Convalescence Read online

  The air is cool, but humid. A path formed out of marble flagstones crosses the chamber, bridging the river with a simple arch. Benches, carved with floral and pagan designs, invite me to sit near the top of devilwheat-covered knolls or under the shade-casting canopy of hungerleaf trees.

  My heart is rent by this tranquility. How was I to know to prepare for something like this? How could I know this kind of pain existed?

  This Eden is so beautiful that it tears my insides back apart. It’s a different kind of agony, a loss so profound and so very different from the empty pit my fallen son left in the hollow of my chest, or the hole Melvin had dug out in my lower intestines. This place has everything in it my damned soul wishes for.

  I cover my eyes to hide my weakness.

  “Be not embarrassed,” Q assures me. “Many men, men greater than you and I have wept upon seeing one of these. But before it overwhelms you, before hope takes root in your soul, I need you to listen to me, Cris. Can you listen?”

  Numbly, I nod.

  “The Infidel warns us that there is no evil like Eden. Peace can destroy a warrior as surely as war. Fortune can break a man as surely as misery. Success can destroy a heart as surely as failure. In Hell, this is especially so.

  “This place, these places, they were built by men, not the Architect, but they form a trap as deadly as any Hell has ever devised. Eden will call to you, tempt you, cheat you of your will. It will sing to you its song—and you’ll lose your sense of time. You’ll forget that there are others who suffer outside these walls, others who need your help. You’ll forget that staying here is what draws them . . . the Minotaurs, the Nephilim, the Archdevils and their stonewights. The fallen angels and the banshees. The Icanitzu lords and the Dezendyitzu. They can sense when a man stays put for too long. That’s why they’re drawn to cities. That’s why they’re drawn to camps. But a haven like this, it calls to them even more loudly.

  “Who knows how they can sense it? Maybe it’s the stillness of the air. Maybe it’s that no devils have traversed this way. We’ve tried many things to keep them from finding chambers like this. Many, many things. But always, they come. Always.

  “You’ll be resting, you’ll feel sure it’s been too long—that for some reason, this place, this time, is the one where you’ll get eternal peace. But they’ll come, and softened by that peace, you’ll die.

  “Do you understand me, Cris?”

  I hear his words, but I don’t want to understand them.

  “Do you?” he repeats. “You can convince yourself of their truth later, but for now, I just need to know that you hear me.”

  I take my hand away from my eyes and look again at the chamber, at this living embodiment of all that has ever been taken from me. “I hear you.”

  Q leads me out of Eden cavern quickly, and I’m thankful that he does. I do want to go back, though. I want to sit on one of those benches, smell the air, listen to the water, and daydream about some meaningless thing. But if I did . . .

  My arms are shaking, and my step is unsteady. “More,” I say.

  Q gives me one of his patented quizzical looks, eyebrows raised into the furrows in his forehead.

  “Show me more of this place,” I say. “I want to know more about where we’re staying.”

  Q is only to happy to oblige. “The river you just saw is the source of our grey water system,” he says, pointing behind us. “It flows through to our baths.”

  I stop in the hallway. “Baths,” I mumble.

  Q nods. “It’s an infidel thing. We try to keep a good understanding of technology. Plumbing is one of those technologies. One day, Cris, we’re going to beat Hell. We’ll need all those skills again, just like we did when we were the ancients.”

  Q leads me back to the study and then to the hallway with our bedrooms. He stops at one door and opens it.

  I can tell it’s a latrine, but as far as latrines go, it smells pretty nice.

  “This is where we’ve been dumping your bed pan,” Q tells me. “I think Cid would appreciate it if you started taking care of that yourself.”

  I nod, and for a brief moment, I feel euphoria. Maybe it’s an after effect of the Eden room. Maybe it’s that I realize I’m healed enough to shit on my own. Maybe it’s just that purist form of denial which is so often the harbinger of an upcoming mental breakdown.

