Age of Blood

47

The barking wouldn’t stop.

Loud, then soft.

Savage, then timid.

Rapid-fire, then monotonous.

A growl came now and then, but it was always the barking. No matter which bark, it rang hollowly in the darkness, the immense space magnifying the sound and smashing it against the stone walls, where instead of being shattered, it bounced back even more powerful.

They’d chained him to the steps. The chain was thick, tasted cold, and bit into the skin of his ankle. Where it touched, he was already bloody. He didn’t know why the chain was there. He was their dog. He’d been their dog for a while, the thing inside him recognizing the thing inside the master. Both of them were from the same family. Both had been old when man first broke wood to make fire.

They’d told him to stay.

They’d told him to guard.

They’d told him he was a good boy for bringing them the senator.

He stopped barking for a moment and ran on all fours to a bowl of water. He lapped both furiously and happily, vaguely aware how strange it was for those two emotions to be so intertwined. He snapped at the water and watched it splash on the stone beside the bowl, darkening the stone, making it almost black. Then he saw himself in the water. He recognized everything and nothing. For a moment he remembered a time when he’d stood upright and he’d been called by a different name.

Then he struck the water with his hand, destroying his image.

He turned and ran the other way to the length of the chain and began to bark once more.

Barking. Always barking. It felt so joyous to do so.