Land of the Beautiful Dead

by Smith, R. Lee

  Am I the villain? He’d killed her, but wouldn’t let her die. Am I the villain? But she’d stabbed him. Am I the villain? But she’d been captured and held down to be publicly violated and murdered in that roomful of laughing, costumed dead people. Am I the villain? It was Batuuli’s fault, but Batuuli had been captured too, in a way, pulled out of her own life and forced to perform in his play, the one in which she was his daughter.

  The wheel kept turning, no beginning and no end. There were no villains or they all were, and in either case, nobody got what they deserved.

  Adrenaline doesn’t last and, without it, horror is exhausting. Lan stubbornly waited, sometimes leaning up against her heavy door, straining to hear screams, and sometimes standing at her narrow window, imagining she smelled smoke, but mostly just sitting on the bed and doing nothing, thinking nothing. Eventually, she crawled beneath it and gave in to sleep.

  Neither boots on the stair nor the heavy door opening woke her in the morning. Instead, it was a cold hand gripping her bare ankle, which was so unexpected that Lan bolted upright, or would have done if she hadn’t been partly underneath the bed. After delivering herself a solid crack to the skull, Lan wriggled out into the red light of a very early day and peered up into Lady Batuuli’s smiling face.

  She had one clear thought—She woke me up so I’d see death coming—but she did absolutely nothing about it. There was nothing to be done, she would tell herself later, and later still she would tell herself there wouldn’t have been time anyway, but the reality was, she just lay there and she would always know it.

  “Join me for breakfast,” Batuuli said, then turned around and swept out again.

  Lan sat on the floor long enough to convince herself that had indeed happened. When it sank all the way in, she got up and made her way down the stairs in the dark.

  Batuuli was waiting for her in the grand corridor, although she did not acknowledge her when Lan finally appeared. Without so much as a glance in her direction, Batuuli left off her disinterested inspection of a painting and walked away. The guards posted along the walls nodded as she passed by. Servants, mostly dead but some living, had to stop as well, bowing themselves almost in half as they scurried about their morning duties. No one paid any attention at all to Lan.

  “What is this about?” Lan asked.

  “Patience.”

  “Fuck patience. Answer me.”

  Batuuli threw her a laughing glance. “The last stupid girl who raised her voice to me had her mouth sewn shut around an iron ring,” she said pleasantly. “The ring was attached to a wire and the wire to a weight. The weight was thrown from the roof. The ring made such a cheerful sound when it struck the pavement. Her teeth made a sound like rain.”

  They walked, and when Lan had been quiet enough long enough, Batuuli said, “I have plans. You will not impede them. Only be a good girl and do as you’re told and your part will end quickly.”

  “My part? Another play?”

  “How forceful you are. And no, I never repeat my tricks, particularly those that end so badly. Listen,” Batuuli said, now with the faintest hint of annoyance. “This morning is nothing to do with you. You’re a prop, like the dagger in Lady MacBeth’s hand—vital to your scene, but silent. Understand?”

  “Who’s Lady MacBeth?”

  “Just be quiet.”

  Batuuli’s retinue was not in evidence today when they reached her chambers, but the table that had been arranged in her receiving room was set for three, with food enough for ten. Whatever space this left on the table was occupied by sprays of flowers wrapped in ribbons and strings of pearls, and to either side, like bookends on a shelf, were the two flayed pikemen who had escorted Lan to Azrael’s dining hall that first night.

  “I agree,” Batuuli commented, coming to stand at Lan’s side as she stared in horrified fascination at one of their flayed, burnt, blinking faces. “It isn’t very nice. But it was a gift and gifts should always be visible when the giver comes calling.”

  As if summoned by these words, Azrael opened the door. He took two steps and stopped when he saw Lan.

  “Father, you’re early.” Batuuli gestured toward the wall where her handmaidens stood in a silent row. “Feel free to entertain yourself while I dress my guest. Celestine, come and lick my father’s cock.”

