The contents of the cesspit started to slowly bubble, like a thick stew over a low fire. The stench of it grew even worse, which I would have bet vast amounts wasn’t possible. A weird pea-green mist had started to form, like a low-lying fog, over the surface of the pit. All this I took in at a glance, careful to not stop reading. The reading was getting more difficult, however, because Jessep’s steadying hand had developed a tremble.
By the time I made it to the end of the page, and the first place I could pause, things had gotten a lot stranger, and more perilous. The gate to hells floated in the air before us, like a giant mirror. In its reflection, Jessep looked terrified and I looked old and pathetic. We both looked shit-spattered.
The cesspit was now as agitated as the sea in a storm. The demon hadn’t made an appearance yet, though; that was what the second page would force it to do. That, and actually open the gate. The third page would force it through. Assuming I was able to touch the filthy thing.
I made the prescribe hand gestures and started back in on the reading. I’d’ve liked to give the boy some words of encouragement, but I couldn’t risk speaking a single syllable that wasn’t from the text. Which was just as well. I am shit at rousing speeches and comforting words.
Halfway down the page the portal’s silvery surface shattered, revealing the eleven hells.
Or what was left of them, I suppose.
Most people are familiar with the general shape of hells – eleven discs connected by a spike that pierced the middle of each. I’d often been shown a map as a child by my grandmother, who was fond of speculating on which hell I’d be sent to when I died. She knew me well enough, Gran did. But she’d have to update her map if she was still alive, because the eleven hells were smashed to bits. They were just rubble floating in the void. The spike that connected them all was the only thing still intact.
I almost lost my place at the sight of it, but Jessep gave my arm a squeeze and I recovered. But I had a sinking feeling my banishment wasn’t going to work, regardless.
By the time I got to the end of the second page, the cesspit had gone still and placid once more. Slowly the demon formed between us and the gate. It rose up, out of and still one with the muck, and towered over the two of us, compelled to appear by the rite. I made the hand gestures the book said to make, and it screamed at me. No vomit accompanied the scream this time, however. Thank fuck.
I started in on the third page, and started shuffling toward it. In order to make it enter the portal, I had to compel it with a physical push. The text was conveniently unclear about whether the demon could do anything back to me.
As I made my slow, painful way towards the thing, reciting as I went, it backed away from me, venting its spleen at ear-splitting volume the whole time. It lashed at the surface of the cesspit with its malformed appendages, further bespattering Jessep and me. I held the book at a flat up-and-down angle, trying to keep the page from getting shit-stained in to illegibility. I also held it up as a shield of sorts for my face, to keep as much as I could from flying into my eyes and mouth while I read.
I was not wholly successful at either attempt. Not that it ended up mattering.
Soon, but not soon enough to suit me, the rite of banishment was all but complete. The demon was right in front of me, and the portal was right behind it. I closed the book, made the last hand-wavey gestures it said I had to, and gave the demon a straight-armed push.
That old magic was still powerful. It knocked the demon backwards into the portal, sure enough.
But not through it.
It hit the gate and just sort of got stuck there. A horrible whine started up from the gate, high and loud enough to drown out the screaming demon, and low enough that I felt it in the roots of my teeth. Everything started to shake. And I was afraid I knew why.
The stercore demonia are from the second hell, Hauoc. The hell of filth and rot. The Kharthrd rite I’d just completed sent demons back to their particular hell. But from the looks of it, Hauoc was just floating chunks of debris. Along with all the other hells.
So what would happen if I was banishing the demon back to a place that no longer existed, I wondered.
I didn’t have to wonder for long.
The portal suddenly went silent. For the briefest instant I let myself imagine everything would be fine. And then everything went to shit.
The gate collapsed with a fury not unlike an explosion. It flung the demon outwards into the night sky; a screaming, demonic, feculent cannon ball. I was just able to turn in time to catch it sailing over Kluge and his men.
Its trajectory, was of course, towards the city proper.
“That’s not good,” Jessep observed.
“Get me to a carriage,” I told him, “quick as you can.”
Kluge was not happy. He was shouting very disparaging, very hurtful things at and about me. Well, they would have been hurtful, if I’d given a damn about his opinion. Dodged an arrow there, I did. Jessep hustled me as quickly as possible to the edge of the cesspit, scrambled out, and got me out as well, with not a little difficulty. Kluge made his way toward us, still ranting, and still holding my bag. Which I snatched from his hand as soon as he got close enough.
“Are you finished?” I asked him, even though he was obviously not finished at all. “Good. I need your carriage.”
“Fuck you, Lhiewyn. You had your go, and look where it got us!”
“That’s Sage Lhiewyn to you. And I have a backup plan.”
“Does it involve another gods-damned book?”
“As a matter of fact.”
“Go to hells.”
“Well, that was the problem with the last plan, actually. It seems they don’t exist anymore, or didn’t you see that for your own damned self? Doesn’t matter. This book will work, I guarantee it.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I swear I’ll resign my office in shame and live out the rest of my days in the countryside, far from being a pain in your ass. Deal?”
“Absolutely,” he replied, without even a shadow of hesitation. Asshole.
“Excellent. Now give me the fucking carriage.”
