Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

This was allowed them in their exile, but one thing was forbidden.

To engender life had been reserved unto the Lord of Hosts, and the numbers of the alchemy of life had been hidden from the angels.

Yet on the eve of the New War, the fallen under Lucifer had set their hands to the task of creation, and tried to bring forth fresh invention; but so far below the Lord were they that they could not quicken any new thing, but only the dead; and they wedded dead flesh together with the souls of the damned and made both live again; and they took the fishes of the sea and river and the creatures of the mountain and woods and corrupted them, made them monstrous in size and quick to do harm; because none of these could propagate, save by killing, the devils set their hands to each one, working in secret until they made an arsenal of unclean flesh against the day they might release their bestiary into the world of men.

That day had come.

The vaults of the seas opened in the dark that was blacker than ink, and the devils’ children snaked up into the rivers that veined between the cities of men; and the vaults of the mountains opened, and heinous things walked down the roads that bound the towns to one another; and great was the suffering of the seed of Adam.

And the Lord made no answer.

And still the war in Heaven persisted, and neither could the wicked angels break through, nor those of God drive them down.

So one of the fallen, whose name was Baal-Zebuth, said, “Let us wear their greatest men like skins, and when they speak, they will speak our words; they will speak of wars and purgings, and of dashing the babe’s head. We will turn their understanding so they make their Christ a god of war, and we will cause them to set navies to the seas and armies under the moon with generals whose eyes glow like brands, and we will stir Turk and Christian alike to madness by our own deeds, and by our own hands will we hasten the death of men.”

And great was the noise of flies around him as he walked the earth.

And Ra’um walked with him with his twelve eyes blazing.

And Bel-phegor shook off his mane and walked in armor, received at the tables of wrathful men, who knew him not.

And the damned who had deceived men as false prophets rose again, and again lied.

And the Lord made no answer.

“We have to build a raft.”

“What?”

“A raft. Build one or find one.”

Thomas looked at the girl.

A brisk wind had just blown a shower of brown leaves on them, and one perfectly shaped maple leaf, stippled red on its points, perched in Delphine’s hair. Thomas removed it and chewed on the stem, trying to keep his balance in the pitching cart; the road, if it could be called that after the rains had furrowed it, was quite rough here. He had found them near dawn. They had gone to town together, but now they were in the cart again and moving south and east. His head throbbed from the blow it had sustained last night; he touched the egg above his eye, remembering how gently the girl had wiped the dried blood from it. He was drunk. The priest, bearing two black eyes from catching the girl, was worse. And the girl was not sober.

Their tour through the ruins of Auxerre had yielded a cask of good wine; it had been the priest who spied it among the timbers and wattle of a fallen wine shop. It had not seemed wrong to him to take it, nor to ask the girl to help him roll it past the fallen buildings, past the dead Penitents (all of them, it seemed—none of those zealots moved among the injured and dazed, though he saw one hand clutching a hooked whip, its owner obscured beneath stones). He had said Mass again for the first time in months, given last rites, issued wafer, issued wine. The remaining Auxerrois had even helped hoist the barrel into his cart; they had seen the angel, too. Even though catastrophe had visited them, the long months of death and suffering at last seemed to mean something: Good was fighting back. They knew the girl was blessed. As the cart pulled away, a woman had touched Delphine’s sleeve with a hand as yellow as an onion’s skin, and its proper color had been restored, though Delphine had been unaware of this.

And now this talk of a raft.

“Did you dream this, daughter?” the priest said, belching terribly at the end of it. His teeth were darker than his skin.

“No. I thought about it. The devil on the road said we would still be clip-clopping around at Christmas. I thought, too, about the wine. It’s very good wine.”

“It is,” both men agreed.

“But what about the wine?” Thomas asked.

“Oh. Yes. They ship it on the river. It would take too long on a cart. Rivers are fast.”

“Some rivers are fast.”

“They’re all faster than a mule because they don’t rest.”

The priest nodded, impressed.

“Agreed. But the Yonne doesn’t go to Avignon,” Thomas said, spitting out his leaf.

“The Rhône does,” said the priest.

The girl filled her bowl again, drinking while the men spoke. Thomas took the spoon of ram’s horn from his hat and chewed it, punctuating his words by poking its gently gnawed end at Père Matthieu.

“What’s the closest city on the Rhône?”

“Lyon.”

“That’s far.”

“A river feeds it, though. I can’t remember the name.”

“The name doesn’t matter. What near town sits on it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You know wine. What wine comes from Burgundy?”

“Burgundy,” the priest said, blinking his bloodshot eyes.

“Don’t be funny. Think.”

“I’m too drunk to think.”

“Then just say something. A wine town. Burgundy. Quick!”

“Auxerre.”

Thomas winced, thinking about their exit across the Pont Roi Louis, where many of those fleeing the town had been hacked apart by something stronger than a man.

“We’re drinking the last from Auxerre. Name another.”

“Arbois? No, that’s Franche-Comté. And it’s straw-colored.”

“The river?”

“No. The wine. From Arbois.”

“What’s its river?”

“I don’t know.”

Thomas grunted. “Name another.”

“Beaune.”

“That’s Burgundy, all right. But what’s the river?”

“I don’t know.”

The conversation continued like that until the girl fell asleep, the priest got too drunk to guide the mule, and Thomas took the reins. Soon the road forked, and a sign stood by the right fork, which led into very pretty woods whose leaves were going soft yellow and startling red.

VÉZELAY MORTIS EST

The priest was puking over the side, oblivious, trying vainly not to get any on his robes. Thomas had enough Latin for this one, though, and he mouthed each syllable.

VÉZELAY IS DEAD

“We won’t be going to Vézelay,” Thomas said, though only the mule, who twitched an ear in his direction, seemed to hear him. “Hope you weren’t counting on finding a nice jenny-ass there, you grass-eating bastard.”

The mule made no reply.

“I hope you don’t take this personally, but if we build a raft, you’re not coming aboard. Except in our bellies.”

“Not the mule,” the girl slurred, half asleep, halfheartedly striking Thomas with the back of her hand.

“The Saône,” she said.

“What?”

“The Saône feeds the Rhône,” she said dreamily. “This road goes to Beaune. Another road goes to Chalon-sur-Saône. Beaune-Saône-Rhône. ”