Dirty Eden (12 page)
“I’d say you definitely got gypped,” said Tsaeb.
“What did you buy her for anyway?” I asked. I had started scratching again, though the itch was still only mild for now. “It just seems she’s more dangerous than she’d be helpful. Are all imps like her?” The thought sent a shiver up my spine.
“Dangerous, sure. Helpful, certainly. And no, most of em’ aren’t half bad.” Ronan pulled the sooty glass globe off the base of the lantern near the window and began wiping the soot with the fabric of his robe. “For her Master, an imp can’t refuse any order and she can’t harm him. Since the alligator gnawed off my legs, it’s not as easy to get around anymore. For someone like me, a slave imp is perfect! She cooks, cleans, organizes, guards, runs errands and kills if I need her to. Ha! Yesterday I had her clipping my toenails!”
“But you don’t have any feet,” I said.
“Ah! I guess you caught me in a lie, but you get the idea.”
Ronan rubbed the globe with his fingers, admiring the spotless shine and then he placed it carefully back over the dancing flame.
“Morris hates her,” said Morris.
“Don’t you ever worry about her turning on you?” I crossed my legs tight so that the fabric of my slacks would rub against the itch and scratch it for me.
“You mean like having a wild animal for a pet?” Ronan glanced at Tsaeb and smirked. Then he pressed his bottom against the edge of the table where the lantern sat burning. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I’ll never have to worry about that as long as Lilith keeps her word.”
My curiosity grew.
“Lilith made a deal with the people of Creation,” Ronan began, “that she would bind her imps to us as our slaves for as long as we harvest the souls of the New Dead for her. The imps help protect us, if one can afford an imp, that is. They don’t come cheap.”
I hated to hear that.
“Lilith,” I said, “as in the first wife of Adam?”
Ronan and Morris looked at me as if I had gone mad.
“No!” said Morris. “Bah! Adam would
never
!”
“No man in his right mind would willingly take
her
as his wife,” said Ronan, “and I doubt any man in his wrong mind would even.”
“She’s the daughter of Eve and Lucifer,” Tsaeb said so casually.
“Eve and
Lucifer
?”
“Eve and Lucifer,” Tsaeb mocked me.
“But...that doesn’t make any sense....”
“Why not?” said Ronan. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Norman,” Tsaeb said, looking at me sternly, “the people of
Creation
aren’t familiar with the beliefs of
outsiders
.”
I caught on.
“It’s such an old story,” Ronan added, “probably hundreds of thousands of years old
—
there’s a book on it.”
Of course, there’s
always
a book.
I faintly rolled my eyes.
Ronan wobbled toward me. “I never did get you outsiders. It’s like you people
—
what’s the Outside like? Is it really true that if one of us tries to go there that our flesh’ll scorch right off our bones and our souls’ll be lost for eternity?”
“Uh, well,” I glanced at Tsaeb, “I really don’t know. Sorry.”
“Ah, well it’s no big deal,” said Ronan. “Just thought I’d ask. Not often I get the chance.”
“Will you tell me about Eve and Lucifer?” I said.
“Sure, but let me tell you over dinner.”
“
Thou shalt not gamble, lest he get more than he bargained for.”
--
THE DINING HALL WAS magnificent with twenty massive tables and dozens of twelve-tiered chandeliers. So much food that I thought I could die. I stuffed myself until I could eat and drink no more.
Amanda never cooked anything like this, and she knew her way around the kitchen like any chef, but no, not like this. No one had anything on the cooks in Big Creek.
The wicked imp, Sophia, had been ordered to sit at the opposite end of the table, far away from Morris McAlister. Old Ronan did whatever he could to make his friend feel comfortable. Sophia’s presence was unsettling; almost enough to ruin my meal, the way she stared at me across the rows of food. The look in her eyes, the threats she mouthed when Ronan wasn’t looking.
I was going to have to bargain with Ronan soon.
“Lucifer did more than tempt Eve so long ago in the Garden of Eden,” Ronan explained over a plate of pork chops. “He seduced her after she and Adam were banished from the Garden. Eve gave birth to Lilitu, later named Lilith by her father, Lucifer. Lilith corrupted Adam, the First son of God. Adam, under her influence, bedded Lilith and gave her twins, a son and a daughter, who became the first of the incubi and succubi.
“Lilith was the First daughter of Lucifer. The Finality. The completion of the task that began with Eve, who ultimately bridged the way between Good and Evil, allowing Evil to corrupt Good, to taint it and influence it, to take on its forms so that it could eventually dominate it.”
By this time, the nearby conversations had silenced and many eyes were on Old Ronan, who told the story like a man that had dedicated his life to it.
