THE MARCH is growing as does the density of the forest around them. They have been walking for days, well-shielded from the eyes of GOD. Entire tribes of the forgotten live in the Howling Woods. Gemma is seen, sometimes riding atop Madden, sometimes walking in step with Rossa, who leads the march through the mists of the woods and the vines of the ancient trees. By the time the march reaches the fifth ring, the number of followers has grown to near three hundred strong.
“We need protection and soon,” Rossa says. “The larger we grow, the harder it will be to hide.”
The orphans lead them through the crumbled remains of the wall into an older and less traversed fallen city. Here the trees reach higher still, and unfamiliar creatures prowl and snarl in the dark. This too was once a great city, but now its cathedrals are mere trellis work for ivy and vines. They pass statues of strange gods and goddesses and men and women of valor whose names are now lost. Locked to their pedestals by thick tendrils and moss, they peer at the new visitors with grimaces.
The going is slower here to assure the horses do not trip on the massive roots or crumbled stones marking the paths. Many of the new marchers from the forest believe the Passions, if they still exist, live here amongst the wild and untamed beasts of the world. For some, this is a comforting thought. Passions are mischievous spirits, but never malevolent. For others, a spirit is a spirit, no different from GOD and His ferrymen.
The orphans lead the march past the cathedrals and the skeletons of dead architecture to a massive structure. At first it seems only to be a cliff face, but upon closer inspection, they find a doorway beneath the vines and the snakes. Once they pry the door open, Death seems to be huffing stale, dead air in their faces. Rossa stares the darkness down, draws her sword, and rides Claire inside. Torch carriers follow. Scant light peeks through cracks and what were once windows. After she hears and sees nothing of ill intent, she dismounts and lets her eyes adjust to the darkness.
The ruins are strewn with gold and silver and bronze. The light catches on blades and sends rainbows across the ancient hall.
“What is this place?” Gemma wonders.
“It seems to be a museum,” says Rossa. “There hasn’t been a museum in the Immortal City since I was a wee thing.”
The Kingdom Guard named Hedric agrees. “Aye,” he says, “but these weapons were old even for these people. These be more ancient than ancient.”
“Can they still be used?” Rossa says as she examines a battle axe that has fallen off the wall.
“Aye. These be goodly made. They need to be cared for, sharpened, but there’s still life to them.”
Birds scatter in the rafters overhead and give everyone a start.
“Grab what ya can, then,” Rossa says. “We need any weapon we can find. We’ll have an army yet.”
The marchers carefully pilfer the hall. Rossa puts the battle axe in the strap over her shoulder where she keeps her sword. She also grabs a set of daggers as well, which she plans to give to the orphans. Children need their toys too, she thinks.
As she walks the halls of the museum, she cannot decide if this place celebrates death and carnage or simply remembers victories. She sees contraptions used for flaying men alive and some for slicing men in half, and she cannot help but think how they play into the darker side of human nature, the deep-rooted and curious sadism.
A wall ahead has completely fallen away, exposing more forest, though not as dense as that from which they have just come. Rossa even sees beams of sunlight poking through. Gemma with the orphans Two and Eight ride for it on Madden. Rossa wants to say something, but she knows they will be careful. Having Madden with them eases her mind. And if they run into trouble, this is the perfect time for her to try out her new battle axe. How many heads has this sweet monster lopped off? What did they look like? Did they deserve it?
Rossa hears raised voices behind her. She jumps on Claire and rides through the halls, torch in hand, racing past dead and decaying history until she finds Sary Cledes brandishing a spear at Hedric. Royce is trying to calm Sary, but the woman is shaking and her teeth are bared and gritted. Her eyes are demonic. Hedric has a slash on his forearm, and blood is streaming onto the ground.
“Sary Cledes!” Rossa thunders, jumping down from Claire. “Put that spear aside.”
“He means to kill us!” Sary spits out. “He means to kill us all.”
“Please,” Hedric says. “We only came to help.”
“Liar!” She jabs at the man’s side, and he crumples to his knees.
