I follow the hip-switching pixie woman into the center of the room and then stand before the Prince, perhaps ten feet away from him. It would only take me two leaps to cross that short distance and ascend those stairs before I could grab the Prince. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
“Who have you brought to me, Twiggy?” the Prince asks the pixie.
“A stranger,” she replies with her sultry voice, “he didn’t give his name.”
“Cris,” I offer. “No ‘h,’ to avoid confusion.”
The shadowy head of the Prince nods. “Come closer. Let me look at you.”
I halve the distance between us. He rises, blocking out the light. I can tell from his shadow that he’s wearing a cape. He descends two of the three stairs. The old man from the inn was right; his eyes are darkened. He’s halfway between man and wight. He’s shaking too, perhaps from withdrawal.
“You’re fresh,” the Prince says. “Very fresh. Are you from the outskirts?”
I shake my head. “No. No one in the outskirts is fresh. Most are worse off than your guards.”
“From the middle chambers then?”
“Those are a blackened nightmare. There is barely any light there at all. The aqueducts run dry. Children roam the streets in gangs and try to stone travelers.”
The Prince shifts from one foot to the other as I speak. He must be hurting, bad, but I don’t know if it’s from guilt or because he needs a fix.
“Soon I’ll be as fresh as you,” the Prince says. “I’ve stopped taking the drug.”
Twiggy snorts.
The Prince glares at her. “I have. The Devil came the other day and said he wouldn’t give me any more wightdust if I continue to light the fires that purify our water. I have kept lighting those fires.”
The man before me looks like a strong man, but he doesn’t look like he has the will to fight this addiction. “I find that admirable,” I tell him. “One being should not control another.”
The light streaming in through the windows flickers.
“Why have you come, Cris?” he asks.
I shrug. “Where there’s rot, there’s rats,” I lie. I don’t feel comfortable telling everything to the Prince yet. Maybe if he wins his war against the dust. “I guess then, the reason I’ve come is you. I know it’s somewhat rude to answer a question with a question, but I hope it makes sense in this case. Why did you let this city go dark?”
Twiggy is moving toward the arches. “It’s all worth it,” she says. “What we get in return for the light is worth it a thousand times. We—”
“Quiet, Twiggy,” the Prince orders. “Strangers aren’t to know about the deal.”
Twiggy is so thin that her silhouette’s arms and legs are almost invisible. Her head is thrown back, and she appears to be looking at the city. “Everyone knows, my lord.”
By saying this she confirmed what I knew already, as the old man had told me what the Devil had promised the Prince.
“Why have you let Maylay Beighlay’s people rot?”
“The wightdust isn’t the problem,” Twiggy says. “It’s the corpsedust. Wightdust is just fine. All it does is turn your eyes black.”
Boy did she have another thing coming.
She turns around to look at us. “We started taking it for enjoyment. The Devil had a lot to go around, in the beginning. It would have been wrong not to let the common people have something similar. Corpsedust won’t kill you unless you’re a fool. It just keeps you high. So what if the cost of that is a few blemishes? Is that such a high price to pay to be happy in Hell?”
I shrug. “It is to me.”
“We are lonely here in the palace,” the Prince admits. “That much is true. And if what you say is also true, then surely the outer portions of this city have been lost. But there are still people who are untouched by the rot. There are hundreds of workers in the Core, and not a one of them has had even a pinch of corpsedust. It may look bad to you, but you’d make the same decision in my shoes. You have no idea how much we are about to gain.”
If he were sure of himself, he wouldn’t need to tell me about it. Somewhere, maybe deep inside his drug addled soul, the Prince knows he’s been had. That he’s let it go too far, and that there is no turning back.
The light dims a little and flickers some more. It actually seems like the tint of the windows is changing too.
“A rat needs work, Prince,” I say. “Tell me—”
The light dims even further, and comes back. This is different than the flickering. I am suddenly horrified by the idea that the light might go out altogether. Then I’d have to find my son and pick our way out of the city in the dark. It would be almost impossible to make it back to the inn to get my pack.
