by Edward Lee
No doubt, a true virgin.
The gelding was summarily beheaded, his body dragged off by silent legionnaires. Next, the highest of the Haruspist’s slipped the long sharpened hook deep up into the girl’s sex. She flinched and died at once, a tiny river of red pouring forth. But the Haruspic priest was already at work, his holy hand a blur as the hook expertly extracted the girl’s warm innards through the opening of her sex. Barehanded, then, he hoisted up the guts and flung them down to the ziggurat’s stone floor.
The wind howled, or perhaps it was the breath of Ea himself.
But when the Haruspist gazed intently at the wet splay of innards . . .
He saw nothing.
The King’s jaw set; he seemed petrified on his throne. Only one recourse remained, and if it too failed, only doom awaited the King and his domain. He turned his gaze toward the last flank of robed and hooded priests–the alomancers. The King gave a single nod.
One figure stepped forward, face hidden within the hood’s roll. From one hand, a thurible swayed, a thurible full of salt.
He depended the thurible over the fire. . . . until the salt began to burn.
Smoke poured from the object’s finely crafted apertures, and the figure leaned forth–and inhaled the holy fumes, one deep breath after another, until he collapsed.
The King stiffened in his throne; legionnaires burst forward to render aid. Eventually—thank Ea—the alomancer revived after a distended silence. Even the wind stopped, even the clouds seemed to freeze in the sky.
The alomancer shuddered. Then he gazed at the King with eyes the color of amethyst, and he began to speak . . .
I
It started when the salt spilled. The man looked ludicrous. Black hair hung in a perfect bowlcut, like Moe. He stood at the rail, tubby and tall, with a great, toothy, lunatic grin. “Ald, please,” he requested. “It’s been eons.”
Rudy and Beth nursed cans of Milwaukee’s Best down the bar, Rudy pretending to watch the fight on the television. They’d made the rounds downtown, hoping to cop a loan, but to no avail. Then they’d retreated to this dump tavern, The Crossroads, way out off the Route. Rudy didn’t want to run into Vito—as in Vito “The Eye”—a minute before he had to. He felt like a man on a stay of execution.
“Are you the vassal of this taberna, sir?” the ludicrous man asked the barkeep. “I would like some ald, please.” “Never heard of it,” swiped the keep, who sported muttonchops and a beer-belly akin to a medicine ball. “No imports here, pal. This is The Crossroads, not the Four Seasons.”
“I am becruxed. Have you any mead?” Rudy could’ve laughed. Even the man’s voice sounded ludicrous: a high nasal warble. And what the hell is ald?
“We got Rolling Rock, pal. That fancy enough for ya?”
“I am grateful, sir, for your kind recommendation.”
When the keep came down to the Rock tap, Rudy leaned forward. “Hey, man, who is this guy?”
The keep shrugged, tufts of hair like steel wool poking out from his collar. “Some weirdo. We get ‘em all the time.”
Beth, frowning afresh, looked down from the no-name fight on tv. “Rudy, don’t you have more to worry about than some eightball who walks into a bar? What if Vito shows up?”
“Vito The Eye? Here?” Rudy replied. “No way.” The assurance lapsed. “Hey, maybe Mona could loan us some dough.”
“She barely has money for tuition and rent, Rudy. Be real.”
Women, Rudy thought. Always negative. He glanced back up at the fight—Tuttle versus Luce, middleweights—but thoughts of Vito kept hauntinghim. What will they do to me? he wondered.
The keep set down a mug of beer before the ludicrous man, but as he did so, his brawny elbow nicked a salt shaker, which tipped over. A few trace white grains spilled across the bartop.
The odd patron grinned down. Focused. Nodded. He pinched some grains and cast them over his left shoulder. “Blast thee, Nergal and all devils. Keep thee behind, and slithereth back into your evil earthworks.”
“We ain’t superstitious here, pal,” the keep said.
“To blind the sentinels of the nether regions,” the man went on, “who stand to our left, behind us. Dear salt, a gift from the holiest Ea, and all gods of good things. To spill the sacred salt is to bid ill fortune from heaven. It was once more valuable than myrrh.”
“Who’da hell’s Merv?” asked the keep.
“Beware the woman infidel,” intoned the patron. “Your paramour—”
“What’da hell’s a paramour?”
