by Veras Alnar
“You've been sleep walking,” Lord Guain said.
Amis wished very much the perverse nature of the dreams would leave him, he much preferred the homey atmosphere than any of Fulk's sordid insinuations of what he should be doing. He had grown up so alone, wishing for anyone to love him as a brother or a friend.
“I can't stop thinking about everything,” Amis admitted.
“Is it about the girl you loved?” Guain asked.
“No, not entirely,” Amis said, flushing slightly, “it's about devilish figures and hellish fires and sordid events I'd rather not repeat.”
Guain was amused by his description, “the only hell here is the fact we're on our own with a household to run, we can forget having fresh laundry any time soon.”
“It has been unpleasant,” Amis admitted but he was also the one tasked with emptying the chamber pots, “but it could be worse. And at least there are rooms full of clothes to keep us warm even if the wood is rationed.”
“True,” Lord Guain said, “but I do worry about you. Have you always been so thin?”
“Not quite so bad as now,” Amis said, “but I was always slight, yes.”
“Clearly your sword arm works just as well,” Lord Guain said, “I meant what I said, I envy your skills very much.”
“It's caused me no end of problems,” Amis said.
“Then it's no wonder your dreams are disturbed,” Lord Guain said, “go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day and one that will be brighter than this one.”
It was very easy to fall asleep, if he closed his eyes he could pretend he was back home with his parents. That he had a friend who loved him.
It wasn't long until he was startled awake again to see Lord Guain hovering over him, looking icy cold and strange in the very grim, red light peeking through the windows lit from the sliver of moon. The cold hands moved against his thin face, as though curiously mapping it out. It was another sordid dream, he was sure of it. He whispered as much to himself, over and over. He wanted to wake up, he wanted it to end.
“You're the only one,” Lord Guain said, “who I could ever hope to care for.”
“That's an odd thing to say to a stranger,” Amis wanted to whisper, but he could do nothing but lay very still.
With an aggressive motion, Guain ripped the front of Amis' night shirt and examined closely the line of his throat and chest.
“Barely a pulse,” Lord Guain murmured, “and all the blood that flows through is as red as anyone's.”
It had to be a dream, his limbs felt leaded. He felt...
With encroaching horror Amis realized he felt drugged. And that afternoon he had drunk a great deal of wine but something else tugged at him, called to his brain through its torpor. The sound of horse hooves as he was laying prostrate in the stable, hiding from Durgia's father and all the men of the village who had joined him. While he had been sick and dying that sound wouldn't leave his mind, the thunderous single horseman spinning round and round, its hooves growing in heaviness until they became the thunder clap of a devilish beast storming through Garstwrot keep.
“Am I dying,” Amis asked, managing to fight the words out.
His conscious mind was losing grip, the red curtains were looming above him and the wooden carvings had seem to nearly come to life. The roses and the fine ladies with their breasts exposed and amorous knights were moving together in an ever expanding swirl. It might have been erotic if Amis hadn't felt so frightened.
Lord Guain puffed a laugh, “No, of course not.”
“Is this a dream,” Amis asked, his mind rebelling with so many doubts.
“It's a dream if you want it to be,” Lord Guain said.
But Lord Guain's face under the candlelight had taken on a strange cast. The green eyes that were so welcoming and congenial had turned hard like the glass in a church window, reflecting something red and there was that other face but only for a moment. It looked so hideous and distorted that Amis couldn't focus on its form; was it a very old man or a beast? He wasn't sure. The handsome and beautiful Lord Guain leaned over him as if to press a kiss to his mouth and in doing so, he exposed his neck. All pale and fleshy, with great veins that writhed under the skin as flower vines filled with reddest blood.
With a sinuous movement Amis bit the throat that beckoned him, he heard Lord Guain let out a shout and a cry of pain. He briefly saw Lord Guain's hand white knuckled holding the bed post but then he wanted to see nothing, all he wanted to do was feed.
