There was an unnatural stillness outside the castle of Lord Matu, as if someone had kidnapped the wind. No blade of grass dared move, the landscape now reduced to a static painting.
It was like the environment knew.
“Horse tracks,” commented Florencia, crouching down, inspecting the hoofprints. “Negro’s, to be specific. I am going to kill Violeta! Today I had to bath him!”
“She can identify horses by their hoofprints?” I asked Sabrina. She just shrugged. Flor was as unreadable as the kind of drivel I wrote when I was fifteen.
“Each of our horses has a characteristic gait and hoof shape. This is, no doubt, the tracks left by Negro while trotting,” she swiftly expolained.
“Florencia, you are a box of surprises,” I said, and made my way to the long, sinuous bridge that led to the castle gate.
A waft of wind gifted us the exquisite aroma of rotting flesh. Mariana licked her jowls.
She gave the air a long sniffing, “It comes from the pit pit.”
“Maybe the dogs killed something. Let’s take a peek.”
And when I finally could see past the ledge, the harsh reality of the situation got revealed. There was not a living pit in the pit pit, a multitude of depleted health bars stood in their place. The dogs, for once, looked so peaceful, as if they were sleeping. Yet, if game mechanics and stench were anything to go by, the pits synchronized nap had been extended indeterminately. Or, on the contrary, rather terminately.
Mariana had been promoted to MariaNiagara Falls, her drool scurrying down, down below, over the corpses inside the pit. I made use of my most powerful skill: Bitch slap.
“You cannot eat them, Mariana, they must have been poisoned,” I said, judging by the fact that the bodies seemed to be intact, save for a bit of bloat and other consequences of leaving meat to rot under the sun.
Sabrina and Florencia came running. Flor raised her fists and turned, alert, meanwhile Sabrina only covered her mouth to suppress a gasp.
“They are after dad!” She squealed, and began running in direction to the opened gate.
Flor followed with a trot. “Come, Walter, Mariana, I think the Escapists are attacking Mateo.”
I grasped the bitch’s handle-tail tightly and dragged her inside. The princesses ran, desperate, and I walked calmly, partly because I didn’t think that, if all the pits had been poisoned, the same could have been done to Mateo, with poisoning dogs being far easier than poisoning humans, and partly because Mariana anchored herself to the stony floor with her claws, struggling to get free and taste the rotting flesh of the dead pits.
Dead dogs lay everywhere, and I had to zigzag to avoid their corpses. Some even where puppies. Most, if not all, died with their eyes wide open, their muscles contorted as if they had suffered horrible spams before parting.
The castle had never occurred to me as being so big, the halls so long, the layout itself so macabre. The toxin had taken no prisoners, not a single dog breathed with difficulty, or tumbled around looking for relief from the pain.
“Let me bite one a little, at least!” Protested Mariana.
“No, you will die.”
“And I will do so being happy.”
Our pretty discussion was interrupted by the rending shriek of one of the princesses. Mariana jumped from my grasp and rushed to see what was happening. Running faster than I have ever seen her run. I hurried to reach the throne room, bounding over dead pits the size of mastiffs, avoiding puddles of vomit that looked like congealing blood under the red ambience lights, wondering if the little priest had survived the attack.
The accelerated breaths, the darkness, the dead dogs. It was all getting to me, making claustrophobia surge inside me. That race for the throne room could not have lasted more than a minute, but it felt like an era.
I reached the throne room doors, that stood ajar, and threw them to the sides, helping with my belts. Sabrina was kneeling in the throne platform, and Florencia descending the stairs slowly, trembling, closing her fists so hard you could see her tensed muscles.
“He is dead, isn’t he?” Florencia looked at me, as if the question were surprising. She looked back, perhaps needing to make sure reality was what she had just seen.
Then she shook her head, closed her eyes and stormed downstairs.
“Wait, where are you going.”
“To find what remains of my family,” she said, her tone sharper than the blades in her room.
