by A. F. Dery
Again he cursed, groping about for the cork to the bottle that he had carelessly dropped during his reflections. At length he found it (punctuated by yet more thumps) and carefully he stoppered the bottle and returned it to the table next to his bed. The thumping continued on as he hauled himself painfully from the bed and made his way slowly down the stairs. The tower was high, and the stair was steep; there was no rushing it in his present state, no matter how loudly who-or-whatever it was thumped. A quick acting poison was one thing; merely horribly breaking his body and lying in agony for days starving or dehydrating to death at the foot of a steep stairway was something else entirely.
He was shaking his head in consternation and was teetering on the cusp of irate by the time he made it to the door. He felt for the bolt and threw it, felt for the latch and shoved it open with more force than perhaps was strictly necessary.
“What the hell?” he demanded breathlessly of the cold. “Of all the abandoned towers in Kelemir, you assail mine?”
The wind lashed viciously at his bare skin, coating it in the abominable wet; distantly he wondered whether he was even dressed. Too late now.
He waited, expecting some sort of response, even if it was a violent one, but there was nothing for several moments, and then something pushed against his leg. He stepped backwards quickly, surprised, and squinted down at his leg. A dark, blurry shape was butting itself against his leg (which was, he realized with a remote kind of relief, trousered). By its size, he guessed it was an animal of some kind. As he felt nothing clawing or biting him, he supposed it was just pushing him for some incomprehensible reason known only to it.
“Get gone, you beast! This is not a barn for you,” he said, with somewhat less vehemence. He wasn’t sure what to make of the creature, but if it wasn’t attacking him, it was hard to muster up any caring. It had certainly been determined to come inside, which suggested a kind of intelligence. What could it be? He wondered. Perhaps a dog? Dogs generally tolerated people well, and might be smart enough to seek out what looked like a human residence. Perhaps it was some pet that had gotten away. It didn’t matter; it had to go.
“I don’t blame you for not liking the snow, but you really can’t stay here, whatever you are,” Hadrian said as sternly as he could. The blurry creature moved away, appearing to take his words to heart, and as the shadows blended back together before the growing ache in his eyes, he quickly moved to shut the door behind it. No sooner had he stepped up to the threshold, however, then the beast was returning, evidently dragging something with it, presumably in its mouth. Something big.
“Whoa now, whatever that is, I want no part,” he said quickly. He deeply regretted not making a detour for his broom before opening the door. Self preservation had seemed ridiculous before, given what he’d just been contemplating, but now he was concerned with the possibility of the corpse of something being dragged into his tower. I dream enough of corpses, I hardly need some animal’s prey rotting in here! He was tempted to use magic, but wasn’t quite ready to risk actually harming the creature if there was still a chance to frighten it off.
“Off with you now, and your…whatever that is,” he insisted more loudly, trying to push at the creature with his foot and hoping he wouldn’t get it bitten off. The creature growled and he jumped back. Bleeding to death from animal bites was also not high on his list of preferences. The creature continued dragging the dark blob into the tower, growling more fiercely whenever Hadrian tried to approach it until at last, he gave up trying. Whatever it was dragging in was clearly larger than it was, but at last it appeared to be done, for it stopped dragging and went back up to Hadrian, stopping at his feet.
Hadrian rubbed his eyes with his palms, at a loss as to what to do next. A fresh gust of wind brought still more snow into the tower; he imagined it forming icy drifts to melt and slip him up. He sighed.
“May I at least shut the door?” he asked the creature with all the sarcasm he could muster, then he edged gingerly around both the creature and its bounty as best he could until he was able to shut and bolt the wooden door once more. He leaned against it with relief, shivering as he squinted down again at the blob on the floor. He couldn’t make out anything. Whatever it was blurred into the stones of the floor, all white and gray to his eyes.
The creature had not moved from where he’d left it, so he very slowly approached whatever was on the floor, listening carefully for growls or other warning sounds. But it remained silent. He nudged the blob with his foot, very gently; no sound came from the blob or the creature. It felt cold and definitely substantial like some kind of body. He sighed again. He somehow doubted it was going to be a deer or something of that nature; the blob felt like it was covered in wet cloth.
He bent down next to it now, patting its outline gingerly until he thought he’d made out a leg, perhaps a back, then long wet hair.
“Oh no,” he muttered again. He felt a face, stone cold and wet to his hand, and brought his hands away, bringing them up close to his face. Even blurred and shadowed he could see they were stained a little too dark for water alone.
“Oh no. You poor thing,” he breathed. He dropped his hands and sat back on his heels, thinking. Surely the creature had not killed her. It was not behaving like a predator bringing home prey to dine on, nor had it threatened him except when he tried to push it outside. Perhaps it was a pet dog, and this was its master or mistress, and it had brought him or her here for help. Too late, it seemed. The body was cold and still. He thought it very likely it was a woman, for it seemed too small to him to be a man, and its hair was very long, longer than men usually wore it. He did not have the heart to inspect it more closely though. He looked towards the creature, which still hadn’t moved. He imagined it was watching him though.
