Renzhies

by Mara Duryea

  “Watch, my son. This is an ingenious piece of work. I moved the kitchen above the dining room, but found it difficult to pass from there to here. And so…” He pulled a lever Rezh hadn’t noticed in the gloom. The ceiling moved downward, bringing with it the aroma of food.

  For a second, Rezh forgot his fears. He stepped back as a table of food lowered among the ring of cushions. Curtains filled in the ceiling where the kitchen hole gaped. Four posts held the table from the ceiling and reminded Rezh of his new bed. The tablecloth was a bright glowing red. Mirilite gleamed in three golden cups down the center of the table.

  “Did I not tell you there would be something special for you when you returned home?” said Sizhirin. “Now let me find your mother, and we will eat.” He walked out. Rezh didn’t know if he should run after him, or stay, or run outside and never come back. He could brave the Hikrar forest outside of Ambrian. This place paled its terrors in comparison.

  Everybody said the forest was haunted. It used to be, until Sizhirin had closed its Midnight Gate. That was how the Hatrin had met Rezh’s mother. She was being attacked by one of the soulless, and he’d killed it. After he had carried her back to Ambrian, he’d closed the gate. From then on, the Hatrin and Rykori never left one another’s side.

  People claimed something else lurked in the forest now. Others accused the older generations of disliking change and of attempting to restore the forest to its former creepiness. Rezh didn’t care about these disputes. He was safe wherever his dad was. Now it was different. When he became a father, he wanted his children to feel safe with him, no matter how old he got.

  He settled on a cushion and tore into a kobolia steak lying on a golden platter nearby. He savored the spicy juices coating his tongue. This was probably the single wonderful thing in the whole grid.

  The curtain hanging on the ceiling moved. Rezh glanced up, expecting to see his mother smiling at him. The woman he knew had been playful. Two bright pinpricks hovered in the shadows of a small crack in the curtain. It closed as quickly as it had opened, and heavy footsteps flitted across the ceiling. Rezh almost choked on the meat.

  Darting to the door, he flung it open, and barreled into Sizhirin. The man caught him by the shoulders. “Rezh, what is the matter?”

  “S-something was looking at me from the kitchen!”

  Sizhirin took his arm in a firm grip. “That was your mother.” He led Rezh back to the dining table as the little Rykori trailed after them.

  “No, it wasn’t.” Rezh pulled his arm free. “It was looking at me right before you came in. Its eyes were glowing, and—”

  Sizhirin squeezed his shoulder. “Rezh, I am afraid your imagination has run away with you. There is a stairway leading to the kitchen. It is attached to this dining room. There is nothing here but you, your mother, and me.”

  Rezh looked to the little Rykori for help, but she had already sat down. Smiling, she began piling food on their plates. She held Little Plupkin in one arm.

  Sizhirin pushed him a little too hard onto the cushion and sat beside him. “Now eat, Rezh. You are very thin.”

  Rezh slowly pushed food into his mouth. He watched his mother, who slathered food on Little Plupkin’s beak.

  “Thank you so much!” she squeaked in Little Plupkin’s voice. She kissed its head and ate. She stole a glimpse of the ceiling, but quickly looked at her plate. Rezh swallowed. She knew something was up there.

  “How do you like the food?” said Sizhirin.

  “I like it,” said Rezh.

  “You would like to eat here always?”

  Rezh’s brows knit. What was that supposed to mean? “Well, until I find another place to live.” It was high time he escaped. Maybe his mother would accompany him. This place wasn’t good for her mental health. He might have to admit her to a Kosalin for a season. She had done nothing wrong, so they would actually help her.

  Sizhirin seemed devastated. “Why would you go?”

  “There’s no work here. I’ll have to leave Ambrian.” Leaving Ambrian was the best plan he’d come up with yet. He would never have to visit here again.

  “Rezh, you left here because we were in squalor, and you wished to help us. We are no longer suffering. This means you do not need to leave ever again. Besides, you are not yet of age. Bloodhearts could catch you.”

  “You could give me a blood pendant. I’ll be all right.”

  Sizhirin breathed in and stared at his plate. “I cannot send you out without aid, my son. I missed you. Stay here awhile before you go.” Warmth flickered from Sizhirin’s soul.

  Compassion welled to Rezh’s heart. Maybe his dad really needed him? If he stayed, maybe Sizhirin would grow warm again, and everything would return to normal. “Okay.”

