Hell, p.6
Hell, page 6
“Hi, Izaak.” Her far-away eyes practically looking through him.
“I thought you would be long gone from this place by now.”
“Soon… soon.” She intoned. Though precisely when, no clear idea, the days all seemed to flow together of late.
“Do you recall, you asked me how I became a leper?” His voice, tinged with concern.
“Mmmmm.” Tat replied, drool forming at the corner of her mouth.
Izaak reached out and shook her shoulder, “Tatiana, pay attention, this is important.”
Tat shook her head to clear it, “Sorry, yes I remember, how did it happen?” Already nodding off…
“I was a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Netherlands. One summer I took a sabbatical, traveling to the far east with several colleagues. Shanghai. After a particularly sordid bacchanalia of, shall we say, Dionysian proportions, I awoke in an Opium den in the dark heart of the city, having unknowingly purchased a month’s worth of the black tar. Do you know what happens in those places?”
“No.”
“Filthy rat warrens where addicts smoke their lives away, attended to by employees of the den. I spent three weeks chasing the dragon down that disgusting hole, and in the end the two things I came out with were a crippling opiate addiction… and leprosy.”
Tat winced.
“You do know that morphine and opium come from the same place, don’t you? I can see you making the same mistakes I made so long ago. It is a difficult road to come back from, one that even I haven’t yet overcome. Please, don’t do this to yourself, you’re better than this.”
Inevitably, the dreaded day came, her father appeared with two horses to take her away. She was wholly unprepared for it. After her second morning shot, Rheinhardt poked his head in, announcing that Yurgis was at the gates demanding her release. If anything could’ve brought her down quicker she never wanted to encounter it.
What was she to do? Once she left the hospital, that was it, no morphine; she couldn’t take that. Though, what did she expect? To remain in the hospital forever? Already her body was demanding another shot…
Several minutes later, Rheinhardt returned with a travel pack. “Your father gave me this to give to you, it has clothes and boots,” he sat next to her on the bed. “You have done me a great service Tatiana, and I have repaid you terribly. You undoubtedly will suffer from Soldier’s Disease, a strong physical dependence to opiates, experiencing debilitating pain as your body reverts to functioning without morphine. As I told you before, I am not an evil man, I regret my actions. In the bottom of this pack I have secreted a substantial amount of concentrated laudanum tincture to help wean you off of your addiction. Take one swallow when the pain becomes unbearable. Good luck to you, I’ll see you soon.” He rose, shuffling out the door.
Dressing slowly, dreading the immanent moment she was once again alone with her father. The clothes fit well enough, a flannel button-up shirt and men’s canvas trousers, but the boots were tight and stiff; they would need a good deal of breaking in. Taking a last look around the room, she shouldered her pack, leaving it forever.
Exiting the hospital, her worst fears materialized. There lurked Yurgis, fuming at the gates, the staff having effectively barred him from entering. Waving goodbye to Rheinhardt who’d come to see her off, she experienced a pang of regret at missing the opportunity to bid Irma farewell. A little upset that Izaak hadn’t come after all. The note he’d given her was nowhere to be found, a pity, it was something she would’ve liked to keep. Something to remember him by.
“Good to see you well again, dear Daughter.” That oily voice, wriggling in her ears like maggots. Her blatant refusal to acknowledge him in any way went unpunished for the moment as he passed her the reins of a young, dappled mare. Mounting up, they set off down the road, her tentative questions cut off with a terse gesture.
“No talk until outside city.”
For a moment she contemplated breaking the horse into a full gallop, attempting escape, but her father was a much better rider and would have no problem catching her. Instead they leisurely cantered out of town toward a bleak future. In the shadows of an alley she thought she might’ve caught a last, fleeting glimpse of the mysterious man who’d shown such interest in her…
That evening when they stopped to make camp, the silence still lay heavy between them; neither she nor Yurgis seemed inclined to break it. The morphine was long gone, a dull, aching pain radiating from her bones. She’d been getting upwards of ten shots a day for the last week in the hospital. Who could’ve known the price of such pleasure was this creeping agony. The laudanum called out to her, occupying every second of her mental attention, but it had to wait until Yurgis fell asleep. It was all she could do to conceal her growing discomfort from her father, she couldn’t risk him discovering it.
