Such Sweet Sorrow (11 page)

“What do you mean?” Juliet asked. “I knew you were being tested with the girl in the water. Why wouldn’t I see that this was a test, as well?”

“Because you’re different here than you were in Sheol,” Romeo said softly. “You weren’t yourself there. A part of you was missing.”

“That’s impossible, I don’t remember any bit of me going missing,” she argued. “I feel as normal as I ever have.”

“But there was something…” Romeo looked almost ashamed. “I owe you a debt too large to ever repay, Hamlet.”

That took him aback. It was rare that anyone thanked him for anything. Perhaps because he’d spent so much time worrying about his own concerns, rather than the concerns of others.

“We aren’t in Sheol anymore,” Hamlet announced, only partially for the change of subject. When the other two regarded him with quizzical expressions, he gestured around them. “This place is different, so you’re different. You’re dead, so your soul will be affected by the Afterjord in a way we will not.”

Romeo put his arm around Juliet’s waist and pulled her to his side, looking hopefully to Hamlet. “What if you’re wrong? What if she’s just getting better, becoming more alive the closer we get to Migard?”

“Better than what?” Juliet pressed her hand to her chest, her shoulders slouching forward as though she would become as empty as the hollow souls they had seen but a moment before. “I don’t remember being any different. I cannot bear the thought of another corpseway stripping away a piece of me, without me knowing the absence of it. If I go through another portal, what will happen? Will I become someone else without ever knowing?”

“We can’t tell.” Hamlet met Romeo’s despondent gaze. “I warned you that this journey would be difficult. Did you imagine it would be only fording rivers and traversing deserts? I told you that I didn’t know what would happen when you got here.”

“Was there no way to find out, before you did this to me?” Juliet asked, her large brown eyes full of hurt. “The two of you never thought that a bit more preparation might have been required before tampering with the forces of life and death?”

Neither Hamlet nor Romeo supplied an answer. It seemed they both felt foolish, confronted with their oversight. It was a dire thing to unite them, Hamlet thought grimly.

Romeo tried to comfort her, his hand rising to touch her shoulder, but she pushed him away.

“I can’t go back to Shoel. We can’t go back to that, not now that I know the difference.” She pointed accusingly at the corpseway. “There will be another way out of this room, we simply must find it.”

Her gaze dropped to the table, and Hamlet followed the line of it to an apple gleaming red and bright on the dark wood. Juliet snatched it up, and Hamlet shouted, “No!”

She paused, clutching it in her hand.

“Don’t eat that. You don’t know what will happen. You might become one of those things. We don’t know what the test is. Juliet, this isn’t the way,” Hamlet warned, stretching his arm toward her, trying to look unthreatening. They didn’t know what the test was, that was true, but it seemed unlikely it had nothing to do with the banquet laid before them. He could not let her take a single bite.

“Eat it?” She frowned at him. “I was going to throw it at you.”

He gaped at her in disbelief.

“I’m not stupid.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Just…angry.”

Hamlet laughed. He couldn’t help himself. It was true, he and Romeo had been tampering with forces they knew nothing about, and Juliet had every right to be furious with them. But the idea of vengeance for cosmic transgressions coming in the form of a tossed apple was simply too amusing for his exhausted mind.

Juliet’s frown relaxed, and she laughed as well. Not as hard at first, but soon her mirth grew, and Romeo was the only one among them still angry. Or worried, it seemed, as he looked between Hamlet and Juliet as though they were both utterly mad.

But even he could not resist a break from the tension that continued to drain their hope and sap their wills. He snickered, then said, “All right, we’ve had a bit of fun,” but he couldn’t get through his sentence in seriousness.

It was not an easy peace they had found. Hamlet had not entirely forgiven Romeo for trapping him in this place and abandoning him in a time of dire need. Still, it seemed a far better plan to remain a whole than fracture apart.

At least Romeo could be amusing with his insults.

The thunder of slapping feet reverberated through the floor, and they all turned their heads towards the doors at the end of the room.

