Never Knew Another Page 2

  The guard nodded at us. He opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. Then he coughed. “I knew that fellow when he was alive,” he said. “Didn’t know him real good, but I knew him. Nobody knew he was of demon. Jona was his name.”

  “He may have been a good person, somewhere inside of the twisted stain of Elishta, but with demon children, the evil rises in their blood and they fall a little more every day, until they become…” I trailed off, inviting the soldier to speak into my silence. I waited and waited.

  He spoke at last. “…Traitors. Yeah, I get it. Corporal Jona Lord Joni’s his name,” said the guard, “and his Ma lives in the city, but I don’t know where. Sergeant Nicola Calipari is the one that killed him, I hear. Sergeant’s… Well, I don’t know where he is, but you can find him if you need to if you ask around. Everybody knows Calipari. That’s all I know.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “How well did you know Jona?”

  He squinted down at the box between the two branches. He frowned. “Passing good, I guess,” he said, “Walked the rounds a few times before he got transferred to Calipari’s unit and I got over here. We did a bit of this or that. He never turned on me. Seemed good as anybody.”

  “He probably was for a time. If they die before the blood influences them too much, part of them may escape damnation in Elishta, with their wicked fathers.”

  He snorted. “You really believe that shit?”

  “I believe what I believe, ”I replied. “What is your name? I may want to find you again, ask you more questions.”

  “I’m Christoff,” he said, “Corporal Christoff. No last name. Never knew my folks. Named myself when I became a man.”

  “A pleasure.” I bowed to him. “My name cannot be pronounced without a wolf ’s tongue, Christoff, so forgive me if I withhold it. Where do you worship?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Well, did you ever worship anywhere?”

  “My orphanage was a temple’s place. Not Erin, though,” he said, “Imam.”

  “And you do not return?”

  “No. You’re free to go anywhere you want. Look, I don’t have time to talk about this shit.”

  “I only ask because you’re going to have to clean your blade at a temple. Imam is a bit more expensive then Erin, and it’s not your fault that you were doing your job.” I held a bag of coins out to him.

  He opened his hand, uncomfortably. This would look like a bribe, in broad daylight. I placed the bag of coins into his palm, and I closed his fingers over it, holding them closed.

  “If the temple must destroy your sword,” I said, “tell them that Erin’s Walkers sent you to get the blade cleaned. They will give you another.”

  The coins were too much for just a cleaned blade. The extra weight would pay for the funeral that I smelled in his skin. I pulled him closer. “It wouldn’t hurt to light a candle for Jona,” I whispered. “We are, all of us, feeling for the worlds that move between the cracks in our senses. Light a candle for your friend. Good hearts push through many boundaries. Have faith, Christoff. Have faith in something.”

  Christoff nodded. I hope he prayed before the sickness came. I hope he lit a candle and prayed for someone’s soul before the disease came out of his skin and made him beg for his own life in the long night.

  We would never meet Christoff again in any of our stories or walks of life. I could smell his death coming soon. Yesterday he had run into something—a wooden crate’s nails, or a jagged candlestick. He had cut himself deep with the metal. I smelled the lockjaw that would kill him soon. If I had kissed his cheek, I’d have tasted it there, in his sweat.

  I imagine there must be a girl at his funeral to cry and cry, a damp cloth with legs. Her love will spill from the corners of her eyes for weeks. Poor creatures, these young lovers, and a story left untold. I reach into a demon child’s memories, while good people live and die so quietly, and no one studies their memories for signs of good things done, and good people. Nothing will remain of Christoff in this life, except perhaps this imagined girl’s heart.

  Christoff, I felt your whole life like a thundercloud.

  These cities, each crack and crevice opened tears my heart away with a sadness of things lost. I saw too much. None of the people here tried to lead an unspectacular life. Christoff, I wish my work could bend to you, and to all your hurting brethren in the misery of Erin’s curse of cities. The stink of death was everywhere, here, and my husband and I could do nothing. Purify the ground; pray for these lost loves, lost lives, and lost souls.

