Chapter Five

“And in its habitual lack of respect for decorum, the beast has delighted to let him remain in that position.”

 

“Well, High Sister, let’s see how you managed,” God said, popping into existence behind Leshin’s back as she plated up the meal. Leshin shrieked, turning to see the abomination’s horrifying grin, and she shivered.

Two days had passed.

Throughout that time, Leshin had gone to the kitchen every eight hours, cooking, plating, and—shortly thereafter—throwing away meal after meal. The meat locker seemed to refill itself every time they closed the door, but that offered no comfort. If the same limbs had regenerated, perhaps Leshin could have simply assumed that no real people died for the sake of God’s supper, but every new bit of flesh seemed unique, with differing skin tones, body types, and tattoos.

Not to mention different wounds.

Of course, God would have to wake up on Leshin’s turn. She and Ilaki had managed a certain rhythm with the meals, but Leshin couldn’t pretend to call herself a legitimate chef by any means. Ilaki carried her dead weight every shift.

And now, God had come to collect.

“Y-yes, your omnipotence,” Leshin said. She got out the small, rolling cart in the corner of the kitchen and covered it with a white sheet, then placed the plates on the top. Wheeling it out into the dining room, she watched God strut by her and sit at the head of the long table.

Six wooden things sat immobile on the side seats, arranged as honored guests, with plates piled up with small steel cubes and cups filled with blood. Even a passing glance at one of them would send spikes of raw wrongness through Leshin’s mind. Agony at just a look. Their incomprehensible forms seemed to defy every sacred law of nature, being both visible inside and out—just as wooden as God, but far more… organic. While God resembled an elegantly carved puppet, these were rough, covered in bark, stray leaves, and oily vines. As though an endelwood tree had somehow grown into the vague shape of a person, then continued growing in directions that simply shouldn’t exist. If she gazed upon them for too long, they would send her to the floor, force her to utter babbling prayers, send tears of blood streaming from her eyes. At first glance, Leshin might have assumed they were other gods—friends or guests of God, perhaps—but as the days had passed, she began to think of them as mere statues. Dead suits of armor, gathered in a silent vigil around God’s table.

Ignoring the statues as best as she could—even a cursory glance would bring her to her knees—Leshin placed the fancy silver platters she’d prepared before God and stepped back, taking a red cloth, and dabbing the blood from her eyes. She’d practiced serving several times, but those damned things forced everyone to weep bloody tears every time they came in. The best anyone could do was keep a cloth on-hand.

“Ah,” God said with a sickening grin. “But what of our guests?” it asked, gesturing to the six motionless suits of wooden armor around it.

“U-uh, I…”

“No matter,” God said, waving an idle hand. “They can’t even eat anymore. Let them watch. Serves them right.”

“Y-yes, your magnificence.”

Ilaki had walked in at some point with the serving glasses, and she poured God a cup of hearty spirits from the pantry.

“Mmm,” God said, looking at the carafe Ilaki served it from. “An interesting choice. But is it not proper for the master to ask for a selection, rather than be served without consent?”

Ilaki froze.

“Forgive me, your excellence. Would you like another?”

“Hah!” God said. “We’ll see if I do.”

It took the glass in its elegantly carved hand, then brought it to its lifeless lips.

God put the glass down without a word one way or another. It then took the silverware Leshin had set and began to cut into the grilled bicep that she and Ilaki had spent the past four hours preparing.

“Well, well,” God said, “I’m almost impressed. You didn’t take the coward’s way out.”

“N-no, your regency,” Leshin said. “You deserved the best the kitchen had to offer.”

God took a bite. “Good. This will do nicely.”

Leshin’s heart leapt for joy.

“Have a bite,” God said, holding its fork out in Leshin’s direction.

“O-oh,” Leshin said. She hesitated, but… hesitation would get her nowhere in God’s service. So, she leaned out and took a bite.

She choked back bloody tears, swallowing. It tasted warm and buttery—a well-prepared and well-seasoned flavor, fit for a god. Delicious. Sinful.

Leshin kept her face stony as she swallowed.

“Well, I daresay you two are quite talented in this field. I’m surprised you didn’t put up a fight,” God said, taking another bite. “My last priestesses refused to prepare their first meal properly. I had to show them how, the utter boors. But you? You ate your own kin without so much as a whine! Perhaps I’ve hired a competent staff this time.”

“T-thank you, your magnificence,” Leshin said, wiping her tears away.

“You’ll be glad to hear, then, that these are humans, not Kinfolk,” God commented. “But you’ve never heard of humans, I’m sure.”

“N-no, your grace.”

“Ugly things, your cousins,” God said. “Common, brutish, impure. They have a bad habit of evolving again and again and again. I used to annihilate them on sight, until I learnt that they have a certain… appeal.”

It took another bite.

