The Place of Stars and Bones Read online

  To either side of the avenue were palatial edifices whose architectural makeup seemed slightly more log-ical than the buildings that crowded the city’s lower elevations. Here, the amalgamation of different styles was as obtuse as ever, yet somehow coherent. Now that the reliefs that marred these imposing structures were washed into obscurity by the fog, my initial sense of wonder had returned. I followed their lines and contours with a close eye, absorbing the broad, artistic strokes of the craftsman that had laid them stone by stone untold centuries ago.

  For its part the Hermaphrodite did not seem to notice these architectural wonders. Living amongst them perhaps it was inured to their imposing grand-eur? If it had walked these streets for as long as the Rider and the Boatman had plied their particular en-virons, then a sense of apathy at such marvels could certainly be understood. What person can say that they do not crave new experiences, new locales, new companions from time to time? This, mayhap, was a clue as to why both the Rider and the Boatman were such churlish, aggressive creatures. They had spent untold millennia staring at nothing save stars and fog. The tedium of their lot had more than likely driven them mad. Was it the same for my new companion? Judging by its leering, humorless grin the answer see-med self-evident.

  My study of the mad artistry of the palaces to either side was cut abruptly short. I stopped mid-stride, the toe of my boot catching on a loose cobble.

  Ahead of us, looming massive and august in its sepulchral majesty, stood a cathedral to which I have seen no equal. It was as awesome as it was terrible, its stone physiognomy jutting from the fog in a vision of Hell personified. One glimpse and I knew nothing of its kind could exist anywhere within the realms of the living or the good. Where life burgeoned the mere sight of this excrescence would drive it to extinction.

  Its contours seemed organic as if a thin membrane had been stretched over protruding lengths of bone. This membrane oozed and slunk across its multi-faceted surface forming the semblance of faces and bodies twisted in agony. They appeared, writhed, then were swallowed up only to be replaced by others. The light from the orbs struck its surface, but was not re-turned, not reflected. It was as if the cathedral had consumed it, scrubbed it from the world. Those particles of light would never be seen again, would never travel the infinite distances between the stars. It was gone, devoured by this baleful obscenity.

  I fell to my knees before that profane edifice and began to wretch, disgorging green bile into the street.

  Images of cavalry met by pike and halberd, men piled at the foot of a blood-spattered wall, a woman trailing her own intestines danced before my eyes. The visions sickened me and I heaved, my empty stomach clenching and re-clenching until nothing came from my throat but a burning, acrid froth. My muscles began to spasm. I tried to remain upright but failed. Toppling to the stones I continued to squirm, clutching at my stomach.

  The Hermaphrodite turned and regarded me with the same humorless grin it had worn since our first meeting. It cocked its head to one side and then the other, observing me as I moaned and gagged.

  “Your flesh rejoices,” said the Hermaphrodite. “It sings its praise to the wonders before you. You are no longer held by the twilight; you can now begin to truly feel the glory that is to come.”

  “No,” I croaked, managing to briefly raise myself to hands and knees. “I do not want this.”

  The Hermaphrodite continued to grin.

  A bolt of pain, white-hot and searing, tore through my skull. I collapsed to the cobbles, unable to keep my limbs from thrashing. I could feel the muscles of my back as they contorted, drawing my spine into a reverse curve that threatened to break me in half. I screamed again, a high pitched wail that sounded as though it came from far off. At this the Hermaph-rodite’s smile widened. It looked as though the grin might split the corners of its mouth, slicing its way to the creature’s earlobes.

  The woman, her lips blue and quavering, laid her head down on the chest of one of the men. His blood wetted her cheek. She touched his face with trembling fingers, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth…

  The pain abruptly stopped. I sprawled upon the cobbles, gasping and coughing up the last of the bile that clung to the lining of my throat. I spat, then lay still.

  “Come,” said the Hermaphrodite as if nothing had transpired. “We are nearly there.”

  I shuddered.

  “Come,” it said again.

  I rolled to my hands and knees, paused, then got to my feet.

  The woman closed her eyes, her lips turned wistfully up at the corners.

