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Chapter 6: Feasting

Tuco didn't follow Pike back to the dormitory immediately. His mind was still racing from the discoveries--and his loins were still aching and unsatisfied. He didn't think he could sleep just yet. So he leaned against the wall with his head tilted back and listened to the sounds of the abbey: the crackle of candles, the ever-present howl of wind moving through the abbey's stony reaches, and stranger sounds: skittering and low groans. This was a haunted place. Things moved in the darkness. But Tuco did not feel as afraid, now. He had been Changed, and though his alteration was strange and freakish, it did seem to be a gift. Even if he left today, he'd be able to move through the world a different man, using his tongue to finesse his way through conversation and get himself out of trouble, to know what those around him desired, and, in the right circumstances, to give pleasure to himself and others. Who could complain about such a development?

With his eyes still closed, he let his tongue slide out again and tasted the air. The scent of Pike lingered in the room, and he could make out the scents of stone and burning candles, but all of these were barely detectable beneath the overpowering, intense aromas of food. He took a deep breath, inhaling the rich, enticing scents, and his stomach growled. He was hungry; he'd had little appetite after the shocking events of the previous day and night, and now his belly was complaining.

He opened his eyes. Two long tables, practically sagging with what surely must resemble feasts thrown by Queen Tibera herself, or even one of the great Emperors in the southern or eastern lands. Knowing it was a bad idea, he wandered down the length of one of the tables, his mouth watering. Through enchantment, the food was still hot and fresh; fat sizzled and popped beneath a roast goose; a tureen of cheese and leek soup bubbled gently; steam rose from a mound of brown-topped, soft-looking dinner rolls. Golden-brown meat pies were stacked high, dusted with white flour like snow and garnished with juniper. Large steins of ale were beaded with sweat as though still cold from the ice cellar. A roast pig, red with candied glaze, was stuffed with plums, apricots, and pears. A wide bowl announced sauteed lampreys in beef tallow. The rich scent of rare spices enticed him: cinnamon, tarragon, ginger, nutmeg--spices he had never before tasted, but only heard of. And then there were the cakes: rich, yellow vanilla, deep brown cocoa icing with spun sugar like spirals of hoarfrost; orbs of pastel pink, purple, and yellow stacked into a pyramid and embossed with gold leaf; bright red strawberries floating in a sea of marshmallow fluff; meringues scorched brown and drizzled with oozing caramel.

Tuco had never had any of these things, except roast goose on Christmases when they had been invited to his aunt's house. The wealthy could enjoy such a feast regularly; perhaps they enjoyed such delights all the time, and even the Brothers enjoyed them daily, but if Tuco were to take some now, just so that he could have the experience of tasting them and enjoying them even once, he would be risking his soul to the Temptation of Food. The lowest and easiest temptation to avoid. It was unjust. Was he less deserving of pleasure than the wealthy? Than the Brothers? Surely he was not.

What was it the priests cautioned? Food was meant to nourish, to sustain, and not to grant pleasure. Seeking pleasure in mortal delights turned one's mind away from the joys of the infinite.

“Well," Tuco said out loud, “the joys of the infinite cannot be all that infinite if they can be forgotten after a single cake." And he plucked a round, lavender bon-bon from the pile. His stomach almost sucking at itself in eagerness, he lifted it to his lips and inhaled, letting the scent pass over his tongue. It was chocolate mousse beneath the marzipan shell, he could smell: rich, sweet, and silky. It would melt like butter across his tongue as the marzipan slowly dissolved. He had never had chocolate before; only smelled it in the patisseries and candy shops of the cities. “Tasting it might be wrong," he said aloud, “but would it not also be wrong to go through one's whole life having never tasted chocolate?"

He opened his watering mouth… and then paused. This was temptation, wasn't it? Was there a demon nearby even now, whispering these thoughts into his mind? Could even one chocolate change him? Damn him? Not because it was unjust but because of where he was right now, in Abyssus Abbey, surrounded by demons, seduced by a magical feast prepared by demons, made of enchantment. It had nearly got him.

Longingly, he reached out and placed the bon-bon back on the tray. It listed to one side as if abandoned. He turned and walked back toward the door, his stomach still complaining.

“A pity!" The voice echoed across the room, startling him. It seemed to come from nowhere, but it sounded deep, warm, and jolly. “And you were so close to wisdom there."

“Who's there?" Tuco asked in a small voice. He looked around but could see nobody.

“Tuco, is it?" the voice said. “You're the new one everyone's talking about."

“Everyone is talking about me?" That seemed surprising.

