“And I like to treat you. What do you look at when you stand there?”
My house.
“Harpsborough looks different from up here,” she answered.
“And so do you.”
“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re lookin’ at my caboose.” she teased.
“No! I mean that up here you look like a princess.”
“What do I look like down there then?”
He smiled. “An ugly-ass pauper.”
“Aaron! I’m going to beat—”
She noticed the food arriving before she could finish. The bearer of the meal was John, who, at ten years old, was the youngest boy in the village. He wore loose sandals which clapped against the stone floor of the balcony as he walked.
“John,” Aaron said as he helped the boy spread out the plates, “never compliment a woman. It’s too dangerous.”
John nodded solemnly.
“That’s terrible!” Alice touched John’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, John. He’s just not very good at it, is all. I’m sure you’d give wonderful compliments, wouldn’t you?”
John nodded again.
The plates were made of polished granite and their silverware had been carved from woodstone. Each utensil had flowery designs whittled into their handle. When John removed the food’s cover, Alice heard her stomach rumble. Her last good meal had been with Turi, and that had been at least five days ago. She used to be able to sew or patch clothes in exchange for food. These days people had so little that they were more likely to just wander around in ripped garments. Even the Citizens didn’t seek her out anymore.
“You should practice,” Aaron was saying to the boy. “Give Miss Alice a compliment. Tell her how pretty a pauper she makes.”
“You have the most beautiful hair,” John said, his face earnest.
Alice could not help but smile. Her cheeks felt a little warm too.
“You’re adorable, John,” she told the boy. “I’m sure you’ll grow up to be quite the lady’s man.”
John scrunched up his face in disgust.
Alice returned to the table, laughing, and sat down across from Aaron.
The dyitzu meat looked especially succulent today, and it was accompanied by an oatmeal-like porridge made from devilwheat. It reminded her of grits. The porridge was covered in a red powder that was either dried houndsblood or dyitzu. She could never tell the difference until she tasted it.
Aaron began carving up the dyitzu. She watched the juices and a bit of steam well up from the cut Aaron was making in the freshly cooked meat.
Alice’s mouth watered, and her stomach growled again, this time audibly. Citizens tended to eat slowly, savoring each bite they took. Alice usually let her appetite get the better of her, but there were two other Citizens at the table on the far side of the balcony, and she didn’t want to embarrass Aaron by eating like a villager.
She dug into her food as politely as possible. The porridge was closest at hand. She felt the warm devilwheat-meal slide down her throat. If anything, it made her more hungry.
“Can I get you something else, Citizen? Miss Alice?” John asked them.
She shook her head while swallowing her next bite. Alice could see why they kept him around. The boy was as polite as the butlers she remembered from old world television sitcoms. She made herself pause before dipping her spoon back into the porridge.
“Bloodwater, John. Some of Davel’s new stuff, the darker kind.” Aaron turned to Alice as John departed and spoke to her around the bit of dyitzu he was chewing. “You’ll love this bloodwater. Davel’s done something special to it this time. We can’t get him to tell us what.”
Alice frowned around her spoon at the thought of Mancini.
“Say what you like about his character,” Aaron said as he placed a cut of dyitzu on her plate, “the man brews some mighty fine wine.”
She glanced back at the two other Citizens on the balcony.
Don’t do it girl, don’t eat like a villager. Think about something else.
Aaron ate slower than she did, certainly, but faster than anyone else in the Fore. He was the only Citizen that still ranged the wilds—the only Citizen that still had to work to earn his keep. Maybe that was why she liked him more than the others.
He could stand to dress a little bit more like them, though.
Aaron was wearing a dark hoodie with some stains around the front pocket which she hoped weren’t blood. While most people in the Fore wore more tight fitting—or perhaps even tailored—clothes, Aaron had on some baggy camouflaged pants. Except for the good repair of his garb, he could have been a simple hunter.
But he’s not a hunter. He’s a member of the Fore.
She watched him eat for a moment. She felt the porridge hitting her stomach. It almost hurt. The hunger inside her was building steadily.
Aaron can solve this. He can make it so you’re never hungry again.
She fought to pause before she took another spoonful.
But he can die. He can keep you like a Citizen, hole you up in the Fore and fuck you silly for months. Then some demon can rip his throat out, and you’ll end up right back in the village where you started.
The two other Citizens on the balcony, Herod the gunsmith and Copperfield the torch maker, got up to leave. Alice watched them go.
“Oh thank God!” She lifted up the dyitzu meat with her hands and tore into it with her teeth, not caring that the juices were burning her fingers.
“Whoa!” Aaron said, smiling. “Easy there.”
Alice swallowed the meat having barely chewed it and bit off another chunk.
“You try starving in the village,” she said, speaking with her mouth full, “and not eating all day.”
John returned with the wine jar, which was a squat clay thing fired in Kylie’s Kiln. Alice didn’t bother slowing down for him.
Kid’s ten. Who cares what he thinks?
“Thanks, bud.” Aaron said. “We’re good.”
