by Adam Golden
“Yes mistress, thank you mistress. I enjoyed myself very much.” He stammered, making sure not to mumble, but not to speak too loudly either. He felt Bhargast’s ruby gaze on him from where the great beast lay before the fire and raised his head against his will to meet the look. The monster’s tongue flicked out and licked sloppily at its muzzle. Bwgan shivered and quickly lowered his head again.
A laugh like shattering glass rang out, echoing through the cave. “Now, now, Bwgan, you mustn’t let Bhargast bully you. It’s hardly proper for my chief retainer to be so easily cowed by a simple beast, even if it is my sweet puppy, now is it?”
“No mistress, not proper at all, apologies mistress,” Bwgan replied automatically, still gripped by the laughing, far-too-intelligent gaze of the lolling monster.
“Good.” The mistress screeched, “I will bathe. Fetch water and be quick about it.”
It took effort not to race away as soon as he knew the command, but she’d take a strip off him if he moved before it was clear she’d finished speaking. He glanced over at the corner where the wooden drying rack stood, hung with long strips of pale leather, and swallowed the bile that surged in his throat. The flesh would return of course, but that did nothing to dull the agony of its removal, or the dread he felt at the prospect. He waited a single beat after her last word, turned and headed for the mouth of the cave as quickly as he could go without what she would call ‘unseemly haste’.
It took forty buckets of water to fill the great stone tub that lay at the rear of the mistress’s cave. Forty heavy buckets that had to be carried two at a time over a mile of sharp broken ground to the pool. It wasn’t the closest pool, or the easiest to access, but the water in the closer pools didn’t meet her standards. Only the freshest, cleanest water could touch her skin. He couldn’t tell the difference, but he knew that if so much as a single bucket was dipped from any other pool she’d know, and he’d pay.
Bwgan glowered at his reflection as he dipped the last bucket in. How he hated that face, almost as much as he hated the being behind it. He traced one of the long, ragged scars down his cheek. He had so many scars. Hundreds, maybe thousands. He counted them as he lay coiled in his cell sometimes, but he always lost count. He remembered getting most of them, but those six dark furrows on his cheeks were a blank. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t recall the hunt or punishment that had resulted in those scars. He shook off the thought, it wasn’t as though it mattered. What difference could it make? Still, he wondered about it every time he saw them. He yanked the last bucket from the water and trudged over to where the other was already fastened to the yoke. Every muscle wailed as he straightened under the weight. The flesh at the back of his neck, already torn and bleeding from the nineteen previous trips, screamed raw agony as the rough-hewn yoke dug in to it.
‘One foot in front of the other.’ ‘Don’t stumble, don’t spill . . .’
He couldn’t fall, or even stumble. She would be growing impatient already, if he had to go back because he spilled she would be upset. He balanced the load carefully on his battered shoulders and started the slow, shuffling march through the wasteland.
* * *
One foot in front of the other. Don’t stumble, don’t sway. Just a little further . . . No! Lookout for the crack!’ The litany of cautions and warnings in his head blended into a sing-song, a mantra that pushed out everything else. The bleak broken landscape, the constantly screaming wind, even the pain in his body was dulled somewhat. There was only the warning voice and the ground in front of his feet.
“Hail Guardian.”
The words weren’t loudly said, but they exploded in Bwgan’s ears for the simple shock of having heard them. He froze mid-step. He hadn’t heard anything. He couldn’t have. There was no one else here. There was never anyone else. Just him, the Mistress, the Gwyllgi, and the bleached, desiccated remains of those servants who had been found wanting. The weight on his shoulders shifted slightly and dragged at his right side. His weakened, exhausted body listed, and he had to take a quick step to the left to avoid toppling over and pouring his precious cargo out onto the parched dusty stone.
“Careful now son, bugger that up and she’ll feed ye yer eyes again.” The words came in an exaggerated drawling brogue that sounded alien and yet somehow familiar to Bwgan. His eyes jerked right and left, but he saw nothing and didn’t dare move a single, tensed, trembling muscle. This was impossible. Utter madness.
‘Yes, that’s it! I’ve gone mad.’ he thought.
