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Chapter 3: A New Normal

The washroom was, thankfully, empty. It was a large, empty room with tall, narrow windows that stretched nearly to the ceiling. Dusty shafts of sunlight shone through them, a welcome change from the clouds and rain of the previous days. From here, Tuco could still make out the raucous tones of apprentices in the dormitory, although a number of them had already left for lessons or to assist the Brothers. But here in the washroom, it was peaceful. The room was larger than he had expected, and separated from the privies by a stone wall. He had used one of those, and it had been just a hole through which cold wind blew and howled. Beneath the hole was only the mountainside far below. Presumably well-fertilized mountainside, at that.

Along the outer wall of the washrooms were a series of carved wooden basins, each large enough for a person. Tuco had heard of hot baths, but he'd never had one before--if you needed to clean, you did it using a heated washbasin, or if you needed more, you went down tto the river. There were bathhouses in the larger towns, but the few times Tuco had been there, they had been far too pricey for him and his family, and why spend money on that instead of a piglet or a few chickens?

A large wicker basket held piles of rumpled robes, tunics, and other clothes, and so he dropped his own inside and, shivering, walked over to one of the basins. Inside, it was smooth and sculpted in roughly the shape of a human form. How did some of the more unusually contoured apprentices use these? And where was he supposed to get the water to fill it? Just as the thought crossed his mind, water welled up from the bottom of the tub and continued to rise, a haze of steam lifting up from it. There was a pleasant scent of cedar and lilacs. Tuco stared. He had never seen enchantment before coming here. He knew it was all demonic magic that had come from deals with the infernal, but it amazed him nonetheless. Imagine if they could have had this at home! Clean, hot water whenever you wanted it? And pleasant-smelling, as well? It would have changed their lives.

His thoughts drifted back to his family in their small hut on the outskirts of their village. He hoped they were all right. He wondered if they missed him. He missed them already--he missed home--but he had a pretty good deal in this place. Free education, free food, clean beds and clothes and fresh water. It was practically a dream. Except for the risk to his shape, his soul, and everything else.

Gingerly, he stepped into the bath. The water was hot enough that he winced, but he found that he quickly adjusted to the temperature, the submerged parts of him comfortable, those still submerging, uncomfortably hot. He slid in and lay back, and something wondrous happened. His body relaxed. The aches and pains of his travels seemed to drain out of him. He eased deeper into the water, feeling the tangles of his long brown hair loosening and freeing, floating around his shoulders. Then he let his head sink down below the surface, and the water filled his ears, and he was in his own private heaven.

There were no sounds but the warped murmur of the water around him, light splashes as his body moved. His loins pulsed with a delicious ache in remembrance of what he'd just done. What a strange and full day it had been! He'd met Changed men--monsters. He'd been accepted into a world of mystery and peril and, within mere hours, his sexuality had been permanently altered, and then he'd given up his virginity to a new friend, a handsome rabbit who had promised to lie with him whenever he liked. And it wasn't even lunchtime yet. He knew the days ahead would likely grow more difficult and more frightening, but for this moment, he felt deliciously free, unmoored from all the ties and complications and suffering of his old life. He had thought he would miss home, and perhaps he would eventually, but this place was so strange and exciting that he had no time to.

As a boy, he would eagerly call out to travelers on the road, or stop into an inn to visit and catch stories of the world beyond his small village and its grubby streets and their home with eight other children, all pretty much the same. The world beyond had always called to him--he'd hungered for the tales of every stranger who had seen strange lands and encountered their mysteries. Already, he had become more like those strangers, for he had ventured to the notorious Abyssus Abbey, source of a thousand spine-tingling tales. He had met with monsters, been altered by magic. Even without physically changing at all, he had begun the change into someone else, someone wilder and stranger. floating in his own hot, relaxing, private world.

And yet he was so comfortable, so safe here. He wished, idly, that he never had to surface from the hot water and venture out into the cold stone rooms and the laughing judgment of the other boys. It would be so nice to stay.

Stay, yes. Stay in the depths..

The thought was an idle one, and he wondered where it had come from. There was a tickle at the sides of his neck, a flutter like the flick of a fish tail. He couldn't stay, anyway; his lungs already ached for air.