“Enough!” Rossa shouts. “Give me the spear, Sary.”
But then Sary seems to turn on her as well, pointing the weapon in Rossa’s face. Gasps of disbelief fill the hall. “You’re one of them, ain’t ya? You show up in the dead of night on a horse just as we come out from the Undercity… I shoulda seen it a long time ago.”
“Sary…”
There is no warning. Sary thrusts the spear at Rossa, but her aim is off. The unhinged woman is twitching and shaking too badly to do harm. With her own sword drawn, Rossa knocks Sary’s weapon away. It clatters to the ground. The mad woman is running now. She darts past orphans and sinners down a long hall, screaming like a displaced spirit as she runs into the shadows. Some people call for her to stop and some run after her for a bit, but she cannot be found.
“Was anyone else harmed?” Rossa asks as she kneels to look at Hedric’s arm.
The injured guard looks up at her, then nods at the other Kingdom Guard with a spear through his belly.
OUTSIDE THE old antiquities hall, Gemma walks beneath the trees with Madden and the brother and sister, Two and Eight. There is a sharp decline to what might have been a road or even a creek, and then more level ground punctuated by large rocks and great roots. The trees are not so crowded here. They can wander without needing to squeeze between trunks. Ivy climbs the statuary and broken columns of forgotten structures. These statues are different than any they have passed on their march. They seem happier. Indeed, Gemma makes out smiles on a few of the sculptures, as if they are merely playing with the vines and roots that invade them. Gemma sees something familiar about these faces, as if she knows them.
Madden and the orphans play on one of the surrounding forested hills as Gemma stands and studies a small stone Passion in front of her, a smiling sprite with fox-like features. She cannot help but return the creature’s mischievous grin as it looks to be running from something. Its arm is missing so whatever the fox once held is now gone forever.
“Sneaky lil’ buggers, eh?” comes a voice from behind her.
She recognizes it before she turns. “Foxes are known to be quite mischievous, yes.”
Usker Lance stands again in all his naked glory. “They’re not the most clever, though. Not by far.”
“And who might that title go to?”
The Great Sinner raises his arms to the sky. “Usker Lance. Now, he’s a tricky lil’ cum-licker.”
She laughs. “Little? I wouldn’t say that. I remember him being as big as life.”
They are walking the forest now, toward the children and Madden at play. “Big dog! Big dog!” Two is shouting affectionately between laughs. They are the only words he has said since seeing Madden. Anything else is pointless to him.
“Do ye recognize this place?” Usker says.
“Should I?”
“Aye. Ye come here enough. You’ve seen it since ye were a wee thing. Every night.”
“The Garden of the Passions!” She stops and looks around, a broad smile forming on her face. And she recognizes it, true enough. The hills are overgrown with trees, but she sees the remains of the fountain beneath bush and ivy, and one solitary willow tree, perhaps all that remains of the family that once dominated the Garden. Gemma’s eyes fill with tears. She looks down and finds the small stone table she sat at in many of the dreams. It is cracked in half and nearly swallowed by the forest, but she knows it at once. A sense of sadness and despair comes over her. “I do not know what I am doing here,” she says.
“Ye be marchin’.”
“I am walking.”
“Ye be leadin’.”
“I am no leader. Rossa is a leader. I am just a silly girl who had this crazy idea that maybe I could change something if I found the root of the problem. And that wasn’t even my idea. It was given me by you… or Abrythnia… or whoever…”
“Sweet girl,” says Usker, holding her chin between his thumb and forefinger, “No true hero believes they are a hero. They simply want to do what’s right.”
“I’m no hero. You… you are a hero.”
Usker’s face is sad. His eyes become gentle pillows. “Ye will be the greatest hero the Immortal City ever saw, Gemma Kerr. I guarantee that. But I won’t lie to ye, missy. Bein’ a hero… it’s painful work, and the sacrifices, aye, the sacrifices seem too much to bear at times. And maybe they are. At least to the individual. But to the soul, those nasty ugly sacrifices are beautiful things because they inspire growth.”