  One of the handmaidens stepped forward. Azrael stopped her with a raised hand. Behind his mask, his fiery eyes were cold. “I should have known this was some game of yours when I received the invitation.”

  “Yes, you really should have. But now you might as well stay and play, since all the pieces are in place.” Batuuli took Lan’s arm and led her from the room, making certain to steer her so close to Azrael in passing that they could not help but touch.

  He did not look at her.

  In Batuuli’s bedchamber, the rest of the handmaidens were waiting and at their Lady’s signal, they descended on Lan as a unified force. The previous night’s gown, considerably the worse for having been slept in, was stripped away. Lan’s naked body was scrubbed with a cold sponge, dried with a rough cloth and then lotioned. In less than a minute, the process was complete and she was hurried to a wardrobe to make a selection of the gowns displayed there.

  “Nothing too rich,” Batuuli mused, pulling out dresses and tossing them to the ground. “We want morning colors…rose…lavender…yellow?” She put a gauzy slip up to Lan’s neck, only to wince elaborately. “Definitely not yellow.”

  “What am I doing here? Really?”

  “Really, did you say? And when have I ever lied to you?” Batuuli played at pouting, but then turned to face her fully. “I want to hurt him. You’re going to help me.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Yes, you will. You already are. You looked at him with the same eyes that saw his true face…and then his true self.” Batuuli smiled. “You could not have stabbed him deeper than if you’d used a carving fork.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “You’re delightful when you bristle, but we haven’t the time, dear. Just think. It’s entirely to your benefit that Father is reminded what a brute he is, isn’t it? How else can you possibly hope to convince him that life—” She steepled her hands beneath her chin and raised her eyes to heaven. “—is precious?” And she laughed.

  “What do you want me to do?” Lan asked tightly.

  “Why, nothing! Just sit and eat and look at him.” Batuuli spread her arms, demonstrating the great nothing she asked of her.

  Lan reached into the wardrobe.

  “Oh no!” Batuuli said, laughing harder. “You haven’t the complexion to wear white! Nor the virtue, I should think.”

  Lan pulled it over her head.

  Batuuli sighed and put the other dresses back. “Oh just stop, you’re making a muddle of it. Serafina! Ariel!”

  The handmaidens chased Lan’s hands away from the gown and straightened it out in seconds. Worse than the feeling of being dressed was knowing she’d needed help; what she’d thought was the neck-hole turned out to be a sleeve and what had seemed to be a belt was actually the top. She was not dressed as much as draped, which should have made her look like one of the statues in the great hall but didn’t. She looked like what she was—a farmer wrapped in white cloth.

  The handmaidens descended on her again and in another minute, her hair was brushed and artfully piled atop her head, her face was painted and there were sandals tied to her feet.

  “The difference really is dramatic,” Batuuli remarked, inspecting the end result. “Even if it isn’t quite successful.”

  Lan plucked self-consciously at a fold of her gown. The handmaiden Serafina slapped her hand and readjusted the draping.

  “Well, let’s not keep Father waiting.” Batuuli took her arm and led her back to her receiving room. Azrael had seated himself at the center of the table, forcing Lan to sit next to one of the mutilated pikemen. So close, the smell was inescapable—not rot and only faintly of char, but just the stink of o
pen wounds. Her stomach clenched as her plate was filled with pasties and fruit; she picked one up, but put it down again when the pikeman beside her groaned.

  “Hush,” said Azrael, holding out his plate so a servant could drizzle a sliced pear with honey.

  The pikeman quieted.

  Coffee was presented, along with cream, sugar, cinnamon and chocolate, but although Lan mixed herself her favorite concoction, she only sat there stirring it. Azrael’s appetite seemed undiminished by his surroundings or the tension in the air, which was such that every scrape of Azrael’s fork seemed to fall directly on Lan’s ear.

  Batuuli sat watching them and sipping tea. At length, she sighed. “Father, you’re being terribly rude.”

  Azrael cut into a hot pastry and did not respond.

  “I understand why you might not wish to run through the usual boring pleasantries with me, but what of our guest? Surely she deserves at least a token acknowledgement.”

