Parasite Soul (9 page)

As she thrashed about shrieking on the floor, tangled in her
blanket, Simon turn his attention to Niu’s predicament. The handmaiden
caught his eye and frowned slightly
. I told you to stay outside
,
was what that look said, but Simon was having none of it. Niu didn’t
think he was useful; well, he was going to prove her wrong. He was going
to help. He just needed a weapon, and there were several on the counter, if he
could just stomach the proximity of that terrible corpse.

Just as he was starting toward his goal, Niu ended her dance.
Ducking a clumsy swing, as swift as a striking snake, she drove both palms into
the blonde girl’s abdomen. The blonde made a choking noise and dropped,
stunned, to the floorboards. The smallest of gasps escaped her
lips. Niu, who was now wearing ill-fitting and stylistically incongruous
ankle boots, gave her wrist a savage kick so that her knife went clattering
away. As she strode past the girl, as seemed to be her signature move,
Niu kneed her in the face.

“What’s going on here?” Simon gasped as the groaning blonde, blood
streaming down her face, clutched her shattered nose.

“Whatever it is, it is none of our business,” Niu said
crisply. “I have packed some supplies for our journey. The food, I
think, we will leave.”

Simon couldn’t have agreed more fervently.

“Alright,” he nodded.

“Do not turn your back to them. I will fetch the bag.”
Niu disappeared.

Simon, alone with two butchers and a corpse, hovered uneasily near
the set of knives, counting the seconds until he could be away from this
horrible den of cannibals. Then he heard it again, beneath the
floorboards: the rattling of chains and a protracted, shivering moan.

“Who’s down there?” Simon stabbed a finger at the floor. “Who
do you have captive?”

“No one,” snapped the woman designated as ‘mother’. She’d
hauled herself into an awkward sitting position and was glaring venomous
needles at Simon.

Simon could have let it go. For a moment he desperately wanted
to; but then his gaze brushed the dead eyes of the unfortunate young man atop
the counter, and his resolve hardened. Retrieving a hefty knife from the
block, he waved it at the women. “Show me this
no one
.”

“Never,” spat Mother, her mouth twisted into a jeering snarl.

“Not a good idea,” the blonde girl said, or an approximation
thereof; her gushing nose made her sound like she had a heavy cold.

“Now!” Simon shouted, surprising even himself. The girl jumped, even
as Mother continued to sneer belligerently.

“You heard him.” Niu had reappeared with a traveling bag slung over
her shoulder. Her expression was conflicted: her stony eyes said that she
wished Simon had left well enough alone, but a slight smirk suggested that she
was impressed that he was showing some backbone. “Show this prisoner to
us.”

The blonde girl struggled to her feet. She looked dazed and
helpless.

“Don’t you do it, Aletta,” Mother snarled, groping about for a
weapon and coming up short.

“He… he’s in the basement.” Aletta wiped her nose with a bloody
sleeve.

“Well, we’re going to get him out of there before you can eat him,
too,” Simon snapped.

To his surprise, a tear trickled down Alletta’s cheek. “I
don’t eat people,” she snuffled thickly. “I don’t, I wouldn’t…”

“If you speak further to these folk, you little witch,” Mother
hissed, clutching at her rocking chair, struggling to right it, “It will be the
worse for you when your father gets back. You know what he will be forced
to do.”

Aletta threw a glance at the corpse on the counter and bit her
lip. She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, then she moved
across to the hearthrug and peeled it back. Beneath it was a trapdoor,
chained and padlocked. She withdrew a key from her bodice and unlocked it
with shaking hands.

“Think what you are doing!” Mother howled.

“I’m sick of all this,” said Aletta hoarsely, and threw back the
trapdoor.

The stench wafting from the black pit below caused Simon’s stomach
to revolt once again, and he fell back coughing. Rotting meat, dank
decay, and a sickly sweet, unfamiliar smell combined into a nauseatingly
pungent cocktail. Unaffected by the miasma, Aletta descended a set of
creaking stairs, and moments later, a torch flared. Simon who was
beginning to think that Niu was right, that this as none of their business and
that they should take to their heels, had to forcibly remind himself that some
poor sap languished below waiting to become these degenerates’ next meal.
Covering his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow, he followed the girl
into the dank pit, knife gripped tight.

Niu remained behind, hovering warily at the entrance. No doubt
she feared ambush, or perhaps worried that Mother would slam the trapdoor
closed once they were inside. Either way, she took it upon herself to act
as sentry, which was good, because Simon hadn’t thought of it. With Niu
guarding his back, he was able to descend with greater confidence.

