Demonworld

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Chapter Nineteen

  See the Monkeys Dance

  On the coast at the edge of the world stood ancient walls of stone with gun towers leaning at odd angles. The sun withered orange overhead and great cloud pyres burned in the moments before darkening. A gaggle of lean, exhausted horses stumbled over the southern horizon and the famished riders wondered if they would be able to guess the signs and words that would gain them admittance into a hard world that could exist just as well without them.

  As the riders drew near they could see dozens of weathered crosses standing before the gates of the city. A few bore the upper halves of mummified corpses, but most were empty.

  Wodan turned to the others, said, “What are those?”

  “Execution crosses,” said Agmar. “Long ago, Sunport was ruled by demon-kings… humans who made deals with demons in order to assure the safety of the city. At the time, noble houses feeding commoners to demons was the only way they knew how to get by. Fortunately, Sunport got rid of those guys. I’m not sure who rules now. I don’t think anybody knows for sure. It’s not like Pontius, where the lines were drawn hundreds of years ago. Here, whoever can take power gets to keep it as long as nobody else wants it. Of course, somebody else always wants it…”

  “So they don’t make sacrifices to demons,” said Wodan. “That’s great and all, but what are those bodies doing up there?”

  “Ah! Right. Sacrificing to demons is against the law in Sunport, but they still have criminals, you know? I guess they figure they might as well hang them up here and, well, if a demon should happen to come by with a powerful hunger…”

  Wodan shook his head. “So do they crucify murderers and rapists, or do they tend to target political dissidents?”

  “You’re getting it already!” said Agmar, laughing. “You sure you weren’t born in the wasteland after all?”

  Wodan eyed the heavy gate that stood before them. From the gun towers he could see small black silhouettes of men watching them. “Are they going to let us in with all these guns we’re carrying?” said Wodan.

  “Son,” said Agmar, shaking his head, “we’ll be lucky if they let us in at all. As for the particulars, it depends on who’s in charge, what kind of mood the guards are in, stuff like that.”

  When the riders drew near enough, the guards swiveled machineguns toward them, slowly, and said nothing. Wodan stopped and the others followed suit. He looked around and cleared his throat, unsure of his next move. He could see the guards above smoking, waiting.

  Agmar waved to one tower, said, “Hey, Machek! It’s me, Agmar. Agmar Epemi!”

  “Ah,” said a guard with gray bristles on his face. His voice was high-pitched and, though he did not raise it, it carried from the stone walls and bounced to the petitioners. “Ah, Agmar, good times, right! You come to trade and such?”

  “Trade, eat, rest,” said Agmar, “like that.”

  “Come up to me, right, later,” said the guard. He waved behind him, said, “Open up, it’s friends. It’s friends!”

  The door cracked in the middle and dust and sand fell in a slow torrent. They saw younger guards pushing from the other side, torchlight gleaming on their motley armor. The riders nudged their horses forward. The guards did not take any notice of their guns, nor even any notice of them at all as they returned to their card games.

  The city was wild with human life. Lights burned in multi-colored paper lanterns hanging between rainbow-bricked apartments and temples, and sweat-drenched revelers danced in green and orange and blue. Fat merchants in bright robes, covered in gold and silver on their throats, ears, fingers, haggled with stern customers; exotic fruit, wineskins, and coins were gripped in white-knuckled hands, and while it was customary for financial matters to end with hugs, the people often looked furious as they awkwardly embraced. Beggars with crooked legs and open hands crowded around the riders almost immediately; Brad shouted “Git!” and “G’on!” and kicked at the hungry throng, most of whom looked better off than the riders. Men in black robes, with beards cut into long strips that they tied over their heads and across their eyes, carried thick sleeves full of scrolls, and they argued the finer points of theology with one another as they pulled a group of small children and cats on leashes. Slender prostitutes in garnished dresses called out to them, their Adam’s apples bobbing rhythmically with their deep voices. Farmers shouted in guttural, outland dialects as they rode heavy horses that pulled carts piled high with greens; tanned, thick-browed children rode atop the food and stared open-mouthed at the ceaseless chaos.