While she gathered wood for a fire, never straying out of sight, he unpacked a meager meal of hardtack and dried meats. She built up the kindling, arranging twigs and moss into a pyramid structure like she’d seen him do a thousand times before. All their essential gear was laid out on a wide stump, but when she reached for the lighter, Yurgis caught her wrist, bending it backwards, forcing her to her knees. Fixing her with his cruel gaze he abruptly snapped his fingers…
The kindling burst into flame!
Her blood ran cold, a shudder escaping her. Never before had she witnessed such an act. He seemed to be telling her that she wasn’t the only one who commanded power beyond mortals. His hardened hand left angry red imprints on her skin as he released her, piggish eyes daring her to respond. Not a word was spoken as food was distributed, the silence unbroken save the click and chirp of birdsong. It wasn’t until the meal was finished that Yurgis chose to speak.
“So we are equal now, yes? We have both ruined each other’s lives, now we both have nothing.” He was affecting his boisterous happy voice, appearing to be in good spirits, though Tat could sense the deadly currents of violence that flowed beneath the surface of his manic expressions.
Her thoughts cautioned her to proceed with care, a wrong word now would provoke him into massive hostility. In her eyes nothing could ever make them equal, not even the death of the entire troupe. Several times she attempted to speak, each time assessing a new tactic. In the end she chose the simple path.
“What happened papa? What did I do?”
A great frown beetled his brow, he’d been hoping for resistance, defiance, something he could fight against. This sad acquiescence stole the wind from his sails. He stood and stretched, ridding himself of the cramps of the road; bent backwards and several mighty cracks pierced the night. It was as if she were seeing him for the first time, graying hair and beard, bloodshot eyes, missing teeth. Though Yurgis fancied himself unassailable, even invincible at times, in all the ways that mattered, he was still a man, same as any other.
And no man lives forever...
He returned to his seat by the fire, speaking in the slow, measured tones of one recalling events under hypnosis, “All day, travel was good. Break camp, make good time. I knew we’d make Warsaw on schedule. Then, Poto take bad step. I try to hold course as wagon went over edge, but Poto break leg in mud. My first thought was to put horse out of misery. Horses spend nearly entire life on feet, so broken leg is death sentence. You were not only one who loved horse. I had him before I had you.”
A sickly feeling of guilt descended upon her. Yurgis rarely opened up to her like this, and it was much easier to hate him when he was an unfeeling demon.
“Then you are there, crying and making trouble for all. Your... marks... start to move, glow. I try to grab you and great wave burst forth and you collapsed. Ones nearest, consumed in flash of light. Others less fortunate, broken, bloody, begging for death.
“First thing, I went to retrieve gold. Wagons on fire, let them burn. Then I saw to my comrades. Most already dead, those that persisted, I helped to make same.”
Again Tat was amazed by the brutal simplicity of this man.
“I spread fire to rest of wagons, burned bodies to appear target of outlaws. Then, I gather you up, ride thirty kilometers to hospital. Purchase room in boarding house and wait for you to wake. Now we are here.” He fell silent, his story done.
Without thinking, Tat stupidly asked the one question that had been on her mind since awakening in the hospital.
“Why didn’t you die too?”
A sharp glance, a glint of evil returning to his gaze. “Oh, would like that wouldn’t you? No more Yurgis to care for you, to protect. Well that is one wish that must remain unfulfilled, dear Daughter, for I am a difficult man to kill,” he winked sardonically at her. “Better ones than you have tried and failed. I am not without protection.”
The moment he rose, she knew violence was coming. She’d known him long enough to recognize the signs. Fear flooded her, conditioned by the tinkle of a buckle, the sizzle of leather sliding through canvas belt loops…
“You are nothing before me.”