“They’re coming back.” Romeo unsheathed his sword.

“They were harmless,” Juliet reminded him. “Maybe they’re just over their fright and coming back for their food.”

She looked at the table and screamed.

The heaps of fruit and roasted meat were gone, replaced by mounds of putrid, glistening organs. Ropes of entrails hung in rotting loops spilling off the tabletop. Arms and legs, unmistakably human, lay among the livers, hearts, and lungs in the festering feast.

“Perhaps not,” Hamlet said under his breath.

“Take this,” Romeo ordered Juliet, pressing the stiletto from his belt into her hand.

Hamlet drew his blade. A true leader should be both a scholar and a warrior, his father had counseled him shortly before his death. He should rely on his mind as much as his sword.

It didn’t do him much good now, Hamlet reflected, to have ignored the latter part of his father’s advice in favor of the former.

The doors burst open, and the hollow souls flooded in. Their appearance was not so benign now, if Hamlet could have called it so before. He did much prefer the toothless, eyeless horrors to these creatures. Their shape was much the same, but in the empty sockets, burning red lights glowed for eyes. Their mouths had become ringed with predatory fangs, seemingly made of steel, like knives that gnashed horribly as they rushed toward them.

Romeo was the first to strike a blow, cleaving one in half as easily as cutting an overripe pear. It fell to two pieces, shrieking and writhing, then burst into a wisp of smoke as it hit the floor.

“They can be killed!” Romeo roared over the commotion of shrieks and stamping feet.

Hamlet plunged his blade into the face of one, slashed at the throat of another. Or, where its throat might have approximately been. While their bodies were insubstantial, there wasn’t much space to attack.

One grabbed Juliet by the wrist, and she plunged the stiletto into its eye, bending over it to follow it to the floor as she stabbed it again and again.

“Watch out!” Romeo warned her, cleanly beheading one of the swarm that had gotten behind her and made to lay its rubbery arms around her.

“There are too many,” Hamlet shouted, thrusting his blade into another, and another, until he lost count of the number he’d killed. They kept coming, more and more of them, until it was clear to Hamlet that the only choice was to fight until he grew too exhausted to fend them off any longer. Then, he supposed he would become a part of their hideous feast, as well.

Juliet proved tireless with her blade, to Hamlet’s surprise and delight. He could not imagine the ladies of his uncle’s court taking such bloodthirsty delight in defeating monsters. Though his arms ached and their doom was imminent, he had a grudging admiration for her.

“Will they ever end?” Romeo puffed with exertion as he wielded his sword. The long, thin blade snicked and swooshed through the air, destroying one creature before him in the same motion as one behind him. There, too, Hamlet had to have some admiration. He may have trained with the best teachers, but Romeo had clearly learned his fighting skills from real world application.

A roar, loud as thunder, trembling as an earthquake, rent the air and shook dust from the ceiling overhead. The dreadful creatures screamed, their nail-less fingers raking down their faces as their mouths contorted to horrified ovals. Once again, they fled, tripping over each other, shoving in their stampede toward the doors.

“What was that?” Juliet pushed back her hair, which had come undone from her long braid and now plastered against her perspiration-damp face. She looked weary, more than frightened.

“Something worse,” Hamlet warned.

The three of them took up stances beside each other, weapons at the ready.

Chapter Ten

The heavy wood door to the left of the hearth exploded off its hinges in a shower of splinters, and in its wake, the largest warrior Hamlet could ever have imagined tore into the room, an axe brandished above his head.

Flame orange hair cascaded back from a deep widow’s peak on the beast-man’s forehead, and a shaggy orange beard hung over his bare, bloodied chest. Inscribed on his flesh in blue paint, runes smeared with dirt and sweat shined greasy in the light. A finger bone was tied at the point of his beard; a necklace of them clattered as he stomped in his huge, heavy boots toward the gruesome table. He lifted his axe and roared, and the windows of the hall exploded inward in a spectacular spray of glass.