Gemma embraces him. “Why is there such awfulness in the world?”
“Ah, sweet girl,” says the Great Sinner, “no one knows the answer to that. Not even Abrythnia.”
LAWL IS looking at himself in the prop mirror. He decides right there in the middle of the scene that he is a pretty man. Duncan always told him so, but one should never trust those they love to give them the truth about beauty. And yet with the stage makeup and sharpened brows, with his dark hair lacquered up and pulled back into a ponytail, with his pursed lips and his seductive pose in the big frilly tunic, he can see it now. And the small crowd gathered to see Mother Maisy’s Traveling Tribe of Wonders seems to be quite enamored with him. The young ladies and some of the young men are swooning. This is a new experience for him. He flashes a little thigh in comic jest, and the gasps are audible. It is the easiest work he has ever had… except for the smiling. Mother Maisy is always having to get on him about the smiling.
“Brooding is fine, to an extent,” she tells him. “But a smile, my lad, a smile will get you so much farther. With that pretty face of yours, you should be makin’ your mother very wealthy very fast, my sweet little flesh dumplin’. And we’re gonna need every bit of that wealth if we intends to get where we intends to get.”
At least he did not need to speak. His mumbling did not travel so well in crowds. Esther Kerr, however, had gotten used to it by the time he and the child left the manse.
The troupe on this tour of the Immortal City consists of three other people. Mother Maisy is, of course, the Mistress of Ceremony. She is a squat woman in sequined black suits of her own design. She wears a top hat with not so much a veil as a drape hanging heavily from its brim. She flicks her wrist with a showman’s liquid ease, and her voice thunders over crowds in waves. Her two sons, now called Anger and Spite, are scarcely clad muscular eunuchs who wrestle and box and perform feats of strength to the amusement of the crowd. They are twins and have little use of language, able to communicate quite well with each other. They have auburn hair and awkward stares, the kind that burrow deep, looking for an honest heart in the filth. To one another, they are brother and lover and comforter. Lawl likes them. If the whole city were as silent as these two, it would be a better place.
Lawl had heard about the Traveling Tribe through excited whispers building in the courtyard behind the manse. The show itself would never be allowed into the first ring due to its bawdy nature, but it was just outside, at the first-ring wall. The servants were abuzz, giddy.
“Can ya believe they dare come so close?”
“I want to see ’em. I wonder if I could sneak away.”
“This is gonna be the best tour yet, I hear. Mother Maisy intends to head to the ninth ring.”
“How’s she plan to do that?”
“How should I know? I’m not fool enough to head up there with ’er. Word is, though, she be in league with the sinner’s march.”
Lawl decided he had been in the first ring as long as he needed to be. This was something new. This was a chance. He thought of Duncan and Gran, and that afternoon, he set to readying himself for departure. He planned to leave Key well behind and safe in the first ring, but the child seemed to know something was up. He was in the bedchamber with his drum, ready to go before Lawl even got there. His face had an expression of little-boy challenge, and Lawl knew he would not stay put. And how would Lady Esther treat the child without Lawl around?
They waited that evening until Esther had no more use for them, and then they quietly left through the servant’s entrance and snuck out onto the courtyard. Esther would wake in the morning wanting news of her daughter from Lawl, but she would be served a cold plate. Lawl was done with her. They left through the first-ring gates with the evening’s last group of workers who lived in the lesser rings.
Mother Maisy’s Traveling Tribe of Wonders was easy to find. The stage and wagon were set up against the first-ring wall as if they were merely an extension of the great structure. By night, one might assume the stage had been there all along. The massive twins, Anger and Spite, were outside doing their job and courting interest in the show. A throng of people watched the two do nothing but leer and pose. They were identical, so Lawl had trouble telling them apart.