“You Kinfolk are my own creation, of course,” God said. “Perfect in your precious imperfection. A hard balance to reach. Perfect beings love to make trouble—like my guests, you see!”

God gestured to the six statues, their wooden masks staring with dead eyes into nothingness. “Not a word from them in two eternities,” God said. “I daresay I’ve given up on them.”

Leshin and Ilaki shared a look from across the room.

“Well, High Sister, I suppose I underestimated your ability to prepare a meal on time,” God finally said as it stripped the meat clean off of the arm. Its mouth was rife with strings of flesh between its teeth, but it didn’t seem to mind. “It would be such a shame to have such a wonderful supper without sharing it. Why don’t you take this to our guest in the basement?” it said, gesturing to one of the side soups, made from potatoes and tender human thighs.

“The… basement?”

God frowned. “Four floors down. I trust you can find it?”

“Y-yes, your… beautifulness.” Leshin took the bowl and a spoon, then shuffled away from the room. Ilaki tried to follow, but God held up its hand and kept her in place.

With that, Leshin left the dining room.

It took hours for Leshin to find her way to the basement, winding through identical halls that seemed to overlap each other in impossible ways; when she took three left turns, she’d somehow end up in a room to the right of one of her earlier turns, and then sometimes she’d realize that she was walking in one of the exact same rooms she’d visited before, but on the ceiling instead of the floor. The place seemed designed to frustrate its occupants, which made a sick sort of sense to Leshin.

God was looking for opportunities to inflict pain. One failure, and that would be it.

So, Leshin refused to give it any chances. She kept going until she found four separate staircases, which finally led her into the depths of the basement. Or—well, it better resembled a dungeon. With a rough, stone floor, a stalactite-covered ceiling, and tiny rooms behind bars of wrought iron, the dungeon seemed to go on forever, though its cells were barren. Barren, that is, until Leshin turned one final corner and came face-to-face with a man.

There, behind the bars of his cell, the man sat alone, naked save a ragged loincloth, and chained by the legs to a small, U-shaped stake in the floor. He glanced up at her, his grey eyes full of defiance, even though his whole body looked emaciated. Long, lanky limbs with no meat on them dangled limp by his sides, and he hardly seemed able to move.

Strangest of all, he wasn’t Kinfolk. She’d have assumed he was one of those “human” things, but he seemed far, far taller than any of the bodies in the meat locker. Perhaps nine, ten feet tall.

“H-hello,” Leshin said.

The man said nothing.

“I’ve brought you… dinner,” she said, setting the plate down just outside the cage. He looked up at her with a dull scowl. He bent his elbow, only for his hand to swing uselessly at the end of his wrists. A brutal, jagged scar ran across his forearm. The tendons had been cut long ago.

“O-oh,” Leshin said. She glanced around the room and found a small, brass key hanging off a hook in the hall. She took it and creaked the ancient door open, flitting inside and setting the spoon by the man’s feet. “Are they both like that?”

He nodded, and the long, wispy, blonde beard on his face bounced. The scraggly thing was practically transparent—Leshin suspected that, were the man capable of grooming himself, he’d never have willingly let his beard grow out past the stubble phase. Nevertheless, if his tangled mop of straw-colored hair was anything to go by, his mangled hands couldn’t accomplish much in the way of self-care.

“Would you like me to… feed you?” she asked.

He nodded.

She sat down and dipped the spoon into the soup. “How long have you been down here?” she asked.

The man opened his mouth, revealing a horrifically mutilated lump of flesh that may have, at one point, been a tongue.

“I see,” she said. “This is God’s doing?”

He smirked.

“Obvious answer, I suppose,” Leshin chuckled as she spoon-fed the man. “I hope you like it.”

The man shrugged as he sipped on the soup.

“You aren’t a ‘human,’ are you?” she asked. Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. “That’s okay. I’m not a human either.”

He let out a strangled sort of chuckle.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

All he gave in response was a sad smirk.

“Right. Is it alright if I try to guess it?”

The man gave that same gravelly laugh. He nodded.

“Kilemene?” she asked. He shook his head. “Mekeleni? Or… Linoshi?”

No to all three.

“Okay, uh… if you’re not a Kinfolk, perhaps you wouldn’t have a Kinfolk name, I suppose. I’m not even close, am I?”

He shook his head with a smug smile.

“Right. How about… Smirk? Can I just call you Smirk?”

He chuckled, a gravelly, ragged sound like a rake dragged through a dirt road.

“You like that one?”

The man shrugged.

“Okay. ‘Smirk.’”

Smirk smirked.

She finished feeding him, and she offered a soft smile. “I’d like to stay and keep you company, but… I’m a prisoner, too. And I doubt my master would like me being away for too long.”

For a moment, Smirk looked down. Then, he smiled and mouthed something at her. Something that looked like, “Come back soon.”

Or maybe, “Some black shoes.” She wasn’t very good at reading lips.

 

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