There in the corner were Kruman the Carpenter and Flores, the butcher’s daughter. Feebin the Candlemaker sat at a table of quiet men, and the old hag who served as Matchmaker was being cornered by a tottering man who looked even older. An old man who sat at the bar slung his arm about his neighbor’s neck and stood, pulling his chum up in a headlock. The man cried out grotesquely at the top of his wheezing lungs, “Charlie’s leaving!”
All eyes turned to the chubby face of the man in the headlock. He smiled, and nodded. Charlie’s chum gripped the fat neck tighter and called out, “C’mon, boys!”
Aron looked up at Klin to ask what was going on. Klin rolled his eyes as if he’d seen this before. The musicians beneath them started a new song, and Aron looked through the hole again. The old man was leading the other regulars in a wheezing song, and slowly leading Charlie to the door. The music came, wheezing and staggering like its singers.
“Charlie’s gone to fill our kegs,
’Cause all that’s left is stale dregs
In the Town of Aren-Nath!
In our little Town of Aren-Nath!
Aren-Nath, Aren-Nath,
Where mud is thick,
The kids are sick,
And God’s plan gone awry...
But we still serve the Vassal’s will,
And down we our last pints of swill,
For Charlie’s on his way!
Charlie’s on his merry way!"
The song had ended and shouts rang out through the tavern.
“Long live the Vassal!”
“Long live the Vassal of Aren-Nath, and gods keep his Sword!”
“Hoorah! Hoorah!”
Charlie was pushed out into the dark and there was a short silence. There was the snort and whinny of a load-beast, and in his mind Aron could almost see the fog of its breath. Then there came a jingle, a creak, and a drunken hiyah! before the voices started their chatter again. The barmaid leaned far over the counter and gave one man a toothless smile.
Aron felt Klin’s boot kicking into his calves; he looked up from the hole. Klin gestured back the way from which they had come. Aron understood and got carefully to a crouch. He turned himself around and crept back towards the hole to the outside. He climbed out and was in night again and remembered that it was cold. The music was softer now. He found his way down the beam, onto the shed, and into the dark alley. Klin was on his heels the whole way, whispering for him to hurry it up.
They picked their way down the alley to the front of the bar. There, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows. It was rail thin. Aron knew it had to be Tall Boy.
“Did y’get it?” Klin asked hurriedly.
Tall Boy pulled a glass bottle halfway out of his coat pocket to show.
“Charlie always keeps this one beneath his seat,” Klin explained. They all shuffled back into the alley. Tall Boy knocked the cork off the bottle with the back of his hand, took a swig, then wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve and passed the bottle to Klin. Klin followed, and offered it to Aron. He refused. Klin shrugged, and Tall Boy drank deeply again.
“We’ve got one more thing to do tonight, Aron,” Klin explained. Aron looked to him in silence. “You don’t know what that is, do you?”
Aron shook his head.
Tall Boy smiled and bit his lip and took another swig, exchanging a glance with Klin.
“Tonight we’re going into Nero’s house,” Klin said flatly.
Aron’s heart began to race. Nero was a man who lived in the forest, a man whom he had never seen but about whom he had heard much. The strength in his hands could tear the limbs off a man. In his mind and in his books he held strange powers barely under control. When forest winds whispered at night, it was said, they were angry spirits, looking for Nero. The sight of his black carriage approaching on a forest path gave men sleepless nights.
To go within his house would be suicide.
Klin and Tall Boy stood drinking for a few minutes and Aron did not know what he would do. He would not leave them here, now. Perhaps somewhere ahead he could slip off the path and return home. Anxiously he watched them drink, wondering how much more they would put down. Then Tall Boy corked and chucked the bottle into the shadows and the three of them emerged from the alleyway. Together they climbed to the top of the town, scrambled over the Temple wall and set off into the forest.
Upward they hiked, and then upward more and upward a few steps further, and still Aron could not see the house ahead. Tall Boy and Klin were moving slow and kept behind him. The fat trees stood like sleepy sentries in the dark. He looked up again and could not see the house. He looked down and thought of the bargirls, bright in the yellow glow of the tavern lamps, their toothless smiles and bright bosoms in tight dresses burnt into his mind.
Turning back, he tried to watch Klin’s step, worrying that he must be terribly drunk. He didn’t know how much it might take to get a man drunk. Klin’s step seemed steady. Then Aron tripped.
“Look where you’re going!” Klin shouted noisily.
Aron brought his attention back to the path beneath him, wondering if this was the time to escape.
It started coming out of the dark up ahead, a rough form darker and larger than all the rest. Weak fringes of light danced within it. They got closer and he could see that was candlelight dancing about the fringes of windblown curtains.
On the ground floor, all windows were dark. When they came close they could tell that the house was white. In front it had a strange wooden deck, like the deck of a ship, and round white cylinders of wood reached high to the roof. On it there were dark wet shadows and whispers of ancient pain.