“Stay back,” Aletta muttered, which seemed like sound advice to
Simon. He squinted in the flickering torchlit gloom. Unlike the cabin
above, the claustrophobically narrow walls of the squalid little chamber were
of cut and fitted stone; the floor was invisible beneath layers of packed
refuse, the composition of which Simon elected not to think about. The
clink of chains drew his attention to the far end of the little room, where
something huddled. Something, Simon quickly ascertained, which was
definitely
not
the terrified prisoner of his imagination.

“What…” he began, then his breath caught in his throat as the
chained thing turned its head. He was looking upon the form of a man,
roughly; but this creature was not human. A pair of bulbous, bloodshot
eyes flickered across his own; Simon read both gnawing hunger and profound
sorrow in their depths. Lank black hair framed features which were
stretched, distorted: a nose which was a little too flat to its face, a
jaw inhumanly long and bristling with ocher fangs, skin which had not seen
sunlight for many years.

Clad only in a filthy loincloth, this pallid nightmare shuffled
toward Aletta in a crouching squat. Manacles circled its wrists and
ankles. It crooned hopefully, its expression desolate. Snuffling at
the blood which had spattered the girl’s blouse, the creature whined, uncannily
like a dog.

Revolted as he was by this deformed monstrosity, Simon realized with
some astonishment that he wasn’t actually
afraid
of it. Even
though he was now aware what the human corpses were used for, this thing seemed
pitiful rather than threatening. Certainly it was not as alarming as a
dragon, or for that matter the princess of Cannevish. As it continued to
whine, plucking at Aletta’s skirt with grimy, maggot-white fingers, he
discovered that he felt rather sorry for it.

Niu, on the other hand didn’t feel the same way.

“Simon,” she hissed, the first time he could recall her addressing
him by name. “Get out of there!”

“What… what is it?” Simon wondered, staring as the girl tousled the
creature’s mat of hair fondly.

“I do not know,” Niu admitted, voice rasping. “There is
nothing like it in my homeland. But it is a flesh-eater.”

Yes, got that
, Simon thought. “What is
it?” he repeated, but this time his question was directed at Aletta.

“He’s a wendigo,” the girl said sadly as the creature shuffled and
moaned at her feet. “My…” Her voice trembled. “…father.”

Simon considered that. “I thought your father was ‘coming
back’,” he reminded her.

Aletta nodded. “And I pray to Vanyon that he is. That
his curse may be reversed. Father tasted human flesh once and is now
cursed to crave it. I have consulted doctors and oracles, herbalists and
warlocks. But nothing has worked.”

“So you feed him travelers,” Niu interjected coldly.

“He is family,” Aletta said softly.

Simon contemplated the shivering, crooning thing and tried without
success to imagine it as a man. “Why not let him go?”

Aletta peered over her shoulder. “What?”

“You’re killing for him anyway. Let him go, let him fend for
himself. Then the burden is off you.”

Both Aletta and the wendigo contemplated Simon seriously. For
the first time, Simon realized that the creature could understand every word he
said. He wasn’t sure why that unsettled him – after all, the wendigo had
been a man once – but the idea was unnerving all the same.

“Don’t you dare even think it!” came Mother’s cry from above.
“Don’t you dare unleash that travesty! It would devour us, Aletta,
us
!
Our neighbors! Children, Aletta! It would eat
children
!”

Simon realized he hadn’t thought his suggestion through, but he
wasn’t sure how to retract it. Aletta moistened her lips, thinking.

“Would you leave us be, father?” she asked softly. The wendigo
nodded, once, peering up into her face with woeful eyes.

“Simon,” Niu urged. “It is time for us to go.”

Simon nodded. He was curious as to how the scene would play
out, but on the off chance Aletta took his advice and released her father from
his bondage, he didn’t want to be anywhere nearby.

“Yes,” he said simply.

Leaving Aletta to her decision, he climbed the stairs back into the
cabin. Niu’s face was grim. Aletta’s mother had clawed her way back
up into her rocking chair, where she was folded inelegantly with her legs all
askew. She sneered at Simon but said nothing.

“Have you finished interfering?” Niu asked.

Feeling somewhat foolish, Simon nodded.

