“I didn’t know it was a horse dick,” he muttered. “It was disguised.”
“As what?” I asked.
“Gelato,” Lux said.
“So, you ate dick cream?” I whistled.
“Cord had it ground up!” Rek said, slamming a fist on the cloth and making the dried meats jump.
Cord raised his hands. “I simply procured one horse dick.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“It was a dead horse,” Cord replied, waving it away.
“That’s worse,” Lux said.
“Better I cut it off a living horse?” Cord shook his head. “And you call me a lunatic.”
“Anyway,” I said.
“Anyway,” Cord continued. “I’d bought it off this chandler who didn’t know what to do with that particular piece of dead horse. I’d originally wanted to have it fried and served with a side of potatoes, like a sausage.”
“That’s a big fuckin’ sausage,” Lux said.
“Rek’s a big guy. But, this sadist, he gives me a grin and asks if Rek likes dessert. Well, of course he likes dessert. Look at him.”
Rek held his stomach, a hurt look on his face. “It’s winter weight, you shitgoblin.”
Cord grinned at him. “So, the cook freezes the thing, and next thing I know, he’s grating it like cheese over the gelato. Big doofus didn’t even twig that it might be something weird.”
Rek’s lips turned down. “I like sprinkles.”
“So, he gets about six bites into this stuff, licking his lips, and that’s when the chef comes out. ‘Last time I saw someone eat that much horse dick was in Gentian carnival,’ he says.
“Room gets real quiet, and Rek puts the gelato down, still holding the spoon. ‘What,’ he says.
“The chef blinks, then grins. ‘Horse dick, man. You ate horse dick.”
Cord took a long swallow from his wineskin.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
“Eh,” Rek said.
“He force-fed the chef every last bite of that frozen dick.”
“Wow,” Lux said.
“And then he filled a bucket with vomit. So much vomit.”
“I’m a big guy,” Rek said.
“Yeah you are, buddy,” Cord said, patting him on the shoulder.
We fell into a companionable silence, finishing our meal. Once done, Rek cleaned up, Lux climbing into the carriage.
“What next?” I asked Cord.
“Prison break,” he said.
“Chaos?” I asked.
“Chaos.”
The Lemon Incident
We crammed ourselves into the carriage again, lumbering across the countryside. This time, we headed further west, to a place known only as the Cube. Cord told us it was where they kept the dissidents, deviants, and disturbed. I wondered what that made us. The trip passed in relative silence, giving me time to think.
Cord had always been unstable, but if what Fela said was true—inasmuch as that lunatic could be trusted—then he was spiraling. I guessed that he’d seen the endgame playing out, or somehow forced it, and was planning on causing as much chaos as possible in order to pull off his plan. The question remained, however, how does one kill a god?
It couldn’t be with simple blade and fire. There had to be something more. A connection that had to be severed, an incantation, a magic weapon. I thought back to Dyrk and wondered if we’d erred leaving the irritating sword behind in those ruins. My thoughts circled one another, until a new one arose, prickling the skin on my arms. Fela had been a gambler. Cord as well. Was he trusting the future to the chance I was the key? The idea didn’t sit well with me. I’d spent a good portion of my early years as a tool for others. The reason I’d joined with Cord in the first place was the promise of equal shares. Was it all a mummer’s show? Maybe he’d left those trappings of heroism behind because he already had his weapon—me. Sure, chipped and cracked, but with an edge, nonetheless.
I pulled another piece of slipweed from the package Cord had passed me earlier and chewed it furiously to distract myself from the cramps that threatened to make my day even more miserable. As I waited for the effects, I slid the curtain aside. The landscape slowly changed from forested hill and green plain to rocky escarpments, sharp clefts of rock rising in the near distance, cliffs dropping off to one side to crash into the sea. I grew bored watching gray take over green and closed the curtain, turning to Cord with a sigh. I’d never been one for patience, but still had a modicum of tact remaining.