If she was going to do something, now was the time. But what? The process of summoning her magic was a mystery. Her only plan being to trust it to arise when needed. Whereas before she was enveloped in a torrential flow, now, barely a trickle.
Spurred on by this seeming denial of his superiority, Yurgis advanced menacingly. A final decision, fight or flight; she turned and bolted. Being still weakened however, catching her was a simple feat.
Forced to strip down in the middle of the forest clearing, hands roughly tied. Like the deadly bite of a leather snake, the belt sang through the air raising welts upon her prone body, the buckle, bruising down to the bone. Having learned as a child that no amount of tears or screams could induce mercy, she suffered in stoic silence. All she could do was curl into a ball and endure. He’d become a vicious fiend, bent on her destruction.
She could sense that he was losing steam, blows falling less often, immediacy and power waning. Far from a reprieve, this slackening only signaled the approach of her real punishment. The inevitable act of true physical dominance he lorded over her. Unable to resist as she lay prostrate on the rough-hewn stump, crying out in agony as he mounted her, piercing her womb. This was it, the moment she’d dreaded her entire life. In a supreme act of will, she drew a shallow breath and held it, tensing every muscle until falling unconscious, freed from being forced to experience the worst moment of her life.
Chapter Four:
Days of Darkness
Again the days flew past in a blur, but not in a good way; her spirit was broken. The brief respite and small contentment she experienced during her stay at the hospital, dashed in a torrent of despair.
After all these years, he’d done it, desecrated the one thing she valued most in the world, her purity. With no more fanfare than a pig to the slaughter. Now she was ruined, a common whore. Worse, in fact, because even whores had a choice and were paid for their services. What man would want her now? More to point, how could she ever bring herself to suffer a man’s touch willingly?
The oft dreamt-of day Yurgis found someone willing to marry her and take her away from him, in exchange for a great deal of gold, would now never come to pass. Condemned to remain with her father until he died, or he killed her. She went about the motions of being alive, all the while, dead inside.
The one thing she retained from her former life was the silver crucifix on its chain with the tiny savior, suffering eternally. Although it did not give her strength, it sapped the smallest part of her misery. For the first time in her life, she began to pray. Not for revenge or deliverance, she prayed for her death. Even if she managed to escape from Yurgis, there was no longer any will to live. The shame was too great; she was a worthless thing, lifeless and hollow.
When attempting to summon anger toward her father, it eluded her. She couldn’t even cry. Tied into the saddle due to her refusal to mount up, hovering between shame and a sickening apathy, ceasing to speak, refusing to eat or drink unless force fed.
Every day she suffered through debilitating withdrawal pains, and each night when they stopped to camp he used her mercilessly as she faded deeper into the depths of her mind. There was precious little solace to be found in the laudanum, which paled in comparison to her beloved morphine. Far from erasing her fears in rapturous waves, repeated consumption barely served to dull the pain and get her to normal.
This desolate condition lay in stark contrast to the beautiful lands they travelled. The surrounding countryside, proudly garbed in the full-bloom of early summer. The small folk enjoying an uneasy peace, spanning an indeterminate period between the end of the last war and the beginning of the next...
Traversing endless, pastoral farmlands which had once been battlefields, crops tended by suspicious serfs, retired soldiers, who watched them warily as they passed. One cold glare from Yurgis, usually enough to send them scurrying back to their plots, leaving them to wonder about the great bear of a man, and the skinny painted girl. Other than the odd traveler on the road, no one paid them much mind. The world went about its business, but she was oblivious to all of it. If the world was dying and all she had to do to save it was lift a finger, she wasn’t sure she could… or would.
During these terrible days, the one thing her mind kept returning to was her dream of the Falcon-god. Increasingly, she came to believe that the key to her purpose and impossible salvation lie in the terrifying beauty of that predatory gaze. The scene replayed endlessly in her head, seeking to keep the shame at bay; but in the night, as she lay awake looking at the stars, it surrounded her like a dense, cloying fog, nearly suffocating her in bouts of anxiety and self-loathing. Dropping into shallow, troubled sleep, demons pursued her through the swamps of her nightmares, faces of those who had died, those she had killed, melting until all that remained were grinning skulls.