They were like flesh statues welcoming the citizens in for a look. One stood by the wagon with a meaty leg upon a step, and the other in a similar pose near the stage. They were dressed very much the same as well. Sleeveless white tunics to better show their mountainous arms, black velvet sashes around their waists to give them more shape, body-hugging striped white and red tights to accentuate not only their legs but also the elements of their bodies that made them such oddities, and big black boots. Each also wore a beret. Lawl would later learn Anger wore the red, Spite wore the redder. Lawl and Key passed Spite on their way into the wagon to see the Mistress. He gave Lawl a quick once-over and returned his attention to an adoring trio of young men who nervously touched his arms.
Mother Maisy sat behind a large dark wood desk. Lawl was uncertain if she saw them behind her veil of black, though she faced their direction. She did not say anything, so they waited at the door to be asked in.
“Are you going to stand there all night, boys, or would you like to come in?” she said in a commanding voice. She might make a child cry by simply wishing him a good morning.
“What do you want? What can I do for you? Mother Maisy lives to entertain the Immortal City.”
Lawl looked around the dark, candlelit wagon. The wagon was filled with gaudy knickknacks and souvenirs. Mammoth bone and Passion fur and things from the outside world before its fall.
“My name be Lawl. We heard you was headin’ to the ninth,” he said quietly.
She did not respond. She was very still. Was she looking at him? Had she heard him?
“And why would you want to go to the ninth ring?”
“Because they took the most important people in my life there in those damn death wagons, and I plan to get ’em back, I do. And as for my little friend here, they killed his pa.”
“I see.” She continued her stoicism. “There is nothing so beautiful as a game of vengeance well-played, Mr. Lawl,” Mother Maisy said. “I cannot take you all the way to the ninth. None go past the fifth ring ’cept the ferrymen and their charges. But I can take you to the sinner’s march as long as they’re still there.”
“That’ll do,” said Lawl.
Mother Maisy leaned forward over her desk. “Give me your face,” she said. “I must see your talent with my hands.”
Hesitantly, Lawl put his face into her hands. These were not soft hands. They had been hardened and felt as cold as stone. “Oh, yes. You’re a pretty one. We can definitely use you.” She sat down once more. “And the child? What can he do?”
“His name is Key. He has a drum.”
“Play for me, child.”
Key tapped and pounded on the drum, a slow, wary syncopation. It was very much something of a death march.
“How insane are you, Mr. Lawl?” said the woman.
“Not at all, miss.”
“Oh, come now. To have survived your grief, you must be somewhat insane. When you dream, do you deal in nightmares? I do. Mine are horrific. I wake screaming every night. You’ll hear it.”
“Are you insane, miss?”
“Aye. Very much so. It’s the only thing that keeps me going, that and my boys. But, you see, they’re one and the same, really. My boys are a product of insanity.”
“How so, miss?” He felt the darkness close around him. The wagon was drowning in rage.
“I have run this troupe for many years, Mr. Lawl. Those first few years were good. I had a husband then, and a little girl and my boys. We were one of the best troupes ever to cross the River Hung.” She cracked her black-gloved knuckles one by one.
“We were performing in the first ring one day, when a Sister of GOD caught our show and reported us as base and immoral. I will admit, my troupe is a bit bawdy, but it’s all in good fun. Ol’ Queen Mags didn’t think so, though. The next day, my husband was taken off to the ninth, and our wagon was burned. You would have thought that would be enough. But no…”
Lawl’s skin was crawling. Key had curled up beside him, leaning fiercely into his ribs.
“The Senator General raped and murdered my little girl right there in front of me. Slit her throat, he did. Then he took my boys and had his Kingdom Guard hack their willies right off. I was forced to watch all of this before they tore my eyes out with serving spoons. Then they threw us out of the first ring and gave us a night to crawl away. They said if we had not disappeared by the morning, we’d be joining my husband in the ninth.”
Lawl breathed in the cold rage around him. “Vengeance,” he whispered.
“Vengeance.”