That had to be it. His mind had finally snapped under the constant dread, the endless tortures and the soul-numbing hopelessness of his life. Slowly, and as carefully as he could, Bwgan bent his mutilated form and set the heavy load on his shoulders on the ground. Once the precious cargo was safe, the skeletal manservant whirled about in one direction and then the other, searching for any sign of the speaker he knew couldn’t exist.
There was nothing.
Just the same barren, hostile rocks, the same empty stretches of desolation for miles, and off in the far distance, the jagged fangs of a thousand needle-sharp cliffs scraping at the sky. There was nothing. He was alone, save for the long thin smear of his pale shadow.
Wait . . . what? Something slithered down the ruined man’s spine and he shuddered with apprehension. Bwagan’s eyes went to the empty gray sky above. It was an unbroken ceiling of ashen gray, the same pale drab it had always been. There was no day or night in Duinn, no sun, no moon, just a constant foggy twilight. There were no shadows here.
He looked down at the ground at his feet and started, the cloudy smear was gone. “Oh, well done Daiu. Well done indeed. Sure ‘an you smell like a corpse three days dead, and a sad one at that, but there’s still some cogs clickin’ in there, eh Daiu?”
The slate gray smudge slid back into place at his feet and started to stretch toward his stunned, slack-mouthed face. As it grew, the strange shadow-thing stretched and took on depth; it gained shape and mass and proportion until a short slimly built male figure stood before Bwgan. A figure far better nourished and athletically built than the wasting slave.
“Ye look as though you’ve seen a ghost, my lad.” The shadow-thing chuckled. “Well, I suppose ye ‘ave at that.”
“What . . . ?” Bwgan started. “Who . . . ? How?” He stammered, utterly unable to come to grips with what his eyes saw.
The shadow-creature grinned a grin far too wide for his face, a grin full of teeth that made Bwagan step quickly back and pull his arms around himself protectively. Though he wasn’t certain why. “The answer to each o’ those stammering inquires is the same, my boy. Ferdoragh, at your service.” The shadow man offered a small bow and an elaborate flourish.
“What?” Bwgan asked.
“My name laddie buck, my name is Ferdoragh. No need to tell me yours dear Daiu . . .”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Bwgan interjected. “That’s not my—”
“Your name? No.” The strange new presence, Ferdoragh, allowed. “But it tis who ye are. Or were . . . or maybe could be again?”
“I’ve never been . . . anyone,” the battered servant said softly, more to himself than to this strange new companion. “Never.” He said that more strongly, looking up into the sharp calculating eyes of Ferdoragh. “And I’ll never be anyone but who I am now.”
“An’ who do ye imagine that might be, hmm?” the shadow man mused. “Can ye always have been . . . this? Think ye so? Were ye born here then, lad? Where’re yer Ma an’ Da then? Come now, think. Yer no more from here than any other living thing is. Ye were snatched here from elsewhere. Just like them poor bastards buried in the rocks. Taken, each o’ ye, grabbed away from somewhere other. Ye dunna feel that? Truly?”
Bwgan turned away from the other man and rubbed his pasty skeletal hands over his face and the wisps of hair on his scalp. The cracked, broken nail on the smallest finger of his right hand snagged in the snarled tissue of one of the scars on his cheeks and he hissed a breath.
‘The scars . . . where did I get the scars?’
He turned to ask the question and his toe struck one of the buckets on his yoke.
‘The buckets. The water. The Mistress!’
Animal dread seized him by the throat. The mistress was waiting. Before the movements fully registered with him he found himself back under the crushing weight of the yoke and moving through the desert again, his battered limbs given strength by the pure writhing terror that twisted in his guts.
“Run along little ghost, wouldnae want ye late for supper,” the shadow thing’s voice called, laughing as Bwgan ran.
Chapter 7
Bwgan winced as the knife slid through the lightly cooked meat and skated across the plate beneath with an ear-piercing squeal. His stomach both roiled and rumbled, simultaneously nauseous and starving. Beneath the mistress’s table Bhargast gnawed loudly at the hunk of bloody meat he’d been tossed, smacking his fleshy lips and letting out a series of satisfied growls that made the twitchy servants want to moan. At the head of the table the Mistress looked up from her plate and studied Bwgan’s pallid features as she popped another morsel of rare meat into her mouth.