“Oh yes," the voice said, and then it seemed that the stones of the far wall were arranged in a particular outline, as though all the edges had been lined up to form the rough shape of a large, stout man. As Tuco stared, the outline grew more and more solid, and the stones seemed to be hued in colors of red and brown. Then the stones weren't there at all. A man stood in front of the wall, the hues and shapes of stonework fading away from his form. He was tall, more than six feet, and with the general build of an innkeeper, round and well-fed. His skin was a burnished red, long, yellowed horns jutted up from his forehead, and his shaggy goat legs ended in hooves. “Everyone."

He grinned, and his mouth was full of huge, pointed teeth, bright white in his red face.

Tuco took a few shaky steps backward. “A demon!"

“Demon?" the creature said, its eyes opening wide in mock surprise. “No, Tuco. I am not the spawn of hell. I am an angel."

“A fallen angel."

A moment of anger darkened the otherwise cheerful-looking countenance. “That old lie. We didn't fall. We were pushed." Warmth spread across his face once more. “But that is hardly your concern. A devil then. Not a demon. My name is Belzebub. And well I see that you are an iron-willed young man, immune to temptation."

That, Tuco recognized as a seed of hubris, which could grow into the most terrible pitfall of all of them: The Temptation of Self. “I'm not immune. But I shall not be led to darkness merely by a few sweet cakes." He cast a longing look over his shoulder at the feast, but steeled his resolve. He could do this.

The devil walked toward him slowly. Behind him, a thick, fleshy tail with a spaded end swayed, as though he were a cat stalking prey. “Of course, it's always easier if you can be tempted, but it isn't necessary. I can do things to you whether you're tempted or not. I can enter your world without ritual."

“You can't do that!" Tuco protested. “There are rules! Demons have to follow the rules!"

“Devil. And do you really think we were sent to the Abyss because we follow rules?"

Panicking, Tuco stumbled backward toward the far wall. He could run around the table, make a break for the cloister. The devil wouldn't be able to pass beneath the Gasen without raising holy hell. “I--I'm not even here. You don't sssee me!" The black tips of his long tongue flickered in his vision.

But Belzebub only laughed. “Deviltongue doesn't work on devils, foolish creature. Now. From now on, you work for me. You will be my minion, my… imp. You will serve the Abyss through me."

“I will never!" Tuco vowed, but the devil ignored him.

“But first you must understand the joys of food as I do. I may have been stripped of my ranks, but I am still a god of gluttony, and if you are going to serve me, you must eat." His black-clawed fingers inscribed a shape in the air too complex for Tuco to follow, but it left the air carved, with clear lines like broken glass. And in the pit of Tuco's stomach, his hunger amplified.

In his childhood, there had been days of famine, and the whole family had gone more than a week without food. Hunger, dizzying, consuming hunger set in, first gnawing at the stomach and dulling the mind, but then focusing it solely on getting the next meal. They begged in the streets for scraps; several of his brothers raided noble houses for bread and cheese; they chewed on their leather clothing to staunch the pangs of hunger, and stole scraps from the pig troughs. Days were spent trying to find food or dreaming of it. Hunger filled the mind until it was all they thought of. Now, in an instant, that hunger returned to him.

Still, he tried to fight it. If he could only escape the devil's presence, then surely the curse of hunger would ebb. But that warm smell of bread… those mouthwatering cakes! And it could hardly be damaging to his soul to eat merely because he was starving, could it? No--no! He shut his eyes. He turned and walked around the far end of the table. He would get past the demon and escape the room. But as he walked past a plate of croissants, he couldn't help himself. The hunger was gnawing, insistent, commanding. He leaned over and inhaled the aroma of flaky, buttery bread, opening his mouth to let his tongue carry the flavor to him, surely just as good as tasting.

His tongue slid out and coiled around one of the croissants--almost of its own--but he had wanted it to, had desperately wanted it. Warm butter melted across his taste buds, and then his mouth was full of crispy, dissolving bread, and his knees buckled. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. The saltiness of the butter flooded his tongue, and then the outer flaky layers were almost tangy: breaking apart into little shards of flavor and giving way to the warm, soft folds of the delicate layers beneath.

“There, you see?" the devil purred the words. “Pure pleasure. How can that be wrong? Try the chocolate."

If he was damned already for a single piece of bread, then surely a single chocolate could not damn him twice. Still, he knew he ought to resist, but his fingers were already reaching out for a round, soil-brown cake the size of his hand. “I--I want it so much. But I mustn't," he murmured to himself, but the devil heard him.

“If your Creator wished you not to have it, then why did He make it so irresistable? Why give your nose the preference for it? Why plant the buds on your tongue that would savor its sweetness so much? Why give his Creation so much capacity for pleasure, only to deny it?"

“So that--so that we might be tested," Tuco stammered. He was already lifting the cake to his mouth--it was heavy in his palm, as though it contained pure chocolate ore.