But they don't have to. The water is full of air if you know how to take it. You could lie here beneath the surface and never come up unless you chose. Learn like a fish to slither along streams or lurk at the bottom of lakes. Watch the drifting ovals of fisher boats floating overhead and tease them with the scrape of your claws on the drowned wood. Let your sharp teeth taste the cold wriggle of fresh fish, or wait for a child to lean too far over a dock…

That wasn't his thought. He opened his eyes and beyond the ripple of the surface of the bath saw something sitting over him, a figure transparent, like it was made of glass. It had broad shoulders and a powerful chest, and it braced its glassy arms on either side of the tub. A head crowned with long, curving horns stared down at him, open jaws with streams of water pouring out in place of teeth. A demon.

Tuco nearly sucked in water in his shock; he realized abruptly that his lungs were screaming for oxygen. He scrambled up from the bath in terror and he got a glimpse of the creature. It stretched up out of the water, as though the bath had sprouted a liquid torso and head. Orange slivers glinted in its crystalline eyes for an instant, water pouring from its mouth in sharp little rivulets--and then the creature's shape dissolved, and it splashed back down into the tub and spattered across the floor.

In panic, Tuco scrabbled out of the tub and slithered on all fours across the cold stone floor, looking backward for any sign of the demon, but the room was empty and quiet but for the drip-dripping of water from the edges of the basin. Shivering in the cool air, he found a stack of fluffy, white linens piled in one corner of the room, wrapped it tightly around him and ran from the washroom, calling for Pike all the way down the hallway.

When he was halfway to the dorm room, he heard Pike answer behind him; the rabbit had stepped out of the dining area. “Tuco? Is everything all right? What happened?"

“A demon!" Tuco panted, hurrying back toward him, clutching the towel around himself as though Pike had not seen him naked only an hour ago. “In the washroom."

The rabbit frowned. “So soon? And it's… unusual for them to show up in the apprentice areas, though not unheard of. All right, all right, it's okay. It won't be the last one you see." He put an arm around Tuco's wet shoulders, giving him a squeeze despite the dampness. “Are you all right? Are you… altered?"

“I--I don't know. Do I look the same?" Tuco felt at his neck with his free hand, where he had felt the tickle. He told Pike about the temptation in his mind, the brief vision he had encountered.

“Temptation of Safety, sounds like," Pike said. “Or maybe Belonging. Very, very easy to get new initiates with those, when they're feeling alone and afraid and missing home." He peered closely, rubbing at the sides of Tuco's neck with his thumbs. “There are little creases here, but it looks like you caught it in time. Well done. I'm not sure what we'd have done with a leviathan for an apprentice."

Tuco nodded, feeling for himself the little creases where gills had nearly opened. He looked down at his hands. Were the webs of flesh between his fingers reaching higher than before? He couldn't tell.

Pike gave a brief nod. “Okay, this is going to bother you, I can tell, so it might be a good idea just to check yourself all over and really get to know how you're put together. What you look like. Otherwise you'll just obsess, wondering if anything has changed. You seen the looking glasses yet?"

“No, but I've looked into one before," Tuco said. His aunt had married up a few years back and in her new home they had a small looking glass that her husband had paid a small fortune for. It was an oval about a foot in diameter. The glass was dark and mottled, but you could see your face in it--a lumpy, warped version, not as clear as in a still pond on a bright day, but enough to apply makeup or fix your hair.

“Not like these, you haven't. Didn't catch them in the washroom?"

“No." Tuco hadn't looked around much after discovering the bath, and was a little uneasy about re-entering after what he had seen. But that was silly, wasn't it? The demon wasn't in there now, and could appear anywhere in the Abbey. Still, he stayed a pace behind Pike as they went back into the washroom.

“See over there?" Pike said, pointing. “Go and look."

Tuco craned his neck. “What, next to the windows?"

“Those aren't windows." The rabbit winked at him. “Go see."

Doubtfully, Tuco made his way over to the series of three square windows on the far wall. His skin prickled when he saw a person moving in one, and then as he drew closer, he saw that that figure moved just when he did--it was a looking glass, but a picture-perfect one, showing him a reflection of the room just as clear as looking at it with his own eyes. “How--how can this be?" he asked aloud, peering at it in wonder. “Did demons make these?"