I curled my belts around her upper arm as she tried to pass me by.
“Let me go or you are dead man, Walter.”
I looked her in the eyes. All glazed over by the tears.
“Violeta ran away on a horse, you are not catching her on foot.”
“I don’t mean Violeta, cunt.”
Then I released her arm, understanding she was going to scour the castle in search of her brother.
I made my way up to the throne with heavy steps. Mateo couldn’t be gone. My only train home couldn’t have been derailed just like that. My dear Buenos Aires fell apart in my mind’s eye. My diaphragm felt like a burden. Going up a flight of stairs had never been such a chore. I’d never be back in my apartment; I’d never see the moon without an HP bar again. Mateo couldn’t be gone. It was not fair; it was not fair to me.
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A few more steps, and, immediately in front of the throne, I could see him. In fetal position, eyes wide open, health bar wide depleted, grabbing his head as if trying to dispel a headache on his last moments. Pale like the moon we had plotted to kill.
“Dad… dad… dad…” Sabrina sobbed, pronging his shoulder with a trembling finger.
“Silver lining: you are seeing him get stiffer than ever.”
“How can you!” she lashed against me, her cheeks lined with tears, her plumage all ruffled, “He is your friend! How can you see him like this and mock his dead?”
“Which part of mocking him for being dead is out of character for me?” I had a shovel, I was in the hole already, the only way out seemed to be down.
“Walter, this is serious. My father is gone. Gone!”
“This is how I cope with this situation, let me cunt this out of my system,” I said, crouching to inspect the body. “Damn girl, he was ugly when observed this closely.”
Mariana stopped nuzzling Mateo’s body and head-butted my knee like caps were 80% off in Mercado Libre. I fell prone besides Mateo, wimping from the pain. looking at my torturer watch me from above as if she were superior, somehow.
“If a situation is serious enough for me to turn off the stupid, I expect the same commitment from you, Walter.”
“I am not being stupid, I am being obnoxious,” I began playing the rules lawyer.
“I have more than enough spells to make you suffer and I know secrets you would not want anybody to know.”
“Try me, there is nothing you can blackmail me with.”
Mariana telepathed via a private channel: “Saber’s dakimakura, the one you sleep with when you have to wash the Darkness one. Once every blue moon.”
I had to comply, I couldn’t stand the world knowing I fell into temptation now and then, betraying best girl.
“There may be one thing, yeah.” I got on my feet and turned towards Sabrina. “I guess I am sorry for being a cunt. It helps to shelter the heart from the hail of reality.”
She hugged me. I expected her to smell more… bird like. But wasn’t that what I expected of every woman in this world, to be secretly a bird trying to seduce me? The fact she smelled almost human, like sweat and a little speck of perfume, became an urgent concern, and so I pushed her away. I couldn’t stand her touch, I couldn’t stand the tool of my return, a return that now seemed further than ever, to pose as a person.
And I hugged her tightly, I hugged her steadfast, to not let Sabrina go, to not let Earth go. I wanted to scream, to rage against whomever had done that to Mateo, had done that to me.
I slid one of my hands down slowly, eventually slipping it into the pocket of her pants.
I felt her sharp but short nails claw on my back.
“Are you trying to cop a feel?” Yes, it was a threat.
“I am actually trying to pickpocket you. I guessed it was something I needed to do, eventually, pickpocket. And now is as good a time as any to start,” I said, deadpan, without stopping digging in her pocket. Shit was as empty as Mariana’s platter 0,5 seconds after dinner time.
“Ah, that’s fine,” she said, sparing my flesh and returning to her sobby self. “My dad is gone, Walter, what I am going to do now?”
“Practice celibacy.”
She pushed me away and I fell from the throne platform, quickly readying my belts to act as springs and cushion the fall. Boing.
Without major fanfare, I made my way back upstairs. Mateo was doing dead people things, and Sabrina mourning daughter/lover things.