  Sizhirin grew a little warmer. “Thank you, my son.”

  Lunch ended. Rezh hadn’t eaten such a rich meal in ages. He stood up and stretched. “Where are the stairs?”

  Sizhirin twitched. “What?”

  “I want to help Mom with the dishes.”

  “No.” Sizhirin smiled. “I do that. You relax. Come, I will take you to your room.”

  “Why my room?”

  “You must sleep. You look tired.”

  Rezh frowned. “It’s still daylight. Let’s go to the beach. I haven’t seen it in three years.”

  Sizhirin caught his arm in his sinewy fingers. “Sleep first, and then we will go.” He pulled Rezh into the hallway and towards his room.

  “I’m not tired.”

  Sizhirin opened the door. “I shall fetch you when the dishes are done.” He pushed him into the room and closed the door. It locked.

  Rezh’s gaze immediately swept across the black curtains. The faces of the hidden children smiled behind them. How could Sizhirin expect him to sleep? And that was another thing. There wasn’t enough time to sleep in the interval in which Sizhirin washed the dishes. Rezh sat on the bed as a storm of thoughts rattled around his head. The man knew something haunted the grid. It was the reason Sizhirin had locked Rezh in. So why had the Hatrin left him alone in the dining room?

  Rezh lay down. The bed was so soft he had no need of a pillow. Time dragged by, and Rezh dozed off. In that state between dreaming and waking, the lock clicked, and the door opened.

  “Dad?” Rezh struggled to wake up, but his eyes were too heavy. He sank into oblivion for he didn’t know how long. Every limb melded to the soft bed. Rough fingertips slid across his foot. Rezh started awake and sat up, staring at the end of the bed. His heart pounded in his ears.

  Whether or not the door was locked, it didn’t matter. Something had come in. He had to get out of here, even if it meant facing keesans.

  Sliding off the side of the bed, he walked backwards to the door as he watched the foot of the bed. There was nothing there. He pulled at the massive latch. The door opened. He hadn’t been dreaming.

  “Gutless awiks.” Rezh slipped into the hall and closed the door. The corridor was darker than before. He had to rescue his mother. Jogging silently towards her room, he watched behind and above him. His own fuzzy shadow running beside him seemed like another person.

  It’s just me, he thought over and over again. As he rounded a corner, his shadow split in two. It’s me…it’s me. He continued on, but the second shadow didn’t leave. He glanced at it despite himself and screamed. A hulking humanoid with ears curving above its head lumbered behind him. It was hunched over, and its long arms sometimes touched the floor. Rezh spun around, but there was nothing there. He looked at his shadow, but it was alone.

  “Rezh?” Sizhirin’s voice shouted from the direction of the dreaded curtain room.

  Should Rezh answer? Was his dad a monster, too? Would Sizhirin protect him? These questions crowded the Berivor’s head, but his feet continued its forward motion.

  “Rezh, where are you?” Sizhirin sounded anxious.

  Rezh arrived at his mother’s room. The door was wide open, but she was absent. Where could she be? As a child, whenever he couldn�
��t locate his mother, he’d always find her in the kitchen.

  “Rezh!” Sizhirin was drawing nearer.

  The Berivor sped towards the dining room, keeping his eyes averted from his shadow. His father’s desperate yells both pained and chilled him. How Rezh wanted to answer! But Sizhirin’s aura was cold. He hoarded the pictures behind the curtains. Rezh lighted on the dining room and searched for the stairs.

  “Rezh?” Sizhirin was around the corner.

  Rezh spotted the stairs leading up the wall and into the chamber above the dining room. Dashing up the steps, he pushed through a door into the kitchen.

  It was blacker than ink. Rezh’s hair stood on end, and he immediately backed out. Two little hands chilled the small of his back and shoved him into the kitchen. He landed on his knees. The door slammed shut and locked with a heavy click. Beady eyes twinkled around him in a dome of gleaming blood.

  4

  The Bed of Death

  Cold hands dragged Rezh across the floor. He thrashed like a madman, but the hands only tightened. Dozens of voices squealed as claws gouged into his flesh. Rezh shrieked and kicked at the glowing mass.

  “Stop!” It was Sizhirin. “Release him!” A mirilite brightened in a corner of the room. The deathly pale faces of snarling children appeared. Their needle fangs were packed into their grimacing mouths. Their eyes were globs of blood. Rezh stared into the face of a fourteen-year-old girl. His blood dripped from her white tresses.