  I shook the image from my mind.

  My first step was awkward, teetering. I steadied myself and took another. The Hermaphrodite nodd-ed and I drew a deep breath. I squared my shoulders and began setting one foot before the other. Turning from me, the Hermaphrodite made for the cathedral. I followed.

  Every fiber of my being screamed for me to stop, to turn, to run, but I could not. The compulsion that had brought me thus far, a compulsion as inexorable as the need to breathe, continued to draw me onward.

  With each step the cathedral loomed ever closer. Depraved and menacing, its façade illuminated by a host of floating orbs, that abomination beckoned. Overhead light and shadow slipped almost imper-ceptibly over and around one another while the face of the massive construct continued to squirm. It leer-ed at us as we approached; a living thing that waited with bated breath for us to pass within.

  With each successive step I felt a withering blight creep into my limbs. My vision began to swim and my extremities prickled and stung.

  I stumbled, catching myself at the last moment. I regained my balance and we went on.

  Again I stumbled, this time going to one knee.

  Why had she smiled? She was dying, her insides strewn over the bloodied ground. Her man was dead, cut to pieces…

  The Hermaphrodite stopped and waited as I rose to my feet. I stood unsteadily, sweat beginning to bead upon my brow and run in thin rivulets down my neck. I took another two steps, then a third. The blight that had woven itself into my mind and body wriggled within my breast, clawing at my heart and vitals. I clutched at my chest and managed another two steps before I could no longer remain upright.

  “I cannot…” I said, my breathing ragged.

  Why had she smiled?

  “You can,” replied the Hermaphrodite.

  “Please,” I croaked. “I fear that I can no longer walk.”

  “That may be so,” said the Hermaphrodite.

  “What…” I began then let the sentence trail off.

  She had smiled then slowly closed her eyes.

  “Crawl,” said the Hermaphrodite with a grin.

  Under the pale glow of the floating orbs I slowly began to drag myself up the boulevard. As I inched forward my armor and weapons rasped against the paving stones. Sweat dripped from my brow, stinging my eyes. The crushing weight of my passage bore down upon me like a millstone strapped to my back. My cheeks and chin were rubbed raw, as were my fingers, elbows, and knees. I felt blood trickle from a dozen different abrasions. Still I continued to drag myself along.

  Ahead of me the Hermaphrodite matched the pace of my crawl. It took slow, dainty steps, its thin ankles drawing me forward like a beacon.

  Upon reaching the first of the cathedral’s ancient and worn steps the Hermaphrodite stopped and bent low. It grinned its humorless grin and touched my head lightly with one thin hand.

  “We are here,” it said.

  I gagged and my stomach clenched. I put my head down and waited for the nausea to pass. When it had gone I again looked up at the Hermaphrodite. It patted me upon my brow and held out its hand.

  “I cannot,” I whispered.

  “You must,” said the Hermaphrodite sweetly.

  “No…”

  The Hermaphrodite then reached forward and grasped the collar of my brigandine in both hands. It grunted and heaved. I slid part way up the first few steps. It tugged at me again and I slid further st
ill. The third time the Hermaphrodite hauled at my armor I added my own contribution to its efforts. Up we went, the Hermaphrodite pulling while I assisted as best I could.

  The weight I felt upon my back began to lift as we climbed. Ever so slowly strength crept back into my limbs. Despite this renewed vigor, the closer I came to the threshold of the temple the more of myself I felt I left behind.

  When we reached the top of the low, broad steps I found that, with the aid of the Hermaphrodite, I could stand. We teetered upon the steps for a mo-ment while my balance returned. When my head no longer swam I nodded. The Hermaphrodite moved forward and I followed, leaning heavily on its shoulder.

  The entrance to the temple was dark, its recesses bereft of the floating orbs. After a dozen steps the gloom was all-encompassing. I blinked and tried to adjust my eyes, but the blackness was absolute.

  The Hermaphrodite made to take another step.

  “Make a light and I will go on, not before,” I said.