Hot delirium, a fever without cause or end. That's what it felt like when he was drinking blood, a burning emptiness being filled with the coolest waters. It wasn't long before Lord Guain was struggling slightly, and breathing harshly by his ear.
“Let go,” Lord Guain insisted, “Amis can you hear me?”
Once again Lord Guain had to haul him backwards with some force and Amis felt his head hit the pillow strongly. Clutching his own neck, Lord Guain panted and looked very pale, his normally flushed face and chest had grown lighter.
“That a man so thin can be such a danger,” Lord Guain said, “is something I'd never thought possible.”
But it wasn't enough, it hadn't near filled up his wants. This was love he was after and it was in a wound on a man's neck and Amis ached with agony to get it. With some effort, Lord Guain caught him around the mouth with his right hand and held him in place with his other arm before he could properly lunge after him.
“Do you want more?” Lord Guain whispered harshly in his ear.
The agonized sound from Amis was muffled behind Lord Guain's hand but he seemed to understand the desperate need wracking him. It was thirst, it was hunger but more importantly, it let him forget what he had done three nights ago in the barn and replaced it with the most wicked desires.
“Then there's something you must give to me,” Lord Guain said.
The strangest illusion bloomed behind Amis' closed eyes. From Lord Guain's veins fell golden jewels tumbling in infinite numbers, their resplendence glittering down from a black, clawed hand. Beauty and prosperity, grace and infinity raced before him rising to impossible heights while he heard the most deviant temptations whispered in his ears.
“Are you the devil,” Amis whispered against his hand, “come to tempt me?”
“Yes,” Lord Guain said, his voice at its most seductive, “now give to me what you know I want.”
Lord Guain pressed his wrist against his mouth and Amis bit into it, the blood sweeter in spirit than any earthly jewel.
Amis felt the shuffle of his bed clothes and the press of an erection against his back. This should have been a little more unnerving than it was, since he had never done such a thing before. But the blood kept him enraptured and with a tiny bit of horror, he recognized that Lord Guain could have done anything to him if he had offered such a feast, first thing.
It did hurt a bit, just like the book he'd read had implied but after the first thrust Lord Guain pressed his hand against his thigh and murmured things in his ear that were so flattering and wonderful that it didn't really matter.
“Belong only to me,” Lord Guain said, “I love you, love you more than anyone.”
The words were hard to believe because Amis had never heard such things or imagined them ever being said to him by anyone. But with a desperation that was almost violent, Lord Guain thrust inside of him and pressed his wrist hard against Amis mouth to encourage him and Amis found himself shuddering, feeling pleasure that he hadn't dared to feel before. From the hand that stroked him, from the strong and handsome body thrusting inside of him, it would have made much more sense if it was a dream because nothing had ever felt so good and so freeing. When Lord Guain trembled against his back it almost sounded like he was sobbing, it was so fierce.
Daylight crawled its way across the room and Lord Guain had long since washed himself and dressed. On the bed laid Amis, who had only washed but now felt still as death, his eyes flickering and half lidded. Sunlight fell across his arm and he jolted, yan
king the bed curtains tighter. But in his state of being half awake he thought an impossible thought, that his chest didn't rise or fall. That he didn't need the breath that went inside of him, that the stuffy cocoon of the bed was a warm and comfortable enclosure and he could have slept in a stone tomb even easier, without light or air or anything of life forcing itself on him.
Some time passed as the sun made its way across the sky and Lord Guain entered his own room with intentions; he checked on the sleeping man in bed. But it was as he had surmised, there was no sleep that any living person could have imitated that would have been so deep. His skin was so pale and body so thin, his face its normal pallid hollowness and the dark, mysterious eyes were shuttered only halfway. A priest would have declared him fit for burial but Lord Guain knew better, he knew more than any of them did or ever would. Satisfied, he went downstairs humming an Adelaine funeral mass past the alcoves in the keep that had once held the bodies of saints, but whose alcoves now held smashed dust. His song was a lovely dirgy tune. And above his head the plaster behind the sealed rooms rattled and clanged, helplessly and hopelessly against their fetters.