  Lan glanced at him. He continued to give his breakfast his full attention, eating mechanically and without enjoyment.

  “She chose the dress herself,” Batuuli said, smiling into her cup.

  Azrael’s eyes shifted in the sockets of his mask, staining the white fabric of Lan’s dress briefly whiter, making it almost seem to glow. Still he said nothing.

  “You know, I never had the chance to ask, between one thing and another yesterday.” Batuuli waved at the air, fanning away all the unpleasantness of the previous day’s events like a fart. “But how did you enjoy your new pet? I confess I didn’t think it much of an honor when you sent her to me to be prepared, but I did take some pride in my work. The least you could do is tell me how I did. Was she pleasing? Were her cheeks like pale roses just blushed with dawn’s color? Her lips like sweet berries? Her eyes like…What color are your eyes?” she asked, leaning over the table to peer at Lan’s face. “Her eyes like puddles of rainwater on a filthy road. Did her face please you, Father? Did her scrawny body twine about you in new and exciting ways? Did she charm you? Win you? Fascinate your senses and stimulate your passions? Did she get your cock hard?”

  “Mind your tongue.”

  “Father never divulges bedroom secrets,” Batuuli told Lan. “Which is amusing, because he’s been happy enough to plow his cum-pockets in front of us in the past.”

  Azrael’s cup slammed down, making Lan jump and Batuuli raise an eyebrow in polite inquiry.

  “Did I say cum-pockets?” she asked with elaborate surprise. “How embarrassing. I meant courtesans. Do forgive me, although I daresay our guest has been called worse in her time.” She turned to Lan. “Haven’t you?”

  “I have, as a matter of fact.”

  “You see? All friends here. So.” She poured herself a fresh cup of tea and tossed the pot to the floor. It burst in a billow of shards and steam. Her handmaidens came running while Batuuli added a spoonful of sugar and stirred, smiling over at Lan. “How was he?”

  Lan rolled her eyes and poked at the filling of her pastry. It was some kind of red jam. She didn’t feel like tasting it to find out what kind.

  “I’m told you were out of his chambers less than an hour after entering. Much less. One wonders if perhaps the anticipation got the best of him. It’s happened before.”

  Azrael tipped his head, regarding his daughter with the cold curiosity of a man watching the behavior of a bug. “You were told, were you? By whom?”

  “Well, that’s the thing about the dead,” said Batuuli, buttering a scone. “Unless their glorious lord gives them a specific order to the contrary, they tend to be rather stupid about indelicate matters. And I am one of your Children, after all. Why shouldn’t they answer? So when I asked how long you rode your pretty pony—”

  “That is enough.”

  Batuuli looked up, her brows arched in feigned surprise. “Shall I not call her that either? My, you are feeling particular this morning. What would you prefer? Your pleasure dove? Your sister of mercy? Or, what was the word you used?” she asked Lan.

  “Dolly,” said Lan.

  Azrael’s eyes sparked in the sockets of his mask.

  “No, not that. The other one.” Batuuli tapped at the corner of her mouth, pretending to think, then snapped her fingers and said, “Your dirty whore!”

  Lan’s face warmed. She put her fork down and folded her hands tightly in her lap.

  “Now she’s shy,” said Batuuli with a careless shrug. “But she was bold enough when you sent her to me. She stood right where you’re sitting now and shouted it. It might have been an act, I suppose. Or perhaps she’s acting for us now. How easy it is to hide one’s true heart in a world where even God goes masked.” She turned her smile on Azrael again. “But you unmasked for her, or so I was told. And she fled in tears.”

  “I did not!” Lan snapped.

  “You needn’t be embarrassed. Many of his concubines have hysterics the first time.”

  “I didn’t have hysterics and I wasn’t crying!”

  “But you did flee.”

  “He threw me out!”

  The instant she said it, she regretted it, but there was no calling it back.

  Batuuli’s smile spread like honey, golden and slow. “Oh, that’s interesting.”

