Chapter 41: Some Fires Are Cold

Raouc wore a smooth, ribbed material in between his armor plates. I was told he took it from a Devil as I took my cape. It had tubes that radiated warmth according to his need at each moment, and was lined with a smooth fabric that soothed the itch partnered with the rot. Raouc's wings were docked. I did my best not to stare, even though he likely would not notice, but in case he did. We had been fighting our way to a certain knowledge that led us to Patches. Now Turk knew the path to Pandemonium, and, apparently, Patches knew how we could steal the flying steeds we would need in the volume we needed. I sat patiently for the third day in a row, while Turk and Patches sat in deep counsel. Then Goth came.

I saw this man as a young boy at the Dolomite sanctum. I did not know the purpose of his visit, other than he was searching for Turk. He had aged much more than Turk had, but, as all Cataphracts are, he was strong in a way that was disembodied from his venerability. Remembering Goth now, I lament my chosen labor. Goth should have been the one, the thirty-ninth. He was a man who could have battled the dragon and wed the sacrificial princess, then defeated her despicable father and ruled over the kingdom joyfully. Instead, the dragon was battled by another monster, and now all that is left is for a knight to come slay me, but I do not think there is another pure knight left to slay me. Abdiel, perhaps, but he could not care less if I lived or died, or where I even am.

When Goth arrived (alone), all who sat around the cookfire put down their food and drink and stood. I'd never seen such defense given to Turk, and I was slow to follow suit. Goth did not even see me, but went directly to Abdiel and Vassey. I only heard when Vassey spoke, making excuses for how long we'd tarried, for Turk trusting the Traitor, and for our apparent sloth. When Abdiel spoke, Goth listened, and soon he was sitting by the fire while one of our younger fighters served him food.

We were dining on our own fare, a mash of beets and protein gel spiced with plain salt. Goth seemed to approve of us eating from our own rations. It was night, and a lance of blue light shot down from the moon, having found a breach, to illuminate a petrified branch that lay between Turk and Goth's destriers. When the old captain saw the bottle of spirits between myself and the boys, twin tarrasquin sappers who had taken an unexplained liking to me, he squinted. This is when he chose to speak to me.

"You're the Victor Turk's been nurturing." Goths voice was as cold as the air that bit our skin.

I admired Goth, now more than ever, but at no point did I ever like the man. "Do my eyes give me away?" was my reply to him. A calloused eye roll was his to me.

"This plan is folly, and you're all going to die." All of us reacted to Goth, but not all of us reacted the same. I looked at him sharply, wishing for once that I had eyes like all the others, eyes that could show contempt. There was a drawn out silence, and as Goth opened his mouth to spew more venom, Abdiel rose, walked passed the fire, and took Goth's plate, then tossed it into the flames. Now, here, I will describe Abdiel's voice. It seems that the rot is not only a plague on their skin, but it can form too inside the tyfloch's body, changing them in the most irreversible and intimate of ways. When I had heard others speak, their voices sounded squawking, like a bird's. Though their faces are more wolfish than birdlike, this cawing voice made sense to me. Then I heard Abdiel, the clean killer, and his voice is a battue.

"You ride with us, or we ride you down when we're done."

"Abdiel," Turk sounded calm as he came over the circular ridge we made camp within. He sounded calm, but I knew there was the slightest trace of villainy in it, that he wanted Abdiel's promise to come true. But Abdiel stepped back, and Goth stood up.

"Took you long enough to find us," Turk said. He spread his arms and looked from side to side. "We're outside her cloak. Did you find trouble along the way?"

I remember how Goth's mouth tightened at the corners. If Turk's face reminded me of the Sun trying to blast its way through the sky, Goth's face was the barren land beneath. "This is Tarthas," he said.

"Yes, it is," Turk was now scooping food onto a plate. "But, fortunately, we're not far from making Tarthas a safer place."

"By taking us all into Lord V's dungeons?"

"No. By taking us all into his sewers, and then his hangar, and then to Pandemonium."

"So we go to Blitzkrieg's dungeons. What a relief. And here I was concerned."

Turk had sat down now, and was eating. Goth began to sit as well.

"Don't sit," Turk warned. Goth resumed his upright posture, displaying his considerable height and gaunt hardness. "Patches has something for you."

When the devil arrived, Goth's tenseness turned to visible distress. Patches was smiling, arms outstretched as if he were expecting a hug. When he came close to Goth, I thought for a moment that he was going to in fact embrace Goth, who looked less than inches away from drawing his knife and stabbing him. But Patches laughed and lowered his arms, then handed a small crystal to Goth and explained he preferred luciens. Goth gave me a vile look as he left, and Turk, to my dismay, commanded me to go with him. And so I mounted my courser and took the reins, following this sour man to a much larger camp that was nearly a day's ride away.

