Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles)

by Hartness, John G.

  “I think I get it,” I said, drawing the KA-BAR knife from my belt. “And since I carry this knife to open boxes, it’s not a weapon right? If you happen to impale your piggy little eyeball on my boxcutter, then that’s just a freak accident.” I heard the hiss of metal on leather behind me as Greg drew a pair of knives from his utility belt.

  I smiled my most feral grin at K’thoth and stepped forward, feeling my fangs extend into view. I took a couple more steps forward and said, “Who’s gonna be Daddy’s appetizer?”

  K’thoth lashed out with his cleaver, but his armor and general bulk slowed him down too much to ever get a clean shot at me. I sidestepped his clumsy slash and jabbed him in the armpit with my KA-BAR. A kick to one knee and another to his head left him sprawled in the dirt, out of the fight for the moment.

  Greg charged a huge orc-thing with a warhammer, bowling his opponent over into the middle of the street. A few quick slashes of his “cooking knives,” and the odds were much more even. The last two thugs looked at us, then the blood on our blades, and beat feet. I knelt beside K’thoth’s head and grabbed his Mohawk. I put my blade near the base of the crimson ridge of hair and quickly chopped off the decorative hair. I grabbed a fistful of bright red hair from the ground and shoved it under his nose. “You tell the squirrel that Marty is under our protection, and if he ever hassles our friend again, I won’t stop cutting with hair.” The beaten K’thoth nodded, and I stood up. I let out a long breath and put my knife away.

  Greg grinned at me and did the same, then looked around. “Marty? Where are you, buddy?”

  The lizard came crawling out from under a nearby tent flap and brushed the dirt from his lapels. “Well done, sirs. I had no doubt that you would handle that situation with aplomb and dignity, and you did not disappoint.”

  “And just in case, you hid like a scared little girl?” I asked.

  “I was preparing to leap out to your defense from an ambush position, of course!” Marty’s tail twitched and his head-ridge flushed a pale pink.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Of course. That makes perfect sense. Good thinking, Marty. Now, we were going to see this Doctor Orbly?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! He is right here, of course!” The lizard turned and waved grandly at the tent he’d been hiding in. I looked closer, still seeing nothing but a nondescript canvas front to a tent stall that looked for all the world like it was closed for the night. Marty reached out and knocked on a tent pole.

  “What?” came a craggy voice from within.

  “It is I, Marty. I return, bringing guests from another realm.” The lizard pronounced, his little chest puffed out so far I began to wonder about the structural integrity of his cummerbund.

  “So what?” the voice from inside shouted back. “I don’t want any!”

  Marty sagged a little, then stood up straight and rapped on the tent pole again. “Great Doctor, you agreed to give audience to my esteemed clients, the Sanguine from the mundane realm. I demand you grant us entry!” I looked down at Marty, who stood ramrod-straight, his head-ridge stiff and pulsing a faint reddish color.

  “Oh,” came the voice, much more pleasant this time. “Why didn’t you say you’d brought the vampires for supper, Marty? Please come in!” The tent flap pulled back and I ducked inside, Greg right behind me. I had just enough time to think, What was that bit about dinner? And then we were inside.

  Chapter 14

  I LOOKED AROUND, feeling like I’d stepped into a Doctor Who episode. The tent was much larger than it looked from outside. What looked like a ten-foot-square tent on its best day opened up inside to at least twice that size, with a hallway leading off to the side of the room. There was a small sitting area to the left, and that’s where I first spotted our host. He was a wizened little guy, kinda like Yoda without the green face paint. He had big, floppy ears that sat near the top of his head and bent over in front like a dog. His face probably started off as human, but it was the oldest human face I’d ever seen. At least the oldest-looking human face. Wrinkles deep enough to grow potatoes crisscrossed his forehead, and he had the reddish bulbous nose of an Irish town drunk. His huge pink lips flapped a little in the breeze as we opened the tent, and his eyes were set deep under his shriveled brow.

