Demonworld (45 page)

He could hear great voices. The boy, the hateful one, was deemed of little importance. The problem was the land, the terrible womb where such a one was created. A place of indescribable blasphemy. It must be destroyed! Unfortunately, many of their kind were busy gathering for the Coagulation, the great ritual that would end the age of man. Soul Taker saw the discussion move even deeper as still greater voices discussed what could be done to that land. Soul Taker could not visit such a discussion, but he knew, from listening to others, that they agreed that the land of Haven must be found. Even the great ones who participated in the deepest circles only waited for the voice of the one who was greater than they, and whose word was absolute reality.

The boy had been lost, but had reappeared in his own territory. The boy was going north, and was no doubt making his way toward the hated land. He could be tracked. Soul Taker plunged as deeply into the discussion as he could, for he could help. The boy could be followed…

* * *

Barkus led the men in prayer to keep their minds free of the strange place. Their prayers were interrupted by Wallach’s cries of “Fiat Noctis!” and “Morte Fidelis!” that strengthened their resolve. One man was near tears because some small, strange creature was licking the drops of sweat as they trickled out from under his mask. The worst part was that the creature hummed as it licked.

After an hour or more of this torture, the tunnel shivered and the voice returned.

“
I have gone down to the shining lands,”
said the voice,
“and in a ring of fire we discussed the trouble this boy has given you.”

Barkus bowed low and said, “Thank you, Lord!” for he had grown fearful that the demons were going to eat him and his men. Surely this meant they would be spared?

“
Listen well, Barkus! This boy was produced in a refuge of pure evil on an island far away. Just as your heart yearns for the destruction of this boy, so do we. But do you know that he has already spirited himself away in a ship? Can you track a man’s footsteps in the water?”

Barkus heard Wallach shifting his weight, uncomfortable with the statement. Barkus had worked with Wallach for years, and he knew what he was thinking: That it would be impossible for the boy to have dragged the slaves across the wasteland at a dead run, made directly for Sunport, then procured a ship within the span of a few short hours. It seemed unlikely, but Barkus prayed that his second-in-command would keep his mouth shut.

“
We smell your doubt! But, child, what has your doubt gotten you thus far? You doubted the cruelty of this boy. You doubted his rebellious nature. You doubted that he could turn the others against you. You doubted that he could make a
fool
of you. He proved you wrong.”

The light on their masks flashed white, and the blind men winced. One of the Ugly, who had released his hand from another in order to pray, quietly pried away the shirt that covered his face. He blinked to regain his focus.

“
This boy is far more clever than you, Barkus. He has taken to the sea. Our eyes have seen his followers eating your horses and laughing at you. Laughing at the smiling fool who thought that his guns were the key to power!”

The lone Ugly was finally able to see. He kept his head still, but glanced about. They were in a small chamber of natural stone. The chamber was dark except for a blinding light before them. Because of the blinding light, he could only just barely make out strange forms nearby, shifting their weight occasionally. Barkus was bowed with his face to the earth, prostrate before the light. The light was a dancing array of colors that played on the surface of a shifting, milky screen that was visible through a wide crack in the wall. Sometimes the screen disappeared quickly, like a giant eyelid blinking, casting them into temporary darkness.

As the voice continued to berate Barkus, the Ugly concentrated on the moving screen of light. Sometimes the light formed into solid, moving images, or even strange letters which the Ugly could only barely read. He saw

FATHER

GOD IRRATIONAL

and then there was an image of a large, powerful Ugly, scarred and black-bearded. Three children, all boys, lined up with their pants down so that the powerful Ugly could whip them with a thin cane. Barkus shook. The light formed the shape

MIDDLE CHILD NOTHING NOBODY

and he saw one of the boys crying bitterly. The small face enlarged to vulgar proportions on the milky screen. The Ugly saw

AS YOU FORMED IN THE WOMB I KNEW YOU

YOU

UNWELCOME EVEN THEN

and then a scarred woman’s hand touched the face, then raised a piece of cloth to cover the image.

The Ugly turned to Barkus and saw him staring at the screen, his face covered in tears. He thought he saw Barkus mouth the words, “Mother’s goiter?”

“
Your hurt pains us, Saint Barkus,”
said the voice, ignoring him,
“but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that the boy has escaped you, and that you are incapable of catching him ever again.

“
Such is the story of your species! Our eyes are everywhere, and our memory is long. How you struggle to gain a little relief, a little comfort from one another. Each of you is keenly aware of your own emptiness, so you run to another. You run to another who is just as empty as yourself, just as desperate as yourself. You are cut off from one another. You play elaborate games of theft with one another. The specter of death hangs over you, a skull in the shape of your father’s face, and the skull drives each of you to madness. Your time is short and your understanding is shorter still. In your youth you are full of energy and stupidity. In your old age you are tired and understand just enough to regret your youth. In your heart you know the truth of this, for only the cynical voices among you speak with any authority, and only your stories that end tragically smack of any kind of truth.

“
It is not so with our kind. We are one, and we are full of love, the first love this world has ever known. Death cannot touch us. We are free from isolation and insanity. Our days have meaning, our lives serve a grand vision! We will make a beautiful garden from the world that you have turned to decay and rot!

