“The King, in his corrupt form, is an unjust Tyrant. The Warrior is just a brute or, if he’s lazy, a sham. The corrupt Entertainer is a Clown, one who constantly distracts or points out life’s dark underbelly because he’s lost his connection to the muses. The Philosopher, if he’s weak-willed or overly arrogant, would be a High Priest, one who spouts dogma or rambles on about nonsense just to cover his own ass or ingratiate himself to a Tyrant.”
“How does your family fit into all of this?”
“My father, of course, is the King. We had a great Warrior named Vito, but… we lost him. He could have been a living legend. Perhaps he still is, somewhere. Rumor has it that we lost him because of the Philosopher Globulus. He was once a firebrand, a genius, but he became wicked and inhuman. My brother said he did something so evil that my father should have killed him on the spot. Instead, father exiled him. My father’s a decent man, Wodan. He has a lot of blood on his hands, but he never seeks out violence for the sake of it. I have no idea what happened exactly, but my father said it was because Globulus was inexperienced when it came to life outside of his studies. He was lost in abstraction. Abstract thought is a great talent, Wodan. It’s very rare, but it’s also very dangerous.”
Wodan recalled his hero Didi saying that an idea could be wrong, but that life itself was never wrong. “That’s why you’re passing through here, isn’t it?” said Wodan. “You’re going to become the Court Philosopher.”
“I am,” said Zach. “I’m on a journey to find out how people survive, how they live, in an inhospitable world. Here we go!”
Zach bent over a section of the floor and lifted it. A hatch led down into darkness.
The old man suddenly perked up, said, “Do anything foul down there, and I’ll be the one to bury your bodies.”
Wodan turned to respond, but Zach quickly jerked his shoulder about and turned him away from the old man. Zach climbed onto a narrow ladder, then Wodan followed him down into the darkness.
The earth grew cold as they descended. They reached the bottom, then made their way through a dark tunnel. Wodan could hear drums and laughter. Finally Zach bumped into a doorway, then knocked.
“Is that the secret knock?” said a voice on the other side. It was equal parts accusatory and hesitant.
“Secret enough!” said Zach. “Let us in!”
The door opened. They entered a dark stone room lit by a single wide fireplace. Men and women in all manner of dress were gathered in groups. Some wore plain white masks, some had black face paint that made their teeth stand out in bright flashes, but most bore no mark at all that distinguished them as Entertainers. In one corner, Wodan saw a man speaking so quickly that his words were barely distinguishable from gibberish, while several listeners took turns sipping from a drink that would make them glassy-eyed and impressionable. Wodan knew in a flash that these people were manipulating their memories in such a way that they could memorize and pass on stories from one to another. He was struck by the absurd fact that these people had to do their work underground, but he also knew that if the flesh demons were gone, if the Ugly were gone, if all the tyrants were wiped out and humanity was allowed to blossom, then these people would be the ones who would help build a new world.
Most of the people seemed to be drinking and talking and laughing. Zach took Wodan to a keg and they poured themselves a drink. Wodan watched the firelight dance with shadows on the faces, then he said, “Jarl!”
A man with long brown hair and worn-looking robes turned to him, his face slack in null-recognition.
“Agmar introduced me to you in Sunport,” said Wodan. “A fight broke out. Do you remember?”
“I was wasted that night,” said Jarl, noncommittal. “I remember nothing.”
“You were with some scouts from the east, from San Ktari. You were planning on a journey…”
Jarl laughed and nodded, then said, “Okay, that I remember! So you’re a friend of Agmar’s? How is the old man? He always did have nine lives, you know!”
“He’s dead,” said Wodan.
Jarl’s face darkened and he looked away. Jarl sat in silence for a long time, but he never asked Wodan exactly how Agmar died. That told Wodan a lot: Jarl might seem like a drunk and a fool, but he had seen enough death that he no longer wanted to hear any details about it. Wodan saw Jarl stare at the circle of people spreading their stories using memory enhancement drugs, and he knew that the only reason these people took shortcuts, and worked mostly underground, was because they were at war. Their society wanted masters and slaves, clean hierarchies that were readily understood; stories that spread discomfort or hope were not welcome.
“Agmar was right about San Ktari,” Jarl said finally. “I never would have guessed that brute savagery and the refinements of civilization could be mixed so perfectly, so seamlessly. Imagine a massive Bureau of Chaos full of bureaucrats passing around and stamping diagrams of the psychological makeup of berserkers and serial killers, and you’ll have some idea as to how those little people work.”
“What about their art?”
“I... I know they have art... I know it,” said Jarl, beating his mug on a table and sloshing it around. “Their culture is old, very old - but they kept it all from me. I’m tall and my eyes are different from theirs, so they treated me like a plague carrier the whole time… but in a sort of polite way. I saw nothing besides propaganda.”
Wodan vaguely recalled Jarl speaking about so-called living gods of San Ktari. He remembered the strange beings that brought him to the outskirts of Pontius one year ago, and a small poster they had hanging in their airship. “Jarl, do you know anything about someone called a Warmaster?”
“One of the Die Engelen,” said Jarl. “He’s some kind of vicious god that they worship.”
