Hungry Heart - Book #3 - Ch. 18 (Patreon)

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen / Chapter Fifteen / Chapter Sixteen / Chapter Seventeen 

Chapter Eighteen – Bad Apples, Good Apples

Toru didn’t look left or right. His paws barely touched the ground, as he could only think of the scent now seated deep inside his nose, dragging him toward a destination he knew nothing of. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t ignore it even if he wanted to. Hurry, hurry, the scent seemed to tell him, and he did, with every bone, sinew and muscle in his body.

The white wall in the distance loomed larger and larger as his tiger leaped over the mining pits, people, and baskets of coal altogether. Soon, soon, he would reach the foot of the wall, and he would climb it. At the top of it, he would find his answers; he would learn about why this scent wanted him to follow, and maybe put an end to the constant hunger inside his heart.

The miners from The Dregs shouted unintelligible things at him as he flew past them. It couldn’t be called running, not anymore. Toru no longer felt the ground, and if he suddenly sprouted wings, he wouldn’t wonder why.

He stopped abruptly, though, when he finally reached a large ditch that appeared to go around the fortress, separating it from The Dregs. The water that flowed through it seemed black with soot and could just as well be tar if it wasn’t so fluid. After a moment of hesitation, he jumped into the water and began swimming to the other side.

Angry shouts followed him even as he cut through the water, but now, they no longer seemed to come from behind but from above. Could it be that the guards had been alerted already? But they were at the top of the wall, and Toru doubted they could see so far down.

He reached the other side and turned into his human. The wall seemed to have jutting stones here and there, so it was better to climb the wall that way.

“Who might you be, stranger?” someone called from his left in a ragged whisper, causing him to turn his head.

Then he had to look down, at someone who barely measured three feet. If it was a man or a child, he couldn’t say, black as tar, with shining eyes the only thing visible on his face.

“You don’t need to know that,” Toru replied, eager to climb. He placed one hand on one of the protruding stones.

“Do you want to climb?” the stranger asked. “Come, come, follow Beanstalk.”

“Beanstalk? Is that your name?”

The stranger wheezed in what sounded almost like human laughter. “None more fitting, don’t you think?”

Toru sensed his nostrils flaring, pushing him to climb and follow the scent, but at the same time, he was curious about Beanstalk. Something dropped by his side, and he jumped just in time to avoid it. Then, he located the source of angry shouts as he looked up. From the cannon mouths, heads appeared from time to time, and then, round heavy stones were plunging down onto his head.

“Come, come,” Beanstalk urged him, and this time, Toru no longer hesitated to follow his strange guide.

Beanstalk appeared quite adept at avoiding the stones raining down on their heads, and Toru grunted when one hit him in the shoulder, driving him to his knees for a moment. A dark hand grabbed him and soon he was pulled inside a long tunnel. His eyes readily adapted to the darkness and he could make out the shape of the wet stones from which the walls had been erected.

“How did they know I was starting to climb?” Toru asked. “How did you?”

Beanstalk laughed again. “I’ve been here for the last forty years, and I’ve never seen a more foolish attempt at climbing the walls of Scercendusa.”

Forty years. That meant Beanstalk wasn’t a child. He was fast on his short legs, and Toru had to sprint to keep up with him. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“To see if you’d be a good fit,” Beanstalk replied.

Toru recalled what Rosalind told them about the kind of people who worked at The Dregs. Beanstalk had to be one of the people in charge of the waste. And that meant there was only one place his guide was planning on taking him to. “I’m not going to work with you, hauling waste,” Toru said. “I’ll go back and try my luck again.”

Beanstalk hurried back to him and caught his arm, or better said, hung onto it. “Like we’d waste you on waste.” He laughed at his own turn of phrase. “No, no, you’re a tiger,” he said with delight. “You’re going to climb, up, up, up.”

Toru wanted nothing else. He, too, wanted to climb, as high up as he could, until he reached the domestikos of Scercendusa and forced him to spill all his secrets. Then, he realized. “How do you know I’m a tiger?”