  Q smiles. “You’re going to want to use that thing in the corner, by the sink. It’s a bidet. You ever heard of one before?”

  It looks like a cross between a sink and a toilet.

  I frown. “French, isn’t it?”

  Q shrugs. “There’s no toilet paper, so if you want to be civilized, apparently French is your only option. You good?”

  “Oui oui,” I say.

  Q chuckles.

  It feels odd to have made a joke.

  I lean over and look down the black stone toilet. It’s like one from the old world, but instead of flushing, it simply has a hole with a river at the bottom.

  “Don’t worry,” Q says. “This water doesn’t mix with the baths.”

  At the end of the hall is a small archway which leads into a cramped spiral staircase. We can only go through single file and Q has to duck to use it.

  “You sure Archades built this thing?” I ask.

  “Not sure, why?”

  The hellstone of the stairwell scrapes my shoulder as we walk down it.

  I stop. “It’s small.”

  Q’s deep laughter echoes about in the tight confines. “Maybe they built it for Cid? We were at the top, the fourth level. Are you good to see the third?”

  Ever so gingerly, just as when I first put weight upon my ankle, I test my emotional state.

  “Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

  On the third level, there’s a kitchen, complete with some kind of stove, knives and chopping boards, an opening to a river cellar, and a 1930s looking silver-fauceted sink.

  “I’ve never seen a sink dropped from the old world,” I mention.

  Q shakes his head. “I’m sure it’s happened, but this one is infidel made.”

  Jesus, but it looks like, well, like it was manufactured. Heaven ain’t far from a place like this.

  He takes me down to the river cellar. It’s cool here, almost unnaturally so. The stores are extensive. They keep stacks of sliced meat behind a set of cubbies on the second floor.

  “We treat the meat with an extract of knowledge fruit,” Q explains. “It draws out the corpsedust. In theory, if properly treated, the meat will never rot.”

  “Is that true?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Can’t be sure. Hard to know how meat made thousands of years ago was treated.”

  They have other things as well. Hound milk. Honey. Devilwheat. Brineberries. Hungerleaf tea leaves. Spider eggs. Everything.

  “You ready for level two?” he asks.

  I’m not. The weight of Q’s joviality is too heavy for me to bear much longer—but again, I lie. “Sure.”

  Our second level has the baths. They are Romanesque, a combination of pool and sauna.

  “This takes energy from the main battery,” Q says, pointing to three levers on the wall. “The levers control the baths.”

  “Battery?” I mumble.

  Q smiles. “A kinetic battery. It’s pretty much just a big rock on a chain. That’s what the waterwheel is charging.” He motions back to the levers. “This one adds heated water to the pool. This one steams up the room, and this one adds cool water. As you can see, the excess water pours out through there. It will try and flush itself every day or so.”

  “Automatically?”

  “Yes. It’s set up with gears. There’s a clock run by the same system in the study, if you didn’t notice.”

  The second level also has a periscope.

  “There’s a lot of crystal walls surrounding this complex,” Q explains. “The scope does a good job of letting us see what’s going on outside. We can spy on Hell. The viewing is passive. The view ports are co
mpletely dark, so the devils can’t see in. The light of their chambers is reflected through a tube to the scope. You can choose which port to look out of by spinning it. Don’t worry, you’ll have time enough to try it out later.”

  We then travel down to level one, which has another toilet.

  “Our waste is slowly introduced into the river,” Q tells me. “That way, we’re less likely to attract a Minotaur. This level also has the armory.”

  Q points toward a steel door.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to what looks almost like an old world breaker box.

  The box’s door has the sign of the infidel etched into it.

  Q puts one hand on the metallic door. “It’s a failsafe. If someone finds us, we can use this to make sure no one gets what’s in this room.”

  I ask the obvious question. “How?”

  “It buries the armory under a thousand feet or so of rubble. Then a call goes out so, in theory, a high ranking Infidel Friend will come in the next few months with a group and recover it.”