“A lover,” Beth translated, for all the good her education had done. “A girlfriend.”
“She is so named,” the ludicrous man said, “ . . . Stacy?”
The keep’s pug-face tensed up like a pack of corded Suet. “How’da hell you know my girlfriend’s name?”
“I am an alomancer,” the odd patron replied. “And your lovely paramour, hair like sackcloth and teeth becrook’d, shalt be in a moment’s time abed with a man unthus known.”
The keep scratched a muttonchop. “What’d’ya mean?”
“He means,” Beth said over her beer, “that your girlfriend is cheating on you with a guy she just met.”
“Aman,” the patron continued, “too, of a formidable endowment of the groin.”
“‘At’s a load of shit,” the keep said. “You’re a nut.”
This guy’s something, Rudy thought. He was about to comment when someone tapped on his shoulder. Oh. . . . no. Very slowly, then, he turned to the ruddy and none-too-happy face behind him. “Vito! My man! I was just downtown looking for you.”
“Yeah.” Vito wore a tan leather jacket and white slacks—Italian slacks. They called him The Eye, since only his right eye could be seen. A black patch covered the left. “Your marker’s due Friday, paisan. You wouldn’t be forgetting that, huh?”
“Oh, hey, Vito,” Rudy stammered. “I remember.”
“That’s six large. The Boss Man ain’t happy.”
“Barkeep,” Rudy changed the subject. “Get my good friend Vito here a beer on my tab, and one for this guy, too,” he said,slapping the ludicrous man on the back.
Vito jerked a thumb. “I’ll be over at the booth marking my books. Come on over if you got anything you want to talk to me about.”
“Actually,” Rudy seized the opportunity. “I was wondering if like you could maybe give me a little extra t—”
“I ever tell you how I lost my eye? About ten years ago, I ran up a big marker on the Boss Man’s tab, and I made the big mistake of asking him for a little extra time.”
Rudy gulped. When Vito disappeared to the back booth, Beth jumped in to complain. “That’s great, Rudy. We’re nearly broke, you’re six thousand in debt to a mob bookie, and now you’re buying beers for people. Jesus.”
“Guys like Vito like to see generosity. Part of their machismo.”
“And now look what you’ve done!’ she whispered. The insane, toothy grin floated forward; its owner took the stool next to Rudy. “Innumerable thanks, sir. It’s not ald; however, I’m grateful to you.”
“What the hell is ald?” Rudy asked.
“A high and might liquor indeed, and a favorite of the mashmashus. We invented it, by the way, though your zymurgists of today refuse to acknowledge that. You see, the great grain mounds would accumulate condensation in the sun. The dregs, then, seeped into pools of effluvium, which were squeezed off into the casks.” He sipped his beer, crosseyed. I am Gormok. And you are called?”
Gormok? What kind of fruitloop name is that? Rudy wondered.
“I’m Rudy. This is Beth, my fiance.”
Beth frowned again, and Rudy supposed he could see her point. Nothing he’d promised her had come true. His gambling was like a ritual to him, an obsessive act of something very nearly reverence, and it kept a monkey on their backs the size of King Kong. The stress was starting to show: tiny lines had crept into Beth’s pretty face, and a faint veneer of fatigue. She’d lost weight, and the lust
rous long caramel-colored hair had begun to take a tint of gray. She worked two jobs while Rudy sweated bullets at the track. And now mob men were calling. No wonder she’s always pissed. I’m gonna get my eye poked out next Friday and here I am buying beers for a shylock and some loose-screw named Gormok.
“And I affirm,” Gormok went on in his creaky, sinitic voice, “that your generosity will not go unrewarded. If I can ever be of service to your benefit, I implore thee, make me aware.”
“Forget it,” Rudy said. Nut. He drained his beer. “Where’d the barkeep go? I could use a refill.”
“Our humble servitor, I believe,” Gormok offered, “is at this sad moment seeking to contact his unfaithful paramour.”
Rudy spied the keep down the other end of the bar, talking on the house phone. Suddenly the guy turned pale and hung up. “I just called the fuckin’ trailer,” he muttered. “My girlfriend ain’t there. Then I ring my buddy down at The Anvil, and he tells me Stacy left after happy hour . . . with some guy.”
“Agentleman, too,” Gormok reminded, “unthus known and of a formidable endowment of the groin.”