“We believe that Lucifer was killed by his daughter, Lilith, making her the only ageless being in Creation. She feared that if there was anyone else living that took youth and beauty from the Well of Immortality, that eventually there would be no more and she would inevitably wither and die.”
I knew that Lucifer was alive.
“What makes you believe that Lucifer is dead?” I said.
“No one has ever seen him,” Ronan answered, “no one living in the past thousand years or so anyway. Also, Lilith claims to have killed him: ‘I took his eyes, rendering him powerless to see the world of Creation. I took his eyes.’ Those were Lilith’s words, written in the Book of Lilitu.”
“But what does that have to do with death?”
“In Creation, to lose one’s Sight
is
to die.”
A flash of Charla’s death jumped up in my thoughts. The water that splashed in my eyes. The blinding light that I could not fully see but knew was there. Charla’s body burning. It suddenly occurred to me that Charla clawed at her eyes during her death, that even though her flesh charred, flaked and smoked, it was the eyes that mattered and nothing else.
The eyes are the windows to the soul,
I thought to myself.
“Well,” I began aloud, “what is Lilith to you and to Creation?” I rubbed my chin. “And why would you trust the word of anyone that sends assassins to kill the queen that
you
protect? Sounds like a trick to me.”
“We’re certain it’s a trick,” Ronan said. “Part of her grand scheme.”
“Yep,” added Morris, “it’s a trick alright, but we ain’t goin’ into it all blind.”
“Morris is right,” said Ronan. “We take advantage of it because for now it suits us, but we’ll be ready for it when the gist is up.”
Tsaeb stuffed his face with the last of his pumpernickel bread and then said with his mouth full, “And to answer...your first question,” he paused to swallow, “Lilith is the embodiment of Evil to some and a goddess to others. Nuff’ said.” He buried a fork into a bowl of pasta.
“Tell me more about this book, the Book of Lilitu.”
All Ronan had to say about the book was that Lilith’s scribes wrote it and had been writing it since her birth. Ronan had never seen the actual book. There were duplicates, though not many. Ronan possessed one of them. After we left the dining hall and went back to Ronan’s room, he showed it to me. The book did no good, written in some ancient language that I could not understand.
As the day wore on, Ronan and I bid Morris McAlister a farewell. He had stayed in Big Creek long enough and wanted to get back home to his ugly wife who would be a welcome sight after having to see the imp that tried to skin him alive. But before his long overdue departure, I had an unintentional heart-to-heart with Morris McAlister, which turned out to be rather informative.
According to Morris, outsiders like me rarely come to Creation. He had only known two others in his lifetime. One was murdered by one of the many assassins that lurked about the city. Anyone in Creation, especially Fiedel City where the fortress stood, could be an assassin. They come clothed in the garb of average people; some were once average folk influenced by those that want the queens dead, becoming assassins themselves. I began to understand, though had a feeling before, why I couldn’t get into the fortress easily. I was on the side of those who protected the queen. I was the person from the Outside that came to do precisely what the people of Fiedel City and most of Creation, wanted. I was the man that the queen would
want
to see. I was the one the people had been waiting for, for thousands of years. But to prove one is that person had never been an easy thing to do.
Tsaeb, a sin demon, was aiding me. He was helping me to do exactly the opposite of what would be expected of a creature like himself. And he worked for the Devil, of all the dark and godless beings in the world. What was going on? Why would Tsaeb or the Devil want to help me succeed in something that had any kind of good, God-like result?
Am I making a mistake? Am I a pawn for the Devil in one of his twisted schemes against God?
Haunted by these thoughts, I began to think I was working against God and that eventually there
would
be hell to pay. But nothing made sense anymore, not that any of it made sense to begin with. Now things were deeper and more confusing. Possibilities did not match up. Contradictions were aplenty. Mysteries had begun to multiply. Old stories had been proven
and
refuted.
“You’ll know when you get in to see the queen,” said Tsaeb.
“And what if I don’t make it in? What if they kill me on the spot and I die a man that worked for the Devil?”
Tsaeb lowered his eyes, and the way he had nothing mocking or cruel to say in answer puzzled me.
“Well?” I demanded.
Tsaeb looked up and said with unnatural sincerity, “You’re working for Lucifer, yes, but not against God.”
Without another word, Tsaeb left the room Old Ronan had given us for the night, even though we had no intention in staying much longer. We needed to be on our way, Tsaeb and me with my temporary new slave, Sophia, by our side.
I had to do it, I had to bargain with Ronan and get it over with and I worried it was not going to be an easy thing to do. But if I had to offer things I did not have, make promises I could not keep, I would.