  There were cushions on the floor, and I sat on one across from our host. The corner opposite us had a small chair and a desk piled high with books, scrolls, and scraps of parchment. The other entire side of the tent was taken up by a low table scattered with herbs, vegetables, clumps of meat that I tried not to think too much about, and a few flies and bugs crawling along. I gagged a little at the rancid stench rolling off the table, but even the rot of the meat dimmed in comparison to the thick smell of blood, old and new.

  The table had blood soaked so deeply into the wood that it was almost black in the dim light. The center of the room was dominated by a giant cookpot, with a vent hood rigged along the center tent pole to take most of the smoke out of the tent. It couldn’t clear everything out, so layers of smoke stratified the room in a pale bluish haze. The doctor had obviously been cooking, and it smelled amazing. Hints of pepper, curry, saffron, and thyme danced around the lightest dash of garlic and something I didn’t recognized combined to make my stomach growl and my mouth water. Then I remembered what we were there for and my gorge threatened to rise. I pushed that thought to the back of my mind and waved for Greg to come sit by me.

  “Doctor Orbly, I presume?” I said as I sat cross-legged on a cushion. Greg twisted himself around and landed with a small thump on the floor beside me. He heaved himself off the dirt and onto a cushion, and I turned my attention back to our host’s answer. Marty picked a huge cushion in a corner of the tent, turned around three times in a circle, plopped down, and promptly went to sleep.

  “I am Orbly. I am indeed. And what can I do for you young gentlemen?” His voice had an odd sing-song cadence to it that put me at ease almost against my better judgment.

  “We’re looking for someone selling human jawbones to a troll.”

  “And why would that be a problem? I understand that as cousins to humans you may find the practice distasteful, but I assure you that jawbones are not on the prohibited trafficking list. As a matter of fact, humans have no body parts that are forbidden to be transported between worlds. They are almost unique among semi-sentient species in that regard.”

  “I understand that.” I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying, but figured everything would go better if I pretended to. “But these jawbones are attached to the rest of the living human when they leave our world, and they come back into our plane by themselves. We need to know what is happening to the humans between the time they leave the mundane world and the time they come back as only jawbones.”

  “Well now, why didn’t you say so?” He leaned back on his cushion and let out a thready cackle. “That’s a much easier question, after all. They’re eaten.”

  “Eaten?” Usually whenever somebody that isn’t me mentions eating people, it means that I’m going to get clocked on the head and wake up somewhere unpleasant, so I stood up abruptly, looking around for the threat, but we were still the only things in the tent.

  “Why yes, the rest of the human was obviously used for stew. There are several places here that serve it, but only one chef knows the best recipe. He claims that it has been handed down through generations of his family.”

  I sat back down, still keeping alert for large creatures with blunt instruments. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand. You’re saying they eat people?”

  “Humans, not real people. We’d never eat a faerie, or a nixie, or a unicorn. We only dine on the unintelligent species that serve no other use than to nourish the higher life forms.” The little guy reached over and sipped something from a cup. I gaped at him, and he offered a cup to me. “Tea?”

  It was hard to argue with him, especially since I’d been preaching “top of the food chain” to Greg for a couple decades now, but the callous way he
talked about humans didn’t sit well with me. “I’ll pass, thanks. I don’t drink with cannibals.”

  His eyes went cold, and his ears stood erect on top of his head. “Not a cannibal, little Sanguine. Far from cannibal. Yes, I eat human. I eat many unintelligent species. Fish, human, cow, fowl. But I am no more human than you are, no matter how much we may appear to be. And what do you eat now? Humans. All enlightened species dine on the ones below them, it is the way of the universe.”

  I started to say something, but Greg put a hand on my arm. “Of course, Doctor. It is the way of the predator, after all.”

  “Exactly. I see you are much more evolved than your skinny friend.”

