A Conversation in Blood

Chapter One

Now

Rain soaked him and grunts leaked from between the rotted, misshapen teeth of his mouths and all he could do was smell the world and blink in the downpour and the night and all he could do was walk and seek and try to keep the grunts from becoming moans and the moans from becoming screams, and there was no release reprieve rest but only the monotony of fear and constant pain and solitude and despair.

One clubfoot after another sank deep into the mud of the road he should not travel the road but he had lost his way in the rain and found himself on the road and now he did not want to get off the road because it must lead somewhere and somewhere drew him because he otherwise had nowhere to go forever. He’d had a name once, or names. He’d known them long ago but he could no longer remember them. They were buried under the chaotic heap of his thoughts and memories some his own some others he was a vestige a leftover an afterbirth the price.

Afterbirth afterbirth he was the Afterbirth, a necessary by-­product to the process but irrelevant after. Afterbirth, that was his name now.

He murmured the words maybe or just thought them or moaned them it didn’t matter because he was the afterbirth the leftover. Strange worlds lived in his memory but he could not know if they were his memories because he recalled only vignettes and they all melded and made no sense and so he moaned at the building pressure of the past and so he was the Afterbirth. He didn’t know why he existed but knew only that the world he walked was not his world and it never could be his world.

He could smell himself the odor of his flesh and robes and realized he could smell others too others not far off. He had missed them in the rain and now he was too close to their sweat their shit their menstrual blood the road dust the wretched debris of the world in which he was the most wretched of all and the world was not his world for his world was gone in the casting of the Great Spell.

He should get off the road and remain unseen on the edges in the shadows where he always hid, where he stayed out of sight because he feared life in a cage and because he knew the words of the Great Spell were lost and so the remaking could not be cast again. He diverted toward the side of the road, thinking to shelter in a copse of trees—­

“You a’right there?”

The voice shocked him stopped him in his steps and the mud gripped his sodden boots and his sodden thoughts drifted for a moment out of the mire of their despair to focus on the crispness of the moment. He blinked and blinked under the depths of his hood and cloak, his body heaving, his mouths open and pulling in wet breaths.

“I was askin’ if you were all right,” the voice said again, as a short, stout man stepped out from the deeper darkness under the copse of trees to one side of the road. The man was looking down as he stepped out, adjusting his breeches as if he had just relieved himself. His body was a normal body not an afterbirth not an unmade. A dagger and a short, wide-­bladed sword hung from scabbards on his belt and a wide-­brimmed floppy hat and trail cloak shielded him from the rain. He was a man of this world and the man looked up and was talking to him, to him, the man talked, spoke to him, perhaps because it was too far for the man to see him very well in the dark. The man had disease in him, eating at him from the inside, the Afterbirth could smell it. He would die soon, probably in great pain. The Afterbirth envied him and hated him for his mortality and weakness and normalcy.

“Sky’s taking a piss, yeah? I like a little privacy when I do the same. Can take me a while, if you take my meaning. We probably shoulda just stayed nearer the caravan.”

The man rummaged in his pocket for something as he approached, and the Afterbirth was rooted to the earth and when the man was close enough to see the Afterbirth, to take in his size and form, he stopped in his steps and the stink of fear rose on him.

“Uh . . .”

Even in the dark and the rain the Afterbirth could read the horror as it took root and grew on the man’s bearded face and his eyes widened into shadowed, startled holes. The man took his hand from his pocket, took a tentative step back, and swallowed. The smell of fear-­summoned sweat surrounded him like a fog now.

“What in the Gods are . . . ?”

The Afterbirth started to answer, for a moment forgetting himself and thinking he could converse with this frail man. A dozen mouths opened at once, emitting a rain of words in languages the Afterbirth alone spoke and the man lurched back as if the words had struck him a physical blow. He stumbled, mouth open, eyes wide, his face a mask of raw fear, and still the Afterbirth gargled and babbled and growled at him.

