Р. Смит - Land of the Beautiful Dead

As she grew nearer, she could see his scars more distinctly and they filled her with a hopeless dread.

— the blackened burn across his left side with stripes of white rib showing through —

Had he ever been a man once?

— the deep slash over his hard stomach that he’d sutured with silver rings, from each of which dangled a polished finger bone or a tooth—

If he had been a man, a live man, he was dead now.

— the many lines carved across his throat, the leavings of countless blades, some of them still open to let dry tendon and bloodless meat peek out from behind tatters of skin —

And if he was dead, why should he care if he killed the world?

She reached the edge of the dais and stopped, staring up at him—Azrael the God, the Conqueror, Azrael Who Is Death—and he leaned forward over his table to look down at her—Lan, who had no more home and who was no one’s daughter. There were only three shallow steps to climb the dais, three more short strides to take her to his table. She could go right to him. She could get close enough to hear his breath, if he breathed. She could touch his hand if she dared and see if it was cold and dead or hot with the hellish fire that burned out of the holes in his mask.

Lan stood where she was, shivering.

He spoke first, in a slow wondering way that did not, for change, seem feigned: “Why, you’re a child.”

“I’m old enough,” Lan insisted at once, before she even stopped to think what she might be insisting upon.

“Hm.” Azrael settled back in his throne, considering her. At length, he raised one hand and swept it outward in an open gesture toward the many tables around her, the gluttonous wealth of his unnecessary feast. “Be seated, child. I see no reason you should not be fed before I decide your fate.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It is not wise to lie in my presence, even in such trivial matters. Those without my borders hunger always. I have seen to it. And even if you had a field of crop and pens groaning with stock, still I would hazard your belly to be too full of nerves to allow for much of a meal before setting out on this endeavor. Share mine.”

“I ate before I came here.”

“Out, then,” he said curtly, shoving back his heavy throne to stand. “I do not waste my time with liars. Guards!”

The doors opened at once. In desperation, Lan said, “I did eat! It was just…a while ago.”

Azrael paused, no more than one long stride from the table. She could feel his eyes on her, cutting deep wherever they rested. “A while.”

“Last night,” she admitted. “At a waystation.”

“Fed from the hand of your ferryman, I suppose.” After a long moment, Azrael returned to his chair. Lan saw the shadows cast by his laconic wave and heard the guards once more retreat and quietly close the doors. “One of mine?”

Lan hesitated, knowing she was too near to being thrown out and that this chance would never come again, but unwilling to betray the man who had brought her into the city.

Her hesitation was answer enough for Azrael. “Did you think I did not know? And who else would have such certainty of passage through my walls that they could sell the privilege? I bear them no ill will,” he said without concern, almost without interest. “They do me no harm. What did your ferryman feed you?”

“Stew.”

“Ah yes. Roots boiled in sweat.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” It hadn’t been much better, though. “There was meat.”

“Hm.” There was so much knowing amusement in that small, wordless sound that he hardly needed to say, “Rat or crow?”

“I don’t know,” Lan said, blushing. “And I don’t care. I’ve eaten worse.”

“So have I,” he replied mildly. “Which is why I prefer to eat better. Come. It may be grotesque to your young eyes, but I assure you, there is nothing more succulent than the cheek of a young boar. You are hungry,” he remarked, watching her stare at the pig’s head that was the centerpiece of the imperial table. The boar’s eyelids had slipped down over the empty sockets, giving it an appearance as if it were only sleeping, but its swinish mouth leered in such a way as to suggest that its dreams were not particularly pleasant. “Are you not?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes. And there is nothing so terrible to feel as hunger, even for just one day, two or three wanting meals. It gnaws at you.” He scratched one claw through the thick sauce that pooled over his plate and slipped it into the mouth-slit of his mask to taste. “That is why I reserve it for those who rebel against me. But you are not guilty of that crime. Yet. Therefore, sit. Anywhere you please.”

She told herself she didn’t have a choice, that refusing him again would only get her thrown out. Maybe it was even true, but in the end, it was not the reason Lan fumbled her way to a chair and sat, realizing only after she’d done so that she’d taken Lady Batuuli’s place for her own. Platters of food surrounded her, swallowed her in an orgy of spices: towers of roasted apples studded with cloves and cinnamon spears, fish crusted with pepper, vegetables baked in herbed butter. Choice cuts of boar meat floated in a pool of that dark, glossy sauce, so smooth that she could see the candles reflected there, not only their glowing flames, but their golden holders. She could see her own face staring down, watching, waiting to see if she would eat the Devil’s food just because he sat her at his table.

“So. You enter my home without invitation. You bring no tribute. Now you refuse my hospitality.” Azrael leaned back in his throne, lacing his hands together over his scarred stomach. The silver rings holding his wound mostly closed jingled softly. “Which of these did you imagine would earn you the audience you say you came seeking?”

“I came to talk to you. To ask—”

“Demand.”

Lan stammered to a stop, but he said no more, only continued to watch her. Hesitantly, she began again. “I came to ask—”

“Demand. One who asks does not invade the home of him before whom she supplicates herself. One who asks receives his will with respect and goes meekly upon dismissal. No,” he concluded, sweeping his arm through the air as though her reasons for being here were no more than insects he could brush away. “You have not come here to ask, so make your demands and go.”

Frustration and nerves once more broke her. Before she could stop, she’d snapped, “I won’t talk to you until you listen.”

“Go, then.”

“I’m not leaving until you let me talk.”

“Aha, a conundrum. How to solve it…?” He pretended to consider while she pretended the smell of pork and roasted apples was not clawing up her guts. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers, making her jump. “At the first meeting I had with Men upon my ascension, their minions informed me that a show of faith was necessary to achieve any audience with their leaders. So. Remove your weapon,” he ordered. “Set it here, before me.”

“I’m not armed.”

“I warn you again that I do not tolerate lies in my presence,” he said impatiently, rising from his throne. “Speak another and your time here is ended. Remove your weapon. Set it down.”

Blushing, Lan reached back beneath her shirt to the little knife she kept strapped there. “It’s for defense,” she insisted as he descended the dais. “I’ve had to travel a long way.” He was still coming; she shoved her chair back and jumped up, even though there was nowhere to go, no way she could outrun him. “I wasn’t going to use it on you!”

“No? But by all means, child.” He opened his arms. “You might save the world with one good blow.”

She looked in disbelief at the knife, at a blade no longer and no wider than her forefinger, and at him, this god with ten thousand bloodless scars. “No,” she said. It hardly needed saying, but she said it anyway.