The Downs

by Kim Fielding

  Midmorning on the third day, the cabin reeked of the chamber pot and unwashed bodies. Enitan paced restlessly. Several years earlier, he’d attended a party at the home of a Council member. The family was considerably wealthier than his own, their house much grander, their gardens far more spectacular. The centerpiece of the largest garden was an iron cage; and inside the cage, a ragged-looking cockatrice moved back and forth, back and forth, its glazed eyes never blinking. Now Enitan knew how the creature felt.

  “Play another round of mice and burrows with me,” Rig suggested.

  “So you can trounce me again?”

  “I’ll let you go first. Maybe you’ll have good luck this time.”

  Enitan shook his head and continued walking.

  “If you don’t stop, I am going to tie you to the table.”

  Although that gave Enitan a pleasant image of the games he sometimes played with his bedmates, he growled. “Try it. You may be big, but I can fight.”

  An odd light kindled in Rig’s eyes just before he launched himself and tackled Enitan.

  Rig was considerably bigger— heavier, and with a longer reach. But he had the temperament of a healer. On the other hand, Enitan had been sparring since he was a child. He knew exactly what moves to make, how to judge his opponent’s weaknesses and take advantage of them, how to precisely leverage his own bones and muscles to control another man. Enitan was careful not to injure Rig, but several minutes of rolling around on the floor ended with Rig pinned facedown while Enitan straddled his body and kept his wrists trapped behind his back.

  Rig struggled a moment or two longer before going limp beneath him. “You are really good at fighting.”

  “And you’re as bad at wrestling as I am at mice and burrows.”

  When Rig sighed, his entire body moved. “I suppose so.”

  Enitan released his hands, but Rig made no attempt to dislodge him. And Enitan didn’t move either because it felt good to sit on top of him. Not because it made him feel triumphant. It was body contact, and he’d been missing that.

  But then his stupid cock began to harden. The last thing Enitan wanted was an unpleasant scene when neither of them could leave the cabin, so with a regretful little grunt, he climbed off. He offered a hand to help Rig stand, and if Rig squeezed a little too hard, well, Enitan couldn’t blame him.

  Enitan walked to the door and pounded it impotently. “Damn Minna!” he spat.

  “Your sister is capable of bringing down the fog?”

  “No. Although I’d wager she wishes she could. She likes to control things.”

  “So why blame her now?”

  Enitan turned his back to the door and slid down into a sit. He bent his knees, wrapped his arms around them, and leaned against the door. “Because she trapped me here.”

  “Is that really such a terrible fate?” asked Rig, sounding angry.

  “This isn’t my home.”

  “But it can be. Don’t you see that? Just like it became Dany’s.”

  “I’m not Dany!” Enitan roared. And he wasn’t sorry for yelling. He was not a sweet boy who’d happily forget his past and accept a new life. He was good at building things, but no prodigy. And he had no intention of meeting up with Rig once a month to scratch their mutual itch.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Rig answered quietly. Then he sat on one of the stools and faced the low flames in the fireplace, smoothing his hair back from his face.

  Neither of them said anything for a long time. Eventually Rig broke the silence. Still not looking at Enitan, he said, “You shouldn’t go back to the city.”

  No use denying it. “Why not?”

  “Because nothing waits for you there.”

  “Revenge.”

  Rig snorted. “Revenge has no magic. It won’t change what’s already happened. And what will happen to you when it’s over?”

  Enitan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” He’d never heard of anyone returning from the Downs, and he didn’t know what the penalty would be. Another brutal trip across the Reach, another fall? Maybe they’d just kill him.

  “Why can’t you see more worth in yourself?” Rig asked in a strained voice. “Why can’t you see your value?”

  “What value is that?” Enitan’s mouth tasted bitter.

  Rig stood, crossed the room, and crouched beside him. Even like that, he was huge. A solid wall of a man. “You’re a fighter.”

  “And how does that do anyone any good? Are you planning to go to war, Rig? Who needs to be fought?”

  “Not who. What.” With a grunt, Rig sat in front of him. “We have to fight the Downs.”