John nodded, almost like a little bow, and hurried away, his sandals clapping against the stone before going silent when they hit the dyitzu skin carpets of the parlor room.
Alice continued her feast, pleased that Aaron was polite enough to wait for her to sate her hunger before he said anything more. After she had wolfed down her half of the meat and another helping of porridge, she was able to lean back and relax. She used one of the Fore’s cloth napkins to wipe the dyitzu grease off of her lips.
“Sorry,” she said.
Aaron laughed. “No problem.”
“I was impressed with John, though. He’s getting very well-mannered.”
Aaron opened the bloodwater’s corking with his fingers. “Love that little man.”
Jesus, he’s strong.
Sometimes it was hard for her to remember that she was sitting across from the most famed warrior of Harpsborough. He was the Lead Hunter, able to run all day and all night. The best tracker and the best killer—but he wasn’t very detail oriented. . .
“You forgot the cups,” Alice chided him.
Aaron smiled, and stood up from his chair. “I’ll get some for us.”
She used the moment he was gone to belch.
God, I feel better.
Aaron returned with two cups made of glass.
“Glass? Jesus, Aaron, what if I break one?”
“I’ll say I did it. You won’t have to pay.”
She shook her head as he poured out the ruddy bloodwater.
She accepted the glass and took an experimental sip. It warmed her tongue and then her throat on the way down. There was some kind of aftertaste that she couldn’t quite recognize.
“It is good,” she admitted.
“Mancini’s finest.”
The conversation stalled for a moment. She watched him as he ate.
I’ve got to keep him interested. Maybe I should get him talking about his work or something.
“So, Molly says that Michael Baker is going to lead his own hunting party,”
Alice told him.
Aaron dropped his fork and looked up from his food.
Smooth, Alice. Smooth.
“What does Molly know?” he demanded.
Just enough to get me in trouble, apparently.
He took another bite and washed it down with a splash of the wine.
“Should you be drinking that before you go out?”
“It’s fine,” he said. “And you’re right, Mike is thinking about going hunting. Not too bad an idea either, if you ask me.”
“Molly says it’s because he’s threatened by you.”
Aaron frowned before he responded, his eyebrows narrowing over his brown eyes. The expression didn’t last long. Sadness rarely kept up with him, but he did seem more serious as he continued. “That’s not true. And it’s not because I’m doing a bad job either. There are barely any dyitzu out there. That’s why my hunters are so hungry. We’re fed by lot, and we get only one lot for each kill. I’m telling you, my hunters need special rations. The Citizens will be voting on it next week.”
Alice was surprised to find herself slightly intoxicated. This new stuff Mancini had brewed hit hard and fast.
“Well, why do you think Michael’s going out then?”
“The people are hungry, Alice. He’s a good man. A good leader. I don’t think he can sit idly by while his people are hungry.”
Alice shrugged. “He could just feed people out of the Citizens’ food.”
I shouldn’t have said that, either.
“He’s actually mentioned that a couple of times.” Aaron went on as if she had every right to speak out against the Fore. “He can’t, of course. There has to be some dream people can work toward, and the Citizens would probably kill him if he did it. But we’ve got to do something. He’s a really good hunter. He taught me. He may be able to come up with a plan.”
They ate in silence for a few moments after that.
Alice smiled. “I hope your vote goes well.”
“It has to,” he said between mouthfuls. “My hunters are starving to death. It’s hard to hunt while you’re hungry. They don’t realize that we’re ranging twice as far as we used to and we’ve still got to get back by third shift. Something’s got to give. Either our restrictions have to be lifted so we can range farther than a day’s travel, or we need more food.”
Alice smiled at him as he prattled on about his hunting and served herself seconds. She had to make sure she ate everything she could while she had the chance. If tomorrow Aaron decided he wanted Chelsea, she might not ever find herself here again.
She studied his profile as he looked out over the city. His jaw line was particularly sharp, and she could see the muscles of his shoulders through his shirt.
He’s so beefy.
Beefy was the kind of physique that Molly liked.
A beefcake. I could get used to that kind of thing. But Molly’s right, I can’t just give myself to him. No matter how much I like him, he’s got to get me a Citizen nomination first.
When their meal was done they left the balcony together. Alice tried to sit down on one of the couches as they entered the parlor room, but Aaron shook his head.
“I’ve got to go out today. We’ve got to try and catch something. Thank God for Julian, eh?”
“Thank God,” she mumbled, reluctantly passing by the cushioned divan.
He tried to kiss her at the bottom of the Fore’s stairs. She dodged him, but he tried again in the waiting room. This time he caught her, and she let him go on for a moment until his hand reached up for her chest.
“Easy tiger,” she teased him.
He shook his head. “I just don’t get you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He rolled his eyes at that.
She leaned forward, pecked him on the lips, and pushed through the door curtain to exit the Fore. He adjusted his shirt and pants and came after, heading towards a group of his hunters. She spanked him on the butt as he started to walk away.
He jumped and gave a little yelp, obviously not expecting that.