  There was a snort from my side and the Her-maphrodite said in a voice stripped of its usual lilting tones, “Why think you that your mortal needs must be met? In this place life and death are near as one and the same. Existence is not as you know it. Con-cessions need not be made to accommodate you.”

  “I cannot see,” I said flatly.

  “And that will remain the case until you step into the darkness.”

  I balked and tried to pull away. “What will I be able to see in complete darkness?”

  “Have faith,” said the Hermaphrodite.

  I hesitated for a moment, letting my companion’s words fade into the lightless space around me. I then leaned forward and took a blind, quavering step.

  Light flared sudden and bright. I threw a hand be-fore my eyes, squinting into the dazzling brilliance. I blinked and staggered back a step. The Hermaph-rodite chuckled.

  What I beheld in that panoptic glow put all the previous horrors I had seen to shame and turned my mind towards madness.

  Below a vaulted ceiling sprawled a gallery of sculp-tured atrocities set atop a double row of pedestals. They were beautifully wrought depictions of unimag-inable suffering, a master’s hand having hewn them from single slabs of luminescent marble. The carven images I had seen in the square seemed unimportant and banal by comparison.

  More monstrous still was the thing that waited at the end of this gauntlet. It hung suspended above a plain stone altar, a monument dedicated to every tor-ture flesh and spirit could be forced to endure.

  These vast and dreadful sculptures bristled from the apse, extending out and over the gallery floor, soar-ing towards the vaulted ceiling. They clung to the walls and seemed to scuttle along the windowless clerestory. Like their brethren in the gallery they had been cut from the finest marble and rendered by craftsman of unequaled skill. This paradox, such beauty and such horror existing at once, drove from me the last vestiges of whatever I had left behind on the cathedral steps. I stood in awe before this mon-ument to suffering personified. A shudder of mixed loathing and elation ran through me.

  The creature that stood propping me up whis-pered in the voice of a serpent, “Is it not good? Is it not joyous? When you give yourself over to this place you too will know the elation of those you see depic-ted. Their suffering will become your suffering; their ecstasy, your ecstasy. All you need do is… submit.”

  I pushed the Hermaphrodite from me.

  “No,” I growled.

  The scream of rage and hatred that issued from the dual-gendered thing was shocking in the extreme. Its face contorted and its black eyes bulged. “Un-grateful, worthless cur!” it howled. “I have brought you to this sacred place and you dare malign its hall-owed presence with your weakness? This temple is sacrosanct! You have been blessed by its presence. Do not dare defile it with your refusal. Submit and let your sinful flesh be rent asunder! Let it be flayed and cleansed!”

  “No!” I cried.

  With long and jagged nails the Hermaphrodite lashed out at my face. I felt the skin of my cheek torn open, blood coursing instantly from the wound. The Hermaphrodite hissed and again lashed out at me. I tried to avoid this second blow, but it caught me across the forehead, digging another row of furrows into my flesh.

  I staggered to the side in an attempt at escape, but the Hermaphrodite moved with me. It lashed out, striking with blinding quickness. Weakly, I raised one arm in an attempt to ward off the blow. It came again, gouging the leather of my bracer. At last my back struck one of the twisted sculptures and I could go no further. The Hermaphrodite continued to slash at me mercilessly. I feared I would lose my face, my eyes to its rending claws.

  “Coward!” cried the Hermaphrodite. “Filth! Cur! You are nothing! You are not worthy of having come this far. You are not deserving of this blessing. You have been invited into the temple so that you may seek atonement, yet you scorn the honor!”

  I batted away another blow, this one aimed at my eyes. Another followed and I smacked it aside as well.

  I felt my own ire begin to rise. With each succ-essive blow it grew. Within moments it had pushed the sense of nauseous horror from me. In its place there remained only anger. I caught one clawed hand as it descended and wrenched it to the side. I felt finger joints pop and the wrist dislocate.

  The Hermaphrodite let out a hideous shriek. It leaned to the side, following the direction in which I twisted its arm. I strengthened my grip and it again cried out. I buffeted the Hermaphrodite across the cheek with a vicious back-hand. Black ichor flew from the creature’s nose and mouth. It tried to rise, staggered, and then fell to its knees.