  Enitan narrowed his eyes. “How? You want me punch the dragonfish and stab the arrow beetles? Choke the fog into submission?”

  “No. But I want you to get up again after the fog has scoured you and the trancebeetles have bitten you. I want you to keep on living and hoping, even though you know there are a million things that can hurt you.”

  The anger drained away from Enitan at once, leaving him weary. “I can’t do that.”

  “Of course you can.”

  When Enitan shook his head, Rig inched closer. “You should have died when you fell, Eni. As hard as I worked to save you, it shouldn’t have been enough. I’ve… I’ve tried my best to heal people who were injured far less than you, but they didn’t survive. You did.”

  “Luck.”

  “Fighting.”

  When Enitan didn’t answer, Rig closed the remaining space between them so his crossed legs rested against Enitan’s shins. “It’s hard to live here. It’s a struggle every day, and the people who don’t struggle hard enough, they die. I’ve seen it so many times. My parents, my brother and sister, my friends.”

  Enitan moved his legs just a little, increasing the pressure against Rig. “Fighting never got me anywhere. Where does it get you?”

  “Through the day. I drag my scarred body onto my sleeping mat and close my eyes, and I know I beat the Downs again.”

  That was the thing. Enitan never fought because he cared about winning. He never fought for anything. He did it because he could, because… well, because it would make Minna angry. Because it was another way to use his body when he couldn’t fuck. Nothing noble about it. Just boredom and an adolescent desire to irk his sister. He’d won a lot of his fights— most of them, as a matter of fact— but he never beat a thing.

  “Ayo didn’t want to come here,” Rig said suddenly. “He liked the village and was a social person. He was a tailor. He’d spend all day sitting with his needles and cloth, chatting with me or anyone else who came into sight. I used to tease him that he even talked in his sleep.” Rig’s voice was low and rumbly, warm as a hearth fire.

  “Was he handsome?” Enitan asked.

  “Not especially. Objectively, he had a beaky nose and a pointy chin, and his hair grew in the most unmanageable tufts. He was chubby. But I loved him, so he was beautiful. And he smiled more than anyone I’ve known.”

  Rig smiled, too, remembering. Then he sobered. “I already told you the tradition that if more than one person in the village can heal, they take turns here near the Reach. One year at a time. But there were a few of us, and I hadn’t had a turn yet, not until after Ayo and I pledged to each other. We were still young. Then it was my turn. I knew it would be hard on him, and I told him he could stay in the village, but he refused. Didn’t want to be separated he said.”

  “He loved you too.”

  “Yes.”

  They were already touching, but Rig moved closer still, almost pinning Enitan to the door. Enitan spread his legs wide around Rig’s hips so they could have more contact. It was a strange configuration but not unpleasant.

  “At first it was sort of fun being here, just the two of us,” Rig continued. “We had all the privacy in the world. I can be… loud. During sex. Which had always embarrassed him a little. But here we could both scream and nobody would hear. Sometimes the night sprites screamed back.” He settled his hands on Enitan�
��s shoulders, and Enitan reciprocated.

  “I’m noisy too,” Enitan said. Minna had hated that.

  “We were here two months when the first person fell. I couldn’t save him. Then a few months later another one came. He lived for three days in terrible pain before dying. I was… It was very difficult. So when we heard screams for the third time, a few months after that, I was very eager to keep that one alive. The problem was that the fog was coming.”

  Oh. Enitan shivered slightly with the ghost of pain.

  Rig squeezed his shoulders. “Ayo begged me not to go outside. But I thought I had to. I was a healer. I yelled at Ayo to stay put, I grabbed a thick blanket, and I ran into the woods.”

  It wasn’t Enitan’s story and it had happened years ago, but his heart raced and his stomach clenched. “What happened?”

  “He was dead already when I found him. Nothing left but…” He swallowed thickly. “He’d been in the clouds a long time as he fell. I draped the blanket over my head and raced back to the cabin. I’m strong, but I’m not a fast runner. Ayo could beat me in a race every time. I felt the moisture begin to sting, I ran faster, I panicked, I must have cried out… And then Ayo was there. He slammed me to the ground with the weight of his body and the godsdamned bastard thunked my head hard enough to knock me out.”