His hunters laughed, and one called out to him. “You alright there, sir?”
Aaron shook his head and smiled. “Great. Thanks for your concern.”
“See you later, sweet-cheeks,” she called after him, drawing more laughter from the hunters.
He’s adorable when he smiles.
“There are sixty-four squares in a chess board,” Galen had told him, “thirty-two light and thirty-two dark. On top of those squares you will find infinity.”
Galen spoke of the game chess in the way that Father Klein talked about Jesus, but Arturus wasn’t falling for it. Galen talked about everything like Father Klein talked about Jesus. It must be Galen’s personal opinion, Arturus figured, that every activity contained within it some sort of transcendent, numinous, and all-encompassing wisdom.
It had been Arturus’ suggestion to find several different types of stone for Michael Baker to pick from. It had seemed a sensible idea at the time. As he wandered the wilds of Hell in search of rare and beautiful types of Hell rock, he began to regret his decision.
The black marble with red veins was the hardest to find, and it was this kind of stone which he was gathering now. Even after he found a few patches, he still couldn’t find a room where he could mine it safely. He finally settled on one, although he would have rejected it if the rock had been more common. The black marble was only on the back wall, so he had to view the entrance of the room out of the corner of his eye. The entrance itself was at the end of a long hallway, so he would have plenty of time to notice something if it started coming after him. He paused every few minutes to listen, just in case.
This part of Hell was dead quiet.
He continued chipping away and cursed when the brick he was working on broke in two.
I hope he doesn’t like this kind.
He thought this, but quickly changed his mind. He had already decided that if he was going to be making a chess set over the next few months, then it was going to be the most beautiful chess set that had ever been created. Surely, the black marble with red veins would help make the most beautiful board.
He stopped after making some progress on the second brick.
There was some kind of noise, barely audible.
A distant rumble.
He put down his pick and placed both of his hands on the marble, feeling the sound as a vibration through the stone. He waited for a few moments and the sound died away.
Settling.
Galen had taught him that the force of the labyrinth’s stones weighing down on themselves would cause them to shift from time to time. He waited for a moment and was about to start mining again when the settling returned.
Rick didn’t call it settling. He called it thunder.
He heard a great crack, which was followed by the distant grinding and creaking of stone. The walls vibrated again, but this time more fiercely.
“They travel along fault lines,” Galen had told him once. “You can tell when you’re on one when you hear it getting closer and closer.”
Arturus remembered being terrified of that. As a child it had been his pet fear.
He held his breath and listened further.
The sound came again, but it seemed farther away.
Good!
He let his breath go and waited even longer. He could feel his own heartbeat in his chest.
The next quake was so quiet that the only way he knew the thunder had come again at all was because of the slightest shaking of the wall.
The sound did not seem like it was returning.
It has passed me by.
Galen would undoubtedly go ranging to make sure that no chambers nearby had been damaged. He hoped all was well because he liked their home. He wouldn’t want to have to find a new one. That, and they’d leave Alice behind.
“Don’t make us leave,” he begged the stone.
The half brick he’d mined already would be just fine, but Galen had taught him th
at he shouldn’t make compromises after he had decided on how to do a thing. He paused at times to listen for more settling while he finished the new brick.
Nothing.
He placed the brick in his pack and shouldered it, anxious to return home.
There was a man in the shadows.
Arturus drew his pistol.
“Who are you?” he shouted.
The hallway that led into this room was long and dark. The man had made it almost the entire distance without Arturus noticing.
I was too busy listening to use my eyes.
“Who are you?” he shouted again, and then remembered his training. “Declare yourself. I’m Arturus, a hermit near Harpsborough.”
The man did not answer, but continued walking forward, slowly and deliberately.
“Declare yourself. If you do not answer, I will shoot.”
He thumbed the back the hammer, noticing that the barrel of his pistol was shaking. It never did that in shooting practice.
The man passed through the entryway. The rot smell hit Arturus at the same moment that the room’s light illuminated the figure.
The corpse’s face was grey, the eyes black with long since clotted blood. Its movements were smooth, but slow. It didn’t seem to have the stiff legged walk of the corpses Arturus had seen in the past.
Arturus fired once. The report of the .38 was far louder than even the thunder had been.
Despite his nerves, the bullet had struck true. The thing’s head snapped back, and it toppled over. The bullet had caved in the bones on the right side of its face, and its brains and clotted blood were leaking out onto the floor.
“You’ve got bigger things to worry about than the falling of the sky,” Galen had said.
Is he ever wrong?
Arturus waited to see if the thing would move. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t, but it didn’t hurt to make sure. Then, slowly, keeping an eye on the stilled corpse, he stepped over it. He looked down the long hallway, his pistol still drawn and held at eye level. He took a breath and started walking. Devils were often drawn to gunshots, he knew.
But people are too.
He thumbed down the hammer, as Galen had trained him, to make sure that he didn’t shoot another human being. He searched the area thoroughly, but couldn’t find any more corpses. He didn’t holster his gun until he made it home.
Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) Page 7