“Why all this?” I asked.
“All what?” he asked. He looked up from a makeshift table he and Rek had placed between their knees, cards laid out between them.
“This chaos. The Hestians, the Gentians, Fela, the prison break, the Jovians, the refugees… it seems like a lot, even for you.”
“You ever killed a god?” he asked.
“Killed an elephant once,” Rek said.
I turned to him with a death glare. “Not. Helping.”
He shrugged and laid a card down. “It was big. Gods are big. It’s the only frame of reference I have.”
I shook my head and gave Cord a pointed stare. “Have you?”
“I helped Rek kill the elephant.”
“Do you have a point that isn’t at the top of your head?” I asked.
“Yeah. No one’s ever done it. Sure, they imprisoned one once, but it took an entire nation of wizards. And then they died. Not an ideal outcome.”
“So, your plan?”
“You know the Harrowers are a link to Oros, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, we’re going to kill every last one in that city. But you and I and lumpy and cuckoopants there aren’t going to do it ourselves. We need chaos. We need superior numbers. We need a big old distraction.”
I thought about it for a minute. “And the coffers?”
“Well, we don’t work for free.”
Rek nodded. “Work for exposure is bullshit.”
Lux snorted in agreement. “I knew a guy who did that. Died from all the exposure. And not eating. But boy, people loved his paintings.”
“Okay. So, we kill the Harrowers, free the slaves, burn the city, rob the coffers, and kill a god?” I asked.
“Yes. Not that exact order, but close enough,” Cord said.
“Break it down a little more. For the stupid among us,” I said.
Rek shot me a dirty look. I patted his shoulder and gave him a wink. He nodded in understanding and threw another card on top of the last Cord had placed. I was going to have to bait the old man if I wanted a straight answer. Cord looked at the cards, tossed one down, then at me.
“Okay, the short version. The Hestians attack Vignon, tying up their militia and mercenaries. The slaves revolt, forcing them to deal with enemies on two fronts, internal and external. Meantime, the Harrower leadership will double down on their bullshit and insist on holing up. We’ll go after them.”
“The prisoners?”
“Think of them as an insurance policy. Most are dissidents or political prisoners. I’m hoping they’ll serve as a third arm, forcing Vignon to split their forces further.”
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Lux chimed in.
“Oros?” Rek supplied.
“Ah, Oros,” Cord said.
“You’d originally wanted Fela here to deal with him, right?” I asked.
He eyed me for a moment. “Yeah, but somebody killed her. Or at least discorporated her for a while. On the upside, you broke Fantucci’s spell. Vignon should be back to its less than stellar self. And we killed their little messaging system.”
“So, by now…”
Cord nodded. “People are getting agitated.”
“You still haven’t told me the plan with Oros.”
Rek laid down another card. Cord grinned and tossed his last atop it. Rek cursed.
“You’ll see.”
“Really?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Really
,” he said, and gave a wink. “Girl’s got to have her secrets.”
Lux laughed, and Rek shook his head. Another wave of cramps squeezed me in a vice, and my still-healing stomach wound pulsed in sympathy. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat, willing the slipweed to work faster.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
We stopped still some way from the prison, the landscape a ruin of red dirt and gray rock jumbled together as if a god had scooped the soil into a cup, shook it, and dashed it out across the land. The Cube was a good way off from us, but still close enough to be a grey blot against the lowering sun. We’d parked the carriage behind the rise of the last hill before the landscape turned into a flatland. To our left, the sea neared, several hundred meters below, smashing into the rock with a fury that sent spray into the sky in white puffs of foam.
We lay prone on the peak of the hill, rocks and dirt digging into my tender belly. But at least I wasn’t standing for the moment. The slipweed and the pain were fighting, and for the time, the pain was winning. Lux reached out to squeeze my hand as another wave of cramps broke, and I resisted the urge to push it away. Any contact was a welcome distraction, and I returned the pressure.
