!”

  “What’s happened?” Gard quickened his pace. Triphammer didn’t answer, but grabbed him by the arm and hurried him to the cell. They were no sooner inside than Catering came trundling up, and so far as his face was able to express fear, it looked fearful. He didn’t even stay for insult, just groped up Gard’s pitcher and bowl and slopped them full, spilling half their contents putting them down again before he rushed on.

  “We’ll just sit in here and stay quiet,” said Triphammer in a low voice. Gard, angry that he’d lost half his dinner, was grabbing for the bowl when an impact came that knocked him over. He sprawled on the floor, feeling it heave as though it were breathing. “Oh, oh,” moaned Triphammer, hiding his face.

  A noise like thunder came from somewhere far up overhead, and a long crack appeared in the rock wall. Then came three or four brief blasts of a sound Gard could not identify. There followed, unmistakably and terribly, the sound of many voices screaming.

  Then there was silence. “What’s happened?” Gard repeated in a hushed voice.

  “A war,” said Triphammer. The Translator at his shoulder sent an image into Gard’s mind: fighting, chaos, death. “Sometimes the masters battle among themselves. Sometimes … but it never lasts long. Probably over now. Very hard on the poor demons, they don’t know whose orders to follow, glad I’m not bound that way. Best thing for the likes of you and me to do is hide and take cover, yes, indeed.”

  Gard sat up cautiously. He pulled his dinner bowl close and shoveled down what little was left in it. There were no further explosions.

  “Do you think it’s over?”

  “Might be,” said Triphammer. “Might be. I’ve seen it over this soon, before. I’ll have a lot of work to do, maybe. There’ll be some executions. For a few wee
ks we’ll have more meat in the stew than usual.”

  Gard stared down into his empty bowl. A thin smoke came curling along the corridor outside.

  When he reported for his next shift, an uneasy trembling was still in the air. Grattur and Engrattur came and hit him on the shoulder, one after the other.

  “Wondered if you’d made it. You’re in the Western tunnels, aren’t you?”

  “That was right under the worst fighting, we heard. Do you know who won?”

  “Do you know what it was about?”

  Gard could only shake his head and take his place. A demon hurried in, walking on its knuckles. It was Chacker, who worked the station next to his. Chacker swung himself into his seat.

  “They put out the fire in Western Level Three,” he muttered to his neighbor on the other side.

  “Five of them executed, I heard,” said the neighbor. This drew smiles from all near enough to hear, and they began their song with an almost lighthearted intonation that morning:

  If I ever get out of here

  I will drink their blood

  It will be my wine …

  An hour into the shift, deafened by the song and the roar of the fans, Gard was startled to look up and see a pair of demons standing in the cavern mouth, one on either side of a young girl.

  The demons wore armor. They carried spiked clubs and were in every way dreadful to look upon, but they seemed a little fearful, even embarrassed. The girl between them was slender and beautiful, beyond any doubt or conjecture, for she was naked save for the manacles she wore. She stood straight, with perfect composure, and smiled coldly at a point in the air somewhere miles from that place.

  “By the Blue Pit,” muttered Grattur.

  “By the Blue Pit,” echoed Engrattur, too astonished to come up with anything original. Gard stared openmouthed, until he felt his flesh rise to the occasion. He leaned forward, hoping to obscure matters. The song died off, all along the line, as the other laborers looked up and noticed the visitors.

  “What’s all this?” demanded Grattur, carefully addressing the guard on the right. The guard cleared his throat.

  “This is the Lady Pirihine, Narcissus of the Void, of the line of Magister Porlilon, lately so unfortunate as to be crushed by the party of Magister Obashon. She has been sentenced to five years’ labor here. We have delivered her to you, as we were commanded. We now withdraw.”

  The guard and his fellow took a step back and made what might have been interpreted as a bow in Lady Pirihine’s direction—or perhaps not. They exited swiftly. Grattur and Engrattur exchanged a glance, not a happy one, and Grattur spoke with exquisite care to Lady Pirihine:

  “Lady, we are bound creatures and must obey our orders to the letter. We will not exceed our charge. Please remember this, when you walk freely again.”

  “I will remember,” she said, and her words hung in the air with such frost as to make Gard shiver.

  He was elbowed sharply by Chacker. “Look at her! Look at those! Oh, oh, wouldn’t I love to get my teeth in those! Come here, Princess, come here, high and mighty, I’ve got two hands for you anyway!”

  “What are we going to do?” murmured Grattur.

  “They’ll tear her to pieces,” said Engrattur.

  “Here. You! Chacker. Leave your station. You’re reassigned.”

  “Report up to Magister Thratsa. Icicle, you take his place.”

  Chacker pulled himself up from his seat with an expression of outrage, but he obeyed and went knuckling off, muttering to himself. Gard slid sidelong into Chacker’s place. Grattur leaned down to him with an urgent look.

  “We’ve treated you right, haven’t we, little brother?”

  “Now you do right by old Grattur and Engrattur.”

  “There’ll be another war sometime.”

  “They fight among themselves all the time.”

  “She’ll be out of here someday.”

  “Don’t want her remembering us with spite, do we now?”

  “Don’t give her a reason to do that, little brother.”

