Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) (2 page)

“The Strong may choose Pacifism, the Weak are condemned to it.”

—
The Infidel

“I climbed the highest mountain in hopes of finding a wise man, but when I reached its summit I found it empty. Tired from my travails, I paused to rest for a few moments—but no sooner had I sat down than I heard a noise behind me. I turned and saw another climbe
r
. .
.
he was asking me a question.”

—
Endymion

I wonder if Alice thinks I’m handsome.

The river his fathers Rick and Galen affectionately called the “Mighty Thames” was a slow and gentle stream, hardly worthy of a name, that meandered softly through the underground labyrinth of Hell without much of a fuss. Its waters were cool and crisp, and Arturus had grown up almost happily on its stone banks. In this chamber the Thames was so smooth that he had taken to using it as a mirror for his morning shaves. He would kneel on the dark red hellstone by its bank and gauge the stubble which covered his face’s reflection in the flowing water. The air over the river was cooler than it was in his own room, and he always found the chill invigorating.

He was preparing to shave even now.

He felt the vibrations of the bone-handled straight razor as he drew the blade across his leather strop. He did so in short, even strokes, listening to the gentle flow of the water. In the next room the river narrowed slightly as its grade increased. It was there that the Thames powered their woodstone waterwheel. He sharpened his blade to the watery beat of the turning structure and then tested the razor on the hairs of his chin. Satisfied with the result, he laid the blade and strop down so he could wash his face.

The pristine water was cool on his skin. He could smell it, even.

With a steady hand he took to his ritual. A clean shave, Rick had told him, was a sign of a survivor. An unshaven and unkempt man, however, might well be weak, unpredictable or dangerous.

That wasn’t why Arturus shaved, of course. He shaved because Alice
had pointed out that his chin hairs were closer to peach fuzz than they were to a beard.

Arturus shaved down first, on his right side, with quick, even strokes. Then he covered that same area with up-strokes. Galen had seen him do this once and called him a “brave lad.”

For a moment Arturus paused, his razor held motionless above the water. He didn’t want to place the blade into his reflection. It would feel almost as if he were stabbing himself. Instead he placed the razor in the water just a bit downstream. Above and around his own head, he saw the ceiling of this chamber. The whole of it was a soft, deep red. The stones interlocked in the arched roofing with a bricklike pattern. As a child, he had thought that those stones might fall down on him. The foolishness of his childhood fear brought a smile to his face. He watched the smile appear. After a few more minutes, he finished and inspected his work.

Not even a nick.

He decided that he must be handsome.

He hoped Alice thought so at any rate.

Again careful not to disturb his reflection, he washed off his blade, drying the razor on his pants before folding it into its bone handle. He stretched, yawned, and then walked back towards his dwelling. The hallways that led from the river room to his home were covered in gravel, and the loose rock crunched beneath his boots. Galen had laid down the stones so that the footsteps of an intruder could be heard more easily. He brushed through his door blanket to enter his sleeping chamber and placed his razor reverently next to the pile of blankets on which he slept.

The ritual finished, his face as smooth as a marble pillar, he wandered off to the battery room in hopes of finding a good breakfast, his eager footsteps crunching gravel as he went.

Galen had installed a small lip in the doorway of the battery room as a barrier to keep out the hallway’s loose stones. Arturus stumbled over it in his haste, sending gravel scattering across the floor. He kicked some of
the stones back over the lip, grimacing, knowing that he would probably be the one who would have to sweep it all up.

“Well, you’re up early!” Rick hadn’t yet shaved, and his brown stubble was almost as long as his close cropped hair. “I’ve not even started the plates.”

Arturus shrugged. There were no time pieces here, save the one that Galen kept in his pack, so it could just as easily be that Rick had risen late.

“What’s for breakfast?” Arturus asked him.

“Hound liver and flat bread.”

“Sounds okay.” Actually it sounded delicious, but Arturus knew
that if he let his father know such a thing, the man might never get around to making his devilwheat wraps or dyitzu meat pies.

Rick began to hum to himself as he prepared some unleavened flatbread, his practiced fingers kneading the dough against the granite counter.

Arturus seated himself on one of the chairs that Rick had fashioned out of an old wooden barrel. Their table was made from a woodstone door that was now turned horizontal and propped up by four rectangular granite bricks. Arturus remembered playing with the hinges on it when he was younger. The hinges had eventually come off, but he could still see the depressions and the lighter colored woodstone where they had been attached.

“Do I have a purpose?” Arturus asked.

Rick flashed him a playful smile as he worked the dough. “What made you ask that?”

“Father Klein. He said that all of God’s children were made to do a specific thing. But I’m not God’s child, am I? Because I was born here?”

“No, Turi, I suppose you’re not.”

Arturus idly ran his finger over one of the door hinge depressions while he thought about this. “Does that make me evil, because I’m not God’s child?”

Rick laughed. “No, doing evil things makes you evil.”

There was the sound of stone grinding on stone as Rick switched on the battery. Julian of Harpsborough said that the battery wasn’t really a battery at all since it didn’t have any electricity. Julian had said it was just a big rock. But it was a
very
big rock, and the waterwheel would help lift it into the chamber’s ceiling. Its descent was slow, but its weight would power any number of devices in the battery room through a series of gears, pulleys and belts. Rick had the battery connected to the heating plates, which were made of copper colored stones. As Arturus watched, they began to rub against each other. Soon they had developed enough heat to cook the food and toast the flatbread.