“Good.” Slipping behind the older woman, she took hold of the
rocking chair and, with a sudden burst of energy, shoved her toward the hatch
and upended her. With a shriek of astonishment and terror, Aletta’s
mother tumbled down the steps, a flailing ragdoll whirlwind, to land in a
disjointed heap at their foot. Aletta screamed. Niu slammed the
trapdoor into place and locked it.

“What are you doing?” Simon gasped, grabbing Niu’s arm as she
rose. “That thing… it will eat them!”

“I believe I will be able to sleep at night,” Niu said coolly.

Sick at heart, Simon absorbed the confusion of shouts, curses and
pleas from below. It was half in his mind to spite the handmaiden and
make at least an attempt to break the lock, until his eyes brushed the dead
green stare of the body on the counter.

“It’s not right,” he said numbly.

“And yet you decided it, the moment you suggested that she free that
monster.” Niu shouldered her traveling bag. Someone, no doubt Aletta, was
already drumming at the underside of the trapdoor. “And it may be that
the lock will not hold them forever. We should be on our way.”

Feet dragging reluctantly, Simon allowed himself to be swept along
in Niu’s wake. He didn’t like leaving Aletta to such a potentially
horrible fate. Niu seemed to guess what he was thinking; once they were
out in the daylight, she cast him an exasperated glance.

“A pretty face does not mean a good heart,” she admonished. “She
is as much of a monster as her father.”

Simon nodded unhappily as they crossed the yard and passed into the
shadow of the forest once more. Niu’s expression softened slightly.

“They will probably escape,” she said. “Let us just make sure
we are nowhere nearby when that happens.” She nodded northward. “We can
travel much faster now. Your home awaits.”

“Home awaits,” Simon repeated dully.
But what awaited at
home?

Past Saber Bend, the northward journey was comparatively uneventful,
although it was slow going. Niu had managed to obtain some food from a
farm on the village’s outskirts. With their last encounter fresh in his
mind, Simon eyed the homestead with a suspicion he did not enjoy feeling and
made no complaint about Niu’s methods. The handmaiden returned with buns,
cured fish, and some dried vegetables along with two flasks freshly filled with
well-water. The family had not appeared to be cannibals, she’d joked, but
Simon had been too hungry to feel guilt.

“Your food is so bland,” she’d complained, and then, after a few
sips of her water flask, “I miss
paiyoshao
.”

The word had been unfamiliar. “What’s that?”

“A hot drink… very hot. Flavored with only the most potent of
spices and peppers.”

Simon couldn’t even feign understanding. “It sounds horrible.”

“Perhaps to the uncultured,” Niu answered stiffly, and they didn’t
talk for some time.

Try as they might to avoid traveling upon the road, it quickly
became inefficient not to. Simon worried that they would never make the
trek in time to warn his father; Niu cautioned him that even at their fastest
speed, there was no chance whatsoever of reaching his village before the King’s
soldiers did, and to steel himself for the worst. Her pragmatism upset
Simon, but he couldn’t deny the wisdom of her warning. Whatever awaited,
he knew this would be no joyful homecoming. Thinking on it turned his
heart to lead.

The two of them got into the habit of using quieter roads and tracks
where possible, slipping into the trees whenever they heard carts or
horses. This wasn’t a foolproof plan, and more than once they were
surprised by foot travelers. Niu kept her hood drawn low to disguise
features which couldn’t possibly have been mistaken for those of a local
woman. Simon, who had no cloak, just hoped for the best, avoiding
eye-contact but not
looking
as though he were avoiding
eye-contact. So far, there had been no trouble;
possibly because they
are waiting for us in Brand
, Niu had suggested.
Why expend
manpower searching the countryside when they know we are coming directly to
them?

Her words stung Simon, although he didn’t believe she was chastising
him for his decision, exactly. On the contrary, she seemed impressed by
his loyalty to his father. Still, her constant reminders that the journey
was likely to end in tragedy and disaster were starting to get him down.

Just outside the hamlet of Silverton’s Hollow, the two fugitives
accepted a ride from a farmer, whose cart was heaped high with hay. This
was a risky move, but Niu, worried that she’d been detected ‘acquiring ‘ two
loaves of bread and a cheese wheel, had been anxious to leave the tiny
community behind quickly. She judged the farmer to be ‘a bit of a
simpleton’ and hopped into the back of the cart. There, she and Simon had
split their bread and cheese in comfort and, even if they weren’t traveling
significantly faster than they would have afoot, they could at least massage
their aching limbs and tend to their blisters.

