“They were monkeys,” said Iduna.
Marlon exhaled loudly, said, “We were on them before either of us knew it, and they all ran away, except for one. He was creepy. He just stared at us. Very robotic. When we moved on, he followed. Saul liked him, and I told him not to touch the damn thing, but… I’m pretty sure he did.”
“What did it do?” said Wodi.
“Didn’t do anything. It followed us, and I let it. Figured we’d eat it later.”
“Well, what happened to Saul, then?”
“We took a nap. When we got up, he was gone.”
“Nobody saw anything?”
“No, but I could feel something around us. We didn’t have to wait long to find out what got Saul. We started to spread out, to look for him, and pretty soon I hear Peter screaming like a bitch.”
“I was not,” said Peter.
“I go toward him,” said Marlon, “and I see him running as fast as he can, like really hauling ass.”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Peter.
“So he runs right by me. And now the monkey starts looking around, like fast, like this is something he didn’t expect. Then I see what was chasing Peter. It was...”
“A flesh demon?” said Wodi.
“Well... I thought it was. It might be. I dunno. It was... it was like a huge lizard, but shaped like a man.”
“That’s the one!” said Wodi. “That’s the thing I saw! Did it have black scales?”
Marlon nodded slowly.
“That’s the very creature that got into a fight with that white flesh demon, the one that nearly killed all of us on that first night. If it wasn’t for that reptile creature, I’d be dead. Or worse.”
Marlon smiled, then said, “I gotta admit, I… I thought you were lying about most of that stuff.”
“I don’t blame you. So what happened?”
“Anyway, so Peter is running and flailing and I see this humanoid lizard-monster barreling through the woods right behind him. It stopped when it saw me. It was awful. It was covered in scars, man. Its eyes were pure rage. I could tell it was ready to pounce on me. Of course, Peter was long gone by this point –”
“I was going for help!” said Peter.
“So then,” Marlon chuckled, “I grabbed the monkey by the back of the head and chucked it at him. It ate him right up.”
“The monkey ate the lizard thing? No way! So it did save you!”
“No, numbnuts, the giant lizard ate the monkey! I saved us with my quick-thinking and reflexes.” Marlon shot a look at Iduna. “The lizard ate the monkey, gave me a hard-assed look, and slithered away.”
“Why didn’t he attack you, I wonder?”
“That’s why I don’t think it was a flesh demon,” said Marlon, furrowing his brow. “A demon will fight and fight until its dead. They don’t care about their lives any more than ours. But this thing, once it filled its belly, it was ready to go home. Plus, you already said this lizard fought with that demon that chased you. Demons don’t fight their own kind.”
“You think it got Saul, though?”
“Well, I guess, maybe. It’s the prime candidate. Maybe that thing’s in league with the demons, or it’s some kind of cousin, or somethin’. Who knows? We need a place to sleep, I know that, but I want to put a lot of distance between us and that thing.” They walked in silence for a while, but Marlon’s breathing heated, and suddenly he said, “But that monkey. For some reason, I never trusted that goddamn monkey.”
***
A light flickered in the wood. Marlon tapped Wodi on the shoulder, tilted his head, and Wodi crept forward. He returned a few minutes later.
“S’up?” said Marlon.
“Some old man,” said Wodi. “And a hut.”
“Think he might be a demon?” said Marlon. “Some of them can look kind of human, you know.”
Wodi shrugged.
Peter sighed loudly, said, “At this point, I don’t care. We have to rest.”
“Okay,” said Marlon. “But if he makes a move – we beat the ever-loving shit out of him. Got it?”
“Sure, sure,” said Peter.
They walked and came to a clearing. An old man knelt before a fire. He had a long, ragged beard, and dogskin clothes hung from his bony frame. He scratched at his bald scalp, over and over, and left furrows of scabs behind his grime-encrusted nails. He was not alarmed at their approach. They could see the light of several squat, misshapen candles burning through the doorway of his slanting hut.
The five stood over him. “Hail, human,” said Wodi.
