The Devil's Judgment

by Chris Pisano

  “Dearborn? The floor is moving.” Bale spun in slow circles, shuffling his feet to move away from the undulation.

  “Just slugs, Bale. We talked about this.”

  The minotaur lumbered to one of the walls and lit a sconce. Close to the sconce was a holder for the torch. The flames provided enough light to reveal a cow carcass, a horse carcass, and two human bodies among a pile of bones. All four bodies moved as if reacting to dreams while asleep, but Dearborn knew there was no dreaming. Slugs fed upon the bodies, the rout so large that they caused the movements.

  “They may be slugs, but I assure you, they are not the kind that gardeners tut about while fussing to keep them from their plants.” The pride in Haddaman’s voice induced nausea within Dearborn more than any slug could. She hid that feeling with a smirk as she leaned down to pluck one of the dozen making their way up her leg. Like a showman, she held it in front of her, between her thumb and finger. “I’m very well aware of how special they are.”

  A quick pinch, followed by a burst of blood, and the slug went limp. A snarl twisted Haddaman’s lips. Dearborn dropped the dead thing and said, “They are your eyes. They are how you are able to see all the workings within the castle.”

  Bale backed closer to Dearborn and mumbled, “So that’s why you always killed any slug you saw and fed them to your rats.”

  “Yes, Bale. I wanted to make sure Haddaman didn’t know what we were doing in our cells over the years. He should be thanking me for keeping his little secret. I can’t imagine either King Oremethus or Prince Daedalus would appreciate being spied on.”

  The minotaur stood, its imposing form almost scraping its horns on the ceiling. Haddaman dangled from the veiny cords between the beast’s legs like genitalia, his own manhood growing as he talked. “My dearest Dearborn, even though I couldn’t see inside your cells, I knew very well what you were doing. Raising your rats, feeding your fellow prisoners, making friends of the pageboys. Planning an escape. It is you who should be thanking me for keeping your secrets. A gratitude that I intend to collect now. Daedalus’s cock may wither at the thought of possessing you, but I assure you, mine won’t!”

  The minotaur took an awkward step forward, its fingers curled and ready to grab Dearborn. She procured one of her knives and Haddaman laughed. “That tiny little thing against my minotaur? You expect to stop me with that?”

  The corpse’s arm swiped at Dearborn, but she ducked it with ease.

  Bale danced about. “Dearborn! There are more slugs than I can step on.”

  Now was her time to strike. She took one of the packages from her sling, sliced it with her knife, and tossed it to Bale. She did the exact same thing with the second package. The third she kept for herself after slicing it open.

  Bale held a package in each hand, the granular contents spilling from the slits.

  Salt.

  The ogre had the wherewithal not to panic, not to dump the contents all at once. In controlled motions, Bale made sweeping arcs with his hands, spreading sheets of salt on the slugs around him, starting with the mounds by his feet and extending outward. The blanket of flesh on the ground rippled and squirmed away from Bale. Wasting no time, Dearborn reached into her package and threw handfuls of salt onto the minotaur. Should she live through this, Dearborn knew she would never forget the screams from the dead bull’s throat. Haddaman screamed too, from anger rather than pain.

  The minotaur retreated and Dearborn advanced, splash after splash of salt. Scraping and clawing at its bull head, its bovine legs quivered with each step. Dozens of slugs fell away, meaty raindrops slopping against the floor. Haddaman bounced against his carrier, spinning around. Two decades of Dearborn’s pain and anger could be summed up within this stump of a man, an evil beyond comprehension. Savoring one last second of her revenge, Dearborn threw the last of the salt directly at his face. She ended the human filth by jamming her knife into his temple. To make sure this part of his life was over, she grabbed his neck and held him steady, while she watched his eyes fade to gray, his twisting lips twitch to a stop.

  “They’re dead,” Bale whispered kicking through the piles of slug carcasses. “All of them.”

  That statement was music to Dearborn’s ears. “His connection with them was far greater than I imagined. But we still have to hurry.”