Evidently Klin could not hear these whispers. He pressed forward indomitably through the hedges. Aron shushed him, then picked his way painstakingly through the same bush. Suddenly he knew that he could not turn back. He did not know what would happen next, but he pressed onward, as in a dream, until the house was within his very reach. He touched it. Its side was cold. He turned and watched with horror as Klin rapped his knuckles on the strange, clear, flat glass which covered a window. Then with one swift punch Klin knocked out a pane. It tinkled to the floor inside, then all was quiet again.
“Now how do we get in?” Tall Boy whispered thickly.
He and Klin sniffed around the panes of glass. Finally Klin figured the bottom pane could be lifted so he pulled up on it for a while but it didn’t move. Then he saw the latch and reached around inside. He opened it easily and the window stayed open. Then he was inside.
Then Tall Boy was inside. Aron heard his feet crushing the glass on the floor, and it was quiet again. So he hoisted himself onto the sill, then tumbled noisily in, then remembered the glass on the floor. His hands had missed it and he had not been cut. He got up, wondering where the other boys had gone. He could see very little in the darkness. It was all wood planks, like the deck of a boat. Around the room was furniture of strange thin wood that was curved and polished. There were shelves and cabinets made of wood and strange flat glass. The floor creaked beneath his every step. Cold breaths of outside air sighed from the open window behind him. His ears were pricked for any sound.
“Klin... Tall Boy...”
There was no answer. But the whisper had been so quiet he had hardly heard it himself. Everything was dark. Then it struck him.
Somewhere in these rooms was Nero. If Aron could bring himself to listen, he might hear Nero’s breath, warm and determined, within this very hall.
There was a snap, the sharp sound of wood on wood, a young woman’s laughter, then her laughter muffled, then silence and another breath of cold wind. Aron stood frozen in mid-step at the foot of the hall, listening, wanting to go forward and look into the open doors, afraid that at any moment some figure might emerge, afraid to turn around, and afraid that as he stood there he might feel an icy hand fall upon his shoulder.
He took a step forward, listening for the sounds of the woman. A door ahead opened swiftly and a robed figure stepped into the hallway.
Aron saw only its swollen feet and the powerful balled muscles of its calves, white with moonlight from an opposite room. The figure shouted and ran towards him like a flying reptile swooping for its prey. Its bald head shone white.
“Klin!” Aron cried desperately, turning and bolting from the corridor. He heard pounding bare feet behind him and an angry cry.
He rounded the corner, into a big room. Klin was up on the balcony.
“Aron! Up here! Climb up!” His face was pale and worried, his eyes intent. Aron obeyed and broke for the shelves. There were books, so many books....
Nero exploded into the room and stopped to survey it for his prey. He swung one arm up along the wall and bright light came down from a lamp suspended from the center of the ceiling.
“Come back here!” he barked, jabbing a finger at them. He marched fiercely towards them, his calves balled and fists clenched with tremendous energy. His eyes were blue, his skin dark, his head fringed with short coarse gray hairs.
Aron scrambled up the shelves, slipping with every step. Klin was at the top, screaming at him and reaching his hand down through the balusters to him. Nero was nearly within reach of Aron’s feet now. Aron looked back and their eyes met. Then he lunged for the top though he had no solid footing. Nero leapt to seize a foot. Aron got his other foot on top of the biggest book on the shelf and shoved off of it, putting everything into one surge for the top. The big book tumbled out of the shelf as he pushed, but it had given him enough height to get his arms over the railing of the balcony. Klin grabbed him. Aron looked down, fighting to get his legs to the edge of the upper level.
Nero had turned his gaze abruptly from the boys and tried but failed to catch the book. It landed on its spine then parted, falling open. Nero grasped the fringes of his hair in tight fists as if about to rip it from his small round skull. He cried out, but no longer did his eyes seek out the intruders in his house. He looked down to the book, beside his swollen feet. On its yellow page stood a picture, jagged lines of the blackest ink.
It was a creature, gaping mouth draped with saliva, digging one bare claw into the almost empty carcass of a young boy on a rock.
Klin’s hands pulled Aron up over the top. He fell hard on the floor of the balcony, then scrambled to his feet. Tall Boy led them through a window and into the night, onto the branches of a tree, and Aron jumped too soon for the ground, twisting his ankle and bruising his legs on the roots below.
Klin swung down beside him and picked him up. They were running, running, running. They did not look back once. From the house they could hear Nero’s screams, screams of wrath and loss.
“Come back here you stupid boys!” they finally heard, then they could hear no more.
Aron’s body ached everywhere and his heart was pounding out of control. He fell over a dead log in the path and collapsed on the forest floor, struggling just to breathe.
Klin and Tall Boy were crouched over him. He couldn’t think of anything but trying to get his breath. There were hands on his chest and arms. He sucked one breath in, but could not remember how to exhale. Someone hit him and the air came out. He breathed again, then again. Now his breaths were coming fast and he started to hear their voices.
“Aron, Aron, it’s okay.... Stand up! You gotta keep walking....”
He stood but felt weak. His body was shaking. The other boys helped him for a few steps, then he pushed them away and fought his way alone. They kept anxiously by his side, and he pushed them angrily away. Slowly, he regained his breath and began to hear the wind and feel the chill of the forest. He had no idea where they were, but Tall Boy was leading them somewhere. Aron just kept following.