  “I’ve been saying that for years. Now, if we wanted to try this stew, where would we go?” I shot Greg a look, but he tightened his grip on my forearm, and I shut up. I might have whimpered a little, but I didn’t speak. He had a helluva grip.

  The little doctor’s ears twitched as he thought about the best deli for human stew in the Goblin Market. I shook my head at my life. After a few seconds, he nodded and said, “You must go to the source. Your first taste of human stew should not be repackaged by some peddler, but straight from the chef himself. Marty, you know where the chef’s tent is?”

  Marty’s head snapped up far too quickly for anyone who was actually sleeping, so I had no doubt the little lizard had been listening to everything. He said, “Yes, Doctor, I know it. It is near the center of the Market, the cook tent with dozens and dozens of tables, all full of goblins and trolls and orcs munching on nummy nummy human stew! Makes me hungry just remembering how to get there!” He rolled over on his back and patted his belly in a little rhythm.

  “Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate all your help.” Greg started to stand, but the little doctor whipped out an arm and yanked him back to his cushion faster than I could see. Greg glanced over at me and made a calming gesture. Didn’t work.

  “Is there a problem, Doctor?” I asked quietly, reaching slowly for my KA-BAR.

  “No problem, only the small matter of payment. I have performed a service, I deserve recompense. Would you not agree?”

  “Of course,” I said. “What can we do for you in return for your valuable information?”

  “I require a trinket from the mundane world. Give me something spectacular, something amazing, something I have never seen before! Produce magic for me, Sanguine!” He gestured wildly with both scrawny arms and almost fell backward off his cushion in his excitement.

  I looked at Greg. He looked back at me and shrugged. “Magic is your field,” I said.

  “I’ve got my watch,” Greg offered.

  “Try it.”

  He turned to the doctor, his watch held out in his hand. “Take this magical timepiece from the world of man, Doctor. It indicates the hour and minute through precise movement of the magical mouse’s hands under the glass.” He pointed to the yellow hands ticking across the face of the watch. The doctor peered closely at the watch for a few seconds, then clapped his hands and fastened it around his own wrist.

  “It is brilliant! This is truly an extraordinary gift, Sanguine. I wish you much success in your journeys.” The doctor stood up from his cushion, although even standing he was only about three feet tall from ear tip to toe. Greg and I stood up and got out of the tent before we became beholden to the strange little creature for more than a watch.

  Chapter 15

  WE EMERGED BLINKING into the harsh sunlight of the marketplace. “Okay, Marty,” I asked, “take us to the chef’s tent. He’s got some explaining to do.”

  The little lizard blinked up at me. “But you don’t mean to attack the chef, do you? That would bring down the rage of the entire Market upon your heads, not to mention what it would do to the supply of decent stew.”

  “Marty, he’s chopping up people and putting them into the stew. We can’t let that happen. There are people in danger, right now, and we need to help them.” I bent down and looked our guide right in his wrinkly green face. I wasn’t trying to mojo him, just impress upon him the urgency of the situation.

  “But why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why must you aid these humans? They are not your kin. They are obviously poor warriors, if they were captured by the chef, so what possible use could they have in your world?”

  I looked up at Greg. He gave me a “you’re on your own” gesture and began studying the wares at a nearby stall. I racked my brain for a minute, but nothing in my experience had prepared me to debate comparative morality with a four-foot-tall lizard. I shook my head once, and then had an idea. “It’s our job, Marty. We are tasked with defending the weaker humans from creatures more powerful than them. We’re kinda like guardians, protectors of the innocent, that kind of thing.”

  “Like the Sanguine of the stories protected the Faerie Kings and Queens in ancient times? It’s a quest? I’m important in a quest?” Marty asked.

  I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but figured if it got me a couple steps closer to the chef’s stew tent, it couldn’t hurt. I nodded. “Exactly like that. We are carrying on the duties of our ancestors, only in the mundane world instead of here in Faerie.”