  Gard nodded dumbly, wishing more than anything for a rag to cover himself. He did his best to arrange himself in a less conspicuous way, as Grattur and Engrattur turned to Lady Pirihine.

  “Your place is here, Lady.” They bowed and gestured toward the endmost seat. She stepped into it and sat and took hold of the handle without a word. Her manacles tinkled against the bar.

  Gard averted his eyes. She worked away at the handle in silence beside him, and slowly, defiantly, the laborers at the far end took up their song again.

  If I ever get out of here …

  Gard felt the lady’s thigh against his own.

  “Is that why they call you Icicle?” inquired the Lady Pirihine, sounding amused.

  Gard gulped and shook his head. He joined the song.

  I will eat their hearts

  Roasted over slow fire.

  If I ever get out of here …

  She joined in the song. Her voice was high and sweet. If frost ferns on frozen lakes had voices, they would sound like Lady Pirihine.

  Gard now longed for the old days of labor, which, if they ground him to a powder of weariness each evening, were yet blessedly dull. Now, his days and nights were full of torment.

  From Triphammer he borrowed a clout of bandage material one day and wound it around his loins, that they might not announce his every thought to the world. This made him the object of intense and hostile scrutiny when he took his place in the gear line, at the next shift.

  “What’s happened to it, Icicle?” demanded Trokka, who sat next to him these days. “Did it break off?”

  “Did you go swimming in the White Pool, and one of Magister Bobna’s pets had it off?” demanded Solt of the seat beyond, leaning over to see.

  “No!” said Fosha, of the fourth seat down. “He wore it away, comforting himself at night. Now he’s one of us, indeed!”

  “Shut your muzzles, you lot,” said Grattur.

  “You’re just jealous,” said Engrattur.

  “Don’t you mind them, little brother,” said Grattur.

  “Ungrateful filth! You wouldn’t want his seat,” said Engrattur.

  “Oh, wouldn’t we?” cried several of the demons together.

  Gard labored away in silence, thinking of new lyrics to the song, though it still began with If I ever get out of here. Presently came the tramp of boots in the corridor without, and Lady Pirihine was escorted to her seat by the guards. They almost-saluted and withdrew. She took hold of the gear handle and set to work. At once her gaze was drawn to the covering Gard wore. She smiled, but observed without comment awhile, as the song rose around them like a comforting prayer.

  At last she leaned back from the handle and raised her hand. Everyone fell silent at once, as though a cord had closed each windpipe; everyone but Gard, and he sang on a verse or two before looking up. Lady Pirihine narrowed her eyes.

  “You are not bound,” she said in a tone of disapproval. She looked up at Grattur and Engrattur. “Slaves, I am not permitted raiment, not so much as a rag. Who is this piece of dirt to lord it over me?”

  Grattur wrung his hands, and Engrattur clutched his head in dismay.

  “The boy meant no offense, Lady,” said Grattur.

  “He’ll divest himself at once, won’t you, Icicle?” said Engrattur.

  There was a strangling noise in the room, which would have been roars of laughter from the other demons, had the lady’s gesture not bound them. Still they bared their teeth in merriment, crossed their eyes, and turned different colors. Even the little Translators seemed to burn green and blue.

  Gard looked at Lady Pirihine sidelong, then rose in his seat. Turning from her, he unbound himself, letting the others down the line see well what they all lacked; at them he made a gesture that had meant extreme rudeness, among the forest people. Then he turned and sat down and resumed work.

  He did not look at Lady Pirihine, but could feel her gaze burning into him
. Presently she said, “What are you, slave, that you are not properly bound?”

  “I am no slave,” said Gard.

  “Insolence! See where you are, and what you do. You are a slave. And you shall be a beaten slave when I may order it so.”

  “I am a prisoner here,” said Gard. “If you live to order me beaten, then I will be beaten; but I am no slave.”

  “Or perhaps I shall order you killed.”

  Gard shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “I shall order you killed slowly, then.”

  “Pain is nothing new to me.”

  “This pain shall be, I promise you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You will beg me for permission to die.”

  “I will die when I choose.”

  All along the line the others listened to this, stifled in their delight. Grattur and Engrattur paced nervously, taking care they turned well away to grin. But now came another noise from the cavern’s mouth, a rumbling of wheels, a heavy tread. The long-nosed face poked through first, sniffing the air with wide nostrils. Catering came in.

  “What’re you doing here?” said Grattur.

  “You’ve no business here,” said Engrattur.

  “Got to fill my water tank, don’t I?” said Catering. “Thirsty little slaves have drunk it dry.”

  “Why don’t you fill it from the Kitchens cistern, then?”

  “That’s where you always fill it. What do you want here?”

  Catering made a rude gesture at them and trundled his way across to the river’s edge. There he filled his tank, with elaborate slowness. He was returning when he stopped short and swung his blind head from side to side. Once, twice, three times he snuffled the air.

  “Why, what’s this?” he exclaimed in badly acted surprise. “I smell a female down here! That couldn’t be right, could it?” He approached Lady Pirihine’s seat, groping before him.

  “You’ve filled your tank, now get out,” said Grattur.

  “We’re warning you, brother, don’t be stupid,” said Engrattur.