I’D’VE LIKED TO SIT up top with the driver, but there was just no way, with my wreck of a body, that I would have been able to keep my seat. So into the cramped confines of the carriage went Jessep and I. I slammed open the little window that communicated with the driver. I expected to see one of the guards, but no. Kluge himself held the reins and the whip, with one of the watch at his elbow.
“Gorm on a stick,” I muttered. “You know the general direction, Kluge. Get going.”
He did, and with greater skill than I would have given him credit for. Very soon we were out of Loathewater and into populated streets, though, and Kluge was forced to slow the team.
“So what’s your plan, master?” Jessep had held his tongue still for a remarkably long time. For Jessep.
“Find the demon. Destroy it.”
“Yes, but how?”
“Oh, gods. It’s not enough to do it, but I also have to explain? Fine. I’m going to take the book that’s none of your business, the one you’re not even allowed to glance at, and I’m going to read a particular passage of it, and then the demon is going to cease existing. Also, possibly, a large portion of its surroundings. But I hope not. Satisfied?”
“Not really, no.”
“Too bad. That’s all you get.”
“Also, if you don’t get rid of the demon and have to leave the city in disgrace, does that make me high priest? I’m just checking.”
“Yes, absolutely, my boy. And may every day of your time in the office be as jam-packed with fuckery as this one. Don’t forget to wear the stupid hat on special occasions, either.” Gods, but I hated that hat.
Jessep was silent for a moment, considering.
“I can’t say I’m fond of the hat, master.”
“Might as well say you’re not fond of boils. Make yourself useful and see if you can tell where the h
ells Kluge is taking us.”
Jessep stuck his head out of the carriage briefly, then pulled it back in.
“It looks like we’re headed towards the Rookery.”
“Oh, good. From one cesspit to another. I’m starting to sense a theme.” The Rookery was, without a doubt, the most foul, dank, evil and dangerous neighborhood of all Lucernis’s foul, dank, evil and dangerous neighborhoods. A small part of me wondered if its denizens might not find a way to kill the demon before we could get to it, on the off-chance it might be carrying something pawnable.
Soon enough the carriage stopped. Once the rumble, clatter and clop had subsided I could hear distant screams and the sound of buildings getting smashed. Wouldn’t be hard to locate the thing. I felt Kluge jump down and a moment later he opened the door. “We go on foot from here,” he said.
“Then we won’t go quickly, I replied, shaking my cane at him a little.
“No choice. If you’d ever been in the Rookery, you’d know that.”
I snorted. “As if you or your band of heroes ever patrol here.”
Jessep helped me out of the carriage and we set off, Kluge in the lead. I glanced back, and saw the watchman still sitting in the driver’s seat, picking his nose and playing with a dagger.
“Your man’s not coming? Not that he’d be any help.”
“If I leave the carriage unguarded it will be gone by the time we return,” Kluge replied, not turning his head or slowing his pace. “This way there’s at least a small chance it will still be here. We aren’t too far in.”
I glanced around. Two- and three-story buildings crowded in, mostly half-timbered husks of buildings that hadn’t seen paint or any sort of maintenance for decades. The street was refuse-choked and dark. There were no gas lamps in the Rookery, or any other sort of man-made light that I could see.
“What a shithole,” I observed.
“Don’t worry. It gets worse,” was Kluge’s reply.
We turned a corner and were on a very narrow, very dark street. The sounds of destruction got louder. Kluge made a ball of light appear over his head, and a whip made out of fire suddenly appeared in his hand.
“Fire’s not going to inconvenience the demon,” I observed.
“It’s not for the demon. It’s for the residents.”
“Well all right, then.”
We took several twists and turns, the sounds of destruction growing louder and then receding, and then swelling once more. The Rookery really was a maze. But Kluge seemed to know where he was going. That, or he was quite good at faking it. Whichever the case, we eventually rounded another corner and came to a town square of sorts where three streets met.
Most of the houses on the side opposite us were collapsed and shattered. I guessed that was where the demon had landed. Or maybe they’d been like that already, it being the Rookery and all. Anyway, from the other side of the wreckage came the sounds of more wreckage being made, and screams of the human sort and the demon sort. From the looks of it, lots of things were on fire as well.
“I think I’m going to need both of you to get me over that rubble,” I said. “Or maybe just to the top of the pile. Might be far enough.”
Kluge took one elbow, and Jessep already had hold of the other. They hustled me across the square and started up the debris pile. It was a nightmare of broken stone and splintered wood. Even with their help it was slow, treacherous going.
“Wait!” Jessep suddenly shouted when we were very nearly at the top of the rubble. “I see someone. Gods, it’s a child!” he let go of my arm and creeped across the unstable heap towards what he’d seen.
“Careful, lad,” I told him.
He started shifting boards, saying things like “Don’t worry!” and “I’ll have you out of there soon!” and sure enough, a girl of about eight was revealed, huddled in a hollow of the wreckage.
A child who did not look all that happy to be rescued.