The devil chuckled at that. “Yes, another nonsensical tale mortals tell each other: that a God who knows everything still needs to test his subjects. If he knows already the choice you will make, then have you truly made it? Surely it is no choice at all. For you, Tuco, it certainly is not. Taste the chocolate. You are already tasting it."

And Tuco found that it was so; that he had bitten into the cake, and it was warm inside, and moist, and rich, the chocolate almost like syrup, flooding his mouth, drooling down his chin, and then it was though he had lost all his other senses, and had become pure taste. Surely this cake was the greatest achievement of mankind. Pure pleasure flowed through him. The rich chocolate filled his mouth, but his tongue found other flavors flowing through it--vanilla, ginger, cardamom--as though the chocolate were a riverbed flowing with delights, pouring them down his tongue and into his belly.

He couldn't stop himself. With both hands he held the cake and devoured it, gulping it down in greedy bites. Sticky chocolate and crumbs of cake coated his fingers and spilled down his chest, and without stopping, he picked up a light violet cake and took a huge bite. The chocolate flavor gave way to a delicate lavender and sweet cream, overwhelming his nose with floral scents. It was drizzled with honey, and his sensitive tongue could taste the hive, the delicate musk of chitin and wax, the fragrant gardens of lavender from which the bees had fed.

The devil put a heavy hand against Tuco's back; it was as warm as though it had been next to a fire. “Now you understand. Food is joy. Immerse yourself in it."

Tuco fell to the feast. He began with the desserts, for those were the greatest delight, cramming his mouth with hot pastries and cold citrus creme, guzzling huge mugs of hot cocoa and spicy buttered rum. He sank his teeth into candied pears baked in red wine, flooded his mouth with marzipan cheese pies, practically drank a bowl of cold, eggy custard.

He felt his stomach with both hands and was surprised to find it round and sagging beneath his tunic, bulging over his hips. He should have felt discomfort, a sense of overfullness, but he was still hungry. He moved on to main courses, drinking from soup tureens with both hands, slathering thick slabs of butter and cheese onto coarse bread and tearing it apart with his teeth.

“Good," the devil rumbled. “Eat. Enjoy."

The rector's sermons echoed in his head: the temptations are of the Abyss because they turn our minds from God. When you love food too greatly, you love the Creation, not the Creator. But this seemed to Tuco unfair; he could not love food too greatly so soon; he had only just discovered the breadth of its miracles. He lost himself in spiced ham and roast leg of lamb and peppered chicken. He stuffed his mouth with candied yams and honey-drizzled parsnips. He ate his way through a garden of crisp, fresh greens and cold, dew-kissed berries.

It was all of it magnificent; his mouth was the center of his being, his temple through which he communed with all Creation by devouring it. His stomach swelled heavier, his limbs grew thicker, until his robe could no longer contain him, so he shucked it aside and enjoyed his feast naked as the first man, Atham. He could not contain his joy at food, his hunger, the heavy fullness of his stomach, the way his body spread and grew to contain all. The weight of his belly pulled down to his knees, and he crawled across the table, licking plates clean as the wooden planks groaned under his ballooning weight. His tongue snaked out around buns and brought them back to his wide mouth in its coils, three at a time, and he munched them down all at once, guzzling wine from a decanter to wash down the crumbs. Then he reached the carcass of the goose, from which he had greedily stripped most of the meat. Its bones were still delicious-looking, ripe with marrow, and before he knew what he was doing, he picked up the entire carcass and bit down into it.

A thought nagged at him--he'd been able to fit half of an entire goose into his mouth. Even a thigh or leg should have been too much for him, but he had managed almost the entire thing, ribs and sternum and all. Distantly he was aware that people didn't eat like this; they didn't fill their mouths with bones and crunch them up, but while he was thinking this he was already cramming the remainder into his hungry maw. Bones splintered and crunched between his teeth, and his tongue explored their hollows, licking out the rich, fatty marrow. He licked broken bits out from between his teeth and noticed that they felt huge, now: sharp and monstrous, a jagged mountain range overfilling his mouth and pushing out his lips. All the better to eat more of the feast, he remembered, and he picked up the lamb shank and crunched through that bone too with no small satisfaction.

Finally he reached the end of the table, having crawled all the way down its length, devouring everything. His belly was now so enormous it overlapped the table on both sides. His chin was sunk in layers of flab. Panting and exhausted, he looked up at the devil. “I… I ate all of it," he said in amazement.

The devil grinned wide, and his mouth was full of sharp teeth. “Did you, you dear little minion? But there is another table there just waiting for you."

Tuco shook his weighty head, feeling the heavy flesh tug at his face. “I--I don't want to eat anymore." He did, though. He knew he did. The devil was making him want it.

“Eat."