“Is it not cooked to your preference, Bwgan?” the lady asked. “You must be famished after all the effort to fill my tub today. After all, even failed effort will tire a body.”
‘Failed.’ The word snapped like a whip and Bwgan winced again as he pushed the knife into the meat before him and began to cut. “No mistress, thank you mistress. The meat is quite wonderfully cooked, and I am . . . grateful. It is more than I deserve.” He put his fork to his lips, slid the cube of meat on to his tongue and started to chew while the woman who owned him body and soul watched. Underneath the table the damned hound made a sound eerily like laughter.
“Not so, Bwgan,” the mistress said in her airy sophisticated tone. “It is exactly what you deserve. Be sure not to let any go to waste.”
Bwgan nodded emphatically, his mouth full of half-chewed meat. He swallowed, let out a slow breath and started cutting again. The knife was sharp, it slid through the crunchy golden crust of the top layer easily. When he pressed his fork into it, Bwgan was able to lift the cube of the succulent, flavorful meat away from his femur without any resistance.
Propped up at the foot of the table, his shortened, crispy legs spread out before him on a platter. Bwgan gulped down the morsel and took another bite of his cracked, heat-blistered, and sickeningly delicious smelling leg meat. The lower legs and feet had been sectioned off just below the knees and shared out to the hounds. It was the better part of his right calf and foot that Bhargast was gnawing at so delightedly beneath the table. The mistress had wielded the cleaver for that. It was important to her that the Gwyllgi were fed from her hand alone. Her own portion was sliced from his right thigh; he’d cut and plated that himself. It was only proper that he serve her after all. He ate from his left thigh, each bite making him want to wail in disgust and horror and groan in ecstasy. The worst part was how delightful it was not to be starving, the way the smell of his cooked flesh made his mouth water, how good it tasted. His mind tried to skitter away from the what and simply enjoy the fact that he was eating. The pain made that impossible. His curse wouldn’t let the cooked, butchered appendages die; the burns raged in his head. Every slice of his knife and stab of his fork sent spikes of agony rocketing through his brain, and yet he was hungry, devastatingly hungry. And the mistress demanded he eat. So, he ate.
Tomorrow there would be legs again, legs complete with new scars and new torment. And his stomach would be as cripplingly, gnawingly empty as it always was. For now, though, he was sated . . . happy. The same old snarl of confused emotions clashed and swirled within him as they always did. He felt scandalized, violated, and twisted about with rage. He’d been crippled, cooked. She’d forced him to maim and cannibalize himself while she watched. And yet she’d let him eat. What joy it was to chew, to swallow and feel substance inside himself. He was ashamed, disgusted, angry, and grateful.
The Mistress finished the last of her plate, set the utensils aside carefully and dabbed her full red lips with the napkin she drew from her lap. “Adequate, if chewy,” she said. Unreasoning shame bloomed in Bwgan as she stood from her chair. “Clear away this mess,” the woman trilled with a distracted wave of her hand. “See to the dishes and get yourself to bed. I have preparations to see to.” And then she was gone, bustling off toward the smaller cave that connected to the main living space. The one that was closed to him. The Mistress’s study.
Once the steady click of her footfalls had faded to nothing, Bwgan set down his utensils with an inward sigh and slid his ruined husk down the table. Slowly, and with more than one tottering that threatened to send him toppling to the floor, the fraction of a man managed to collect all of the dishes and utensils into a pile near the edge of the table. He took a slow steadying breath and heaved with exhausted, burning arms, throwing himself toward the floor.
Low, masculine laughter echoed in the humongous cave and the newly minted amputee nearly screamed. He pressed his palms down on the hard stone of the floor and dragged himself around.
“Oh, there was a sight t’ see boyo.” Ferdoragh laughed, perched on the edge of the table beside the mistress’s chair. “Better than some paid performers I’ve seen, it was.”
“What are you doing here?” Bwgan hissed in an angry whisper. His shame and embarrassment at being seen in this state by the smarmy, condescending stranger angered him and made his voice sharper than he could recall ever having heard it. The mistress wouldn’t tolerate ‘sharp’ from him.
