Agleam.net

John Aegard

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The poets say all the agonies of the last great war are upon the Beast-Emperor. It was very much His personal war, launched without counsel from any of His senior advisors, so He bore all of its madness and pain alone.

Though I was raised to be partial to the poets, I never believed in the Beast-Emperor's legend—at least, not until I came to the Court and heard His roar. Equal parts keen and thunder, it boiled from His secret place deep below my feet. The citadel trembled around the Equiton and I. Dust exploded from every surface. Even after the Emperor quieted, the quaking remained in the walls for a perceptible moment, as if the stones themselves were frightened.

Unperturbed by his master's agony, the Equiton shrugged his feathered robe into the arms of a servant and sat cross-legged on a cushion before me. Though he was younger than I—he was string-haired, jug-eared, and so skinny he might have rolled off a windlass—he had a mark of experience on him. His jaw had an unnatural twist and a bulge, giving him half of a monstrous underbite. This deformity exposed an oversized row of sharp teeth, which pressed against his upper lip like a sawblade.

As protocol demanded, I recited the petitioner's creed, giving honor to the Curse and the lawkult. When the Equiton nodded his acknowledgment, I began my story.

"Benevolence," I said, "my name is Evan Spandos, and I am before you for the sake of love." I brandished my papers. "For testimony, I offer these. They are the finest things ever uttered by our poets, but they speak to barely the hundredth part of my heart. With your leave, I will read—"

"No. Continue with your petition." His voice was perfectly mild. I resolved to respond in kind.

"When my love's parents were young," I said, "they were so burdened with obligations that they had to promise five children to the troops. My love was born sixth, the younger of twins. But her twin was frail, and suited for only the soft life. He died during the winter, after just a month on the frontier."

As I spoke, I saw the Equiton's tongue flick over and through his misshapen teeth, as if he were exploring them.

"The local columneer desired my love for a replacement," I continued, "and with good cause, because she is hearty and level-headed and an expert horsewoman. He claimed that since only four of her kin were in service, the contract was unfulfilled. Since he took her last spring, I have searched for a recourse, and now I come to you."

The Equiton studied me like I was a gamepiece. "And you wish to have her restored to you."

"I do."

"What are Lord Spandos's thoughts on this?"

"My father will not interfere. He loves the troops."

"I see." He shook his head. "You must know that I cannot override a frontier commander."

"What is the risk if you do?"

"If the border is pierced for the want of a rider, what will happen to me then, Master Spandos?"

"She is only a single rider," I said.

"But, as you say, a very capable one."

"Can I not appeal to love?" I asked. "It is said that love rules this Court. The Emperor himself has a poet's soul."

"He did, yes, but—"

"The columneer cannot ignore you," I interrupted, damning protocol. "One word from the Court...."

"I cannot give that word." He forestalled my next outburst with a raised palm. "But neither can I deny it."

My heart vaulted into my throat.

"Matters of the outlands must be judged by my seniors," he said. "Go below and serve our Court. You will be heard within the year. That is your privilege as a petitioner."

I bowed my head. "I abide—"

"There is nothing to abide yet." He stood. His servant replaced his robe on his shoulders and then he left without another word, his feet silent on the thick carpet of the room's privileged paths.

A lady servant led me below, to a windowless warehouse where a gang of chattering thralls exchanged my fine clothes—my fur-lined half-cape, my plunder-pants, my jeweled hat—for rougher things: stiff pants, a coarse brown tunic, and wooden sandals. I donned this new finery, thinking about fleas, and then our descent resumed. The servant led me down many stairs and through a maze of bricked corridors. He would answer none of my questions, so I cannot say exactly how far we descended, but there must have been a great weight of stone—fathoms and fathoms of it.

At last we found a dining hall, where a great stifling mass of men sat bent over plates of bread and parsnips. There, I was given into the custody of an older fellow, a lithe man who wore his black cap pulled down over his ears.

"You're the new man on the soup?" he asked.

"I think so," I said. "I'll have some of that bread, if you please."

"Oh, it's best you don't eat. First time, at least."

"But I'm hungry."

"You won't be after you've stirred the soup for a minute. Come on, let's get to it." He pushed his plate away, took me by the arm, and pulled me from the dining hall. We went still deeper into the cellars. The corridor walls became rough-hewn and the floors turned to thin mud, but what alarmed me most was the air, which grew warm and damp and carried the promise of a monstrous smell.