Hamlet covered his ears and saw the other two do the same, as the berserker brought the axe down, right through the center of the table and its disgusting bounty. Pieces and parts flew everywhere. Hamlet sidestepped a rotting head that bounced toward him and maintained his grip on the hilt of his sword.

“There are three of us,” Romeo said bravely. Stupidly. “We can take him, if we hit him from all sides. I’ll fight from the front, Juliet, you and Hamlet try to strike his back.”

“He can hear you!” Juliet snapped. “Would you like to draw him a map detailing how we plan to kill him?”

There was no time to bicker further. The berserker came at them, charging across the broken table, the axe over his head. Hamlet dove to one side, Juliet to the other. Only Romeo stood his ground, dodging the axe at the last second to bring his sword down on the warrior’s arms. He cleaved one hand off, but the berserker didn’t seem to feel its loss. He roared again and swiped his bleeding stump through the air, catching Hamlet in the chest and toppling him backward.

“Get up!” Romeo shouted, as encouragement, not an order. Did the Italian actually think Hamlet was capable of fighting?

Jumping to his feet, Hamlet rushed at the berserker from the side and slashed at his face. The warrior only whipped his head away from the blade and whirled on Juliet.

“Hey!” Romeo shouted, stabbing his sword into the warrior’s stomach. It sank to the hilt, but did not protrude from the back. Hamlet boggled at the size of the berserker, and the fact that having a surely mortal wound didn’t seem to bother him. Nor did he trouble himself with the man who’d just given him that wound. He seemed intent upon Juliet, baring his teeth and swiping for her with his remaining hand.

Hamlet tried to trade his sword for the berserker’s axe, but he couldn’t lift it.

Juliet struck out at the warrior with her stiletto, but she was hampered by the short length of the blade in comparison to the awesome reach of the berserker’s arms. She could not get close enough to stab him without risking him closing his grip on her. As she backed away from him, she had the presence of mind to knock over a bench, to kick some rotted bones at his feet. But none of it was enough to stop his pursuit. She grew more panicked with every swing of his great axe, and though Romeo hacked at the berserker’s muscled shoulder, he could not cleave his arm or distract him from his pursuit of Juliet.

Hamlet saw the skull that lay in her path, but could not shout his warning before she set her heel upon it. Her feet went out from beneath her, and she fell onto a pile of innards. A groan of disgust pulled from her throat as the berserker toppled onto her, his bared teeth sharp points that snapped at her face. Romeo shoved at him. Hamlet raced to his side, tried to sink his blade into the warrior’s head, but the shock of the impact with the berserker’s skull radiated down his arms.

Juliet’s hand reached out blindly, and she came up with a splintered femur. When the berserker opened his mouth to let out another mighty roar, she stabbed the bone forward, driving the jagged point into the roof of his terrible mouth. She pushed and pushed, her hand going into the cavern of teeth to the wrist. It was Juliet’s own roar that remained as the berserker’s died away.

“Juliet!” Romeo shoved the dead berserker aside, and Hamlet helped him to pull her free from the huge body.

“I’m all right,” she assured them, though she was trembling, and tears shone in her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Why was he so fixed upon you?” Hamlet wondered, stooping over the corpse. He poked at the necklace of bones, pulled it this way and that, examining. In addition to the finger bones were ears and a nose in varying states of decay, as well as a feather carved of bone, so delicate it seemed impossible that it had survived even passing association with a creature such as the one who wore it. That was strange enough that Hamlet gave the necklace a tug to break it and pull that charm free.

“Perhaps he likes the taste of female flesh better than male?” Romeo suggested with contempt. “Or perhaps he was a coward.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it,” Hamlet said with a roll of his eyes. He got to his feet and slipped the feather carving into his doublet. “The enormous berserker with a giant axe and host of ravening hollow souls was too cowardly to face a nearly dead Italian and a prince with a shortsword.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m referring, of course, to this sword and not—”

“Enough!” Juliet shook her head. “It’s my fault. I did something stupid. I…tried to keep the apple.”

