Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  Mancini opened his eyes and cleared his mind.

  None of the plans he’d devised to help deal with Michael’s failure would be particularly appropriate now.

  We’ll all be happy. The villagers are fed, the Citizens won’t have pressure to give up the Fore’s stores.

  He heard girls laughing outside. One was calling Martin’s name.

  It can’t last. It won’t take long for the village to eat through the spider.

  Michael had only postponed things, he decided. Hell was still disturbingly empty of devils. There still wasn’t enough to feed the Citizens and the villagers.

  He’d just have to wait.

  Arturus watched as fresh steam soared up from the hotplates. Rick was using one of Galen’s masonry chisels to tenderize the dyitzu flank he was preparing.

  “Those knights are looking good,” Rick said as he pounded out the meat. “You make them today?”

  “Been working on this one all morning. I had a couple of missteps. I’m going to have to go out and gather some more sandstone to grind at this rate.”

  “Can’t argue with the final result though.”

  “Wait till I make the black ones.”

  Rick smiled and poured another cup of water on the plates. “I think you’re turning out to be a fine artist, Turi. Have you seen Galen yet this morning?”

  “No.”

  “He was down at Harpsborough earlier today. Can you get him up for breakfast? I think he’s napping.”

  Arturus grumbled to himself and got up from his chair.

  “And can you fill the urn?” Rick added, “I’m almost out of water.”

  Arturus paced back across the battery room, grabbed the urn, and went out into the hallway. He wandered over to Galen’s door tapestry.

  “Galen,” he called.

  “Yes.” Galen’s voice was alert.

  Arturus had a pet theory that, along with his beard never needing to be trimmed, Galen didn’t need to sleep. “Rick asked me to tell you that he’s making breakfast.”

  Galen’s head peeked out from around the tapestry, sniffing the air. “Is that dyitzu he’s cooking?”

  “Sure is. And he’s using one of your chisels on the meat.”

  “Then he must fall,” Galen said.

  Arturus laughed and headed out for the river.

  “Turi,” Galen said.

  “Yeah?”

  “The gravel’s starting to heal itself together, will you make sure to rake it sometime today?”

  Everybody has something for me to do.

  Rick’s cooking wasn’t done by the time Arturus returned with the water, so he went to the closet to get the gravel rake. Galen was standing at the counter, cutting up some knowledge fruit. Arturus watched, hypnotized by his father’s motion as the man diced the fruit into small cubes and then dropped them into the boiling devilwheat-meal.

  “Not yet, Turi,” Galen said to him as he reached for the rake.

  Arturus didn’t need to be told twice.

  “I was in Harpsborough today,” Galen said.

  “Anything new?” Arturus asked.

  “Michael came back a day or so ago. Killed a spider.”

  Rick whistled. “Well, good for him. I knew he had it in him.”

  Arturus had never seen a spider. He’d only eaten their eggs. He hoped those creatures didn’t hold grudges.

  Galen nodded. “Michael did well. They’ve got expeditions going back and forth between the village and wherever it made its web. Probably going to feed Harpsborough for a month.”

  “That’s great,” Arturus said. “Makes it easier to trade.”

  “Are you going to the village today?” Galen asked.

  Arturus felt very adult answering this question. The fact that Galen asked it meant that it was Arturus’ decision about whether or not he’d go.

  “Yeah, I wanted to get his okay on the knights. I’m going to try and make the black one in a little bit. If Rick leaves any of the battery left for me.”

  Rick shot him a squint-eyed glance as he stirred the near boiling devilwheat-meal.

  Galen laughed. “You should take Ellen with you. This food boom has their spirits up. You might be able to get Michael to take her as a villager.”

  “I hope so. Did you know she came over to have me kill a corpse for her the other day?”

  “Did she really?” Rick said with a laugh.

  Arturus nodded, watching as Galen began preparing another knowledge fruit.

  “She gathered these for us,” Galen said. “Said it was thanks for helping her out. Was the corpse much trouble?”

  “No,” Arturus answered. “She said it was wandering in the knowledge fruit, though.”

  Galen stopped cutting and looked at the fruit suspiciously.

  “Hey,” Rick said, “if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger, right?”

  Aaron nodded to the hunters on morning watch and hurried out towards the river. He caught up with Molly before she made it to the river room.

  “Molly, wait!” he called.

  Molly turned around, smiling. “Hey, boy! Why are you chasing me down all alone in a place like this?”

  “I need to know, Molly. What’s going on with Benson?”

  Her smile disappeared. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Don’t joke with me, Molly. I don’t need to know names. I just need to know if it’s Maab, or something like that. If it’s just one of us then. . .”

  Molly pulled her brown hair over one of her shoulders and started working out the tangles. “Well, come protect me while I pee. Then maybe I’ll tell you.”

  “This is serious.”

  “So is being attacked in the river room.”

  Aaron rolled his eyes and followed her. They waited for a girl there to gather her water in one of Kylie’s urns. When they were alone, Molly pulled up her skirt and squatted by the river.

  Aaron looked away.

  “Why look away?” Molly teased. “Not like you haven’t seen what I’ve got.”

  “I’m not the slightest bit interested.”