There were in fact forty in Goth's camp, including him. I spent my time amongst his lower ranks, mostly men as young as me, with a few women that looked so tough and determined I pitied our enemies. One of them was tarrasquin, the first of their females I'd seen, and one of the few. She had no horns, and no shield plate guarding the back of her neck, making her look like a sleek and powerful reptile, almost a serpent with arms and legs. Her pebbled skin was a smooth shade of tan with a dark brown eye of horus pattern surrounding each eye. She was beautiful. I was afraid to ask, but I felt if I was to be one of Turk's warriors I'd better break down the barriers here and in turn open myself to them. So I asked her if she was barren, as fertile females were almost invariably required to be mothers. She laughed.

Others laughed as well, then she stopped, but kept her smile.

"I have three daughters."

"Are they here?" I asked.

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She shook her head, then filled a cup with a brown liquid and handed it to me. It was syrupy, and smelled far sweeter than anything Patches had. I held it to my lips and took my very first sip of rum. I preferred Patches' shine and rye.

"They at home, raising their sons."

"You had all girls, and they had all boys?"

She bowed her head. "Strong boys. They fight too, when they grow big. How about you? I've seen a few of your type, over the years, but not many. You a daddy?"

I shook my head. "I had a wife, but she never bore children."

"Had? She die or run away?"

I felt a knife stab me from inside out, tearing its way through my skin and crawling to be free, but I held back my tears and swallowed the lump in my throat. If this woman were in fact barren, she might have felt the same pain at my question. "She died."

There was a bit of quiet, then conversations around me resumed. Tomorrow Gives Her Hope, my new friend, looked at me with understanding. "Recently. Who killed her?".

"Tarthas," I said.

Tomorrow Gives Her Hope nodded. "Tarthas is the enemy of us all."

"Then why do we fight?" I asked suddenly, overwhelmed by the thought that the world we lived in was the foe that sought our deaths.

Tomorrow Gives Her Hope answered with her lips, but her eyes looked as sad as mine, as if they were telling me her lips were lying, reciting a prayer they'd said over and over, though her eyes knew all repetitive prayers are empty. The words chosen in the moment from one's own heart, worded as never before because only you have spoken them and only just then, this was the prayer I needed, the prayer Tomorrow Gives Her Hope needed, and the prayer we both asked each other for. But was I even entitled to prayer? Am I now? At this point, I'd never said a single one. I've said many since. But they came unbidden, summoned by themselves and uttered in ignorance of who would even hear. I've honestly never known who to pray to, as all my life the foe has been the very ground beneath my feet. If the creation is the destroyer, can I trust the creator? Should I have prayed to the animals that are said to circle in the sky outside our cell? I cannot in a state of sanity fathom the act of worshiping the thing made. Then should I call upon the mighty ones of fable, whose names I've adopted for my own inner language, to say with few words what would otherwise fill volumes? And what entitles one to having their prayers heard? Some say suffering. If that is so, then I feel hopeful. While I dare not compare myself to the Lionstar of Tabor, I have carried my torture stake a long way.

"We fight to live," Tomorrow Gives Her Hope said. "We fight to free our world."

"Free our world?" I was incredulous, hating the soil I sat upon, and wanting to return to Upper Haven to find a way to ignite the old dead propulsion chambers at the base of its central tower and flee the very earth. I envied the first murderer for his redacted penance, and thought how it was wasted on him, and that I would have found a way. I wished I could trade places with Wodan, and set Gungnir ablaze, so that Yggdrasil could burn and me with it.

"Yes," Tomorrow Gives Her Hope said, and her next words bathed my mind in melange, new thoughts pluming like the stellar footfalls on judgement day. "Tarthas is not our world. Tarthas is what is done to our world." She scooped a handful of cold, grey soil and held it up, then let it slip through her fingers. "You think this ash is our world? Who could live on land like this? Tarthas is sickness. Tarthas is death. Tarthas is..."

"A cold place to sleep."

My words frightened her, and she nodded, then refilled my cup. "With you, we can win."

"You said you've seen others like me. Others of my kindred."

"Not for long time, but I've seen a few like you, from every kindred."

It was then that I learned of the long lifespan the tarrasquin endured, and wondered if the Dolomites might have originated from their genome. It was also then that I said my first prayer, wordlessly begging for the Four Winds to be real.

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