  “Oh, that makes sense then. Follow me.” And again we were off, Greg and I dancing around pedestrians and annoying shopkeepers while trying to keep Marty’s little plumed head in sight. He juked, bobbed, and weaved his way through an ever-thickening crowd until finally he came to a dead halt on the edges of a huge clump of people and things.

  “Here we are!” trumpeted the little lizard. “This is the end of the line.”

  “End of the line for what?” Greg asked.

  “This is the line to get the chef’s stew, of course. We really should have gotten in line when you first entered the Market to get the first servings. You wasted an awful lot of time dilly-dallying around with Doctor Orbly if all you really wanted was some stew.”

  I ignored our guide’s revisionist history and looked around. There were hundreds of faeries, ogres, trolls, humans, and some races I didn’t recognize gathered around in a loose line. Every few seconds the line shuffled forward a few steps, bringing the mob closer to a huge tent some thirty yards away. The thoroughfare had been widened here to accommodate the traffic, and knockoff food vendors had set up shop along the route. Every few feet were sad-looking little tents with signs hanging out front proclaiming their stew to be “Just as good at half the price!” or “Lower in Fat and Gristle than the Chef’s!” or even one that seemed to choose truth in advertising over any hope of making actual sales. On a crude hand-lettered sign were the words, “The Meat’s not too rotten. And you’re hungry!”

  I pulled Greg out of line and off down a side alley. I looked around to make sure no one could overhear us and said, “We don’t need to be in the serving line, we need to get around to the back where they cook up the stew.”

  “Yeah, we need to see if the Carmichaels are still alive, or if they were today’s lunch course,” my partner replied.

  “I’m not even letting myself think about that,” I replied. “Until we get some proof, we’re here for rescue, not revenge.”

  “Okay, Pollyanna, whatever you say.” The look on Greg’s face definitely said that he didn’t expect to find the Carmichaels alive, and I knew he was probably right. But I had to try. I had a lot to make up for before I’d be worth somebody like Sabrina, and saving the Carmichaels would be a step in the right direction.

  “What do I need to do, oh great and powerful defenders of the innocent?” Marty asked.

  I looked down at him and said, “When we get into the back of the tent, we need you to cause a distraction. Run into the front, where everybody’s crowded around, and scream that you saw a rat or something.”

  “Why would I scream about a rat? Everyone knows that rat adds flavor, and they’re cheaper than oregano.” The lizard looked confused.

  “Then think of something that would be disgusting to find in your stew, and scream
that you found it.” Greg explained calmly.

  “Oh. Okay, I’ll yell about potatoes or something. Yuk!” He screwed up his face and made his eyeballs bulge on command. There’s something to be said for getting your assistants from another species—they have the most unique talents that you’d never, ever think of.

  Greg, Marty, and I meandered through the maze of tents and vendor stalls until we had the rear of the cooking tent in sight. It was a massive thing, easily big enough to hold a hundred cots in rows. There were more than twice that many beings lined up through the tent now, all waiting for their chance at a nummy lunch. And we were about to wreck that chance. This rescue mission’s crew could easily turn out to need a rescue mission of our own if we weren’t careful.

  Greg leaned over to me and whispered, “This is the part where you share your brilliant plan, right? Please tell me you have a plan. Better yet, please tell me you have a plan that is not just ‘punch things until we get to where we need to be.’”

  “My plan is a little more complex than that, but not much. Follow my lead.” I squared my shoulders, rolled my neck, and started confidently toward the tent.

  Greg grabbed my arm before I had made it three steps. “Please tell me you aren’t stupid enough to be trying the health inspector gag. You have to know there are no health inspectors in Faerieland.”

  I stopped and looked at him. “Then what’s your plan, Mr. Smart Guy?”

  A facepalm later and Greg pulled me back into our side alley. “Were you really going to do the health inspector thing?”

  “Nah. I had faith in you stopping me before I got too far.”

  “So you don’t have a plan?” Greg asked.