Where mud is thick,
The kids are sick,
And God’s plan gone awry…
But we still serve the Vassal’s will,
And down we our last pints of swill,
For Charlie’s on his way!
Charlie’s on his merry way!"
The song had ended and shouts rang out through the tavern.
“Long live the Vassal!”
“Long live the Vassal of Aren-Nath, and gods keep his Sword!”
“Hoorah! Hoorah!”
Charlie was pushed out into the dark and there was a short silence. There was the snort and whinny of a load-beast, and in his mind Aron could almost see the fog of its breath. Then there came a jingle, a creak, and a drunken hiyah! before the voices started their chatter again. The barmaid leaned far over the counter and gave one man a toothless smile.
Aron felt Klin’s boot kicking into his calves; he looked up from the hole. Klin gestured back the way from which they had come. Aron understood and got carefully to a crouch. He turned himself around and crept back towards the hole to the outside. He climbed out and was in night again and remembered that it was cold. The music was softer now. He found his way down the beam, onto the shed, and into the dark alley. Klin was on his heels the whole way, whispering for him to hurry it up.
They picked their way down the alley to the front of the bar. There, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows. It was rail thin. Aron knew it had to be Tall Boy.
“Did y’get it?” Klin asked hurriedly.
Tall Boy pulled a glass bottle halfway out of his coat pocket to show.
“Charlie always keeps this one beneath his seat,” Klin explained. They all shuffled back into the alley. Tall Boy knocked the cork off the bottle with the back of his hand, took a swig, then wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve and passed the bottle to Klin. Klin followed, and offered it to Aron. He refused. Klin shrugged, and Tall Boy drank deeply again.
“We’ve got one more thing to do tonight, Aron,” Klin explained. Aron looked to him in silence. “You don’t know what that is, do you?”
Aron shook his head.
Tall Boy smiled and bit his lip and took another swig, exchanging a glance with Klin.
“Tonight we’re going into Nero’s house,” Klin said flatly.
Aron’s heart began to race. Nero was a man who lived in the forest, a man whom he had never seen but about whom he had heard much. The strength in his hands could tear the limbs off a man. In his mind and in his books he held strange powers barely under control. When forest winds whispered at night, it was said, they were angry spirits, looking for Nero. The sight of his black carriage approaching on a forest path gave men sleepless nights.
To go within his house would be suicide.
Klin and Tall Boy stood drinking for a few minutes and Aron did not know what he would do. He would not leave them here, now. Perhaps somewhere ahead he could slip off the path and return home. Anxiously he watched them drink, wondering how much more they would put down. Then Tall Boy corked and chucked the bottle into the shadows and the three of them emerged from the alleyway. Together they climbed to the top of the town, scrambled over the Temple wall and set off into the forest.
Upward they hiked, and then upward more and upward a few steps further, and still Aron could not see the house ahead. Tall Boy and Klin were moving slow and kept behind him. The fat trees stood like sleepy sentries in the dark. He looked up again and could not see the house. He looked down and thought of the bargirls, bright in the yellow glow of the tavern lamps, their toothless smiles and bright bosoms in tight dresses burnt into his mind.
Turning back, he tried to watch Klin’s step, worrying that he must be terribly drunk. He didn’t know how much it might take to get a man drunk. Klin’s step seemed steady. Then Aron tripped.
“Look where you’re going!” Klin shouted noisily.
Aron brought his attention back to the path beneath him, wondering if this was the time to escape.
It started coming out of the dark up ahead, a rough form darker and larger than all the rest. Weak fringes of light danced within it. They got closer and he could see that was candlelight dancing about the fringes of windblown curtains.
On the ground floor, all windows were dark. When they came close they could tell that the house was white. In front it had a strange wooden deck, like the deck of a ship, and round white cylinders of wood reached high to the roof. On it there were dark wet shadows and whispers of ancient pain.
Evidently Klin could not hear these whispers. He pressed forward indomitably through the hedges. Aron shushed him, then picked his way painstakingly through the same bush. Suddenly he knew that he could not turn back. He did not know what would happen next, but he pressed onward, as in a dream, until the house was within his very reach. He touched it. Its side was cold. He turned and watched with horror as Klin rapped his knuckles on the strange, clear, flat glass which covered a window. Then with one swift punch Klin knocked out a pane. It tinkled to the floor inside, then all was quiet again.
“Now how do we get in?” Tall Boy whispered thickly.
He and Klin sniffed around the panes of glass. Finally Klin figured the bottom pane could be lifted so he pulled up on it for a while but it didn’t move. Then he saw the latch and reached around inside. He opened it easily and the window stayed open. Then he was inside.
Then Tall Boy was inside. Aron heard his feet crushing the glass on the floor, and it was quiet again. So he hoisted himself onto the sill, then tumbled noisily in, then remembered the glass on the floor. His hands had missed it and he had not been cut. He got up, wondering where the other boys had gone. He could see very little in the darkness. It was all wood planks, like the deck of a boat. Around the room was furniture of strange thin wood that was curved and polished. There were shelves and cabinets made of wood and strange flat glass. The floor creaked beneath his every step. Cold breaths of outside air sighed from the open window behind him. His ears were pricked for any sound.
“Klin… Tall Boy…”
There was no answer. But the whisper had been so quiet he had hardly heard it himself. Everything was dark. Then it struck him.
Somewhere in these rooms was Nero. If Aron could bring himself to listen, he might hear Nero’s breath, warm and determined, within this very hall.
There was a snap, the sharp sound of wood on wood, a young woman’s laughter, then her laughter muffled, then silence and another breath of cold wind. Aron stood frozen in mid-step at the foot of the hall, listening, wanting to go forward and look into the open doors, afraid that at any moment some figure might emerge, afraid to turn around, and afraid that as he stood there he might feel an icy hand fall upon his shoulder.
He took a step forward, listening for the sounds of the woman. A door ahead opened swiftly and a robed figure stepped into the hallway. Aron saw only its swollen feet and the powerful balled muscles of its calves, white with moonlight from an opposite room. The figure shouted and ran towards him like a flying reptile swooping for its prey. Its bald head shone white.
“Klin!” Aron cried desperately, turning and bolting from the corridor. He heard pounding bare feet behind him and an angry cry.
He rounded the corner, into a big room. Klin was up on the balcony.
“Aron! Up here! Climb up!” His face was pale and worried, his eyes intent. Aron obeyed and broke for the shelves. There were books, so many books….
Nero exploded into the room and stopped to survey it for his prey. He swung one arm up along the wall and bright light came down from a lamp suspended from the center of the ceiling.
“Come back here!” he barked, jabbing a finger at them. He marched fiercely towards them, his calves balled and fists clenched with tremendous energy. His eyes were blue, his skin dark, his head fringed with short coarse gray hairs.