The man whirled and ran, babbling and garbling himself, syllables in the inarticulate language of terror. He slipped in the mud and wet as he went, and the wind tore his hat from his head, and it blew to the Afterbirth’s blocky feet, stuck against his boots as if the gust were presenting him with a gift. He bent and picked it up in his twisted fingers and placed it on his head but it was too small of course and the fact enraged him for no reason that he could say except that rage and loneliness and despair were the only things he ever felt with clarity and he hated the world and those who lived in it and those who could feel and those who could die.

The man he’d frightened was shouting as he ran up a rise and out of sight off the road. “Up and armed! There’s something out here! A creature! Up and armed!”

Shouts answered the man, the barking of dogs, the sounds of alarm building.

The man had spoken true, for the Afterbirth was a creature, but hearing the dying man say it of him put a flame to the kindling of his ever-­present anger and he vented it in a growl, a wet, guttural sound issuing from his mouths and promising blood. He snarled and moved after the man, toward the shouting, toward the stink of them all, the trunks of his feet sticking in the mud as though the world itself—­not his world but theirs—­was trying to slow his pursuit and let time diminish his rage. But nothing could diminish it, nothing except that he somehow be unmade and thus made free.

More cries and shouting carried from beyond the road, and the afterbirth heard the ring of metal, smelled the rush of adrenaline, the acridity of controlled fear.

He lumbered up the rise, hand over foot, slipping in the wet, his heavy tread putting dents in the soil. He could see well in the dark, and as he crested the rise he saw the caravan’s camp before him, a dozen wagons on the grass of the plains, the circle of them ringing two large campfires, the milling silhouettes of two score people framed against the light of the flames. They darted about in alarm, several of them gathered around the man who’d fled from the Afterbirth. A few were shouting, pointing back toward the road, and the whole camp had the frenetic feel of a disturbed hive. They couldn’t yet see him through the night and rain but the dogs that caught his scent barked and growled from within the ring of wagons. The horses, too, must have smelled him, for he heard their frightened whinnies and saw two of them rear up, pulling against their traces.

He moved in his ungainly fashion toward the camp, growling, and the sound of his voices was the inarticulate roar of worlds long gone. The animals in the camp went mad at the approach of him. The two horses that had reared now screamed, snapped their traces, and galloped off into the night. More shouts from the men and women. Dogs crouched and barked and growled to hoarseness but kept their distance. He got close enough that the glow of the firelight showed him to them.

“There! Over there!” shouted a man from within the gathered crowd, pointing at the Afterbirth.

“Kill it!” yelled another.

A dozen men holding sharp steel broke away from the rest and rushed out toward him. He picked up his pace, mumbling, and rushed headlong at them. They slowed some when they saw his size, and he smelled the fear on them. He ran into the crowd of them and hit them like a tide, trampling one, smashing another’s skull with a blow from his fist. He didn’t bother to defend himself as the rest of the men shouted and slashed and stabbed. Blades sank deeply into his flesh, the angry rhythm of violence, but he only heard it. He felt none of it, could feel none of it. The world could mark him, scar him, but could not hurt him. He was in the world but not of it. He could feel only the pain of his unending existence, the isolation of being entirely, utterly, forever solitary.

And anger. He could feel the anger.

Dogs rushed out, hackles high. They snarled at him from the edge of the melee, foaming at the mouth, but kept their distance. Women screamed, gathered children to them. Another horse broke free of its tie and bolted off into the night. The camp was in chaos. Men not yet in the fray shouted and sprinted toward him. Something disturbed one of the bonfires and a shower of sparks went up into the night, temporarily casting the whole of the area in an unearthly orange glow.

He lashed out with a thick arm and struck a man on the head, sending him careening backward and down. He bowled another man over as the man drove a thick-­bladed sword through his abdomen, the blade scraping the teeth of one of his mouths. He roared and stomped on the downed man, crushing him underfoot.

