Netherkind

by Greg Chapman

  Shal-Ekh, shrouded in black, dropped to one knee to that floorboard and with the patience of an artist, lowered the pen’s tip to the wood. The blood oozed into the wood-grain, spreading out, its circumference growing and expanding in all directions. Then, with the same deftness of hand, Shal-Ekh pulled away, his task done.

  The prophet stood in the sunlit living room once more and his dark eyes were red with tears of joy. Thomas felt Shal-Ekh’s lips move in prayer.

  “I do your bidding, Great One, so that you might live again.”

  And with that invocation he was gone, out the door, back to his crypt and its monks and their scrying pool.

  No, Thomas wanted more. What happened before—how were the wheels first set into motion?

  Time ran backwards. Shal-Ekh, in a flickering of images, re-enacted his placing of the blood, but Thomas urged the vision to travel back even further. The prophet’s every step and gesture was in rewind: up the hallway of the second floor, down the fire escape into the alley, further still, through the shadowed streets, to that cemetery, that church. At its door, Shal-Ekh re-emerged, beckoned by something.

  Thomas begged the prophet’s memories to open up and they complied, the world being dragged back once more, deeper in time. Shal-Ekh retraced his steps, retreating from the steel and concrete of the human city until he came to a dense maze of trees that could only dwell in the Forest of the Skiift.

  Stop. Stop here, Thomas demanded and Shal-Ekh ceased his re-enactment to play it out in real time. The prophet was in the forest, looking down at the earth, into a hole, a grave. That single grave in the Forest of the Skin Shifters—the grave that didn’t belong to a Skiift at all.

  Shal-Ekh crouched down and traced the grave’s lips with trembling hands, his eyes staring at the corpse resting in its bowels.

  Show me its face Thomas begged and, as if their conversation was taking place at that very moment, Shal-Ekh turned his eyes to look.

  The face was not Thomas.’ It was a man’s face, a Phagun face, but slender and softer than Thomas’, lips slightly fuller, eyelashes and hair longer and much darker. Still, there was an affinity there—a bond.

  Thomas watched as the prophet bent down into the grave and with his bamboo pen, pricked the skin of the dead Phagun’s arm, the tip coming away with dead blood. And at once, Shal-Ekh set off to take that precious blood to the apartment at 6939 Harrison Boulevarde.

  Stop. Who did the blood belong to—who would bury a Phagun in the Forest of the Skiift?

  Thomas reached out to the prophet, sifting through his memories in search of the answer or at least, a clue. But Shal-Ekh refused to move—frozen in time.

  Thomas urged him again, but there was nothing the leader of the Stygma monks could provide him.

  No, it couldn’t end here. Thomas, in his ethereal state, was lost in the dreamscape, becoming entangled in the tapestry of memories that seemed to constitute his existence.

  He didn’t know what to do. If Shal-Ekh had no memory of the dead Phagun, apart from his one pre-ordained encounter, then who did?

  He let Shal-Ekh and his memories fade and walked to the edge of the grave. The corpse looked so peaceful, no longer in pain, the blankness of its expression a blessing in disguise. Thomas was drawn to him—he wanted to know him, his loves, and hates—his memories.

  Do the dead have memories?

  Thomas dropped down into the grave and gingerly reached out to the unknown Phagun. He’d never seen a dead Phagun he hadn’t killed. His fingertips slid over the skin of his arm and he recoiled with fright.

  The skin was warm.

  Hesitantly, he touched the arm again and an instant later the dead Phagun opened his eyes—cerulean blue eyes. Thomas drew in a breath sharply, but the corpse reached out with its hand and pressed one finger to his temple.

  Again the dreaming Phagun Thomas slept—another dream within a dream—of memories within memories.

  Thomas was seeing the world through the dead Phagun’s eyes—the Flaeschama, stone on stone, cold and lifeless. The only life was the furnace in the Sederunt, the fire of judgement. The dead Phagun was staring into it, waiting. Thomas had seen this vision before, but in his own head, during the visitation with Okin. Had he and this dead man walked a similar path before?