Cannevish’s range of weatherworn northern mountains was soon visible
on the horizon; they loomed nearer and nearer as the day progressed until, by
nightfall, they dominated the skyline. Just beyond them lay Brand. The farmer,
blissfully unaware as to the identities of his passengers, had dropped them off
in the foothills just outside the town of Vanyon’s Parade. Simon had no
idea how the settlement had earned its name, unless the God of the Afterworld
had indeed once led a procession through the narrow valley which twisted
between ancient peaks.

This was a chokepoint; the divider between Northern and Southern
Cannevish. There was no other path through the mountains, unless you were
a goat, and there was sure to be a guard presence at either end of the
pass. Simon hoped Niu had a plan to deal with this inevitability because
he had nothing. Without the handmaiden, he had to admit, his head would
have long since been adorning a spike outside the palace in Vingate.

He and Niu had now spent three nights sleeping under the stars,
albeit since that first night, disappointingly clothed. This fourth
evening, as they wandered the overgrown outskirts of Vanyon’s Parade, dusk
settling about them like a shroud, Niu noticed a tumbledown old barn hunched in
a long unattended field. Far though it was from the comforts of an inn,
the idea of a roof over his head as he slept was a great relief to Simon.
He hadn’t been sleeping well, alternating between bouts of worry for his father
and expectation that at any moment a patrol would stumble across their
makeshift camps. Jumping at every nocturnal sound, certain that he was
about to lose his throat to a prowling predator, did not improve the quality of
his rest.

The barn turned out to be completely dilapidated. Simon wasn’t
convinced it could withstand a dedicated rainstorm. He half expected it
to collapse when he forced open the sagging door. Caved-in chunks of the
gambrel roof let in enough moonlight to see that the structure was overrun with
foliage within as well as without. Hay had been stored here once,
although there was little evidence of that now. In the darkest corners,
slimy ash-grey fungi smothered the walls, while a few runty saplings dotted
what once had been a floor.

Niu spread two blankets, which she’d acquired at the wendigo-cabin,
out on the sickly yellowish grass and sank down on hers, fumbling in her bag
for the last of the bread. This she divided with Simon, who paced
restlessly as he ate, worrying about the trials and tribulations ahead.
He was about to ask Niu, for perhaps the twentieth time, if she thought Minus’
men had harmed his father already when she spoke.

“Bread,” she said, picking at it without enthusiasm. “How can
you eat so much of it in this kingdom? It is so heavy.” She sighed
as she downed her half. “It is a concept I will not be bringing home.”

Simon suspected she’d anticipated the direction of his thoughts and
was attempting to distract him. Weary as he was of her criticizing the
local cuisine – she took every opportunity to point how much better-prepared
food was in Jynn – he decided to play along. He knew so little about Niu
and her homeland; if discussing the handmaiden’s birthplace could take his mind
of his own troubles, he was willing to participate in the diversion.

“What do you eat in Jynn?” he asked.

A visible pang of homesickness crossed Niu’s dark eyes. “You
would not have heard of the food that we eat in Jynn,” she said. “There
is no official trade between our people. Your king and my emperor may
exchange
gifts
…” Here her voice grew bitter. “…but the fruits of
these exchanges are not enjoyed by the people.” She attempted to
smile. “But perhaps one day we will sit across from one another in a
dining house in Sindhai and I will treat you to stir-fried watercress with
oyster sauce.”

She was right; Simon had no idea what she was talking about, but he
thrilled to the fact that she was including him in her future. “I’d like
to try it. Tell me more about Jynn.”

Her face took on a moody cast as she shrugged one shoulder. “What is
there to tell? Jynn is a great empire. It is more…” she struggled
for a word. “…colorful than Cannevish. Our food is varied and our
festivals plentiful. Our lands are fertile and our cities are
cleaner. We have many great generals, poets, dancers and actors.
Our people are neither so repressed nor prudish.”

Simon, thinking of the barely-there gossamer wrap which Niu had been
wearing when he’d first met her, imagined a land where all the women dressed
with similar abandon and hastily planted himself upon his blanket to disguise a
distressing redistribution of blood.

“It sounds wonderful,” he said thickly.

Niu toyed morosely with a crust. “Not so wonderful.”

Simon took a breath and ventured to ask a question he’d been
suppressing for days. He cursed himself even before his lips began to
move; he knew the question was rude and invasive and would likely be treated as
such, but as with many of the idiotic decisions he made, he couldn’t seem to
help himself.

“That… that first night,” he said tentatively, “When we slept on the
island…”

Niu raised an eyebrow.