“Falling from the graying skies come demons of the night, who resurrect the lonely dead with their burning, ferocious lights,” Lord Guain said.
He walked beyond the stained glass windows that were dyed an eerie red and the door the courtyard that was almost gray from falling ash. There was only one left who might be trouble; in the courtyard Fulk was practicing a swing on some tall grass with a scythe he had procured from who knows where. Glancing up from his grass, Fulk looked up at Lord Guain who showed not a flicker of acknowledgment on his face at all. This man as well, knew almost all. But the most important bits had remained hidden, the cruelest truth was still buried as deep as the falling scythe from death's cold hands had buried all the secrets of the village in its earth and turned the flesh to dust. And the matter that had led to the whole town dying, what had propelled Lord Guain to his darkest, miserable hours was still yet, a secret.
Looking behind him at the bed Lord Guain took in a breath that may have shaken just slightly, the way Amis looked was frightening. It was a natural response, to see something so lovely and so beyond all human touch in one. His own fate made him nervous, it was about the only thing that did. So many things could go wrong, so much could be swept aside by the cut of a blade across a neck or the unfortunate disposal of remains in running water and there was so much he didn't know.
He needed that damned book! And it hadn't shown up, not in the town in the pocket of the one he had suspected or on any of their persons and Fulk would have shown it off as soon as he had touched the golden gilt if he had found it, unbearable as he was with his thieving. The symbols meant nothing to those without the eyes to read it, it had no worth beyond the material and would have been noted if it had exchanged hands between the town. They were running out of time, the blocked up doors would only hold so long and with Nethir on the loose, it was only a matter of time before other more aggressive parties tracked him down, ones still sore about his dealings in Adelaide before he had been caught out.
The sun high in the sky covered in a haze was very much indicative of how he felt so close and yet so far from his ultimate triumph and as morning light began to fade, it too resembled his glorious golden visage giving in to time. But he had staved it off, just, at the cost of a town full of innocent souls and one young man's life.
VI
Late day had crossed the silent fields of Garstwrot keep, the ash had slowed until it was nothing but a dry wind blowing across its rough looking fields and fallow farms. Craggy wheat grass dotted along the stone roads, bent and broken under the weight of spring frost and nothing stirred in the town except the cloths that laid over bodies, strewn across the grounds where they had fallen.
Amis had woken up wondering if all his nights were now doomed to be some remnant of dreams. Again, he felt no stiffness, saw no marks or leavings on himself or anywhere and wondered how he could have imagined something so sensual, and so disturbing in one swoop. There were things he didn't want to think about, like why Lord Guain said things that made no sense to him, why he spoke as if Amis was all he'd ever wanted when Amis was very aware just what he had to offer and that it was sorely lacking in every way. But these things hurt his head even more, so he dressed and decided it was to the courtyard with a borrowed sword where he could feel more at sorts.
After wrecking a few more mannequins, Amis resolved that his sword arm was as strong as ever even if his limbs were thin and that if pressed, he could still easily down an attacker if they should come. Renewed somewhat, since his few abilities hadn't left him, Amis came in from the courtyard humming cheerfully but his voice halted when he saw Fulk sitting on a stool in the kitchen smoking his pipe.
“That's mine,” Amis said, while laying his borrowed sword on the table, “what bothers you so much about me that you're constantly stealing my things?”
“Do you mean the pipe or other matters?” Fulk said.
Amis glared at him, refusing to rise to his bait.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Fulk said.
“You can do so without stealing my pipe,” Amis said.
Fulk chuckled to himself, “our dealings have never been square, have they?”
“Not even once,” Amis said, flatly.
“Then why change now?” Fulk said, “But you must trust me because you can't trust Lord Guain. Seduced him yet?”
“That's none of your concern!” Amis near shouted.