  Rig was speaking in a whisper now, but Enitan was very close and could clearly hear every painful word. Enitan reminded himself that he wasn’t the only human who suffered, and he recalled how comforting Rig’s touch had been even when Enitan thought him a demon. So now Enitan pulled him close in a tight embrace.

  Sighing, Rig rested his head on Enitan’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Merciful gods, how could Enitan ever have mistaken this good, strong man for a monster?

  “When I woke up, Ayo was still on top of me. He’d managed to get the blanket over us but…” He shuddered. “But the fabric wasn’t enough. The fog had eaten through it. It had eaten through Ayo as well.”

  “Rig—”

  “I was lucky. The fog didn’t last long that day and it was gone by the time I woke up. I don’t remember that time well. I know I carried Ayo’s body back to the cabin. But he was shorter than me and couldn’t shield me completely.”

  To show his understanding, Enitan brushed his fingers along the scars on Rig’s cheek. “With nobody here to heal you, the pain must have been unimaginable.”

  “The pain in my body was nothing compared to the agony in my heart.” He dropped his voice to a low whisper. The words were barely audible, even though Enitan’s ear was inches from Rig’s mouth. “I wanted to die. Yet I fought to live.”

  Enitan squeezed him again, understanding the feeling. He’d known it himself from the moment Minna confronted him, a letter in her hand and two constables at her side. She’d pasted a look of shocked outrage on her face, but her eyes were bright with triumph. Enitan had known then that he was doomed. As he awaited his trial— foreseeing the outcome— he’d even considered taking his own life. He’d gone so far as to break one of the cheap pottery bowls in which his prison meals were served, poising a shard against his wrist. But he couldn’t force himself to press the point into his soft flesh.

  “I’m glad you lived,” he told Rig, petting his back.

  Rig barked a laugh. “If I hadn’t, another healer would have found you. You’d still have been saved.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m glad you’re alive. The world is a better place with you in it.”

  Rig drew back so he could look Enitan in the face. “I feel the same about you.”

  “Right. Because my contributions have been so outstanding.”

  “It’s not about contributions, Eni. It’s about you.”

  “You’re wrong about me,” Enitan said, shaking his head. “I can fight, but I’m weak. I never made the effort to do something with myself. I never stood up to my sister, never told her I’d run my own life. I gave myself over to petty disobedience like a wayward child. I killed my father.”

  “And I killed Ayo.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “You can blame yourself and your sister and destroy the both of you. Or you can heal, move on. Perhaps even find a way to improve someone’s life.” To make his point, Rig dropped a quick kiss over Enitan’s right eye— an eye that would have been sightless if not for Rig’s work. Then he slowly stood and stretched. “I’d like another round of mice and burrows.”

  For a long moment, Enitan looked up at him. Then he too rose to his feet. “You’ll beat me again.”

  “Then we can wrestle afterward, and you can beat me.” Rig smiled.

  ****

  Chapter Nine

  By morning the fog had lifted, although the sky was still leaden. When Enitan stepped outside, he took deep breaths. He felt as if his lungs hadn’t worked properly for days. The tree boughs drooped dispiritedly, and the smaller green things looked slightly crushed. Yet Rig’s bird was there in the little clearing, hopping impatiently and scolding them for having left the clouds on the ground for so long. Other birds swooped and twittered, clearly as thrilled to be released from their hiding places as Enitan was from his.

  “The Downs must be so strange under the fog, with nothing moving anywhere,” said Enitan.

  Rig stood beside him in front of the hut, scratching his scant beard. “A few species of bugs can withstand the fog. Special shells, I suppose.”

  “How do you know?” Enitan wasn’t really all that curious about the subject, but some pointless conversation felt good.

  “If you leave food or refuse out in the fog, you’ll find it half eaten later, with the bugs still munching happily away. And… corpses. They’ll eat those too.”

  Horrified, Enitan turned to look at him. “Ayo?”