“Can I speak with you?” I said, standing in the doorway of Old Ronan’s room.
The night slowly flooded the valley, the sky blue and black. No sun. No moon. Just the atmosphere in its transition from twilight to night, and without the sun, Ronan’s room was a dark place once more. Candles helped give the room light, at least six of them placed about in warm puddles of dripping wax.
“Come on in.” Ronan gestured me inside. “Is it about my imp?”
“How did you know?”
“Well, she
is
why you came to Big Creek,” said Ronan. “I knew it was but a matter of time before you started haggling me for her.”
“You knew I wanted to buy her rather than borrow her?”
“Not until I saw the look on your face after you met her in the hallway.” Ronan’s chest bounced with a chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry. She won’t suspect you told me about the threats.”
“But I
didn’t
tell you.”
“Didn’t have to,” Ronan revealed, “she’s done it before, threatened my sister last time she visited. You see, Sophia is too predictable. She’s focused on one thing: being free. She’ll do anything for her freedom, absolutely anything.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” It felt awkward admitting it.
“You think I’m a horrible Master?”
“Oh, no,” I said, “only that if I was anyone’s slave I’d probably feel the same way.”
“This part of your bargaining scheme?” Ronan looked up with a grin.
“Not at all...I was...well
—
”
“Ah it’s alright, my friend,” Ronan reassured. “For you, I’ll bargain.”
I sat down, watching the doorway behind me, expecting Sophia to turn the corner at any moment. “So then what’s your price?” I asked nervously.
Ronan tended to his burning candles, poking at the wax near one wick that would have been swallowed and the flame put out had he not saved it in time. Then he lit two more with the flamed end of an incense stick, which filled the room with sweet-smelling musk. It reminded me of Sex & Opium, my favorite incense scent sold in every sleazy gas station I had ever been in. I had a collection of the tall sticks, sitting in a flower vase back at my apartment. Ah, how true that scent can bring back vivid memories. I did so miss my apartment.
“Tell you what,” Ronan began, turning around, “It would have been much easier just to let you borrow her, lie and tell her you bought her, but the truth is I no longer want the responsibility of owning her. She’s murdered eight people in Big Creek since she came here.”
“But if she has to abide by everything her Master tells her, then why can’t you just tell her not to murder anyone?”
“If it were that easy, don’t you think I’d have done that?” Ronan wobbled away from the candles and took a seat in view of me. “My orders seem only to apply when I’m present. It wasn’t like that when she first came here. But Sophia’s different, defiant. She knows how to cheat the system.”
“Cheat the system?”
Ronan pointed an index finger upward. “Precisely!” he said with conviction. “It’s like making wishes to a lamp genie. If you’re not careful what you wish for, word it in a precise and literal way, there’s no telling what you’ll get. It doesn’t matter how I give an order, she worms her way around it.
“I learned quickly though how to better word my demands,” Ronan went on, “and now only some of the time she cheats the system.”
This news worried me a great deal.
“She wants me to purchase her from you,” I began in a cautious whisper, “and after she gets me inside the fortress, set her free.”
Ronan moved his tongue across his teeth and sat silently in thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s what she wanted of my sister; well, not the fortress part.” He looked back up at me, pulling himself quickly out of his contemplations. “You absolutely
cannot
set an imp like her free, Norman. Besides, I’d be the first one she came back to kill.”
Damn, he’s right....
“You’ll have to let her believe you’re going to set her free.” Ronan leaned back in the chair and let his wooden legs rest out in front. “And you’ll have to be a damn good liar or else she’ll know it right away.
“She’s a smart imp,” Ronan added, “if that ain’t already obvious.”
“Is it true that she got inside the fortress once?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Ronan answered, “but I wouldn’t doubt it.”
~~~
I bought Sophia for a promise: I would not set her free after she fulfilled her end of the deal. I would have to become Sophia’s new Master, or sell her to someone else at an honest, cheap price. Truly, Ronan explained, there were no better alternatives where Sophia was concerned. Creation was better off with her dead. But I’m no killer. I would never be able to bring myself to kill anyone, especially someone in the form of a child. However, I did consider heavily that due to the evil nature of said ‘child’, I might have to kill her defending myself.
It was night when we left Big Creek, and my deceptive plan seemed to be working well. I was Sophia’s new Master, a frightened and inexperienced one, but a Master nonetheless. My first order: “You’re not to harm any living thing under any circumstances and for any reason whatsoever.” It was the best I could come up with, and she didn’t seem to like it much, which was a good sign that it served its purpose a little better than she may have expected of me.
