Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater (6 page)

Rorid glanced at Priole. How he hoped the kid would keep his trap shut. "We didn't have to search him, sir. He emptied his duffle bag and spread the contents for us to see. He had all manner of useless junk, and he wanted to sell it to us. It's all in the report." Rorid nodded toward the paper in Kale's hand.

"This report is incomplete, soldier," Kale stabbed at the paper with his index finger.

"That's right," Fitch agreed with an overenthusiastic bob of his head. "Incomplete."

"The last line of this report should say you observed him travelling north." Kale turned his leer on Priole and leaned toward him. "Why doesn't it?"

"Um, I don't know, sir. Is that why we're here?" Priole looked grim. "This is not good, gentlemen," Kale's chair screeched as he slid it out from the table. He stood up. "Your orders were to bewitch him and send him
north
!"

Rorid stared straight ahead at the ill-gotten insignia on the man's chest. The damned magistrates could take a turn as guards if they thought it was so easy. "I'm not a conjurist. I bewitched him. I don't know why he didn't go, sir. I did my best."

"Best!" Kale scoffed. "You'd
best
watch your tone."

"Sir, he was just a drunken junk man, without weapons. He didn't pose a threat." Rorid held his tongue, hoping Priole could do the same.

"
We
determine who's a threat and what constitutes a weapon. Just because
you
don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there, guardsman."

Fitch stood next to Kale, looking a bit feminine by comparison. His voice rose and fell as if delivering a sermon. "
You
are Stagwater's armor. If orders aren't followed, the armor falls to pieces."

"I don't know why you didn't just have us arrest him if it's such a big deal." Priole blurted out. "We could have done that, no problem… Sir."

Kale pounded his fist on the table.

Rorid knew trouble was on its way. He glanced at Priole. His head hung down, and his face was red.

"My son," Fitch's lip twitched as he spoke, "If you'd accomplished your mission, this mischief would be resolved. As it is, the man is still at large, still threatening Stagwater. Your incompetence has put us all in great danger."

Danger? If the threat was so great, the drunk should have been arrested, not sent north. Rorid understood: he and Priole were scapegoats for the magistrates' blunder.

"On your feet!" Kale barked out the words like an order. "We're taking a walk."

Chuggie tromped around Shola's yard carrying firewood and stacking it next to the house. He pulled turnips and dug potatoes in her garden, placing them in her rickety storage shed. He felt a wave of embarrassment every time he looked at the area he'd trampled the night before.

And something else itched at his mind. Shola sat weaving wicker at the table by the cliff. Each time he passed her, she looked a little bit younger. At first, he'd convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks on him. But on his first pass, she'd looked like a skeleton wrapped in cobwebs. At breakfast, she looked old, sure, but not more than seventy. As the morning progressed, though, her face and bosom filled out noticeably. Her dirty-white hair darkened. Her shoulders lifted, her neck straightened.

With an armload of wood, Chuggie stopped in front of her.

Humming and rocking in her chair, Shola looked no older than fifty years old. Her eyes were no longer milky and dull. The left had gone bright white and her right a brilliant, deep blue.

Baffled, Chuggie dropped the wood directly onto his feet. "AACH!" He hopped around, hissing and swearing, then took a block of wood in each hand and flung them over the cliff.

 "My, my," Shola said. "If you're tired you should rest."

Chuggie limped to his seat at the table. He stared at her, blinking. "Are you getting younger, Shola?"

"Are you taunting me now?" Shola frowned.

"Take a gander in a mirror and see what I mean."

She narrowed her eyes and got slowly to her feet. She hobbled off in the direction of her crooked little house. Her movements were still those of an ancient crone.

A minute later, screams erupted from the house. Objects crashed about inside. Chuggie rushed to the house to make sure she hadn't injured herself. He stuck his head in the door.

Shola poked at her face, pulled at her skin, and turned her hands over and over. "It's… It's
you
!" she said. She began to weep as she turned and ran to him with arms outstretched. She crashed into him, hugging him. The impact sent them both out of the house. He barely stayed on his feet.

"Chuggie,
you're
doing this!" She cried tears of joy into his chest.