“What’s that?” I ask.
Twiggy’s face has a sublime smile on it, as if she’s high. “They’ve begun.”
She walks around behind the throne to stand by the arched windows. The Prince turns away from me and ascends the stairs to join her. I follow.
The view of the rancid city is astounding. I can see down across the buildings of the Heart. Smoke rises from near the base of the Core. That’s what is blocking out the light. It pours up along the walls in thick sheets. They must be burning tons of something. I see workers moving along the ground, hunched beneath the smoke, moving in lines like ants.
“They’re smelting the lightrock,” she informs me. “We can make a substance out of it which blocks the senses of searching Minotaurs. Not even an Archdevil can sense a human through it. That’s why most isolation attempts fail. People try to wall themselves in. Sure, it fools the hellhounds and the dyitzu, but the Minotaurs know you’re there, and they’ll dig you out, eventually.”
“Hush, Twiggy, you’ve said enough. I have no work for a rat,” the Prince says. “Go to the Core. Maybe the Devil can use you.”
The smoke and fire changes the nature of the light entirely, turning the Prince’s chamber red. Twiggy takes a pinch of a substance out from under her serape and snorts it like snuff. She takes another pinch and offers it to the Prince.
Angrily, he puts up a hand to deny her.
She turns to me. “You want to do a couple of lines with me?”
I shake my head. “I’ll take my leave then.”
Neither speak. They just stare out of the window. Stare at the mess they’d made of things.
I head for the door. The thin man is waiting for me there.
I know I’m in trouble the second I see the big man’s smiling face. He’s got a single tear of blood rolling down his cheek coming from the eye I’d punched earlier. “Well, well, little rat, good to see you again.”
He’s not alone. Standing outside the palace with him are three men; two I don’t recognize, and one that I do—only I don’t know where I’ve seen him before. It was very recently, though.
I’m uncomfortably aware that the thin man has my gun. “Mind if I have my piece back?” I ask him. He doesn’t respond. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” I address the newcomers.
The two new guys seem unnaturally pale, and there is no trace of dead skin on their faces—but their eyes, their eyes are dim. Blackened, and much more so than the Prince’s. They must be very close to crossing over into being wights. Undoubtedly these are the Devil’s men. The palace guards seem rather chummy with them. And of course they would be, it’s the Devil who provides their corpsedust.
The man I recognize hooks one of his thumbs into his belt right next to a bowie knife. With his free hand, he points at me. “You’re in luck, Hagar,” he says to the big man, “that’s the one I saw this morning. He’s an Infidel Friend.”
Now I recognize him. I had seen him back at the well. He was staring at me when I was talking to Q. Hell, I should have paid more attention to him. I put both of my hands behind my back and sneak my right one up my shirt to get at my .22.
One of the Devil men draws a pistol and points it at me. “Hands where I can see them. Devil is going to want to know why he’s h
ere,” he says to his friend as I raise my hands. “If the Infidel Friend are planning a strike, we’ve gotta know.” He walks up to me and gives me a pat down. It’s not the most thorough searching I’ve ever received, but it’s good enough. He removes my gun and my ammo before looking me dead in the eye. “Best you not resist, got me? I’m sure the Devil would love to interview you, but he won’t be too mad at me if he interviews a corpse.”
Hagar chuckles low in his belly. He wipes the bloody tear off of his cheek as he walks toward me. “Hey, hey man. Hey in-fi-del man. You got sumn’ in your eye, motherfucker?”
He balls up his hammy fist and cocks it back. Then he slings it at me. I hunch up my shoulders and duck quickly so that his fist impacts with the top of my head. The knuckles of his rotten hand crunch loudly.
It jars me a little, but I shake off the blow.
Hagar is kneeling on the ground, holding his fist. Too much corpsedust in him. The blow probably broke his hand.