  Resting on its haunches the minotaur no longer moved. Dearborn moved behind it and ran her blade down its spine. Dozens of dead slugs spilled out from the newly sliced skin. Bale joined her in her efforts, snapping and removing bones, scooping out gelatinous globs of what was once muscle. “This smells awful, Dearborn.”

  “Push past it for our children.”

  Grimacing, Bale shoved his left leg into the cut minotaur, then his right as if donning pants. His feet stopped at the top of the minotaur’s tibias and Dearborn used some of the rope to secure them. Bale’s hands went in next, turning the minotaur’s arms into sleeves. He stood straight to get accustomed to balancing on bones and walked about the room to get acclimated to the bulk. Dearborn helped pull the rest of the carcass over Bale’s head and shoulders, fighting with the contents of her stomach as the ogre made retching noises. To help him see and breathe better, she made a few slices along the base of the minotaur’s neck. To complete the disguise, Dearborn climbed atop Haddaman.

  If she were to cut him free, she would have nothing to support herself on the minotaur carcass, so she fought down the bile rising from within and placed one knee on the clammy skin of the man she just killed. The membranes and veins connecting Haddaman to the minotaur were slimy and difficult to hold on to and she had a small area to rest upon, but Dearborn grabbed enough to wriggle herself onto Haddaman’s back. The web-work was much more unyielding than she expected, but she tucked her legs under herself and settled in among the rubbery tubes. The slugs were dead, but their mucus remained, oozing along the membranes and over Dearborn. She took a moment to close her eyes and recall a memory of her children. “Bale? Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” His voice was muffled, but she could still hear him.

  He stood and she bounced against the minotaur’s thighs. After a few seconds, Bale took his first unsteady step. Then the next. The fear of Bale’s muscles giving way rolled around in Dearborn’s thoughts, but for now, he was able to maneuver the minotaur, while she dangled from it.

  So far, the plan was working. The smell and the thick secretions of dead slugs oozing over her body were almost unbearable, but so was the notion of staying within these walls, while Prince Daedalus hunted for her children. The halls were still mostly empty, a servant here and there and as she had hoped, they lowered their heads and hurried along as soon as they sensed that the lumbering form of the minotaur was near. It was easy to be in a disguise when no one wanted to look at it. Even the guards walking their patrol or stationed outside bolted doors opted to look everywhere the minotaur was not.

  Bale’s movements were slow and jerky, every other step twisted the fleshy cords around her more with the occasional slug body falling onto her hair. She had a difficult time seeing the entire world around her, but she had a good idea about their location. They turned down one last hallway, the one that led to a seldom-used side door at the back of the castle.

  Bale stopped.

  Dearborn tried to push the filmy cords away and adjust her position without disrupting Bale’s balance. She wiped away a curtain of slime as a dead slug slid down her arm to see what blocked their escape.

  Speekore.

  The wretched hobgoblin was at the end of the hall talking to a guard. They were too far away to hear, but Dearborn deduced what they were talking about when the guard pointed to the other end of the hallway, to her and Bale.

  Bale turned and lumbered back down the hall they had just come from. Each step came faster than before. Dearborn’s world bounced and spun, disorienting her. Bale turned down another hallwa
y, but she had no idea which one. In the distance, Speekore called out, “Haddaman!”

  The running took a toll on Bale as he ran down another hallway, panting turned into grunting. Dearborn tried to right herself again, figure out where they were in the castle, but she had never been to the ground floor before and had no idea what landmarks to look for. The hallway was poorly lit gray stone and had three massive doors. Sobbing, Bale limped to the first door and tried to grab the metal latch, but it was impossible to do so with dead fingers, so he slammed his shoulder against it to no avail. Sliding along the wall for support, he made his way to the next door. This one opened with ease. Dearborn oriented herself just in time to wish that the door had been locked.

  Wall mounted torches and burning oil lamps numbered in the dozens and lit the room as if there were no walls to block the twin suns. Not a single shadow was to be found. This was Speekore’s laboratory.