“Storm it,” Rek swore.
“What?” Cord asked.
“Stormin’ rocks are digging into me.” He shifted. “Blood and bloody ashes.”
“So, what are we doin’ he-” I started to ask.
Cord held up a hand. “Wait just a fuckin’ second.” He gave Rek a wry look. “Are you tryin’ to swear?”
Rek blushed. “Well, yeah. Trying to clean up my language a little.”
“That’s fuckin’ adorable,” Lux said.
I snorted.
“No, no,” Cord said. “You’ve got stones smashing your stones. You gotta get that shit out, big man.”
“Frack,” Rek ventured.
Cord shook his head and went back to eyeing the cube. “Hopeless.”
“Anyway,” I said.
“Anyway. We’re laying on this hill, so the Harrowers don’t see us.”
“Harrowers?” Rek repeated.
“Yeah. Who’d you think they’d use for guards?”
“Well, guards,” Rek said.
“Probably a few of those, too,” Lux said.
“So, what’s the plan? I’m assuming we can’t just walk into the place.”
“One does not simply walk into the Cube,” Lux said.
“Then what?”
Cord stared at the prison for a minute longer, lost in thought. I could hear the wheels turning in his head. I stifled a groan as I already saw what was coming. He shot me a grin.
“That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
“Uh, excuse me, but fucking why?” Rek asked.
“That’s better,” Cord said. “Because they’d never see it coming. Lux?”
“On it.”
She scrambled down the back of the hill, sending a scree of rocks tumbling after.
“Rek, give her a hand.”
The big man went as well, leaving Cord and I alone again. I wondered why he’d decided to stick so close lately. I’d chalked it up to overprotectiveness originally, but something felt off. Maybe it was the reverse. Maybe he didn’t trust himself to be alone. I tried to think of what it must be like, in the mind of a half-mad immortal. How lonely it must be. I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it. Nothing I said was going to defray the knife edge of that pain.
The rustle of cloth pulled me from my thoughts. Rek and Lux dumped an armful of robes and accoutrements beside us. I gave the pile one look and cursed.
“We’re going as Harrowers?”
Cord blinked. “Did you think they were going to let us in like this?”
“This worked out so well last time.”
“I remember. You killed a man with a squirrel.”
“He summoned a dick spider. Seemed fair.”
We chose our robes, mine thick and woolen, stitched with clusters of eyes.
“Who the fuck designs this stuff?” I asked.
“Very lonely men,” Lux said.
Once dressed, a pile of fetishes lay on the ground. We each grabbed one, mine consisting of what looked like two gourds adorned with teeth. I stared at it for a moment, turning it back and forth.
“Is that…” Rek said.
“Yeah. Someone made a pair of bull testicles into maracas.”
I shook them, sending them rattling. “Worst. Instrument. Ever.”
Rek raised a brown sack that jiggled suspiciously. “I’d like to say you got the worst of it, but either this is a bag of sausage, or I’m going to vomit later.” He peeked inside and closed it hurriedly. “I don’t know why I looked.”
“Quit your bitching,” Lux said. She shouldered her fetish, a femur banded with gold and etched with runes, the tip of the bone carved into the head of a wolf.
“You get all the cool toys,” Cord said as we started out. A pair of fingers dangled from his belt.
I pointed to them. “Nostalgia?”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“I’ll bet you’d give me the finger if you had one.”
“He has two,” Rek said.
“Just not on his hand,” Lux said.
“Zero respect,” Cord muttered.
“I’m holding a pair of dried, hollow testicles,” I said. “Respect is a foreign country.”
We crossed the wasteland leading to the Cube, the prison growing ever larger as we approached. Details, or what we could make of them, were sparse. It rose from a simple pedestal of stone, a perfect cube of rock several stories high as it was wide, and featureless. At the base of the pedestal, lines in the granite formed the shape of a door. No guards stood outside, no one manned the roof. From all appearances, it could have just been an installation from an eccentric artist. We halted in front of the suggestion of a door.