  From the shadows of the Sederunt, as in Thomas’ vision, Stephanie—or Calea—appeared at the dead Phagun’s side. On meeting, she kissed him, so passionately, as lovers do when their hearts are so entangled, they must die to separate. Calea spoke to the dead Phagun:

  “It’s time,” she said.

  “Tonight?”

  Calea smiled. “Yes, the men are ready.”

  “How many?”

  “A hundred or so.”

  Thomas felt the doubt in the dead Phagun’s mind.

  “Are you sure you want to do this Calea? It could all be for nought—”

  Calea grinned again and caressed his cheek. There was so much love in her touch and for a moment, Thomas recalled how he’d felt when he’d first met her in that old apartment.

  “You know this is the right thing to do—my father cannot go on sacrificing the Phagun race to this godless war.”

  “Yes, but if we fail…I couldn’t stand to lose you.”

  “Nor I you, Braegan, but we cannot afford to lose all we know either.”

  And she took his hand and they ran out of the Sederunt into the arms of fate.

  Time flashed once more and Braegan’s name resonated in Thomas’ head—and heart—like an alarm. It was as if the name was a creed that if recited over and over, could have brought down the cage around his very soul.

  The memory tore open to reveal the Sederunt under siege, Phagun against Phagun, sword and claw and fang tearing and stabbing, the cobblestones awash with their dark blood.

  Amidst the horror, Calea fought, tearing and slashing at her own minions, her gorgeous face slathered with blood. Through Braegan’s eyes, he watched her with a fearful heart. Wave after wave of minions came at them, until the rebellion was nothing more than a pile of corpses at the Sederunt gates. Before long, Calea was subdued and Braegan’s will to fight along with it. He surrendered himself to her heart, in turn condemning his own to death.

  Time flashed again and Calea and Braegan stood in the court, surrounded by the King’s wanton followers. Gavenko, his eyes so full of hate, heartbroken, gave the order for Braegan to be executed. The scythe slashed open his throat and through the pulse of liberated blood, Braegan heard his lover weeping like the lost dead.

  Here the memory of Braegan should have faded, but no, somehow Thomas feels Calea’s touch on him once more. In the grey of death, she is carrying him away, out of the under-city to the Forest. There, amongst the trees, he hears his lover claw at the earth, sobbing for what she has lost. Then the cold embrace of the ground, the wet darkness closing in at all sides.

  Only to be born out of it, the earth parting like a curtain, the prophet piercing his skin, the drop of blood, the baby growing from it, the baby that becomes a child, that becomes a man, a Phagun that names himself after Thomas Jefferson.

  The rising sun glinted in Thomas’ face and he awoke alone, back in the apartment. His dream lasted all night. The new morning light was altered, the very air filled with a soft radiance. Keen to know where he was on his reminiscence, Thomas got to his feet and looked out his apartment window to the alleyway below.

  It was empty, which would not have been unusual in itself, if it weren’t for the obscene silence. The only noise was the doubt in his head. He squinted up the alleyway to the street and noticed there were no cars or trucks careening by, not even a whisper of them, not even a breeze to cool the air.

  He realized he was in the dreamscape again, the one he created which was devoid of all life, except his own. It was when he was trying to understand why he had returned, that there was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?” Thomas said his fear rising as each revelation became harsher than the last.

  “Op
en the door and see,” a voice said from the other side.

  Thomas saw a shadow of feet shifting uneasily beneath the doorframe.

  “Who is it?” Thomas said again, cautiously taking a step towards the door.

  “Open the door, Thomas,” the voice said, sounding like Nero and Shal-Ekh and Stephanie all at once, layers of voices calling to him.

  “Who are you?”

  “It’s time to open the door Thomas—time to let us in.”

  Thomas reached out to the door handle but thought better of it. Instead, he peered through the spy-hole. On the other side of the door was himself, as he was at that very moment, plain-faced, more man than monster, but still with a fierce determination in his eyes. Thomas jerked back for the spy-hole, terrified.

  “Open the door, Thomas,” said the voice of the being that resembled him.

  Thomas braved a second look and this time saw Nero standing in the hallway, dishevelled, dirty, but still smiling with that mischievous glint in his eye. Thomas, overwhelmed by the sight of his former guide, quickly opened the door.