All Chuggie could think to do was pat her gently on the back. "I don't understand,"

"Neither do I, but somehow you're making me young!"

He looked down into her eyes, one as white as the brightest moon, the other as blue as the sea. She buried her face in his chest again, and he held her there for a good long while.

Eventually, they sat. Her eyes raced about, and she seemed always on the brink of laughing or crying. Chuggie tried to imagine what went through her mind, but couldn't. Hoping to calm her, he told her a story.

"Years ago, I knew a man who could talk to birds," Chuggie said. "He enjoyed it at first, being the sort that likes animals and all. He'd walk through the forest listening to them and talking back. 'How was your day?' 'Fine, I ate some seeds and shat on a statue.' 'Oh, that's lovely.'"

Shola gazed into Chuggie's eyes like his story was the most  interesting thing she had ever heard.

"One day the fella found an eagle feather and stuck it into his hat, thinking if he wore it the birds would like him even more. The birds never trusted him after that, though he never understood why. I guess they thought he killed the eagle it belonged to."

Chuggie stroked Shola's head. She was breathing normally again and seemed all calmed down. A story could do that to a person sometimes. "Late one night, as he slept in his bed, a murder of crows crept through his open window. The crows, with their razor sharp claws and beaks, set upon him and severed all his tendons before he could react. Laying there immobile, yet still very much aware and very able to feel, my friend tried to scream. One of the crows pecked out his vocal cords. Others clawed his tongue to useless ribbons."

Shola's hand squeezed his arm.

"After they plucked out his eyes, they built nests in the sockets — his mouth and ears too. They packed orifices and fresh wounds with twigs and dirt until his whole body was stuffed. He went at least three days like that, possibly more, with the crows building nests and shitting inside him. After that, he never spoke to birds again, and neither will I."

Shola smiled a drowsy smile and kissed Chuggie on the cheek.

A single raincloud drifted out of the east. The setting sun painted it pinkish brown. A gentle rain fell, and Chuggie turned his gaze upward. Ten million golden drops of water, illuminated by the setting sun, filled the sky. As they fell in their seemingly endless show, Chuggie felt like he was rushing up at the heavens. The exact opposite of vertigo, the sensation gave him a long, peaceful thrill. To speak during such a moment would have diminished it.

Mere minutes later, the golden points of light lost their luster, and the raincloud moved on. When Chuggie shifted his attention back to Shola, he knew she'd seen it just the way he did. A sad smile touched her lips, and a lone tear sat on her upturned cheek.

Things had turned interesting at the house on the cliff. Chuggie wanted, simultaneously, to stay and to go. With no pressing appointments, he supposed he could spare a day or two. Just to see how things played out.

Rusty autumn leaves swirled on a wind stream, heading for parts unknown.

Rorid and Priole, with plodding footsteps like men condemned, followed Kale out of the interrogation room of the Magisterial Building. Fitch walked close behind muttering as if he were offering litanies for their souls.

"Pay attention, men," Kale lectured as they walked down the stairs, "The Stagwater Corps of Guardsmen is soft. If we can't rely on you, then you serve no purpose."

Their footsteps echoed down the stairwell as the group descended. Kale led them past sub-basement B-1.

Kale clomped down the stairs at an urgent pace. Rorid wasn't in any rush to get where he suspected they might be going. His legs felt as heavy as lead. He willed Kale to stop at the door to sub-basement B-2, but the magistrate kept going.

"After today, you two will be reliable." Kale rapped twice on the metal railing for punctuation.

Rorid knew good leadership when he saw it, and he saw none in Kale's methods. A real leader didn't punish subordinates for his own shortfall.

The group stopped. Rorid's heart sunk when he saw 'B-3' stenciled on the wall.

Two jailors who looked like they could pull an oxcart with ease stood on either side of the barred metal door that opened into B-3. Rorid and Priole followed into the room. Fitch exchanged words with the jailors, too quiet for Rorid to make out.

The overhead lights snapped on with a crack. Rorid shielded his eyes. The six infamous torturgy tables lay empty before them like unholy altars.

Kale led them to a side gallery and held the door open. Relief swept over Rorid. He'd fully expected them to put him on a table. 

