2
"Anything else?" Keb asked, and Urdim felt himself almost about to reply, but stopped. And shook his head. The other things he'd seen, he'd keep to himself.
"I feel fine! I feel fine!" he heard behind him by the doors of the Cinnamon Sourness. The slight nervousness behind it. The fear.
"I feel fine!" and the sound of a struggle.
"Momon?" He asked, without taking his eyes from the Captain of the Guard. Keb nodded.
"We suspect. We can't be sure." Urdim said nothing as he heard the small fat armourer dragged down the steps into the city below.
"Urdim! Urdim I feel fine!" he heard Momon call out, desperate, laughing a little wildly. "Tell them I feel fine!"
He couldn't.
Two nights before, outside the burning hiss of eyeballs from the Cinnamon Sourness, Momon had waved him over. He was crouched by the edge of the black wall around Boltlulled, hunched over, as if protecting something very precious. Momon had been a friend of the Kelulads since…before they had pushed up through the open wound above them, since they had all been in the dark.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Momon had whispered, brushing his fingers over it as he handed it to Urdim gently.
It had delicate purple leaves, so delicate that they rubbed a small brush of powder on Urdim's fingers. And more than that, they didn't smell as if hacked from the body of the injured God. They scent of them was so wonderful that Urdim leaned in and simply inhaled for more than a few long breaths.
"It was outside the walls." Momon whispered.
"You went outside the walls?" Urdim said back, low. The priests had decreed only the spear carriers, the hammersmen and warriors were to venture past the jet black walls of Boltlulled. They were the ones who best knew to look for the sickness, both in others and in themselves. Anyone else was forbidden.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Momon said again, and reached out to take it, and held it in his arms, like a babe.
"You need to get rid of it." Urdim said. "Burn it." and Momon looked at him fearfully.
"But it doesn't bite." Momon said, leaning over to smell the scent once more. "It doesn't strangle, or stare."
"All the same," Urdim said, and whispered very, very quietly, so even the flickering fire from the Sourness might cover his words. "No one must know."
"Tomorrow." Momon said. "I'll burn it tomorrow." there were tears in his eyes as he cradled the purple cutting. "Tonight, I'll sleep with it. Beside my pillow, so I can smell it in my dreams."
Clearly Momon had been caught outside the walls.
"I'm alright! I tell you I'm fine!" he heard Momon wail from the stairs down into Boltlulled. Keb had taken his eyes off the large gap into the world and was watching Urdim very, very closely.
"We need to be sure." Keb said.
"Of course. Of course." Urdim said, his own tone flat, emotionless.
"And you?" Keb asked. "Are you fine?"
Urdim nodded, and Keb headed down the steps, followed by the Hammerer. The chief justice was already sliding the heavy bronze "correcting" Hammer from his back, while below Momon began to wail in real fear. They all needed to be sure. Urdim needed a drink.
The Cinnamon Sourness was a dim red blur that made the eyes sting. In the corners of the tavern a few of the braver and more thirsty sat, their cloaks pulled over their noses, and out in the night the tentacles wriggled back and forth, a sound like the wings of massive bats. There was a little rum left in the bottom of the barkeep's barrel, and Urdim dipped his mug in without even asking a question. As one of the city guard, he didn't need to pay for anything - his days out in the writhing nightmare was price enough. There were a few farmers asleep by the stairs, sleeping with their backs against the wall as had become the custom even when drunk. Urdim stepped over them and made his way to the small rooms above the Sourness, to drink alone.
He had seen the purple leaves out in the wild himself. He had back-tracked the giant Stasoz, curious as to where the massive thing wandered, and had come across a place high up in the spine of Lurit where the tentacles didn't reach, where the small staring eyes didn't push up from every rise. High up, he had stopped at one set of Stasoz' broad footsteps, and was startled by the smell. And then by the sight.
Up there, the stench of rot, of slimed flesh and foul streams was gone. In its place was a cool breeze, one that had ruffled his hair, a smell full of perfumes that he couldn't even understand. The thing that Momon had cut - it was everywhere, growing in thick brambles between green leaves. Everything around him was green, and the light, that light that down by Boltlulled was always covered in a veil of grey - up there on the spine it was so bright it brought tears to his eyes. The stream that steamed and ran oily and reeked of rotting, of forgotten afterbirth down by the city up here was so sparkling, so fresh that he drank until he was sick. And best of all - there were no priests up here to decry every sip of water, to forbid every taste of strange berries that made his stomach rumble. He had traced the circle of Stasoz' footprint and remembered the giant creature's laugh as it tossed dwarves around it, as Tulon the king had stepped forward, remembered its words.
"I don't care for your home, your riches, your mushrooms" the thing had bellowed at Tulon "Your home is putrid, the smell of this valley makes me sick. Just show me how to get out of this place!"
As if it had come from elsewhere. As if there was another place.
Drinking, alone, above the tavern Urdim knew he had to find the giant. If only to find out where it came from. If the clear heights above Boltlulled were part of that place, then Urdim wanted to go there.
His head was already swimming in the early morning hours when he stumbled back down the stairs into the city below, and made his way down to the Hammerer's hall. If Momon was….if he had…then a Kelulad should bury him. It was only proper. Urdim was more than willing to perform the Watch. The week standing over the fallen to make sure that the Second Life would be short and painless. One quick blow to the skull, and they would be able to bury Momon for true, without worrying that he would rise up, rending and ripping through his family and friends with that hideous strength those in their Second Life had, that mindless need to tear and eat and destroy. Even now, in his head, Urdim could see it, the cold body of the fat armourer twitch, shudder, and wake back up. He shivered, the cold sweat running down his spine even as he tried to still his thoughts. Panic had never helped those from Boltlulled. He would do his duty.
But Momon was still in his First Life, though whether it was better or not was up for the Gods to decide. They were keeping him on display in the Hammerer's Hall, and the farmers and bookkeepers wandered in and out to see him, chained and weeping in the center of the room. Fresh blood was spattered in a spray to both sides, and Urdim scrunched over something as he walked in, to look down and see he had just pulverized one of Momon' teeth. A few others glittered like bloody pearls across the floor.
"Kelulad. Brudder" Momon looked up, and tried to talk through his swollen, broken mouth. Blood still dripped from both sides of his empty mouth.
"He is fine." the Hammerer said, undoing the clasps around the fat sobbing armorer's wrists. "He is not sick."
"How many swings" Urdim said, looking down at the spray of teeth on the polished stone floor "did it take for you to find that out?"
"We need to be sure." The Hammerer said simply, and walked out. The crowd of gawkers parted for him like tendrils themselves, muttering darkly.
"Brudder." Momon said, falling against Urdim's shoulder. "I wath wrong, brudder." But Urdim wasn't so sure anymore. The things he had seen outside of Boltlulled he had never spoken to the other city guards about, and he knew they came down the same hills - so he was sure each squad had their own secrets. Things they had seen that the priests would call blasphemous.
That night, sleeping down in the halls of Boltlulled carved graciously from the body of their God, Urdim did not dream as he usually did of the sound of hammers, the glow of the forge. Instead he dreamed of that field of bushes, the smell of their petals, and the ball of light in a ceiling so blue he had wanted to sing.
Author
Topic: Boltlulled: A story in the making (??) (Read 1895 times)