Now, Lawl gives the audience a wink and blows a kiss before leaving the stage. He is naked but for the white tunic, which comes down to just above his knees. He watches as Key steps to the stage with his drum. A nine-foot talon bear dressed in the torn uniform of a Kingdom Guard dances behind the child. Lawl was nervous for the boy when Mother Maisy suggested the routine, but Key was not frightened and the bear, Lolly, playfully dances along to the beats of the drum. The crowd loves it, as does Key if his smile is any indication. When the routine is finished, Key giggles and bows and the bear roars. The twins are next.
“We should be careful,” Lawl tells Mother as he watches off-stage. Mother Maisy is ever curtain-ready. “I saw a Sister of GOD and a couple of guards in the audience.”
“Good,” Mother says. “That means my sweet angry boys can have some fun tonight. It’s been so long since they’ve had any fun.”
“But shouldn’t we be headin’ out?”
“Aye. We will, Mr. Lawl. It won’t take long. By the time the little Sister waddles her way back here with more guards, we’ll be good and gone. It’s a dance we know by heart.”
The twins wear nothing but brown sackcloths around their waists. They circle one another, pectorals dancing, eyes aflame, and then they tear off their sackcloths, revealing large, low-hanging testicles but only a small slit where a penis should be. The crowd roars with disgust, intrigue, and lust. The twins grapple with one another and the stage shakes with their throws and holds. They are so very much alike, it is as if one man is fighting himself. Their wrestling is a ballet more than a sport, without a grunt or groan heard from either of them.
There is a winner, though, and he straddles his brother’s chest and kisses his lips. Lawl watches, mesmerized, as both men rise from the stage and jump into the audience. Admirers touch their arms and legs and fondle their testicles as they part the crowd. Lawl knows what they are doing. They are looking for their fun. Having found what they are looking for, they give a nod to the lucky audience member to follow them into the shadows behind the wagon.
Mother Maisy takes to the stage. “Gentle people of the Immortal City,” she bellows sarcastically, “I pray you’ve had your fun tonight.”
The crowd roars its approval.
“Good,” the blind woman says. “Very good. I am afraid, however, it is time for us to part. Please come see us again if you hear our wagon wheels on your cobblestones. We’re ever so much fun. We won’t bite. Well”—she points in the direction of Lolly—“most of us won’t.”
Laughter.
“Good night.” And darkness. The crowd is dispersing.
As Lawl and Key help Mother Maisy pack up, Lawl sees the twins, now completely clothed, disassembling the stage in a matter of minutes. “Where are the guards?” he says.
“My boys probably tired them out. They’re so much fun.” Then she leans in closer to his ear and whispers, “Vengeance.” Her word is made from smoke and ashes.
The wagon looks ordinary as Mother Maisy’s Traveling Tribe of Wonders makes its way down the main road of the second ring toward ring three. No one would ever suspect that inside the boxy structure is a bear and a stage. The twins are at the reins, dressed in long brown capes. Lawl and Key sit with Mother Maisy behind them. They are on their way now.
Vengeance.
DUNCAN SITS beside the bed, holding Gran’s delicate hand. Any second now, the heaviness of what he just admitted to her will make her skin fall away and her bones to wither to dust. He cannot look at her, so he keeps his eyes on a fold of her bedsheet and the small shadow it casts. He is crying. The pain is deep and cutting, but he feels relief as well.
“I’m sorry,” he says, struggling for breath. “I’m so sorry, Gran. I thought it would make everything better. I didn’t know what this place was, didn’t know what they do here. I thought it would be a better life for you and me. Ah, it was selfish, I know, but I thought Lawl could come live with me and…”
Gran pulls her hand from his light grasp. This, the most forced movement she has made in some time. He looks up to see her turn from him, her eyes closed tight to lessen the tears.
“Please… please, forgive me…”
She dismisses him with a slight gesture of her wrist, something that could be construed as a jumpy nerve. He does not want to leave. The guilt burrows into him like a dull blade, digging and digging. He sits for a moment more before getting to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers one last time.
Duncan turns to see the doctress at the door. She stares at him in the same manner she always has. He is a drone among many. He feels judged by her and quickly leaves the room, stumbling down the hallway of the hospital with blurred vision and an ache in his throat. The orange sky outside shines in and paints the slick floors and tall white walls in flame. Duncan sees nurses pass him, but he is as uninterested in them as they are of him. They, too, are painted orange.