  “In theory?”

  “This base might be forgotten, or so far away as to be unreachable.”

  This level also has the training room. It’s a fifty foot by fifty foot space. There are mats stacked up on one side and a wall of cubby holes filled with practice swords, bows and arrows, guns, and a ton of things I don’t recognize.

  “The training room is nice,” Q says. “Let me show you the basement. Don’t worry, it’s just one room.”

  The basement is an observation room, sealed shut by a metal hatch which looks like it came out of a submarine. A small ladder leads us down into its tight confines.

  “Stay quiet,” Q whispers. “It’s soundproofed, but one can never be too careful. You can whisper, but make sure not to shout.”

  Quiet is something I long for. My head is aching from the energy it takes to be around a normal person.

  Three of the basements walls are made of black hellstone. The fourth is made of ironglass. Beyond the ironglass is a clear crystal wall. Though the chamber beyond that crystal is dim, it is nothing like the complete darkness of the basement. That way, like with the scope, we can see out, and no one can see in.

  “It’s perfect,” I say softly.

  “The watch room?”

  Yes. Because it’s quiet and dark. “No, the whole thing.”

  And that’s what kills me. In the old world this was nothing special. We had this level of safety every minute of every day. Safety, food and water. I would like to drag one of those people from above—one of those people who think they’re suffering. I want to grab their shirt and pull them up to me. I want to look them dead in the eye. Tell me, motherfucker, tell me you’re unhappy. All that shit, your work stress, your backstabbing friends, your fucking ex-lovers, they’re all extra. You have what you need.

  In Hell, this can’t last. If we stay, sooner or later a Minotaur will find us. It will gather an army of devils. They will surround this place. They will dig their way in and slaughter us. All our efforts, all this fighting, and the best we can manage is to have something almost as good as the old world for a few weeks.

  I really am damned.

  I look out through the ironglass wall to the Hell beyond. My son is out there. Alone. His soul twisted and tainted by wightdust. His mind confused.

  I walk up to the wall and touch the glass.

  Q rests his hand on my shoulder.

  He wants us to go, but I’m not ready.

  He leans forward and whispers in my ear. “Feel free to stay and keep watch. I’m heading out. I’m going to try and stock up the armory and make sure no devils are on our trail.”

  “Okay,” I whisper back.

  Wait. He’s going out there?

  He can’t do that! What if he finds Aiden? Will El Cid still love me if she finds out I lied to her? If she finds out I created and protected a wight?

  Well, she wouldn’t kill me, I don’t think. But there’s no way she’d keep training me, and I’m days away from any city—if I could even find the way.

  Damn.

  Q silently ascends the ladder. I need to tell him. I need to bare all. I need his help to keep my failure a secret from Cid. But I’m exhausted. Later. I can be honest later.

  He unseals the hatch with a few twirls of the submarine-style lock.

  He won’t keep a secret from Cid, though. Not because he doesn’t love me, but because he’s a good person.

  And I’m not.

  My noble friend disappears through the hole above. There is the ever-so-soft sound of the padded hatch closing.

  I stare out into the room beyond, into the Hell that, for the moment at least, I’m not a part of. I feel helpless.

  Well, God, you sure made certain that we were awful small creatures, didn’t you? Awful small.

  About a minute or so later, on the other side of the ironglass, I watch Q traverse the small natural chamber. I’m not sure if he’s silent as death, or if the soundproofing is working. I expect him to nod or wave, but he gives me no signal before disappearing into the wilds.

  Probably infidel procedure or something, in case he’s being followed.

  I revel in the sudden loneliness, closing my eyes against the small stress headache and massage my temples with my fingers. Breathing the cool air feels . . . feels . . .

  My ankle aches a little. There may still be some swelling because the boot Jessica’d made me is tight on my right foot. The floor here is cooler than in the other chambers, and I let the cold seep into my body.