“I’m sorry,” he said to it. “What can I do? You’ve come too late. Your…mistress? She isn’t moving, isn’t breathing, and I can’t see…”
There was a sudden sharp bark from the creature, causing Hadrian to jump a little, and to his surprise, the blob before him lurched slightly as well, though it lapsed immediately back into stillness. He stared at its blurry shape in astonishment, and groped gingerly for an arm to check its pulse. With his cold hands, it took a long, excruciating minute, but to his further shock, there was indeed a heartbeat, weak and sluggish to be sure, but a pulse.
He gathered the blob- the woman- into his arms carefully. She was heavy, laden down as she was with sodden cloth, even though she wasn’t large, and she was very cold. She didn’t stir at all. He paused at the foot of the stairway, his knees already complaining, and began the long trudge up the stairs.
The wolf crouched by one wall, his fur bristling and his teeth silently bared, as he watched the man carry the girl laboriously up the stairs. The stink of the man was heavy in the air and thick in the wolf’s puckering nose.
In his haste to get the girl into the tower, he had not had time to register what he was smelling; now it was impossible to ignore or deny. It was a smell he had come across once before, a smell he would never fail to recognize as long as he lived.
He knew who this man was, and his entire being longed to rip him apart. It took restraint coming from some far distant and nearly forgotten part of himself to hold himself back, to keep himself from lunging after the man at once.
Because there was another scent in the air, and it was the girl’s. It was warm despite the coldness of her flesh, and somehow sweet, even tinged as it was with the metallic nip of blood. It had awakened something in him, awakened whatever was inside of him that could reason and control. That scent appealed to him and made him want to draw closer to its source. It was, in fact, what had compelled him to bring her here, where he thought she might find some help, rather than leaving her to the mercy of the forest and the snow.
People were best avoided, without exception, in his experience. But he could not resist the scent. He knew at once it would never cease haunting him if he left her there.
He had not
meant to stay, once he’d brought her inside. But now he could not leave. He could not abandon her here, to the foul stench of this place, to the monster who had taken up his dwelling there. He never would have brought her if he had known, but now it was too late. There was no time to try to take her anywhere else, particularly in her current condition.
If she was to be helped, the monster would have to do it. And he would have to stay and see it done.
He forced himself to straighten again, and followed them silently up the long, steep stairway. It was dark, but his eyes had no trouble making out the steps in the little light provided by the windows set into the walls, even though night was falling. He found them quickly enough in the room directly across from its apex, the door still standing open.
It was all he could do not to growl as he moved into the room. The stuffy air was ripe with the smell of the man’s unwashed skin, amid a myriad of other odors he did not care to contemplate. The man had put the girl down and was moving about with surprising clumsiness, knocking into things as though he were blind in his haste.
The wolf recalled how the man had been groping around in the lower part of the tower, and his forehead furrowed as he watched the man through narrowed eyes, unsure of what to make of him. He had not been blind when the wolf had last seen him. Something must have changed, and he didn’t know what it signified. He didn’t like not knowing.
He would have to watch, and wait.
CHAPTER TWO
Grace opened her eyes and thought at once she must be in perdition, that dark place where the souls of the evil go to pay for those sins left unatoned in life. Despite the burning pain in her extremities, it was as cold and dark as any tomb, save for a small fire she could see flickering somewhere over to her left: the flickering orange light failed to pierce the gloom far enough for her to even make out her own hand in front of her face, let alone anything else. She could not feel any warmth from that light at all (but what can a corpse really feel, apart from pain, apparently?)
“This is it. I have been condemned,” Grace said out loud. Her voice cracked on the last word and she felt futile tears pricking her eyes. She wanted to tell the Good God that she was so very sorry she had run. She had recognized her mistake as soon as she had stopped, and she had been willing to turn back- had even tried to turn back. Surely that was some pebble in the light side of the scale? Perhaps that’s why there’s a fire in here somewhere, Grace reflected, faintly hopeful. Perhaps if I can get to it…
The priestess of her village had not said very much about what happens to souls after death. Her opinion had seemed to be that most, if not all, of her charges would inevitably be admitted to perdition because few, if any, of them really cared all that much about Doing Good for the World. Grace had to admit it was nothing but the truth: they spent their lives just trying to survive for as long as possible. For the first time, she began to wonder as she tried to sit up in the darkness as to what the whole point had really been. After all, failure was a given: everyone dies. Some sooner, some later. Grace herself had been sooner, apparently. Not that it was undeserved, she cast the thought in the general region of where she supposed the ceiling was, if in fact there was a ceiling at all, just in case the Good God was still listening.
Still, they all worked so hard to stave off death for as long as possible, and there was such little joy in it. She wondered if it was like that for everyone, or if it was just her. She had seen people happy, or so she thought, but really, who could tell from outward appearances? She looked like nothing at all, but she must consist of something, for people who don’t exist don’t go to perdition. The soulless go nowhere at all.
Her whole body ached like she had been beaten from head to toe; the burning in her hands and feet was relentless. Her head pounded every time she tried to move it, and she realized for the first time as she tried to swallow that she was horribly thirsty.