He finds himself on the balcony. His world ends here. If he were at the Factory, he could make quick work of his misery’s end by pitching himself into a mixer. The pain could never be as intense as the guilt he feels now. He looks up to the swirling orange clouds sucked into the direction of an unseen sun. If only he could be like that. Sucked away into oblivion, ignorant to all. He would not then be forced to think of what he has done, of how he has betrayed Gran and Lawl… Sweet Lawl…
Duncan gasps for air and sobs as he climbs upon the banister. His bare feet clutch at the cold railing. He feels eyes on him. Some of the nurses have sensed movement and come to watch his fall. He balances, arms spread for flight. He imagines the steps below already brilliant with his blood. Bright red on screaming orange. He closes his eyes.
“Sweet Lawl,” he whispers as he gives up.
But he does not fall.
Someone grabs him and pulls him back down onto the balcony, where he lands with a thud. He is in a daze now. I should be falling. I should have fallen. I should be dying. I should be dead.
But, no. A young man looks down at him. Duncan has never seen this boy before. He is saying something, but Duncan hears only echoes as if he is in a dream tunnel. And the young man is strange-looking. Distorted. His eyes are way too large for his thin face. Duncan thinks he is hallucinating.
Finally, through the haze, Duncan hears the clarity of words. “Don’t do it,” the young man is exclaiming. “Don’t ya give ’em what they want! Fight! Fight! Fight! And by the Passions, I’ll fight with ya.”
THE FIFTH ring is mostly forest and plains, a few hills and wide acres of ruins. Its villages and cities are no longer populated, and most of the citizenry live in tribes in the wooded lands or in the more fertile valleys. They live in small earthen huts, though some prefer tents so they may pick up and roam at will. The fifth ring is home to nomads who love the wilderness and have no interest in the affairs of the first four rings, which is not to say they are not plagued by GOD.
He persecutes every sinner, and those who would worship false gods are seen to at once. Those in the fifth ring worship the Passions and elder gods as if it were still the ancient days. Some even erect carved wooden images deep in the forest and pray for the sprites to return. A few of these tribes have now joined the march, though more have stayed behind, hidden from the eyes of GOD by the dense forest. Those who have come march behind the main group in their own smaller bands of twenty or thirty, and they are conspicuously adorned in little else but colorful beads and small loincloths. Some mark their faces with tattoos and paints. Others wear great silver discs through their lips and ears.
“These are Usker’s people,” Royce told Rossa and Gemma. “He was from these same forests, but stolen for a rich pair of first ringers. They thought he was precious, cute lil’ bugger. They didna think so after he bit off the old man’s dick.”
The march settles for a rest at the edge of the forest. Gemma and Rossa take Claire for a graze on a rolling grassland. Evening is coming, turning the orange sky a blood red. The winter chill rolls over the hills like a whisper. Rossa likes the touch of the cold on her face. Cold feels like new.
“And ya trust this stranger ya met in the woods, do ya?” Rossa asks. “He hid and then snuck away. That would not elicit my trust, dear Gemma.”
“He was in my dreams,” Gemma says. “The ones with Abrythnia before Usker Lance started visiting me. Abrythnia told me to listen to him.”
“What did he say? Was it of any importance?”
Claire whinnies and shakes her mane in contentment as she munches on the long grass behind them.
“Nothing I can think of. But there was something… something about his eyes…”
Rossa crosses her arms. “I don’t know, Hero Girl. I do not trust it. Maybe he is a spy. Maybe he is a herald of GOD. Maybe he is a fucking demon.”
“I want to trust him. Can’t there be anyone I can trust?” She seems irritated.
“No.” Rossa knows when to be blunt. This is no time for subtle charm. “Trust belongs back in those old museums. Trust leads to death.”