  The wheel lock of the hatch above me spins. It occurs to me that a devil might have broken into our complex, but I don’t care. Let it come. I’ll just enjoy the cool stone. I hear boots on the rungs of the ladder.

  A grey overcoated figure sits down next to me.

  It’s Nebuchadnezzar.

  Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

  After all we’ve been through, I’m amazed that his overcoat seems to be in perfect condition. My clothes, on the other hand, are shit.

  The Aryan necromancer isn’t looking at me; he’s staring out through the glass.

  “You owe me,” he says.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m the one they had lug your pack around while you were gone.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Aiden?” he asks in a whisper, a tinge of German in his accent coloring the name.

  I call that his honest voice. His other voice was the one coached by the Nazis in order to make him better able to integrate with allied soldiers.

  “Dead,” I deliver the half-lie quietly.

  “I know. I meant to be asking something else. Perhaps you’re worried that he didn’t love you?”

  I think about this. Nebuchadnezzar is very close to being on point. If Aiden was dead, completely dead, that’s probably one of the things that’d be on my mind. I’m not sure how much I want to share my feelings with this monster, but right now I think I’d be tempted to talk to a dyitzu just for the company.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “And what else?”

  I shift, straightening against the cold stone wall, suddenly aware of how transparent my lies could be. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I want to tell him. God help me, I want to tell him everything. About how my son turned. About those black eyes. About him waiting in the darkness, not to kill me, but to convert me. About how he’d wanted to raise the corpse of my ex-lover and make us some kind of unwholesome undead family.

  “We can pretend it is,” Neb says. “I don’t think you understand how lovable you are.”

  Fellman had known.

  His words were meant as a compliment, but considering they came from a corpsefucker, I’m not sure how much they count. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “I’m very serious, Cris. I don’t think you realize the effect you have on people. You’re very determined. You won’t stop. You’re so driven that someone you love knows you’ll come to save them. That’s something nice to have.” r />
  I shrug.

  “You’re not like Cid or Q,” he says. “You’re more like, well not really like this, but like the Infidel, in a way. When I met him, he didn’t judge me either. He didn’t think of me as . . .”

  “As a God damned Nazi war criminal complicit in genocide? One who’d used that knowledge to raise and fuck corpses?”

  His jaw clenches for a moment, and then relaxes. “Yeah. Like that.”

  I feel the heat of my blood in my veins.

  I stand. “You want to know why that is?”

  He looks up at me, his blue eyes curious.

  “Well I’ll fucking tell you. I needed you, Nebuchadnezzar. I needed you. I’d have pretended anything. I’d have acted in any way. I’d even pretend to forgive a son of a bitch like you to save my son. And I did pretend. You sick fuck. You corpsefucker. You have no idea how disgusted I am at you. At what you did. At all the people you and your friends killed.”

  I’m breathing hard, and my face is flushed. But I’m sick of this. I’m sick of seeing Melvin’s squint-eyed face when I go to sleep at night. I’m sick of watching my son in pain. I’m sick of lying to this arrogant bastard. And he’s smiling the smile that touches his eyes.

  He points to the ironglass. “We must be quiet,” he whispers nonchalantly.

  Oh, I know better. My words are cutting him. I want to see him bleed—and I know how to make that happen.

  “And you know what else?” I ask.

  He doesn’t respond.

  “I did lie to get you here. Eva is a lie, Neb. I don’t know where she is. It was all bullshit. And I don’t feel guilty because a person like you doesn’t have a soul worth shit.”

  His mask shatters and I see his naked dismay. I feel glee. He turns his face away from me.

  That’s right, fuckhead. That’s what I think of you. You thought this whole time—

  “I know,” he says.

  Wait.

  “What?”

  “I know,” Nebuchadnezzar repeats. “I knew you were lying then. But I wanted to believe you.”

  His voice sounds odd. Is he crying? Wouldn’t that be a peach. Since this is the afterlife, I’m sure there are about six million people somewhere around here who’d want to be watching this.