A Natural History of Hell: Stories (21 page)

That night she told him the story of how she came to the mountains and discovered him on the ledge at Churnington
’
s Gorge. In the morning, he kissed her good-bye, and she told him that at the end of five years she would send a thought-form servant to him to ask if he
’
d renounced the sword and was returning. He nodded as he walked away, his sword upon his back. In the valley of the known world, he soon found employment as a bodyguard to a corrupt bishop who was often the target of assassination attempts. From there his reputation as a swordsman grew. He moved on to work as a mercenary and fought for the side that paid the most in any conflict, often changing sides in mid-battle for the promise of better. By his fourth year away from the mountains, Ismet Toler was a name to be reckoned with.

But as that fourth year drew to a close, after proving the effectiveness of his blade, he felt he
’
d had enough of slaughter. The disfigurement of his victim
’
s bodies, the blood and severed flesh, had become nauseating to him. It was all too much of the same gore, and he felt a need to move on to the next level. His diary from this time proves he was on the verge of renouncing the sword and returning to -I-. For the remaining months of the year, he decided to leave his position, training assassins for the Igridot royalty, and head for Camiar, where he would rent rooms, live off the spoils of his killing, and wait for -I-’s servant to appear.

In that brief space of days that he travelled north on the road to Camiar, Fate in all its bad timing and low humor stepped in, and he somewhere, somehow, acquired the Coral Heart, the blade, whose magical properties would eventually make him a legend. Toler swore to never reveal how he came by it, and so this crucial juncture in the story is blank. I constantly comb the valley of the known world for clues to those few days he spent retreating along that road, and have found nothing. I could spin a fanciful tale, but instead, I merely direct you to where the trail of known fact resumes.

By the time Toler entered the city, he
’
d already turned to red coral a band of highwaymen who
’
d foolishly tried to rob him and take his horse. It was the trio of palace guard, though, who confronted him in the marketplace at Camiar and wound up red statues of their former selves, that caused the trouble. He knew he would have to flee. Learning the feel of the sword, he was eager to use it, but he
’
d not yet mastered its extra weight or reckoned the sharpness or balance to the point where he could yet defeat the entirety of the royal guard of the palace of Camiar. He left the city by night as door-to-door torchlight searches for him were being conducted. There had been witnesses.

Two days later, he arrived in a village, a hundred miles away, separated from Camiar by the Forest of Sans. He chose Twyse as his hideout as it was off the main trails that linked the palaces of the realm. If the snowy, sleepy place had any reputation it was as a home for hunters who stalked the forests that lay just beyond. The furs and skins of Twyse were renowned among the royalty, but its inhabitants cared little for news from outside its borders and would have cheered a tale of the demise of three of the royal guard of Camiar. Toler had stayed there once before and came to know the people as that rare stock who could mind their own business.

He paid handsomely for the use of a barn at the edge of the village with a fireplace and a loft to sleep in, and paid extra for the owner to keep his mouth shut. Then once the great wooden doors were secured, he unwrapped the Coral Heart, which he
’
d hidden beneath an extra cloak, and began a regimen of daily practice. His diary attests that every hour he felt his ability with the sword growing. As he wrote, “The weapon has a personality, and if I
’
m not mistaken a will, which I am learning to merge with mine.”

At night, after a full day of training, Toler would go to the Sackful, the town
’
s one inn, sit in a dark corner, drinking honeycomb rye, and contemplate what he would tell -I-’s mysterious servant when it materialized. Only days earlier, he
’
d planned to renounce the sword, but now he meant to tell her through her messenger of the nature of the enchanted weapon and how it was changing him. He wanted to tell her that it took the art of the blade to a new level, one he wished to explore. He
’
d beg her for a reply in which she would tell him her thoughts about his decision.

