Ink and Steel

By the time he saw the broad-pillared gate, his tears had dried, leaving the taste of salt on his tongue. The sorrel snorted and struck sparks from the roadway, refusing the passage. Kit nodded and checked to make sure the reins were knotted so they wouldn’t foul the horse’s legs. “Brave enough, Kit said, swinging down. He rubbed the sorrel’s nose, turned him back up the road, and slipped his bit. “I could not ask more. Go, get home. There’s a warm stable for thee.” The gelding looked over his shoulder dubiously. Kit raised his left hand over the animal’s lathered flank, trying for menace; the sorrel shrugged and ambled back up the road as if to say, ‘I might have waited a bit. Just to see if you were coming back. But if you insist.’

Kit squared his shoulders, turned his back on the sorrel, and walked quickly toward the gate. Quickly, because if he let his feet drag he would never pass under that plain black archway, no higher than the overhead reach of his hands. It was as well he’d left the horse behind; within the gate the road turned to a narrow stair, and Kit fumbled down in the chill, over dank, slick stones. He leaned on the wall, sweat freezing in sequins on his skin, and willed his heart to beat. Cold, searing cold, and he chuckled nastily in memory of a scene he’d written so many years before, Mephostophilis warming Faustus frozen blood with a brazier so that it would run through a pen. This place smelled of leaf mold, of earthworms, of fresh-turned earth. Behind Kit, a gray light like morning was growing; he noticed when he glanced over his shoulder to see if the archway was still in sight, and did not look back a second time. He feared if he did turn he would keep turning, and keep walking, and never force himself downward again. He counted as he descended. On the one hundred and thirteenth step he lost the sound of hoofbeats. On the three hundred and eleventh step he lost the light. There was no railing; he leaned on the wall and felt for the edge of the step with his toe. The rattle of the iron nails in his boots gave him hope. My father’s hand.In hope. And then, bitterly, I saw the back side of it often enough.

He lost count. His left hand fell on something leathery in the darkness; Kit jumped backward, squeaking like a wench who’s brushed up against a rat in the cellar. He would have fallen, Jesu,all the bottomless way, but something moist and strong wrapped his wrist and pulled him hard against the wall. He grunted, scrabbled, found his footing with a twisted ankle that would have been much worse without the bracing of his boots. A cold exhalation pressed his ear. The smell of loam and leaf mold redoubled; Kit held his breath until his heart no longer felt fit to leap through hischest. The predatory grip on his wrist never eased. Another exhalation. A slow voice, inflectionless, half rumble and half hiss.

“Who passes, and on what errand?” The demon’s maw gleamed red when it spoke: the only light in the world, silhouetting serrated teeth as if on coals.

Kit swallowed. This is real. Now. Marley. The smallness of his own voice angered him. “I come to bargain with your master. Let me pass.”

“My master?” Silence, that Kit somehow knew was laughter. He wondered if the thing saw his own face lit red when its mouth opened. “My master treats with none that can not pass by me.”

Kit himself glimpsed nothing but the fangs. It can see in the dark, he realized. “Must I fight you, then?”

“You must pay the toll,” the demon said, releasing his wrist quite negligently. What will you pay it with? Kit crowded back against the far wall of the narrow stair. He laid a hand onthe hilt of his blade, did not yet dare draw it. Well, I won’t offer you thepound of flesh nearest my heart, and that’s for certain. That depends on thegoing rate. It was eerie speaking so, as if the blackness itself could hear him and answer.

“Tis easier to buy thy way in to Hell than out,” the demon allowed. “Your remaining eye, perhaps? Your good right hand?”

Kit blinked, understanding. Just like bargaining in the marketplace. “I’ll not be thee’d down to by demons, either. I’m surprised thou didst not commencewith mine immortal soul.”

“Ah,” the demon said, casting a glare as it licked its maw with a lingering tongue. Light between its teeth like pipe smoke; Kit caught a swift impression of clawed leathery paws, of scaled masculine tits and paunch over hair-thatched legs. The demon was impressively, unpleasantly male. “No such delicacies for me. But a taste of sweet man flesh…” It shrugged. “Or of a sweet, tight arse…”

Kit pressed himself against the wall and pulled his sword into his hand, the scrape of metal on scabbard reassuring.