  Only to find the dead Phagun named Braegan standing in Nero’s place.

  “Hello Thomas,” Braegan said.

  “What are you—?”

  Braegan smoothed down his knee-length tunic, as if he was wearing clothes for the very first time. Then he looked up and smiled, an expression which made him appear coy.

  “Are you going to invite me in, Thomas?” Braegan said. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  “I…yes,” Thomas replied, astounded by his eagerness. Braegan stepped over the threshold, but as he did, his body changed, shifting and coalescing with a bright light—Thomas had to shield his eyes from it.

  “Thank you for letting me enter your home, Thomas,” the figure said. “It is good to see you again.”

  “Okin?”

  The Great One smiled. “It’s time Thomas,” he said. “It’s time to feast—you are hungry, aren’t you?”

  There was intense relief in Thomas’ face. “Yes…”

  Okin held out his arm. “Then eat.”

  Carefully, Thomas reached out and took Okin’s arm, the Great One’s body was translucent, filled with fibrous filaments of light—of dreams.

  “Go on,” Okin said.

  Thomas leant down and bit into Okin’s flesh and the Great One gasped with pleasure. For a moment, Thomas stopped, believing he’d hurt him, but when he looked upon Okin’s face, Thomas found he was feeding on Braegan.

  “Don’t worry Thomas,” Braegan said. “This is how it’s supposed to happen.”

  Thomas bit down and tore a chunk of flesh from Braegan’s arm. He swallowed and the urge in his gut shrieked in ecstasy, at last Thomas had found the perfect meal—the one which provided the ultimate sustenance. The meal which meant he would never go hungry again.

  Part Three: The Way of all Flesh

  27

  When Okin and Braegan merged with the one named Thomas, dreaming returned to all people of the Flesher Kingdom.

  The dreams came in waves, infecting the sleep like a virus lying dormant, or a parasite stalking silently from within the psyche. While all the dreams were different for each sleeper, each dream bore the same signature, the same theme—of foreboding.

  Within the stone caves of the Flaeschama, Phagun males and females dreamt of a second uprising, or of flesh rotting on their bones, while others pictured themselves watching the black sky as it was painted with a trillion stars by an all-powerful hand.

  Beneath that city, under tonnes of rock and secrecy and pain, one anguished soul dreamt of loss and discovery. In the dungeon, Stephanie writhed like a snake as her dream unfolded.

  Dream walking along a narrow path, Stephanie cradled a container of water. She dared not spill a single drop for fear that she might die, but not of thirst.

  The path was brushed away and then remade before her eyes and a great fissure appeared, as if from nowhere. With each passing breath, the crack widened, disappearing off into the horizon, east and west.

  The agony of choice was unbearable, carry the water and jump or put the canister down and stride the gorge without it. How could she leave something so precious behind?

  The choice was made even harder when, on the other side of the gorge, a figure appeared—a three-faced beast that exuded love for her—and she for it. So she was torn, destined to stand in that terrible landscape, staring down at the wound across her heart. But it was only a dream wasn’t it—would she still face the same peril when she awoke?

  In that same home of flesh, high above the foul place where Stephanie struggled with fate, another of her blood kin tossed and turned.

  Malik, the boy who would be king, whose upbringing was one of envy and hate, lay curled in his lair, a kaleidoscope of hideousness swirling in his head.

  He stood in a pit so deep that no light could enter it, but he was far from alone. Three beasts, wolves or panthers or an amalgam of the two, circled him, their saliva turning the ground to mud.

  The King’s son was desperate to survive, to outsmart them, but he soon realized he was outnumbered. Seeking help, he scanned the dark, hopeful for a way out—someone or something to aid him.

  As the beasts closed in, Malik glimpsed the faintest of faces in the shadow of the pit, a figure standing behind the beasts. He knew the figure’s face and the sight of it filled him with loathing. Sensing his danger, this lone figure, this one hope, reached out to aid him.

  Malik recoiled from the figure’s offer and instead put his fate in the mouths of the beasts. The creatures stalked him, coming closer and closer—and each other. Malik saw that as the beasts touched, their collective hides seemed to melt and merge until one great predator stood in the place of three.