“Can’t you bring him back so he can hug me once more? Tell me it all is going to be okay?” she stepped up to me and pleaded on my face. “Bring him back, yes? Like the belts.”
“I animate bodies, and the magic gives them a new personality, somehow based on the previous one. Imagine the soul leaves a hole shaped like itself there. You can fill the hole, use it like a mold to create a sculpture of said soul. But, answer me this: it’s a dildo shaped after the real thing, a penis?”
“It’s… it’s penis-shaped,” she said, her gaze still lowered upon her father’s body.
“Exactly. Shaped. But it doesn’t have any of the biological details. It lacks the urethra, it lacks the warmth, it lacks the blood pumping through the vessels, it lacks—”
“You have taken this metaphor far enough, Walter,” warned Mariana.
“The thing being, Sabrina.: I can only make a bad caricature of your father’s personality, and I don’t know how it will turn out. If I could decide the personality of my zombies, I would not be enduring these motherfuckers”, I gestured at my belts. “Behold!”
“As I was saying, I think Battletoads is…Yes, master?” answered Behold.
“You are in trouble bro, yippy!” cheered Lo.
“I meant for her to be witness of your collective behavior, not… beckon for you in particular, Behold.”
“See, Lo? I am not in trouble.”
If Lo had been a mouthed being, she would have pouted.
“I understand,” Sabrina conceded, sitting on the floor.
“Good. Do you want me to make a sex thrall for you or…” I let the question trail off as I described circles on the air with my right hand.
“Are you serious?” She stood as a lightning bolt, and Mariana immediately got between us to defuse any further conflict.
“I am just trying to help. We cannot reanimate corpses back on Earth. The morals of necromancy are unthreaded terrain for me.”
She manifested the frying pan, and Mariana scowled, wagging her tail menacingly. Then, she unmanifested the frying pan, and Mariana unscowled.
“I know you lie, Dad once told me that there is plenty of fiction about the things that exist here but not there. Including several takes on necromancy,” she barked.
“They contradict each other, and as they are about what there amounts to lies, why would we give them enough attention to decide on a right one? Besides, regarding morals, the discussion never ends. The morals of this place, if the influx of earthlings ever comes to a halt, will differ wildly from ours.”
“What do you mean? Morals are—“
“Defined by material reality. Tell me, Sabrina, what makes, at least on Earth, slavery wrong?”
She remained silent, knowing I would not take the obvious answer for correct. Mariana looked at me, expectant.
“Oil. Carbon. Gas. Energy that rid humanity of their need for slaves. Alkanes, alkenes, benzenes. Carbon chains to replace iron chains, Sabrina. I don’t think there is a god watching over Earth, the ones here have shown that they cannot resist but intervene. Monkey-wannabes adrift on a cold world, burning the dead just to treat each other with a modicum of respect,” I gently pushed her aside and made my way into the throne, standing before it, staring at the seat as I thought. “I don’t believe humanity or… half-breedity to be special. I don’t know why I believe some things to be wrong still. Yet, reviving that husk you call father to do your bidding… that is not amongst them. Not considering our situation.”
“I hate you,” she growled, “This wouldn’t have happened if you and Mariana hadn’t forced the escapists hand, and now you are this… supreme cunt guarded by a Godlike dog.”
I sat on the throne leisurely, and crossed my legs.
“Don’t do that!”
“Would you prefer I manspread instead?”
The stupidity of the question shut her up. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you defuse an angry friend’s daughter.
Our little conversation got interrupted when the doors flew open and a very distressed Florencia rushed to close them.
“It’s alive and it has taken over the castle!” she said, breathing heavily, back against the door, trying to barricade it with her body.
“A rat?” Asked Mariana, who was a connoisseur of the castle rats.
“No…” she said, quivering, gesturing at the door with her wide open eyes. “The little priest.”
I sighed. “We will have to bury your father later. Lead the way, Mariana, for we have empanada abominations to kill, and a dumb amalgam of eyes to save.”