It was possible that Beanstalk had seen him swimming through the ditch in his tiger shape, but how did Beanstalk know about tigers? If he’d been there, at The Dregs, for forty years, and they didn’t allow shapeshifters in Scercendusa—

“Look around,” Beanstalk encouraged him, and then Toru began staring at the walls. He started in surprise. Here and there, tiger fur patterns lined the walls of the long tunnel they were walking through.

“What is this place?” he murmured, mostly to himself.

“A place for truth,” Beanstalk said in a conspiratorial voice. “A place for truth speakers and truth seekers. A place for tigers.”

***

Varg caught Claw’s arm, guided by nothing else but his gut instinct. “Don’t,” he whispered, sensing that his friend wanted to shapeshift and follow Toru. As surprised as he was by Toru’s actions, he had known the young tiger long enough to understand that he must have had his reasons to act so rashly.

Now, they had a more pressing matter to solve. Around them, the miners pulled into tighter and tighter circles. Sure, they could shift and overpower them, but where would they go after that? After Toru? The chances were that they would be chased, and what they had to do right now was to make sure the miners didn’t follow Toru or alert the guards on the walls somehow. Varg had trusted his instincts all his life, and now they were telling him that it was safer for them to remain in human form.

“That was a tiger,” someone called out from the crowd.

From the looks on their faces, he could tell that they weren’t angry, and not even scared. That in itself was enough to give Varg a very strong reason to go with his gut. “How do you know what a tiger is?” he asked.

It was Rosalind who walked forward from the crowd. “We just know, and that’s all we’re going to tell you, Varg of Whitekeep,” the young woman said.

“Fair enough,” Varg said while holding Claw’s wrist. He could tell that the bearshifter was still undecided as to whether they should just shift and be out of there or not, either following Toru or finding a way to escape from The Dregs.

“How is he a tiger?” someone else from the crowd asked.

“He just is,” Varg replied calmly.

“But tigers don’t exist,” Rosalind said slowly. She was moving her head, eyeing her fellow miners in search of their confirmation. That didn’t take long to happen, as murmurs of agreement could be heard from everywhere.

“You just saw one,” Varg pointed out, his voice even and gentle. The scholars of Scercendusa, if no one else, had to know tigers did exist, so the fact that these people thought such a thing was difficult to fathom.

“Yes, we saw,” Rosalind agreed. “But where does he come from? He’s not from the same place as you,” she added pointedly.

Varg nodded. Claw tensed by his side, but only for a moment, and then made a small sign for Varg to release his hand. “He’s not,” Varg admitted. “He traveled to us, and then we’ve traveled together ever since.”

“Are you tigers, too?” someone else asked.

“No,” Varg replied, and then he nodded at Claw. He sensed that he needed to gain these people’s trust, and the best way to do that was to be honest to some degree. They both shifted at the same time.

A gasp of surprise traveled through the crowd like a wave through the unchanging sea. Rosalind took a few steps back, and the tight circle from before loosened, people stumbling backward and clumsily bumping into each other, as they struggled to get as far as they could from Varg and Claw.

“Don’t be scared. We’ve always been the allies of good people everywhere,” Varg began. “And I see that you are good people here.”

“How do you know that?” Rosalind was still the only one who remained close to where he and Claw stood. “We’re The Dregs, fit for hauling coal from cradle to grave. What makes us good?”

Varg had an inkling that these people must have been told only that they were no good all their lives. They lived so close to the beating heart of the world, and they were the blood that filled the heart, helping it beat, yet, they didn’t know half of what they were worth.

Maybe some did, Varg thought, as he took in Rosalind’s unflinching gaze. “You keep the fire burning,” he said. “Lesser people wouldn’t spend their life here, toiling day after day, year after year, only so that can exist.” He pointed at the white fortress in the distance.