  An overpowering aroma of roasting meat and spices slapped them in the face. A burly, shirtless man waved to them from a balcony where rows of skinned, browned squirrels hung splayed out on a line dangling above a smoking oven. The man smiled warmly and scratched off a thick patch of his dead skin with a spatula. Agmar drooled uncontrollably, then realized what was happening and spent the next few minutes wiping his beard on his robe.

  Penitents lined the avenues between temples and whipped at one another with rubbery sticks attached to whips, and monks with fat jowls and purple robes cried, “Give up the wealth that ties you to this world! Cut off the lust that produces endless generations of suffering! Give, and give up! Serve, and sever desire! Death to the world!” The armed guards of the city, in uniform gray cloth and thick leather, ignored the riders as they rolled dice and called out to the women in the streets. Mercenaries guarding merchants or leaning over the balconies of crowded palaces glared at the riders as they passed by, just waiting for trouble.

  Revelers and Bacchan cultists danced among their horses bearing peacock feathers or ribbons that glittered in the lamplight. Their clothes disappeared as they whirled in time to the drummers and stick-beaters prowling the sidewalks. One spry dancer with breasts like melons whirled next to Brad, who reached down with his tongue hanging out. When she danced away, he cried, “I felt a nipple! I think I definitely felt a nipple!”

  “What a sight!” said Wodan. “This place is amazing!”

  “Every few months,” said Agmar, “trade ships will come in from Xi’Pang and Kurgheim in the east or Tulla in the west. That’s one of the benefits of living on the coast: The sea is free of demons as far as I know.”

  “How did you know the guard that let us in?”

  “I told you, I’ve been all over! Listen, you let me take care of things now that we’re here. I’ll go see some old friends. See if I can get us some supplies for the trip to Haven.”

  “So you mean to come all the way with us, then?”

  “I do,” said Agmar, frowning, “but we’re going to plan this out and do it right. We’re going to figure things out this time, not go off half-cocked. Understand?”

  “Fine by me!” Wodan said, laughing.

  Agmar turned to see where they should go, then saw that Brad had ridden away from the group. A street dealer waved at the sealed jars of beer and wine on his stand. Brad leaned out of his saddle and shouted, “How many! How many for this horse!”

  “Brad!” shouted Agmar. “Get away from there! Stupid child!”

  Other primitives began to wander, some to beer and food vendors, some to chesty prostitutes.

  “Oh, come on,” said Agmar. “You primitives!”

  “We have to stick together,” said Wodan. “Agmar, do you know of a place where we can get food and rest, all together?”

  “Sure,” said Agmar, shaking his head irritably. “Guess I’ll have to stick around you kids for a while.”

  Wodan and Rachek helped gather the others with promises of food and drink, then Agmar led them through side streets to a large building that had grown in uneven patchwork stages of development. Many warm lamps hung over a crowd of dancers and smokers outside the establishment. A bright blue sign over the doorway read:

  ANIMAL’S PART PUB AND MEAL

  WARMING YOU SINCE LONG AGO

  SLEEPERS WELCOME

  NO NO NO VIOLENCE INSIDE!

  A fat man with a wild mane of
black hair stomped through the doorway. A young man surrounded by a group of friends called out to the man, “Hey, Ferge! Good times, always, yeah!”

  “Oh, git off,” said the fat man. “I’ll be glad when you’re all dead.”

  The fat man suddenly turned to the riders. His black eyes cut into them.

  “Ferge,” said Agmar. “Hey, now.”

  The man smiled by lifting his upper lip into a sneer. “Right, Agmar,” he said, after an awkward moment. “Been a long one, and I still haven’t been sent an invite to your funeral.”

  Agmar climbed down from his horse and the two men hugged.

  Agmar drew away and, still clasping Ferge, said, “How you been?”

  “Every day sucks worse than the last,” said Ferge, still smiling, “though it has been nice having you away. Going to be around for long? Need rooms?”

  “We do,” said Agmar. “It’ll be nice to catch up. Er, you take a few horses for trade, right?”

  “Take horses,” said Ferge, “but not donkeyed-out mules what’ve been buried a year and dug up again. These’re all bones and sick.” He let disappointment sink in for a moment, then said, “But for you, Ag, I’ll take a loss. Food, drink, smoke, bed, and we’ll figure out the difference later.”