“He’s not a god,” said an old man sitting nearby. “He’s a man that society focuses on. You can amass a great deal of power when millions of pairs of eyes focus on you and hold you in their thoughts, but believe me, he’s no god. There are only four gods in the wasteland.”
Wodan studied the old man. He wore some sort of priest’s collar that hung loose at his throat. His body seemed worn out, old beyond reckoning, but his eyes were burning with a power beyond youth. The old man glanced at Wodan’s crucifixion scars, then bore his eyes into his face. Strangely enough, Wodan saw a flash, then felt something like an overpowering memory. He saw the old man on his death bed while two young men stood over him. He smelled smoke and in his vision the old man said, “It’s all fallen apart. Take my guns and go kill. Kill the looters. Take nothing but ammunition. Leave everything else behind. It’s time for the masks.” He saw the young men pull strange, white masks from a lockbox.
The vision ended, then Jarl said, “Someone is smoking prophecy in here, I can smell it.”
“No, no,” said the priest, shaking his head. “That drug no longer works. We’ve burned all our stores of it. This age is drawing to an end, and that stuff becomes deadly when the future falls out of its ruts. You’re probably smelling Arete’s jacket, hanging on the wall over there – he killed himself smoking that stuff.”
Wodan turned to ask Jarl more about the gods of the east, but the old man interrupted. “There are four gods in the wasteland. Real gods, mind you, not ideals built by men.”
“Gods?” said Wodan. “Are you talking about the flesh demons?”
“They make up only one of the gods. The other three-”
“Pussy, beer, money…” said Zach, counting off his fingers.
“One god is the lion of the south,” said the old priest, ignoring Zach. “Some call him the Sphynx. He asks a riddle, and if you don’t know the answer…”
“You get eaten, I bet,” said Wodan. “So what’s the riddle?”
“I don’t know. No one’s ever lived to tell it. That god is also called the One.”
“Because he lives and roams in solitude,” said Zach. “He needs no worship. In Hargis, they call it the Beast, or the Untamed. I’ve heard
stories of our warriors trying to fight him, long ago. Apparently he can’t be killed.”
The priest nodded, then said, “The second god is a structure, a tower on the Fields of Epimetheus. Some say it’s made of glass, and you see yourself in it, or alternate versions of yourself, and you go mad just before your body is consumed by flames. Others say the tower is black. In either case, it’s unapproachable and unchanging. It’s been there longer than any recorded history knows. It is the Unmoving.
“The third god is worshipped by the meditators of Srila. Some call it the Loyal God, the Defender, the Warning Voice... others call it the Hungry God, the Fearful, the Outworlder. Strangely enough, not only do pacifistic Srilans worship it, but also lots of the dogmen tribes worship it, too.
“And the fourth god is the flesh demons, the Many. They are the ones who shape the world that we live and die in now.”
“And they’re the most powerful,” said Wodan.
“Who’s to say which is the most powerful? They make no moves against one another, and certainly no man or nation can do anything against them. We can only fear them, and hope to escape their presence.”
“I think that’s why prophecy no longer works,” said Jarl. “We have little influence on the world when compared to those four gods.”
“Entertainers and their theories,” said the priest, shrugging.
“Jarl,” said Wodan, “I need to know more about these… Engelen. Could they be, well, humans, but also… something more than human?”
“I can’t say for sure. There’s twelve of them. I heard of one called Victor who’s begun to amass some fame in the gladiator circuit. Whether he’s anything special or not, I can’t say. There’s definitely room in their culture for worshipping someone simply because they can swing a stick and look like a hardass while doing it. The one to watch, though, is their new Warmaster, Josef. The people of San Ktari have always bickered with their neighbors, but this man, and the propaganda machine behind him, is whipping them up into a frenzy. I wasn’t allowed to keep any of the propaganda that I saw – in fact, I barely made it out of there alive – but they truly believe that gods have been born among them.”
“You don’t know about any of the others?” said Wodan.
“Hm. Not that I can recall, no.”
“What about… did you happen to hear about one who was… she was, well, a very beautiful girl, very sweet, with shining black hair and eyes that just… well, that just…”
“Ah, yes! I heard of her. They call her Dove Langley. She’s married to Josef, I believe. They’re quite in love, I’ve heard!”
The scars on Wodan’s palm burned as if he clutched shards of ice in his hands. “I see,” said Wodan, casting his eyes downward. “I see. No matter, then.”
“Ah, yes!” said Jarl, eyes brightening. “It’s all coming back to me now! Oh, the tales I heard about their romance! Woo! And from such a sexually repressed people! Why-”
“Four is the number of civilization!” someone announced loudly. “Of order! Of balance! Do we add a number?”
“Or do we take one away?” shouted another.