Gemma is silent for a moment. “That disturbs me,” she says. “I never much liked the people around me. Not even my parents, really. But I always trusted them. Now you’re telling me that was folly. I feel such anger welling up in me.” She clenches her fists. “I think I understand Sary Cledes.”
“Sary Cledes is insane now, gal.”
“Maybe I am as well. Maybe you are.”
“Maybe we all are, and this whole walled city is a figment of some creature’s bizarre and complex imagination.”
“That’s what Abrythnia told me, that we are figments of her imagination, that she is a fragment of our souls.”
“So, we’re puppets then.” Rossa does not like that thought. Despite everything, she believes people make their own ways. Free will to fuck up their lives how best they see fit. If that does not exist, if everything is preordained, then no matter how hard she searches and what tragedies befall her, she might never find the child Key. If some higher spirit or creator has chosen to strike the child down or make it so their paths never cross… She does not wish to think on this. We feel a stab of resentment from her.
“Passions protect us!” she says suddenly.
Across the rolling plains, she sees a band of riders on horses racing toward them. They are coming too quickly for her and Gemma to mount Claire. She pulls her sword and axe, and Gemma pulls a small blade she has taken from the museum.
“Kingdom Guards?” Gemma says.
“They be the only ones with any horses these days, if what I’m hearin’ is right. That’s all thanks to yours truly.”
Yet as the riders approach, Rossa sees no uniforms. In fact, they are wearing clothes of the common man. And women and younger folk are among their number as well. Rossa is not less threatened as the riders surround them. They have weapons, but they are not drawn.
“Are you the Lady Rossa?” a large man with a tattoo over half his face says.
“I am Rossa,” she replies. “But a lady I am not, sir.”
“And a sir I am not, m’lady. We have been looking for you.” He looks to Gemma with wide-eyed interest. “And her.”
“Who be ya?”
“We’re horsemen, and we want to join your march. So, put your sword away. You have no need of it.”
Rossa relaxes a bit and looks at the steeds. “Horsemen? Has GOD not taken them from ya?”
“He tried, but some of us managed to get away with our most prized mounts.”
Claire looks a rag doll compared to the horsemen’s steeds.
“We’ve lost twenty riders trying to find you,” he says. “Lorien is me name.” He looks about the plains. “Where be the others in your march?”
“Back in the forest,” Gemma answers.
“What news from the rings?” Rossa says. “If you can find us so easily, is the Senator General far behind?”
“He’s coming hard for you, miss,” says a young woman with short dark hair. “They’re setting fire to the forest and flaying and hanging those who get in their way. Women and children along with the men.”
“They impale the bodies along the road as warnings to others,” says Lorien. “It’s a bloody mess.”
Rossa’s heart sinks. She tries to keep up her walls so that nothing might affect her, but she sometimes fails. She notices Gemma’s jaw tense. There is rage in the girl, not grief.
“Come back to the forest with us,” Gemma says with a new look of resolve. “We shall have a feast tonight. We shall remember those who died for us, and then we shall collect our anger and march on. They will not have died for nothing. We will succeed, and we will bring GOD down.”
THE SENATOR General has called upon the House of Kerr once again. He sits in the parlor with a cup of tea he has yet to taste. The place looks dismal and dim, as if it hasn’t been cleaned in days. Dust is an inch thick on the shelving and tables. Shards of broken dishes are scattered over the floor of the parlor and in the hall, as if a small cyclone had been released. One lit candle sits atop the mantel in the parlor. Esther herself answered the door, looking haggard but no less haughty. Where are her servants? Hegart wondered. There is the old man who brought the tea, but that is all. Odd.
Esther Kerr sits slouched in her chair across from him. Her hair is straggly and hanging lazy from its usual knot, her gown is wrinkled, and her eyes seem tired. Very tired. Hegart has hope for some sort of victory here. He cannot help but grin.
“Wipe that ugly smile off your face,” she says. “I told you, you will never see my husband again. Ever. He is through with you and GOD. You lose.”