The thin man lets out a high pitched laugh. The tone makes it sound like he isn’t laughing so much at his friend’s misery as at the tension of the situation.
The man with the pistol seems oblivious to Hagar’s pain. “Come along,” he says loud enough to be heard over the thin man’s laughter. “It’s not every day you get to meet the King of Hell.”
Hagar manages to stand up, though he’s still cradling his hurt hand. “I’m coming with,” he says through clenched teeth.
And Myla says I don’t make friends easy.
The three of them, the two Devil men and Hagar, escort me down the main thoroughfare of Maylay Beighlay toward the wall of fire and smoke that surrounds the tremendous quarter mile wide pillar they call the Core. One of the Devil men stays a few paces behind us, his gun drawn and leveled at me. Hagar is everywhere, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, but he’s always looking at me. He’s like a vulture.
The Core is where the light comes from, that’s clear to me now. The veins of lightrock which spread out through Maylay Beighlay’s cavern ceilings and walls originate from that point. Some of the veins have already gone dark completely, but others are still alive and well. Moments of darkness flow up from the heart and then shoot through the lightrock veins like bubbles through an IV cord.
“I’m going to fuck you up,” Hagar informs me.
I’ve got to get the hell away from these people. The streets around me are empty. I look through some of the windows, but I don’t see anyone.
There are people ahead of me though, the workers. They are divided into two groups. One is set up in a series of lines. They are carrying large baskets full of lightrock gravel to the one hundred yard long smelting ovens which are built up at the base of the Core. They move alongside the ovens, throwing the gravel into whichever smelter is open.
The second group of workers have carts full of woodstone. They shovel it into the open slots below the ovens. There has to be at least a thousand people working there. The Prince thinks this is all to create a substance that no devil can sense humans through. I’ve got a different theory. I think Q was right. I think lightrock is the one thing that can hurt this Archdevil, and I think he’s destroying it to make himself invincible.
The smoke that rises cools near the ceiling and begins to settle. It’s thick enough to make me cough. Hagar coughs too, but these half-wight Devil men don’t seem to be affected. Maybe wights don’t need to breathe, or maybe these guys were smokers in life. Hell if I know.
“You’re in luck,” the Devil man behind me says. “Not only are you going to speak with the King of Hell, you’re going to get to watch his armor ceremony. You’re a damn lucky man.”
“Damn lucky,” Hagar repeats.
His eye is running again.
The workers seem almost mindless. They keep their eyes on their tasks and do their best not to look at us. The few that do by accident cringe and look away quickly. I’d pity them, except that right now I’ve got it even worse.
There are mine entrances which tunnel into the Core. I don’t know if they were there before the Devil came, or if he alone was responsible for their creation. I guess it doesn’t much matter. The workers with baskets of lightrock are streaming in and out of the corridor we’re walking toward. There is a pile of woodstone torches by the entrance, but there is no need to light one. A series of them are ensconced on the wall and lit already. They can’t be there to help the workers see, as the rocks they carry are themselves lit. Perhaps it’s to mark their path.
One of the Devil men leads us into the Core. My apprehension is mounting. I haven’t seen any opportunities to try to escape, and things aren’t going to get any better for me inside. If they lead me into a rat maze, I’ll have to ditch these guys and find my way out.
The workers are thick in the hallway. They must have once been Maylay Beighlay citizens, but now they don’t dare take their eyes away from the floor. The Prince was right though, none of them show any signs of the rot. I’d like to think it is out of some sense of decency that these people aren’t allowed to abuse corpsedust, but I’d bet money there is a different motivation. Rotten men make shitty workers.
Hagar is a perfect example. He’s winded already, and the smoke induced coughing is bringing up black blood out of his lungs. I’d feel sorry for him, but he probably deserves it.
I’d better get away soon, or I’ll be staring straight into the Devil’s face.
