Republic of Weird Dogs

The Purple Muds swayed like an ocean of obsidian honey. A phantom reflection mirrored my footsteps, pushing up as I pushed down. The subterranean passenger moved at it’s own pace, allowing no rest, taking steps at weird angles. Haste, hesitation, or daydreaming could lead to an easy end, and the fallen slept beneath the surface, frozen in place as they had drowned. Mud-swimming fiends would feed on the bodies of the careless or unlucky, and starving creatures would reach up to snatch the unaware.

I was interrupted from my walking slumber by my companion, the elder of the Lorei-Kab nomads. He sat cross-legged atop a saddled throne carried aloft by a mud-buffalo, surrounded by servants. Some sat while others clung to ropes hanging from the throne. His followers trailed behind leading their own pack-beasts stacked high with bags and ornate boxes, carefully balanced and held in place by thick, colored ropes. Bells adorned everything, and shook with each step.

The nomads wore colorful, layered garments with strips of fabric hanging off each limb, easily grabbed were anybody to slip. They obsessed over their shoes, decorating them with patterns and small bells. Many carried several pairs on their person, hanging from belts, sharing them as shows of gratitude; cobblers were afforded thrones of their own, though none as lavish as the elder’s. Few carried weapons. Less than a dozen wielded overly long spears, no doubt used to jab at creatures underfoot or fish for drowning stragglers.

They sang in an unfamiliar language, and even those that slept were humming.

“You would not accept shoes, you would not accept a seat by my side,” the elder spoke. “Surely you must eat?” He had a kind face. Bells hung from his ears and through the gaps in his clothing I could see scars, maybe decades old.

One of the servants suspended himself by rope, walking sidewards along the buffalo. He reached out with a folded cloth concealing breads and dried meat.

“You were curious about the singing, yes?” asked the elder. “For generations we have sung to find our way.”

The choir swelled behind me and he lifted both hands into the air. Above us, a wispy line traced over the sky, extending to the horizon like slow, perpetual lightning. It throbbed with each beat, every ring of the bell casting sparks that escaped into the clouds.

“Our singing reveals the song-line. It guides us from one destination to the next, and has never lead us astray. No, I do not know the origin of this tradition, nor do I fathom what forces we meddle with. Yet, with tradition comes trust. We trust in the song-line, and it trusts that we preserve it. Do not assume I have not noticed your expressions of skepticism. Yes, I do believe it is living. It pulses and moves in the fashion of a breathing creature. Any leader would be a fool to abandon such a resource. Don’t you agree, young one?”

I smiled, and kept my objections to myself.

“Ah, sorry,” he laughed. “I forget your situation. I cannot call you young one, nor could you be considered old. I suppose I could simply call you by your name, Ehto. An unusual name, it is. Tell me more of your peoples. Humor an old man.”

I shared with him stories of the Drowning Marches and Red Muds. How I, along with my Samehki brothers and sisters, lead wars against the Vora monarchs armed with weapons forged from fallen stars. When I did not fledge, I was cast out to find my own way, bearing no ill will towards my family. I was to find the source of my misfortune and correct it, only then could I return.

The Vora had once ruled over mankind, but because of those like me were now a dwindling, miserable race. The Samehki monks, among others, trained from birth to combat them. In my travels, I discovered that people far from the marches lacked fear in them.

“A man in a boy’s body,” he said. “I would see your story preserved in poetry.”

*

We approached harder Muds and the shadow at my feet slipped away like a thief. Jagged treetops cut up the horizon, and the smell of ash was overwhelming. Smoke polluted the sky above the forest, colliding with the song-line, creating a mosaic of gray and green dust. Amid the winding tree trunks, glimmers of man-made light splashed leafy blades like incandescent gore. Trees in the Muds were a rare, suspicious sight.

It would be safe to stop, but the nomads pushed forward.

“Our destination,” said the elder. “You’re surprised? The people here have a method of cultivating Mud. They refuse to share this secret, but I am aware that it involves the burning of curious materials. They rely on travelers for water, though I suspect they have an abundance in reserve. If it were not the case, water would be enough to allow us safe passage. However their toll is much more severe. You will understand once you lead your own peoples, Ehto. Sacrifices are inevitable.”

We crossed hollowed trees filled with water, harboring floating potted plants. Lamps were suspended above each plant, and the glow guided us through the thinnest woods. I tensed at the unmistakable sound of steps on leaves, but the elder raised a hand to calm me.