“You buggered my hiding spot, you dirty bald cunt!” She shrieked something further and wordless at Jessep, and then kicked him in the balls. He went down to his knees, his eyes big as saucers. His face looked red, but that could just have been from the raging fire not far off. With an admirable quickness, the girl pulled a knife, cut Jessep’s belt, and ran off with it into the dark, negotiating the rubble like she was born to it. Maybe she was, it being the Rookery.
“Told you to be careful,” I said.
Jessep felt up to making a rude gesture back at me, so I knew he would be fine. I turned back to Kluge.
“Just get me a little further up so I can see what’s what, then wait back there with Jessep. Someone else might come along and steal his teeth or something. You can do more for him than you can for me.”
Kluge grunted, but did not disagree. He half-pushed, half-dragged me up to the top of the pile, glanced down at the chaos below, and said “Good luck, then.” I don’t know if he went back down to Jessep or not. My attention was wholly on the carnage now revealed.
It’s all well and good to joke about shit demons, but it’s not wise to forget that they are, at the end of the day, still demons. And all that goes with that.
Maybe my previous attempt to banish the thing had enraged it. Maybe it was desperate and wild without its cesspit. I honestly have no idea. But it was ripping the Rookery apart. Both the buildings, and the denizens. Great muddy fists smashed down through rooves, plucked out screaming people, and smashed them into walls or streets. Or flung them, wailing, into the night, to be broken in darkness. A few were trying to fight it with fire and steel. Useless, of course. Whenever the demon noticed, it just stomped them into red smears or kicked them into the architecture.
I pulled out the Hymns, and the book fell open in my hand to the page that was needed. It cast a warm, golden glow.
The demon noticed before I even read the first syllable, and it came for me, screaming.
It was much faster than I’d have given it credit for.
I started in on the Hymn of Unraveling, the words speaking me as much as I spoke them. Each syllable, almost liquid even coming from my old man’s throat, was a blow to the thing. Physical, and metaphysical. Pieces of it were ripped away, to disappear before they fell to the ground. The demon’s scream only intensified. It was a scream of rage, not pain.
Once you started reading a hymn, you didn’t get to suddenly change your mind and stop just because, say, a demon was about to smash your head in. Nor could you speed up your reading. Each hymn was a song as much as a spell, with its own time and tempo, and you surrendered yourself to it for the duration.
Part of me was there. But perhaps a greater part was caught up in the music of Creation – and of Dissolution. The thing that waits at the end of all things.
Forgetting.
The demon started clawing its way up the slope of rubble that I stood on top of. My footing shifted precipitously, and I nearly fell. Suddenly there was a steadying hand at my elbow. I knew without looking – without being able to look – that it was not Kluge. I made a mental note to double Jessep’s pay.
It helped that I didn’t pay him anything.
Of course, his bravery meant exactly fuck-all, since in the next instant the demon got hold of my scrawny ankle and yanked me down the slope.
Stone and wood battered my body, but nothing short of me suddenly not having a head would keep the hymn from finishing itself. The demon seemed to sense that. Even as the hymn ripped and dissipated ever-greater chunks of it, it flung itself down the slope after me.
I came to a stop with my head against a shattered ceiling beam. There was an old iron hook in it, and still hanging from the hook, just above my head, were somebody’s dirty woolen socks, lit by the book’s glow. I remember thinking who the hells wears woolen socks in the Lucernan heat? just before the demon landed on top of me.
It crouched on all fours, and screamed into my face some more. Still the hymn rolled on. Then it ripped the ceiling beam out of the rubble and, with both of its upper limbs, rai
sed it over its head, ready to bring it down on mine, decisively ending the thing that was causing it so much agony.
Instead, the last golden syllable of the hymn rolled off my tongue, leaving me smaller, emptier, and wholly human once more.
Oh, and it burned through the demon like flame applied to rice paper. Which was good, because there was no more demon and that meant I would not have to move out into the country to tend cows or gods-knew-what. It was also bad, because suddenly there was no demon holding a big fucking beam over my head, and gravity being what it is, I was fucked. Old men with bum legs are absolute shit at dodging.
The further good news was that some blast of magic knocked the beam from its Lhiewyn-crushing course. The further bad news was standing at the top of the rubble, looking very pleased with himself.
“A thank you would be appropriate,” Kluge called down to me.
“Thank fuck I’ve never cared about what’s appropriate, then,” I muttered. Then, louder, “Jessep! Come down here and give me a hand. If you can walk after that crotch-kick, that is.”
TWO HOURS, A HOT BATH, and some food and wine later, Jessep and I were sitting in the temple’s small kitchen. It was hot in there, but cozy.
“Master Lhiewyn.”
“Yes, lad?”
“Where did that book come from?”
“From the Deadlands.” Which was true, after a fashion.
He was hunched over his wine. He should have been happy. He’d just had a harrowing adventure, which he’d survived. That’s always been reason enough for happiness in my book. But he stared into his cup, his young face troubled.
“What’s on your mind then?”
“I was watching you the whole time.”
“That's nice, I suppose.”
“You barely glanced at the book.”
I shrugged, and instantly regretted it. Every bit of me ached. “So?”
“So either you had the contents memorized, or...”
“Or what?”
“Or I don't know what,” he finally said, shoulders slumping.
The Last God Page 3