Other murmurs welcomed his words. Varg wondered if there were no guards around whatsoever. These people were so convinced of their role that they didn’t question it at all. Except now, they were beginning to wonder about it, at least a little.

And it all had to do with the sudden appearance of a tiger in their midst. “What do you know of tigers?”

“They saved the world once,” another voice from the crowd rose over the others still in awe at the presence of a wolfshifter and a bearshifter right there, among them. “And they’ll do it again.”

The Dregs of Scercendusa were not exactly the place where Varg would have expected to hear about Toru’s noble quest. They had all thought that the truth about that lay only between the pages of dusty tomes or inside the minds of rulers, such as the domestikos at the helm of the white fortress. They seemed to be quite wrong.

“And they’ll burn that to the ground,” Rosalind pointed with her chin toward the city in the distance, “releasing us from our bonds.”

Varg exchanged a look with Claw. This was one of the most astonishing turns of their quest so far. “Is it something your myths and stories talk about?”

“They are not myths, and they are not stories,” Rosalind said stubbornly.

The crowd parted, allowing one of the miners to walk through. The man, Varg recognized him when he drew close enough, was Rosalind’s father. He angrily pulled at Rosalind’s arm. “What are you doing here, child?” he scolded her in a raised voice.

Rosalind attempted to break free from her father’s hold, but to no avail. “We just saw a tiger, father,” she said in an angry voice. “He was right here, and then he dashed to the city. Soon, we’ll watch it burn, and then we’ll be free.”

Varg couldn’t fathom how such a thing would happen, but he wasn’t the kind to disregard ancient history, even if it wasn’t written on yellowed pages. It lived in the hearts and minds of those around him. It had to stand for something of the utmost importance.

“Tell us more about what you know. We’ve come here in search of knowledge,” he said.

Rosalind’s father was still trying to pull the girl away with him.

“Let me go,” she protested, and a few miners gathered around them, shouting as well and trying to convince the man to release her. “We’re about to become free, can’t you see?”

“All I see is a couple of imposters. I’ve seen their lot before,” Rosalind’s father said. “So what if they’re shapeshifters? They cannot bring down the city. That’s a lie. And if they came here, to incense your silly minds and hearts, I don’t want to be part of it. I won’t let my child be part of that, either. The rest of you may go burn in the hell of your own making, but my own flesh and blood will be spared.”

“Father, no, I want to stay with the others,” Rosalind complained and fought a little more. “We’re not all old and hopeless like you.”

Upon closer inspection, Varg noticed that, indeed, the ones gathered there were mostly young people. Now that he knew that Rosalind was a young woman, despite her soot-covered face, he could tell a thing like that.

“We’re not yet hopeless,” voices called out from the crowd.

Rosalind’s father was overcome and dragged away, although he tried to fight them and still reach for his daughter. Varg understood his worry, yet he knew that Rosalind wasn’t wrong to hope. How much of that hope Toru would be able to fulfill wasn’t something he could tell. Nonetheless, now that they were there, and the myths of these people in rags were telling them something that, as surprising as it sounded, had to contain at least a seed of truth.

They weren’t there by a whim of fate. They were there because they wanted to learn about Toru’s quest and what it demanded of them.

Rosalind straightened her clothes, as if there was something she could do to make them appear less stained by the ashes covering everything. Varg understood that as well. It was part of how she was, in her uniqueness among those faces that all seemed the same until someone got to know them better.

“Tell us more about the tigers that saved the world,” he urged Rosalind.

Rosalind looked up at the sky that must have seemed so unforgiving to the people living there. Sun and rain had to be their closest friends, or else, the day in and day out toiling was bound to take a toll on their sanity. “We know,” she began in a voice that brooked no contradiction, “that there have been cities like Scercendusa before, consumed by greed and built on lust for power.” The words coming out of her mouth seemed toneless, as if she was reciting something that had been passed to her and not experienced firsthand. “And they bred and bred so much evil inside that draining them of their squalor of the soul was not enough.”