My new friend was a chatterer like the others. "Ours isn't a bad job, really. Better than water-bearing. I'd rather see it going out than going up, that's what I say. We've just got to help it along a little, that's all."

We came to a rack of poles, each twice as tall as I. My friend took two and gave me one. Our destination lay just beyond the rack. It was a great squat chamber, a little taller than me, and as long and wide as my father's trophy hall. In its floor was set the biggest pool of shit I'd ever seen.

My friend stepped to the edge and began poling the muck. "Come on, get to it," he said.

"This is the soup?" I asked. I thought he was joking. I knew that petitioners did the worst work in the citadel, but I'd never expected this—

"That's what we call it," he said. "If the pipes clog, it'll overflow. Float everyone right out of the citadel, hah! Name's Getter, by the way."

"Evan Spandos," I said, forming the words with as little air as possible.

He froze, staring at me. "A Spandos lordling, down here?" he said. "Who'd believe that? Not that I hold it against you—a man's a man, I say—"

"My father was here during the war," I rasped. My eyes burned and my tongue tasted as though it had been painted with the stuff.

"You don't say! Did he stir the soup?"

"I don't know," I said, circling my pole's tip in the muck.

"No, no," Getter said. "Go good and deep!" He leaned out over his pole, jauntily holding himself over the pool. "You'll be here forever if you just splash around like that. Not that you should listen to me—I've been down here a good long time. Months, I think. They want me to think that they've forgotten me, so I'll give up and go home. That's how the tarkies run you off. You going to make it, chum?"

I nodded and put my pole all the way into the soup.

"That's the way. You'll be upstairs in no time. What is it you're here for?"

"Love," I said.

"That'd do it."

From pipes in the ceiling, a renewing flow poured, spattering in the pool.

"Suppertime up there!" Getter said. "Better get to it!" Then he began to sing:

Oh, down here it's steaming!
so pour all the cream in!
we'll make dumplings for demons!
and then we'll be free men!

Later, when my lungs had adjusted, I sang him a verse of my own:

The bee to the flower,
The bird to the nectar,
The moth to the moon,
Me to you.

"Very pretty," my new friend said, his face thoughtful. "But you can't stir shit to it."

We man-petitioners were quartered in a vast room adjacent to the dining hall. There were no games or songs among us. We worked too hard to think of anything other than our labors, especially the water-bearers. When the overservants tolled our rest, we ate our hard bread and our bitter turnips and then we slept huddled against each other on our ramshackle pallets. The cellars were always frigid. The air-fonts produced only chill winds.

As autumn gave way to winter, I found myself adjusting to this dismal way of life, to the fleas, to the rotten food, to my terrible work, and even to the Beast-Emperor's roars, which shook the cellars a few times each day. Getter was a valiant friend. He rallied me when my mood was foul and when my blisters cracked and left me unable to work, he stirred harder to make up for my absence. He talked endlessly, though never of his own petition. It seemed embarrassing to him. I did not pry.

My thoughts were with my love always. The notion of her suffused my weary body like sunlight, and when I dreamed, I saw her posed in my father's gardens, her ear bent to my whispers. When I woke it was always a hopeful waking, for that day might be the day she was restored to me.

It was early in winter when I first was summoned above.

A trim, white-robed woman shook me awake and ushered me silently up into the citadel. Oh, the air, the fire-warmed, fragrant air! I nearly wept as I drew it in. She brought me to a small, stone-floored room, then silently indicated that I should strip naked. She dusted me with fragrant powder, then a water-bearer rinsed me. My real clothes had been left in the room. My finery had become voluminous; it hung on me like sails. I wondered how long it would take for my comfortable girth to reappear.

When I was dressed, the woman led me to the offices of an Equitark. Hope surged within me. In such a place, anything could be accomplished. In this place, the heart could rule.

The offices were not a match for their occupant's position. They were of a modest size, paneled in plain wood, and darkened by curtains heavy enough to shut out any daylight. When my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw the Equitark sitting on a low chair in a corner opposite me, his face shrouded by a veil. I saw no obvious curse-marks on him.

"You have tended the cesspool with alacrity, Master Spandos," he said before I could recite the petitioner's creed. "My compliments to you for that." His voice was rich and rolling and humorless.

"I had brought some poems, munificence—"

"Ffft," he hissed. "I have read your pages. I hear useless words every day of my life, and I am tired to the bones of them. Here, we let deeds dictate our proceedings." He took a golden token from his pocket and tossed it into the fireplace beside him. "Build a fire there," he said. "Stack it full of wood and dungbricks. I want a conflagration, an inferno, and you can kindle it with these ridiculous verses." He tossed my poems into the pit.