The nomads stopped as the path turned to brick, and armed strangers in skirts and belts filed in around us. A young warrior trained her bow on me and I met her eyes, yellow with thick pupils, unconcerned. My hand gripped the hilt of my sword, an action I had no recollection of initiating. A flamboyantly dressed man placed a hand on her wrist, swiveled to the other warriors, and gestured as if he were swatting a fly. Their bows lowered in unison. His robes were gaudy, his nose hooked, with intense eyes too far apart, like a florid bird of prey.

“Kirdle, old friend,” said the elder to the robed man. “The buffalo with the orange ropes—you will find your fee in full.”

“Old friend,” mimicked Kirdle. A tattooed warrior ascended the orange ropes and inspected the stacked barrels. He nodded to Kirdle and guided the buffalo ahead. “And the egg?”

The elder nodded, motioning to a hut erected on the back of a mammoth buffalo. A scrawny nomad exited from within, an egg cradled in his arms. A feminine hand reached out at him through the curtain door, but he brushed it aside. He placed the egg on a bed made from cloth, sticks, and feathers carried by the skirted warriors.

Eggs changing hands was taboo in any society. I made no effort to hide my alarm as they shuffled by me.

The elder pointed a stern glance at me. “Calm yourself, Ehto.”

“You have not introduced your companion, old friend.” smiled Kirdle.

“Allow me,” he said. “You stand before Ehto of the Samehka. Beast-slayer, storyteller, and wanderer of the Muds. He is accompanying me as a guardian until he finds what he is looking for.”

“And what is it you seek, Ehto of the Samehka?” Kirdle asked. I did not respond.

“Please excuse him, Kirdle. He is wiser than he appears, but easily disturbed by cultural divergence.” The elder stopped me before I could object. “Your fee has been paid. Please have your men guide us to our shelter.”

Kirdle’s warriors walked alongside the nomads, while a man-drawn chariot pulled him ahead. I felt the elder’s eyes against my back but I did not turn to him.

“Once a year we pass through this place, Ehto,” he said. “Once a year we leave one of ours behind. You may not be able to see the pain in my wrinkled, old face but I take no pleasure in this. Abandoning the song-line to circle around the forest could be our doom. It could mean sacrificing many lives in exchange for one.”

I was not comfortable expressing my concerns as the woman warrior walked so near me that our arms brushed against each other. Her eyes darted to me with frequency. I assumed she was looking for hidden weapons but realized that she was fixated on my hair.

She jumped as the elder spoke. “I’m told all of his people look like that. Ehto, is it true the Samehki bathe their heads in the blood of the Vora?”

The girl was wide-eyed, but I shook my head. Vora blood wasn’t maroon. It was a silly rumor spread by unscrupulous tourists.

The elder laughed. “Forgive a foolish old man who has heard too many stories.”

The brick path opened up into a wide road, encircling a village of mud-brick buildings and gardens. The circular road branched off into separate paths crossing through fields of crops, and districts of mismatched homes. Smoke rose from structures shaped as gargantuan furnaces, laborers worked the fields, and children kicked dust at beggars.

Stray dogs wandered the village, staring down from the tops of buildings, and peering through windows like suspicious old maids. Some would nip at the buffalo and have to be shooed away by nomads. They roamed wild and the villagers made no attempt to control them, some even making an effort to stay out of their way.

Warriors ushered us to the center of the circle, while the egg-bearers took a path upward towards an ivy-covered mausoleum. The warrior woman ignored my questions about the building and the elder sat stone-faced while villagers eyed me with mistrust.

We arrived at a long building with stables for the buffalo. Servants lowered the elder into a palanquin and carried him into the inn as he motioned for me to follow. They sat him on a platform surrounded by incense pots and dangling charms. No sooner than he was settled did more servants arrive with fruits and wine, and a chair for me. The elder waved all but a few of them away.

I sat facing the entrance with my back to the elder.

“You think ill of me, Ehto.” he said, chewing and drinking. It wasn’t a question, and I did.

*

The streets were black, and the mausoleum stood out on its hill like a beacon, illuminated by paper lamps. I tied my hair in a black cloth and stepped over sleeping servants into the darkness.

Guards patrolled the main road carrying lamps on long poles, occasionally prodding them into the shadows. I shifted through alleyways, timing my movements with their inspections, throwing dried meat to the dogs for their silence. As I progressed the buildings became more densely packed, and the alleys were too narrow to traverse. I went upward instead, scaling an obtuse home and hopping between rooftops until I was close enough to the main road that I could disappear into the fields, only pausing to rest on my belly when I sensed a patrol nearby.