Varg could tell that Claw was listening as attentively as he was. The miners around them appeared to lose some of their shyness, and they came closer to touch their fur. The youngest were especially brave. They hadn’t had all of the innocence and trust removed from them by a life spent enduring hardships of all kinds.

“The higher the cities rose, the lower their surroundings sank,” Rosalind continued. “And people like us, people of The Dregs,” – at the sound of their tribal name, more murmurs of assent traveled to and fro through the crowd – “were overcome and sank lower and lower until they were buried under the filth coming from these bloody cities.”

“And it was then that the tiger came?” Varg asked. “Or was it more than one?”

Rosalind shook her head. “There is always just one. But there were many cities and many tigers throughout the history of the world.”

“How do you know all of this?” Varg asked.

Rosalind pointed at the white fortress. “Because these cities always rise over the same piece of land.”

***

Duril stared at the mountain of documents spread on the giant oak table before him. “Are these the transactions for a week?” He didn’t want to appear untrained for what his work entailed, but the chances were that Decottieri wouldn’t have known about it, either.

“Just for yesterday,” Granius replied and accompanied his words with a malevolent smile. “And they are now all yours. Make sure to add them up in the correct order. I don’t appreciate my scribes using correction paste, so don’t make mistakes. Now, I’m off. I have important business to attend to.”

By the way he patted his large belly, Duril had an idea about what that important business entailed. He nodded and sat at the desk, to show his intention to do as he was told. Granius left without addressing another word to him, while humming a happy tune. Duril waited patiently until his employer had been gone for some time, busying himself with writing down some of the transactions in the large tome indicated for him. At least he wouldn’t ruin Decottieri’s reputation by not writing down a single letter, as his supposed job entailed.

However, after some time passed, and Duril considered that Granius had to be seated at a table in front of delicious dishes, prepared to stuff his generous belly, he tiptoed to the door and listened intently. The sounds of the market were muffled by the heavy door, but no one was on the other side, ready to catch him in the act of leaving his post.

Duril hurried as he opened and closed the door. At first, he would walk around and get the lay of the land. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected to find himself all alone in the large city. And now, the bright light and all the colors of the stalls hit him with the same force as before.

He walked over to one of the vendors who proudly presented his wares to the passers-by. The apples he sold were of a deep red color, and Duril’s grumbling belly reminded him that unlike his master, he wouldn’t have lunch soon, if at all.

“Good afternoon, my good man,” he said in his most charming voice, “do you happen to know where I can find a library around here?”

The vendor examined him with curious eyes. Then, he stared openly at Duril’s missing arm. “How did you lose it?” he asked rudely.

“An accident when I was very young,” Duril replied promptly. “I would like to know about a library.”

“There are many here. Which one?” the man asked and waved both hands to chase away some flies.

At a closer look, Duril noticed how the apples were damaged here and there, but the vendor took obvious care to turn them in such a way that their best sides faced a possible buyer. His inquisitive look didn’t go unnoticed.

“Are you looking to buy something, or do you just want to waste my time?”

Duril pulled back cautiously. “Forgive me,” he said courteously and moved to another stall.

The colors everywhere were vivid, and everyone was shouting happily, but Duril couldn’t help notice the harsh look in the eyes of most vendors. They were looking left and right, always on the lookout for a customer. There were plenty of those, but they seemed to be quite pretentious and not very willing to buy. After Duril left the apple stall, someone approached it and picked up one of the apples, quickly pointing out all its faults. The woman handed the apple back to the vendor. “This one has worms,” she said, without doing anything to conceal her disgust.

The vendor said something under his breath at her retreating back. The woman threw some nasty words of her own to him over her shoulder. All this time, Duril watched the scene and wondered about the so-called beauty of the city. Maybe he was rash in his judgment. A few bad apples didn’t tell the whole truth about Scercendusa.

“Are you hungry, stranger? Would you like an apple?”