He turned his back on me as I followed his instructions. It pained me to see those beautiful pages curl and flake in the fire, but I did not hesitate. The wood was dry and caught easily.

"Let it burn for awhile," he said. "Our game will need a good bed of coals."

"What's the game?" I asked.

"You'll see," he said. "Now, be quiet—I want to listen to it burn."

I sat silently, daring to hope, letting the fire's welcome heat sear the cellar's chill out of me.

"Pass me the tongs and the poker," the Equitark announced suddenly, perhaps twenty minutes later. I jumped up, retrieved the tools, and put them in his outstretched hand. He cast them aside with a clatter.

"Now, to our game," he said. "I hold your columneer's contract in my hand. If you retrieve my token for me before I grow too impatient, I will cast it into the fire."

I glanced back at him. The contract's red seal glistened wetly in the firelight. Instantly, I was on my hands and knees, peering into the fire, but I could see nothing of the token—it was buried deep within the blaze.

"Now we will answer the question of the hour," the Equitark trilled. "I must admit, I am curious—I have heard that even the poets can't know feelings of your depth, so we must resort to other means to discover the truth, hmm?"

I leaned as close to the fire as I dared. My eyes watered, my every breath burned, my eyebrows felt like burning lines, and I still could not see the token.

"Why so slow?" he said. "Place that coin in my hand and I will draw a certificate that confirms the Emperor's blessing on you and your love. I will seal your vows myself, pay for your banquet from my accounts, and order the Emperor's dragons to cool your guests with the beat of their wings."

I thought I saw a corner of the token, in the fire's seething heart.

"I'm not sure what you fear from the fire," the Equitark said evenly. "You're so spoiled on the milk of the poets—you're probably too rotted inside to burn very well."

Infuriated, I gritted my teeth and thrust my left hand within the coals. For an instant, they were as cool as ivory gambling tiles. I rummaged through them, sifting for the hard, hot token—and then I was not my own man. My hand was gone, replaced by a demon of pain. I cried out and closed my eyes and rolled onto my back.

The Equitark knelt beside me. His hand, large and cool, touched my face.

"Do you have it?" he whispered.

I rolled away from him, weeping from the pain.

"Ah, I didn't think so. You know, Spandos, there must be ten thousand things in this Court that are more important than the puppy-love intrigues of a shiftless highborn. Perhaps now I can attend to some of them."

I sobbed as I beheld my charred hand. The veins pulsed weakly within. My fingernails were blood red. As I watched, my fingers tightened into a claw. I could not control this motion.

"There are now two choices before you, the Equitark said, his tone perfunctory and well-rehearsed. "You may ask for my decision now and then leave the citadel immediately after I render it. Or you may return to the cellars, continue to serve us, and postpone your judgment."

I gaped at him.

"So you will remain, then?" He chuckled. "Very well. Who knows—perhaps your circumstances will change." He rang a bell, summoning servants to lead me away. "I will see you another day, Master Spandos."

Our dining hall had a vat of greasy unguent used for the treatment of wounds. When I returned to the cellars, I thrust my injured hand fully into it—and then I howled, because it stung like vinegar.

I slept only a few moments that night. In my dreams, I knelt before a chopping block with a stone in my good hand. I used it to made pudding of my burned one, then I nailed the stringy remnants to the block and dragged them off my wrist. I felt no pain in my hand's absence, only satisfaction. I suppose I made some noise during this dream—perhaps I cried out—because my neighbor kicked me awake. I slept no more that night.

I rose with the bell and staggered to the cesspool. I found I could stir the soup by clenching the butt of the pole between my arm and my breast and sweeping it around with my good hand.

Getter did not appear that morning, and no one came to take his place. Perhaps his petition had been heard? I didn't know, but I welcomed the opportunity to perform the work of two men. My stirring-pole was my only weapon, and on that first day after my meeting with the Equitark, I wielded it in a rage, singing Getter's song aloud, imagining each stroke adding some small measure of sincerity to my petition. But when the final bell sounded and I shuffled away from my job, my only reward was a new row of blisters in my armpit.

As I lay alone on the pallets that night with my scorched hand held up in the cool blast of the air-fonts, I realized that I might go mad. I thought of the men who worked my father's lands, of the hollow eyes that armored them against lunacy, and I resolved that for as long as I was in the cellars, I would think no further than the next stroke of the pole.

