by A Van Wyck
A cockroach crossed his path. “Damn!” he cursed, reversing direction.
“Need to find the rabbit… need to find the rabbit…”
There was a squeal and a distant clang as a door somewhere opened on rusted hinges. He finished another circuit before it slammed again.
“Here it comes, here it comes!”
Too excited for circling, he started pelting back and forth across the small room in a frenzy. Footsteps came slowly down the corridor. There was a certain pattern, if you could hear past all the screaming, ranting, moaning and gibbering that went on all around.
“Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right…” he counted them.
They would stop. Something would clang. Then something else would clunk – or more often, crash. And the previous thing would clang again and the footsteps would resume.
“Left. Right. Left. Right. Left…”
As it came nearer, you could also make out the trundling noise of the big trolley. The front left wheel had been a mouse in its previous life.
“Oh,” he moaned worriedly, increasing the pace of his frantic darting.
He still didn’t know what had happened to the rabbit! He could ask the mouse but it was a wheel and wouldn’t be able to answer.
“Down the… um… over… Green! Very green! With… um… roots. Taproots! No! Square! Square roots of the radius – no, wait, the diameter – no, wait, the gradient! Times the square shepherd of the pie… um… with a thread count of…three and twenty– oh, flock! I heard that! Herd… drove… bank… murder! Crows! Rolling downhill… chasing hares… no splitting hairs! Aagh! Impossible to hit a tortoise with… Duck! Does not echo… echo… echo…”
The footsteps and trolley stopped outside his door. There was a rattle of keys and a clang.
“…density of… pressure! Low pressure! Always– No! Never go out in a… lemon… does not strike twice in the same… place in a two-to-one part solution and bring to the… pimple…”
“Hey!”
He whirled.
“What?!” he demanded of the guard standing in the open doorway. “I was having a private conversation!”
“You’re the only one in here, Mop.”
“I know,” he frowned. “Only way to have a private conversation.”
The guard was obviously crazy.
“Whatever. I’ve got a real treat for you today,” the guard said, uninterested, picking a sack off the food cart and digging around in it. “Farmer broke his leg this week and couldn’t take them to market, so today everyone gets… apples!” he flourished one, with fake enthusiasm.
“Oh, good. Toss it here!”
Laughing, the guard lobbed the apple at him. Surprising the guard – and himself – he caught it, the overlong sleeve of his restraining jacket dangling almost to his knees. He juggled the apple one handed.
“Got out of your restraints again I see,” the guard commented with a scowl.
“Yeah,” he mused, “when did that happen?”
The guard chuckled at his honestly confused face.
“I swear, Mop, you’re the craziest person in here.”
“Toss me another!”
“You only get the one…” the guard chided.
“Toss!”
Sighing, the guard tossed him another apple and he added it smoothly into the arc of the first.
“Another!” he commanded.
Enjoying the show, the guard tossed him another, which was smoothly absorbed into the pattern.
“One more!” he pleaded.
“Oh, all right!” Laughing, the guard threw a fourth apple at him. He added his other hand, making the circle more complex.
“I didn’t know you could juggle, Mop.”
“Me neither!” he admitted brightly, adding a little shuffling dance to the performance. The apples, enjoying their new game, were getting away from him in their exuberance. He found he had to step quickly, stretching, to keep them from bouncing off the floor. The slightly shriveled fruits dragged him first to the one side of his cell, then to the other while the guard chuckled appreciatively. Then they pitched forward and he was forced to hop closer to the guard in an effort to save them. There was a metallic rattle and a big bushel of keys joined the quartet of apples in their aerial ballet.
“Hey!” the guard shouted, grabbing at the keys as the apples dragged Mop back out of arm’s reach. The guard, one hand dropping to the heavy baton at his belt, stepped after him.
“Now how did that happen?” he wondered, eyeing the aberrant keys.
“Mop,” the guard growled, no longer smiling, “hand over the keys.” The man made another grab at them but the apples were having fun. Dragging the guard after them, they circled the cell while the guard snatched at the keys whenever they zipped by.