  Rig shrugged. “It’s what we do here when someone dies. We leave the body for the insects to strip, and then we keep the bones with those of our ancestors. There’s a special bone house in the village.”

  In the city, the dead were burned. Among the wealthy, the ashes were worked into the soil of their gardens. Those who were too poor to have their own gardens took the ashes to one of the public parks. Enitan hadn’t been there to see his father’s ashes planted— he’d been in prison at the time, awaiting his trial.

  Perhaps Rig mistook the reason for Enitan’s frown. He patted Enitan’s shoulder. “It’s not such a bad place, the bone house. It’s very old and beautifully made, and it’s peaceful. When I lived in the village I used to go there sometimes, just to sit. I’d talk to my family members and I could almost imagine they heard me.”

  “Do you go…? Is Ayo there?”

  Rig smiled and patted his chest. “Ayo is here. I don’t need to visit the bone house for him.”

  Enitan’s own chest ached a bit. Alive or dead, he’d never live in anyone’s heart. He gave Rig what he hoped was a cheery smile. “Can we go to the lake today? I’d really like to wash properly.”

  “Me too.”

  They didn’t see any trancebeetles in the water, so they were both able to splash in the shallows for a long time, scrubbing and soaking and enjoying being clean. Enitan tried not to notice that Rig was naked, that his hard body was beautiful with droplets running down it— scars and all. After they were thoroughly waterlogged, they sat on the bank to dry. Rig smilingly produced a razor from the folds of his clothes and handed it to Enitan, who was soon thrilled to be rid of his bothersome beard.

  The air hugged their bodies closely, keeping them warm, and neither man hurried to get dressed. It was pleasant enough to be outdoors watching the water ripple.

  “How much longer until you finish your house?” Enitan asked. The structure was already quite imposing, with many rooms inside.

  “Never,” Rig answered placidly.

  “But…”

  “It keeps me occupied.”

  Enitan was fairly certain that boredom wasn’t the only prompt for continual construction. If the building never ended, Ayo’s memory rema
ined that much more alive. But Enitan didn’t comment on this. Instead he asked something he’d been wondering for a while. “Why haven’t you returned to the village and let another healer take a turn here?”

  “This is my work. And the others have families.” Rig stood suddenly and began to gather his clothes. “I’m hungry. Let’s see if we’ve caught any dragonfish. They’re easier to trap during fog.”

  The traps held several of the big fish. After Rig slaughtered them quickly and carefully— they snapped at him even as they died— he gutted and cleaned them, then stuffed the meat into woven bags that he’d stashed nearby. He and Enitan each carried a bag back to the cabin, where Rig fried a little of their catch, put some of it in a stew, and brined the rest to smoke later.

  Enitan and Rig ate well.

  The afternoon was packed with various tasks: tending Rig’s small garden, airing their sleeping mats, and scrubbing and refilling the water storage vessels. Enitan and Rig worked together without much talk. Late in the day, while a bit of sunlight still filtered through the scudding clouds, they sat in front of the cabin and tossed bits of food at the bird. Sometimes the bird hopped so close they could almost touch it, but it didn’t eat all the tidbits at once. It flew away into the trees with the choicer ones, only to reappear a moment later and demand more.

  “I wonder if it has babies to feed,” Rig said quietly. He looked pleased at the idea.

  “You might be supporting an entire family.”

  “Maybe.”

  How had a place as deadly as the Downs produced such a gentle, good man? The same way, perhaps, that a sumptuous mansion in the city produced a brutish, stupid one.

  They didn’t go inside until the darkness was complete, and they moved slowly as they stretched out their mats and prepared dinner. Dinner was fish, of course, along with some flatbread Rig cooked in a pan. Afterward they played a few rounds of mice and burrows. Enitan almost won the last game, but he was fairly certain that Rig had allowed it.

  With the lantern doused and the fire banked, they undressed and lay on their mats. Enitan waited for Rig’s breathing to even out, but the usual soft snores didn’t come. Finally after what felt like hours, Enitan rolled to face him. “Are you all right?” he asked. He could sense Rig’s bulk but not see it.