She reached into the folds of her skirt, withdrawing something red and round from her pocket. When she looked upon the object, she gasped. The fruit had become a human heart, red and slimy with blood. She dropped it to the floor and wiped her hands on her dress.

“Why would you do that?” Romeo asked gently. “We knew it was a test.”

“You’re still alive,” she explained sheepishly. “I thought that later you might need to eat, and as long as there was all this food…”

“It’s good that you didn’t think to steal a chicken, I suppose. Imagine what that could have transformed into,” Hamlet mused, pushing a disembodied leg with the toe of his boot. He looked up at both of them, staring at him horrified. “I fear our celebration may have been too soon, Juliet. I am sorry, but this is not Midgard.”

“Thank God for that!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t live in a world where these creatures existed.”

“Speaking of creatures, we should go, before those others come back.” Romeo sheathed his sword and took Juliet by the hand. “Let’s go.”

There was no question now that they should attempt the doors the monsters had come through. Romeo and Juliet didn’t give the corpseway a second look.

Hamlet let them go a few steps ahead, and paused beside the gleaming portal. He pulled the bone carving from his doublet and held it up to the blue illumination. The plume softened and waved in the touch of the light, as though it were not made of bone at all.

He frowned and tucked the relic inside his doublet.

…

They had been prepared to find anything beyond the doors, and charged through with blades drawn. To Romeo’s great relief, they found nothing but empty hallways.

Beside him, Juliet kept her head low, like a fighter, and Romeo’s heart swelled with pride. Gone was his frail, flowery Juliet, locked away behind her father’s walls. Indeed, vile Capulet would have blamed his treasured daughter’s sudden change on the influence of those outside his family, and perhaps it really was this place that had changed her. But Romeo had seen this fire in her from the very instant they’d met, though it had been only a small spark then. Set among the tinder of conflict, she was now ablaze.

“Is it true, what he said?” she whispered, though Romeo had no doubt Hamlet had heard her. The hall was wide and echoing. “Did you really pull him through a corpseway against his will?”

Romeo bristled at the judgment in her voice. “He seemed to know more about the Afterjord than I did. He professed to speak with the dead. I didn’t know what I would find here, so I thought it better to bring him with me.”

“And you abandoned him in Sheol?”

“To save you!” he hissed, his patience fraying. Could she not see that he’d had no choice? Rescuing her had been his only goal, and now she was free of her deathly chains. Could she not celebrate that?

“But in saving me, you’ve likely damned another,” she said, her large, dark eyes filled with hurt in the torchlight. “Romeo, my beloved…we cannot keep hurting people to defend our love.”

Ahead of them, Hamlet took a crude torch from the wall and held it up to examine a tapestry. Romeo caught the flash of an embroidered berserker, shocking orange hair flying as he devoured a screaming body. The prince quickly moved the torch away. “It appears this place is a castle, that’s all. Though not one I’d like to live in.”

“If it’s a castle, there are bound to be servants. More of those things must live here, as well.” Romeo ducked beneath the ragged edge of a torn curtain. He was happy to abandon his conversation with Juliet, would be happier still if he never again saw such disappointment in her eyes reflected back at him. “Did you see how they scattered when the berserker came at us?”

“Yes, and now he’s not here, and we are,” Hamlet murmured, stopping again to pause in front of a tapestry. This one was decidedly normal, depicting a square courtyard with a fountain and toga-draped maidens.

“Then perhaps we shouldn’t be here when they return and find him gone,” Juliet suggested.

Hamlet paused before a door and reached into his doublet.

“It’s locked,” Romeo observed as he took hold of the handle.

His perpetual scowl deepening, Hamlet produced a thin, surprisingly rigid feather. He pushed the pointed shaft into the lock, turned it this way and that, muttering.

Romeo put his hand on the prince’s wrist to stop him. “Where did you get that?”

“It was on the necklace of bones around the berserker’s throat,” he replied, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. “I thought it might be useful.”

“Why did you think that?” Romeo looked doubtfully at the feather.