And so Tuco pushed his way to the other table. His stomach was now so enormous that it dragged on the ground and he had to force himself forward with both legs. The table looked smaller to him--the room looked smaller. Even the leering devil looked smaller. He realized he was larger now than any human had ever been. And his meal was only half complete. Unwilling but craving it at the same time, he scooped up dishes from the other table and poured them into his mouth. This experience was different, because now his mouth was so cavernous he could pour an entire soup tureen into it and still have room to float meat and bread in it; now his meal was transformed by the mixing of flavors and textures in new and surprising ways: he chewed on baked cod and gruyere and raspberry and celery; he swallowed mince pies wrapped in mustard greens and garnished with ortolans and cranberries. Cold buttercream and ham and gherkins; fried sausages with brie and mashed turnip; salted nuts, cucumber, and barleywine. Not every combination was delicious, exactly, but each was worth exploration, each a discovery, each was food.

And when, at last, he made it to the far end of the second table, his belly so enormous now that it dragged on the floor on both sides of the table, he panted, exhausted from eating. “Done," he groaned. He rolled off the table and there was nowhere for him to fall; he just settled into the rest of his enormous, soft body. He realized with dismay that as he had eaten his way down the table, his stomach had shoved all the plates off of it onto the floor. Most were broken, but some had bites taken out of them. Had he really eaten parts of the plates in his delirium?

A lazy smile creased Belzebub's face as he sauntered closer. “Oh, dear boy, do you truly think you are finished? But you haven't even started in on the table."

Tuco stared at him in bewilderment. “I can't--I can't eat the table. That's wood!"

“Well, that is my little gift to you, minion. You can eat anything now. Food. Poisons. Wood. Stone…"

Unwilling, but unable to stop himself, the hunger in his belly so intense, Tuco pushed himself around in a slow, dragging circle, and leaned down to the table. The entire end fit in his now enormous mouth. He bit down and felt the splintering of wood. The table crunched up between his teeth, fibrous and tough, like the end of a cabbage or a carrot that had been pulled too late. He couldn't push himself along the floor to eat more of it. His legs barely reached the ground around his enormous belly, but his thighs too were thicker and rounder and were still capable of pushing him forward even if he could no longer lift himself off the floor.

“There, you see, my pet? You can eat anything now. Even souls, if you're lucky, and I want to reward you with a treat."

“I'm not your pet!" Tuco protested through his full mouth.

“Oh, but you will be. I will drag you down to the Abyss with me, and you will be my hellslug, serving below my throne and devouring all I deign to throw to you. I will truss you up with the most elegant chains of thorns, not to secure you but to adorn you, so that all will see you and tremble at the horror of you, and know that should they displease me, I will feed them to you. Eat your table, obedient pet. Eat."

And now, like a knife, the hot, clear edge of panic cut through the clouds of Tuco's appetite. The devil had forced this upon him--he'd resisted temptation, but this had been something else, something unnatural, something done to him! And now he was aware of the massive roundness of his body: enormous, half-filling the room, his heavy gut folding across his legs, spreading across the smooth cold stone of the floor, wedging between two pillars, so huge that he could barely move himself.

“I--I won't," he managed. Bits of table dropped from his toothy mouth, looking oddly small against the huge expanse of his sagging chest.

A shadow fell across the jolly-looking devil's face. Anger glimmered in his eyes. “You cannot resist me, imp! I am a devil, and your superior!"

“I'm not an imp!" Tuco protested. “I'm a man."

Belzebub's nose wrinkled in contempt. “You are a slug. You are my servant. And you will eat."

The hunger began to cloud Tuco's mind again, but he knew if he went further, he was lost, he would become something else. If he was lucky, they would only throw him in the Throat; if he was unlucky, Belzebub would drag him down to the Abyss for eternity. It wasn't right. This wasn't free will.

Hunger raked at his belly. He felt empty, so empty. And angry. His arms were already reaching for the food, but Belzebub, the devil who intended to damn him was right there.

Tuco had always been the boy who ran--from the bullies in the street, from the knights who would barge through town pushing everyone around and taking what they wanted, from the pottery apprentice-master who tried to beat him whenever his hands were too clumsy to shape the clay properly. But there was no running now. There was no hiding, no giving up. If he didn't fight back, if he didn't take charge of his fate, he would be taken to the Abyss and made into some kind of monster of gluttony, eating scraps and souls for all eternity.

H snatched up Belzebub. He had become so large that the devil looked like an oversized doll in his hands. Belzebub twisted and squirmed, so furious that his red face had gone dark purple. “How dare you lay hands on me, imp? I command you to eat!"

Tuco could only obey. He was so hungry. He lifted the devil to his new mouth, a mouth wider than a table, full of fangs, a mouth that could eat anything. He had a brief glimpse of the thing's eyes going wide with shock. There was a muffled scream that was cut off as Tuco pushed the devil into his throat.