  Lan looked to Azrael for any kind of clue as to how to cut her way free of this mess, but he only continued to watch his daughter’s performance with detached indifference.

  “Was he impotent?” Batuuli purred. “Tell me, could he not be a man in his own bed?”

  Lan knew any answer was the wrong one, but silence seemed so damning. “He was plenty potent,” she mumbled.

  “Hardly an enthusiastic testimonial.”

  “He was fine.”

  “One wonders what constitutes ‘fine’ in the wilds of Norwood.” Batuuli picked up her tea, considering her. “But if so, then you must have done something. Oh, he’s had plenty of playthings run from him, but Father has never, ever hurled one out into the hall. I’m not sure whether you ought to be ashamed of that or proud, but it’s worth mentioning. What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” said Lan, and felt her stomach clench, as if in echo of that cold/hot moment when he’d been inside her and she’d been…somewhere and someone else.

  “I’m told the gown was beyond repair,” Batuuli was saying. “At the time, I assumed it was due to Father’s usual exuberance, but did he actually attack you? Did you scream when you saw his true face bearing down on you?”

  “No.”

  Batuuli laughed at first, the sort of mocking laughter that meant she thought she’d caught Lan in an inventive lie, but then looked at her father, then at Lan again. “You know, I think I believe you,” she said, sounding mildly surprised, not by Lan’s statement as much as by her own acceptance of it. “In fact, one could almost imagine you wanted to see his face, that it was you who insisted he unmask.” She looked at Azrael. “Did she?”

  He did not answer, not with a word or with any change of expression.

  “She did,” Batuuli breathed and turned her round, wondering eyes on Lan. “You deviant!”

  “You are hardly one to throw that particular stone,” Azrael said.

  “Well, aren’t you the sullen beast this morning?” Batuuli buttered a point of toast and bit it off. “Do you expect me to apologize for arranging my little entertainment last night? I rather enjoyed the way the performance ended, unexpected as it was. I was magnificent, in fact. You should have stayed to watch.”

  “I might have done, had there been anything worthwhile to see, but as always, I found your taste questionable, your theme unoriginal and your execution crude.” Azrael ate a bite of sausage and washed it down with wine. “You may award yourself all the accolades you please, daughter, but from what I saw, your ‘entertainment’ was, like yourself, disappointing.”

  “How very hurtful,” Batuuli said after a moment. She turned. “Lan—”

  “This is nothing to do with her,” Azrael said sharply. “Leave her be.”

&nbs
p; Batuuli gave that a beat, then put out her hand and said in an exaggerated way, “Lan, dear, please pass the sugar.”

  Azrael’s eyes narrowed.

  Lan found the bowl next to her untouched coffee and passed it under his withering stare.

  Batuuli spooned some into her tea and stirred. “Honestly.”

  He uttered an unconvinced grunt in the back of his throat and picked up his cup.

  “But you’re oddly protective for someone who threw his whore—”

  Bang, went the cup. “You will not call her that!”

  “I am sorry, we never settled on a word. His dolly,” she amended with an apologetic nod in Lan’s direction. “Threw his dolly naked into the hall mere minutes after bringing her into his chamber. If she didn’t please you, Father, why did you not have her thrown over the wall to her hungry Eaters?”

  Lan looked at him. He ignored her.

  “If she did,” Batuuli went on, stirring her tea, “why did you leave her in her tower? Why set the guard that kept my brother at bay? Why feed her from the royal kitchens? Why—”

  “I feel no pressing urge to defend myself to you.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, it isn’t an attack! It’s just odd. Even she thinks so.” Batuuli turned to Lan. “Don’t you think so?”

  “This is nothing to do with her.”

  “Nonsense, it’s everything to do with her! Don’t you find her attractive?”

  Azrael did not reply.

  “Well, never mind,” said Batuuli, giving Lan’s hand a comforting pat. “Looks aren’t everything. Although I am quite astonished you didn’t at least visit her last night. Poor thing. The play quite affected her.”