  Blessed Erin, may our task be quick. Bring my husband and I back to your woods, where death is the same as life. Give us again the place where the only glory is to eat a little longer in the winter.

  CHAPTER II

  We do not fully understand the fate of the demon-cursed. Corporal Jona, the Lord of Joni, might even still be alive inside his bones, his soul attached for an eternity to the tainted flesh. I toyed with the box, and wondered if Jona’s spirit still lingered, watching the world he had left. Could he see the fabrics of life like Senta mystics? Could he see the truths of the world like us? Did his human soul wander the woods, silently weeping her name to the starlight: Rachel… Rachel… Too late for his soul, we must study his life.

  ***

  First, before we stopped at one of the churches of Erin in the city, my husband and I dragged Jona’s skull and uniform to the captain of the City Guard. We insisted upon a visit with him, right away. We wanted to make a scene there. If demon’s children could live here so long undiscovered, and serve in the king’s men, the city guard needed to be reminded of their failure, and the severity of it. We waited in the captain’s office while he washed his hands and face to meet with us respectfully. We carefully placed the demon’s skull upon blank papers on his desk, so the empty sockets could stare directly at the captain while we spoke.

  The captain stopped at the door when he saw the skull. He spat and told us to put it on the ramparts or take it away, but never let the traitor look upon his captain again. We left it there while we spoke with him, to stare at him. It was his responsibility to catch them here, and now the church of Erin was involved because we found the skull. We wanted to make a scene, and shame him.

  Names came to me when I saw the captain, and faces. I knew the captain would not know more than he had already told us. He had not been in the Pens with Jona. “Nicola Calipari,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “That old dog? I don’t know,” said the captain. “If he’s on duty, he could be anywhere. His people will know where he went. Last I heard, he worked the Pens, near the abattoirs, but I know he made inspection rounds. He was on inspection when the corporal showed his true colors. Of course, records don’t mean anything for an old-timer like him. His men might be lying to me just to keep him on the books until he gets the farm. Last I knew he was in the Pens. Could be anywhere.”

  We wanted to shame the captain, for allowing a demon child to work in his command for so long. We tested his blood for demon stain, to shame him. We commanded him to test everyone in his command. Let them bleed and know why they bleed.

  We spread a sheet of his finest heartwood paper under his open palm. We nicked him with his own dagger, and let him bleed a few drops onto the page. Then we held the paper over a steel bin, and set the paper on fire. When the fire reached the blood, the red stain held the smoldering line of ash back. He was not a demon’s child.

  The captain bowed to Erin, and promised to cleanse his blood at a temple of Erin that very night, even if he didn’t need it. He kneeled before me and begged for a blessing.

  My husband placed the wolfskin paw upon the head of the man and spoke the blessing for the man. It was the first time he had spoken since arriving in the city. I had missed the sound of his human voice. I placed a red flower in the captain’s hair—red, the color of blood and hunting.

  We told the captain that we would seek his help when we were ready, whenever we were ready. We asked for his patie
nce in this matter. He nodded. He closed his eyes. We left him there, kneeling and praying. The king’s men would know we were here. They would let us work in peace, even unto blood and death.

  Outside, I took my husband’s hand. “Speak to me again. Let me hear your voice. Speak to me that I may remember who you are.”

  He sniffed the air. It’s hard, here. I remember what it was like for the demon’s child from long ago—how he felt here. It still lingers in me, though decades have passed. This place terrified him. And, it saddens me. It isn’t our home. We don’t belong here.

  “For me?”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  ***

  We went down near the animal pens where the butchers kept their beasts. The animals arrived on river ships to the edge of the ocean water. They were shoved from dark cages below deck until they came to the city on ships, shoved from one dark cage to another, waiting for the death they can smell all around them, pressed together in the heat and the mud. The Pens district was where the smell was the worst.