The tunnels go deep into the Core. After a while we leave the trail of workers and lit torches and strike out on our own into a darker cavern. One of the Devil men pauses to ignite an unlit torch on one of the lit ones before leading us forward.
The firelight reveals a well traveled chamber. The stonework here looks permanent. This is no mining chamber. The hallways snake even farther into the Core, and I do my best to keep my bearings. I have a shitty sense of direction. Myla always said so. She was the kind of person who never asked for directions. Not me. I know when to swallow my pride.
There’s a chamber lit ahead of us. Heat is coming from it. Hotter than even the smelters. I’m guessing the Devil’s that way.
Looks like I’m not going to escape.
Beads of sweat trickle down my face. Hagar and the familiar man are bothered too, but the Devil men aren’t even sweating. I pause for a moment, loathe to face the heat of the room. The hard barrel of a gun presses into my back. I walk forward.
The room is roughly cylindrical, fifty or so feet wide, and its circular walls rise up for about seventy-five feet. There is a landing about fifty feet high. The heat is coming from a giant crucible there. Over the crucible, and nearly touching the ceiling, I see the aqueduct. A cadre of around twenty armed men stand within the chamber. Their eyes are partially blackened, presumably from wightdust. Two of them seem notable. One is over seven feet tall. He’s of African heritage, but his skin has greyed as if covered with a coat of ash. His eyes are like obsidian. This man isn’t on his way to becoming a wight, he’s already there. The man beside him is similarly afflicted. His skin is as white as marble, with dark lines running through his flesh instead of blue veins.
“Look what Kessler brought us,” one Devil man says, pushing me forward toward the two wights.
The familiar man, whose name is apparently Kessler, grins. “I brought you an infidel.”
He didn’t say suspected infidel, mind you. It makes sense in a way. He’s on the outside looking in, and he wants to be part of this posse. Ratting out a rat wouldn’t do him any good, but ratting out an Infidel Friend—well that might just be his ticket into the club. Oddly, the fact that he saw me talking to Q may be the only reason I was taken prisoner, but it’s also the only reason why I’m still alive. They won’t dare kill me as long as they think I can tell them what the Infidel’s plans are and why I was sent. If they learn I’m a nobody, or if under torture I make up a lie about a mission they believe, they’ll kill me.
They begin circling around me like hyenas. Hagar’s sweaty, one-eyed face is creased with an eager gri
n. He probably can’t wait to see me suffer.
“Is he marked?” the marble wight asks.
“No,” Kessler answers, “but I saw him talking to the tall, black Infidel Friend you showed me.”
The marble man nods. “Q. You’ve done well, Kessler. I’ll see that you get some of the wightdust.”
He moves closer. The press of the Devil men eases somewhat as they make way for him.
“Alexander,” he orders, “cuff him.”
The tall monstrosity moves toward me, a pair of handcuffs in his hand. As he approaches I feel again the gun barrel pressing into my back. The heat of the metal is burning my skin through my shirt.
“Put your hands behind your back,” the giant wight orders, “and turn around.”
I face the man with the gun and clasp my hands behind me. He puts the cuffs on my wrists a little more tightly than is necessary. I can feel my legs shaking. I’m terrified, apparently. Can’t really blame myself though. I try to keep it off of my face. An infidel wouldn’t be afraid. An infidel would turn around, look that monster in the eye, and make some kind of joke. He wouldn’t fear for his life, or his soul, or for the child he loves more than anything else in damnation.
I turn around and look that tall monster in the eye. “BDSM your thing, then?”
He slugs me, hitting me on the side of the face. Unlike with Hagar, there’s no warning. The hit was lightening quick. I’ve fallen back already, and I find myself rolling to my feet. I’d like to credit the roll to my good balance, but it’s really that the blow carried enough power to turn me all the way over. Had he hit me on the jaw or temple, I doubt I’d still be conscious. As it is, my vision is shaky.
Affliction (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 1) Page 4