“Mop, I’m warning you…”
Apple… apple… apple… keys! The man made another grab, missed.
“Mop, this isn’t funny. You give me those keys right now or so help me…”
Oh, no! “Here,” he called hurriedly, tossing the man the keys.
The cell door clanged loudly. The guard looked down at the apple he’d caught, then around at the four, hemming walls of the cell.
“Mop!” the panicked yelling was accompanied by a desperate pounding on the locked door. “Mop, this isn’t funny! You open this door right now, Mop! Mop!”
He regarded the rusted portal from outside, eyes wide and mouth open. He watched it jump in its frame to the guard’s beating. The apples spun away from him in a gleeful double loop.
“Oh,” he moaned, “I’m going to be in so much trouble…”
At which point the apples turned and ran, taking him with them. He went moaning up the corridor at high speed. The delinquent fruits’ mischief was infectious. By the time he got to the end of the corridor the keys had been talked into taking his hand hostage. Blame pear-pressure. The heavy portal swung open while they kept his other hand busy.
And then he was in the main building, helplessly propelled by the evil apples as they cavorted up the hall. From cells on either side, faces pressed to iron grills shrieked at him on general principle. Wasted arms reached uselessly after him.
“It wasn’t me!” he screamed in his defense. “It was the apples!” A mouthful of broken, yellowed teeth laughed outrageously at this.
The door at the end of the corridor swung open far enough for a guard to poke his head in.
“What the blazes has gotten into you all?!”
And then the man spotted him, coming down the corridor, led by a trio of evil apples and one rebellious bushel of keys. He was trailing the long drawn-out “aaaaaaAAH!” of imminent collision.
“One’s gotten loose!” the guard shouted a warning, shouldering the door aside. The man rushed at him, another guard hot on his heels, both with batons upraised. Recognizing a beating when they saw one coming, his feet promptly planted themselves.
“It was them!” he shouted, pointing at the apples. Surprised by his sudden stop, they flew forward, the keys following on the assumption that they knew where they were going. The keys hit the foremost guard in the face. The man’s foot came down on a rolling apple and shot out from under him. The skidding guard threw his hands out for balance. Unfortunately one still clutched the baton, which connected hard with the second guard’s forehead. Both somersaulted onto their heads and lay still.
“–!” he managed in fright. Hurrying over to the nearest guard, he experimentally prodded at the man’s ear with his black big toe. When all he got in return was a groan, he panicked and ran. The unconscious guards, deviant apples and the wayward keys were left behind.
“Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!” he chanted as he darted out into the main corridor. This was bad! This was very, very bad! If he could only remember about the rabbit, everything would be alright.
“D’you know the rabbit?!” he screamed into the face of the guard just appearing at the top of the stairs to his right.
“Uh–!” the startled man
jerked away, eyes wide. He overbalanced and went tumbling head-over-heels down the stairs.
“Oh-oh,” he breathed, following after the sound of potatoes being shaken in a bucket. The unconscious man lay in a heap near the bottom of the stairs, breathing difficultly with a broken nose mashed to the ground. “Ooo,” he worried at the man, “that’s not good for you, you know,” he pointed out. The guard didn’t reply. “Incidentally,” he continued, pleasantries dealt with, “do you happen to know the rabbit?” The man continued to gurgle uninformatively at the floor. “Come on,” the cajoled, “just a hint? It’s important.” Nothing. “No, you’re right,” he conceded. “It’s something I have to figure out for myself.”
He looked around. He was in a locker room. He reached down to pat the man’s upturned bottom companionably. He didn’t want the man to feel bad about being so unhelpful. “Don’t worry, I’ll work it out,” he promised, hurrying over to the nearest locker.
A short while later found him hunched on the locker room bench, one of his feet staring at him in mute terror. Nervous sweat dripped from his nose and wet his new uniform. He held the end of a shoelace in either hand.