  This was Jona’s home. Every street was his. His ancestral lands sat in the center of it, his house was hidden somewhere inside the new buildings that sprouted up around it, obscuring its place. There were people here he had known for years. I nodded at my husband. This.

  I know. Can’t you smell his stain here?

  And, I could, eventually. If I pushed Jona back from my own memories, and tried to ignore the rising waves of his life here, I could feel the taint in the air, like an edge of metal cutting at the stink of animals and death.

  When we reached the Pens’ guard station, Sergeant Calipari wasn’t on duty. The new sergeant grinned and told us to call him ‘Pup’, not Sergeant, but I knew that before he spoke. Pup had been promoted since all the other guards Jona knew had died except for Calipari. It wasn’t the stain. This was a dangerous place, and dangerous work. Pup said that Nic was ill, and on leave for good. He wasn’t coming back.

  Nicola Calipari had killed the betrayer, Jona. He alone had felt the demon child’s tainted blood spilled all over his skin at the moment of Jona’s death. The old sergeant would be trapped in poisoned visions of the dark soul he had destroyed when he had stabbed his friend, mistaking these for mere nightmares. He was going to be sick as dying.

  I looked around the room. I saw a thousand moments. I saw them merge into one moment. I could still smell Jona, here, under all the smells of scrivener’s ink and interrogation room blood. I opened my mouth to speak, but my husband touched my arm. The new sergeant pointed to the edge of the city, past the walls, where Calipari had gone to be close to his beloved. Calipari thought the stain would kill him. He didn’t want to die in a cluttered room above cluttered rooms, alone. He wanted to die in Franka’s arms. Pup spoke so quietly about Calipari’s death.

  My husband scoffed. “He won’t die. Jona’s blood wasn’t that strong. He will make everyone around him very sick. Why do men like you ignore the temples when you are in need? You give alms, and pray for help alone, but never let your face be seen by mortals when you seek your interventions.”

  Pup shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that stuff, sir,” he said. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  The tavern was far beyond the city walls, to the east. My husband and I left Jona’s skull with the church of Erin in the city. We pulled the wolfskin over our back and charged through the streets. We were wild dogs, running, big like wolves. Women screamed and men drew back from us.

  My husband had lied to the sergeant. Nicola might die. He might take people with him in death. We had to run.

  ***

  We were back to the wall, and beyond it, but this time at the far eastern edge. The swampy pine forests stretched out across the hills with the black, muddy veins of roads. I smelled the wind against my face. We were home.

  Night fell, and we didn’t stop. We kept our wolfskins on our backs and loped overland straight through woods.

  We smelled the tavern before we saw it. Drunk men had lost their way to the outhouse and had leaned into the trees. I smelled it all over the roots at the ground against my nose. I smelled the cook fire dusting the trees. Lamplight in the dark guided weary travelers to a place of rest.

  My husband stopped at the edge of the light. He told me to go forward; he would search the perimeter for any signs of the other two demons.

  I looked up at the building. The bottom floor bustled with travelers and local farmers. In the rooms above, travelers slept, and the owner slept, and his staff slept after drinkers abandoned the bottom floor.

  I went to the barn first. I smelled someone human there, and heard a child breathing. The horses whinnied nervously at my scent. But I needed to see in the dark a little longer, so I kept wolfskin.

  I recognized the boy when I saw him. Franka’s son was sleeping on some hay, waiting for men to come with their horses and a few coppers for his trouble. He snored with his mouth slack, and flies buzzing around his teeth.

  I pulled my hand and back free from the wolfskin to reach into my pack. Stretching my hand out, I poured holy spring water over his head. It must have been very cold. He woke with a start.

  “Drink this water,” I growled.

  “Wha…?” stammering, he stood up, clumsily backing into the wall.

  I remembered myself. He was a child, and me, a wolf in the shadows. I pulled the wolfskin from my back completely. I smiled as warmly as I could, a woman in full, and kind.