Perdition, she thought grimly, no longer bothering to speak. Possibly she was to be left alone for eternity, which might actually be a mercy. The keepers of this dark place were surely not good company. She tried again to sit up, pushing herself to move despite the pain, but halfway into a sitting position she collapsed as though the bones had been yanked from her body, a cough wracking her body. She felt utterly spent, bright spots swimming in the darkness before her eyes. She tried to steady her breathing, suddenly aware that she was panting from the effort and the coughing. She didn’t want to pass out again, not before figuring out what was going on.
“You’re awake,” came a low, hoarse, male voice from somewhere to her right. It sounded surprised. She looked around wildly, seeking the source, but she could see nothing in the dark. Her heart sped with fear; so she did have a keeper.
“I’m so sorry,” she tried to say, but it was though all her voice had been used up in her earlier efforts at speech. Nothing came out now but a sort of groan. She could now make out something moving towards her, only very dimly illuminated by the distant fire, so dim it could have been her imagination. Rough warm skin touched her forehead out of nowhere and she bit back a shriek, a new wave of coughing overtaking her instead.
“Be calm, woman, I’ve done nothing to you,” the voice said gruffly when the coughing had quieted. “You’re in no danger here.”
How can you say that? she wanted to scream. You must know where we are, what I’ve done.
“Calm,” he said again, firmly, like a command. “You’re not well, you’ll only hurt yourself worse. I didn’t honestly think you’d wake.”
It made no sense to her that a keeper of perdition wouldn’t know whether his newest ward would awaken. Of course she would awaken. Had he thought she was soulless? Could she even be here otherwise? Of course there was a more mundane explanation. Only the living could be “unwell,” as far as she knew. Did the dead cough? “Am I…alive…then?” she tried to ask.
Her voice came out sounding weak and strangled, and she feared he did not hear her, but after a moment, he said slowly, “Of course. Did you think you were dead?” He made a noise that might have been a laugh, but wasn’t quite. “No, no, you’re not so fortunate as that. Nor am I. You are alive, for the moment.”
Grace wasn’t certain how to take that. She tried to peer into the darkness, make out the face that must surely be above hers somewhere, but the vague shapes she might have seen were sufficiently vague for her to doubt them. She certainly couldn’t resolve them into any kind of recognizable form.
“Have some water,” she heard, and a moment later, felt a hand slide behind her head to lift it while something smooth was pressed clumsily to her mouth. Water spilled over the edge, dripping down her face. She tried to reach up her hands to steady what she assumed was a cup, but the pain when her fingers made contact with it made her flinch away.
“You can’t hold it just now, you’ll have to let me,” he told her. She could hear something in his voice now that sounded like pity. “Your hands are in bad shape. The cold will do that. I don’t think they’ll fall off, though, if that is any comfort.”
Grace didn’t know what to say. For a moment she felt dizzy despite holding herself very still, and she thought she might pass out again, but it passed, just as the cup pressed against her lips again, this time without spilling. She was able to swallow several mouthfuls, the liquid cool and flavorless and blissful against her aching throat, before it was tipped just a little too far. She started to choke, and the cup went away as suddenly as it had come. The hand behind her head slid down her back, now together with his forearm urging her into an upright position while she coughed. She leaned forward in the midst of it and smacked her forehead into his body. He was warm and firm and, best of all- she was quite sure of it now- alive.
In that moment, barely able to breathe, her head pounding anew, she felt overcome with something she couldn’t put words to, as though her chest were about to burst with it. With a sob, she threw her arms around him and held on for dear life, burying her face against him, bawling uncontrolla
bly like a child. She was alive, she wasn’t in perdition, and that meant she still had to live with what she’d done. She felt relieved to be alive, and guilty to be relieved, and also terrified and horribly, horribly sad. She’d never make it back to her village in time now, if she made it there alive at all.
“What am I going to do?” she sobbed. He had gone entirely rigid, his arm frozen around her where it had been since he had sat her upright; her head was against his chest and though she could hear his heartbeat clearly through his shirt, he barely seemed to be breathing.
After a long moment, he let out a shuddering sigh, and very gingerly patted her back, his fingertips barely making contact with her. “I’ve been asking myself the same question since your dog dragged you in here. Damned if I know the answer. Here, you’d better lay back down.” He laid her back down very gently, as if she were the child she was behaving like. Her face suddenly burned as her brain caught up to her most recent behavior. What in the world is wrong with me? Have I gone mad on top of it all? I don’t even know this man, and look at how I am acting.
As if hearing her thoughts, he suddenly said, “You’re fevered, this is not a good time to be talking. You need to rest. I am trying to find what I need to make you some medicine. It’s going to take me some time. I’ve been…well…things aren’t quite in order here.”
“You’re a healer?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. Perhaps it was because such fortuitous happenstance had never before been known to occur outside of the storyteller’s fire.
“Not as such. I know some remedies,” he answered vaguely. She heard him moving away and felt a wave of fear wash over her.
“P-please don’t go yet,” she said before she could stop herself. “It’s so dark in here.” Why am I afraid to be left alone? For all I know I’m safer with him gone. It’s not like me to be afraid of the dark. Indeed, the more she thought on it, the less certain she was that it was really the darkness that was unnerving her.