“I should hope you have,” Fulk said, “he still disappears somewhere late at night and spies on us somehow through the walls.”
Out of a sudden spasm of fear, Amis grabbed his sword and tightened his grip around its well worn hilt.
“We're the only two people we can trust,” Fulk said, “keep that in mind, no matter what pretty words he tells you.”
“I can trust you to be an arse,” Amis said, “what else I'm not so sure.”
“And he's had you, hasn't he? Look at your face, so red. You're so predictable Amis,” Fulk said, pulling the stolen pipe from his mouth, “like a starved dog, they throw you a scrap of meat and you come tail wagging.”
“Shut up!” Amis said, “You were the one that put the idea into my head in the first place, you obnoxious pervert!”
“Shut up, Shut up,” Fulk mocked, “I got you your sword back, take mind you use it against the one who wronged you and not me your friendly helper, since those who you wronged are all long dead.”
“Do you ever shut up!” Amis said, “I don't care about your schemes or suspicions of villainy you’re as much an evil doer as any of us. I know you stole from the dead and nearly stole my hair when I was still alive and your parentage-!”
Fulk blew smoke into the air unaffected by Amis' rage, even as Amis grew redder and angrier with every word.
“Curse me that I threw my lot in with you in a moment of weakness! The son so much like the father, the same bad banditry, the same rapists and murderers crawling out of the sewers of Mecidia that you called your friends! Damn you, damn everything to hell!” Amis said.
It was a barb he knew that stabbed, Fulk hated being reminded of Mecidia for reasons Amis had never understood. Only Durgia had told Amis about the place and that Fulk had come from there along with his father, that it was a city that was very old and very beautiful but also very ugly and poor in some parts because of its terrible history. The most lowly bandits rubbed shoulders with the highest nobility in masquerades and parties, Amis had thought that Durgia would have loved to go to one and see if she could guess who was who with her clever mind. But sadly, she would never get to see it for herself.
“I wasn't a rapist,” Fulk said, grinning roguishly, “didn't have to fight for those attentions, Durgia and her pack of comely village girls gave me plenty. Say you're the son of a bandit prince and they drop to their knees in droves in sleepy little villages like this. So, if I'm a prince of banditr
y what does that make you? The prince of sewers? You'd be more at home in Micidea than I would with all the plague rats and scrapping dogs under its dirty canals filled with shit. And the mangy wharf cats would surely crown you as their king, seeing as you're as thin skinned and pathetic as they are. Yowling with their backs up, like you do when you're angry but know you can't do anything about it, hissing and spitting like an old queen!”
In an awful way, Fulk made a sound that resembled the yowling of a cat in heat and began laughing, uproariously, in his obnoxious nasal way.
“Curse you!” Amis shrieked.
Storming out into the courtyard Amis wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He would not give Fulk the satisfaction of watching him openly shed tears. There was a great stone bench crookedly perched near the disused barn and he stubbornly sat on it, though it almost hurt his backside from its hardness and coiled himself to rest his chin on his knees.
The wind began to kick up and the hazy red sky boiled like a cauldron, there was a storm coming to Garstwrot. It matched the sick swirl in Amis stomach over Lord Guain, Fulk's miserable company and his own sickening guilt. The town was dead and some strange influence was in the air and perhaps, just maybe, Amis felt he played a role in its demise as part of some wider scheme unknowable to him.
And here they had agreed to be locked up together in a keep for any number of depressing days until who knows when. All good mood had fled, the sky darkened much like Amis's thoughts. He didn't want to remember that terrible day in town or the night that followed. But something pressed him, some detail he had overlooked. The face of Nethir hovered in his vision, why did he suddenly seem so important? Amis clamped his hand over his mouth so his sobs wouldn't be so loud, he couldn't control himself. The barn and all its horrors threatened to swallow him up, he had never left Garstwrot like he had intended. He had failed himself, more importantly he had failed Durgia who would never, ever leave and he had killed her infant son for what had amounted to nothing.