“What now?” I asked.
Cord stepped forward and tapped the stone. Nothing happened. He shrugged.
“Rek?”
Rek sighed and dug into his bag, pulling out a dick that looked more like a garden slug than something once attached to a man. He stepped forward and slapped it against the door, chanting.
“Open the door, unlock the lock, in the name of this floppy cock!”
A hiss sounded from the seam in the stone, and stale air rushed out as it slid to the side. Rek slipped the penis back into his bag with a grimace.
“Fuckin’ Harrowers,” he muttered.
I peered into the square of black in front of us. “Well?”
“Ladies first,” Cord said.
“Courteous, for a man who humps everything that moves,” I said.
“To be fair, he’s not discriminatory,” Rek said, shouldering past me.
“True,” I said.
Lux passed me as well, and I followed. Cord brought up the rear. We stepped into a chamber of cold stone; the door sliding shut behind us. Alcoves lined the room from floor to ceiling, cool purple glass like a gem covering each opening in a myriad of facets. Behind each, a silhouette lounged. I looked up and up, the cells giving off a gentle artificial purple light. An involuntary shudder crept up my spine and sent a wave of gooseflesh across my arms. A black pit lay at the center of the room, stairs hugging the wall and spiraling down into the dark.
“Dreaming,” Cord said, as if to pre-empt any questions. “Or, in the case of the nature of the guards, likely unending nightmare.”
“Where are the guards?” I asked.
“Down there,” Cord pointed at the pit. “Keeping watch over those they consider the worst.”
“And of course, that’s where we have to go, right?” Rek asked.
“You know it,” Cord said.
“Fucking Harrowers,” Rek muttered again. I couldn’t fault his assessment. We were basically in their playground.
“Lux, you know what to do,” Cord said, heading for the stairs.
She gave a curt nod and turned to study the cells arrayed in the
room. We descended the stairs, Rek in the lead, followed by Cord, and myself bringing up the rear. The risers were clean and in good repair, if a little narrower than I would have liked while descending into a possibly bottomless nightmare. But if I had the choice between this and falling, I’d probably choose trimming my nethers with a rusty razor.
We hugged the wall on the way down, the gemstones above casting enough light for us to maintain our footing. As we descended, the air of the place grew more oppressive. It gained weight and heft, and though it wasn’t humid, there came a point when I felt sure I was breathing thick slime instead of air. I stopped for a moment to regain my breath and let another spasm of cramps pass. You’d think of all the shit the gods put us through, they could at least let the flow come at a more convenient time. Like say, when I was lying flat in a down bed, stoned out of my mind.
Cord looked back, concern on his face. “Okay?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah. Just needed a minute. They really laid it on thick here.”
“Fear causes men to oppress. The stronger that fear, the harder the pressure. Keep that in mind. They’re not something to be feared. You are.”
I nodded and took another breath. We continued down, and as we went, I did my best to think of myself as a terror. Nenn the Vicious. Nenn the Slayer. Red Nenn. I winced. That was a little too close to home right now. Regardless, the pressure eased up, and I was able to think again.
Light shone from below now, and Cord halted us in a black spot between the two glows. He tilted his head, indicating the area below.
“The first landing is going to be a guard station. If we’re lucky, the others are making rounds.”
“Luck?” Rek snorted.
“You got anything better?”
Rek looked to his jiggly sack and shook his head.
“Thought not. Now just be cool.”
We moved again, descending at a careful rate, and trying to look confident. We pulled the hoods of the robes up. Soon a soft grunting filtered up to us.
“What are they keeping down there?” I asked.
Cord didn’t answer, and we turned the last spiral. A single Harrower stood before a table with his back to us. A parchment lay flat in front of him, and his arm moved in a rhythmic motion. Another grunt sounded, and Cord cleared his throat.
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