“My, my,” the shadow man mused, still smirking. “Why do ye suppose that wee folk are always so testy?”
Bwgan wasn’t sure if it was the jest or the glower on his own face that brought the burst of laughter from Ferdoragh, but he didn’t care for the sound. He didn’t care to have the already tainted pleasure of his full belly completely ruined by this strange dark spectre’s mockery. “Be off with you,” Bwgan spat. “I have work to be about, and if the Mistress finds you here—”
“She won’t,” Ferdoragh interrupted. “She’s a sly old witch, your ‘Mistress’ is. And strong enough, that’s for certain. But none sees ol’ Ferdoragh ‘less he wants to be seen.”
Despite himself, the shortened servant felt a kind of awe for the creature’s easy confidence. The mistress was powerful, very powerful, and cruel with it. Discounting her so flippantly smacked of madness in his ears, but it was a madness he found himself envying.
“Ye needn’t be so frightened o’ her lad,” the shadow thing said as though reading Bwgan’s mind. “She’s powerful strong aye, but all knowin’ she’s not. Look here, at me, in her very parlor, and her none the wiser.” Ferdoragh paused and looked about dramatically, as though daring a bolt from the heavens. “Ye dinnae need to cower so, boyo. You could be free.”
The sound that came from Bwgan’s mouth at that was half derisive snort and half strangled gasp. “Mad. You’re utterly mad,” he hissed in a fierce whisper, looking back over his shoulder toward the Mistress’s study. “Free?” he spat, turning back toward his dusky visitor. “What does that even mean, free to . . . what? Have my skin stripped off from dawn to dusk each day? Be eaten by monsters only to heal and be eaten again? Maybe you mean be free to wander the empty wasteland forever, or until the mistress’s magic is taken and I waste away like those moldering bones out there? Free indeed . . .”
“Free to escape this place,” Ferdoragh said, his voice low but without a hint of whispering. “Free to return from whence ye came, to reclaim yer life. Free to remember.” The easy slouch was gone now, and the thick brogue of his accent had lessened as he spoke more seriously. Ferdoragh stood before him now, looking down at the ruined slave with an intensity that set Bwgan back. “Jogah. Daiu Jogah. Guardian. Remember.”
Each of the words burst inside of Bwgan’s mind like fireworks. Jogah. The word ricocheted around inside him. It meant something. Som
ething important, but what? Guardian. Yes. Something about that felt right, felt important but . . . Guardian of what? He looked down at the spasming, crusted stumps of his legs and remembered the pleasure he’d felt at being forced to consume them. Guardian? Hardly, what could he guard? He was a ruin. And yet it felt right, it felt true.
“Aye,” Ferdoragh said, placing a slim, dark hand on Bwgan’s shoulder. “Ye are more than this. More than ye ken, and ye can be again. I can show ye the way.”
Bwgan felt himself nodding, felt the tears on his face. “What . . . What do I have to do?” he asked, shooting nervous glances at the rack of drying flesh strips in the corner.
The shadow creature smiled at him, more of a showing of teeth than any expression of warmth. That grin hung in the air as the rest of him shimmered and melted away like smoke. An inky black blur shot around the cave like a bolt of jet lightning. Plates and utensils clinked and scraped, scoured themselves clean, and gathered into neat groupings. They flew all around Bwgan, a whirlwind of crockery, flatware, and serving dishes that slid smoothly into their designated places. The mess on the long dining table flashed away as if by magic. Bloody linens, bits of gristle, bone, and marrow that were strewn about the table and floor vanished as if they’d never been leaving polished wood and freshly swept stone in their place.
“There we are then,” Ferdoragh said from over Bwgan’s left shoulder, making the crippled man jump. “Good as new, wouldnae ye say so?”
Bwgan felt himself gaping and snapped his hanging mouth closed with an audible clicking of teeth. “Thank you, that was . . . what should I do now?”
“Why, do as ye were bid friend Bwgan, get thee to bed,” the shadow said merrily. “And while ye rest an’ recover, I’ll show ye how t’ avenge yerself for all o’ the pain and humiliation ye’ve suffered. I’ll tell ya how ye can kill the witch.”