The hermit cleared his throat, thought about it, then cleared it again. “You’re demons?” he said. His voice was cracked and weathered.
“We’re not,” said Wodi.
The hermit looked away, then said, “I can see it. You mean to kill me and take my things.”
“That’s not so,” said Wodi. “We’re lost and we’re hungry.”
The hermit tugged at his ear for a long time, then said, “Stay here tonight, then, and move on in the morning.” He coughed lightly, then followed it with a whimper. The hermit rotated a heavy bowl of boiling water that sat directly in the flames.
He rose and the five followed him inside. The hut was filthy, a dumpster where all manner of refuse filled the floor, crawled up the walls, and was stacked to the ceiling. Candles on the floor burned close to piles of rags, bedding that was more grease and grime than cloth. Spike-haired mice ignored the man when he entered and chewed on the crushed roaches that lined the floor. A mutilated pig was splayed out on a table near the door. The pig had been drained of blood by a series of wild gashes that laid open its neck and belly, and its skin glowed in the candlelight like wrinkled, white marble. The five entered and stood uncomfortably, each finding a place to sit or lean or stand in his own fashion.
In awful silence the old man loosed pieces of meat from the pig with a series of squat knives, face screwing up with agitation as he never seemed to find the right blade or the right cut of meat. He went back and forth between the pig and the water boiling outside. Marlon scowled and studied him from the doorway, ready to grab the man by his ankles and wishbone him to death if necessary. Marlon leaned against the doorway and the entire hut groaned and tilted; only the great stacks of dusty garbage saved them from a complete collapse. Peter studied the old man’s collection, then gasped in alarm – one shelf was lined with betel-nut and silver clove, among other herbs. Back in Haven, he had helped pass laws to crack down on those very same illicit substances. He did not doubt that the old hermit was an addict. He positioned himself in a way that Marlon and Wodi would not see the drugs, reasoning that the young men could be destroyed if they got their hands on the stuff.
After a time, the old man left with a small bowl, filled it from the larger, returned, and picked from it with his fingers. Marlon stared at the soup, sighed angrily, and left. He came back with the steaming cauldron and heaved it noisily onto the ground.
“You forget about us?” he asked.
The old man stuck his face into his bowl and did not answer.
Wodi found a collection of spoons, handed them out, and the five gathered around the cauldron. The soup was little more than oily meat and a few herbs, but they slurped it up and scraped the cauldron clean within minutes. Marlon grunted painfully with each bite.
The silence was broken. The five sat back to rest. Iduna watched Wodi shift restlessly, wrestling with something, then he said, “Peter, I think you know something about why we’re here.”
“I do not,” said Peter. “Son, I’m in the same predicament you are.”
“Those graves on the hill were for Guardians from your generation, weren’t they? Saul was pretty sure that Guardians brought us here. Guardians, or perhaps people with resources posing as Guardians.”
“I don’t know anything about it, I tell you!”
“But you’re a politician!” said Wodi. “If anybody might know something about people with access to wealth and power, a
nd who might harbor a grudge, it would be you.” Peter said nothing, so Wodi added, “I saved your life. You owe me something.”
“Yes, I owe you,” said Peter, “and it’s a good thing you did save my life, son, and I’ll tell you why. When we get back to Haven, I’ll repay my debt to you by using my position to find the criminals responsible for this outrage. That’s a promise. Where are you from, son?”
Wodi hesitated, eyes cast downward. “The North,” he said.
“Ah, laborers – good people there. It’s not my district, but I’d bargain your parents voted for a Stone Warren man just like myself. I’ve got a lot of allies, son. When I get back, believe you me, I’ll have every Stone Warren senator beating the drum about this business. That, you can count on!”
“Couldn’t any of us do the same?” said Wodi. “The media would be all over a story like this… as long as at least one of us survived and made it back home.”