  “I bet not.” He could hear the tinkle of her piss in the river as she spoke. “I probably bruised your ego pretty badly, huh? Still disappointed that your extra forearm wasn’t enough for me?”

  “That’s not how I remember it.”

  “Oh, how do you remember it? Do tell me.”

  “Can we be serious for a second?”

  “I am being serious. You’re probably also feeling a little insecure about how well Michael did on the hunt.”

  The tinkling continued.

  “I’m happy he found the food, Molly. We’re all hungry.”

  “I bet.”

  He heard her stand. He turned around, a little too quickly.

  She was about how he remembered her. A little skinnier, perhaps, probably from being deprived of the fruits of the Fore.

  “Enjoy the show?” she asked him.

  “It was great,” Aaron said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  She laughed and adjusted her skirt. “What, you’re not attracted to me anymore?” Her eyes mimicked tragic disappointment.

  “Not even remotely.”

  “I bet you’re just afraid I’d tell Alice.”

  Aaron nodded. “And the rest of the village. Now what’s going on, Molly. Or if you don’t know, just admit it.”

  “You and Davel have been banging your heads against the wall about that one, haven’t you?”

  “Basically.”

  “It’s not your fault you can’t figure out why someone would do it, Aaron. You don’t think like a scoundrel. Dusting Benson, just leaving him there, it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Distractions are only useful if you can control them. You know, make them start when you need them to.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Aaron said. “Who knows when he’ll die?”

  Molly shook her head and pursed her lips. She bent down to the river, dipped a hand in the water, and used it to clean herself.
>
  “Jesus,” Aaron said, looking away again.

  “See, I told you, you’re too good a man. Whoever was using him as a distraction would only have to kill him to set him off.”

  “Okay. Distraction for what?”

  “There’s only one thing in that village worth raiding.”

  “Staunten’s storeroom?” He looked back at her.

  Molly nodded. “You got it, cowboy.”

  “But that wouldn’t make any sense,” Aaron protested. “After the fighting was done, people would be running out of the Fore to see what was going on. It’d be almost impossible to sneak in with everyone running out.”

  “Sure would. If you were a villager. A Citizen, on the other hand, might find himself suddenly alone. Of course, with all the new spider guts in town, I’m sure you won’t have to worry about any attempt to get at the Fore’s food. So long as those eggs last, who would want to risk it? So long as they last.”

  Don’t forget that this woman is usually full of bullshit.

  But it was hard to ignore her words. They certainly made more sense than anything he had come up with.

  “If I find out you’re lying to me. . .”

  “You’ll what?”

  “People could die, Molly.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him as she walked by, “Michael couldn’t handle me either.”

  She left Aaron alone in the room.

  “I hate that bitch,” he told the river.

  “Where are Rick and Galen?” Ellen asked Arturus.

  “They should be here in just a bit. We’ll head on down to Harpsborough as soon as they’re back.”

  “I went exploring today,” she told him.

  Arturus grunted. It reminded him of the grunt that Galen would give when he was pleased with something. Sometimes it surprised him how much he took after his fathers.

  “Be careful not to get lost,” he warned, “but I like that you’re doing it.”

  “I’m careful. I go a little farther each day. I mean to shoot the next corpse I see. Make you proud. Of course, you say it’s because you want me to be able to take care of myself,” she broke into a grin, “but really you’re just too lazy to come and kill them for me.”

  Arturus laughed at that.

  Ellen leaned over the table and saw the knights he had been working on. “What’s this?”

  She held one of the white knights up first, and Arturus could see her eye through the clear portions of the milky glass. Next she held up a black knight. Arturus was proudest of the black ones, of the ashen colored glass with the trails of crimson running through it.

  She placed the knights between them. Arturus’ fingers ran over the depression on the table’s edge.

  “This is you,” she said, smiling, and pointing to the clearer piece. “My white knight.”

  “The black one looks better,” Arturus said.

  She brought her head down to the level of the table, looking at the darker piece. “Well,” she said, resting her nose on the woodstone, “I guess you were damned. I suppose you’d be the black one.”

  Her nose twitched as she sat back up.

  “I wasn’t damned, remember?” Arturus told her. “I was born here.”

  “Yeah, sorry, I forgot about that.”

  Ellen sat even farther back in her chair, looking shocked. The wooden legs scraped against the stone floor. “But then you never had a chance to go to heaven! That’s not fair.”

  Arturus shrugged. “What’s so nice about heaven?”

  “This is horribly wrong,” Ellen’s face was mask of worry. “I mean, what if you lead the good life down here? You’ll always be damned. Maybe you don’t have a soul. . . I don’t know where you would have gotten one.”

  “I’m pretty sure I have a soul,” Arturus said flatly.

  She seemed deep in thought. “I guess it’s not so odd. I mean, everybody born in Iran goes to Hell too.”

  “Why’s that? What’s wrong with Iran?”

  “Turi, they don’t believe in Jesus.”

  “Believing in Jesus is what gets you to heaven?” Arturus asked her.

  “Of course it is, silly.”

  “Did you believe in Jesus, in the old world?”

  “Yes, but look, I wasn’t perfect, you know. Let’s talk about something else.”