"Sit." Kale barked the word.

The only seats in the room faced a broad window that looked out at the tables. Rorid lowered himself into a chair. Without a word, Kale left the room and shut the door behind him.

The lock clicked.

 Rorid and Priole exchanged worried glances, but neither spoke. Rorid's stomach turned at the idea of witnessing torturgy, no matter who it was being performed on. He tried to tell himself they only used on deserving criminals, but that didn't help. Some foul energy hung in the air. Priole's pale face said he felt it, too.

Kale addressed them through a speaker box next to the door. "Let me assure you, no one is going to die here today. Remember what you see."

Rorid and Priole watched through the window as, out in the main room, Kale and Fitch pulled white surgical suits over their clothes.

Fitch raised his hand in some sort of signal.

The burly, beast-like jailors escorted two naked and bound victims to adjacent tables. The victims wore black bags over their heads, but Rorid recognized the physique of the first. He was a teenage boy, slim and weak. Rorid knew the row of freckles on the boy's shoulder like he knew the boy's face. His son Drexel.

Priole jumped out of his seat. "
Ree
!" he wailed and kicked the glass. "
Take your fucking hands off her, you bastards
!"

Rorid could think of no way to calm Priole. He doubted he could get the young man to look in his direction, let alone follow an order to sit quietly. Priole had married his wife only a few months before, and his entire life revolved around her. Blind rage was a reasonable response under these circumstances.

The speaker box clicked on again. This time Fitch spoke. "Sit! They can't hear you, but if you chip that glass, we'll be in here all day."

"Drexel." Rorid whispered. Time slowed like a spent and wounded wargoat. His stomach churned as he slouched in the chair. He wanted to look away but couldn't allow himself to do it. He wasn't going to let Drexel suffer alone.

Priole's lip quivered as he leaned his forehead against the glass.

Kale, in his pristine white surgical garb, stood over the boy. He took a rough pinch of Drexel's skin and latched a toothy metal clamp onto it. He added another clamp then another, forming symmetrical lines down his chest and stomach, converging at his crotch. He then added clamps down the insides of the boy's wide-spread legs. The finishing touch was a line from nipple to armpit, heading down the underside of his arm.

Fitch did the same for Priole's wife Ree. Where Kale was rough, however, Fitch was a gentle as lover. He cast frequent looks to the gallery window. His surgical mask covered his smile, but it was plain to see in his eyes.

They added collector hoses to the clamps, then attached those to the machines. They turned dials, consulted tiny gauges, and pressed buttons. In unison, Kale and Fitch pulled large red levers, and torturgy commenced.

Naked bodies bucked. Black hoods puffed up with the rapid breath of the tortured. Muscles pulled tight involuntarily under skin flushed red.

Long moments passed. Finally, Kale and Fitch deactivated their equipment. They removed the clamps, leaving jagged bruises. The session had been brief and bloodless — five minutes, no more. That five minutes felt like an eternity. Kale and Fitch led their victims to the waiting physician. Drexel and Ree wore only their black hoods.

The doctor began his examination, hiding his face behind a surgical mask like the coward he was. His gloved hands probed and squeezed every inch of Priole's shaking wife. He took a close look at each purple welt running down her body and under her arms. Her shoulders bounced with silent sobs. She tried to cover her breasts, but a stout jailor pulled her arms wide. When the physician finished with her, the jailor pulled her close, embracing her as he shot a cruel smile at the gallery window.

Priole got to his feet and started kicking his chair. It had been bolted to the ground. He couldn't break it free, but he kept trying.

"Going to kick that chair through the glass, eh?" Rorid's voice wavered as he spoke. "Do that and I'll bet she goes back on the table." He held out a hand to calm Priole.

Then it was Drexel's turn. He tried to cover his nudity just as Ree had. The jailor held him roughly from behind and kicked the insides of his ankles. Drexel didn't spread his legs immediately, so the jailor kicked again, harder. The boy nearly fell, but the jailor held him fast. The doctor examined Rorid's son in the same probing fashion. When he finished the examination, he packed up his bag and hustled out of the room, never looking up once.