Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

And the black haze around them wasn’t in her mind, it wasn’t a sign that she was on the verge of fainting. It was a cloud of flies.

The smell, which had been merely an unnoticed unpleasant whiff a moment before, hit at the same moment as the realization of what she was seeing, and she almost vomited. Perhaps because she had been toughened up by her earlier bouts of nausea, or perhaps for some other reason, she managed to fight it down-a small personal victory, but one she appreciated.

When she could think more clearly again, one thought repeated itself over and over in Amy’s mind as she forced herself to walk on down the street.

She wasn’t staying here. She wouldn’t stay here. She couldn’t stay here.

* * * *

At first it appeared that they might have to physically drag Amy to get her into the grubby little tavern, and Pel didn’t really blame her-the place faced on the town square, which would have been reasonable enough if it weren’t for that bloody gibbet standing there with those hideous rotting things hanging from it. Pel was none too enthusiastic about going anywhere near it himself; quite aside from it being a sickening sight, the stink had made him gag, and he was amazed no one had thrown up.

Raven was far less patient; while the others stared at the corpses, or struggled to say something about them, the velvet-clad aristocrat shrugged and said, “And what would you, then? Shadow deals with its foes thus; ’tis no surprise. ’Twas ever so.” He pointed out the tavern, with its sign of a foam-topped beer mug, and urged them all onward.

Susan nodded, and seemed to accept the situation without further comment, but Pel noticed that she carefully avoided looking at the dead men.

Ted, on the other hand, stared at them openly, swallowing occasionally, and then remarked, “I never realized what a sick mind I have. I wonder if that’s what they’d really look like? And smell like?”

Valadrakul ignored the whole matter, and simply waited for the others to get on with it. Prossie looked ill, but said nothing, and followed Raven’s lead into the tavern.

Wilkins started to make a joke about how the hanged men resembled beads on a string, but when he saw the looks on his companions’ faces he decided not to finish it. Marks darted quick little glances at the gibbet and said nothing. Sawyer went white, looked quickly at the others, then hurried to the tavern door.

Singer muttered, “Poor bastards,” and thereafter kept his head down.

Amy, though, stood frozen in the street, refusing to approach. Raven, standing in the tavern door and waving the others in, saw her and began, “Friend Pel…” He pointed, but didn’t finish the sentence.

Pel nodded, and hurried back up the street. He took Amy by the hand and said, “Come on. Let’s get in off the street.”

She shook him off and took a step backward, all the while staring at the hanging viscera.

“Come on,” he repeated, catching her arm again. He almost said something about getting a decent meal, but caught himself; given Amy’s recent bouts of nausea and what she was now looking at, it was a wonder she wasn’t already vomiting, and the mention of food might be the final straw.

She shook her head.

“Look, I want to get out of here as much as you do,” Pel told her, “maybe more-but if we’re ever going to get anywhere, we need to go through this town and out the other side, past that… past that. And we need to get some f…some supplies. And I think maybe we need to talk some more. So come on into the tavern with us, and we’ll find someplace away from the windows, where you can’t see…can’t see anything.”

Amy hesitated, then said, “I’m not staying here.”

“Of course not,” Pel agreed. “Come on.”

She swallowed, nodded, and came.

Once inside the tavern, Pel found Raven standing by a table near a window and said, “I think we want someplace quieter.” He jerked his head toward the open shutters, hoping Raven would take the hint.

Raven did. “Indeed,” he said, “so public a place as this is scarce fit for the ladies among us. Your pardon, all, I beg, that I’d not seen this sooner.” He turned and led the way to a large table in a back corner of one of the others of the tavern’s three rooms.

The entire operation, however, was not particularly large, and even from this rearmost area anyone who wanted to could see out through the archway, the front room, and the windows on the square.

A large man in a grubby apron had stood by, watching, as the party squeezed themselves into the back room, crowding around two tables and occupying all but one of the dozen chairs there; when everyone appeared settled he approached.

“What can I fetch you?” he asked, none too politely.

“Drink,” Raven called in reply. “Whatever you have that’s fit to be drunk.”

The innkeeper, or whatever he was, grunted. “First I’d see the color of your money,” he said.

Pel had been anticipating a cool drink, maybe some decent food, and at the innkeeper’s words his stomach knotted in frustration. They didn’t have any money.

Raven frowned, glanced at Valadrakul, and then began to say something, but before he got the first word out Susan had hauled her big black purse onto the table and was rummaging through it.

Raven paused, staring at her.

“Susan,” Pel said, “I don’t think…”

Then he stopped, as she hauled out a wallet and unsnapped the change compartment.

Pel felt suddenly foolish; he had assumed that Susan was going to pull out her pistol and demand a meal at gunpoint, which would hardly have been a good idea-even with a gun, they were eleven against an entire town, without even mentioning Shadow. Furthermore, the locals might not even recognize the little revolver as a weapon.

Susan pulled out two quarters and silently held them up. The innkeeper squinted.

“Silver, is it?” he asked.

Susan tossed the coins on the table, still without a word. The innkeeper reached to pick one up, and Raven’s hand shot out, catching him by the wrist.

“Our drinks first,” the nobleman said.

“I’m no thief,” the innkeeper said, “but I’ve not seen coins the likes of these before, and I’d study them, to ascertain their worth.”

Reluctantly, Raven allowed the man to pick up one of the quarters. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, ran a finger around the milled edge, and looked it over.

Pel waited, wondering what the man would make of the copper sandwiched between layers of whatever the silvery metal was-Pel knew perfectly well that there wasn’t much actual silver in modern American coins.

“Most peculiar,” the innkeeper said, “and whilst ’tis surely worth something, changing it’s not to be simple.”

Susan fished more coins from her wallet.

In the end, eleven mugs of lukewarm ale cost a dollar and fifteen cents in coin, leaving Susan’s change-purse almost empty.

* * * *

Amy sipped her ale and stared out the window, ignoring what little conversation was going on around her. The sky had gone grey and the daylight was dim, but it was still far brighter than the tavern’s interior, and the gallows stood out vividly.

Those three men had been hanged and disembowelled-hanged by the neck until dead. The evisceration was just an extra; they had died of hanging. Their necks were twisted, their features puffy, their tongues thrust out and swollen; flies were crawling on their faces, on the dark protruding tongues. Their hands were out of sight, presumably tied behind their backs. And Amy couldn’t forget the odor that came from them, a thick, heavy odor she never wanted to smell again.

She didn’t think this had been the sort of quick, one-snap-and-it’s-over, break-the-neck hanging that she had always heard about; she thought this had been slow strangulation. She shuddered, and sipped at her ale, and wished she had something else to drink.