  Arturus shrugged his shoulders.

  He heard a voice from outside. “Galen.”

  And then another. “Rick. We’re coming in.”

  “Ellen and Turi,” she reported for them in her high voice.

  She stood up to leave. “I’ll wait outside.”

  Arturus nodded.

  She passed him the white knight. “And I’ll have you know,” she said, rubbing the hair on his head while she looked directly into his eyes, “that’s a very fine looking white knight.”

  She left, smiling at him as she walked by the entering Galen.

  “Well, what was that about?” Rick asked after they could hear her footsteps on the bridge.

  “She just likes the knight, is all,” Arturus could feel a bit of flush coming to his cheeks.

  “I don’t think so. I think she likes you.”

  “Maybe. Doesn’t matter, though. I like Alice.”

  “That’s usually the way of things.” Rick set his pack down by the table. “But you should consider her, at least.”

  Arturus stood up. “I can’t think of anyone other than Alice. Ellen, she just doesn’t get along very well.”

  “Not yet,” Galen observed.

  Rick gave Galen a long look. “You’re not helping.”

  “The boy can like who he wants,” Galen said, but then turned to Arturus. “Be careful, though. Ellen may joke about the knight on that table, but Alice really wants one. Beware of ambitious women.”

  Rick had wandered behind the stone counter and was rummaging through the supply closet. “Can we not fill his head with misogynistic bullshit, please?” he called out over his shoulder. “It’s hard enough, the boy not having a mother. You don’t want him to grow up and hate women.”

  “He seems to like them just fine,” Galen said. “But be careful nonetheless. Alice wants something. She wants to be placed on a pedestal.”

  “She belongs on one,” Arturus said.

  “No one deserves that, Turi, man or woman. A pedestal and a tower are very similar.” Galen looked to the knights on the table before continuing. “And there’s precious little difference between a knight and a dragon.”

  The guards waved them into Harpsborough with little more than a customary greeting, although Avery gave Arturus an approving nod that he thought had to do with Ellen. He hoped the cross-armed guard wouldn’t go speaking to Alice about this.

  He had never seen Harpsborough this crowded. Her citizens lounged about, many spooning bulbous green and black masses of spider guts into their mouths with their fingers. One man had chunks of the stuff running down his beard. Smoke rose from the kiln and from the stones above the still. Other woodstone fires burned at random intervals throughout the village. Some villagers were boiling their spider eggs, Arturus presumed, to make sure that they wouldn’t hatch. Here and there, jars of Mancini’s bloodwater lay about, their corking undone. The people were joking and laughing. He saw one couple feeding each other. Father Klein was walking amongst the fires, blessing the food, speaking with those he passed.

  Arturus pulled the wide eyed Ellen through the mass of celebrating villagers.

  “I didn’t know there were so many people here,” she said.

  “I didn’t either.” Arturus was only half joking. “I guess since everyone’s fed, no one is gathering in the wilds.”

  “It smells like. . .”

  “Spider guts,” Arturus finished for her.

  At least, he hoped that’s what the smell was.

  He stopped by the kiln where he found Kylie working. The kiln was full of pots, and she had another batch ready to go.

  “You look busy,” Arturus noted.

  Ky
lie gave him a wide smile.

  “People all of a sudden have food to store, and food to pay with. It’ll be a busy holiday for me. Who’s the girl?”

  “I’m Ellen.” Ellen held out her hand.

  “Citizen Kylie. Why Arturus, she’s such a pretty little thing.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ellen said.

  The smell of the baking clay, Arturus noticed, was far preferable to the smell of boiling spider eggs. “Is Michael in?”

  Kylie’s smile became even wider. “Our hero is certainly in residence. I think he’s drunk as a skunk, up in the Fore.”

  “Thanks!” Ellen told her as they walked away.

  Massan waved to Arturus as they moved to the Fore.

  Ellen pinched her nose. “How can they stand it?”

  “Better than being hungry.”

  He spotted Alice and Molly by Alice’s hovel. He wished for a moment that Ellen wasn’t following quite so closely. He moved a little faster, hoping that a little distance would let Alice know that they weren’t together.

  Arturus batted at the door tapestry which hung from the Fore, but no one answered. He could hear raucous laughter from inside.

  “Can’t we go in?” Ellen asked.

  “No, only Citizens are allowed in the Fore without special permission.”

  After a minute or so, John, a boy just slightly younger than Arturus, opened the tapestry. “Turi, may I help you?”

  Ever since John had become the de facto servant for the Fore, he had started talking funny. Arturus tried to ignore it. “Yes, John, I’ve got a meeting with Michael.”

  “I’ll see if he’s ready for you, Turi.”

  Behind them a great shout came up from a group of hunters. One man was shaking his fist in the air while another was kissing his devilbone dice.

  Ellen smiled. “They all look so happy.”

  “See,” Arturus said, “Hell’s not all that bad. Though it’s not usually quite this nice. . .”

  John returned. “You can come on up, Turi.”

  They started to enter.

  “Not you,” John said to Ellen.

  “Don’t worry,” Arturus told her. “I’ll be right back.”

  She gave him a fake smile.