“Shadap, ya whack.” The keep went back to the phone. Beth maintained her terse silence. But Rudy was thinking
“Gormok. How about doing that salt thing for me.”
“An alomance! Yes?” came the grinning reply.
Rudy lowered his voice. “Tell me who’s gonna win that fight.”
“Alas, the gladiators of the new, dark age,” Gormok remarked, and peered up at the boxing bout on the bar television. “But have thee a censer? Clearer visions are always begot by fire.”
“What’s a censer?”
“It’s something you burn things in, during rituals,” Beth defined. “And don’t be idiotic, Rudy.”
Rudy ignored her, glancing about. “How about this?” he ventured, and slid over a big glass ashtray sporting the Swedish Bikini Team.
“It shall suffice,” Gormok approved. He sprinkled several shakes of salt into a bar napkin and placed it in the ashtray. “A taper, now, or cresset or flambeau.”
I hope he means a lighter. Rudy flicked his Bic. He lit the napkin, which strangely puffed into a quick flame and then went out. Gormok’s face took on a momentary expression of tranquility as though he were indeed taking part in some ritualistic worship. Then the odd man leaned forward...and inhaled the smoke.
Rudy stared.
“The combatant dark of skin and light of garb,” Gormok giddily intoned, “who is called Tuttle, before two minutes have expired, will emerge victorious by a single blow to the skull of his oppressor.”
Rudy snatched up Beth’s purse.
“Rudy, no!”
“How much money you got?” he asked, rummaging. He fingered through his fiancee’s wallet. “Twenty bucks? That’s it?”
“Damn it, Rudy! Don’t you dare—”
Rudy turned toward the mob man’s booth. “Hey, Vito? Adouble sawbuck says Tuttle KO’s Luce this round.”
Vito didn’t even look up. “No more credit, Rudy.”
“Cash, man. On the table.”
Now Vito raised his smirk to the tv. “Tuttle’s getting his ass kicked. Don’t make me take your green.”
“Come on, Vito!” Rudy barked. “Quit bustin’ my balls. Are you a bookie or a book collector?””
Vito made a shrug. “Awright, Rudy. You’re on.”
Rudy jerked his gaze to the tv, then drooped. Luce was dancing circles around his man, firing awesome hooks which snapped Tuttle’s head back like a ball on a spring.
“You’re such a fool,” Beth groaned.
“Hark,” Gormok whispered, and pointed to the screen.
Tuttle shot a blind jab which sent Luce over the ropes—
“Yeah!” Rudy yelled. Then: ‘Yeah, fuckin-A yeah!” he yelled louder when the ref counted Luce out and raised Tuttle’s arm in victory.
Vito came over. “Good call, Rudy. Just don’t forget that six large.”
Rudy’s smile radiated. “That’s five thousand, nine hundred, and eighty, Vito.”
“Yeah. See ya next Friday, paisan.”
Vito left the smoky bar, while Rudy fidgeted on his stool. Even Beth was rubbing her chin, thinking. And Rudy had a pretty good idea what she was thinking about.
“How’d you do that, man?” he asked aside to Gormok.
“I am an alomancer,” Gormok answered through his ludicrous grin. “I am a salt-diviner for the Fourth Cenote of Nergal.”
What you are, Rudy thought, is a nut. But I love ya anyway. He put a comradely arm about Gormok’s shoulder. “So, Gormok, my man. How would you like to come and live with us?”
II
“Who’s that?” Mona winced when they got home. Snooty bitch . “This is our very good friend, Gormok,” he told the blonde coed. Her 38C’s pushed against her blouse. “Gormok, this is Mona, our housemate.”
Gormok appraised the attractive, tight-jeaned student. “Men have rown leagues for such beauty, priests have scaled ziggurats.”
“Uh huh,” Rudy said. “Mona, how about going to your room to study, huh? Gormok and I gotta talk.”
Mona made no objection, padding off with her English 311 text, Pound, Eliot, and Seymour: The Great Poets of Our Age. “Sit down, Gor,” Rudy bid. “Make yourself at home.” Gormok did so, his lap disappearing when he sat down on the frayed couch.
Rudy nudged Beth into the kitchen. “Get him a beer. He seems to like beer.”
“Rudy, this might be a bad idea. I don’t know if I—”
“Just shut up and get him a beer,” Rudy politely repeated. He went back to the squalid living room, bearing an ashtray and a shaker of salt. “So, Gor. Tell me about yourself.”