“Because it was on the berserker’s necklace,” Hamlet repeated unhelpfully. With a sigh, he continued, “Look, he kept it with all those bones and ears and things rotting around his neck. That means it was a prize of some kind. When I held it up to the corpseway, it changed.”

“Let me see.” Juliet held out her hand, and Hamlet grudgingly dropped the feather into her palm.

“Be careful with that, we don’t know—” Hamlet warned, but the moment it touched Juliet’s hand, the bone seemingly melted away to become a life-like feather once more.

“So, we know it’s not just a key, then, not a simple carving.” Juliet held it by the quill and turned it this way and that as she inspected it. “And it’s clearly affected by things that belong in the Afterjord.”

Romeo flinched at that. Juliet didn’t belong in the Afterjord any more than himself or the prince.

“That makes no sense.” Hamlet took the feather back. At once it stiffened, returning to the sharp bone carving it had been. “I have a gift! I can see the dead, I can hear their voices and traverse corpseways—”

“I can do all that,” Juliet reminded him. “Plus, I’m actually dead, so…maybe I outrank you?”

Something in Juliet’s voice bothered Romeo. There was a smirk to her tone that was too comfortable with the prince. She spoke the way she had spoken to Romeo that night at her father’s party.

“His highness doesn’t like that,” Romeo said, trying to joke with them, but it came out tinged with bitterness that shamed him.

“Romeo…” Juliet began, weary disappointment in her tone.

“It’s all right.” Hamlet’s smile was tight as he took the key and tucked it away in his doublet. “We can’t stand around here. Wherever those hollow souls are, we don’t want to run into them again.”

Hamlet held his torch out and took a step across the corridor. The flame displayed a tapestry of two men roasting on a spit while the slavering hollow souls surrounded the glowing coals.

“Point made.” Romeo considered the door. “So, how do we get in?”

“I don’t know, the key doesn’t work,” Hamlet slapped his palm flat against the wood.

“What if we tried…” Juliet reached out daintily, took hold of the handle, and pulled. The door creaked open. She looked from Romeo to Hamlet and back again. “Didn’t you think to try that?”

Hamlet muttered sheepishly, “I thought since there was a keyhole, it would be locked.”

“Before we go through,” Romeo began cautiously, “How do we know this isn’t a trap? That the tapestries aren’t misleading us?”

“Would you prefer we stay here?” Hamlet asked, indicating the roasting men embroidered into the cloth.

“Right.” How was it that Romeo was consistently finding himself the fool in their situation? Everything he said seemed to come out wrong. Every word from his mouth sounded contemptuous or worse, stupid.

If there was one emotion Romeo could not stand, it was jealousy. He’d rarely suffered from envy over a woman before he’d met Juliet. If the girl who’d caught his fancy did not return his favor, he would wander, melancholy, for a bit, but then move on to the next young lady with nary a thought to what happened to the last one. It had been the same the night he’d met Juliet; only hours before, he’d been pining miserably for Rosaline. It had taken only some strong drink and a merry party to put her from his mind.

Then he’d met Juliet. Who’d changed everything.

Perhaps Juliet had cured him, for the moment he’d seen her, he’d known he would never love another. And he’d known it with a certainty that had made all his past “loves” seem silly.

His disinclination toward jealousy had changed the night he’d seen Paris guarding Juliet’s tomb. Her odious fiancé had been standing outside, keeping vigil seemingly out of grief. More likely he had been placed there by Capulet, as a lookout should Romeo venture into the city walls.

The thought of that man mourning her, when he’d never had any claim over her, had created a beast in Romeo, a murdering one, at that.

To feel even a fraction of that anger now would not help him. It would not be fair to Hamlet. He had certainly not come to the Afterjord to seduce Juliet away. He hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. It had been Romeo who’d done this to him; to make an enemy of him would be the final insult. But the prince was, well, a prince. He was intelligent and level-headed, and as handsome as Romeo had been before the poison had marked him. He couldn’t believe Juliet had not noticed these differences as well, no matter how he wished to convince himself that his jealousy was unwarranted.