He tasted Belzebub's desire. It was a desire for--something he accumulated, a desire for more. For power. For hierarchy. For vengeance. But not for food. The devil tempted, but did not love. He found no joy in it, no satisfaction. It was just a tool he had used to twist Tuco.

Tuco swallowed.

This is a bad, bad idea, some small, worried part of his mind said as the wriggling creature slid down his throat. Who knows what eating a devil will do to you?

But what other choice had he had? Just become a--a hellslug and be dragged down into the Abyss?

You could have prayed, suggested the small voice, and it bothered Tuco a little that, indeed, that had not occurred to him. But already the supernatural hunger was fleeing his mind, the fog of the devil's temptations clearing away. He looked around at the wreckage in the room: broken and splintered tables, knocked-over chairs, broken dishes everywhere, food smeared across the floor and all over his own enormous, engorged body.

He could feel the fallen angel thrashing somewhere in his stomach, probably flailing in a pile of half-eaten food and dinnerware. Glumly, he looked toward the door of the room, much too small for him to squeeze his engorged body out of it. He supposed he would just have to lie in here until morning, when the Brothers would return and find him here, naked and food-smeared. That was an unhappy thought.

The wriggling in him had stopped. And then the room seemed to stretch around him. His belly slid across the floor, contracting, the great weight of it easing. HIs limbs slimmed, his eyes slid down the wall as his new height fled him. With relief, he felt his toes touch the floor again; his chin emerged from the rolls of flesh about his neck. His stomach gurgled as it shrank and lifted, dwindling away. Where had all the food gone? And where the devil he had devoured? He had no answer for these questions, any more than he could explain anything else that had happened to him that night. He held his stomach in both arms as it receded, ebbing away until it was completely flat, and he was just as small and lean as he had ever been.

He was still smeared with food, he realized, and the shame of everything that he had done burned in him. He found his robe where he had discarded it in his wanton bout of gluttony, and slipped it back on himself. He would have to wash before returning to bed.

Shivering and confused, he made his way to the refectory door, and just as he opened it, he heard a kind of crackling and scraping sound, and then smelled the rich scent of freshly cooked food. He looked back and saw that the tables had repaired themselves and were once again sagging with the weight of the bountiful feast that had claimed the bodies of at least two Brothers and, for a time, Tuco's as well. The enchantment had restored it.

But now, looking over that amazing spread of food, he felt that he would never be hungry again. He turned and left the refectory, and as he did so, licked his lips, his tongue sliding over huge, pointed teeth.

---

He woke slowly, light filtering its way through a deep, dreamless sleep, and when he felt himself waking, he pushed his head under the bedclothes and drifted off again. When at last wakefulness became too insistent, he pushed the sheets away and opened his eyes. Pike was standing there, staring at him, arms folded. “Well, good morning, finally."

The room, normally filled with the sounds of several score of monster-men, was eerily silent. Tuco pushed himself upright and looked around. There was no one else there. “Where is everyone?" he asked in a somewhat phlegmy voice. “Class?"

“Mass. Where you surely ought to be, given everything that's happened to you lately. Where were you last night? You came back slouching like a revenant and this morning no one could wake you. What kept you out so long?"

Tuco yawned wide.

“Christos!"

Tuco blinked. Pike had leapt back several steps and flattened himself against the opposite bunk, his pupils contracted to pinpricks. “What?"

“Your… your teeth." Pike's ears focused on Tuco for a moment, and then he seemed to relax. He unclenched his fingers from the bunk frame. His blunt little claws had dimpled the wood. “Another run-in with a demon?"

Tuco ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt thick, too large for his mouth. All of them were pointed, but his canines seemed especially large, overlapping to push up under his lips. He grimaced at the gradually returning memories of the previous night. They seemed smeared and flat in his mind, as though he was remembering illustrations in a painting or tapestry instead of a real event. “It said it was a devil."

“A devil? What's the difference?"

“I'm not sure, but it sounded offended when I called it a demon."

“And it tempted you?"

“I think so? With food."

Pike swore. “I knew I should not have left you alone in there."

“But I didn't... I mean, I was tempted, but I resisted. And then the demon, the--the thing said that it didn't have to tempt me. And it made me eat somehow."

The rabbit-man paced back and forth, frowning. “They can't do that, though. Free will is promised to us. You didn't lie just now, did you? I didn't hear a hiss?"

“No, and you know I didn't use my tongue because you still don't believe me," Tuco pointed out.

Pike scowled. “That's true. And you'd have no reason not to, if you truly wished to hide it from me. All right. You had better tell me everything that happened."

And so, a bit reluctantly, Tuco recounted the events of the night: how he'd started with just a little food and then the devil had compelled him to devour more and more, how he'd grown first fat, and then enormous, and then begun to eat the table. Through it all the rabbit wore a look of puzzled disbelief, and when Tuco described how he had dispatched the devil, the expression turned to bewilderment.