  Sizhirin jerked him off the floor and hooked an arm around him. No Iskerkin blood flew. No warmth filled the room. The bloodhearts didn’t flee, but regarded Sizhirin with reverence. Rezh hid his face in his father’s shoulder.

  “Return home, children,” said Sizhirin. “This one is different.” Sizhirin pressed Rezh’s head. “Do not fear, Rezh.” He addressed the children again. “All look upon him. This is my son. You do not harm him. Is it understood?”

  “Understood, Father,” they rasped.

  “Come, Rezh.” Sizhirin hurried Rezh out of the kitchen. “You are safe, child. Do not tremble. They will never hurt you more.” Sizhirin headed to the middle of the grid and pushed open the door to the mini vozhrith. It was constructed of steel. “Lie down, my son.” Leaving Rezh on a metal table, Sizhirin rummaged through the cabinets and drawers for medicine and bandages. “Do not cry. Look at the tears running down his face! If I had warned them, this agony would not be here to torment me!”

  “Wh-why didn’t you kill them?” Rezh’s voice was barely audible through his sobs.

  Sizhirin applied medicine to the wounds. “Do not panic. You must trust me! You must! I cannot lose you.” He began stitching some of the deeper cuts. “They did not harm you much. It only appears debilitating. You see, they enjoy playing before they do anything mortal.”

  Rezh glanced at the four doors on the four walls. His fear overpowered the pain from Sizhirin’s stitches. “They can come in!”

  “No,” said Sizhirin. “No. They have gone home. You are safe as long as I am near.” Wrapping the wounds, Sizhirin lifted Rezh to a sitting position and squeezed him. “Oh, my son, my son, do not tremble! Cease your whimpers. They cannot harm you. Instead, now, they will surround you with protection.”

  “N-no, no!” Rezh struggled to get off the table.

  Sizhirin held him fast. “It will be all right! Did I not say they would protect you from all harm?”

  “I don’t want them near me! I want to go! Let me go!” Rezh wiggled out of his grasp and staggered to the door closest to the three switchbacks.

  “Rezh, no!” Sizhirin seized him from behind and clamped a smelly kannin rag over his face. It stabbed through Rezh’s brain. Tingles rushed through his limbs, and he collapsed. Sizhirin caught him in his arms and carried him back to the table. “You must sleep, Rezh. You must rest. When you wake, you will trust me.”

  Rezh lost consciousness, and he swam in thick darkness. Sizhirin’s voice echoed somewhere in that void. Rezh struggled to keep away from it, but it closed in. A reddish glow seeped into the black. Shadows flitted here and there. A long-haired phantom leaned over him. Rough fingers ran down his face, neck and chest.

  “Rezh,” Sizhirin whispered in that red glow. “Wake up.”

  “Rezh,” voices hissed. “Rezh, Rezh, Rezh, wake up!”

  Rezh jerked awake. The blood-red tassel dangled against the black curtains. A part of the scarlet wall gleamed through a crack in the dark silk. The scarlet bed bulged around him, blocking out the rest of the room. The stillness pressed against his ears like earplugs.

  Rezh moved to rub his eyes, but his arms were stuck against his stomach. He looked down. His wrists were bound together and fastened to his middle with rope. More rope criss-crossed over his chest, binding him to the bed. As he stared at himself, the terror of the last few Periods smothered him like an avalanche. Screams tore from his throat as he thrashed against his bonds. His flesh ripped. The stitches stretched dangerously to breaking point, and blood oozed between them. He was determined to break through the ropes if it was the last thing he did.

  The door burst open and Sizhirin hustled inside. “Rezh, Rezh, calm down!” He sat on the bed and caught Rezh’s face in his hands.

  “Let me go! Somebody help me!”

  “Rezh, stop!” Sizhirin covered his mouth with his hand as his blue eyes watered. “His trust has vanished like the flame that lived inside me!” He stared at the ceiling as if in supplication. “But my flame is still there! I felt it when he embraced me. It can still be saved! He must know if he is to save me!” Sizhirin rested his gaze on his son. “Rezh, Rezh, please. I should have told you when you arrived, but you shall know now. Cease your struggles. Do not cry. I shall release you soon.” He pushed the hair from Rezh’s face. “There, you see, all is well.” He wiped Rezh’s cheeks with a cloth. “Are you all right now, my son?”