“It should be dead!” another man shouted, slashing at the Afterbirth’s neck.

He grabbed the speaker by the throat, lifted him kicking and gasping from the ground, and squeezed until he felt something give way. The man went still and the Afterbirth threw the corpse into another man, knocking him down, then stomped that one to death. Throughout he moved inexorably toward the circle of wagons, leaving broken bodies in his wake, the pressure in him creating the need to do violence.

“It can’t be killed!” someone screamed. “Run! Run!”

The barking of the dogs grew crazed, terrified, the screams of the women and the wails of the young likewise. The acidic stink of pure terror filled the air and yet more men ran toward him, another six, shouting, blades in hand. They chopped and stabbed but he took the blows and killed them each in turn, one after another, breaking bones with his fists, crushing bodies under his boots. Their blows put gory ravines in his flesh, but only for a moment before his otherworldly nature sealed the gashes to scars.

Crossbow bolts thudded into his flesh from somewhere within the ring of wagons. He felt the vibration of their impact, but no pain. He tore the bolts from his flesh, stabbed a young man through the face with one of them, drawing ever closer to the wagons. He could smell a few people hiding within them, terrified.

“Burn it!” shouted a woman, and another echoed her shout. “It’s the only way!”

Another took up the call to burn him, another.

He trampled another man and ground the corpse into the rain-­soaked earth. He broke the skull of another with a blow from his fist and lurched into the bright firelight within the ring of wagons, roaring.

His cloak was torn, the hood that normally shrouded his visage knocked back from the combat, and in the light of the bonfire the remaining caravanners saw him clearly. They froze for a moment, their faces sculpted into looks of horror and disgust. He murdered the quiet with a growl from his ruined lips and malformed mouths.

At that, most of the survivors turned and fled, some screaming, some in silent terror. Those who remained wavered, holding blades or clubs in drooping grips. Two men, however, found their nerve and hurriedly lit torches from the fire. Their bravery spread to some others and postures straightened. The men advanced, the flames dancing wildly in the rain as the torches shook in their hands.

The Afterbirth charged at the nearest of the men, the clubs of his fists held high. The man lurched backward, stabbing defensively with his blade and torch. The sword went into the Afterbirth’s stomach and out his back; the torch put flames to his cloak, and the frayed material, though wet, caught fire. The Afterbirth ignored the blade and the flame and drove a fist into the man’s face. Bones crunched. Blood sprayed and the man fell in a heap.

The other man, who’d circled behind the Afterbirth, cursed and jabbed him with his torch. The cloak burned in another place, the fabric curling and smoking.

“Die, demon!” the man said.

The Afterbirth spun on the man, who tried to retreat but slipped in the wet grass. He backed off crabwise, his expression a mask of terror, but was too slow. The Afterbirth grabbed him up by his jerkin, lifted him overhead, and cast him several strides away into the bonfire. Another cloud of sparks exploded into the night, carrying with them the screams of the man, the smell of burning flesh. The man writhed for a moment, dislodging some of the logs, then went still.

The Afterbirth’s cloak smoked and burned but fire could harm him no more than could steel. He let his clothing burn, framing him in flames, and roared.

Those who had found their bravery behind the torch-­armed men turned and fled into the night.

The Afterbirth didn’t pursue. Instead he rampaged among the wagons. Fire blistered his flesh only to reheal as he overturned crates and shattered urns, tore off doors and smashed in walls. He found a few elderly hiding in the wagons and beat them lifeless, letting their pain serve as a proxy expression of his own. His burning cloak had spread flames from him to the wagons and soon he stood naked and solitary amid a growing inferno. The flames sputtered and danced and raged against the rain. The smell of blood and death and smoke filled the air.

His chest heaved with exertion. He looked around upon the fire-­lit slaughter, his anger slowly draining away, the pressure of his hateful existence eased, at least for a time.

He’d murdered more than two dozen, murdered them because . . . ​because . . . ​