  “Good man!” said Agmar, clapping Ferge about his shoulders.

  Many of the primitives dismounted, then looked about wild-eyed. Many of them were still covered in cracked tribal paint. None of them wore anything but handmade leather clothes and a few stolen shoes and other bullet-ridden articles. In a city filled with people wearing festive, motley attire, they were the only ones who truly stood out.

  “God’s bones,” said Ferge, “what a lot of mob! Agmar, now, you know, I don’t want any trouble in my place.”

  Agmar looked back at the primitives, said, “Of course, no trouble, Ferge.”

  “Hear?”

  “Of course!”

  “Right,” said Ferge. “That’s a plan.” He waved for them to follow him into the pub.

  ***

  The bar was dark and lit with dense blue lamps. Tables on one side, a dance floor on the other, and the slow, grinding chaos of limbs everywhere. Pigs and ears of corn were roasted right beside the dance floor where armed mercenaries put aside their differences to hunt young women with jerky but strangely effective dance moves. A band of tattooed women played instruments Wodan had never seen; heavy wooden pipes beaten like drums, stringed instruments attached to batteries and sound amplifiers, and flutes some six or seven feet in length that ground up the air with long, low notes. The singer was enormously overweight and growled in a dead language.

  Ferge showed them to a long table against the wall and the primitives spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to stack their rifles against the wall before realizing that there were pegs and shelves designed for just such a purpose. As soon as they finished, many slaves, all branded and bow-tied, arrived with plates piled high. The centerpiece was a rich-smelling roasted pig with a glazed head and milky eyeballs, the innards replaced with spiced sugar-corn, raw cinnamon-powdered apples, and thick noodles laced with green herbs and stuffed with dripping yellow and red cheeses. Jugs and bottles were slammed onto the table, and they were filled with grapes floating on amber mead, frothy cold drinks, coffee thick with gritty cocoa sludge, and chilled water served with chunks of red melon and crushed lemons.

  For a long time they stuffed themselves, wordless, a month of enforced starvation reaching its climax in a frenzied, robotic ritual, utensils sitting untouched. Finally they looked at one another, someone pointed at Agmar’s beard dripping with sauce like a mop used to clean up a murder and everyone laughed, giddy and overcome with joy. A hard-assed mercenary who required shaded glasses even inside the dark bar sauntered by and Brad immediately leaped from his seat and walked directly behind the man, caricaturing his walk with simian mannerisms while tugging at his crotch, and the youths pounded the table with glee. Rachek smeared red sauce on her cheeks and held her hair up in imitation of one of the bar’s prostitutes, calling to Agmar and offering to let him sniff her behind for a handful of money. Tears rolled down their faces as they laughed at the strange world they found themselves in.

  We’re alive! Wodan thought, his face aching from laughter. We’re really going to make it!

  While the others talked and laughed, Wodan looked at the people mixing in the bar. How shocked the people of Haven would be to see this! Even in Hell the people laughed and danced. If he hadn’t made it through the valley or escaped from his enslavement, he would have died thinking there was no hope for his species, no joy to be found in the outside world. He still knew that joy was fleeting and hope required a bedside nurse and constant supervision, but Haven’s idea that the outside world should be written off was wrong. Humanity still lived, but it was in desperate need of help. On the far wall he saw a large man armed with guns that had seen much use sobbing bitterly as he leaned against a dartboard, and he was patted on the back by men who looked like beasts. He saw a young girl standing outside the dance floor, staring at the dancers with bleak eyes, her jaw set hard and clashing against her wild makeup and revealing apparel; Wodan knew immediately that her family had dolled her up in a desperate attempt to find someone with money, someone who would take care of them. The girl sighed, forced herself to smile, then approached the dance floor.

  They need a world that’s made for them, thought Wodan. They don’t deserve to live on the fringes of a world made for and by monsters!

  Just then Rachek leaned over the table and stared at Brad and Wodan. “Aren’t either one of you boys going to ask me for a dance?”

  “Oh! Uh!” said Wodan. “I don’t, uh, know anything about… d-dancing!”