The days passed in Twyse, overcast but with no visits from the royal guard or news of local manhunts. Toler continued his exercises and imaginary battles and now had begun to move around the entire expanse of the barn in a lunatic dance that made even him doubt his sanity at times. Still, it was exciting and he
’
d burst out laughing when the sword would show him something new. Now when he held the coral heart of the grip, he felt a pulsing in his palm that matched the beating of his heart. As Toler reminds us in a diary entry, all he wrote for that particular day—“This sword has slain monsters.”

As his confidence grew through his daily practice, he became bolder at night as well, conversing and drinking with the people of the village at the Sackful. They told him of their hunting and he recounted some of his exploits as a mercenary, failing, of course, to mention his name. The moment that marked a monumental transition in the life of Ismet Toler was the night, before leaving for the inn, that he removed his old sword from its sheath and replaced it with the Coral Heart. From the moment it hung at his side, he felt a great sense of calm and a new shrewd reserve, an intuitive calculation.

That night he drank more than his fill and revealed too much about himself. Halfway into the evening, while the inn crowd was listening to a young girl sing a hunter
’
s hymn, he realized that all his newfound energy and personality, his reserve, was as a result of his yearning to use the sword again in a battle. The charm of practice had just about reached its limits and he was eager for the fray. To build the energy, he decided to hold off using the Coral Heart for another two weeks, and then, if the occasion arose, or he were to coax one into happening, he would draw the weapon and turn the world red.

That night, soon after he
’
d made his decision to continue to lay low, the chatter of the Sackful died down for an instant and the patrons were able to hear a horse approaching on the frozen road. All eyes glanced at the door, including Toler
’
s. A moment passed and then a hooded figure strode in dressed warmly against the winter night—gloves and leggings, a thick cloak. The swordsman noticed first, of course, the stranger
’
s sword hilt, which appeared to be made of clear crystal. The man strode to the bar, and the inn crowd, out of a sense of rural politeness, tried to avert their glances. They were soon drawn back to the figure, though, when the innkeeper, after inquiring if the stranger would have a cup of holly beer, gasped aloud.

What he alone was seeing, all beheld a moment later, when the man who
’
d just arrived, drew back his hood—a face and neck and even hair of a deep red hue. Toler went weak where he sat, realizing from the smooth, shiny consistency of that face, that the fellow was made of red coral. He wondered if this was one of his recent victims having chased him down for revenge. But there was nothing in the legend of the Coral Heart to suggest that its prey returned to life as breathing statues.

“I want whiskey,” said the stranger, and although he looked to be made of polished coral his mouth moved pliantly and his lips slipped into a smile without cracking his face. He pulled off his gloves, and yes, his fingers and palms too were red coral and flexed easily, although when he set one down upon the bar there was a sound as if he
’
d dropped a rock. He lifted off his cloak and set it on a chair. None were prepared for a statue come to life.

Toler, like the rest of his Sackful compatriots, couldn
’
t move, so stunned was he at the sight. “What manner of creature are you?” asked the innkeeper, backing away.

“My name is Thybault, and I, like you, am a man, of course.”

“How
’
d you come by that color?” asked one of the more brazen patrons, lifting the hatchet from a loop in his belt. “That
’
s the color of the devil.”

“The devil? You
’
re an idiot,” said Thybault.

The hunter with the axe stood, his weapon now firmly in his grip. “An idiot I may be,” he said, “but at least I know God never made a man out of red stone.” This said, two of his fellow hunters rose behind him.

“Coral,” said the red man.

Toler would later recount in his diary that it was at this moment that he realized the stranger had come for him. He cautiously moved his cloak up to cover the hilt of the Coral Heart. A tightness in his chest told him not to get involved in what was about to happen. The anticipation of battle in the room was palpable. The hunters slowly advanced toward Thybault, who turned to the innkeeper and said, “Where’s my drink?”