“Well, once or twice I think they've been fixed by demons when they were broken. But no, just very skilled craftsmen, from what the brothers say. Those looking glasses are worth a fortune. Some of the best in the world."

Tuco peered at his own reflection curiously. So that was what he looked like--a lot like his brothers, which should have been no surprise. Strange that there was so little familiarity. You'd think your own face would feel intrinsically yours, but he'd never really seen it. His eyes were greener than he'd expected, his cheekbones a little higher. He tried to memorize every feature so he'd know when and if they changed. He pushed his long, wet hair away from his neck. The lines where gills had almost formed looked like dimples, each about as long as his little finger. He wondered if they would smooth back in time, since the change hadn't quite taken.

“All right, buddy," Pike said after a moment. “Don't fall in love with yourself there."

“Just trying to remember," Tuco murmured.

“Yeah, you'll get to use those every day, though. At least… as long as you want to."

The rabbit helped him pick out some clothes from the supply of clean laundry. He settled on robes, cinched around the waist with a soft rope belt. They fit well, and were so soft and comfortable he thought he might fall asleep in them if he wasn't careful. He'd never had clothes like this before; the best had been hand-me-downs from his older brother, worn into softness through time and use. New clothes were never desirable; they were always coarse and rough, chafing him. But these were plush and cozy and enveloping. If this was the life that working around demons earned you, and you got to work to help prevent the end of the world? It was hard to see why people would want to do anything else.

But then he remembered the aqueous, streaming-mouthed creature crouched over him in the bath, and a prickle of unease ran up his spine.

---

Lunch was a full and sumptuous affair, with plenty of cured meats and cheese and thick, crumbly bread. There was wine and weak ale to drink, and even fresh fruit. The apprentice sitting next to Pike was named Charo, and from his shoulders sprouted huge lark wings, which would occasionally shift and flutter.

“Do those work?" Tuco wanted to know.

“Dunno," Charo answered, in between bites of cured sausage.

“You haven't tried to fly?"

“What, and maybe kill myself? Not likely. Besides, I'm afraid of heights."

Tuco looked down at the huge bunch of grapes on his own wooden plate. Grapes were a rare pleasure at home. “Is this some kind of feast?"

Charo rolled his eyes at him. “You mental? It's not a feast day. This is lunch."

“You mean every meal is like this?" Tuco tasted one of the grapes. It was taut and cool, and it burst into his mouth with sweetness.

Charo scowled at him. “Oh, I get it. You're poor. At my father's house, this was how we fed the servants. This is nothing special."

“Your father must be very rich."

Charo shrugged.

“So why did you come here, then? Wouldn't you inherit everything?"

The boy shuffled his wings and gave Tuco a withering stare. “Don't you know anything? Only the oldest son inherits land. That's my brother and he's a right prick. I'm fourth son, so I'm supposed to serve the church."

“And the church sent you here?"

Charo hesitated. “Eventually. And it's wretched. So now I just need the demons to do something to my voice, my hands, my eyes, or my mind, and then I can get out of this literal hell hole and go back to live on my father's estate."

“You want to be Changed like that?" Tuco asked in horrified fascination.

“Better than living here," Charo declared around a mouthful of bread. “But you can't just wish for changes you want. Or the demons will do things to you. Worse things. You never get exactly what you want out of a change. Wishing for something specific is the worst thing you can do. That's what most of the things in the Throat did, I hear."

From who? Tuco wondered, but he thought it best not to ask out loud. Charo belched, pushed the whole bench he was sitting on backward, and left the room, leaving Tuco to finish his grapes, which he did with great enjoyment. If every meal were like this, it was a wonder the apprentices and Brothers weren't all round as orbs.

After lunch came lessons. Tuco was introduced to Brother Stetmeyer, a skinny monk who looked like a coatrack someone had hung a robe on. He had eyebrows like little wiry grey bushes, a thick mop of hair, and if he had any changes at all, Tuco couldn't make them out. He seemed uninterested in Tuco or any of the other apprentices, and boredly took them through the basics of ritual, all of which sounded horribly complex to Tuco. He hoped he wouldn't have to perform any of the more complicated tasks.