Peter’s head wobbled. “We-e-e-ell now, that’s true, and it’s not true, if you understand. Sure, we’re all equal in the eyes of the law, that’s a fact and no doubt about it. But with a senator on the job, now, that’s another matter – a lot of doors that wouldn’t budge before just might come flying open. When we stand before a Judge in court, sure, we’re equal alright, but the real trick is in getting someone before a Judge in court. It’s plain to me that there’s a cabal in Haven who thinks they’re above the law. If they’ve done this to us, then they’re no friend of the Stone Warren, or the University, or to hard-working laborers, or to your entire generation for that matter. This is a tricky affair, son. It’s not like fighting ghouls, and you’ll find that out sure enough. I appreciate your help in that matter earlier today, but when it comes to hunting down this insane cabal of criminals, I think you’ll find me to be a most helpful ally.”
Before Wodi could reply, the old hermit cackled uncontrollably. “What a fine sort you all are!” he spat, wiping tears from his eyes. “You come in here judging me, looking down on me, laughing at me when you think I don’t see it just because I don’t have the fine things you all did wherever you come from! But where you come from, it sounds like they won’t hesitate to stab you in the back!”
“We haven’t been laughing at you!” Wodi shot back. “We’re grateful for the food and the roof, alright?” The hermit looked away and Wodi studied him. “Where did you come from, old man?”
The hermit sighed, then muttered, “Same hole every man crawls out of…”
Fear crept into Wodi, but he could not place the man’s accent. He looked to Iduna who shook her head quickly. She tapped her ear and mouthed the words, “Not Haven.” Wodi sighed in relief, because he’d begun to suspect that the old man was an exile like themselves – a victim of some secret program that dumped unwanted citizens into this green hell.
Wodi turned back to the old man and said, “We’ve been hounded by devils and ghouls ever since we arrived. We’ve already lost two of our friends. Is there something special about this place where you live? Why haven’t the demons killed you?”
The hermit’s scratched his ear and would not look at him.
“Well?” Wodi continued. “Are you some great warrior? Is that it?”
Finally the old man said, “They never bothered me. You can’t come in here with guns and push the demon around. The people wanted the wood, they wanted the metal, they wanted the land… I knew better, though. I told them we were fools. But I needed the money. I needed the money. I saw awful things, just awful things… but the devils never bothered me.” He shook his head and forced it deeper into his empty bowl.
“What people?” said Marlon. “Who wanted the land?” He glanced at Wodi. Haven had plenty of wood and iron ore and land.
“The ferry,” said Wodi. “Did you come here with the people who built the ferry? What happened to them?”
The old man waved his hand around impatiently, as if the valley itself were explanation enough.
“The mines, then. Did they dig the mines, too? Tell me, old man, is it true that we can use the mines to walk right through the mountains in the north?”
“Oh, sure!” said the hermit, laughing without humor. “You can do that and just walk right out… as easy as that. Just walk right out of here, you know? Anyone could do it. Anyone could just… just walk right out of here…” The old man curled his fingers into tiny fists. “And go where!” he said suddenly. “Where would you go? Sounds to me like your people don’t even want you. They wanted you gone, erased, out of sight, out of memory…”
“That’s not true,” said Wodi. “Haven’s a place of peace and… and… justice. If we can just get there, we’ll get help and find the people who did this to us. We’re not barbarians. There’s no masters and no slaves in Haven. Everyone is equal – do you even understand that? We have a rule of law, we aren’t ruled by the whims of kings or demon-kings! Do you –”
The old man laughed long and loud, a dry cackle that stabbed the ears. He ground up a chunk of phlegm in his throat, then said, “Total bullshit! Beautiful, boy! Beautiful frothy wads of pig-shit!”
“No it’s not! Someone there has done something evil to us, that’s true, but you believe me, old man – if there’s one place, one haven in the entire world where a man has a chance of living more than a slave’s life, then that place is our homeland.”
“Maybe! Oh, maybe! But!” The old hermit forced out one more laugh, then said, “Even if it is as perfect as you say, it will only exist until the demon finds it. Yes? No? Thank the devil’s mercy, boy! Be grateful you live in his blind spot! But the eye’s always turning, yes, isn’t it? His eye is always turning. And one day…”
Wodi glared at the old man, then said, “If it’s possible to make a weapon that will turn the tide in the war against the demon, it will come from Haven.”