Tsaeb hated Sophia and Sophia hated Tsaeb, neither of them afraid to make that known. They argued and challenged each other the entire way back. They fought as we passed the talking ravens and before we made it to the bridge, Tsaeb had Sophia in a chokehold.
When we made it all the way across the bridge, I stood with my arm propped against a tree. I caught my breath and let my heartbeat slow before I went wild-eyed with shouts of condemnation and curse-filled threats.
Through the swamp, things were much quieter, but Tsaeb and Sophia turned verbal and physical threats into facial expressions and body language, which I could still hear. I couldn’t win for losing; the mosquitoes were worse than the fighting demons were, and this time they did happen to find my blood sweet enough to drink. Maybe it was because of all the delicious foods I ate while in Big Creek; I didn’t know, but I hurried quickly down the leaf-littered path and toward the rising towers of Fiedel City.
Maybe it was the sudden memory of Charla, but my itch had come back in full force.
We headed to our new room at Tiny’s Inn. Before we left for Big Creek, we had no choice but to move our belongings to an empty room across the hall. Morris had given us his, and helped hide Tsaeb’s bag of riches before we set out. I was shocked to see that nothing had been stolen. I thought surely the huge bag I was tired of lugging around would be gone when we returned. A part of me hoped it would be.
The next stop would be the fortress and if I made it inside, there was no telling how long I would be in there, if even I made it back out.
But things did not go as planned and three days later, me and Tsaeb were still spending gold coins on the room at the inn. Sophia had not tried to get us into the fortress yet; claimed that the time was not right. When questions were thrown at her she grumbled and would say, “I’m the one that knows what I’m doing, so shut the hell up and trust my judgment, will yah!”
Tsaeb really,
really
hated that imp.
Day-eight came and went, and then day-nine and finally ten days later and many gold coins short, Sophia came running up the stairs toward the room, the sound of her little black loafers tapping furiously behind her.
The door swung open, smashing into the wall.
“If yah wanna get in, now’s the time!”
I fell trying to get out of bed. I had been partially awake for the past hour, but my awareness had not caught up with the rest of me yet. I fumbled my slacks on and my hair was a mess.
“Where’s Tsaeb?” I asked, slipping my arms into my dress shirt. I paused, taking a big whiff of the fabric and twisted my face up in disgust.
“I could’ve told you how bad you stink days ago,” said Sophia, standing in the doorway. “You smell worse than the drunks down there.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I buttoned my shirt and attempted tucking it in, but was in too much of a hurry to get it right. I jumped into my black dress shoes and stood there, waiting.
Wait, I can’t see the queen like this!
“I need to shower first,” I said suddenly, unbuttoning the shirt. “Go find Tsaeb while I get cleaned up and then we’ll go.”
Sophia crossed her arms and tapped her shoe against the floor. “I say it’s finally the right time to get in and you want to shower first?” She spit on the floor toward my feet. “Whatever. Might as well change into something more suitable too while you’re at it. A bath won’t make the clothes smell any better.”
I needed something different to wear; clothes that might help me blend with the rest of the city and not mark me as an outsider that would only attract assassins.
Sophia came back with Tsaeb and an armful of ragged clothes.
I wore a pair of tan breeches, fabric gathered and tied at the ankles, waist held up by a drawstring. I hated these pants very much, especially the diaper-effect in the crotch. And I hated wool, which the knee-length tunic was made of. I had to wear my stinking dress shirt after all, underneath the tunic to keep the itching wool off my skin.
Sophia held out her hand and on the end of her finger dangled a pair of man sandals.
I felt like I was dressed up for a costume party, without the comfort of modern alterations and substitutes.
“And just who’d you kill to get those?” said Tsaeb.
“No one,” Sophia growled, “I didn’t kill no one!”
“Liar.”
“I’m no liar.”
“Liar. Murderer.”
“Shut up,” I shouted, “both of you just
shut up
already!”
I wriggled my arms inside my trench coat, trying to keep the sleeves of the tunic from bunching up past my elbows. “I feel like a friggin’ babysitter,” I grumbled, reaching inside the sleeve of my right arm and catching the fabric of the tunic in my fingertips. I tugged until the tunic sleeve straightened underneath the coat. “Seriously,” I went on, “I can’t deal with this. Why the Devil stuck me with kids, I’ll never know.”
“Hey, you chose
me
,” said Tsaeb, “remember?”
Sophia snarled and crossed her arms. “And you were the one that came lookin’ for
me
in Big Creek, remember?”
“Alright,
alright
!”