Every demon had to be summoned with specific sigils and incantations, of course, but the summoning runes had to be imbued with various elements according to their realm. There were thirteen realms, twelve for each of the Temptations, and one that was inclusive, for all of the Abyss itself. And then the demons had ranks, just like the nobility, twelve ranks going from Lord of the Abyss all the way up to Lucifer himself, the Emperor of the Abyss. For ranked demons, you had to have various sacrifices if you wanted to be sure they would come, but you could never be sure that summoning a lesser demon wouldn't end up with you being surprised by a Duke or something.

Brother Stetmeyer droned on and on, listing ranks and their appropriate sacrifices, realms and the elements used for their rituals, the names of the demon lords and the depths of the Abyss in which they lived, and after a while, Tuco gave up trying to remember any of it. It seemed more that Brother Stetmeyer enjoyed demonstrating his knowledge than actually conveying the bits of it that were most useful. Or maybe Tuco was just too far behind and would catch up eventually. What seemed most important, amid all the detail, was that apprentices would be required to read incantations--or memorize and recite them if, like Tuco, they couldn't read. Some rituals also required specialized gestures, the staged lighting of candles, or the inscribing of interlocked sigils, requiring as many as three apprentices assisting for some of the more complex ones.

Before an apprentice assisted with a ritual, he was supposed to prepare, making sure his stomach was full and his loins were satisfied, and through a series of prayers and meditations, purge his mind of fears, worries, and desires. Going into a ritual with an unprepared mind was how apprentices lost themselves, Brother Stetmeyer impressed on them in a rare moment of forcefulness. Every apprentice had the right to refuse the request for a ritual if he had not had time to purify. Though of course, refusing to serve out of fear or recalcitrance could end up with your wages being docked. It was an apprentice's primary responsibility to keep himself prepared and purified as much as possible so as to be of ready use to any Brother seeking knowledge or answers from the demons.

Brother Stetmeyer's lecture petered out more than ended, and he shuffled out of the lecture room. Most of the apprentices wandered out as well, leaving Tuco alone with several others for what was supposed to be their reading lesson. One of those remaining was Walstein, the angry man with the long black hair and the tusks. He was joking with some of the other apprentices, but that was all camaraderie; Tuco knew about boys like him from the streets. They were just as dangerous when they were laughing as when they were angry.

Tuco found a seat a good distance away, where he hoped not to attract any attention. Another apprentice sat behind Walstein--this one seemed mostly unchanged except for his right hand, whose fingers were silvery, long and pointed. When he noticed Tuco looking in his direction, he gave a nod and a wink and then, with a grin, slid the edge of his index finger along the top of the chair next to him. He made a little flourish at the end, and then a rather thick chunk of wood fell from the top of the chair onto the seat. The boy's finger had sliced through it as though it were butter.

Tuco stared in amazement. It must be frightening to have knives that sharp growing out of your hand--you couldn't handle anything without scarring or destroying it, to say nothing of the risk of accidentally slicing yourself open in a casual movement, or even in your sleep. Yet another reminder to be cautious of the demons, he supposed. Their gifts were never free.

He had been expecting another of the Brothers to administer their reading lesson, but to his surprise, Rigby entered the room, parchment rolled up under one arm. At least, he looked like Rigby: he had the same facial features, the same expressions, the same eerily precise way of moving and speaking. But Rigby had been much older, with a lined face and streaks of white in his hair; this man seemed scarcely older than Tuco. He arched one eyebrow in Tuco's direction as he passed. “Settling in, I hope?" It was Rigby's voice, but without the fullness of middle age. There was some secret here that Tuco had not yet fathomed.