Death was a constant companion through these days of darkness and travel. A deep longing for it as others long for the embrace of a lover. To go into its arms and be shut of the world forever. The one thought that almost allowed her to cry. This was what hitting bottom felt like, she could sink no lower aside from the endless embrace of death.
After nearly a week of seemingly aimless wandering, Tat built up the courage to speak. She couldn’t say for sure what roused her from her catatonic trance, surely not a lessening of her crippling anguish...
“Where are we going?”
If Yurgis was surprised to hear her speak after so long, he didn’t show it. “That crooked doctor told me of great meeting, symposium he called it, to take place at Oxford University near London. All greatest minds in world will be attending.”
“Why do you care about that?” Tat asked dismally.
Yurgis shot her a venomous look, obviously picking up on her subtle jab. “Where intelligent men gather, there is money to be made. Also, there is one in London I must consult. I tire of barbaric lands, time to return to civilization, yes?”
He was not being truthful with her. She’d known him long enough to recognize when he was concealing something. It didn’t matter, she would find out in time what his true intentions were. Under normal circumstances his explanation would’ve provided her a pale semblance of excitement; she had always wanted to see London. Yet, under this stifling blanket of lethargy, nothing could reach her. So they galloped on, wrapped in sorrow. Not even the gentle beast she rode could provide her comfort. It only made her think of Poto...
For days they’d been following the Vistula river, running roughly westward out of Poland and into Prussia. On the eighth day, after a tense crossing through a heavily guarded border checkpoint, they came to a village on a well-worn trading route. Many nights of sleeping on the hard ground had left them weary, so Yurgis decided that they would take a room at a local Inn.
It was raining when the horses rode onto the muddy main drag. Like many settlements in that part of Europe, the stone buildings and thatched roofs looked unchanged for a century or more. The wind, carrying the foul odor of the local tannery, upset her stomach as they entered the village square. The repetitive strike of hammer on metal pierced the air as they trotted by the open yard of the blacksmith’s forge where a swarthy man eyed them vigilantly...
Cooper, tailor, general store, virtually indistinguishable from any other village she’d seen in her life. The consummate miser, Yurgis eschewed several plainly upper class lodgings before arriving at the Journeys Rest, a respectable, if slightly run down, Inn. Tat sat slumped in the saddle, oblivious to the curious looks she was no doubt subjected to, while Yurgis went in to inquire about room and board for them and their mounts.
Eight days without morphine. Intolerable pain, a blunt ache like the bones themselves were crying out for succor. Her supply of laudanum was dangerously low, not much more than a swallow or two, and she was saving it until she really needed it. Despite Rheinhardt’s admonition to take one drink at a time, she’d practically guzzled it in her eagerness to kill the pain and pulverize her beleaguered consciousness into drugged oblivion.
Presently he emerged, leading the horses to a small, attached stable at the rear of the building. There he untied Tat and she dismounted. He then led her inside, meekly following like the submissive beast of burden she’d become.
The room was dominated by a massive hearth at one end where a buxom woman was roasting a pig. The commons had a homey feeling, smelling strongly of cigars and pipe tobacco, with fresh rushes laid on the floor to soak up spilled ale. Long, wooden tables occupied by a great many travelers and locals, there to drink away the cares of a hard day. Many heads turned to spy them as they entered, the giant bear of a man and the skinny, painted girl. Conversation faltered briefly, then resumed.
They approached the counter where the grinning owner was drawing pints of beer from enormous barrels. When his eyes beheld Tat, his smile faded as he crossed himself. This was the reaction she’d expected. Suspicion and superstition were absolute in these lands, and her outlandish looks never failed to raise the ire of simple, god-fearing folk. Many claimed her as the spawn of the Devil, which in her estimation, was not far from the truth.