  A man meticulously tacked to the wall like a prized butterfly, collected and immortalized for its beauty, had been flayed. Every inch of skin pulled away in flaps, pinned against the wall. Liquids dripped from the openings of dozens of copper tubes keeping his muscles and organs shimmering, his heart beating. Only his face remained untouched, his quivering lips repeating the words, “Kill me.”

  Other men dangled by wires from the ceiling, their bodies disassembled. A webwork of viscera connected the segmented pieces of arms and legs to and among the half dozen torsos. Each man was alive and awake, their hands and feet moving in a perpetual attempt to flee their fate. Pained faces also begged, “Kill me.”

  A dozen women strained against tight shackles along the other wall, all in various stages of pregnancy. The smallest belly swelled well beyond full term, while the largest drooped to the future mothers’ knees as if their children would be born fully grown . . . if their progeny were even human. The life contained within pressed against their skin; the unmistakable outline of a hoof, the swirling imprints of tentacles, multiple hands. Every woman looked to the lone figure not tethered to the laboratory itself and moaned, “Kill me.”

  Dearborn wished she could grant their collective wish, to end their misery as humanely as possible. Now was not the time. Later, after she and Bale escaped this wretched place and found her children. Then she will come back and destroy this castle brick by brick.

  Bale stopped in the middle of the room as if the repeated whispers of, “Kill me,” had lulled him into a macabre trance. This gave Dearborn the chance to examine the room, find a way out. “There! Bale, there’s a door at the back of the room.”

  No sooner than Bale started to step toward the exit, Speekore entered his laboratory. “Haddaman! Why did you run? What are you doing here? I came looking for you, because all your slugs have suddenly died, and I wanted to . . . Wait. You’re not Haddaman!”

  Bale ran to a cage by the exit, one that held half a dozen people, naked, dirty, fear stretching their faces into grotesque parodies of life. The closer he got, the more feverishly they reached for him through the bars as they yelled at him for help. Bale extended the left hand of the minotaur and the caged people took it. They pulled and yanked, their desperate fingers tearing at the arm with the effectiveness of butcher knives. Each grasp pulled away a strip of dead flesh, a chunk of rotted muscle.

  “Guards!” Speekore called out. “Guards! To my laboratory!”

  Dearborn tried to jump from Haddaman’s back but found herself too knotted up in the pulpy strands. Handle slimy, her knife was difficult to wield but she used it to hack at the veins. There was too much give for her blade to find purchase. She finally sawed through one, but it was hardly enough. But Bale found success with his impromptu idea; the people in the cage tore away the minotaur’s left arm.

  His own arm now liberated, Bale grabbed the door handle and pulled. “I know where we are!”

  Dearborn was happy to hear that until she realized that meant they were close to the sleeping quarters of the army trainees. Bale bounded down the hallway, bouncing off the walls, running from the shrill cries of Speekore, “Guards!”

  Doors opened as confused young men peered out. A few stepped into the hallway, but Bale had worked up enough momentum to plow them over. The hallway led to the kitchen and the kitchen led to the world beyond the castle. The new soldiers chased them, their shouts louder than the din of Bale crashing through cooking equipment and utensils.

  The horizon hinted at the first rays of the Morning Sun and for one fleeting moment, Dearborn felt free. In the span of one heartbeat, there were no soldiers, no dead slugs, no rotting minotaur carcass, no laboratory of horrors, no evil in the world. Just the hope of a new day. In the next heartbeat, Dearborn was back to reality.