  I stood with back straight, head high, my brea-thing heavy. The cloying weakness I had felt upon approaching the cathedral was gone; vanished. I rais-ed my head and scanned the statues spilling from the space above the altar. As my eyes roamed the tortured and mutilated bodies a new emotion rose within me.

  The sights I beheld, the torment they represent-ed, the mewling accusations of the Hermaphrodite… all swirled together, coalescing into a vengeful whole. Who were these ancients, these defilers of both body and mind? What manner of things worshiped the butchery of their own flesh? Who were they to say I should submit to the same fate? They were not my people. They had vivisected themselves, cutting away whatever was natural and good. They had left behind nothing but monuments to their own sickness and depravity. I stood in their temple, at the very heart of their covenant with insanity, and saw their illness for what it was; a pernicious dogmatism that had over-ridden all that they were or could have been.

  The Hermaphrodite, as if in response to my rage, turned its face from me.

  I looked down at the creature that cowered before me. “Why were you placed here, in this city?” I asked.

  The thing, bleeding from nose and mouth, raised its head and smiled up at me. “I am most exalted.”

  “You, who are neither man nor woman? You who walk in the space between?”

  “Yesss,” hissed the Hermaphrodite. “The female rides the wastes, the male plies a lifeless sea. I alone am given the honor of remaining in our capitol. I alone am keeper of this mostly holy locus.”

  “And of this you are proud?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the Hermaphrodite, its voice slick, dripping with turpitude. “I am more than a mere man or woman. They are polarized and therefore they are weak. I alone am remarkable. I alone am set above the others.”

  “By whom?” I asked.

  “By those who laid the Pattern. By the architects of this place. They were first to see through the lies of the flesh. They sought to purify it. In joining with the Pattern the sickness of mortality can be shed and we can live for eternity in mutilated bliss. Under the glory of their knives even your sins can be washed away.”

  The woman had smiled, her cheek resting against her man’s bloodied chest…

  “Join with the Pattern?” I said, my cut and bleed-ing brow furrowing. “I do not understand.”

  “Walk the Pattern, become one with it,�
� said the Hermaphrodite. “Let go of your guilt. Let your sins be carved from you.”

  The woman lay still…

  “And where shall I find this Pattern?” I asked.

  “Present the altar with a blood sacrifice. Give over to the Pattern and its coils will banish the weakness of your flesh. They will cleanse you of thought and of need. They will scourge you and you will rejoice. Do this or perish!”

  “And if I do this thing, walk this Pattern, I will be-come like the figures depicted here?” I gestured to the sculpture gallery. “All this walking, riding, sailing, and crawling will have meant something, is that it?”

  The Hermaphrodite nodded and again smiled its humorless smile. “Now you begin to see.”

  I said nothing.

  The Hermaphrodite’s face fell.

  “Blasphemy and weakness,” growled the thing, and turned its head away. “You do not deserve the gift that has been given to you. Why was it that you moved north, always north? Why were you drawn to this place? Something inside you sought it out, some-thing inside you needs what the Pattern has to offer. You have sinned. You asked for redemption. It lies before you. All you need do is take it.”

  I remained silent.

  Her eyes were closed, on her lips was the ghost of a smile…

  “Step forward and walk the Pattern!” snapped the Hermaphrodite. “Remake yourself!”

  “Yes,” I said at length, “I will remake myself.”

  The Hermaphrodite turned back to me, its smile once again spreading from ear to ear. I returned the grin and the Hermaphrodite’s expression again droo-ped. Its black eyes darted nervously from side to side.

  “A blood sacrifice?” I asked. “That is all?”

  The Hermaphrodite bared its teeth.

  Reaching down I seized the creature by the back of its neck and lifted it to its feet. It squirmed and thrashed, lashing at me with its elbows as I dragged it towards the altar. My grip tightened as my pace in-creased. Soon we were running. Headlong we barr-eled up the steps leading to that plain slab of stone. We bounded up the steps in two quick leaps, the imposing monolith of the altar now looming before us. Without slowing I charged, bending the Herma-phrodite double as I went.