  The one beast lurched at him, a perfect killing machine he had no way of escaping from and despite its singular dark beauty, it wasn’t perfect, for it still wore three mouths—all ready to devour him.

  Miles away in the Forest of the Skin Shifters, the unrequited leader trembled in the clutches of nightmare beneath the roots of the Great Tree.

  In Re-Kul’s head, in his dream, he stood in an ever-expanding field of flowers. The flowers were black with putrescence, their stink billowing out into the air like smoke the colour of bile. The Skin Shifter choked on the smog, but there were so many of the flowers there was no route for escape.

  Before Re-Kul’s eyes the flowers began to open, unfurling petals of still bleeding, maggot-infested meat on the inside. More of the deadly gas erupted from within the flowers, spewing and twisting through the air towards him, as if it was alive.

  Coughing, Re-Kul attempted to flee, to take up his winged form and escape the mist’s touch, but he was robbed of that ability in the dreamscape. To his horror, at his feet, were creatures which had already succumbed to the flowers’ fragrance—a black raven, a spider and a blood-red octopus.

  Re-Kul screamed at the sight, but in doing so, let the stench into his lungs and in the dream, died.

  When he awoke, slick with sweat, he found the roots of the Great Tree offered only silence. Re-Kul knew what the flowers signified and what was to come and, despite all his convictions, what terrible choices he would have to make.

  Still trembling, Re-Kul stood in the dark and called for his councilmen.

  Far away, towards the human city, in the bowels of a derelict church, the ones who thrived on dreams found they could dream no more.

  The prophet Shal-Ekh, for the first time, felt cold and alone, with no light to guide him. This however, he saw as a good omen, for he knew a path was being forged—a new path that could lead them all to salvation. He gathered his disciples around him and told them that while they had all played a vital role in their redemption, it was still not enough. The Great One demanded more and now that he walked the earth with them again, he would surely come to collect it.

  Shal-Ekh told them to prepare for one final struggle, one insurmountable effort, to expose their souls and Okin’s words in a bid
to redeem the Kingdom of the Fleshers.

  The prophet instructed them not to fear that Okin had become silent, that they should use his silence as a chance to praise him, to sing to him so he might be empowered by the words they had written on his behalf for so long.

  And, as one mighty chorus, they left the crypt on a pilgrimage to a new future.

  The incompetent king, the ruler of all and none, saw their march in his dreams and cried out, yet the dream and its horrors refused to arouse him, and he was trapped, destined to look upon his fate. He witnessed the march of the Stygma on his gates, the rising of the monstrous army of the Skiift, bathed on blood. He beheld the Phagus—his people dying, and his daughter seated amidst it all cradling a fire in her hands that was even brighter than the Sederunt flame.

  Gavenko tried to pull himself from the nightmare, but it wouldn’t relent until it was done.

  Images of his son dying streamed into his psyche: Malik so far away, yet so close, turning his bloodied face into the darkness. Despite the two armies, there was an even greater threat—a three-faced wolf at the door, a Cerberus to Gavenko’s Hell. It strode through the chaos unperturbed, unseen, to sit at Stephanie’s side. When that final image was seared onto the King’s mind, the dreamscape shattered into a million pieces.

  Elsewhere, on the outskirts of the Flesher Kingdom, on the outer boundary between that Kingdom and the city of the humans, three of that race peered into their own waking dreams:

  The rich fool, whose greed knows no bounds, saw himself surrounded by his riches of gold and leather and faded pages and trinkets of nascent power. But in the waking dream, he was frail, so old his flesh was like dust on his bones. He could not even lift one finger to hold his prized possessions. He too saw the three-faced beast and it looked upon him and his treasures with great disappointment. The creature, the black wolf, came to him and began to feast on his skin, saving him a lifetime of misery.

  Yet Niles didn’t want to submit to the creature’s jaws, he wanted to live forever, surrounded by the ageless things that defined his pathetic existence. As if in a state of lunacy, he bit the creature back and when it howled in pain, he heard the screams of three men.