“No one panic,” he said, taking a bracing breath. “Let’s try again.” His hands moved, bringing the laces together. “The rabbit crawls under the log…”
He was bored. The position of gate guard didn’t see much action. The guys inside saw to that, keeping the nastier crazies inside. And the ones allowed outside, to wander aimlessly across the lawns, were docile as sheep. They rarely gave him an excuse to use his shiny new baton. He never would have taken this job but his application to join any one of the kingdom military brigades had been turned down. They’d cited poor eyesight or two left feet, or abysmal balance or explosive bowel problems or any of a host of contrived excuses to reject him. But he was convinced: the only way to find a good woman to marry was to be a man in uniform. He rarely took it off, always quick to explain to any likely lady how being a gate guard meant she wouldn’t have to wash puke and blood from it on any kind of regular basis. He hadn’t had much luck so far but he was hopeful.
He daydreamed, imagining the worshipful woman he would one day find. It was a favorite pastime and he spent long afternoons populating this potential bride with a host of different becoming attributes. That usually carried him to the end of the day. His shift was almost over now and he longed for the little alehouse down the street from his rooms. He was going to meet her there, one day.
Guards who’d finished their shift were drifting past him and out the gate. He didn’t know all their faces yet but he was learning. There was the one he’d seen yesterday, the one with the patch on the seat of his pants – obviously not married, since the needlework was abysmal. And there was the one with the purple birthmark all across his forehead. Good luck to him, finding a woman. And the one with the burn mark on the sleeve of his jacket, from having to cook his own meals, no doubt.
Here was one he hadn’t noticed before. A scrawny man who hobbled like his shoes were too tight. He glanced down and suppressed a guffaw. The man’s shoelaces were an absolute mess, all dangling knots and useless loops, like a child had tied them! He chuckled inwardly.
Moron, he thought scathingly at the man’s back. Then he went back to daydreaming.
* * *
Duck.
He had nothing against duck. The occasional quail. Even squab…
Helia preserve us, what in the world is a squab?
And then there were the fish, drawn from the many lakes. Lakes full of, among other things, ducks. Ducks that shat and their shit gathered on the lake bottom (probably a dozen feet deep by now) where (his taste buds confirmed) the fish ate it. And then there were the eels.
A delicacy my swarthy ass.
Judging by their snotty meat, the eels ate what the fish shat out.
Fish was poor man’s fare to begin with. But at least the poor of the Empire caught theirs from the clean, salty sea.
He was starved for red meat. Mutton was too expensive. Lamb was dear as a desert beauty’s virtue. These Renali commoners would die of shock if ever they came face to face with a steer, or anything more bovine than a pig, really.
It was all down to the class system, he knew. These kingdom types set great store by social status. But they lacked the complex social strata of home. Apparently they were happy with the harsh divide between noble and peasant.
He shook his head, ghosting silently down the darkened street. He kept to the tired shadows cast by the even more tired looking hovels to either side. Here, you could be a farmer – a herder. You could spend your whole, miserable life tending sheep and never know the taste of the prime cuts.
Poor bastards.
No, the choice meat was destined for the tables of the nobly born and wealthy merchants.
He checked again to ensure he was maintaining a suitable distance from his charge: the purposefully striding keeper, up ahead.
The preacher would sense him following, of course. He kept his distance out of respect, allowing the cleric his privacy in whatever good deed he undertook in the city this night.
Or ill deed, he qualified. A man was allowed some vices. This one’s a good one, though, he reflected.
The man made protecting him easy. Always keeping to the open, avoiding dangerous nooks and never giving the masha’na grief about not wanting an escort or some such twaddle. It could sometimes be hard on a warrior, taking orders from a priest. Some of them had strange notions concerning piety, sobriety, celibacy, poverty and all kinds of other unpleasant things ending in ‘ee’.