  Brad stared down at his hands, head shaking, mumbling, “I’ve been… you know, tired from… fighting raiders… you know…”

  “Just boys!” she shot back, full of venom. “Nothing but boys!” She turned and stalked off, and the two boys stared at her butt as she walked away.

  “So embarrassing for you,” said Brad, shaking his head. “You were so scared of her, man.”

  Agmar tapped Wodan, said, “There’s someone I want you to meet.” Grateful to be taken out of the situation, Wodan joined him.

  They made their way across the bar. Agmar looked back, saw Wodan doing some kind of strange jig as he walked, and flashed him an annoyed look. They arrived at a table where three men sat staring at a pitcher. One man was tall, with long, greasy brown silk-hair that hung down his cloak. The other two wore red, neat uniforms under roughly patched cloaks. Even among the mix of people he’d seen in Sunport, he could tell the two were foreigners by their straight black hair and slitted eyes. One of the two had pomaded hair that was divided down the middle, and he ignored all around him. The other was smaller, lean, sitting like a coiled spring and staring intently at Wodan. He had the look of a fighter, or a soldier that had grown wild away from civilization.

  The long-haired man saw them approach and waved. “Agmar!” he said. “That really you? Come and sit! How’s your family?”

  Agmar glanced nervously at Wodan, then said, “They’re fine, they’re fine, good to see you too – hey listen, I wanted you to meet this young man. His name’s Wodan. Wodan, this is my old friend, Jarl. He’s… something of an artist, you might say.”

  Jarl shook his hand, then said, “I’m on a mission these days, if you can believe it. But I never expected to see you here! Didn’t you retire from-”

  “I’ve been living with the tribals south of here. City life didn’t suit me. Listen, right now me and my friends are trying to find a ship that can get us out of here. You’re welcome to come, of course…”

  “Ship?” said the smaller foreigner. “You go to east? Why you have the business east? You speak now!”

  “We’re not going east.” Agmar stared at the foreigner, then said, “Jarl, who are these jokers?”

  “They’re my travelling companions,” said Jarl. “Do
n’t mind them, they’re quite civil. They’re scouts for the Empire of San Ktari. They’ve been checking out our walls, our fighters, our weapons – and our bars – for the past few weeks so they can make a report on whether or not Sunport is worth invading.”

  “Not spy,” said the fighter, his voice high-pitched. “We diplomacy!”

  Jarl and Agmar laughed. “Jarl, why would you trust two rats from a society that exists solely to feed a military infrastructure? And what about demons, what are you going to do about them?”

  “That reminds me,” said Jarl. “I wanted to ask you a question about the flesh demons.”

  Wodan leaned forward.

  “I’ve been doing some studying,” said Jarl. “The old men... I’ve been listening to their stories. They lived back when there was much less communication between city-states. What strikes me is that the world seemed a lot more dangerous back in their day.”

  “Old men are like that,” said Agmar. “They run from one demon when they were young, then the tale changes through the years until they were fighting a pack of a hundred.”

  “Maybe,” said Jarl, “but think about your own experience. You’ve told me about how you hid from them when you were young, all the things you did to avoid them in the wasteland.”

  “Yeah...”

  “How come they never caught up with you? How could you keep gambling your life without running into serious trouble?”

  “As I got older, I, you know, I tended to travel with groups, I guess.”

  “Oh? And are those groups seeing constant harassment?”

  “We only met one demon on the way here,” said Wodan.

  “You yourself told me,” said Jarl, “that traveling with groups isn’t that smart. They’re loud, they stink - they draw the demon out, and they get killed if they’re not armed to the teeth and more than a day’s ride from any city. You see? I think that something’s changed in the wasteland, something that we don’t quite understand. Agmar, I think that the presence of the demon is waning.”

  They sat in silence as they considered this, then Wodan said, “That thought has been in the back of my mind these past few days. Where I’m from, we stay hidden. Most of us have never seen a demon. We have stories, we have some recorded history, but the history I’ve heard makes it seem like the demon is everywhere in the wasteland. Now that I’ve been out in the world, I’m left with the feeling that history’s version of the demon’s presence is a little different from my own experience.”