Duril looked around a bit disoriented, not realizing for a few long moments where the voice had come from.

“Here, here, look up here.”

He did as he was told, and only then noticed someone hanging from a stack of wooden boxes, peering down at him. The line of stalls stopped there, and that had to be the area where the vendors kept the wares they didn’t have on display. The one calling out to him looked small enough to be a child, but the lines wrinkling the corners of his eyes gave away that he had to be an adult. He was lying on top of the stack of boxes on his belly and held one arm stretched down, holding an apple. “Take it, take it,” he encouraged Duril. “But do it quickly.”

Duril didn’t comment on what could be the reason for that and grabbed the apple.

“Go round that way and meet me in the back.”

Duril nodded at the whispered words and hid the apple in his pocket. Whoever this was, he had to be of a different mind than most vendors there. Yet, somehow, Duril doubted the apple he had been given came from the stranger’s own supply.

He went around the line of stacked boxes and turned the corner. His small benefactor jumped down and now Duril had to look down for their eyes to meet. The stranger was dressed in a grey overall that seemed enough to cover him from his shoulders down to his ankles. He didn’t wear anything else, and he had no shoes. A look at the twig-like arms jutting out of his overall were enough to convince Duril that maybe the small man needed that apple more than he did. A mop of dark hair stood perched high on his head, in a very strange fashion, but his eyes were kind, and the rest of his eccentric appearance was easy to forget once he met his gaze.

“I’m Apple Pie,” he declared and hooked his thumbs into the straps of his overall. “But you can call me Pie, for short.”

“Hello. I’m Du—Decottieri,” Duril avoided a close brush with exposure.

“Dudecottieri?” Pie asked, measuring him up and down with clever eyes. “That’s quite the name.”

“No, no, it’s just Decottieri,” Duril said quickly. “Thank you for the apple.”

“You’re new here,” Pie pointed out the obvious. “You work for Master Granius, don’t you?”

“How do you know that?” Duril asked.

Pie crossed his arms over his chest and bounced on the heels of his feet. “Ink stains,” he said and gestured with his chin.

Duril gaped at the blot of ink right in the middle of his shirt. He had been told the expense for washing it would come out of his wages. It took him a moment to remind himself that he wasn’t there to fill up tomes with every transaction happening at the Somergan Market.

“Your master is having a long lunch. Any longer than that, and it should be called dinner. Or maybe a lunch-dinner? Or lunner, for short?” Pie began chatting and scratched his chin in an obvious effort to decide something. “Come with me, and I’ll take care of your ink stain.”

“Wait,” Duril called out. “I am really grateful for the apple, but I should get back to work.” As much as he liked Pie and appreciated being told that his master would be gone for a long time, he didn’t want to waste any precious time following strangers around, as good-natured as they appeared to be.

“I know that’s not your real name,” Pie said shortly, stopping Duril in his tracks. “I don’t know what your real name is,” he added and leaned forward, taking a suspicious sniff of Duril’s clothes, “but I know you’re not who you say you are.”

How could that be possible? If Decottieri had lied and he had been in Scercendusa before, it was possible that he had made friends, as difficult as such a thing was to imagine. So, Duril stood there, completely baffled, and with no actual plan.

“Don’t worry.” Pie patted him on the belly, as that was as high as he could reach. “I don’t intend to tell on you to the guards. But you need to tell me why you smell of tiger.”

***

Toru didn’t question what Beanstalk was saying. A short gesture from his guide convinced him that it would be futile to ask any more questions, as intrigued as he was by his companion’s words. What did he mean, a place for tigers? Right there, under the white city? Deep in the ground? Toru scrunched up his nose. He didn’t at all like being underground, and he doubted that other tigers would like it very much, either. Still, all that gibberish Beanstalk had told him didn’t matter as long as he reached a place where he could climb the walls and enter the city, only to follow the scent that had pulled him there.