Wodan looked and saw a hidden doorway sliding open at the far side of the chamber. Men and women in white masks strode forward. Suddenly Wodan was hit by the scent of burnt honey. He looked at Jarl and saw him sitting in a small cabin in a frozen, snow-covered forest, writing furiously, completely unmindful of the mess spread out all around him. He was shivering in the cold but was filled with intense joy. He had a stack of papers that only an extremely wealthy person might own, and there were several wadded up pieces cast onto the floor. With great difficulty Wodan turned his head to Zach. His heart thundered in terror because screams filled his ears. He saw Zach running down a hallway with men in heavy leather armor. He saw fires through the windows, rooftops blazing, screaming, endless screaming, then the shivering dance of inhuman shadows in the streets below.
Wodan returned and saw the masked Entertainers ushering others into the darkness of the hidden room. “Look!” said Zach, pointing. “The secret bacchanal is beginning.”
Wodan blinked heavily. He turned to Jarl and saw that the Entertainer was staring at him, face blank as he was overcome by a vision. Wodan wondered what the man saw in him.
Chapter Nine
Master of Chalices
Wodan woke with a sense of purpose, but with no clear way of going about it. While he ate a meager breakfast sitting on the edge of his nest, he went over his finances and realized that things were worse than he’d thought. Paying the next rent was no longer a sure thing. He realized that he’d been more dependent on the jewels than he’d suspected. They’d helped a little here, a little there, until finally he’d become someone with an expensive paper habit and a complete unwillingness to stick with any job that did not suit him.
Frustrated, he left his apartment and made his way down a road where fearful eyes watched him from windows. He came to a small rise, then took a seat on an ancient brick wall. The great granite mansion of the Head of the Ugly sat in the distance, dressed in purple flags and squatting over the city.
He was desperate for a change, a new plan. He remembered the heavily guarded Ministerial Palace in Haven, and how he’d gained entrance by tricking a dragon into providing a distraction so he could sneak in. Then, as now, it was impossible for him to overcome his enemies on his own.
But there are no dragons around here, he thought. I’m slowly losing everything I have. Even my life is ticking away, and I just don’t know how to change anything.
He heard panting behind him and turned in alarm. Zach Hargis approached, bent over and jogging mostly to avoid falling over completely. He stopped and glared at Wodan as he caught his breath.
“How’d you know I was here?” said Wodan.
“Followed you,” said Zach, gulping in air. “You didn’t hear me calling out this whole time?”
Wodan shook his head, then said, “I’m surprised you couldn’t keep up.”
Zach shook his head and laughed in annoyance, then straightened his shirt. “I want you to meet someone.”
The breeze died and the air hung heavy. Wodan liked Zach, but he also remembered the relief he felt any time he separated himself from his old work relations. His initial reaction was that he did not want to meet anyone else. Then again, he was in a rut, and Zach was the one who had shown him the secret bacchanal. Perhaps it was time to break old habits, to go in new and uncomfortable directions.
“Let’s go, then,” said Wodan.
* * *
The two friends walked to a section of Pontius that was dilapidated in a slightly different way than Wodan’s area. There were more junkies and losers roaming the streets, rather than tired old people staring from windows. The buildings were made of multicolored bricks from different eras, as if the neighborhood had been a victim of several aborted revivals. Wodan kept his eyes lowered to avoid eye contact with aggressive strangers, but he was amused to see Zach walk with his head proudly upraised, a strange reminder that his friend was royalty.
The two walked through an alley, climbed a set of rickety stairs, and entered an apartment without knocking. The place was narrow and dimly lit. At the end of a hallway Wodan could see a handsome young man sitting in a corner with his head in his hands. He looked up slightly, eyes bleary, face worn. He seemed horrified to see the newcomers. He glanced at a wide bed with stuffed animals neatly arranged on it, then, overcome by sorrow, lowered his head and ignored the two.
Wodan turned back to the entrance, but then the funereal atmosphere was suddenly broken by a young man who swung into the hallway with a sharp smile and crazy eyes. He danced an insane jig. Zach immediately joined the brown-skinned, brown-haired young man with a courtly side-step, bow, and turn, then the two clapped hands.
“Wodan,” said Zach, “this is Jens.”
“Introductions later,” said Jens. “We need to hit the roof before I have to slap the shit out of somebody.”
Jens entered the kit
chen to fetch some booze, opening cabinets and shaking his head until he found two large, half-empty bottles. As soon as the heavy glass clinked, a series of tear-choked words drifted in from the dark room beyond. Jens cackled and shook his head, then climbed out of a window. Zach and Wodan followed Jens up a set of stairs, then a ladder took them to the rooftop.
Shanty roofs stretched in all directions under a clear blue sky. Many windows were full of arcane totems. A few trees in the wealthy section shone brightly in the distance.
They proceeded to pass the two bottles between them, which led to a subtle, strange game of who would pass what to whom and when. Eventually Zach agreed that one bottle would make for clearer matters, so he chugged one himself.
“This one’s for Al,” said Jens, splashing some of their drink onto the roof.
“Who’s that?” said Wodan.
“Some dude that got killed.”
“I thought maybe it was that sad sap in the apartment.”
“No, that guy’s not so lucky! That’s Bob. He’s rollin’ up hard on a breakup with Anne, the chick who pays rent on this joint, and since I’m stayin’ with them, I get to hear all the stupid shit that goes on between them.”
Demonworld Book 3: The Floyd Street Massacre Page 7