The lunatic grin roved about. “I am but a lowly salt-diviner, once blessed by the Ea, now curs’d by Nergal.”
“Uh . . . huh,” Rudy acknowledged.
“I was an Ashipu, a white and goodly acolyte, but, lo, I sold my soul to Nergal, The Wretched God of the Ebon. Pity me, in my sin: my repentance was ignored. Banished from heaven, banished from hell, I am now accursed to trod the earth’s foul crust forever, inhabiting random bodies as the vessel for my eternal spirit.”
“Uh . . . huh,”
“Jesus,” Beth whispered. Disapproval now fully creased her face when she gave Gormok a can of Bud. Yeah, we’ve got a live one, Rudy thought. The next fight—Jenkins versus Clipper—was on the west coast; it would be running late. “That’s pretty, uh, interesting,
Gormok. You think maybe you feel like doing the salt thing again? Beer foam bubbled at Gormok’s grin. “The alomance!” “Uh, yeah, Gor. The . . . alomance. I could really use to know who’ s gonna win the Jenkins-Clipper bout.”
Gormok’s grin never fluctuated. He knelt on tacky carpet tiles and went into his arcane ritual of burning salt in a napkin, then inhaling the smoke which wafted up from the ashtray. He seemed to wobble on his knees. “The warrior b’named Clipper, dear friend, in the sixth spell of conflict.” Then he collapsed to the floor.
“Holy shit!” Rudy and Beth rushed to help the alomancer up. “Gor! Are you all right?” Rudy asked.
“Too much for one day.” Gormok’s voice sounded drugged. “Put me abed, dear ones. I’ll be better on the morrow.”
“The couch,” Rudy suggested. “Let’s get him on the—”
“Deep and down,” Gormok inanely remarked. “I must be deep, as all damned Nashipus are so cursed. Get me near the cenotes.”
“A cenote is a hole in the ground,” Beth recalled from her college myth classes. “They’d hold rituals in them, sacrifice virgins and things like that.”
A hole in the—“The basement?” Rudy suggested.
Beth opened the ringed trap-door, then they both lugged the muttering and rubber-kneed Gormok down the wooden steps.
“Better, yes! Sweet, sweet . . . dark.”
They lay the bizarre man on an old box-spring next to the washer and drier. Dust eddied up from the dirt floor. “He’s heavi
er than a bag of bricks!” Beth complained.
Rudy draped an old army blanket over him. “There.”
“Ea, I heartily do repent,” Gormok blabbered incoherently. “Absolve my sins, I beg of Thee!” He began to drool. “And curse thee, Nergal, unclean despoiler! Haunter! Deceiver of souls!”
“Uh . . . huh,” Rudy remarked, staring down. Yeah, we’ve got a live one, all right. A real winner.
III In bed, they bickered rather than slept. “I can’t believe you invited that weirdo into our house,” Beth bellyached.
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” Rudy refuted.
“Well, you do now. He’s . . . scary.”
“You don’t believe all that mumbo-jumbo, do you? It’s just a bunch of schizo crap he made up.”
“It’s not made up, Rudy. I majored in ancient history, that is, before I had to quit school and go to work to keep you out of cement loafers. Cenotes, ziggurats, alomancy—it’s all straight out of Babylonian myth. This guy says he’s possessed by the spirit of a Nashipu salt-diviner. That’s the same as saying he’s a demon.”
Rudy chuckled outright. “Somebody hit you in the head with a dumb-stick? He’s a flake, Beth. He probably escaped from St. Elizabeth’s in the back of a garbage truck and read about all that stuff in some occult paperback. He thinks he’s possessed by a demon. And so what? Let him think what he wants. What’s important to us is the guy’s genuinely psychic. You heard him, he predicted that fat barkeep’s squeeze was cheating on him.”
“That could be just coincidence, Rudy.”
“Coincidence? What about the Tuttle fight? He didn’t just pick the winner, Beth, he picked the round. He picked a KO by a guy who every bookie in town said was gonna lose.”
“I don’t care,” Beth replied, turning her back to him amid the covers. “He’s scary. I don’t want him in the house.”
“Beth, the guy’s a gold mine on two legs. We keep him under our wings, we’ll never have to worry about money again. We’ll be—”