The man who looked like Rigby gave them their lessons. Since Tuco was new, he said, they would have to start over, but it was all right, because most of them needed the review. He unrolled a parchment with bright red letters painted on it and began explaining their names and sounds. Tuco paid close attention, but found differentiating the symbols difficult. All of them were roundish with lines sticking out in various directions, and they all had similar names, too. A line on this side of the round bit was “bee" and a line on the other side was “dee," but how did anyone keep track of it? He never seemed to get it right when Rigby asked him for an answer, and soon was eliciting groans from the rest of the class. His face burned. He felt stupid and ashamed. And on top of it all, he knew that this would be a prime opportunity for a demon to tempt him with ease or with belonging or even power, for wasn't interpreting symbols a kind of power? So he had to be on his guard not to wish too hard that he could understand all this.

The class went on to sounding out words using the symbols he hadn't even learned yet, and then he was completely lost, so he just sat and paid attention and tried to somehow soak up the knowledge. He liked the word for 'bed', he decided, because the word looked like what it described, a comfy little bed with a headboard and footboard. And there was the b at the beginning and the d at the end. Beedee. Bed. He would try to remember that word any time he couldn't remember which way the lines were supposed to point out of the letters.

At some point he realized he was so distracted with his thoughts he had forgotten to pay attention, but that was all right, because now Rigby was going over bizarre, spider-leggy letters that he called calligraphic. So Tuco let his gaze wander across the class and saw the boy with the razor fingers looking at him and grinning. Tuco stared back, puzzled, and the boy pointed in front of him at Walstein. The large, powerful-looking man sat with his arms folded, occasionally snorting or sucking air. His tusks protruded up from his bottom lip and made him drool constantly, forcing him to suck in air or drool onto his own chest. But the boy behind him seemed more interested in the long cascade of raven-black hair that spilled from Walstein's head, over the back of the chair, into an inky pile on the floor behind him.

Razor Boy pointed at the hair and then waggled his silvery fingers, grinning.

He meant to cut Walstein's hair. Tuco urgently shook his head, mouthing the word “No."

Razor Boy leaned closer, his grin growing wider as he nodded.

Tuco waved his hands emphatically, crossing his forearms, but stopped at a sharp look from Rigby. He slumped down in his chair.

The boy behind Walstein extended one gleaming finger and drew it across the back of Walstein's neck. Black locks tumbled to the floor, piling up.

Tuco groaned inwardly. Walstein would be so angry. There would probably be a fight. Someone would want revenge, someone would want safety, and demons would be all too happy to answer those desires. Tuco just didn't want to be there when it happened.

But then he stared. The dark curtain of hair was slowly extending, lengthening inch by inch back toward the floor. Walstein knew it was happening, too--as soon as the hair started growing, he gave a little shiver and his eyes went half-lidded. Even from where he was sitting, Tuco could see the coarse black hairs on Walstein's arms lifting up. Walstein turned in his chair and gave a death glare to the boy behind him, pulling back his lips to reveal a mouth full of oversized, pointed teeth. The boy feigned looking in the opposite direction, and Walstein turned back around with a snort.

Several minutes later, after Walstein's hair had finally stopped its slow downward progress, Razor Boy lifted his fingers and cut it again. It took a moment for Walstein to realize what had happened. Then, with a snarl, he leaped from his heavy wooden chair, seized it in both hands, and raised it over his head as though it weighed no more than a few sticks, clearly intending to smash Razor Boy to the floor with it.

With a casual swipe of his hand, Razor Boy sent pieces of the chair clattering to the floor all around Walstein's feet. The tusked man emitted an animal roar of fury, but Tuco was listening to his instincts and did not stick around to see what happened next. He bolted from the room. He had been around street fights before. They were dangerous. He'd seen a bystander killed in a bar brawl, and that hadn't involved claws that could slice through anything or men as strong as ogres.

Clearly apprentices here could be just as dangerous as the demons. He stood panting in the corridor for a moment, wondering where to go. The washroom had had a demon, and he didn't want to be alone in there right now, but there was no one he felt safe with. Except perhaps Pike. And even wanting safety was a temptation, a call to a demon to change you. There was nowhere he could run, nowhere he could hide, and even wanting to do those things was dangerous.

Now he understood what Pike had said. Abyssus Abbey was full of danger, in every corner, from every side. Even from inside your own mind. He ran back to the dormitory, found a corner of the room, and recited the letters he had learned over and over, trying to calm his thoughts and keep them focused so that no temptations could enter in.