  “Let me go,” Rezh whispered.

  Sizhirin paced the room like a caged animal. His shadow slithered across the floor and walls. It split and became one again beneath the multiple mirilites. Rezh stared at Sizhirin’s face. Where had his dad gone? He’d lost him.

  “Let me start from the beginning, child.” Sizhirin eyed him like a wild beast. “Rezh, do you ever wonder why you do not resemble me?”

  Rezh shook his head.

  Sizhirin smiled. “You always thought you belonged to me, and that you do, but Sakreen Zhayven, your sakreen from the mines, is your biological father.”

  Rezh started. “What?”

  “I know, I know. The day I met your mother was the day she had gotten into a horrible fight with Zhayven. That was why she had been in the Hikrar Forest. She had run there to get away from him, but soulless attacked her. I was in the forest, traveling to Ambrian, because I had heard of a Midnight Gate there. I saved her. I took care of her.” Sizhirin shook his head. “Zhayven wanted her back, but I had won her heart. I thought it was wholly mine, but she felt sorry for him.”

  Something cracked inside Rezh. The pieces burrowed into his soul like poison shafts. Sizhirin hadn’t said it, but Rezh knew it was coming. He wanted to scream for Sizhirin to shut up, but his throat had gone dry. Instead, he stared at the ceiling as if he were dead.

  “A year after you left for the mines,” said Sizhirin, “she confessed. I could have killed her, but I ran to the river to release my agony and fury on anything I could find. That is where Azhanya was.” Sizhirin cringed. “She was a helpless, young, beautiful creature.”

  Rezh closed his eyes as his throat spasmed. Hysterics threatened his strained self command.

  Sizhirin cupped Rezh’s face in his hands. “Be calm, my son, be calm. You are safe. I had wished that this could be under better circumstances, but fate has been cruel! I had the urge to help her when she came to live in Ambrian.” Sizhirin groaned. “You may think me a heartless wretch. I became one. I became attracted to her, and I fed that attraction. Azhanya was so curious about what I did for a living. The way she spoke brought something out of me that h
ad broken.”

  “I don’t want to hear,” Rezh moaned.

  “But you must. One night, she entered the store, inquiring about the different knives and how I made them. How dear did she look then! So curious and stunning all at once! My gentle affection for her spiraled out of control. I do not know how it happened, but we talked until it was too late to go outside. The keesans were already screeching. In her fright at the first awful noise, she clung to me in the dark.”

  Rezh cringed. “I don’t want to hear anymore!”

  Sizhirin gripped his shoulders. “But you will! You will find you have strength beyond your means to endure this without dying! It was an accident. I was seized by passion and it would not release me. It was my comfort, my revenge, my curse! I could not face your mother the next morning. I hid Azhanya in the knife store, hoping she would be gone by nightfall, but she was there when I returned.” Sizhirin shook his head. “She seemed to know exactly what I wanted to hear; she knew exactly what to say, and how to act.”

  Rezh sobbed. “Let me out of here.”

  The room grew freezing cold as Sizhirin flew into a rage. “No!” He pounded the bed next to Rezh’s head. “You belong to me!” His face softened at sight of Rezh’s fear. “Forgive me, Rezh. This subject pains me! Azhanya told me she was a Perilith and that she could save my store with her Reading powers. Months went by, and as I grew rich, our love and passion expanded until I realized I could lose you and your mother. Horror like I had never felt before washed over me.” Sizhirin buried his face in his hands. “I returned to your mother, determined to confess and face whatever awaited me. I had hoped to obtain her forgiveness through any means necessary. I stayed up nights and nights, planning what I should do. When I finally alighted upon a plan, Azhanya appeared. She was with child.”

  Rezh stared at him.

  Sizhirin paced the room. “She herself was horrified. Through a pretense of business, I fled with her to a part of Visseria that I will not name. What were we to do with the child?” Sizhirin knelt before Rezh again. “Rezh, Rezh, you must hear me out, whatever I say, you must hear me out!” Sizhirin’s blue eyes grew wild. “Azhanya gave birth to a baby girl.” He gripped Rezh’s shoulders. “I was horrified! What would I do with this child? What would Azhanya do? She was helpless. This baby was my responsibility, and yet I could not return home with another woman’s child.”