The moon was bright and cold and round.
Aron’s house looked small when they came to it, and he thought of all the comfort that was inside. He wondered for a moment if Nero would follow them here. He wondered if Nero were somewhere amongst these trees.
The three boys squatted for a while on the hill, considering the events of the night. Aron thought the other boys might be laughing now, except that he had collapsed like that. Finally Tall Boy told them that his paw was going to get him up before dawn to skin some animals, and how his paw would probably skin him instead if he weren’t around. His gaunt form wandered off into the forest, picking up rocks and nailing trees with them.
Klin smiled. “You doing all right?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you like it?” Klin questioned. His tone was quiet and sincere, threatening nothing for an erroneous answer.
Aron laughed a little, nervously. “Not too bad.”
“You didn’t do so bad. I’ve gotta tell you, starting off, I wasn’t so sure you’d make it. When we were coming up on the house it looked like maybe you were about to bolt for the trees or something. But you did good. Got into a hell of a lot more trouble than me or Tall Boy.”
“Have you ever gone in there before?”
“No.”
“Were you scared?”
Klin smiled to himself, kicking at a root in the forest floor.
Aron said it was probably time that he went inside. Klin asked him if he was sure, and Aron told him yes, and Klin said okay. Aron started walking down the hill to his house. He walked a little nervously because he felt like Klin was watching him.
“Aron!” Klin called out, loudly enough so that Aron would worry if it had woken his parents.
He looked back and Klin was charging down the hill towards him. He came to Aron’s side and grabbed the top of his arm tight.
“You asked me a question back there, are you gonna let me get away without an answer?” He was breathless. “Scared?” He let Aron’s arm go. “Of course I was scared. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is...”
Aron watched him silently.
“Aw, hell. Good night, Aron. Sleep tight. And be quiet getting in there! Don’t want to wake the parents!”
He laughed and nudged Aron on his way. At the bottom of the hill Aron looked back once, and Klin was standing there where they had parted, and by his posture it was clear he was smiling.
When Aron got to the door of the house and looked back again, Klin was gone.
Quietly, he slipped inside.
His mind wandered and wandered in senseless circles. He heard sounds that were not sounds and saw strange things verging on dreams. He heard a knocking, a rapping at the door, then sat up, wondering if that one could have been real. But he heard nothing more. A scream from the forest.
The only sound was the cold fingers of the wind running through the earth’s bristly hair.
He awoke to the sound of his sister’s shrill scream. He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room, now bright with morning. His sister ran in the door bawling.
“What is it, baby?” he heard Father ask.
He got out of bed.
He saw his father slipping out the front door. His head poked back in.
“Son, stay with your sister,” he commanded sternly.
Cainy stared up at him, her eyes brimming with fear. Aron stood motionless, still waking up, wondering if the night before had been anything more than strange dreams. He said nothing.
Father came back in. His face was like stone. Mother, drawn by Cainy’s cries, came running in through the back door and went straight to her.
“What is it?” she asked Father.
“It’s Klin,” he spoke without moving his lips. “It looks like something’s chewed him up.”
Cainy screamed wildly but Aron did not hear her. He stared dumbly at his father.
Father was to go out to the field with a blanket to cover the body. Then he was to hike into town to tell the Vassal and his men what Cainy had found. Mother was to stay home and watch the children.
But Aron knew that with his sister throwing tantrums he’d be able to slip away soon. Cainy ran into the kitchen and Mother gave chase. Aron slipped out the back door into the open green field. He knew which way he had to run. At the top of the first hill, he heard
his mother calling his name desperately. She must have thought she had lost him.
Klin was gone. In the mystery of the midnight forest winds, Aron might have believed it. In the strange light of the tavern, or with the shards of moonlit broken glass on Nero’s floorboards, he could have felt something, he could have cried and understood that Klin was gone.
But the morning light was a cruel anesthetic.
In it the white house looked fragile, and Aron ran straight up and pounded on the door. What was inside could be no worse than what lurked in the forest. He screamed and pounded harder and kicked the door violently until his toes were all smashed up. Then it opened. A powerful fist came down, opened, and wrenched him inside.
The hand belonged to Nero. No other could be so strong. Now the sorcerer was clothed all in tight-fitting white garments and a white coat with a black ribbon tied neatly about his veinous neck. His powerful arms held Aron so tight against the wall that he could not swallow and could hardly breathe.
Piles of books were strewn everywhere.
Droplets of sweat ran down Nero’s face and neck, then into his collar. He inhaled sharply through his mouth and pushed hot air back out through his nose. His eyes bulged wildly and stared at one of Aron’s eyes, then the other, then shifting back and forth each half-second as he scrutinized the creature within his grasp.
“You stupid!”
He slammed Aron against the wall once, then again, knocking the breath out of him before letting him fall to the floor. Nero walked slowly, deliberately back to his books.
“I don’t have time for this, I don’t have time for this!” he screamed suddenly.
Aron lay motionless, panting, on the floor.
An Armory of Swords Page 15