A scent, he realized, as his nostrils flared, that came from somewhere there, in the underground. It had to be underground because it was dark and he had sensed that they were descending from the point where Beanstalk had urged him to follow.

The yellow light at the end of the dark corridor they were moving through seemed unreal as his pupils adapted, but it was there, and they were walking toward it. As far as Toru knew, outside it was still the middle of the day, but here, time seemed to have a different flow and meaning. He continued to follow Beanstalk without saying a word. If there were answers to be found here, he would find them.

The corridor ended in a large round room, and Toru soon realized what the source of the yellow light was. Right in the middle, a tall forge rose, and creatures as small as Beanstalk moved around it, murmuring among themselves and throwing something into the mouth of the fire. They moved in a circle and seemed to have a rhythm of their own that Toru didn’t question. If anything, he felt like an intruder.

Only his nose wasn’t lying, and he could tell that the scent, now overpowering for his nose, came right from that forge.

“Hey, it is you who called me!” he shouted without thinking twice and pointed right at the forge as if it were a creature itself. “That’s the scent,” he added, addressing no one in particular and everyone present all at once. “The scent that called me.”

The procession around the forge stopped, and pairs and pairs of curious eyes turned toward them.

“It’s him,” Beanstalk announced. “It’s the tiger. He came!”

At that exclamation, the circle broke and, soon, Toru found himself surrounded by those small people who stopped only inches from him, putting out their hands, but hesitating to touch him, while talking all at the same time in excited voices. Strangely enough, Toru couldn’t understand a word, and it took him a bit of time to realize that they were talking in a language of their own.

“Finally here, finally here,” Beanstalk chanted, soon to be joined by an entire chorus.

“I’m here to enter the city because--” Toru stopped and narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. You’re the ones who made the scent! You called me to you!”

“Yes, we did, we did,” Beanstalk said excitedly. “We had to make you come.”

Rightfully or not, Toru felt cheated and confused. “But I was supposed to be on a quest to vanquish that evil,” he said. “Not to come here because you wanted me to.”

“The evil, yes, the evil,” Beanstalk said. It appeared that he was the one chosen to talk in the name of all those present. “It has grown and grown, day after day, and we couldn’t call for you. We’re bound to the city, we cannot leave it, so we needed to call for you the ancient way.”

Toru pointed at the forge rising tall and hot as hell in the middle of the room. “What’s the ancient way? This thing?”

Beanstalk waved like details such as that weren’t important. “We still grow it in the dark. We just had to build something that would be strong enough to bring you here.”

“What are you growing in the dark?” Toru asked.

One of the others rummaged around on the nearby wall and then brought something with him. He opened his palm, and Toru marveled at the sight. Right in front of his eyes, a flower like no other bloomed. It had dark and orange petals, and if he looked close enough, he could see the pattern of a tiger’s fur. “What’s this?” he asked, half-lost for words.

“It is the tiger flower,” Beanstalk explained. “But you must go up, up, up.” He pointed at the ceiling, and only then did Toru notice that the smoke rising from the forge was pulled upward by a large chimney at the end of which he could see a patch of blue sky.

“Aren’t guards up there?” he asked. “You could just be trying to send me into a trap.”

“If we wanted that, we could have just let those manning the cannon mouths throw rocks at you.”

Toru hesitated. If Duril were there, he would know how to ask questions in that courteous way of his. Or if Varg were present, he would stare into those bead-like eyes gazing at him with hope from all sides, and he would be able to tell what they were truly thinking.

But he was alone, and he neither had Duril’s nice manners, nor Varg’s mysterious power of convincing anyone to surrender their secrets. So, he dug his heels in and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and why you called me here, when I could just be having steak and sleep all day.”

Silence followed his words, and then, the group began talking among themselves in that strange language again. They seemed surprised and confused by what he was saying. It was Beanstalk who called for order and then turned toward him. “You’re young compared to the other tigers. But you’re the last. And that means, you are our last hope, as well.”

TBC

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