While he was looking away, they lunged. When they saw the speed with which he drew his sword, it was visible in their faces that they knew they
’
d made a mistake. The lead hunter raised the hatchet high, but the crystal sword had already punctured his throat, and in an eyeblink later he disintegrated into salt that showered down into a pile on the wooden floor. There were screams of fear and wonder from the patrons. The two other hunters
’
eyes were wide. The shock made them living statues as Thybault became a statue alive, spinning into a crouch and running one through, exploding him into salt. Then an upward motion and the crystal blade buried itself in the underside of the third man
’
s chin. Again, it rained salt onto which fell the empty garments.

The innkeeper put Thybault
’
s drink on the bar. There was silence as the coral man returned his glistening sword to its sheath and lifted his whiskey. The only one to move was a young woman who, getting to her knees, gathered in her apron the salt that had been the hunters. Toler was frightened, and he hated the feeling. He
’
d trained for weeks to reach the condition he was in, and the first instance where he might have tried out the Coral Heart, fate threw at him an enemy who was a superior swordsman and made of red coral. He knew it could only be magic.

Thybault finished his drink and smashed the clay cup on the floor. He turned and stared out at the patrons cowered into the corners of the inn. The candles’ glow against his polished complexion set him in a bright red haze. He put on his left glove. “If anyone knows of a man, Ismet Toler, tell him I challenge him to a duel out in this latrine of a street tomorrow morning when the church bell chimes. Every day he doesn
’t meet me, I’
ll turn another three of you to salt. We
’
ll start with the children.” He put on his other gloves, wrapped his cloak around him, lifted his hood, and was gone. In the silence that followed, they heard his horse, which must have been massive from the percussion of its hoofbeats, moving away into the sound of the winter wind.

Someone cursed, and then the inn erupted into a den of chatter. Toler was so scared he could barely move. Still, he managed to stand and slowly make his way to the door. He didn
’
t want to run, which would, although they didn
’
t know his name, identify him as Ismet Toler. When he neared the entrance, he turned around and shuffled backward, a little at a time, until he was free of the place. The cold air helped him to think, and he realized that it wouldn
’
t be long before the people of Thyse gave him up to the crystal sword. As he ran toward the barn, he made the decision to ride out that night, take to the forest, and escape.

In his diary entry that was made apparently just before setting out on horseback, he wrote, “Something powerful is after me. I
’
m running away.” Then he fled into the night forest, stopping and listening every now and then to make sure Thybault and his giant horse weren
’
t following. There was no moon, and the sky was overcast. Toler stayed off the trails, and that made the journey slow and difficult. The temperature dropped well below freezing and before he was even an hour into his escape, it began to snow. Still, he kept moving forward, but for every few yards he
’
d cover the white wind pushed harder against him. By the end of another hour, he was sure he
’
d freeze—a statue in a saddle. An hour farther on and the snow was so blinding, he was sure they
’
d been traveling in circles for the last five miles. His hands were so cold, he was losing his grip on the reins; his face was all but numb. The incessant pummeling of his eyes by the small hard flakes made him ride with them closed, and what he saw behind the lids was more snow driving down within his mind. In his confusion he mistook the sound of the wind for that of a children
’
s choir, and it made him recall Thybault threatening, “We
’
ll start with the children.” The only thought that stayed fixed in his mind was that he was a coward.

It came to him at one point in the storm that the horse was no longer moving. He looked up into the squall to see what had happened and felt a pair of hands grasp his arm. Their touch was so wonderfully warm. He squinted against the snow and saw a small form in a black cloak standing beside his horse, reaching up to him. “Come with me,” said a female voice. Ice cracked off him as he climbed down. He turned back to the animal to see if it was still alive. “Don
’
t worry, your mount will be fine.” Somehow he heard her voice clearly beneath the howl of the wind. She pulled him gently by the arm, and he followed.

A few minutes later they entered a cottage built beneath giant pines whose boughs blocked some of the blizzard. He groaned slightly when he heard the door close behind him and felt the warmth of a fire. “You saved me,” he said finally, turning to his host. The young woman had already removed her cloak and was hanging it on a peg near the door. When she looked up and smiled, he knew he
’
d seen her before. “Where do I know you from?” he asked, his hand dropping to the coral hilt.