The old man was taken aback. “War? Against the demon? Oh boy, boy, this isn’t a war. Not by a long shot. If it ever was a war, then it ended long ago. We’re the scum on the surface of the pond, my boy. The baking sun is up above and the freezing depths are down below. We are but pond scum. I know – I’ve seen it.” Before Wodi could continue, the old man said, “It doesn’t matter anyway. None of that matters. In the end, you just… die. Nothing is worth doing, when you think about it. It all ends in failure and death.”
A violent stillness stopped Wodi. He opened his mouth, but could say nothing. The old man lowered his head once more and a drop of soup traveled partway down his beard, then stopped. A palpable sense of entropy gelled in the air, thick and unmoving. Wodi knew that this sad collection of filth was the true heart of the valley. He looked at the old man as if he were an alien device, confusing and beyond comprehension.
***
The uneven orb of the moon shone overhead. Wodi and Marlon sat outside and watched the fire die slowly.
“What do you think about that guy?” said Marlon.
Wodi rubbed a hand against his chin.
“You don’t think he’s a demon, do you?”
“No, no,” said Wodi. “I think he’s just a pathetic old man.”
Marlon thought for a second, said, “Seems like it, but... why haven’t the demons killed him? Sounds like he came here with some people a long time ago. I know he didn’t come with the Guardians buried on the hill. He’d never make it through the training, not with his attitude. Plus his accent is all wrong for any Havender. I guess the people he came with are all dead now. But why not him? He’s going senile and he’s got one foot in the grave already. How is he… well, how is he doing better than we are?”
“His mind is like an open sore,” said Wodi, glancing back at the hut. “I think his brain short-circuited from an overload of suffering. Look at him; he has no direction, no emotion but self-pity, regret, and annoyance. He’s got only a shell of a normal human’s rational faculty, just enough to continue going through the motions of a survival.”
“Yeah, but shouldn’t all those things count against his survival?”
&nb
sp; Wodi relaxed and let the pieces fall into place. “You know what I’m thinking? We’ve already seen one demon torture one person when it had the chance to kill and eat four. I’m starting to think that the monsters of this place aren’t interested in killing and survival as much as they’re interested in… pain. This place is a mirror image of Haven. Here, if you’re strong, it attracts attention and it gets you killed. If you’re smart, or a good leader, it arouses envy and invites punishment. But that… that man in there is insane. He lives in a foggy world of self-hatred with no purpose, no goal. The powers that control this evil world probably consider him to be a human fully fit to inhabit their vision of a perfect world.”
“That’s sick,” said Marlon. “How could you even think of something like that?”
Wodi continued as he stared into the fire. “I don’t think they really want to exterminate us. Not entirely. I think they define their strength by our weakness, and they pick us apart by stripping away the best of us – the fighters and the pioneers who branch out. In the end, they want a caged animal, something in the shape of what we once were. A thing they can torture without end.”
“How can a world like that sustain itself?” said Marlon, disgusted.
“It can’t.”
“Then why hasn’t it ended yet? If the good guys are strong and the bad guys are weak, then, well, why haven’t the good guys won yet?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” said Wodi, looking at Marlon and smiling once again. “Maybe it’s just… a question of numbers? I don’t know.”
“Well, buddy, I think we’ll reach those mines tomorrow. After that we’ll hit the wasteland, and you’ll have plenty of time to figure all that crap out!”
Marlon clapped a hand on Wodi’s shoulder and they returned to the hut.
***
While Wodi and Marlon were at the fire, Jules and the old man laid around and scowled at one another and Iduna and Peter searched the hut. They found no change of clothes and no supply of dry edibles. They found bones, feathers, strange sporous growths, a rat skull with leaves jammed into it. Iduna found a black-bound book that detailed the edicts of some wasteland religion with broken sentences and gruesome pictures.
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