On a few occasions, I nearly fell asleep at the pole and tumbled into the pool. It seemed to me like the allowed sleeping periods were becoming briefer. To compensate, I began to allow myself catnaps during work periods. No one scolded me for this. I seemed to be doing a good job. The level of the pool never rose, not even when I was sure that I had overslept.

Sometimes food was brought directly to me. I didn't object to this. Very few people in the dining hall spoke my language, and even those who did shunned me, probably because of my smell.

The pain in my hand eventually faded, although the wounds showed no signs of healing. Numbness and paralysis replaced the pain. I thought with some terror about blood poisoning.

The overservants began serving wine to me, rough and strong and heavy with tar. At first, I feared it, because it sharpened the agony of my love's separation and dredged up painful remembrances of the Equitark's fire. Soon, though, I learned that I could drink myself beyond that point of hurt. Following this discovery, I never failed to empty my pitcher.

My next upstairs encounter came with no warning. Men dragged me from the cesspool floor, put a sack over my head, and walked me the great long way upwards. When they removed the sack, I was in the Equitark's office again, facing his shrouded face.

"Douse the lanterns," he said. Gas whispered, then we were in blackness. I heard the rustle of cloth.

"How are you faring in the cellars?" he asked. "You don't look bad, considering.... Yes, I can see you perfectly. I am not blind."

"The cellar hasn't flooded yet," I said.

"I'll come to the point, then, so you can get back to your work. Tell me, were you born in time for the war?"

"My father—"

"I know about your father. I asked about you."

"No, munificence. I was born after the war."

"Oh, then you don't know about how clever the greenies were. They knew the magics of swamp and sea, and they used them to flood every one of our mines, and they starved us for iron."

I stood, numbly waiting for him to return to the present. He was not being pleasant, but he wasn't being disagreeable. Did this mean that he might have opened his heart to my petition?

"There was only one mine left to us, a place the greenies had not destroyed. There was no need for them to do so, for the earth in that region was tainted with its own poison. The mine had been prospected, dug, abandoned, and nearly forgotten.

Our warleaders were desperate for iron—our levies were fighting with sticks—so they sent men down into it. When the miners began to fall sick, they refused to work. Our soldiers drove them back into the mine. One man escaped and came here. We had to hear his petition, just as we had to hear yours. Do you know the lawkult's credo, Spandos? Have your poets taught you that?"

"The pain of the judged shall be on the judges, and thus will all pain be diminished," I recited.

"Correct. The war put the Court was in chaos. Our curse was killing us as quickly as the greenies were killing our soldiers. No one knew how long the Emperor would survive. But I knew my duty and was determined to serve it. It fell to me—a mere Equiton—to hear this miner speak. He told me that his fellows would die before they'd dig a spoonful of ore from the place. I served him wine, listened to him, and then judged that he and his comrades should return to their jobs, and that anyone that resisted should be killed.

"More soldiers and men were taken there. Iron flowed out. Blessedly for me, the mine's taint was not a fatal one. But everyone who served in that place more than a few days suffered a terrible sickness, one that hardened their eyes into useless stones."

Dimly, it came to me that I ought to be embarrassed to be standing in front of the Equitark with my once-fine clothes now covered in reeking filth.

"My eyes were touched too, although differently. I can see perfectly, but any light, even the glow at the tip of a dying candle, is bright as the sun to me. The darkness of the mine, I suppose...."

Then he was silent for awhile.

"The petition, munificence?" I asked, finally.

"Nothing has changed, Spandos. Nothing at all."

"I have done all you asked."

"You have stirred shit."

"I have sacrificed—"'

"You have sacrificed?" he said. "You have an odor and a sore hand, and I live in terror of a parted curtain."

"You won't get rid of me," I said, remembering what Getter said.

He sounded bored. "You've but to ask for my ruling, Spandos, and your business here will be over. By curse and cult, I'll be glad to be done with you—"

I could not see his face for the dark. I couldn't tell whether I ought to wager my hope on this moment or wait for a better one. But this man held me in such deep contempt, how could I dare gamble?

"Uh," I said.

"I thought so." The Equitark snapped his fingers. The lights hissed back on. His veil was back in place, and his servants back at his side, helping him to stand.

"Wait, please!" I cried after him. "Set me any task, let me prove—"

"I already set you a task."

"I'll sign any contract," I pleaded. "I'll serve you for as long—"

"You think this is a market? You think you can barter with me, Master Spandos?" The door opened and closed behind him.