“Well, what’s my purpose then, if God didn’t give me one?” Arturus asked.

Rick tossed a cup of water onto the heating plates. “I guess you’ll have to pick.”

Arturus watched the steam rise to the ceiling. “You mean I get to decide?”

“You’d better. I don’t know who else would. Sounds more fun than having someone else choose it, doesn’t it?”

“But what if I pick the wrong one?”

Rick shrugged and went on humming.

“I think I’m going to make Harpsborough happy,” Arturus said.

“Oh, are you?”

“Yes. Or maybe I’ll rescue Alice from a devil!”

“I’m sure Alice will be glad to hear about that.”

“Did Galen come in last night?” Arturus asked.

Rick stopped humming and moved in front of the hound liver. Frown lines appeared on his forehead as he picked up a knife, and he started cutting with quick jerky motions.

“No,” Rick said between cuts. “He didn’t come in last night.”

Arturus watched his father carefully. “He’s late, isn’t he?”

Rick looked towards a pile of devilwheat in one corner. Had Galen been home, it certainly would have been threshed and stored by now.

“Yes, Turi, he’s late.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

Rick stopped cutting. “Then he doesn’t come back.”

“But then, how are we supposed to—”

“Don’t talk about things like that. Whatever happens, we’ll manage.”

“Sorry,” Arturus said.

“But if he’s not back soon, I’ll have to go hunting without him.” Rick began cutting again. “That’s a shame because we’re low on shells, and I was hoping to get another barrel for one of our rifles in Harpsborough. I’ll have to work hard today to get it all done.”

Arturus nodded, but then he had an idea. If
he
were to go to Harpsborough, Rick wouldn’t have so much to do today.

And I’d get to see Alice.

Arturus had never gotten permission to go to the city alone before, so he figured he had better start being as helpful as possible. Rick, unlike the more even mannered Galen, was much more likely to be lenient when he was in a good mood—and he certainly wasn’t in a good mood now.

“Did you want any water?” Arturus offered.

“Yeah, and could you fill the pitcher too? We’ll need it for the food.”

Arturus grumbled to himself and picked up the huge clay urn they used to store drinking water.

He hadn’t meant to be quite
that
helpful.

He dragged his feet in the gravel as he lugged the empty urn towards the Mighty Thames.

How am I going to ask this?

Arturus stopped downstream from the waterwheel where he filled the giant clay pitcher. He squatted low, and with a heave and a grunt, brought the thing back up on the bank. He figured he was just being paranoid, but he checked the urn to see if any of his shaved hairs were in there.

They weren’t.

Maybe if I can get him to complain about hunting more.

He heard a noise across the river and looked up, hoping to see Gale
n
. .
.
but no one was there.

The sound had come from Rick separating the battery from the heating stones. The waterwheel spun slower now since its power was being diverted towards charging the battery—or raising the rock, as Julian would have called it.

He returned to the room, the urn sloshing in his arms, still unsure as to how he was going to broach the Harpsborough trip. If he wasn’t careful, Rick might reject the idea outright.

“Water’s cool today,” he mentioned as he set down the clay pitcher.

Rick dropped the strips of hound liver onto the heating plates and gave them a toss of the water Arturus had just brought. Steam and the smell of food cooking filled the room.

Arturus’ mouth watered.

“The water’s cool every day,” Rick told him, beginning to hum again.

Arturus
nodded.

He watched the hound liver as it sizzled. He was glad Rick had turned off the hotplates before cooking the meal. If the heat dissipated fast enough, Rick wouldn’t have a chance to burn the bread. Galen said Rick enjoyed burning the bread.

“Not many dyitzu about.” Arturus tried hard to make his calculated remark sound like an offhand comment.

Rick paused before answering, busying himself by flipping the hound liver.

Does he know I’m trying to wheedle him into something?

Rick tossed more water onto the meal. “No, it might be difficult finding one to hunt.”

Arturus watched the fresh steam dissipate into the air. There would always be water on the ceiling over the plates after meal times. Rick left the plates for a second and poked his head through the curtain which cordoned off their supply closet.

“Do you think I could go hunting with you?” Arturus asked.

“You know that you’re only supposed to go with Galen,” Rick called back over his shoulder. “I’ve got too many bad habits for you to pick up.”

Arturus studied Rick for a moment as the man returned to the heating plates.

“Then let me go to Harpsborough!” he blurted out.

Rick looked up from his cooking. Arturus saw that he hadn’t immediately rejected the idea.

“I know I’ve never been there by myself before,” Arturus said quickly, “but you said that the dyitzu have been light. And I know how to handle myself just in case. Galen and I got in that firefight last month, you remember? Besides, I’ve got to start going there sometime.”

Rick shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. You might get lost.”

“I go there all the time, I know the way.”

“There are dyitzu about. You could get attacked. Galen would
kill
me if he got home and found you hurt. Besides, you know you aren’t allowed to travel that far on your own.”

“I travel almost that far when I go to the Hungerleaf Grove. I do that all the time.”

Rick’s eyebrows narrowed. “Let me think about it.”