  “I am Erin’s Walker,” I said. “Do you know what that is? It is someone who helps people. I’m here to help. You’re Franka’s son, aren’t you? I’ve seen you before, but you do not remember me seeing you. Drink this.”

  “I…?” He shook his head, wiping sleep from his brain. I watched his face as his mind struggled to name what he had just seen. A dream, surely. A woman rising up from the body of a wolf, speaking to him.

  I handed him the water. “Drink this.”

  He took the water, sniffed it, smelled the sweet flowers that had blessed the bottle. He drank hesitantly. “It’s good,” he said, surprised. He took a deeper swallow.

  “You’re going to have to spend some time in the temple,” I said.

  “I’ve never been to temple,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me. His back was to the wall. “I should get my ma.”

  “She isn’t feeling well, either, is she?”

  “Not for weeks. Bellini doesn’t want sick people working,” he said, “so I have to pick up the slack for ma.”

  “Good man.” I ruffled his wet hair. He pulled away as if I had struck him.

  ***

  Inside the public house, the owner woke at the noise of doors opening. When he saw me and my husband, he was quick to realize we weren’t paying customers. He eyed me, waiting for the trouble to start. His name was Bellini.

  “People are dying here,” I said. “We came to help.”

  He nodded, sternly, and told Franka’s son to lead us upstairs. He’d be up later, behind us. The boy took me upstairs, to the top floor, where the slate roof kept the sun’s heat long into the night. The staff slept here, sweltering in beds too hot for paying guests.

  Franka’s son knew the way without a light. I followed him down a black hallway lined with buckets of rotting vomit. The heat did not improve the odor. No maid would serve this floor, and Franka was too sick to deal with these buckets herself, without encouragement. At least Bellini had the good sense to isolate the sick.

  The boy opened a door at the end of the hall. Moonlight spilled over him from the doorway. “They’re sleeping,” he whispered. I walked in to the room. A woman and a man snored beneath an open window, curling into each other like wild roots despite the heat.

  I had seen enough to know how deep the stain would run here. The whole place might need to be burned down. I turned to the boy. “They shouldn’t be together at a time like this,” I said. “He will only quicken her illness. You need to go downstairs, now, and tell Bellini to get everyone out of the inn. Everyone nee
ds to leave. Go.”

  The boy did not go far. I don’t think he understood what I was asking him to do. I don’t have children. I can’t make sense of them. Wolf pups would have understood everything, and instinctively known to flee this tainted hallway.

  The bodies in the bed moaned. A woman’s voice, as thin as dying, rose from the tangled sheets. “Who’s there?”

  I pushed the boy back from the door, and stepped into the room. I closed the door behind me. “I’m from the Church of Erin. I have come seeking a woman named Franka and a man named Nicola Calipari,” I said. “You are sick. I can heal you.”

  The man awoke, too. “Who sent you?” he demanded. I recognized his voice from Jona’s memories, weak as it was. He was so frail. He tried to sit up in the dark, but couldn’t muster the strength. Franka pushed him down. Even in low light, I saw the man before me and knew his cheeks and eyes had sunken into his face since the day he drove a blade into Jona’s body.

  “You need help,” I said. “The illness that plagues you is the poison of tainted blood, from Jona.” I grabbed clothes from the floor, and threw them at the bed. I could burn their clothes, later. We didn’t have the captain’s men here to enforce our commands. We’d have to work in stages. “Dress yourselves and come to the yard. Take anything that burns with you. Your bedsheets. Your clothes. Your books and papers. Bring it all.” I looked behind me towards the sounds of the first floor. Men were shouting. My husband was shouting. Bellini was not going to clear the building. “Actually,” I said, “let’s throw it all out the window. We’ll burn everything.”

  I opened the room’s only window. I leaned out. I howled to my husband below. I have them. Burn their things below.

  He howled back to me. I hear.