“You are telling me you ate a devil."

“I think so."

“Is it still inside you somewhere?"

“I don't know. I don't know where everything else went when I shrank back down. But that must be what ended its curse on me, mustn't it? Otherwise it would have dragged me into the Abyss and made me a… slug. I think I had almost become one when I--when I managed to save myself."

Pike shook his head grimly. “We have to tell the Brothers about this. We should go to Lord Krastor."

“No!" Tuco slid out of bed and took Pike's paws firmly. “Pike, please. You saw what they do to anyone they think has a demon in them. They'll do something terrible, I just know it. Or they'll put me in the Throat. They don't take chances with demons here. You know that."

“But--but there could be something wrong that they could help with."

Tuco thought of the Brother whose head was made up of eyes and his stern voice and the ritual, the apprentice screaming as his arm was broken. “Please no, not until we know more. Besides, I'm not possessed. I can walk beneath the Gasen without a problem, can't I? If there were something really evil in me, they'd see it."

Still looking doubtful, Pike said, “But you could be dangerous without knowing it. You could hurt others."

“You know I'm not dangerous. You'd hear it. Besides, since I've been here, I've seen two devils die. The one that looked like Sathanus crumpled up and all his power poured out of him, and the Belzebub one I… I ate. So if I'm dangerous to anything, I'm dangerous to demons, don't you think?"

“I suppose…"

“Maybe I need to be around. Maybe--maybe that ritual did something to me. Something important. Something that could stop the Apocalypse. That's what it was for, isn't it? So how do we know it didn't work? Maybe that's why they're coming after me."

The rabbit nodded. “That's a good point."

“And if it did, if I'm dangerous to devils and I need to be here, and Lord Krastor throws me out…"

Pike sighed. “I still do not care for it. We should not be making these decisions. It should be left to knowledgeable men. Holy men, who have studied these things. I won't make you, but promise me you will consider going to Lord Krastor and telling him everything that has happened."

“I promissse," Tuco said, and then his eyes widened. “Wait. Wait. I promise. No lie."

Pike smiled. “Good. Now if it's not too late, you really should go to Mass. Maybe the Brothers can help you and maybe they can't, but you know the Creator can. Whatever's going on with you, He can guide you."

Tuco nodded and went to find clean robes for Mass, but privately he wondered if God even listened to a devil's tongue.

---

He was, in fact, too late for Mass. He did stop in hesitation before passing beneath one of the Gasen, dreading its horrifying scream, but it did not stir as he passed beneath its hollow-eyed stare. And, tentatively, he dared to dip his fingers in one of the holy water fonts against the wall, half expecting searing pain and his skin to blaze with hellfire, but it was just wet. And stale-smelling.

Bored-looking apprentices had just begun to shuffle out amongst the hooded Brothers by the time Tuco reached the chapel. But that meant it was time for lunch and, despite the previous night's encounter, he was surprisingly hungry, his stomach growling, so he followed the other apprentices to the small refectory for a meal.

He found himself sitting next to Charo again, the surly lark-winged apprentice he'd met on the first day. The man picked idly at his food, pushing it around his wooden plate with a fork. “Skipping Mass, are we?" he commented, barely glancing at Tuco. “Not a good look, you know. We are supposed to keep our minds pure. And you… everyone knows there's something very odd about you."

“They do?" Tuco selected what he hoped was a modest portion of cured meats and cheese. He might be hungry, but he never wanted to overeat ever again.

“Oh, come now." Charo turned toward him with an arched eyebrow. “Creeping off in the middle of the night like some kind of burglar? People notice these things, you know. And that first night you left with Brother Melvin and he has not been seen since. Everyone is talking. I don't suppose you know what happened to him?"

“I really couldn't say," Tuco managed. His consonants were thick and clumsy as he tried to speak around his new teeth. “Lord Krastor might know something. You could ask him?"

“And you behave strangely. You've been very close. Hardly talk to anyone but that Pike fellow, and well, you know his sort. Friends with anyone."

Tuco stared down at his plate. “Isn't everyone this intimidated when they first come here? Everyone seems so dangerous. Walstein seems like he wants to plaster me to the wall, and I don't know why."

“He's that way with everyone. Very angry. Comes from his upbringing. But you must know about it--you come from a poor family, too."

“Poor doesn't mean angry," Tuco murmured.

“Doesn't it? I expect I should be terribly angry all the time if I were poor." Charo shuffled his wings, leaving a warm, feathery smell in the air. “It seems wretched. Not to have nice things, nice food, having to toil by the heat of the day."

