She caught movement out of the corner of her eyes, and her first thought was a cloud of flies had abandoned one of the corpses and was coming toward them. She raised her hands, intending to fend off the insects, but when she turned in that direction, she saw no mass of flies streaking toward them. Instead, she saw a figure – a person, or something shaped very much like a person – walking with sandaled feet across the blood-soaked ground. There was something about the way the figure moved, a subtle grace that Lori thought of as feminine, although it was difficult to gauge gender given the way he or she was dressed – a loose-fitting brown robe cinched at the right shoulder like a toga, leaving the left arm free, and beneath this a plain white shirt with long wide-cuffed sleeves. The figure wore a head covering that looked something like an unadorned bishop’s miter, made of simple white cloth, with thin strips hanging down on either side. The outfit looked like something that might’ve been worn around the time of the Roman Empire, but the cloth looked relatively new, and it was clean. Not a spot of blood on it. The person’s face was covered by a white cloth mask, which had no openings for eyes, nose, or mouth. Lori found the effect eerie, especially once she noticed the figure’s hands were covered by white gloves, its feet by white socks. What if there was no person beneath the cloth? What if there was simply nothing?
The figure stopped when it was within five feet of them. It had kept its arm at its sides the whole way, and it made no move to raise them now.
“Welcome. I am the Haruspex, and this—” the figure gestured toward the crosses and the people bound to them, “—is the Garden of Anguish. Have you come seeking knowledge?”
Edgar said nothing. He’d warned Lori that he was going to drop her off and leave, and yet here he was, standing next to her. It was clear, however, that he didn’t intend to take the lead in dealing with the Haruspex.
“Yes,” Lori answered, throat so dry she could barely get the word out.
“This is good. If you had stopped for any other reason, I would have been forced to kill you both and use you as fertilizer for my crop. Rules, you know.”
The Haruspex’s voice was calm, soothing, genderless, and devoid of all emotion save for a mild pleasantness. Lori watched the area of the mask over where the Haruspex’s mouth should be, but she saw no sign of lips moving.
“What’s a Haruspex?” Lori asked. “I’m not familiar with the term.”
The cloth-faced creature regarded her for a moment with whatever senses it possessed.
“It’s a Roman word. A Haruspex was a priest who divined knowledge by examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. Although in my case, I don’t do the interpreting. That you do yourself. My Garden is like a buffet in that sense. I supply the meat – you serve yourself.”
A breathy sss-sss-sss came from the Haruspex, and it took Lori a moment to realize the creature was laughing, or at least doing its version of it.
“Exactly how does this work?” Lori asked.
“The process is simple,” the Haruspex said. “Just start walking among the crosses until one of the bodies speaks to you, both literally and figuratively. Everyone has someone waiting for them in the Garden. Someone special.”
Edgar winced at this, and she understood why he didn’t want to accompany her into the Garden. He feared confronting whoever was waiting for him within. She felt the same, but if she was to have any hope of finding some way to restore her life to normal, she had no choice but to enter the Garden and face whatever she found there.
“What do I do after I go in?” she asked.
“It all depends on which of my beautiful flowers stops you,” the Haruspex said. “Since the earliest days of your species, if one wished to gain insight into that which was hidden, one needed to peer inside the greatest mystery of all – a living body. What makes its heart beat, its lungs breathe, its blood flow…. What makes it love, makes it hate, makes it afraid? Where is the soul, and once it is located, what secrets might it share with us? Can it tell us what is happening now, far away from our sight? Can it show us that which is to come, and how to ensure those events come to pass – or how to prevent them from occurring? Can it show us the past, shadows of memory we can barely recall, nightmares we lived but fear to revisit?”
These last words hit Lori like a hammer blow. She wanted to remember what had happened to Aashrita and why, but she was also deeply terrified of discovering the truth.
“All of these things can be learned in my Garden. All you have to do is be brave – or foolish – enough to enter.”
The Haruspex had no visible mouth, but Lori heard the smile in its voice as it spoke this final sentence.
So far, Edgar had listened without saying anything, but now he asked, “And what is the price for this knowledge?”
“Price?” the Haruspex said. Lori heard the smile in its voice again. “What makes you think there’s a price?”
“Because there’s always one on the Nightway,” Edgar said.
Lori looked at the man’s prosthetic legs and thought of the price he’d had to pay for the beetles’ help in escaping the Vermilion Tower.
“Of course, you are correct,” the Haruspex admitted. “The price for knowledge gained here is a simple one. You must help me tend to the Garden.”
“What sort of ‘help’ would I have to do?” Lori asked.
“That will be revealed when all your questions have been answered,” the Haruspex said.
“That’s bullshit,” Edgar said. He turned to Lori. “You know that, right?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But what choice do I have? I need to know.”
“No, you don’t. You can come with me. You can run.”
It was a tempting offer. She had no way of knowing what would happen to her inside the Garden, or even if she’d survive the ordeal. And she had no idea what sort of price she’d have to pay for the knowledge she sought. Knowledge that she needed, even if she didn’t want it.
She thought of Aashrita’s headstone, rain running down its face, over her name and her birth and death dates.
“I have to,” she said.
Edgar looked at her for a long moment before nodding.
“Then it is settled,” the Haruspex said. “I have already prepared the auguries for you. All part of the service.”
Lori had thought both of the Haruspex’s hands had been empty, but now she saw the being clutched a long, wicked-looking knife in its right hand, the blade covered with old, dried blood, as if it had never been cleaned. Had the blade been there before? Had it just appeared? Really, what did it matter? It was there now.
She held the blanket tight around her as she began walking between the rows of crosses. The cloth did little to keep her warm, but she didn’t know if that was due to the temperature here or if it was caused by her fear. Either way, she wished she had a sweater. A warm jacket would be nice, too. Most of all, she wished she had some fucking shoes. The ground here was gritty and sandy, as she’d experienced elsewhere in this realm, and it hurt to walk on with bare feet. But that wasn’t the main reason she wanted shoes. It was so the flesh of her feet wouldn’t come into contact with any of the blood that had been spilled here, of which there was a copious amount. It made the sand clump together in a manner that reminded Lori of what litter did when cats peed in their box. The thought was so ridiculous she almost laughed, but she stopped herself. She feared if she started laughing now, she would never be able to quit.
The blood-stink was worse this close to the bodies. No, not bodies. People. They weren’t dead yet, although they probably wished they were. She knew she would if she were in their place. There were other odors here, too. A smell like raw chicken, which she assumed came from the victims’ exposed organs. The musky scent of shit and the ammonia smell of piss, both the result of crucified bodies expelling whatever waste remained within them. Another reason to wish she had shoes. The Garden wasn’t silent. People moaned and whispered, drew in slow, painful breaths, mumbled prayers to whatever gods might exist to put them out of their misery. But if there were any such gods, it seemed they weren’t listening.
The crosses were arranged in neat rows regularly spaced from one another. It felt like she was walking through some nightmarish version of a cornfield, except the stalks held more than just ears – they had entire bodies on them. She felt laughter threatening again, and this time she bit her lip hard, hoping the pain would help her hold it back. She tasted blood, and she thought once more about that time she was a child and had bit her tongue.
“That was really gross.”
The voice was so soft, Lori almost didn’t hear it. She stopped and turned in the direction she thought the voice had originated from. A girl’s voice, she thought.