“There was a… drawing… on your…” How not to appear indelicate?

“I am aware,” Niu said, her expression unreadably neutral.
Simon flushed.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve wondering about it.”

Niu’s lips quirked. “Of course you have.”

“Sorry.” Simon squirmed as she studied him. “I shouldn’t
have…”

“I told you, my people are not so embarrassed by such things as
yours. It is called a tattoo. It was a present.”

Simon blinked. “A present?”

“Yes. To my lover.” Her lids drooped.

Stop
, Simon told himself.
Stop
before your offend her.
“And where is he now?”

Her tone sharpened. “I do not wish to discuss it further.”

“Sorry,” Simon repeated, casting about for a change of
subject. “My mother used to tell me that Vanyon would never allow me into
the Afterworld until I learned to control my mouth.”

Niu rolled her eyes. “You people and your Afterworld.”

Simon frowned. “You don’t believe in the Afterworld in Jynn?”

“We have a saying. ‘Those who cling to dreams of a world
beyond death will never hold themselves accountable in this one.’” She
smiled slightly. “It sounds better in my language.”

“But – but that’s nonsense!” Simon had rarely felt so
indignant. “The Afterworld exists to counter the misery we suffer in this
one!”

Niu smiled wearily. “Let me ask you something about your
Afterworld. How do you picture it?”

The answer was clear to Simon; he’d been taught what to expect
nearly from birth. “Vanyon Afterlord brings us to his Great Hall, where
we are reunited with our lost loved ones, where we drink and make merry…”

“And in this world, you will be essentially the same person as you
are now?”

Simon scowled. “Of course.” What sort of question was
that?

“Does it not make you wonder,” Niu mused. “What manner of gods
would tear friends and families apart, denying them a chance at true happiness
in this world, only to reunite them exactly as they were in a second
world? What point would there be?”

“To weed out those who haven’t accepted the Afterlord into their hearts,”
Simon said heatedly.

Niu made little attempt to disguise a fit of silent laughter.
She tossed an uneaten crust aside. “Forgive me,” she said at length as
Simon fumed. “Jynn is a nation of scholars. We are never taught
such nonsense there.”

“So you don’t believe in Vanyon? Or Lesquann the
Worldbuilder?” Wounded, Simon was up and pacing again. He’d never heard
tell of anyone who dismissed the Twin Gods – Lesquann, who’d created the world
and continued to maintain it, and her brother – by far the more popular of the
two - who governed the fate of the people, both before their deaths and
after. While Lesquann enjoyed limited popularity, Vanyon was universally
revered. He was, after all, the deity one had to impress to earn themselves
their eternal reward.

“I am not of your kingdom. These names mean nothing to me.”

Simon pursed his lips. Her attitude seemed incredible to
him. “So what
do
you believe in Jynn?”

“We believe the world is the result of an accident in the heavens.”

“An accident?” Simon was horrified. “But… that would mean no
one was in control!”

“Yes. That is exactly what it would mean.”

Incredulous, Simon was set to protest further, but Niu held up a
hand. “Hush. What is that?”

“I don’t hear anything,” Simon said grumpily, without
listening. “You can’t mean to say…”

“Hsst!” Niu interrupted. “There! There again!”

“The wind?” Simon offered carelessly. He wasn’t paying much
attention. What kind of misguided, backwards culture
was
Jynn? Even if Niu had misplaced her faith in some false foreign god, he
would have found that easier to accept. But the world, an accident?
That mean that the kingdoms of men – and men themselves - were also an
accident. Impossible!

“Wind without wind,” Niu said sardonically. “Curious.”

“An animal, then.” If Niu was going to be dismissive of the Gods, he
was going to be dismissive of her concerns.

“Possibly.” The handmaiden didn’t look convinced. She rose,
crossed to a section of wall and put her eye to a crack in the planking.
After a moment, she returned, frowning. “Whatever it was, I think it has
gone now.”

If it was ever there in the first place
,
Simon thought huffily.

For a time, semi-silence shrouded the barn. Simon lay down on
his blanket and listened irritably to the maddening rustle and squeak of small
rodents scurrying about in the long grass. He longed to stomp on all of
them. His father was petrified of mice, and despite his attempts to
conceal his phobia, Simon had known from a young age. Veter’s irrational
fears manifested as cringing reluctance every time he was forced to deal with
the little creatures. Thinking of his father made him almost physically
sick, and he rolled away from Niu so she wouldn’t see his weakness.