“I suppose when you say it like that it doesn't sound very nice," Tuco admitted. “And it's not as though we don't wish for a better life, but… I don't know, I suppose it's all down to what you're used to. It must be hard for you to be here after coming from someplace fancy."

“Fancy, hah! Yes… yes, I suppose it was. And it is hard. I miss my goosedown bed and breakfast pies and cakes, and my hunting dogs. I miss brandy and dinner parties where everyone is talking about the big topics of the day and where conversation is a chess game that you can win if you're clever." He sighed and put his chin in his hands. “I miss waking up to golden morning light and knowing there was nothing planned for the day but a bit of sport out in the gardens or a night at the opera. Now I'm stuck in this windy old ruin with a gang of monsters and everyone is back home living their lives without me." He angrily wiped at his cheeks with both hands, then took his fork and stabbed at a piece of cold sausage. “And even the food is bad."

“The food isn't bad though," Tuco objected, and he felt he ought to know. Had he not just dined on meal after meal fit for the Queen herself? So delicious, so exorbitant, and yet none of it had satisfied him. He could tell Charo about the Brothers' refectory, perhaps. There, after dark, perhaps he could get a little taste of home, and that might comfort him. But Tuco could not forget Belzebub and the two Brothers lost to temptation in that room. Supposing he was leading Charo into another temptation, one that would doom him?

“No, not to you," the apprentice mumbled gloomily. “You're used to it. It's probably a huge step up for you."

Tuco watched him poke at his food for a moment and then looked around the room. When he was sure no one was looking, he let his tongue slip from between his teeth and taste the air. Despite his disaffected attitude, Charo was seething with desire. He longed for home, for a sense of belonging, and the safety and ease that brought with it. He hungered for wealth, not for what it could be used for, but for its own sake, and though Tuco could taste that desire, his new sense did not reveal to him the motivation behind the hunger--only that it was there. But above all else, Charo desired position. He wanted to be better than everyone else; he wanted to prove it, he wanted everyone to know that he was superior, for others to serve him. It was a longing that twisted him inside, that made his aura taste bitter and acidic. And Tuco pitied him. But one thing he noticed: he tasted no desire for food, and that was a scent that he now knew very, very well.

He scanned the table until he saw a plate of fresh fruit, including orange globes that someone had told him were called persimmons, and he took one and cut it in half with a knife, the sticky juice oozing out over his fingers. “Maybe you're just not tasting what I taste," he suggested. “Here. Will you try something for me?"

The lark-winged boy gave him a bored look. “I'm not terribly interested in your peasant games, whatever they are."

“Just try. You've had so many rich and well-made foods. I just want to see if you can taste things as I do. Maybe it's a matter of perspective."

“I have a trained palate, you know. It is quite refined. If I do not enjoy this food, then it's because I taste the impurities. The dirt."

“Then you can explain to me what I'm not tasting. Here." Tuco held out the persimmon half.

Charo plucked it from his fingers. “I'm certain I can do that." He lifted it to his mouth.

“Wait. Wait. First… close your eyes."

“As you say."

“Now. Shut out the noise of the room. Don't listen to anything else that is going on around you. You've had a hard day. You're exhausted from labor and you're wet with sweat. The sun was hot and your body is aching. Finally, finally you have a chance to rest, and you're going to have this piece of fruit, a new kind, which you've never had before."

“I've had persimmon."

“No, you haven't. You know others have, but this is a rare treat. You've never tasted it before. Try it."

Even with his eyes closed, Charo managed a sarcastic arch to his eyebrows as he bit into the fruit. “It's… sweet. It tastes like persimmon."

“No, it doesn't. You've never had persimmon before. What do you taste?"

“It's sticky. The skin is soft. And mellow, sweet, but tart. The flesh is firm and crisp at the edges, but... oh."

“You can taste it?" Tuco hoped that Charo's tastebuds were not permanently desensitized by a lifetime of delicacies. If I could help him taste it better, I would.

“It's… astonishing, when one's eyes are closed, when one focuses, the flavor is much more intense." Charo chewed slowly and slumped forward a little in his chair, his brow furrowing as he focused on the persimmon. He swallowed and took another bite, and a little shudder ran down his spine. “This is--this is incredible, I--" He opened his eyes and peered at the half-eaten fruit. “This cannot be an ordinary persimmon. Where did you get this? Did you do something to it?"

“Nothing, I swear it."

“Astounding." Charo said the word around a second bite, chewing hungrily, juice running down his chin. “It must be a new variety. They are doing--mmm--remarkable things with breeding these days." He swallowed and licked the sides of his mouth hungrily. “Is there more?"

“There is, but why not try something else?" Tuco took a piece of warm brown bread coated with melted butter and handed it to him. “Taste it as I showed you. You have grown up in a faraway land and never tasted bread before. Try it!"