I turned to the broken mirror set in a swiveling wooden frame and gazed upon myself. My dress was sloppy and unnatural. I wasn’t too convincing. Maybe it was the modern-day trench coat, the salon haircut, or even the watch. But there had been other people in the streets of Fiedel City that looked much like I did at this moment, like a homeless man that wore whatever he found in the dumpsters, no matter how dirty, tattered or tacky it was with the rest of him.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
We wasted no more time.
The day was bright and the sun unforgiving. Even in the shade of the trees that surround the base of the fortress, there was little relief. We made our way through the sweltering city streets, taking the ‘back way’ once we passed a series of shops that sat at the top of a winding hill. Sophia led Tsaeb and me into the woods and away from all three roads at the fork. The forest smelled like pine; pine needles blanketed the ground heavily making each step softer and quieter. Birds chirped happily in the trees. The closer we drew to the fortress, the more out of place it, and the surrounding area became. A pair of deer grazed at the edge of a brook. Water trickled and danced gently over the rocks. Butterflies fluttered in a patch of wild flowers. The air was cleaner than in the city, scented lightly with everything nice and nothing foul, not even in the heat.
Strange. Surreal. Peaceful, yet eerie.
Not even the looming black mountain could distract me from the beautiful scenery. It was like stumbling across a wonderland in the heart of a nightmare, but in the back of my mind, the wonderland was what I did not trust.
We slipped quietly past an old iron gate partially covered by great meandering vines. A broken rock stair sat on the other side of the gate, worn by time. It seemed as though an old stone building had once been here in its company. And just past the stair, a stone arch perched on a rock platform that was also part of some ancient building. Sophia lead us past the ruins and deeper into the forest, past the north end of the brook that began to swell into a larger creek out ahead.
I stopped suddenly, realizing that the fortress was a tree. It was the largest and tallest tree that I had ever seen, real or imagined. Extraordinary. A tree the size of a fortress whose upper most floor and tower I could not see from the clouds that concealed it. Birds perched high in the carved-out windows, some on protruding limbs that were significant in their own right, but looked like twigs against the great backdrop of the fortress itself.
There were no figures moving past the enormous windows, or voices spilling out into the forest below. No movement, no sound, except for the birds, and even squirrels jumping from branch to branch, ruffling the leaves in their wake.
Sophia stopped.
More ruins surrounded us. An ancient wall, once a barrier for the buildings that stood here, stretched through the forest and toward the fortress. Time, weather and maybe even war had ravaged the wall in many places, but it was still impressive, as were what was left of the buildings around it with their crumbling roofs and sad, missing walls. Miles of vines covered the ruins and twisted beautifully through every crack and hole, gripping tight with strong serpentine fingers.
“This way,” Sophia whispered and waved her hand.
We crept around the stone wall of one ruin and headed inside, though with so many missing stones, ‘inside’ was almost the same as being outside. The roof had been destroyed long ago and the sun beamed through the trees and cast pools of light on the ground of what was once a room.
Tsaeb made a sarcastic clicking sound with his lips. “Thought you were good at getting past the guards?” he said. “Like you were some kind of ninja or something.”
“Don’t start, Tsaeb,” I demanded.
“I never said that,” Sophia snapped back, “not my fault you listen to rumors.”
“How are we getting in then?”
“Shhh!” I said angrily. I looked over my shoulder at the half-window and then toward the crumbling wall where we had entered.
Sophia growled and walked across the ground toward a dark corner. She knelt and began brushing a thick and heavy mound of leaves and pine needles away, clearing an area beneath them. “
We
?” Sophia laughed, looking up. “There ain’t no
we
to it. You have to stay behind.” She moved the last of the leaves away to reveal a small round hatch made of iron.
“What? I’m not staying behind.”
Sophia wiped her hands on her already stained yellow dress.
“Oh yes you are,” Sophia smirked. “You’ll need to cover the hatch back the way it was.”
She bent over and placed her fingers around the hatch handle.
“And after you cover it up, go back to the tavern and wait there,” she added.
I moved Sophia to the side, assuming she was too small to lift such a heavy piece of iron, and lifted it for her. The hatch creaked and groaned so loud it left all three of us wincing. The hatch came up and I let it rest against the stone wall. It was pitch black inside the hole and there was no ladder waiting to lead us down.
“Why did we wait so long to come here?” I said, looking down into the hole. I could hear my voice echoing faintly.
“I’m not staying here and that’s all there is to it,” said Tsaeb.
“The guards shift posts every other night,” Sophia answered. “I just wanted to watch their habits and stuff. This leads underground and into the fortress cellar and I have connections inside that’ll help us get the rest of the way.”
“This doesn’t feel right.” I stepped away from the hole.
“All the more reason not to leave me here, Norman. The imp can’t be trusted.”