“
You, Saint Barkus, know of the shortcomings of your kind. You knew enough to
give in
. You believed you were on the trail of the boy. You could have bypassed my children. Why did you stop? Why did you begin to hope? With your heart, with your inaction, you asked us for help. We smelled your prayer from afar. On your knees, crying like an infant, you seem to us more noble, more pure, than a thousand others of your kind who stroke their little guns and pray that they be spared the enlightenment that we have to offer. You have prayed that this boy be slain so that the world may be purified. We can grant you the means to do so.”

Images played on the moving screen again, and the lone Ugly saw the face of the boy, frozen and hateful, smooth and soft, green eyes stabbing cruelly into Barkus.

“
We control the world and can give all things,”
said the voice.
“We can end the torture your dreams give you by fulfilling them. We
do not ask for your possessions, your favors, your women, your actions; all this is worthless to us. We ask only for ownership and salvation of that dull, pale light of your soul.”

Barkus stammered painfully. The lone Ugly stared at him, fascinated by the lines that creased the flesh of his slack, aging face. “You want us to sell our souls to you?” said Barkus. “In exchange for the boy’s death?”

“
I do not ask for all of your souls, Saint Barkus, only yours. Until now you have served other men, and served well, but the eye of your soul you have kept shut for all your life - and I know that it yearns to see a light. For if you served the gods, Saint Barkus, all meaninglessness and despair would be washed away. That your race drifts through its days without purpose gives us such sorrow. So it has always been. Still, you stubbornly cling to your spark, and in the end… it is buried with you. Your stubborn will causes it to starve in the earth with your rotting bones, to be snuffed out - to die with you.

“
We offer you a chance for meaning in this world and immortality in the next. There is another world, Saint Barkus, warmer, purer, happier than this. But you must have faith to enter it.”

“
I’m scared,” said Barkus. “When your kind gave us distance in the wasteland, I knew that you were not wholly against us. And I always knew that your kind were far superior to us. I am just a man, a lowly animal. Lord, I’m afraid to give away the only thing I truly own. Do you know what you’re asking?”

“
I understand far better than you can know. You think that you grip the light of your soul so that you can protect it from others of your kind. Even as you serve others and allow your will to be perverted, you rest assured thinking that there is always a part of yourself free from abuse. But it is untrue that you keep it with you, untarnished, all through your life. You actually give your soul away every day. From birth, you allow your parents to mold your thoughts and shape your actions; every day they work to beat your soul out of you and make you into a lifeless automaton in their own shape. In your youth, the teachers that you meet hammer your will on their forges. For fear of their displeasure, you give a little of your light to them, and in exchange they give you lies about the world that instinctively you know are untrue. When you become a man, and the light of your soul has dimmed to a filthy spark, and you no longer believe in anything, you give more of your soul to petty men more powerful than you in exchange for material comfort. You wake when he demands it, you lick his boots and feed his tired, hungry soul with bits of your own. By then you are so soulless that you create children so that you can eat their souls until they become the same vampiric creature as you. The cycle persists. For your race, tomorrow exists only so that the starving present can have some hope of sustenance. The result is that the record of your yesterdays becomes a sickening story of apathy and atrocity.

“
How blessed you are, to be able to speak with us! Suffering ends where we begin. We will cleanse the world, Saint Barkus! The only question is whether or not you are brave enough to walk with us into a new world. Are you strong enough to see the fulfillment of your dreams? Or would you rather let the boy slip away and laugh at how he humiliated you? Is failure so desirable to you?”

There was silence. Barkus sat perfectly still.

“
I’m not afraid,” he said quietly.

The Ugly with his blind out of place saw, on the milky screen, the dim image of the fat, bearded Ugly who had earlier whipped the three boys. He was naked, and lay still in a bath tub full of red water. His eyes were open, his mouth parted. The three boys stood around him, covered in red. They looked up, as one, into the face of the viewer, one black haired, another red-headed, another blond. Their soft faces dripped red. There were letters shaped

FROM THE HANDS OF CHILDREN

BRAVERY UNDILUTED BY UNDERSTANDING

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

A PUREST SCREAM OF WANTING

“
I’m not afraid!” said Barkus. “Give me the power!
Give me what I want!
”

The light suddenly broke apart and all images shattered. The unmasked Ugly saw the milky screen moving, blinking, and behind the lid he saw a cavern of ridged, white skin that stretched back and curved away from them. The thing exhaled and he saw great stalks of thick, mucus-lined hair follicles, each as thick as a man’s wrist, shivering in the stinking wind. The Ugly worked at his blind but his hands shook uncontrollably; the idea that he was looking at a small part of something vast and ancient that lived in the darkness of the earth filled him with a sick madness that was beyond his ability to endure. Something large moved nearby, then a red light shone on them from another chamber. Barkus rose and turned to it. The Ugly lunged and grabbed his master’s legs to stop him, then felt a boot kicking his face and arms. He saw his master enter the red chamber. He caught a glimpse of something inside, an immense form that was a mockery of the feminine. He glimpsed a chain attached to the thing’s neck, saw exposed muscle and sinew around its many breasts, saw its genitals coated in a solid layer of writhing maggots. The giant creature parted its legs and he smelled something indescribably foul and overpowering and he was immediately overcome by jealousy. He wanted to kill his master and take his place. He heard Barkus call the thing “brother” before the chamber’s entrance shut itself.