Charo took the piece of bread and bit into it. His eyes went wide. “Oh gods!" And with that, the wings on his back flung wide, huge tan feathers spreading open. “This--this can't be mere bread."

Tuco frowned. This was an odd reaction; he hadn't expected his little experiment to be this successful, but it was certainly better than the disaffection from before. Anything that helped Charo enjoy where he was here and now instead of longing for what he'd lost had to be an improvement. “You like it?"

“It's--it's warm and soft and crispy all at once, and the butter is savory and salty. But there's sweetness in it, too, and the wheat… it's grass, I can taste that the wheat is grass seed. It's as though I can taste it with my whole mouth, not just my tongue."

Tuco nodded. “Before, you were barely here. You weren't focused on your food so you didn't notice its pleasures. You tasted what it wasn't instead of what it was. But when you're really enjoying a meal, it can sometimes feel as though your whole body is tasting it."

A prickle moved over Charo's skin, and he shivered. “Give me something else!"

Tuco cast about, looking for something suitable, and settled on a meat pie dusted with spices. “Try this."

Charo snatched from his hands and bit into it, and a moment later, he sprang into the air, his wings giving a forceful flap that knocked over goblets and sent grapes rolling across the table. For a moment he hovered there, his wings beating, his head tilted back in an expression of ecstasy as he chewed.

“Charo! Charo, you did it! You flew!"

He opened his eyes wide in astonishment and dropped down to the table with a crash. Everyone was staring at him now, but he only had eyes for his meat pie, tears running down his face as he devoured it. “Tuco… Tuco, it's amazing," he mumbled through the crumbs. “Thank you. Thank you for showing me…"

And then a look of bewilderment passed over his face. “That's… very odd."

Suddenly, his lips looked as though they were growing larger, spreading up his face. But no, it wasn't his lips, just pink. Little pink bumps spreading across his face and up over his nose. They disappeared into his hair and down his robes. “I can… I can taste my--" His eyes widened. “What have you done to me?"

“What--what do you mean?" Tuco stammered. “I didn't do anything! What's happening? What's that pink on your face? Are you being Changed again?"

Charo scrambled off the table. “No, no, I can taste… my robes. On my shoulders. My back." He lunged for Tuco, gripping his face with both hands. “It's spreading!" he hissed. “Make it stop, make it--"

He froze, and they both watched as pink extended from out of his sleeves, creeping down his arms, his wrists, and across his hands. “I can taste you." He let go of Tuco with an expression of shock. “Oh merciful God, why are you delicious? Why does everything taste so good?" He staggered backward, his hands hitting the table. “Oh God! The wood! Rich-hewn oak marinated in a thousand meals!" He put his fingers to his face. “Meat! Human skin, young and delicate."

“Don't--don't eat yourself," Tuco managed desperately.

“I don't need to put things in my mouth to taste them anymore," Charo moaned. “You did this, didn't you? You changed me! You're a demon!"

“No I didn't! I only showed you how to tasssste things!"

A look of confusion flickered over Charo's face. “No. No, of course you didn't. I… I need to try other things. I need to taste everything." And, moaning with sensory overload, the apprentice spread his wings and flapped into the air, landing in the middle of the table and seizing up a pear in one hand and a sausage in the other, shuddering with gustatory rapture.

Tuco backed toward the wall. A demon must have been listening to his words and used them to tempt Charo. It was the only explanation.

“Pity," said Braxus, the large wolf-creature, sauntering over to him. “I've never seen anyone Changed right in front of me before. Other than myself. Looks like he got a tough one. They'll be sending him home for sure."

“You think?" Tuco asked, in a daze.

“Sure, a Change like that. Look at him."

On the table, Charo was moaning as he plunged one hand into a tureen of soup and the other into a mug of chowder.

Braxus shook his huge, shaggy head. “You see the demon that got him?"

“No, I didn't see anything. I was just talking to him. I--I hope it wasn't my fault. I was trying to get him to enjoy food."

“Nah, demons will take any chance they get to change you. Y'can't blame yourself, mate." Braxus frowned. “Here, you all right? He hurt you?"

“I don't think so."

“Only you've got blood on your face. Might want to clean that up."

Tuco became aware of a tickle running down his forehead, and he put his hand to it. It came away with red smeared across it. “Oh," he said, and then his forehead began to throb. “I--I think I will."

He turned and bolted out of the refectory and down the hallway into the washroom. The throbbing at his forehead was growing more intense, no longer a pain but a pressure focused at his temples. Dreading what he would see, he crept over to the mirrors and peered into one. Streaks of blood ran into his eyebrows and down his cheeks. And rising up from above his temples, short but still growing, were two curved, black horns, jutting further and further upward.

“Oh no." His huge, pointed teeth flashed with his gasp. “Oh no. I've become a demon."