On my way to cross the main road, I stumbled over an awkwardly placed brass pot and cursed. A patrolling guard approached me, so I fell to the ground, imitating a layabout, and he kicked me hard in the ribs. “Off to your home, you degenerate!”

I mumbled incoherently and escaped his sight, moving deep into the fields. Crops provided cover as I edged closer to the mausoleum steps. A guard stood at the base, and I could see no other way up. He was vigilant, affording me no possibility of sneaking by. My hands formed into mudras and I pushed them into the Mud, forming a circle of depressions. I scooped the dirt from the center with my left hand and placed it to my mouth, then pointed my right palm to the empty night and spoke.

“Help! I need help!” I heard in the distance. My own voice, altered enough that nobody would recognize it. Samehki 109^th Method: Cicada Whisper.

The guard sprung to action, sprinting off to assist. The moment I could no longer hear his shuffling, I covered the mud-sign and crept up the steps. They were taller than I realized, and seemed to stretch further as I ascended, a feeling of dread welling up within me as I inched closer to my goal. I looked behind, expecting to see the guard returning, but only found dogs. I tossed more meat down the steps, but they ignored it, shambling after me with eerie focus. I took a moment to realign my senses, then hurried my ascent. Dogs awaited me at the entrance of the mausoleum with their noses pointed at me, their stares not of this world. I pushed through the entrance with urgency but a shriek brought me to my knees.

The dogs were howling like no howl I had ever heard. It was cannons roaring, sinking ships, a son going off to war and never coming back—his mother weeping, babies wailing, a thousand funerals attended by armies of insects, hearts breaking and their contents spilling out into a whirlpool in which I was drowning. Everything went numb. My hands clapped to my ears but the sound only swelled in my head. I struggled inward but they followed. Around me were images carved into the walls and roof, like some I had seen before, created by those beholden to a Vora.

Images flashed in my mind of the times before human agency, when we were slaves to Vora emperors fighting over scraps of livable dirt.

My senses flickered in and out, and there was burning behind my eyes, smoke billowing out of my ears. The last things I saw before I fell were guards rushing into the building with dogs adhered to their backs like parasites.

*

I awoke to a white flash expecting cold stone and bars, but felt only warmth. I could hear hearth fire, boiling tea, a bird in a cage—could smell incense and dried blood. A shadow tended to the cozy abode, feeding the bird, pouring tea.

“Your senses will be slow to return, but you can understand me?” she asked. “Drink this.”

I nodded. She pressed a smoking cup into my hands and I drank. It was sweet with a coppery aftertaste, like medicine concealed by sugar. I heard a window shut, and felt her sit at my side

“I was ordered to throw you into the Mud so that your body would be devoured,” she said, her voice steady and cold. “The Lorei-Kab elder will awake tomorrow, and we will explain to him that a guard witnessed you steal a bison and flee his company.”

Yet, I lived.

“I am Cila. I was born to this tribe but I am not them,” she continued. “I was a sacrifice, as will be the egg that was taken this morning. For reasons unknown to me, the headman did not find me suitable. I was dismissed.”

We sat in silence for a moment. The curtain lifted from my eyes, and I looked at her, the flickering firelight tracing her sullen face. It was the warrior woman from before, her expression focused, almost wicked.

“No, Kirdle is not the headman. Our true leader lives deep within the mausoleum. He sleeps with his eggs, always guarded by hideous dogs. He cares more for them than he does for his own people, but we are too dependent on his gifts to sway him otherwise. I’m told this region was as barren as any other Muds before he arrived. He knew of a way to cultivate it, and asked for nothing in return. He would provide special fertilizer that if burned could turn Mud to soil. The village prospered before too long, and soon he was making demands.”

She was shaking, her eyes locked with mine.

“He wanted eggs,” she said. “At first it was one each year, then two, then his demands became so unreasonable that we began raiding. The only reason our population has not dwindled is because he rejects as many eggs as he accepts. Stores the ‘good’ eggs in his stomach and--”

She was looking at the window which was now open.

A slimy chord shot down from the ceiling, wrapping around her neck and pulling her in the air. As she struggled for breath, a grotesque, scaled dog clung to the ceiling, hissing and drooling. Before I could think, I was smashing the tea cup and using the ceramic shard to slice the beast’s tongue. Cila dropped to the floor with a gasp, and the creature scurried across the roof like an insect.