  The trainees caught up with the escapees outside, a wave of living bodies crashing into one dead one. Faceless hands ripped through the minotaur corpse and tore away the visceral webbing to get to Bale and Dearborn. Bale roared and lunged at the group; Dearborn swung blindly with her knife. Too many bodies proved that quantity trumped quality. Arms and legs pinned, Dearborn looked to the horizon again. Vision blurred by tears, she saw the first sliver of sunrise. As she heard Speekore issue commands to the soldiers, it might as well have been sunset.

  sixteen

  The castle of Phenomere was a monstrous structure. It was so large and sprawling that it needed to adjust to the surrounding terrain and so the royal architects had lost all hope of symmetry. Ideria had learned from her time spent with traveling scholars at her grandparents’ table, that due to the unparalleled growth of Albathia, each new king felt the pressure to add to the castle. Prosperous people were happy people, and happy people had families, and prosperous, happy families grew. More families meant more resources expected from the king and his court. More governance, more law enforcement, more schools, more soldiers to protect it all. Every half-decade, the king needed to decree that more space was necessary for the castle. Up went more turrets and barracks while castle walls grew onto all adjacent piece of land.

  The back corner of the castle was one of the more forgotten spots. If more expansion were needed, then it would have to flow around the healthy lake that was already too close to the one wall as well as deal with the forest. Hundreds of trees from the encroaching forest would have to come down first. It was from these trees that Ideria studied the back corner of the castle in the burgeoning light of a new dawn.

  The corner turret was like none other, a round tower so large it could house everyone from a goodly sized village with ease. Walls extended from two parts of the tower to form a corner and a connection to the main structure. This turret held a barracks for newest recruits of the king’s army, a kitchen, and the dungeon.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Nevin whispered from behind Ideria.

  She had hoped waking up before everyone else would have yielded a moment’s worth of peace and quiet, an opportunity to study the structure and situation. Younger brothers always seemed to ruin plans of older sisters. “I doubt that you do.”

  “You’re thinking about how many kicks it would take to get through the tower door. You’re thinking about storming through the hallways swinging your sword wildly about and killing every soldier in your path. You’re thinking that you would kill any dragon that may be on premises. You’re thinking of tearing off the bars of mother’s cage. But worst of all your thoughts, you’re thinking that your stupid plan would actually work.”

  Younger brothers often ruined plans of older sisters. Sometimes friends could be just as bad.

  Rue ambled up to the siblings and looked over Ideria’s shoulder. “So, what are looking at?”

  “My sister is thinking of ways to kill herself,” Nevin answered.

  The ogre squinted and adjusted his spectacles. “Oh. So, she’s thinking about how many kicks it would take to get through the tower door, storming through the hallways swinging her sword wildly to kill every soldier
and dragon in her path, and then ripping off the bars of her mother’s cage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she think that nonsense will actually work?”

  “Knowing my sister, she does.”

  “Damn fool plan if you ask me.”

  Ideria huffed. “Well, I didn’t ask you, and I wasn’t thinking that. Even if I was thinking that, it’s not such a bad plan.”

  “What plan?” came from above. Joy dropped to the ground, flapping her wings once to soften her landing. “If it’s Ideria’s then it probably involves kicking down the tower door, storming through the hallways, swinging—”

  Ideria slapped both palms against her forehead and closed her eyes. “For the love of . . . I was not thinking of that.”

  “So, you were just exploring your feelings, while gazing upon the tower?” Rue asked.

  “Of course not. I was certainly trying to come up with a plan, just not the one you fools keep insisting on.”

  “No? What do you have so far as a plan?”

  Kick the tower door down.

  Use sword to kill all soldiers and any dragons.

  Rip the bars from Mother’s cage.

  Ideria rubbed her eyes with the base of her hands. “I don’t have one yet.”

  Leaves rustled as Woe shuffled his feet along the forest floor. He stopped in between his brother and sister. “Should we go help Dad?”

  Ideria removed her hands from her face to see a commotion by the tower, but not what Woe was talking about. Soldiers chased a minotaur. Few details could be seen from this distance, but it looked sickly and she was surprised that it moved so well. “It’s a minotaur, Woe, not your father.”

  “But . . . but it is Father. Inside the minotaur.”

  Everyone watched. No one took a breath. Two dozen soldiers brought down the minotaur. Barking commands from behind them was Speekore, the mad hobgoblin who practiced in dark sciences and experiments. A chill ran down Ideria’s spine from all the horror stories she had heard about him and to see him with his glass encapsulated eyes and metal jaw.