My food was served to me in the cesspool chamber every day after that. The food appeared while I slept. Later, as the distinction between sleep and wakefulness began to fade, it seemed as though I would close my eyes and food would appear, along with wine. Wine and wine and more wine, flowing from the jug as fast as I could drink it.

My burnt hand by now had hardened into a useless claw, though it ached, it always ached, and the wine did nothing for it. I walked circuits around the edge of the pool, pole held like a lazy lance. Some days I would try to count how many circuits I made around the pool but I never counted more than seven before I lost track.

My love, I saw only in my dreams. Her words were like taffy. She grew angry when I could not understand her. When I awoke after those dreams I would bound to my feet and race around the cesspool like a racing dog, singing about dumplings, until I was panting and needed wine.

The ceiling lowered. I scraped my head on it. It pushed down on me until I could only shuffle along on my knees and then so that I had to crawl like a worm and then I was pressed directly into the floor so that I barely could move.

I wriggled to the wine and waited for someone to come. And then the ceiling was back above me but the soup had risen, it was a finger deep on the chamber floor. I seized my pole and ran around the pool and stirred, but it would not cease its ascent. It was crawling up me fast as an ant now. At my knees it subsided and then fell off. I went to the highest point in the room, a piece of floor that sloped upwards to meet the wall, and I curled up there on the dry part and trembled. Soon after that the pool was back to normal and then it rose again. I think I slept but maybe not.

I heard the Emperor roar and shake the bricks. I shouted along with Him and tried to sing Getter's song but I couldn't remember it.

There was no more wine.

I stood before the veiled Equitark again, mute and shivering. The air in his office was terribly cold compared to the warmth of the cesspool chamber.

"Begin," he said. The air shimmered, and I saw an image of my love, her eyes wide open, her short hair rippling like wheat in the wind.

"I thought we should look in on her," the Equitark said.

The view fell backwards. She was on horseback, standing in her stirrups at a full gallop. Her bow was in her hands. Her fingers flew on the string. Three arrows fell in the breast of a distant scarecrow. Her mouth opened in silent, joyous triumph. Then I saw her with a dozen others like her, hardened, tanned men and women, lounging carelessly around a fire while the sun set behind them. From the looks of their soundless faces, I imagined gales of laughter arising above them.

"My compliments, Master Spandos. She is remarkable—"

The nearest thing was a gilded vase. I grabbed it and dashed it to pieces on the floor and then I stomped the pieces and the flowers into a paste—

Two of the Equitark's men dashed into the room and held me. "Let him alone," their master ordered. "He is exactly as I suspected."

I roared gibberish at him.

"Listen to me, Spandos." The Equitark stood in front of me. "This vision is not the truth of your lady's life. Rather, it is drawn from your own dreams—or, to be more exact, from your nightmares."

A trick! My mind seethed.

"This damns you, you know," he continued. "We have seen that her happiness is something that you fear."

"That's a lie—"

"What kind of venomous creature," my tormentor snarled, "fears the happiness of his love? And then you think you can deceive me about the truth of your feelings? They are so plain on your face that even I can see them." "Please, stop—" I blurted.

"Oh, how you disappoint me, young Spandos. How can your shoulders even bear that noble name? Your father must loathe you! I met him when he brought his war petition, you know. He knew the terrible things he asked of us, and he respected us for hearing them." He sighed. "I would find you merely pitiful, except that you have wasted so much of my time that I must loathe you."

I tried one final time. "I love her—"

"No," he snapped. "You do not. Your kind of love is a scoundrel's duty. You have somehow confused the yearning for the thing with the thing itself. Oh, you tell yourself you are on some grand enterprise, worthy of a great ballad, but the truth is, Spandos, you are empty. You are nothing."

I had no more words for him.

"Now begone," he said. "I cannot bear your stench any longer."

I went.

I was not escorted away from the Equitark. I navigated my way through the endless hallways of the citadel and down to the cesspool by smell and by wits alone.

My footsteps were surprisingly light. The ballast had been knocked out of me, the weight that had kept me upright, and now what? The Equitark spoke truth, wretched, hurtful truth, truth that was worse than the vilest lie.

The cesspool was before me, liquid and peaceful and—welcoming? My trembling stilled. This was the final brave thing I could do.

"I'm sorry," I said aloud. I was sorry to my love for hating her happiness; I was sorry for squandering the Equitark's time.

I crossed my arms on my chest and fell forward. The murk closed over my head.