I could not find my sword, so I dashed toward a kitchen knife stuck in a block of wood. The lizard-dog scrambled to intercept me, dropping down, aiming to cling to my head. I grasped at its throat as it fell, and it flailed, cutting me above my eye. I felt around for the knife as blood poured over my face, obscuring my vision. Cila stood coughing, and pushed the knife near my hand. I gripped the handle and stabbed the monster through the roof of its mouth to its brain. It died, dangling in my hand like a rabbit in a hound’s mouth.

“It is too late for us,” Cila sighed. “Too late to run. What will you do?” She looked at me with defeated eyes.

Where is my sword?

*

A young man with tied, sanguine hair and a bloody face marched towards the barracks like a mounting storm. A lone guard stood at the entrance, trembling, extending his lamp to examine the stranger. The boy was barefoot, wearing ragged cloth, and dirty bandages tied around his arms and legs; unarmed, just a child, but a fiend from nightmares.

The guard recoiled and mumbled warnings, but the creature did not relent, it’s eyes looking straight through him. He fumbled his sword from it’s sheath and rushed the devilish boy, stabbing him through the chest. Having never stabbed a person before, the guard expected streams of blood, but the sword stuck in the boy like a stick in mud. He pulled, but the blade was trapped.

I emerged from the shadows, and my doppelganger collapsed into a mound of dirt. Before the guard could react, I crushed his head with a stone, spreading red flecks and skull dust through the air, leaving a crater in his mind. 114^th Method: Sunless Shadow.

I moved through the entrance of the barracks, clearing half the room before the two guards noticed me. The first guard was stocky, showing off my sheathed sword to the other guard, who was lanky, staring in awe at the design. Stocky looked into my eyes, or tried to, and shouted. I kicked him in the knee, snapping it inward, and he cried out. As he crumpled, I grabbed the hilt of my sword, drew it, and sliced open Lanky’s belly with a single movement.

A third guard rushed in from a side room, blade at the ready, and I kicked Lanky’s guts at her. She staggered, and I stabbed her through the thigh as she fell backwards, tearing through it, blood streaming cross the ceiling. I looked back from the door as I left, seeing them quivering and crying, and chanted a prayer.

I sprinted across the village to the mausoleum, discarding all thoughts and emotion. My concerns, ideas, dreams, and nightmares flowed like leaves on a stream, moving far away and disappearing. I closed my eyes, let myself slip into nothingness.

My body moved up the steps to the mausoleum on its own. Guards approached but arrows struck them from the dark. Cila. The dogs were waiting at the entrance, and howled at the sight of me. The sound crawled in through my ears, nostrils, mouth, but found no mind to be tampered with. They persisted for some time, but went silent one by one.

I woke. The dogs circled around me warily, and began to shift into grotesque forms. Arrows skewered them, and I cut to pieces those that tried to flee. A dog that was half-corpse lashed at me with it’s tongue, but I kicked it down the steps.

I moved deep into the mausoleum, past the carvings, down more stairs. A familiar sickness manifested in my stomach. I waded through pure blackness until no steps were below me and I tumbled into the abyss. Falling, I saw a light and let it overcome me.

A false king sat before me, weeping. Only his upper torso was visible, poking out from the ground like a miserable weed. There were cracks in the ground, and through them I could see his true body. It was scaled and endless, coiled like a mountain of the abyss. Its bloated belly was almost transparent, and I could see eggs pressed against the inside. Disgust overwhelmed me.

He hugged an egg in his arms, and it began to hatch. A naked creature emerged from the egg, half-dog and half-lizard, and stared at me.

“I was blind, but I can see you now,” a voice spoke into my mind.

I stepped in for the kill.

“You will doom these people,” he said. “Below me, in my stomach--”

I removed his head, and it rolled to the ground.

“You fool, you--” I stomped it.

I tore it apart. Everything.

*

A crowd was waiting for me as I stepped out of the mausoleum. The sun was rising, and villagers and nomads alike circled around me.

“What have you done?” shouted Kirdle. “We will have nothing left. What will we do?”

The elder repeated the question, in some form or another.

I stared up at the sky.

“Sing,” I commanded.

There was silence. I looked deep into the elder’s being. He tried to speak but I bore into him with my eyes, like knives. He seemed at a loss, but directed the nomads to sing.

The song-line formed, at first, like a ball. It spun, dispersing the smoke, and then exploded, shattering the sky like glass. It spread out in countless directions, paths crossing each other in a tangled web. The crowd gasped in horror.

“You foolish boy,” said the elder. “You accursed fool.”