“I lose?” he says, deciding to keep his grin all the same. “Pardon me for saying so, but by the looks of things, it seems as if you have lost. You are swimming in darkness, dear lady.”
She watches him intently. Scrutinizing. As if she expects him to do something. But what?
The manse creaks and knocks around them, ready to be done with it, to be done with the Kerrs, done with the entire city. Hegart would gladly put the place to the torch, and the lady of the house with it. To hear her screams would be akin to a lullaby.
“Are we to be drowned by your odious voice indefinitely?” she says.
The Voice of GOD has been playing throughout the first ring all day, the same few sentences on an endless loop.
“GOD’s affirmations are a comfort to His people,” says the Senator General. He slurps back a stream of saliva.
“Do you really think threats will quell an uprising? You are a fool, and so is GOD.”
“’Tis no uprising, lady. ’Tis but a squabble.”
Esther’s sharp laughter surprises him. He has never heard it before. She keeps her eyes on his cup of tea. She takes a sip from a wineglass that sits on the floor beside her chair. “This is no mere squabble, Hegart,” she assures him. “I hear the sinner’s march is swelling in numbers, as is support for it. People go in search of it. Why, even here in the first ring we have had these so-called ‘squabbles.’ Can’t you recognize the truth? This is revolution. It has taken a different form than the one we anchored, but things are changing and they’re about to get very, very nasty. For you, for me, and for the damned Almighty.”
Hegart loses his smile. He knows the truth in what she says. Some of his own guards have defected, slipped away in the night. When he regains control of the city, he will skin the insolent guards and hang their corpses from the gates as a warning. Perhaps a weekly flaying would do the inhabitants good. He could do it by lottery.
Esther clambers to her feet. She nearly trips as she walks to the large window that looks out over the empty nighttime street. She throws her wineglass to the floor where it does not shatter but rolls into a corner like a frightened pet. “Won’t you take a sip of your tea, Senator? It’s good tea. Would be a shame to see it go to waste.”
“Lady Esther, where is your daughter? Where is Gemma?”
“She’s out. Out and about doing this, doing that. Sometimes doing this and that. She’s quite popular these days.”
“With all the wrong people. I think it would be best if you told her to come home to mommy.”
Esther laughs again, but it is a deflated laugh, lost of all strength. “Oh, that I could. But you see, Hegart, I am just as lost as you.” She turns to face the man again. She is but a silhouette. “I assure you, I have not the slightest idea where my little revolutionary has got to. But I can tell you this. I’m very proud of her. She’s got more balls than every man in your loathsome guard combined.”
She glances at the cup again. “Have some tea,” she says. “I made it just for you.”
The Senator General looks at the cup suspiciously. “You have it,” he says as he flings the hot liquid at her.
She is quick to jump away as the acid in the tea lands on the carpet near her and begins to eat away at the fibers. Her eyes are white with fury. Esther grabs a lamp and swings it at the man, gashing his forehead. He is on top of her, choking her, soaking her with drool and rage. He wants her to die. He has wanted it for so long that he does not even remember why. But it feels good, orgasmic. It feels marvelous to dig his fingers in her throat. This is what he loves. This breaking, this crushing, this finality. And yet…
She is smiling. She wants this, too. She wants him to kill her. His thoughts turn to GOD. He would not want this. He wants Bana alive, and Bana would surely die for lack of care without Esther.
Hegart releases her throat and stands. She is choking on the floor, clutching at her neck and hacking.
“Coward!” she yells coarsely. “You can’t… even kill… a woman.”
“Too easy,” he says, his eyes gone white and his filed teeth bared like a monster from a folk tale. He wipes the drool from his mouth with the sleeve of his coat. “What you need, miss, is a long imprisonment. Just you and Bana. I’ll be taking your old valet with me, and I’ll be posting guards at your doors. You will never set foot outside of this manse again. And when you die, I’m going to rape your corpse and hang you on the gate for all to see your rotting pussy. Best hope Bana outlives me, Lady Esther. If not, you’ll be joining him the minute he dies, and in the most excruciating manner I can come up with.”