This Keeper Justin was supposedly a veteran, though. He’d spoken to the man and he believed it. It made a huge difference, serving under a man who’d served. A man who knew the abrasive fellowship of soldiers and the bitter taste of a comrade’s loss. That alone would have made the man worth protecting but the keeper also knew enough to just let Captain Christian get on with things, staying out of the way except when diplomacy was required.
Plus, it got boring, sitting around at the compound with nothing to do. These little outings were a godsend. He and the brothers came near to blows each time it came to deciding who’d trail the priest.
He raked critical eyes over the dilapidated slums all around, not liking the look of them. The Narrows, they called this quarter. Grimacing, he shortened his leash on the keeper. He’d never hear the end of it if the man got a stubbed toe on his watch.
Should have brought one of the others… he thought.
Still, he’d rather slum it in the slums, where he knew what was what, than try to guess at improbable dangers in the halls of some mansion somewhere. That could not be far off, though – rich people got sick too and word was bound to spread.
Having to cut down rich folk always led to trouble, no matter what country you were in. Beneath his cloak, he loosened his weirin in its scabbard, rolling his shoulders to keep his muscles limber. In the slums, there was room to work.
They’d gone far from the city center – past the inner- and outer walls. They were less than a league shy of where the city petered out. You could smell the mudflats and refuse heaps that marked the very edges of this heathen ‘civilization’ from here. Up ahead, the priest was paying closer attention to the homes on either side. Their destination was something one could only describe as a ‘dwelling’. It was little better than a shack, rags stuffing the cracks between the ill-fitting, warped boards.
Keeping careful watch, he slipped under a likely overhang. The rickety door bucked alarmingly to the priest’s knock. Had it been anyone but this preacher, he’d have been first through that door. But if evil lurked within, the priest would know long before he did. That would likely have been the case even had it been the priest standing under the eaves and he knocking on the portal.
Empaths… he scoffed wryly.
The door opened almost immediately. Fitful light smeared the priest’s silhouette across the dirt road. He couldn’t see the occupant nor hear any words bei
ng exchanged. But the priest ducked under the low lintel readily and disappeared into the skewed shack. He circled around, finding a place nearer the door to await the keeper’s re-emergence. The wood at his back creaked as he leaned against it. He crossed his arms to wait.
He shifted his weight from foot to foot. He scratched an itch behind his ear. He started up at the night sky. Before long he was pining for beef again. Steak, ribs, even a skewer. Like the ones the Purli vendors always sold on every street corner during the festival in Tellar. He’d thought those were the epitome of high cuisine when he was a boy, sauce staining either cheek. He’d kill for one of those right now. You never knew how much you’d miss a thing until it was gone – or far away. His stomach moaned pitifully.
“Quiet, you,” he told it.
Movement caught his eye, dragging him from his introspection. Two figures made their way down the dirt road. Young men with smooth chins – the general-nuisance kind who busied themselves with petty crime. Their breed grew thick as grass in shitholes like the Narrows. They swaggered slowly, deep and loud in their paltry conversation. Their gazes roved constantly, looking for nothing in particular. The nearest one spotted him as the pair came abreast of his hiding place.
The street tough’s eyes had swept past him at first. Now they jerked back with an abruptness that caused the youth to misstep. An involuntary arm went out to halt his companion as well. The pair turned to regard him where he lounged, sizing him up.
To his credit, the foremost one appeared hesitant. The other was less discerning. That one stepped forward with the beginnings of a malicious smile playing around his insolent mouth.
He sighed inwardly. With a casual motion, he drew his cloak to one side, exposing the long, serpentine length of steel at his waist. All his hunger for meat, he let leak into his feral grin.
Language barrier, my ass…
The two raised dust on the road as they bolted, elbowing each other for the lead position. Chuckling, he watched them go. It was the little pleasures in life–
A chance reflection was the only warning he got. He leapt away, feeling the point of a blade part the cloth of his robes. It scored along the hardened plates beneath as he whirled. His sword hissed angrily from its sheath, roaring as he arced it in a wild cut. His surprised attacker–